Monday morning Mike woke up not so bright and not so early. He trudged through his house like a zombie on his way to breakfast. Even after taking a shower he still felt a weight pulling him down to the floor. Or back to his bed. He knew that staying on the phone with Eleven so long was a bad idea considering how much homework he had to catch up on. But neither of them had been able to hang up until he heard Hopper in the background inform her that dinner was ready. Even then they took five whole minutes to say goodbye.
When he stepped out his front door and turned to get his bike he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Hopper's police van parked at the end of his driveway. Anxiety bubbled up in his stomach as he wearily approached, wondering if he was there to scold him for being on the phone so long the night before. But when he reached the car Hopper flashed him a short smile (or the closest Hopper could come to a smile) before rolling down the window.
"Need a ride?" he asked.
"Uh, no." Mike admitted. "Not really."
Hopper leaned over and opened the passenger side door and Mike figured that he didn't exactly have a choice. Being both the chief of police and his girlfriend's guardian made him a bit hesitant to argue. So he climbed in next to him and planned on asking Nancy for a ride home after school.
"You look like you haven't slept in a month." Hopper commented as he pulled out of the driveway and onto the road.
"Try a year." Mike said before he thought his words through.
They drove about two blocks before either of them spoke. He began to wonder if he'd crossed some sort of line when Hopper cleared his throat. "So I was thinking about how to tell your parents about Eleven. Jane."
Mike groaned and leaned his head back against the seat. "Do we have to?"
"Yes, we do. You can't just not tell them that she's okay and then not show up one day."
"They don't even know about her." Mike mumbled
Hopper glanced at him and Mike was just able to see his shocked expression before he looked back at the road. "They don't know?" he asked. "Who'd you talk about all this with, then?"
"I didn't talk about it." He told him. "They probably wouldn't care even if I did."
"That's not true. Of course they would care."
"I guess you don't know them that well then."
Mike was envious of people like Will and Dustin who had great relationships with their parents. They could go to their moms about anything and get support whenever they needed no matter what. In the Wheeler house no one really cared what everyone else did that day unless they were sitting at the dinner table and trying to fill the silence. He knew that Nancy tried to make up for their parents disinterest which sometimes made her a bit overbearing.
"Well we have to tell them." Hopper said. "Don't you want her to be able to be able to come over to your house."
Mike was torn between being desperate to be back in his house and reluctant to letting her and his parents interact. "Yeah." He finally answered.
"Then they need to know." They turned onto the main road and he guessed there was only a few minutes left until they got to the school. "I'm working on legally adopting her and coming up with a cover story for her but that might take some time and I don't wanna keep you guys separated any more than necessary."
"Really?"
"If you knew how difficult it was to keep her inside all the time you'd believe me." He replied dryly. "Maybe you could tell your parents that you heard about her and that you and your friends are planning on stopping by and introducing yourselves."
"So I have to pretend like I don't know her?"
"For a little while, yes."
The idea put a bitter taste in his mouth but he knew he'd be willing to do anything if it meant they'd get to spend more time together. His imagination ran wild with all the things they could do when she was allowed to go into town just the two of them. "Will she get to go to school?"
Hopper sighed. "I don't know, kid." He said. "She can read and write but barely. And even if she got caught up by next September I don't know if she'll be prepared socially. Kids are mean, you know that. I don't know if she can handle it."
Mike held his tongue from pointing out that she had handled facing off against the Mind Flayer in stride. "We'll be there to protect her."
He held a hand up. "Alright, how about this; we wait and see where she is in September and go from there."
Hopper pulled the car into the busy parking lot and managed to find a spot not too far away from the front entrance. Mike spotted both Dustin and Lucas' bikes on the bike rack. He had no way of knowing if Will was in school or not since Joyce or Johnathan always drove him. Before he could get out of the car Hopper turned towards him. "Why don't we practice what you're going to say to your folks?"
Mike unbuckled his seatbelt and held his backpack in his lap. "Okay, um…" he took a moment to gather his words. Even thinking about having such a serious conversation with his parents made him antsy. "I really don't want to pretend like I don't know her." he said.
"Okay, how about you tell them you met her once."
He had a feeling it was the best he could do and decided to settle. "Yeah okay." Mike rubbed his hands over his eyes. "Um… we heard in school that you took custody of a girl our age so we stopped by your place to introduce ourselves and try and be her friend."
