Protect and Survive


The way forward looked identical to the one they came from. Or the one to the left; or the right. Everything just looked white.

They had gotten lost.

"Yes, I know we're lost, man!" Mike snapped at Dustin. "Tell me how we can get un-lost."

"How?! I can't see ten feet!" Dustin snapped back.

"Guys." Lucas shouted. They were all shouting to be heard over the wind. "Come on, stop it. We have to focus."

"That's what I'm trying!" Mike had to consciously stop himself from twisting his fingers in his nervousness. Or wrapping them around Dustin's throat.

Everyone's tempers were running a bit thin. There was nothing but white as far as Mike could see and slowly but surely panic was starting to creep in. He silently cursed the storm, himself, and most of all his stupid, stupid little sister. Why on earth had she just left without saying anything?

The four of them had rushed out into the storm as soon as they'd noticed Holly was gone, but by then it was too late. There was no sign of her. Or of Will, or El. Then Max had split up from them to check if Will was at Castle Byers, while the rest of them searched for Mike's little sister. So they were currently three party members and one baby sister down, lost in a snow storm and without a real plan.

And it was Mike's fault. If not for his stupid, spur of the moment madness, they would all be lying in his basement right now, and Holly would be fast asleep in the safety of her room. But no, he just had to go ahead and kiss his best friend, didn't he?

Which had started a chain reaction of events that had led them here, though Mike still didn't fully comprehend how. Of all the reactions Mike had imagined – shock, disgust, gentle let-down – he hadn't expected Will to just run off. The look on his face – Mike hadn't seen that look since the Mind Flayer. Not just shock, but actual fear, bordering on panic. Mike had never wanted to see that look on his friend ever again, and never had he imagined that he would ever be the cause of it. So, yeah, to say that he had fucked up badly was an understatement.

He gritted his teeth and pushed harder against the snow.

Not long after, Dustin suddenly cried out and clutched his head, blood flowing from a gash on his cheek. It looked worse than it was and he didn't make a big deal out of it, but it was still nasty. The boys pulled up their hoods against the pelting of hailstones that now replaced the snowflakes ever so often. It slowed their progress even further. None of them seriously considered turning around, however.

The outlines of fences and street lights started to emerge in front of them in regular intervals. It looked familiar, and Mike mentally tried to map out what street this was. Jempsons, maybe.

Lucas had been staring at the ground almost the entire time since they left the Wheeler's house. Now he pointed at a couple of hollows in the snow ahead of them: "Hey, these kind of look like footprints. Maybe Holly came this way."

It was more of a hope than anything else, but Mike was willing to grasp for anything at this point. "Come on!"

But after only a couple of meters, the footprints – if that's what they were – were gone again. The snow was still piling up so quickly that even their own traces were starting to get lost behind them. They were chasing ghosts.

"She can't have gone far." Mike muttered, more to himself. "She can't have gone far."

Dustin groaned: "Dammit. We might as well be blind. Let's re-assess. Get in contact with Hop or something."

"The phone lines are all dead." They had tried that, extensively, but there was no reaching anybody.

Dustin threw up his hands: "Then let me make a break for the police station, so we can get more eyes out here. Cause this isn't working."

"By then it could be too la-..." Mike abruptly cut himself off when he realized what he was about to say. Too late. He squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to stop that train of thought right there. It led to places that he didn't want to revisit: months of talking into a silent walkie-talkie in the vain hopes that the girl he had only known for a week yet couldn't bear to believe was dead would pick up; staring into his best friend's eyes and willing him to come back while those eyes stared back at him without recognition; and then the endless minutes of uncertainty after they had burned the tunnels, when he didn't know if either of them had survived. Always this helpless feeling of too late and you should have done more. And now it was his baby sister who was lost, and all Mike had wished for most of the evening was that she would just go away and leave them alone. The cold, sinking feeling spreading through his chest had nothing to do with the storm.

It must have shown on his face. Dustin stepped a little closer so that he didn't have to shout and when he spoke again his tone was almost gentle: "Mike, we'll find them. But we can't do this alone. Look; I'll run to the police and get them to mount a search party. Hell, come to think of it, for all we know your sister's had the same idea and she's there right now. She's not stupid."

"That's actually a good point." Lucas jumped in in support.

Their path had led them to what looked like a crossroads. If Mike's mental map was correct, the right branch led into Mirkwood – and to the Byers' home. Where Holly might have gone, too. The police station was in the town centre, straight ahead.

