The Promise

"What?" Will was aghast. Or pretending to be. He had seen this coming a mile away, but he had to pretend to be surprised, because if Mike knew that El was visiting him in his dreams he would be banished from the party like that. So what if El(?) was a nice girl? So what if she listened to Will? That didn't mean anything. It definitely didn't mean she wouldn't still be his friend when she got back, but Will didn't want to take that chance.

Mike looked at the three boys (plus Max) with a solemn face. "The Upside Down's back," he repeated. "Or maybe it never left. But anyway, I saw something yesterday that concerns everyone. Especially you, Will."

"Why?"

Mike took a deep breath. "El's still alive. And so is the Demogorgon."

Okay, Will had not seen that one coming. He had just assumed it was a different monster this time. Well, fuck.

"I think…" Mike let out a breath. "Well, I don't know what I think. El said that she and some other thing called 'One' are continually fighting for control. She said something like 'two people, one set of pedals' or something. But I think she might be inside the Demogorgon."

Max held up a hand. "Hold it." She looked around. "Does anyone else hear how jacked up this is? I thought Eleven was dead." But as she met the eyes of her friends, she saw they were convinced.

No, Mike's right.

The blood drained out of Max's face. "Who said that?" she demanded but the others shook their heads, nonplussed, except for Mike, who had his eyes closed. A second later they all heard his voice though he wasn't talking.

Hey, El. Guys, this is El.

"What the hell is going on here?" Lucas breathed.

"That's Eleven?" Dustin asked, excited.

"Yeah," Will said, nodding. Then when Mike opened one eye to look questioningly at him, he said unblushingly, "I remember her voice when she found me in Castle Byers."

Mike quickly thought, Remember yesterday?

Yesterday?

Oh dear Lord… Max rolled her eyes.

I do... bad?

Mike whacked Max's leg and frowned at her. She didn't even know what friends were, he mouthed because El would hear any thoughts. She was tortured as a child. Cut her a break.

Dustin and Lucas were still sitting, dumbstruck and feeling out of their elements as they tried to figure out what to do.

Um… hey, El, Will thought nervously. How are you?

I miss you, she replies.

Mike's eyes pop open and he shoots Will the most venemous glare he could have imagined. "How... why in the motherloving—"

Max puts a hand on Mike's arm.

Mike takes a deep breath and continues. "How on earth could she miss you?"

"Um…" He twiddled nervously with his thumbs. "I wasn't sure until now, but I was pretty sure the boy I was seeing in the Upside Down was El, but I didn't want to get your hopes up. Besides, I asked her her name and she never told me, so I just assumed she was El but I wasn't sure."

MIKE! MIKE HELP ME!

The silence rang in their ears as the five looked at each other solemnly.

Mike ran a hand through his hair. "So, yeah. El's alive. She ends all of our meetings like that. I'm not sure exactly what happens."

Dustin snorted. "You act like you're not secretly freaking out in your mind that your girlfriend is alive." Lucas nodded fervently in agreement.

Mike focused a glare on Will. "Don't think you're done yet, though, buddy."

Will swallowed back panic (and a slug) when Mike's glare was focused on him.

Dustin voiced his thoughts for him. "You're in deep shit now, man. Good luck. You'll need it."


The nine year old girl followed her Papa unquestionably through the sterile cold rooms, shivering a bit because every year around this time it would get even colder. One time a worker had come to the lab with a red hat on and a sack. Eleven never got a good luck at it. Needless to say, she didn't know what had been in the sack.

"Eleven," Papa said, kneeling down in front of her in front of another cold white room. "I need you to help me, all right? Help me help you."

Eleven swallowed and after a second nodded slightly—just a twitch of her head, but Papa noticed. "Yes, Papa," she whispered, her throat tightening with fear.

Papa patted her head. "Good girl."

So she sat down stiffly in the white chair, watching her Papa as he walked to the edge of the room and conversed with another man, scowling in anger. Panic gripped Eleven; what if his anger was directed at her? She shuddered, remembering the last test.

She watched her Papa with wariness and also for approval as the other workers strapped her arms and legs to the chair.

"Papa," she tried to whisper but it was so faint even she couldn't hear it.

