A/N: This chapter was one of the first I had originally written for this story, and because of that I kept coming back to add and change things, so it turned out a little longer than I had anticipated... oops! Hope you guys don't mind. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.


STEVE / Days Gone By

For Rose, her blindness felt like a prison. Owens continued to stop by every morning to check up, but nothing ever came of it. Every day she was met with new challenges, and for Steve it was hard to watch. He did as much as he could, and some days it was enough, but others not so much.

On Saturday, Rose's first good day, she spent her time on the floor of the living room listening music that Will and Dustin had brought over. They spent hours going over different genres, Dustin pointing out his favorites and Will spewing Jonathan's facts second hand.

Owens had told Steve that when someone loses one of their senses, the others improve to make up for the deficit. Yet he was still surprised when she was able to hear the sound of birds chirping outside over the music. She began scrambling to her feet, and Dustin was quick to help her up before Steve could make his way over from his spot on the couch.

"Dustin," she guessed confidently, gripping his shoulders.

"Yeah, it's me," he confirmed.

Biting her lip in concentration, Rose began mapping his face with the tips of her fingers, but was soon distracted by the pause between tracks, allowing them all to hear the birds. Her head cocked toward the sound and she smiled to herself.

"The window," she told Dustin, who took a second to understand before slowly leading her towards the big window that looked out to the front yard.

"One more step," he instructed as her hands found the ledge of the window sill. She ran her fingers along the white wooden edge, then slowly felt her way for the latch halfway up. Unlocking the window, she worked her way quickly back down to the handle at the bottom, gripping it and pushing the window up and open. The cool air of late autumn filled the room.

Will, still on the floor, turned down the music and nodded as if he were impressed.

Rose smiled at her small victory. Or was it the amplified sound of the birds? Either way she felt for Dustin's arm to make sure he was still right there where she had left him.

"What does it look like?" she asked him in a soft voice.

Dustin's brows pulled together. "The birds or the yard?"

"Everything."

He shot Steve a concerned look, and Steve fired one that said 'just tell her, shithead,' right back.

"Well, um… I can hear the birds, but I can't see them. I guess they're up in one of the trees… uh… God, I dunno… the leaves are gone -"

"The sun's about to set," Will cut in from his spot on the floor. "The sky's the color of periwinkle, just like the crayon. But then it fades into a pale orange, like... like kitchen soap, right before it disappears behind the trees. And Dustin's right, the leaves are gone for the most part. The big tree in your front yard still has a few dead ones still clinging on, but other than that they're just all branches."

Rose smiled longingly as she put the imagery together in her mind, holding tight onto Dustin with one hand and tracing the wood around the window with the other.

"Our bikes are on the lawn. Mine's green. Bright green, with-" Will continued, describing the scene in detail. Rose's smile grew wider, as did Steve's appreciation for Will Byers.


On Monday, things were not as good. Steve went to work and then to watch Jane, because as much as he would like to be at home over-protecting Rose, he had bills to pay. When he returned home that night, Dustin was already in the kitchen making four sandwiches ("Two for me, one for each of you," the growing boy explained).

Steve tossed his coat and keys down on the kitchen table. "Where's Rose?"

"She's in the bath," Dustin told him as he carefully placed slices of cheese on all of the sandwiches.

Steve knit his brows together. "The bath?"

"Yeah," Dustin chuckled with a strong 'duh' tone to his voice. "You know… to bathe. Says it's easier than showering."

Steve sighed and walked toward the bathroom. "Hey, Rose, I'm home," he called through the door. There was a pause, he got no response. "Rose?" he asked. Another pause.

The silence was strange, and his thoughts immediately jumped to the worst case scenarios. Overcome with a sudden and over-protective need to make sure she was okay, he tried the door handle, which she apparently had not locked, and the door swung open easily.

Rose was sitting up in the tub with her knees drawn down to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs to keep them there. When she lifted her head toward the sound of the door opening, Steve could tell she had been crying. "Rose?" he called softly with a heart that ached at the sight of her.

Her eyes filled with more tears, and she turned her head to rest her forehead on her knees. A number of bruises had formed over her legs and knees and hips from where she hand bumped into things, and her knuckles were white from gripping onto herself so tightly.

His heart felt heavy at the sight of her. Without hesitation, Steve kicked off his shoes and pulled off his socks. Not bothering with the rest of his clothes, he got in the tub behind her and wrapped his arms around her trembling figure. With her head on his chest she sobbed. With her hand on his shoulder, she held on as tightly as she could, as if she would fall apart entirely if it weren't for him holding her together.

"It's gonna be okay," he assured, kissing the top of her head. In that moment, Steve wished for nothing more than to take away all the pain she felt. But he was helpless, and all he could do was pull her closer to his chest. "I'm gonna find a way to make it okay."

