A/N: Hey there, readers! Sending out another quick thank you to everyone who has favorited, followed, and reviewed so far! So, the next chapter after this one will be the last one involving the events from the show, and from there it'll start with the aftermath of everything as well as the building of the relationship between Daisy and Steve. I hope you guys are excited! Enjoy!
It seemed like things were running at a mile a minute once the shed was all ready to go and Will was inside it. Joyce, Jonathan, Hopper, and Mike were all in there with him, while everyone else stayed inside the house, working on cracking the Morse code in which Will was communicating with. They had the walkie-talkie's set up so that Hopper could relay the codes to the group inside the house. Nancy sat at the table with a blank piece of paper and a pencil, scribbling down the letters as Lucas read them off to her.
Daisy stood by the table, looking down at the sheet of paper as Nancy wrote on it. Steve had ended up standing beside her, something that Daisy didn't think much of, but the look they received from Nancy was not lost on her. It wasn't a look of jealousy or anger… it was more of a subtle, knowing look. Daisy felt slightly confused, but pushed that feeling to the back burner for now in order to focus on the task at hand. All was going just fine… until the phone started to ring.
Dustin rushed over, picking up the phone and slamming it back into the receiver. It went quiet for a moment, but then began ringing again. Nancy got up this time, going over and ripping the entire unit out of the wall, slamming it on the ground. Finally, it stopped, but now they couldn't be sure if Will heard that or not. Their question didn't take long to be answered, however, when Jonathan ran into the house, carrying an unconscious Will. He was followed closely by Joyce, Hopper, and Mike, and he laid Will on the couch before turning to the rest of the group.
All of a sudden, the distant sound of the demodogs could be heard. Everyone turned towards the window. "That can't be good." Dustin said, as the kids went over to the couch to stare out the window.
"They're coming." Jonathan told them, and everyone gathered in the living room. Hopper quickly scolded the kids to get away from the window. He turned to Jonathan, holding up a shotgun. "Can you use this?" Jonathan looked hesitant, clearly not confident in his ability to shoot a gun if need be. Nancy stepped forward, holding her hands out. "I can." She said, taking the shotgun and unlocking the safety.
Everyone else lined up; Hopper and Nancy aiming their guns, Steve holding his bat, Mike grabbing a blunt object, and Lucas readying his slingshot. Daisy placed herself in front of Dustin and Max, making sure they were safely shielded behind her. She felt a bit helpless without any type of weapon, but there wasn't much else she could do at this point.
The demodogs sounded much closer now – they had to have been right in the front yard. Daisy could feel her heart rate picking up as she prepared herself for them to burst into the house at any second. She didn't have a good feeling about this at all. Everyone stood, collectively holding their breath, when suddenly a demodog came crashing through the window. They all stood back to shield themselves from the spraying glass.
Before anyone could be on the attack, they noticed that the demodog wasn't moving. It laid on the floor, seemingly lifeless. Hopper slowly walked over, nudging the head with his boot. "It's dead." He spoke up, looking as confused as everyone else in the room. Suddenly, the latches on the door began to unlock completely on their own.
Everyone simultaneously turned towards the door, aiming their weapons once again. Daisy's eyes widened as the door pushed open by itself, and in walked a young girl with short, slicked-back hair and some heavy eye make-up. Looks of realization went around the room - all except for Daisy and Max. But once Daisy saw the look on Mike's face, she had a feeling this girl had to be Eleven, the one from last year, that Dustin had told her all about.
Her suspicions were confirmed when Mike and the girl shared a teary-eyed embrace, and everyone else visibly relaxed. Daisy stood back as the rest of the group went over to greet her, watching as Mike and Hopper got into a confrontation before disappearing into another room to talk privately. She felt slightly out of place as everyone hugged the young girl, and as she looked over at Max, she could sense that the redhead was feeling the same way.
Dustin and Lucas shared a group hug with Eleven, expressing how much they had missed her. When they pulled apart, Eleven reached out, touching Dustin's teeth. "Teeth," She said, earning a slightly confused look from Dustin as he pulled away a bit. "You have teeth."