Eleven turned her head away as her Papa began a speech to another man: "Eleventh test subject child, first child to have powers", the usual.

"And how does it react to using its powers?"

Eleven wanted to tell the man she was not an it but she knew to keep her face impassive and swallow down her protests or later she would get the room.

Her eyes stared blankly ahead until Papa called her name gently. She moved them slowly to his face but didn't move her head one inch. "Show the nice man what you can do," Papa said soothingly.

Eleven knew what she was going to have to do, and that didn't make it any less hard, but maybe this time would be different. Maybe Papa would be happy with her best and wouldn't push her until she passed out. Maybe she would be all right this time.

When she finally came to, Papa and the new man were talking again.

"—electricity?" the man asked.

Papa's eyes narrowed the slightest bit but he nodded. "Maybe that would strengthen her powers," he admitted. "We can try."

And then Eleven was strapped to a new machine, not struggling because she didn't know what electricity meant. Maybe it was something good, like being alone in her room and drawing.

And maybe she would get out of here someday.

And then the cap with wires was placed on her shaven head, but this one felt different.

Eleven looked to Papa for reassurance and he nodded slightly.

Eleven's muscles seized up as pain overtook her whole body, as white-hot fire coursed down her veins, as she wanted to cry or scream but she couldn't control her body. She was shaking in her chair, her fists clenched as her back arced and she still wanted to scream but she heard Papa shouting something and the pain stopped and she went limp, sagging against the restraints.

"Now, that's a problem," she heard before she slipped away into the Nowhere.


Mike looked at Will with narrowed eyes. "You knew," he spat. "You knew, all along, that she was alive, and you didn't think to tell me? To tell us? She saved your life when you were in the Upside Down by telling us where you were, but you can't return the favor?"

"That's just the thing!" Will defended. "I didn't know until a week ago! I hadn't even seen her in the Upside Down until a week ago, and I thought she was a boy and another experiment because of her hair!"

"Wait…" Dustin said, picking up the pieces. "How were you in the Upside Down?"

Will sighed. "I just sometimes blink, and then I'm in the Upside Down."


The girl watched, her hand pressing against the Upside Down mirror in Mike's basement's bathroom, looking at the four boys and girl in the reflection. She ached to touch them, to communicate with them, but she barely had enough strength to walk now, definitely not even enough to levitate something bigger than a cat.

In the mirror, she could see the darkness swirling around Will, thickening but then thinning while he swallowed for a second, but then it would come back, darker than before. In a second, he had to jump up and excuse himself for the bathroom. The girl pulled back too late, wanting to watch but not wanting Will to see.

He looked up and met her eyes. She kept her hand on the glass, knowing that he knew that she knew that he knew she was there.

"Hello," she said softly, trying to smile but her mouth kept wavering, her eyes trying to overflow.

"MIKE!" Will screamed in answer.


The others rushed into the bathroom, only to stare at the mirror in confusion that Will had his hand pressed against.

"What, Will?" Mike asked, running a hand over his tired eyes. "I thought something important had—" He placed a hand on Will's arm, trying to spin him away from the mirror, when something flashed in his vision. He withdrew, gasping, for a second before touching Will's shoulder again and seeing the person in the mirror.

"Is this some kind of fucking joke?" he asked because the person in front of him had a body. El had an actual body! They could still save her!

"I don't know," Will whispered.

"Mike," El whispered, her eyes overflowing and her mouth trembling as she tried to force it into a smile. "I've missed you."


Nancy rode in Jonathan's car in silence, her arms crossed over her chest, biting her bottom lip nervously.

She almost laughed when they started to pick out the same monster-hunting tools and the same worker at the same shop gave them the same look and Jonathan accidentally said the same excuse she had the first time.

As Jonathan slammed the door to his trunk, he looked at Nancy. "Something's going on, though, right?"

Nancy nodded. "Definitely. There was actually a sighting yesterday—a man saw a wounded animal on the road. He pulled out his phone to call for help, but when he looked up the animal was gone. He swears that it wasn't just a trick of his eyes. He even took a photo of the blood on the ground to prove it."

Jonathan let out a long, measured breath. "This is bad. So very fucking bad."