"I need you," she weeped.

"I'm right here," he assured.

By the time she finished crying, the water had run cold causing her to shiver. Steve looked up to discover Dustin in the door frame, who tried his best to look stoic but was choking back his own tears. Steve pretended not to notice. Rose and Dustin had grown incredibly close over the past few months, and neither Steve nor Dustin had ever seen anything look more vulnerable than a bruised-up blind girl crying in a bathtub, let alone one they cared about. It pained both of them to see her so broken.

After leaning across Rose and unplugging the drain, Steve looked to Dustin and pointed in the direction of the towel rack on the wall. Without saying a word Dustin understood, though he still hesitated in the door frame for a moment before crossing the threshold into the bathroom. He handed Steve the towel, trying his best to avert his eyes, though Steve did not notice and Rose could not see either way.

Wrapping the towel around her shuddering frame, Steve helped her up and out of the bath. He guided her to the bedroom and kicked the door closed behind him, sitting Rose down on the bed. She curled into herself again, staring off with an empty expression, while Steve pulled off his damp shirt and kicked off his soaked pants. Getting onto the bed next to her, he pulled her down with him. She resumed her balled-up position while lying down and all Steve could do was pull her as close to him as possible.

Day after day, in one way or another, Rose broke right in front of him, and all Steve could do was try and hold the pieces together again. He began hating himself for it.


Wednesday came and everything seemed fine until Steve woke up in the middle of the night. When he rolled over and went to sling an arm over Rose's waist, he was met with nothing but warm sheets. "Rose?" he called softly. Something clattered in the kitchen and Steve was on his feet in an instant, a fresh shot of adrenaline pumping through him, grabbing the baseball bat spikes in nails from underneath the bed.

He snuck out of the room and into the living area, bat in hand and ready to swing. His eyes adjusted to the darkness of the kitchen, only to be met by Rose feeling her way through the contents of a cabinet with her fingers in search of something. "Rose?" he called again, walking over flicking on the light. Steve shoved his weapon on top of the fridge, out of her reach. "Hey, let me help you."

"I got it," she assured.

"Are you looking for a cup?" he asked once he was at her side.

"I got it," she said much more sternly than before, but she continued to reach blindly through the cupboard.

He knew she craved independence, but her harsh tone caught him off guard. "Rose -" he reached out.

"I got it," she repeated much more softly. Steve pulled her into him, not realizing that when she said she had it for the third time, she actually meant it. Her movement, or rather him moving her, caused a drinking glass to slip from her fingers and fall onto the counter. Luckily, Steve was able to push Rose out of the way before it shattered on the floor by her feet.

"Shit," he cursed, lifting his girl up and sitting her on the opposite counter. "Are you hurt?"

Turning her head to the sound of his voice, she shook her head. "No," she whispered, but her eyes became teary. It brought him back to the conversation they had on a different counter the night they met.

"You're a pain in the ass, you know that?" Steve asked sarcastically with a playful nudge.

"Ow!" the cute girl giggled.

"Oh, come on. That couldn't have hurt."

"It did," she told him. The look in her insanely blue eyes was nothing but sincere. "It hurt all of my feelings."

Steve raised an eyebrow, unsure if he found her choice in words was odd or adorable. "All of your feelings?"

Her expression morphed into one that was equal parts bashful and embarrassed. Definitely adorable. Shit. What happened to 'act like you don't care'?

The cup shattering had not hurt Rose physically, but Steve could tell that the situation had hurt all of her feelings.

"There's glass all over the floor so please don't get down until I tell you to," he instructed. She nodded in understanding and Steve studied her somber expression, taking her cheek in one of his hands. "It's not your fault, Rose. I didn't realize -"

"Steve," she interrupted. "You shouldn't feel like you need to take care of me."

His brows drew together, trying to make sense of the meaning behind her words, but Rose had always been pretty straightforward and somehow that made her statement even more confusing for him. "What?"

A tear rolled down her cheek but she did not bother to wipe it away. With her lower lip between her teeth, she brought her hands up to rest on Steve's chest. "You didn't ask for this, Steve," she tried to explain in a low voice. "And you've just been so good and patient… But I just don't understand how you could still want me. I know I'm not special anymore, and I know I don't deserve you, not even a little bit… I shouldn't be your liability, Steve, so if you want me to go, just tell me, and I would understand -"

"Woah, woah, Rose. You're not my liability," Her choice of words felt sour in his own mouth.

"I'm blind, Steve. Blind and useless. And I don't know how, or why, or if I'll ever see again -"

"Rose -"

"- and don't tell me it's okay, because it's fucking not... I'm not okay, Steve."

He watched her break all over again, and when he tried to hold on, when he tried to be there for her the only way he knew how, she recoiled and pulled herself further back on the counter. "Rose," he whispered, pleading with her, but she pulled into herself tighter.