"What's her name?"
"Jane." The name felt weird in his mouth knowing he was talking about Eleven.
"Where is she from?"
"I don't know." Mike answered. "We didn't want to cross some sort of line so we didn't ask her a lot of questions."
"That's good." He said. "I have to figure out a story for how I met her." Hopper rubbed a hand over his chin as he tried to think of more questions. Mike knew that his mom was the one he had to worry about when it came to asking for information. "Is she going to be going to school?"
"I don't know, I haven't seen her around. They might have paperwork to do before she can."
"What happened to her family?"
"We didn't ask." Mike looked over at him. "I'm not gonna slip up and say something stupid. I would never do that to her."
Hopper nodded, "Yeah, I know. I'm just trying to prepare you." He faced forward again and they both watched the front entrance of the school. After a few moments he spoke again. "Alright, go learn something."
Mike grabbed his bag and opened the car door. "I can ask Nancy for a ride home, you know."
"You'll want me to pick you up." Hopper told him. "Trust me."
Though he had no clue what Hopper meant Mike closed the car door and headed for the front doors. He tried to imagine Eleven sitting in his living room and having a conversation with his parents but a picture didn't come to mind easily. He had spent the whole week that she'd been in his house trying to hide her from his family. Mike imagined that his protective instincts would kick in if she were ever to come over.
Once he was inside Mike went straight to Will's locker and, with a small sigh of relief, saw all three of his friends. In the mere hours since he'd been at the Byers house it was like Will ahd come back to life again. All of the color has returned to his skin and his smile once again reached his eyes.
"I didn't except you to be back in school." Mike admitted once he reached his friends. "I thought you might have needed another day or two."
"Honestly I feel fine." Will told him. "I just want things to go back to normal. Did you see Eleven last night?"
"No, but I talked to her on the phone. Hopper gave me a ride to school this morning." He recapped how they talked about telling his parents about her so that she would be able to go to his house and that she would no longer be a secret. Mike told them about all the questions he would have to an answer for to keep her cover from being blown. He hated that he had to lie about anything having to do with Eleven but was at the same time willing to do anything to keep her safe. "I'll probably tell them tonight."
"What are you going to tell them?" Lucas asked.
Mike shrugged his shoulders. "That we all went over to introduce ourselves when we heard about her. You guys will cover for me if my parents ever bring it up?"
"Yeah, of course." Dustin said, "We got your back, don't worry."
Their first day back to school was somewhat of a disaster when it came to focusing in class. Mike drifted from room to room in a total daze, his mind a mix of flashbacks from the last week and worrying about Eleven and Will. Though he said he felt fine Mike couldn't help but me skeptical that the normalcy would last. He had been fine the first couple weeks after he'd been rescued from the Upside Down. But then the episodes started happening in December and got so bad by January that he couldn't hide them from everyone anymore. If they stared again would he once again try to keep it a secret? Would he, in typical Will fashion, try to shield them all from the truth to prevent them from worrying?
By the end of the day they were all thoroughly exhausted simply from trying to keep up. They all sat on the benches in the front of the school while Max, Will, and Mike waited for their rides to show up. Will's eyes kept closing and Dustin had his head rested on his backpack like a pillow.
"And we have to do this again tomorrow?" he said, voicing what they were all thinking.
"Maybe we should skip." Max suggested, her chin propped up in her hands.
"There's no way we can all get away with skipping without getting into trouble." Lucas pointed out. Everyone deflated slightly, knowing he was right.
"It'll get easier." Will said. "Remember last year we thought we'd never be able to go back to school?"
All but Max nodded in agreement. Mike had taken an extra day or two off than everyone else, too depressed to leave the basement after Eleven was gone. In the first week without her he emerged every couple of hours to get something to eat and drink and to show his family that he was still alive down there. Even thinking about the darkness that had settled inside him made him once again start to feel bitter that Hopper had kept them apart but he did his best to push it down.
"How did you guys get back into a routine?" Max asked, not having the luxury of having already knowing how to deal with the madness that was the Upside Down.
For a moment none of them knew how to respond. Memories from the year before were foggy and had turned into one mass memory of trauma and discomfort. At least for Mike they had.