Dustin grinned, happy that she had noticed, before turning to look at Daisy and motioning her over. Daisy complied, moving over to where they were standing. "El, this is my sister, Daisy." Dustin introduced.
Daisy smiled, and El seemed to almost study her, before returning the smile with a small one of her own. "Pretty." The younger girl commented.
"Oh - thank you." Daisy said, caught a bit off guard by the compliment, but smiling nonetheless. "It's nice to finally meet you." She added.
Max came over just then, extending her hand to El. "Eleven? I'm Max. I've heard a lot about you." She smiled.
This time, Eleven's face became more serious. She didn't respond to Max, instead she walked right by her without even acknowledging the other girl. Clearly confused, Max watched Eleven walk away and hug Joyce, before turning back to Daisy, who shrugged her shoulders, just as confused as Max about the sudden cold attitude from El.
They had come to the conclusion that what they needed to do to defeat the shadow monster was to close a gate that El had opened last year. What or where this gate was, Daisy had no idea. And she was even more unsure of just how El was going to close it. From the way Hopper talked about it, it didn't seem like it was going to be an easy or safe job, but the young girl insisted that she could do it.
They knew they had to bring Will to somewhere that he didn't know in order to get the "virus" out of him. Hopper had instructed Jonathan and Joyce to bring him to where he lived, while he and Eleven were going to the lab to deal with the gate problem. That left Daisy, Steve, Nancy, and the rest of the kids to stay at the Byers' house to wait things out. Quite honestly, Daisy was okay with that decision; she didn't know how much more she could handle for the night.
Joyce had come to the realization that they were going to have to burn the virus out of Will. So the rest of the group went about looking for anything they could find that would emit enough heat to get the monster out of Will. Steve stood out in the backyard, shining a flashlight onto the pile of items Hopper had thrown out of the shed earlier.
Nancy was on the other side of the pile, rummaging through it as well. They both were silent, seemingly unsure of what to even say to one another. Steve looked over at her for a good few seconds, almost contemplating what he was about to say, before finally allowing the words to leave his mouth. "You should go with him."
"Huh?" Nancy looked up, confusion washing over her face.
"Jonathon." Steve clarified, moving his gaze back down to the pile. "You should go with him."
It hurt him to say it. It hurt to know that this - this was him letting her go. He knew he had lost her a while ago, and now it was time to come to terms with it. She wanted Jonathon, whether she admitted it to him or not. He could see it. And maybe what Daisy had told him earlier was true - maybe Nancy wasn't the one. But that didn't mean that he'd never find the right person eventually.
"No," Nancy responded, breaking Steve away from his thoughts. "I'm not just gonna leave Mike."
"No one's leaving anyone." He told her, leaning down to pick up a space heater off the ground. That would do. Looking over at Nancy again, he offered a smile. "I may be a shitty boyfriend, but... turns out I'm a pretty damn good babysitter."
Nancy didn't say anything. She looked up at him, sadness apparent in her eyes. Not necessarily sadness that their relationship was over - it was more like she was sad that she had hurt him.
"It's okay, Nance. Really." Steve assured her. He told himself that this is what needed to be done. Continuing to try and make their relationship work was a lost cause. Nancy looked towards the house, where she could see Jonathan inside getting ready to leave.
"I am sorry, Steve." Nancy said quietly. and he could hear the sincerity in her voice. At least that gave him some form of comfort, knowing that they wouldn't be ending things on such bad terms.
"I know." He responded, handing her the heater in his hand so that she could bring it with her. He motioned for her to head inside before they left without her, watching as she disappeared inside the house without another word.
He followed inside shortly after, an odd sense of relaxation coming over him. Now that everyone else was off to their destinations and it was just him, Daisy and the kids, he felt as though he finally had a moment to just breathe.
Lucas and Max were in the living room, sweeping up the shattered glass on the floor from the windows, while Daisy helped as well, tidying up as best as she could. Dustin called Steve over, pointing to the dead demodog that was on the floor, now wrapped in a quilt. "What are you-" Steve began to ask, but Dustin interrupted. "Just bring it into the kitchen."