"Steve?" Nancy asked, her hand halfway to her pocket, already flipping her phone open while Jonathan nodded.

"Have you been practicing your softball skills lately?"


Inside the ash cloud, seconds before both bodies disappeared and only one reappeared in the Upside Down, two balls of blue, ethereal light spun with the ash. One looked almost like it was chasing the other, and the other was running away. Then they crashed together, becoming one, larger ball of blue light. But it looked like it was being pushed apart from the inside, as if one part of it was still straining against the confines of the other. Then the blue light(s) were swallowed into a dark mass and they disappeared.


Mike was in another rage. He had forgotten that tonight was the Snow Ball. He crumpled up a flyer on the ground and threw it across the room. The D&D board crashed to the ground as Mike kicked the table.

"You fucking promised, El!" he yelled. "And now we have to save you again! I'm in deep shit! You're in deep shit! We're all in deep shit! We're screwed! I give up! I hate everyone!"

He turned and kicked open the door to the bathroom, pressing his hand to the mirror, fruitlessly hoping he would be able to see El like Will had. The two shared a connection that Mike envied and was a little afraid of— he still liked El and to lose her to his best friend would ruin his relationship with Will, his friends would have to take sides, and El would probably be confused and scared the whole time.

Mike started to cry, tears dripping off his nose into the sink and shining in midair like tiny crystals. "I'm sorry, El," he sobbed. "I'm so sorry."

He shook his head to clear it, and one of the tears flung onto the mirror. Instead of rolling down the mirror, it made a slight hissing noise as that part of the mirror stopped showing his reflection and instead showed just darkness.

Mike stared at it, twisting his head this way and that until the eye he was squinting into the hole with found another eye. He jumped back about a foot before he recognized the eye.

Excitedly, he turned on the sink and splashed water on the mirror. Everywhere it touched it sizzled and turned into a picture.

El gave him a smile that told him I knew you would figure it out.

"Figure what out?" Mike asked, now thoroughly pissed because if she had been able all along to create a sort of walkie-talkie for them and hadn't, he… would still be thoroughly pissed.

Now he drank in her appearance, though it wasn't that comforting. She was a deathly pale, her hair matted and blood-stained. Her eyes were sunken and shadows surrounded them. Her sweatpants were torn in multiple places and she was shivering. A scratch along her forehead had just begun to scab over and blood had dried under her nose and her ears.

"Water… pure," El said simply. "I, monster...not."

"Why can't you come back?" Mike was desperate, pleading with her.

She shot him a look that said Get a hold of yourself and I wish I could, asshole and If I could would I really be here right now and I miss you but also I kill everything I touch, dumbass, so I'm trying to stay away and keep you safe.

"Bad men still look for me," she said instead after a while. "I kill everything. I can't kill you too. And… tired. Cold." She wrapped her arms around herself for emphasis.

Mike slammed his fist on the sink, startling El and making her jump. "I don't give a fuck about that shit," he growled. "I want you to be here, right now! You're a good person and we both know it!"

El gave him a look. "I could kill you," she said in a whisper.

Mike waited for a good chance to reassure her he wasn't worried about that.

"I could squeeze your brains out of your head. I could snap your neck. I could do so many things. I have done so many things. I'm a monster."

That was the most Eleven had ever said to Mike. "You would never do any of that to me," he said softly. "We're friends. You would never hurt me on purpose."

"Lucas," El contradicted quietly, reminding him of when she had lost control and hurt Lucas.

Mike winced, thinking of how he had yelled at her afterwards.

"That was an accident."

"Mike," she whispered and placed her hand on the mirror. Mike moved his to mirror her position so their hands almost touched.

Then Mike was suddenly in a white room. A little girl with soft, wispy hair riding on top of a man's back, giggling uncontrollably, was brought in.

"Papa," El said quietly at Mike's shoulder. Mike didn't respond but to gaze upon the bastard. What was going on? "Memory," El murmured, rubbing her wrist where her tattoo was.

"Eleven," Dr. Brenner said, "you must stay very still for this, okay?"

"What will you do, Papa?" Small El asked, gazing up at him with adoration in her eyes.

"This is just a precaution," Brenner said soothingly, running a hand over Small El's curls. "So if you ever get lost we can find you and take you back home, all right?"