Lucas was eventually the one to speak up and answer. "We just kind of pretended everything was okay until it was. We talked about it with the people who knew what happened but in front of everyone else we knew we didn't really have a choice other than to just be okay."
Max sat with this information for a moment, her leg starting to bounce up and down. A nervous habit Mike recognized. "What about your parents?" she then asked.
"Our parents don't know." Dustin told her. "Joyce and Hopper are the only adults who know."
She looked between all of them for confirmation, not quite believing what she was hearing. "Really?"
"Really. It's not just a matter of needing to talk about our feelings it's a matter of safety."
Max let out a sigh and nodded her head. "Yeah, alright, I get it. I won't tell them." She said. "I don't think Wheeler would ever forgive me if I told someone and got his girlfriend in trouble.
They all laughed, even Mike who knew just how truthful what she had said was. Will glanced out at the parking lot, likely looking for his mom's car, and turned back to Mike with a grin. "Speak of the devil, Hopper just pulled up. Look who's in the front seat."
He followed Will's gaze until he spotted Hopper's police truck near where he'd parked that morning. Mike squinted and was just able to make out a pair of brown eyes and curly hair in the distance. He grabbed his backpack and jumped to his feet. "I'll see you guys later." He said before he turned and ran across the parking lot.
Years of running from school bullies had trained him well for sprinting over to Hopper's car. Only a few years before he reached the truck he saw Eleven glance over at Hopper before throwing the car door open and jumping out with a wide smile. She started running towards him until they crashed together in the middle of the parking lot. Mike placed a kiss on the top of her head when she pressed her face against his neck. He could feel the curious eyes of his peers on their way home from school watching them but he didn't care. He wouldn't have gladly stayed there with her forever but Hopper's car horn reminded him that it was dangerous for her to be seen and they quickly turned and climbed into the backseat.
"Told you you'd want me to pick you up." Hopper said as he pulled out of the parking space.
Eleven turned in her seat to face him, a wide smile still plastered on her face. "Were you surprised?"
"Yeah, I was really surprised." He said, mirroring her smile.
"Don't expect it every day." Hopper called over his shoulder from the front seat.
She rolled her eyes at him but he didn't notice. "How was school?"
Mike shrugged, "It was alright." He admitted, "Will was in school, which I didn't except. I had a really hard time paying attention." He watched a small frown replace her smile which made his heart squeeze. "It's okay, though. As long as I do my homework well it's okay."
"What is homework like?"
"Here, I can show you." Mike said, unzipping his backpack and pulling out the folder he kept his homework in. He opened it up and pulled out his math homework. "I just have to answer all these answers. A lot of people don't like math but I don't think it's so bad."
She held the paper closer to her face and stared at the numbers and equations. "You're smart." Eleven said. "This looks hard."
"Well, yeah, it's hard if you don't know how to do it." Mike said. "But I've been doing math for years. You'll know how to do this one day."
Another frown appeared on her face as she handed the paper back to him. "No I won't." she grumbled.
"Of course you will. I can teach you how to do it."
Her face lit up slightly, the corners of her frown twitching upwards. "Really?"
"If you want me to, yeah."
She wrapped her hand around his, giving it a light squeeze. They sat in silence for a few blocks, simply enjoying each other's company and saving things they didn't want to say in front of Hopper for that nights phone call. When they pulled into his neighborhood Hopper glanced over his shoulder at them. "You gonna talk to your parents tonight?"
"Yeah." Mike said reluctantly. "What if they talk to other people about her?"
"Tell them not to mention it to anyone else since I'm still trying to get the adoption sorted out and I don't wanna stress her out."
Eleven tugged at his hand gently to get his attention. "Long talk about it last night." She said when he looked over at her. "Same thing again and again."
"You've got lines to practice too, young lady, before you start meeting anyone else." He said.
She made an annoyed face. "Working on it." She grumbled.
"Who's working on it?"
"I'm working on it."
Though she was clearly annoyed by Hopper's corrections Mike felt himself swelling with pride at how much she had changed in a year. Her vocabular and grammar was worlds better than it had been before. She'd developed a sense of humor and a sharp tongue he had a feeling had gotten her in trouble more than once. The once scared little girl that had escaped from hell was now a fierce teenager that he felt himself falling in love with all over again. She was nothing short of brilliant.
