The beginning of the school year was always a stressful time. That was made doubly so in the Wheeler household since both of their children were starting off the new school year at new schools. Mike naturally had to leave early to set up before class. Eleven was able to get the morning off of work to help the kids.

As much as she would have loved to make the kids a nice breakfast, the rushed nature of a school morning combined with all the work that Eleven had to prepare for that afternoon meant that Joyce and James were stuck just eating toast.

"Are you both sure you have everything?" Eleven asked while packing her own bag for work.

"Yes, mom," both Joyce and James said in unison.

"You have books, pencils, notebooks-"

"Seriously, mom. We're fine," Joyce interrupted. She gave her mom a reassuring smile. Eleven took a deep breath.

"OK. Time to go."

The high school was close enough that Joyce could ride her bike there most of the year, and she could walk when it got too cold. The middle school however, was a little farther away so James had to ride the school bus. But on the first day, Eleven offered to drive him. There was a lot of traffic just outside the school made up of parents that had the same idea.

"Excited?" asked Eleven while sitting at a stop light just outside of the school driveway.

"Yep. A little nervous."

"Don't be. I know you're going to do great. At least you have an advantage over me when I started middle school."

"How so?"

"You kind of know how this works already. I had no idea."

"Oh yeah, middle school is when you stopped being home schooled." Eleven didn't like lying to her kids but that wasn't entirely a lie. She had been home schooled for the better part of a year before being allowed into school with everyone else. But she never did tell them that she had grown up in a lab, instead lying that she grew up in a foster home before being adopted by the Byers.

It was only about another minute before they were at the entrance to the school.

"Bye, mom," James said. He leaned over and gave his mother a hug before running out of the car. After the door shut, Eleven watched her son walk into the school before putting the car in gear and driving off to work.

Joyce walked into school and immediately saw Barb.

"Exciting, isn't it?" Barb asked.

"Why? It's pretty much the same thing as middle school but in a different building. I mean, I'm not really complaining, but I just don't find it all that exciting."

"Why do I hang out with a buzzkill so much?"

"You've known me my entire life. I'm honestly surprised you're only realizing this now." Both girls laughed.

"Hey!" said a voice from behind them. "You two are finally in high school, huh?" Joyce and Barb spun around to see Alice Henderson standing behind them. They both called her their cousin even though they weren't technically related. Their parents spent so much time with each other that they really seemed like cousins.

"Hi, Alice!" Joyce said. "Yeah. Finally in high school. Anything we should know."

"Let me think." Alice looked up at the ceiling a little while she mentally flipped through the previous three years at the school. "Pretty much all you need to know is that your dad is a good chemistry teacher, never eat cafeteria mashed potatoes and never take Latin."

"I signed up for Latin," Barb confessed. "Why shouldn't you take?"

"Well, it's fine as a blow-off class. But if you want to actually learn anything, that won't happen with Mr. Felix. If you actually learn anything, switch to something else as fast as you can."

"Is it really that bad?"

"One of my friends was taking it sophomore year. Apparently they took one test all year and he didn't turn off his projector while writing the test. A lot of people like getting the language credit without having to do any work, but you don't seem like that kind of person."

"No, that's not me." The bell rang, signaling that there were only five minutes left until class started.

"Sorry, but I have to get to class," Alice said. She quickly gave Barb a hug, then Joyce. Joyce could have sworn that Alice shuddered a little during their hug. "Bye," Alice said once more while leaving to go to class.

Eleven started the morning briefing as soon as she got into work and had a chance to read over the file that she found neatly placed on her desk.

"I think the only big point we have to talk about is that our vigilante struck again last night. There was a break in at a Swiss data center that matches his style exactly. One of the server managers was secretly under investigation from us. That manager disappeared last night along with a hard drive from one of the servers and whoever broke in." The others nodded quietly. "If nobody has anything else to say, I think that's the end of the meeting for today." The rest of the agents stood up and left the room except for Agent Read.

"The results came in from the analysis you requested last week," he said.

"And?" asked Eleven. Read handed her a file. Eleven opened it and started flipping through.

"We didn't find anything conclusive. Some things looked a little strange, but again, nobody is confident enough to draw any conclusions from it." Eleven stared intensely at the readings in the file. "We can run some further investigations if you want."

