I apologize for the wait in updating this story. If you have stucl with it, and me, for this long, I thank you.
"Come on, El! You can do it."
They were standing under the tallest tree in Lucas' backyard, with the afternoon sunlight streaming through the leaves. Eleven was squinting at the branches of the tree, oblivious to the new trickle of blood coming from her nose.
"Don't give up!" Lucas' encouragement came at just the right time, as she felt the power starting to sap from her body for the umpteenth time. She steeled herself, focused harder. She could do this. This was a tiny thing compared to what she had once been able to do. She had taken out a monster; she would not be defeated by a tree.
With a deep groaning sound, the branches began to move, flailing wildly as though caught in a strong gale. Five seconds, ten seconds, fifteen…this was the longest she had been able to do it up until now. Lucas whooped enthusiastically, and from somewhere within, El mustered up the energy to smile at him.
That was a mistake; the momentary lapse in concentration was enough to put her off her stride. The branches stilled and she staggered sideways, falling against the trunk, breathing hard.
Lucas was at her side in a flash, ready to catch her in case her body failed her completely, as it had done the first day when she'd pushed herself too hard. It hadn't been fun explaining to Mike why she'd been so pale when he'd gotten her back to his house.
It had been a week since El had radioed asking for his help, and Lucas had risen to the challenge. They'd been meeting each day to practice, and it had been a learning curve for both of them. It was tricky coming up with ways to test and extend her without pushing it too far, and Eleven's growing frustration at the situation only made that process all the more difficult.
However, she was beginning to show small signs of improvement. She wasn't anywhere near ready to kick some bad men ass just yet but if they kept at it, he was confident that she would be one day. And as he kept telling her, the bad men from the lab and the Demogorgan were all gone now. She didn't need to be at full power again. She was safe now.
She didn't seem convinced of that however, shaking her head whenever he tried to convince her that the danger had passed.
"They'll come back," she said. "They always come back. Must be ready."
He supposed this was the result of spending the first twelve years of her life as a lab rat. They'd treated her like a weapon, so that was how she saw herself, completely useless if she couldn't slay dragons and crush cars. And no matter what he said to her, he couldn't change her mind.
"I think maybe that's enough for today," he said, wincing as she wobbled her way away from the tree trunk.
"One more time?" She turned big, beseeching eyes on him, which she'd learned, that if used on Mike, would make him give in immediately to almost any request. But Lucas Sinclair was made of stronger stock. He looked her over with a critical eye. She was still shaky on her feet, she was sweating, her nose was still bleeding, and she looked exhausted.
"Enough," he said firmly, and when she opened her mouth to argue, he shot her a hard look. "You promised."
One of the conditions of his agreement to their arrangement was that he was able to call it off for the day the moment he thought it necessary. El was strong and incredibly brave, but she was still struggling to accept her own limitations, (after all, before this she'd probably never even known that she had limitations) and he was a scientist at heart. He may not know much about superpowers but he knew a human body in distress when he saw one.
On a simpler level, he also didn't particularly like seeing one of his closest friends repeatedly push herself to exhaustion in pursuit of supernatural powers that she may not be able to get back.
He sincerely hoped that wouldn't be the case, but it was a possibility, after all, and he was nothing if not thorough.
She looked annoyed, but accepted his ruling. After all, she had promised.
"Come and sit down before you fall down," he said, opening the cooler they were keeping in the shade and handing her a can of soda. "Recharge your batteries." He tossed her the box of tissues as well. "I can't take you back to Mike's like this; he'll kill me."
El, who had been about to flip the ring pull of her soda, cut her eyes to him in alarm, and he immediately regretted his rash choice of words. Sometimes he forgot how literal El could be.
"Figure of speech, El" he explained. "I just mean he'd be mad at me."
Her face fell. "I don't like it when he's mad," she said.
Lucas rolled his eyes. "Mike wouldn't get mad at you," he corrected her. "You're a special case, El."
She smiled a little at this. He could tell she liked the idea of being 'special' to Mike, even if she didn't fully understand why it was so.
"Tell me a story?" she asked, lying back on the grass and watching the clouds float by.
Lucas had never been a natural storyteller (that was Mike's forte.) He couldn't make up fantastical adventures at the drop of a hat like his best friend could do, but he hated to disappoint El. So he recounted adventures he and the guys had had in the past, like the time they all went trick-or-treating in fifth grade and had ended up running away from Old Man Withers' house, who'd threatened them with the sprinklers if they didn't get off his lawn. Or the day in second grade when Will was supposed to give a talk on butterflies, but had been so nervous he'd fainted clean away in front of their entire class. And the times when nothing crazy happened at all, when they'd just hung out and had fun.