Mike's every instinct protested against them splitting up even further, because that's exactly what happened with the Mind Flayer, but his friend was right, this wasn't working.

Dustin took Mike's silence as agreement. "Right. You two keep searching, and I'll call in once I get there." It looked like he tried for an optimistic smile, though it was hard to tell through the snow: "We'll have this shit solved in no time."

"You sure you can find the way?" Lucas inquired.

Dustin snorted: "Please, you are talking to a Certified Boy Scout Advanced here. I could find my way blindfolded."

"Wasn't that only a ten-day programme?"

"Whatever. Point is, I'm going, you're searching. Put those awesome tracking skills to some use at last." With that, he set off into the white.

"Keep your walkie on, we'll radio if we find anything!" Lucas yelled after him. They could just make out Dustin raising his finger in thumbs up, then he was gone.

Mike watched him disappear, his mind whirring frantically to come up with some solution to all this. It was a good thing his friends knew what they were doing, because Mike knew he wasn't thinking straight. This entire thing crashing down on his head had completely blindsided him, and he had come dangerously close to just freezing up. He nervously fiddled with the buttons of their remaining walkie. Mike wished he had thought to give it to Max before she left. At least one of their three missing persons might have gone to Castle Byers, and he desperately needed to know that at least someone was safe.

What if they aren't? Even if they are, you've still ruined everything.

He made a conscious effort to pull himself together. No time for that now. He tried to block out everything that wasn't immediately helpful in the moment, to look at it with some distance. Like a textbook exercise: All your friends are lost in a storm. The temperatures are freezing, there is almost no communication. How do we solve this problem?

"Mike? You still there?"

Lucas had already gone a few steps ahead. There was worry in his every step, too, and Mike could plainly see that it was as much for his girlfriend as for Will or Holly. As tough as him and Max tended to act around each other, they had been through the same things as the rest of the Party and so shared the same fears when someone went missing. But Lucas was currently doing a much better job of dealing with it than Mike was.

That set his priorities straight. They'd get everyone home safely. He had to make sure that happened. "Let's go." he told Lucas.

And then he'd deal with the fallout.


Castle Byers vanished behind the three teenagers as they pushed on into the storm, heading back to Hawkins. El forged ahead, while Will stayed as close to Max as possible. The redhead denied any suggestion that she wasn't fine, but with her blue fingers and lips she still looked dangerously close to hypothermia, and neither of them was about to risk losing sight of her and having her drop unconscious in the snow.

Visibility was still bad. In the white chaos, Will couldn't see further than the next ten feet in front of him. Clearly, he couldn't have been thinking straight when he stormed out into this.

And apparently Holly had followed him.

"How long ago was that?" Will asked Max again.

"I don't know, 30 minutes now? She must have gotten somewhere in that time." She sounded like she was saying that more to convince herself than anything else. "But if she didn't c-c-come here, then where did she go?"

Will slung an arm around her in an attempt to rub some warmth back into her. How long could a child hold out in this cold? Will shook his head, forcefully shoving away the image of Mike's little sister lying frozen somewhere in a snow drift. That wouldn't happen. Not if he had any say in it. It was his fault, and he was going to goddamn fix it.

All around them the storm was raging, but inside the little bubble El had created it was almost eerily quiet. It was all too easy to focus on his nervous heartbeat and enter a spiral of though which there was no coming back from. There wasn't anything to see, either; past the few feet of clear air there was nothing but white.

"Just to be clear, you three all owe me a mountain of chocolate after this." Max' voice sounded after a while. "If this isn't the ultimate test of friendship, I don't know what is."

"Friends don't want prices for their friendship." El threw over her shoulder. It came out strained, like she could barely spare enough focus to get the words out. With increasing worry, Will noted that her walk was becoming unsteady. In fact, she was almost tripping over her feet. She hadn't needed to use her powers like this in a long time, and the effort was showing.

They had to find Holly and get out of this, fast.

"Where could she have gone?" Will muttered, more to himself than the others. His friends didn't have an answer. The snow falling down on them had turned partly to hail and Will could almost physically feel the strain that it put on his sister.

Ten minutes later, Max finally conceded, "We need a new plan. It'd be dumb luck to run into her in this shit."