Steve reluctantly picked the creature up, following Dustin into the kitchen where he was the entire contents of the refrigerator on the floor. Dustin pointed into the empty fridge. "Put it in there."
"Is this really necessary?" Steve asked, arching his eyebrows.
"Yes.This is a ground-breaking scientific discovery, we can't just bury it like it's some common mammal." Dustin said, sounding offended that Steve would even ask that.
"Alright, alright." Steve finally gave in, moving forward to try and fit it into the fridge. "But you're explaining this to Mrs. Byers."
Mike was pacing back and forth in the living room, worrying himself sick over Eleven's safety. Daisy watched him as she continued picking things up off the floor, realizing that anything she could try and say to calm him down would probably be of no use. Lucas stopped sweeping when he noticed the pacing as well, giving Mike a look. "Mike, would you just stop already?"
"You weren't in there, okay Lucas? That lab is swarming with hundreds of those dogs." Mike shot back, obviously frustrated.
"Demodogs!" Dustin yelled from the kitchen.
"The chief will take care of her." Lucas tried to reason with Mike, but even Max was skeptical about that when she chimed in. "She needs protection."
"Listen," Steve said, stepping into the living room now as well. "If a coach calls a play in a game, bottom line, you execute it."
Mike didn't look convinced at Steve's analogy. "First of all, this isn't a stupid sports game and second, we're not even in the game, we're on the bench."
"Righ- so my point is..." Steve quickly tried to think of something to convince the kids, as everyone stared at him expectantly. "Right, yeah- we're on the bench, so uh... there's nothing we can do."
"That's not entirely true." Dustin spoke up, coming to stand beside Steve. "These demodogs have a hive-mind. When they ran away from the bus, they were called away."
"So if we can get their attention..." Lucas started. Daisy stepped forward now, knowing that the kids were going to cook up some kind of plan, and she wasn't sure that was the safest thing to be doing right now.
"Maybe we can draw them away from the lab." Max finished Lucas' thought for him.
"And clear a path to the gate." Mike added, realization hitting him.
"Yeah, and then we all die." Steve exclaimed, clearly insinuating that he was not on board with this idea at all. Daisy nodded her head in agreement. "Yeah, guys, I think we should just stay here and wait until we hear from them."
The kids seemed to ignore her advice, as Mike quickly led everyone into the other room, pointing to an 'X' that was written on a section of Will's elaborate drawings. "This is where the chief dug his hole. This is our way into the tunnels." He said, heading back to the living room, everyone else right on his heels.
"And right here," He came to the center of the drawing. "This is like a hub. All the tunnels feed into here. Maybe if we set this on fire-"
"That's a no." Steve quickly dismissed.
The kids continued to ignore him as Dustin spoke up now. "Then the Mind Flayer would call away his army."
"Then we circle back to the exit." Mike said. "By the time they realize we're gone-"
"El would be at the gate." Max finished for him.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Steve exclaimed, clapping his hands together to get their attention. They all finally stopped talking, looking over at him. "This is not happening."
"But-" Mike started to protest, but Steve immediately stopped him. "No buts. I promised I'd keep you shitheads safe, and that's exactly what I plan on doing."
The kids collectively looked over at Daisy, hopeful looks on their faces that she would try to convince Steve to go along with their idea. Unfortunately for them, Daisy didn't think it was a good idea either. "Guys, I think Steve's right. Our safest bet is to stay here."
Steve nodded his head in agreement, glad that they were a united front on this. "We're staying here, on the bench, and we're waiting for the starting team to do their job. Does everybody understand that?" He asked, only earning a round of eye rolls from the kids. "I said, does everybody understand? I need a 'yes.'"
Before any of them had the chance to answer, the sound of a revving car engine caught everyone's attention. Max seemed to recognize the sound, hurrying over to the window, a horrified look on her face. "It's my brother." She said, looking back to everyone. "He can't know I'm here. He'll kill me. He'll kill us."
Daisy looked over at Steve, not sure what to do about this unexpected situation. Steve's eyes met hers, then he looked to the kids, a sudden urge to protect coming over him. "I'll handle it." He told them, walking to the front door and outside.