"No. It's fine. Nothing's come up in the last week and I don't want to waste anyone's time." Read nodded and left the room. Eleven slowly sat down at her desk and got ready to start on her other work. But as much as she tried, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Alice was able to slip away from her friends during the lunch period. She searched for a while until she found a completely empty room that was unlocked. One of the computer labs was open so she walked into it, closed the door behind her, and sat down in the corner where nobody would see her.

"We have a problem," she said to the empty room. "There's another one." The voice from that night on the lake returned, but this time it wasn't coming from the lake. It was inside Alice's mind.

"I've noticed," it said. Even in Alice's head, it's deep tone resonated with power. "This one is weak. It shouldn't be a problem."

"I know, it's just..." Alice's voice trailed off.

"What is it? Please, speak your mind."

"I think it would be best if we took care of this. Let me use what you've given me. Let me prove myself." The voice was silent in deliberation for a moment.

"Very well," it conceded. "But make sure you don't get noticed. At least not for now."

"I will not disappoint you."

It was almost 8PM before Eleven got home. The sun had already set and the sky was just a dark blue.

"I'm back!" she announced as she opened the door. "How was school for everyone?" James came running up and gave Eleven a hug.

"It was good and you were right."

"About what?"

"It wasn't hard. It was actually kind of fun."

"I'm glad to hear it." Eleven walked a little further into the living room to see Joyce sprawled out on the couch, reading something on her phone. "Don't you have homework?"

"It was the first day," Joyce said. "The teachers aren't that mean."

"You don't even have homework from your dad?"

"No. But he did say that no homework was 'a treat for the first day'." Eleven laughed a little. She recognized that line as one that Carter would use when she was a kid.

"How was it, having your dad as a teacher?"

"Kind of awkward, but otherwise fine." Mike walked into the room right at that moment.

"And how was it having your daughter as a student?" asked Eleven.

"I tried to make it the least awkward that I could. Apparently I only did OK."

"How was work, Mom?" James asked.

"Work was… good," Eleven said. Of course, she couldn't really describe her work day to her kids, but she could go into a little more depth with Mike later.

In the middle of the night, Eleven took in a sharp gasp of air and sat straight up in bed. Mike woke up too.

"What happened?" he asked, then looked at the clock. "It's 1AM." Eleven took a couple deep breaths but couldn't get them to be too smooth.

"It happened again. Whatever I felt a week ago, it happened again."

"Didn't you say The Coalition didn't find anything about that?"

"Yes, but I know what I felt." Eleven turned to sit on the edge of the bed and began putting on her slippers.

"Where are you going?" asked Mike. He too, at this point, sat up and turned on the lamp.

"I can't get back to sleep right now. I'm just going to go get a snack or… something."

"I'll come with."

"No, don't. You have to teach tomorrow."

"And you have to run a major intelligence agency tomorrow. I think it will be fine if I go downstairs with you to eat some snacks while you."

They both walked downstairs and got some snacks. They sat in silence and didn't notice the time ticking away until an hour had passed.

"How are you feeling now?" asked Mike.

"A little better, but I still can't get it out of my head." There was another silence. This one much shorter than the preceding one.

"Do you want to go back to bed?" Eleven thought for a moment.

"Yes." They packed away all the food they had gotten out, then started walking back. But as soon as Eleven's foot hit the first stair, the doorbell rang. Both Mike and Eleven looked at each other in confusion.

"It's 2AM," Mike said, voicing the question they both had. "Who is that?" The doorbell rang again. Mike and Eleven walked over to the door and Eleven put her hand on the knob. She hesitated for a moment, then opened the door. Standing on the other side was Timothy Carter, formerly known as Twelve. He didn't say 'hi', or apologize for showing up at such a strange hour, all he said was;

"Did you feel that too?"

"Upside-Down?" Eleven asked.

"Yeah," Tim said. "I felt something about a week ago, but I thought it might just have been a nightmare. But then it happened again."

"Same with me."

"What does this mean?" asked Mike.

"It means… I have to do something I don't want to."

A/N: Let me know what you think of this posting schedule and where the story is going so far. Thanks for reading! Please leave a review.