She listened with rapt attention, giggling at the funny bits, and gasping at the tense ones, and Lucas could see why Mike enjoyed this so much; she was a very good audience. They lay there talking until the sun began to sink below the horizon, and the light began to fade.
At the end of a long anecdote about a disastrous sixth-grade science project they'd all taken part in, he glanced over at her and noticed she looked distracted.
"El, are you OK?" he asked.
She waited a while before answering. "We are different," she said. "You had friends, school, bikes, fun…. I didn't."
He cringed. Here he was complaining about a misfiring volcano project while she'd spent almost her whole life trapped in a cage at the mercy of a psychopath.
"I'm sorry, El," he said. "You should have just told me to shut up."
She shook her head. "No. I liked hearing your stories. I wish I had some too."
"Now you do," he pointed out. "You have a home and a family, and books and Eggos, and us."
"Yes," she agreed. "I'm happy."
They lay there in silence for a little while longer until the sun sank even lower and slight chill came to the air.
"C'mon El, lets get you home before Mrs Wheeler starts to worry," he said. "And before Mike sends out the National Guard."
Mike sat in the living room pretending to be watching a cartoon, but actually straining for any sound that might indicate Lucas and El were coming back. They'd been gone all day, yet again, and he wasn't sure how okay he was about it. He wanted El to have friends other than him, of course, and he was thrilled that she and Lucas had apparently moved past their bad start. All the same, would it kill her to spend just a little time with him once she returned home in the evening? It was the same every night, Lucas would walk her home, she'd join the family for dinner, where she'd eat a massive portion each night (and occasionally seconds) then she'd take a shower and go right to the fort, and stay there.
If his mother, father and Nancy had found this behaviour unusual, they hadn't said anything to him about it. He'd asked them about it one night after she'd retreated to the fort. His mom had told him to be patient, that El was making a big adjustment, and that people dealt with that in different ways. Nancy had said that El would talk to him when she was ready, and not to try and rush her. His father's advice had simply been: "Women can be like that, son. Men were never meant to understand them." This information had been the least helpful of all and had earned his father dirty looks from both Nancy and his wife.
Outside he could hear voices, and the tick, tick, tick of the wheels of a bicycle. He sprang up from his chair to see Lucas and El coming down the driveway. He couldn't help noticing that she was walking along beside the bicycle rather than riding along with Lucas, and that made him smile. She looked tired, but in good spirits, and he wondered for the umpteenth time what it was that they were doing. He'd asked Lucas yesterday, but his best friend had plead the Fifth, saying that he'd promised El. From this, Mike had learned that the two of them had a secret, and it was driving him crazy not to know what it was.
Dustin and Will (who he'd complained about this to many times over the past week) had told him to stop being so neurotic, and to leave them alone. Dustin had told him flat-out that he was acting like a jealous idiot.
"She's allowed to hang out with other people, Mike," he'd said. "And even if she's not telling you all her deepest, darkest secrets, aren't you glad that she's at least telling someone, rather than dealing with it by herself?"
He was glad about that. Really, he was. He just missed her; that was all. Even though she was living in the same house, just a flight of stairs away, he missed her, and how close they used to be. He didn't tell the guys that part; they'd use that to tease him for the rest of their lives.
He crept over to the window just as El and Lucas reached the door and said their goodbyes. He tried not to be upset when El reached over and gave his best friend a quick hug.
'Jealous.' A voice that sounded a lot like Dustin popped into his head.
"Tomorrow?" El asked, as she released Lucas.
"It's been a whole week," he replied. "I think maybe we should skip tomorrow."
El's face fell and she shook her head vigorously. "No, no."
"You need a break El," said Lucas, solemnly. " And so do I. We'll try again the day after, okay?"
There was silence for a few beats, and then El whispered, "Okay."
"I'm heading over to Will's place for dinner; he wants to play me some more music Jonathan got for him, so I'll see you then. Say hi to Mike for me."
The last sentence jolted something in Mike, as he realised he'd been so wrapped up in not spending time with El; he had barely seen or even spoken to Lucas in over a week either, except for yesterday when he'd tried to interrogate him about El. Ever since they'd first met, they hadn't gone this long without talking, not even when they'd fought, and he felt guilty for once again putting El in front of his other friends. He was working on balancing things out, but it was taking a lot of effort, El had a way of commanding his attention like nobody else could do.
"Hey there, creep."
Nancy's voice made him jump a mile, and he turned to scowl at his older sister who had snuck up beside him while he'd been lost in thought.
"Spying on Lucas and your girlfriend?" she asked.
"I'm not spying," he said, defensively. "And she's not my girlfriend." He surprised himself with the bitterness in his tone, and he saw Nancy trying to smother a laugh.
"But you want her to be, right?"
"No!"
"Right, so you'd be okay with it if she was Lucas' girlfriend instead?"