It was all too soon that Hopper had pulled up in front of his house and turned to face them once he killed the engine. Next to him he saw Eleven deflate slightly, knowing that she was feeling the same disappointment that their time together was once again coming to an end. The driveway was empty with his father still at work, Nancy still at school, and his mom likely picking Holly up from daycare. It would be so easy for Eleven to come inside for just a few moments. And by the way she leaned forward and looked out the window at his house longingly he figured she was thinking the same thing.
Hopper seemed to have read their expressions by the way he said "soon, but not yet."
Eleven didn't seem satisfied. "Soon doesn't mean anything." She said quietly. But in the closed space of the truck they both heard her loud and clear.
"Soon means soon. I mean it this time." When Eleven crossed her arms across her chest he let out a sigh and glanced up at the Wheeler house. "How about we aim for Christmas?"
She looked up and glanced at Mike. "When is Christmas?"
"47 days from now." He said after taking a moment to do the math in his head.
"When is the Snow Ball?"
The mere mention of the event that had probably been the second worst day of his young life felt like a punch in the chest. He swallowed a lump that had settled in his throat and choked out the date. "December 15th, 10 days before Christmas."
She turned back towards Hopper with her jaw slightly set. "Aim for December 15th." She said, the same determination in her voice as when she had tried to convince everyone that she would be able to single handedly be able to close the gate on her own.
He looked between the two of them before nodding. "Alright, alright, December 15th." He agreed. "But you have to tell your parents. Tonight. Just get it over with."
"Fine." Mike said, sounding just has unexcited as he felt.
"It'll be okay." Hopper tried to assure him, though his words didn't offer much support. "Practice what you're gonna say a few more times with Nancy. And if you mess up a little bit it's not the end of the world. We'll figure something out."
Before Mike got the chance to even reach for the door handle Eleven perked up. "Can I go to the door?"
Mike watched expectantly as Hopper thought it over. He eventually sighed once more and faced forward again. "Fine. But go straight to the door and straight back."
He eagerly grabbed his backpack and pushed the car door open. Before she shut the door behind her Eleven poked her head back in and said "don't watch". She slipped her hand back into his as they made their way up the walkway. It took everything in him to not pull her inside the front door. He knew that he would have to have patience when it came to her limitations with going outside.
When they got to his front door they faced each other, eyes moving back and forth between their hands and faces. Eleven was the first to break the silence. "Do you think your parents will like me?"
"Yeah, of course they will." He answered immediately, unsure if it was possible for anyone to dislike Eleven. "Why? Do you think they won't?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "Just nervous." She answered.
"Don't be." He told her. "When you do get to meet them I'll be there with you the whole time. And so will Nancy. It'll be fine."
A small smile made his way onto her face and she pulled him closer to her by his hand. "I want to go to the Snow Ball. It looked like fun."
He felt a look of confusion pass over his face. "What do you mean? You saw it?"
Eleven nodded, smiling a bit more. "In the void. I was in my room the whole night watching."
Mike felt the same pain he had in the year that she had been gone from him wash over once again. He almost didn't even go to the Snow Ball, thinking there was no point since she wasn't going with him, but his friends managed to convince him to go out at the last minute. He'd been miserable the whole night, the ghost of her voice and her touch haunting him the whole night. And the whole time she'd really been there? Mike quickly wrapped his arms around her and hid his face in her neck so she wouldn't see him start to cry.
Only seconds later she felt arms lock around him and her hand rub circles around his back. "What's wrong?" she asked. He could see the expression she wore clearly in her mind by the worry in her voice alone.
"I just missed you." He said, his voice cracking from the strangled sob stuck in his throat. "I missed you so much."
Eleven tightened her grip on him and pulled him closer to her. The flannel she had on smelled like a fireplace and the vanilla body wash that Nancy used to use. "I missed you too." She said. Her lips were next to his ear and she didn't have to speak much louder than a whisper. "I should have left to come find you sooner."
He shook his head against her neck. "No, it's better that you were safe there." Mike said. As much as it had pained him to be away from her he knew that Hopper had a point. If he knew that she was out there than there was a chance that she could have been found. After all, he likely would have never been able to stop talking about her. "It was just so hard."
"I know." She whispered next to his ear. "It was hard for me too."