He wanted to tell her she was wrong about all of it. That she would always be special and that he would always want her. But he did not know how, and she would not have listened.

"Ten," he tried instead, placing a hand on her elbow.

Ten. The number on her wrist. The name he hated calling her because she was a person, not a science experiment. Ten. It resonated with something inside of her. With the same arm Steve was holding on to, she moved to grip his bicep. Lacing his other arm around her back, the weeping girl allowed herself to be carried back to bed.

Steve woke himself early the next morning, untangling himself from Rose and moving gently to try not to wake her. He swept up the glass they had left in the kitchen, and then swept again to make sure he had not missed anything. Then he moved onto the counters, putting everything back exactly where it belonged and making sure to move the cups down to the lowest shelf. It was not too long before Rose woke up, too, and she followed him around the kitchen in silence, taking her time to map everything out with her hands.


Not all days were doomed to end in devastation, and Friday proved itself to be promising. All day at work, Steve found himself longing to have Rose curled up next to him as he read from one of Jane's old books. She liked when he read to her, and at first he thought it was a strange request, one he knew he would never hear the end of if Dustin found out. But Steve found it difficult to say no to the girl he had become so enamored with. Over time, Steve secretly grew to love it just as much as she did.

Rose had never learned how to properly read. She could sing the alphabet and sign her pseudonym. She memorized the look of important words and had become pretty damn great at assuming what things were based off of context and pictures on labels, but had always focused more of her learning on keeping up with and understanding verbal conversations. Her friends from Indianapolis, who were all very loud and very talkative, helped her out a lot with that. Because of this, Steve had been reading to her for a while now, long before she lost her sight.

To Rose, it did not matter what Steve read, she just liked his voice and the way he sounded out words he was not familiar with. She told him once that he could be reading the ingredients off the back of shampoo bottles and she would be perfectly happy just to listen. Luckily for Steve, who knew he would look like a complete idiot trying to pronounce any of those chemicals, they had access to books. Currently, they were in the middle of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

"'You're beautiful, but you're empty,' he went on. 'One could not die for you,'" Steve read in a soft monotone from the worn pages of the old book that afternoon. They sat leaning back against the headboard of the bed, Rose resting her head on his shoulder and tracing lazy patterns over his chest with her index finger. "'Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you put together, since she's the one I've watered.'"

He stopped as Rose began giggling softly to herself about a joke she had made in her own head. The sound was contagious and he couldn't help but chuckle along with her. "Sorry," she whispered, even though she had nothing to apologize for.

"What's so funny?" Steve smiled, wanting to be in on the humor.

"He's in love with a flower."

"Well, yeah… but it's his flower. The kid watered that shit and everything - said so himself."

With a giggle, Rose shook her head and slid down onto the bed so that she was laying flat on her back rather than reclined against the headboard.

Steve found himself chuckling along with her as he tossed the book to the side and shifted to lay down on his side next to her. He propped his head up on his hand, tossed his other arm over her waist, and took the moment to admire the way she bit her lower lip as she smiled. Steve knew then and there that he would never get enough of just being with her.

After a few moments of silence, Rose wrinkled her nose at him. "I can tell you're looking at me and it's not fair."

"You can tell?" he asked with his eyebrows raised and a smile in his voice.

"I'm not stupid, Steve," she teased. She grinned again, and it was the type of grin that made Steve want to reach out and trace his thumb along the edge of her lower lip like he had so many times before. So he did.

"It's not fair," she repeated so quietly it was almost a whisper. "I need you to say something."

"I'm in love with you," was the only thought on Steve's mind and what slipped out of his mouth in that moment. It was something part of him always known. Something he had kept hidden out of fear of what happened the last time he fell in love, though he figured she had probably felt it in one of his memories of her by now.

But still the idea of telling her he loved her terrified him. 'We live together,' he had tried to reason with himself once before when the words were on the tip of his tongue, but then he reminded himself that Rose had him flustered. That everything they did was always backwards: Buying a house before telling her he loved her, having a full conversation before asking for her name, knowing he was in for something special before he had ever even spoken to her. He had decided not to tell her then, and he had not even meant to tell her now, but upon her request he thought the words out loud and suddenly the feeling he had kept tucked inside was out in the open. He blamed that prince kid and his damn flower.

It even took him half a second to realize what he had just told her out loud for the first time, and the moment he did, Steve leaned in and brushed his lips gently against Rose's before she had the chance to react. If she was going to call him bullshit, then he needed a moment to prepare himself first. But the way Rose smiled against his lips before deepening the kiss reminded him that she was not the girl he had once dated in high school, and he had nothing to be afraid of. She was Rose. His Rose; the one that he had watered.