All four kids immediately rushed to the window, kneeling on the couch to look outside. Daisy quickly moved over there as well, motioning for the kids to stay down. She couldn't help but peek out the window as well, though, to keep an eye on the confrontation. She didn't realize until now that Max was Billy Hargrove's sister.
Their conversation seemed to be going fine, until Billy pointed to the window that the kids were looking out of, his eye's meeting Max's. The kids immediately dropped from the window. "Shit. Did he see us?" Dustin asked.
Daisy glanced out the window again just in time to see Billy shove Steve to the ground and give him a swift kick to the stomach. Her eyes widened and she motioned for the kids to move closer to her, just as Billy swung the door open. "Well, well, well." He said, stepping into the house and slamming the door shut behind him.
His eyes landed on Daisy, and for a split second he looked to be confused as to why she was there, but the confusion almost instantly turned to rage when he set his eyes on Lucas. "Lucas Sinclair." He said, walking up to the younger boy. He looked down at Max, who was standing beside him. "I thought I told you to stay away from him, Max?"
"Billy, go away." Max said, and Daisy could see the fear in her eyes.
"You disobeyed me. And you know what happens when you disobey me - I break things." Billy grabbed Lucas by his jacket, forcefully shoving him up against the wall. The kids all started yelling, and Daisy stood there, stunned for a few seconds. Was this actually happening right now?
She snapped out of it as a rush of fierce protectiveness came over her. Without thinking, Daisy quickly came up behind Billy, reaching out and grabbing two handfuls of his hair and yanking back, distracting him long enough for Lucas to knee him square in the groin. He stumbled back a few steps, staring menacingly at Daisy, before turning back to Lucas again. "You are so dead, Sinclair."
"No," Steve suddenly reappeared inside the house, stepping in front of Daisy. "You are." He said, before landing a punch to Billy's face. Daisy knew this was about to get ugly. She put a hand on Lucas' shoulder and led him back over to where the rest of the kids were standing. She placed herself protectively in front of them as the two boys went at it, throwing punches left and right.
"Kick his ass, Steve! Get him!" The kids yelled, and Daisy shushed them, not wanting them to encourage any more fighting than was already happening between the two.
She gasped as Billy smashed a plate over Steve's head, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. This was getting more dangerous by the second, and she didn't know what to do. Getting in between their fist fight was a risky move, and she knew she had to keep the kids out of harm's way.
The fight only seemed to intensify as Billy threw Steve to the ground. The kids screamed for him to stop, while he got on top of a helpless Steve, and began punching him in the face over and over again. It was clear that Steve was knocked out by this point, blood spraying from his nose with each hit. Tears sprang to Daisy's eyes as she too yelled for Billy to stop what he was doing.
But he didn't stop. It seemed like time was moving in slow motion. Daisy didn't know how to stop this - she felt helpless. From the corner of her eye she saw Max stepping forward and before she could even process what was in her hand, Max stabbed a syringe into Billy's neck, injecting him with Will's sedatives. Billy finally stopped punching Steve, standing up as he pulled the syringe out of his neck. "What the hell did you do?"
He stumbled a bit, before finally falling onto the floor with a thud. As soon as Daisy was sure he was down and out, she rushed over to where Steve was, kneeling beside him. "Shit." She muttered, more tears welling up in her eyes at the sight of his face. She wiped some excess blood away with the sleeve of her sweater, gently tapping the side of his face to see if he'd wake up.
She vaguely heard Max say something about getting out of there, and she peered over her shoulder to see the redhead holding up the keys to Billy's car. "Whoa, wait a minute." Daisy stood up, turning to face them.
"I've driven his car before, I promise." Max said. Daisy didn't know if it was the fact that she was so tired, or so out of it from what she'd just witnessed (or both) but she nodded her head. She certainly wasn't in her best state of mind at the moment. She had the kids help her (struggle) to carry an unconscious Steve out to the car, leaving Billy on the floor where he laid.