They stayed like that for what felt like an hour but was likely only a few minutes. Time seemed to stand still yet go so much faster when he was with her. Every inch of his body that touched hers buzzed with electricity. Being with her once again felt so good that he was a bit impressed with himself that he'd managed to survive almost a whole year without her.
"Mike?" she asked after a few minutes had passed.
His wave of tears had passed so he pulled away from her just enough so that he could look at her. "Yeah?"
Her hands moved to rest on either side of his face, her thumbs running across the freckles scattered across his cheeks. Suddenly she stood on her toes and pressed her lips against his. Ever since their reunion his friends had made various jokes about him being whipped and totally wrapped around her finger. He knew without a doubt that they were right. They were still young but Mike was sure that there was no one else in the world as perfect for him as Eleven. The universe had brought them together despite all odds not just once but three times.
There was a reason Mike had volunteered to keep her at his house when he and his friends found her the rainy night of November 7th 1983. He'd known from the moment he'd laid eyes on her that she was someone he wanted in his life. By the next day he knew that she was someone he needed in his life. Eleven was one of a kind. The way he felt when she kissed him made him sure that he would never love anyone the way he loved her.
When they pulled away from the kiss they grinned at each other like love sick idiots until Hopper honked the car horn once, a reminder that they didn't have all day. They took a step apart from each other, still holding hands. "Call me when you tell them, okay?" she asked.
"Yeah, of course." He said. "And promise you'll call me if you need anything. I mean it, anything."
She nodded, another smile spreading on her face. "I promise."
Eleven pressed a quick kiss on his cheek before turning and jogging down the walkway to the car. Mike waited to go inside until Hopper started up the car and drove away. It wasn't until they turned around the corner that he took his keys out of his pocket and pushed the front door open. Instead of going upstairs to his room to get started on his homework he went down to the basement.
Once he was downstairs he crawled into Eleven's old blanket fort and closed the 'door' so he was hidden from the rest of the world. It wasn't until his eyes were shut and his back was pressed against the wall that he let a new wave of tears wash over him.
Hours later Mike was sat at his desk with his social studies homework out in front of him when Nancy appeared in his doorway. "Dinner's ready." She announced, "You ready?"
He let out a shaky breath as he pushed his chair out and got to his feet. "Yeah, ready."
They made their way downstairs and into the dining room where their parents and Holly were already starting to load up food onto their plates. Despite how his nerves made him feel sick to his stomach Mike took as much food as he could stand to look at in front of him. His mom first asked Holly about her day, then Nancy, before turning her attention to Mike.
He sucked a breath in through his nose and held it for a second. "It was fine." He answered. "Did you hear Chief Hopper is adopting a girl?"
Both his parents looked up from their plates, forks stopped midair and food half chewed in their mouths. "No," his mother answered, "I didn't hear that. How did you?"
Mike shrugged. "At school." He said as casually as he could. "Will's mom is friends with him so she asked him about it. He said something about trying to keep her a low profile until all the paperwork is done." He stabbed his fork into a baked carrot and forced himself to swallow it. It slid down his throat like a brick. "My friends and I stopped by to go introduce ourselves yesterday."
In his peripheral vision he could see his moms shocked expression. He had taken keeping secrets from his parents to a whole new level. "You did?" she asked. He silently nodded his head. "What's she like?"
Perfect. "I don't know, she's cool. Kind of shy." Under the table his leg bounced up and down at the speed of sound. "I think we might go visit her again soon. She's not in school yet so she doesn't have any friends in town yet."
His mom took a sip of water, mulling over what he had said. Mike braced himself for the worst. For her to call him out or somehow know that he was lying. What she said instead was much worse.
"Is she cute?"
Mike coughed as he choked on his broccoli, quickly trying to recover by grabbing his water and gulping it down. He could feel everyone's eyes watching him carefully as his face started to burn. Under the table he felt Nancy kick him in the shin and he knew it was her way of telling him to pull it together. Once his airways were cleared again he looked back up at his mother. "Sorry… what?"
Karen shrugged, pushing her sliced carrots around on her plate. "I don't know." She said, "Just the way you're talking about her. She seems… special."
Mike shrugged his shoulders once more. "I don't know."
"What's this girls name?"
El. "Jane."
"Well tell Hopper and Jane that they're welcome over any time. Nancy can you pass the lasagna?"
In a moment the conversation had shifted and Mike felt like he could breathe again.