He opted not to answer that question. "Maybe she doesn't want to be anyone's girlfriend," he snapped. "I don't even know if she knows what a girlfriend is."
"I'm sure you could explain it to her," said Nancy, with a smirk.
Sure he could. He vividly remembered that time in the cafeteria almost exactly one year ago, when he'd tried to do just that. He'd stumbled over his words and managed to confuse not only El, but himself too. And nothing but a mixture of adrenaline, fear, and an utter loss of his senses could have explained what had happened next. Though he had to admit, that part had been pretty awesome. He couldn't believe he'd managed to screw up the courage to actually do it. And she hadn't pushed him away, or melted his brains. She'd actually smiled at him, had seemed pleased. That had been a good moment for him.
"Why don't you ask her if she wants to do something with you tomorrow?" Nancy suggested. "I bet she'd say yes."
Before he could answer, the doorknob rattled and turned and the door swung open to reveal El, looking a little put out, but she smiled when she saw them.
"Hi Mike. Hi Nancy."
However irritated and confused he was with her and Lucas, Mike had always been a sucker for that smile, and felt his annoyance melting away.
"Hi El! Did you and Lucas have fun today?"
Nancy rolled her eyes as her little brother and his almost sort-of girlfriend fell into a conversation and completely forgot her existence. For so many years, Mike had been nothing but a constant source of annoyance to her, and she'd counted down the years till she could go to college and be rid of him. But since all the craziness of the past year, and particularly El's arrival, she'd seen a whole other side to him. He was so kind and gentle with El, who in return, thought he'd hung the moon.
Mike hadn't coped well when she'd been gone. He'd tried his best, and succeeded enough to fool their parents, but Nancy had known better. It had been tough to watch her kid brother suffering so much, and it made her wonder constantly how something so screwed-up could ever have happened in the nowhere-town of Hawkins.
She'd noticed a bit of tension between El and Mike these past few days, but she couldn't tell if it was adolescent drama or something more serious. El was being secretive, and Mike was frustrated, but they weren't openly hostile to one another. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Her mother and father were blissfully ignorant, and for that she was grateful. She didn't want them to know the full extent of what had happened last year, and how close she and Mike had both come to dying. They'd never let her out of the house again, and they might even send El away, which would crush Mike. So she would keep quiet, but keep an eye on things.
El made a beeline for the kitchen, probably in pursuit of Eggos, and Mike trailed after her. Nancy winked at him as he went by and made him flush with embarrassment.
"Just ask her," she said. "She'll say yes."
"Jerk," he hissed under his breath.
"Brat," she shot back as he disappeared through the door. At least some things hadn't changed.
El was tired, like she always was after spending a day using her powers and she looked forward to eating a few Eggos and getting some sleep. But what would she do tomorrow? She'd been counting on another day of practice with Lucas and now there was an entire day waiting to be filled. She was still weak. Little by little, her powers were getting stronger but she was still nowhere even close to the level of power she had once had. She was not ready to defend herself, or anyone else from a small dog, let alone powerful men with guns. Why didn't Lucas understand how important this was? And she couldn't do it without him. She'd promised.
She opened the package of Eggos, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Mike shifting from foot to foot, seemingly nervous, and smiled to herself. She liked it when he got flustered; it was cute. And it made him do things like in the cafeteria. She didn't know the word for what had happened there, but she had liked it a lot.
She missed spending time with him. Lucas was wonderful and she was so glad they were friends, but he wasn't Mike.
"El?" Mike's voice was quieter than usual, almost as if he didn't actually want her to hear what he was about to say.
"Yes?"
"Do you, uh, want to go into town with me tomorrow?" he asked in a rush. She didn't understand why that would make him so nervous. He went into town all the time with the other guys.
"To see Dustin, Will and Lucas?" she asked.
"No!" he said hurriedly. "I mean…no. Not the others. Just us. You and me. Together, you know? Like a…" he trailed off.
"Like a what?"
It seemed that he simply couldn't bring himself to say the last word, whatever it was, and so he dropped the thought completely.
"You've been so busy lately, I don't get to see you much. What do you think?"
She wanted to. She really, really wanted to. The idea of a whole day just with Mike was incredibly inviting. But surely he would figure out what was going on if they were alone for that long, and then everything would be ruined. It wasn't worth losing her new life and her new family just for one day of fun.
Reluctantly, she turned toward him to tell him no, but she made the mistake of looking at his face. He looked so hopeful, and she knew if she said no it would make him sad. She hated the thought of making him sad.
She couldn't do it.
Maybe it would be all right, just for one day. She would just have to be on her guard, and be very, very careful…
"Okay Mike," she said, and his face lit up. "That would be nice."
I hope to add another 2-3 chapters to this story before the end. Thanks for reading!
