A/N: Happy holidays! This is the last chapter that will include a full day that I'll do in this immense amount of detail. Enjoy.

Chapter 4: September 1.75, 1985 6th Period, Gym

Fifth period was spent twirling back and forth on metal stools in the sun swept art room. Dustin and Lucas kicked each other as they whipped back and forth. Mike leaned on his elbow across the wooden art table, peering around El at the front of the room where their art teacher Mrs. Dooley was holding a piece of pottery and explaining their first project. Mike distractedly touched El's back with his index finger, tracing circles in the middle of her spine. El swung her feet delightedly from atop her stool and glanced happily at Will who was beaming and bouncing his foot on the highest rung. Max chewed a piece of gum and absent-mindedly wrapped a finger around her fire red hair.

Mrs. Dooley slapped a piece of damp clay in front of each of them and told them to get to work. Dustin proceeded to smack his fist as hard as he could into the top of the clay producing a loud THWAP.

"Mr. Henderson, please refrain from punching your clay. We don't want a repeat of last semester do we?" Mrs. Dooley asked, eyes narrowed. At this, Lucas proceeded to stab the flattened mound of clay that was Dustin's potential masterpiece.

After art, the gang nearly tumbled out of the door, excitement building as the end of the day felt near. Max once again took El's arm into hers and pulled her down an opposite hall towards the gymnasium. El waved a contented goodbye to the party, feeling more comfortable this time at being separated. Dustin had showed her that biology on their own was fun, why wouldn't gym be just as fun?

On the way to the gymnasium, Max and El discussed and laughed about a comic Max had recently lent El called Vampirella. By far, it was the most ridiculously dressed superheroine they had unearthed from the comic shop. Max led El into the girl's locker room where they stowed their bags. Their gym teacher rounded the corner with a clipboard and started distributing their gym uniforms: "Keep these clean, I swear to god if I get one more girl coming to me complaining about 'feminine B.O.' I'm going to rip my nose off."

El's eyes went wide and Max stifled a laugh behind wide eyes. While they changed, El noticed the same group of girls from the lunch room who had knocked into her. She sucked in a sharp breath and adverted her eyes quickly before they noticed her.

"You ready?" Max's hands were on her hips, gym shirt untucked and loose. El nodded, tucking in her gym shirt. As they passed the group of girls from the lunch room, El heard one of them whisper something. She couldn't help glancing over when she thought she heard her name. She made eye contact with the same blonde who gave her an even worse glare than before. El snapped her head forward and walked into the wide open gym.

They started the class by running circuit sprints across the gym floor, tagging off each time with a partner. El enjoyed the movement and she and Max made a good team. After sprints the p.e. teacher broke them up into two teams and, with the help of some of the other students, erected a net across the gym floor. After the rules were explained and positions were assigned, everyone shuffled into place. A bright white volleyball was handed to a taller brown haired boy on El's side of the net. He pitched it up and smacked it with the palm of his hand to the other side of the net dramatically. El watched it sail over her head to the other side where the other team began shifting nervously to receive it. It fell past a small girl's V'ed arms and bounced across the floor. A titter of laughter swept through the gym.

"Alright, alright, try again!" yelled the coach. After a half hour of playing, they actually weren't doing too bad. Most of the kids were able to hit the ball and launch it over the net with success. El even made contact with the ball at one point and was able to lightly spike it down over the net like the coach had instructed. It came down with minimal force but with enough speed to startle the blonde haired glaring girl. "Sorry!" El chirped genuinely.

"Whatever." She nearly spat, embarrassed as laughter rang up from around the gym. Her face turned bright red and she shot another death glare toward El.

When the coach had rotated them through positions, she pulled different members onto different teams. Max and El were placed on separate teams and standing directly to El's right was the glaring girl. El gave her a sympathetic smile and to her surprise, the girl smiled back, but somehow her eyes didn't change from their glare. El blew out a breath and hunched over, ready for the next play. After a few tosses back and forth, cries from the kids to get-it-get-it-get-it, a swift spike was launched toward the glaring girl. She channeled the force of the spike and smacked the ball sideways. Before El had any time to react, the ball punched directly into the right side of her face with such force that she stumbled sideways and instantly became dizzy.

Max watched horrified as El stumbled to the gym floor from the hit and clutched the right side of her face. She didn't cry out, but a soft and forceful "Ow!" escaped her lips as tears uncontrollably welled in her eyes.

"Alright alright alright. Take it back a step." The gym teacher hurried over to El and helped her up. The glaring girl held a hand over her mouth to keep her laughter from ringing out across the gym, but she wasn't necessarily trying to hide it. Max ducked under the net and rushed to El's side:

"Oh my god?! Are you okay?" El gave a quick nod and was helped over to the bleachers.

"Ms. Hargrove, run to the nurses office and get an ice pack please," the P.E. teacher said bending at the waist and resting her hands on the top of her knees to be eye level with El.

Max bolted before giving El the 'stay here' look they all had mastered over the summer.

"How yah feeling?" she asked. El touched her bright red, scraped cheek tentatively. "oooh, don't touch it, we need to get some ice on it. The redness should go down but you might have a bit of a scrape on your face. Do you feel dizzy? Hot?" She lifted the back of her hand to El's forehead. El shook her head and managed to say softly: "I'm fine."

"Okay, sit the rest of this one out and keep the ice on it." El nodded as Max busted back through the gymnasium doors holding a bag of ice wrapped around what looked like a dish towel. El held the ice pack to her cheek for the rest of the period watching with mild embarrassment as kids kept looking back at her throughout the rest of the game. Some would laugh, others would look at her concerned or with narrowed eyes. She tried to keep her gaze downward so she wouldn't be tempted to decipher their stares anymore.