Steve's eyes slowly opened, a groan escaping his lips. He didn't know where he was, but judging by the motion he could feel, he could only assume he was in a car. Everything looked blurry, he felt like he couldn't breathe out of his nose. What happened? Where was he? He looked to his left and saw a familiar face, but couldn't quite make out who it was. The features looked unmistakable, and finally he opened his mouth to speak. "Nancy…?" He mumbled. The person gave him an odd look, and the more he focused in, he realized that it wasn't Nancy… it was her brother.
His whole face ached. It was then that he finally remembered what happened. Billy Hargrove had clearly gotten the better of him… not that Steve had a particularly good track record with fist fights. Groaning out again in pain, he shifted a little, only to realize he was half on the backseat of the car, half on the floor. Looking up, he locked eyes with Daisy, whose lap he was half laying in. She had her arms securely around him so that he remained where he was, and when she realized he was awake, she smiled down at him.
She looked so beautiful. Steve could have sworn she was an angel looking down on him. Her hair dangled so close to his swollen face, he could smell her shampoo. Lavender. He was sure he'd never smelt anything nicer.
"Hey… you're awake." She said quietly, her hand gently brushing some stray hairs out of his face. His own hand came up, about to touch his face when someone else stopped him.
"No, don't touch it." It was Dustin's voice this time. "It's okay buddy. You put up a good fight. He kicked your ass, but you put up a good fight."
Steve was finally starting to come to, his vision becoming clearer. He looked up at Daisy again, finding a sort of comfort in seeing her there. But then he was hit with a realization; if the only two people old enough to be driving a car were both in the backseat… then who was driving?
He peered up front, seeing a flash of red hair from the driver's seat and felt his stomach drop. "Oh, God…" He said, trying to sit up.
"Don't worry, she's driven before." Dustin assured him.
"Yeah, in a parking lot." Mike countered.
"That counts!" Lucas piped up from the front seat.
"Stop the car!" Steve said, struggling now to sit himself upright. The speed of the car only increased, making him feel sick.
"I told you he'd freak out." Mike exclaimed, shaking his head.
"Everyone shut up, I'm trying to focus!" Max yelled from the driver's seat, speeding up the car again.
"This left! Max, take this left!" Lucas shouted over everyone else, as Max skidded into the left turn, taking out a mailbox in the process. Daisy's grip tightened around Steve as the car accelerated, everyone in the car yelling as it came speeding down a hill and came to a screeching halt.
The kids began piling out of the car, going to the trunk to get supplies. Steve stumbled out, with the help of Daisy, yelling at the kids all the while. "Hey! Where do you think you're going? I told you we're not going down there, I made myself clear!"
"Steve!" Dustin shouted, stopping his rampage. "You're upset, I get it. But the bottom line is, a party member requires assistance, and it is our duty to provide that assistance. Now I know you promised to keep us safe," He said, handing Steve his backpack and bat. "So keep us safe."
Steve sighed, giving in without much of a choice. Those kids were going down into the tunnels whether he said yes or no, and he wasn't about to let them go down there on their own. His eyes found Daisy, and she looked at him with an apologetic expression.
"I'm sorry," She said, moving over to where he was standing. "They were very adamant about this."
He shook his head, feeling it throb as he did so. "No, it's okay. I understand."
She frowned, slowly reaching up to let her fingertips graze along his cheek. "How's your face?" She asked.
Steve let out a short laugh. "How does it look?"
Daisy paused a moment, not quite sure how she should answer that question. "Like you got the crap beat out of you." She answered honestly, surprised that she actually got a smile out of him with that. Well, as much of a smile as he could muster.
"About earlier – the fighting… that's not me. I mean, I don't usually do that kind of stuff." He started to say, but Daisy quickly shook her head. "You were trying to protect them. I get it. You don't have to explain anything to me." She smiled softly.
Before he could say anything else, the kids called over to them, waving from where they were standing by the hole. "Are you guys coming or what?" Dustin shouted.
Steve looked back at Daisy, who seemed hesitant to want to go down into the tunnels. "It'll be alright. I'll be right here." He assured her.
She nodded her head, starting to walk over towards the kids alongside Steve. "Let's just get this over with."