"All right," Small El nodded.

To Mike it looked like she was signing her doom. He wasn't too far off.

The workers strapped El into a chair, taking her wrist and turning it over to reveal unmarked skin. She shifted a bit, uncomfortable, and the Big El next to Mike stuffed her fist in her mouth to keep from sobbing.

So Mike had to watch in absolute horror as the workers held down a screaming, sobbing El as they branded the numbers 011 into her skin. Big El buried her face in Mike's shoulder once it was finished and only Little El's wailing and sobbing could be heard.

"Eleven," Brenner said, kneeling by her once she had calmed herself down enough to glare at him. "Eleven, it's just a precaution."

And then, by some miracle, all the men that had been in the room, apart from Brenner, fell to the ground, gasping for air. El's eyes rolled back in her head and Brenner stared at his former co-workers, dead on the ground, before looking back at Eleven.

"A formidable weapon," he said softly before starting to un-strap her limbs.

Then the scene changed. A slightly larger but still Little El stood in front of them. They were in a dark room, and she was screaming, begging for her Papa to come save her.

"The room," Big El whispered at Mike's side.

They were back in Mike's basement now, the same place but as far away as they could be.

"Solitary confinement," Mike whispered in fear. He looked at the frail girl in the mirror with a mixture of awe and fear. "El, what did they do to you?"

The girl smiled sadly and disappeared.

"Why would you show that to me?"

"Always looking," she says quietly, tapping her wrist. "Always."

Then she's gone.

"No!" he screamed. "No! It wasn't a dream! El, please!"

He ran down to the basement and flung water all over the mirror. When it failed to sizzle, he collapsed to the ground, shaking from sobs.

"Please… El…"

Snow Ball, a voice whispered in his ear.

El? Mike thought hopefully.

Sorry. Broke promise.

"No, you didn't!" Mike practically yells. "El, if you ever come back I'll take you to the Snow Ball, all right? If anything, I broke my promise. Not you."

Mike was assaulted with pictures that he had never seen. His own face swam down at him, and he was saying something about being all right and Eggos, but he wasn't really listening. He was staring at the face, trying to memorize it, because he knew, somehow, that something bad would happen that night.

And if something bad did happen, he would be the one to set it right.

Mike slammed his fist into the wall. "Why didn't you tell me?" he screamed to no one. "Why did you know and not tell me?"

But El had never truly understood that humans needed to communicate. She hadn't understood that when you have a childhood as fucked up as hers, you needed to tell someone. She hadn't understood what friends were. She hadn't understood what promises were. She hadn't known that by communicating she could have stopped it all.

She had been trapped in her own little fucked up world for so long she didn't know how to communicate. And Mike ached all over when he realized he could have helped her, could have helped her so fucking much more by asking her to explain things, asking her questions about normal things, not just been so focused on saving one friend that he didn't realize he was about to lose another.


Joyce looked at the watch in her hand. She had pocketed it without either child noticing at the school, and she didn't feel guilty enough to give it back.

She had wanted so badly for her own child to come home that she hadn't realized another was just as lost. In just as much pain. Just as alone. And then… she hadn't even said good-bye to Eleven, to the brave, brave girl that had sacrificed herself for so many, for her son, even though El didn't know Will.

Something terrible must have happened to Barb's body to make the small child lose her mask like that and cry. And Joyce hated herself for sending out a small, terrified girl to find her own son and not asking her if she was all right with it. From what Hop had told her, her childhood had been so fucked up. Tortured, beaten, solitary confinement…

The poor thing hadn't had a moment's peace. Escaped one prison only to be found by three boys who only cared about finding another friend. Hunted down nonstop. Died in pain.

She swallowed, the wind rustling her hair as she stood on the cliff. She extended one hand and, fingers shaking, let the watch fall away from her. Down.

Good-bye, El.

Long after Joyce had left, crying, a small object floated up to land on the cliff.

To anyone watching, it was a feather.

Well, to anyone except Dustin.

He moved closer to the 'feather' before realizing that it was not, in fact, a feather—it was Mike's watch.

The watch had just flown up and landed on the cliff neatly.

He ran a hand through his hair.

This was bad.