After they were released from the gymnasium, El and Max quickly changed. El dropped the ice pack on the bench in the locker room and pulled her backpack over her shoulder quickly, making a beeline for the exit.

"Wait! Jane!" Max cried picking up the ice pack and chasing after her, "You need this." When they reached the door of the locker room, El spun around and shook her head, a sharp and serious look coloring her face. "No."

"Oh..okay," Max said a little taken aback. She tossed the mostly melted ice in the trash and left the dish towel on top of the can before exiting together. Both girls were silent walking the length of the hallway back to their respective lockers, but that didn't stop Max from leaning forward with her hands in her pocket to try and catch a glance from El. But El kept her gaze trained to her white sneakers, trying to quiet the rise of embarrassment and upset that had roiled in her stomach throughout 6th period.

Back at the lockers, El gathered what she needed for the evening and left down the hall with Max to the double doors leading out to the front of the school. The final bell rang just as they opened the doors with a crash. The boys wouldn't be far behind so they walked to the bike racks to wait for them.

"Jane?" Max grabbed her shoulder, "Are you okay though? For real?"

El paused before answering her, looking off to the side where she saw the boys making their way down the stairs. With a bright, plastered on smile she looked at Max, "I'm fine! Really. Please, don't make a big deal about this okay? It was an accident."

"But—," Max began, but the boys were already upon them.

"We DID IT!" Lucas cried, pretending to collapse across his bike from exhaustion. "Day one. We survived."

"Give me a demadog anyday, am I right guys?" Dustin quipped. Mike came around the group and up to El, Max finally moved away from in front of her, a worried look still etched on her face. El followed her with her eyes as she stepped off to the side before looking up at Mike.

"Hey! How was the rest of…" an audible gasp escaped his throat as his hand shot up to her cheek, "Oh my god what happened?!" He dropped his backpack off of his shoulder and brought his other hand to softly cup the unaffected cheek as well. He gently moved her head to the side to get a better look at the round pink mark on her cheek with some light, but noticeable scratches. His eyes squinted in noticeable pain when he ran a thumb over her cheek and she winced nearly imperceptibly; the spot was still a little hot and sore to the touch. When El didn't answer right away, Mike looked over his shoulder at Max.

"WHAT happened?!" He said a little too forcefully. El brought her hands to Mike's wrists and pulled them down off of her face.

"It was an accident. A volleyball." El explained matter-of-factly at Mike who shot his gaze back to meet hers when she piped up.

"A volleyball?" he asked, his face scrunching in confusion.

"Like to the face?!" Dustin croaked. El nodded, her other cheek reddening in embarrassment. Max had crossed her arms over her chest and kicked some dirt around her feet avoiding the stares of the party members.

"Was it you?" Will asked a little uncertainly of Max. Her head snapped up and her eyes went wide.

"WHAT?! NO! OF COURSE NOT! IT WAS THIS BLONDE-HAIRED JERK FACE WHO—," but Max was cut off.

"Who accidentally hit the ball weird and bounced into the side of my face. It's no. big. Deal." She stressed the word 'deal' and looked carefully at Mike, making sure not to let any significant emotion rise in her face so as not to alarm him further.

"Are you okay?" he asked, tilting his head to look at her cheek a little better, his hands firmly held in hers.

"Yes."

"You promise?" he stooped a little so his eyes were level with hers.

"I promise," she responded a little too quickly. The corner of Mike's mouth turned down in a worried grimace, not quite believing her.

"Okay," he surrendered. He looped an arm around the top of her shoulders and pulled her into his chest. Her hands found his back and gripped there. She was fine. A sharp honk roused them from their embrace. El pulled back quickly to look over her shoulder. Hopper was there, passenger window rolled down, waving and peering over his shades.

"Gotta go!" El breathed turning back to Mike. His face fell enough in obvious disappointment that it made her laugh a little and reached up to kiss his cheek. He noticeably blushed and nodded.

"I'll call you later, okay?" She nodded back and waved to others, giving Max a longer, pleading stare before she took off, jogging, backpack bouncing and empty lunchbox in tow, to the truck.

Once she climbed in the truck, all smiles, she leaned out the window and waved to the party as they mounted their bikes. Max held onto the back of Lucas's seat to pull her along on her skateboard. When she turned to Hopper and smiled, she could see signs of relief flooding his face for just a moment.

"So? How was it?" he asked as he put the truck into drive. Just as she opened her to mouth to begin telling him he stopped her, "Hey, woah, what happened?!"

El audibly groaned and stared out the windshield, "Ugh, nothing! It's fine. I got hit in the head with a volleyball in P.E. It's fine. I'm fine."

When only silence filled the cab, she looked over. Hopper was laughing under his breath, leaning into his driver side window and trying to conceal it.

"Heeey!" she protested, "It's not funny!"

An audible laugh erupted, shaking his torso. "It's a little funny kid. You mean to tell me," laughter boomed in the cab now, "That you can close a portal to another dimension, but you can't dodge a ball to the face?!" Tears were escaping his eyes. El crossed her arms.

"I'm glad you're enjoying this. It still hurts by the way!" She pouted.

"Okay, I'm sorry kid," he wiped his eyes and let out a few more light laughs before clearing his throat, "How about some ice cream to celebrate your first day and gym experience?"

El's eyes lit up and she turned to him, nodding eagerly. She'd take a ball to the head everyday if it meant getting ice cream with Hopper. He swung around the loop in town and pulled into the Norman's ice cream parlor.

Once they exited the truck, Hopper put an arm down around her shoulders and pulled her into his side, his hand resting affectionately on top of her curly head.

"So besides, the volleyball incident, how was it?"

She looked up at him beaming: "Amazing. Really."