If only they knew where it was that Mike's little sister had wanted to go. As it was, they had absolutely nothing to go on. The thought occurred to Will that this must have been what his friends felt like when he had been lost in the Upside Down. Having no clue of what had actually happened, all they could do was guess.

Everything in Will's being resisted even considering the next thought, but he forced himself to consider it: Maybe it'll take the same now as it did then.

He caught up to El and placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. She turned towards him, blood pooling under her nose from the exertion. There was a tense look in her eyes, and Will knew she had thought the same thing.

They'd both blocked out the Upside Down as well as they could, but now it didn't seem like they had a choice.

He squeezed her hand, simultaneously pleading and reassuring: "Can you?"

El nodded grimly. With an abrupt motion, she took off her scarf and tied it around her eyes like a blindfold. "I'll find her. You take over."

She made it sound like she wanted him to jump into the driver's seat of their family car; not hold back a fully grown snow storm. Like there wasn't even any question that he could do it. That somehow made it seem possible. Will nodded, even though she couldn't see.

El knelt down in the snow and went still. Will looked at her for a long moment, torn between his misgivings of leaving her alone with this, and the practical necessities of the situation. Then he took a deep breath and reached out. Conjured up what he wanted to happen in his head, willed the snow to stay clear of them, like El had done before. At first nothing happened, but then he felt resistance, something pushing back. He raised a hand into the air, like the Jedi had done in the movie they had been watching. The gesture wasn't actually doing anything, but it helped him concentrate. It helped, turning this into a game of play-acting; like it was Halloween and he was Luke Skywalker, channelling the Force.

Otherwise, reaching for that slimy, slithering thing inside him and directing its power outwards would have been too unnerving to continue. Otherwise, the cold that spread in his chest now might have paralyzed him. Every time he did this, it felt like the Shadow was back in his veins, its presence slowing down his heartbeat and numbing his limbs. Now, like it did every single cold winter, it seemed to grow more powerful. Will hated it, and he was never sure he was in complete control of it. How could he be, really? All he could do was concentrate on what he had to do and try to block out the rest. He took another deep breath and braced himself.

He felt the exact moment when El dropped her defences. There was a brief second of calm, and then the storm came crushing over them like a hammer and it was all he could do to stay on his feet. He grimaced and pushed back. In the middle of his struggle, he felt Max' grip tighten around his back and he was grateful to have that to focus on.

Controlling this thing never came easy to him, and if he thought about it too much he knew he would lose what little control he had. Instead, Will thought of Mike.

They were in the basement and Mike was taking his hand. Holding it, not moving away. Reassuring. I'm here. We'll get through this.

The pressure faded into the background, the warmth of the memory battling the cold. Will wondered if Mike ever realized how much his simple gestures meant to him. Probably not.

He'd pushed those feelings down, buried them deep. Ignored the jealous pangs in his chest when the rest of the party talked about the pretty girls they'd seen at school. Pretended like he didn't care when everyone got dates and girlfriends, and he was still alone. Encouraged his best friend – and later the girl who was becoming like a sister to him – to commit to their relationship. It had kept him going, seeing them happy. And over time, it had gotten easier.

But now Mike had dragged those feelings right back out. Dug them up from their grave without a care for Will, who had just been about to put the grave stone on top and move on. He had kissed him. And now? Now there was hope, fluttering in Will's chest like a stupid, stubborn little butterfly, and he hated himself for how giddy it made him, still. He was 17 going on 18. Childhood crushes should not be having this effect anymore. They shouldn't.

Boys shouldn't love other boys in the first place.

Will stuttered as the memory that was his anchor changed. It's not right, it never will be. Imaginary Mike drew his hand back, a look of disgust spreading on his face. In that moment, Will knew he deserved it. Guilt and shame washed over him. He knew it was wrong to feel this way. He could never show or tell anyone.

What if they find out…

Unnatural…

Freak…

No son of mine…

His father, Troy, every voice of every other bully he'd known was joining the chorus. And with them came the cold, flooding his skin once more.

You don't belong here. Don't belong with them. Just give up, just let go…

And the Shadow, whispering, shouting in his head. Filling his chest with despair. Will shivered, feeling his hold slipping. He wanted to curl up and hide.

"You know, now I think about it, a mountain of chocolate isn't nearly enough recompense. I want each of you to try a round on my skateboard. Just for punishment. And my amusement."

Will blinked, the voices in his head fading suddenly against his friend's very real, brisk one. Dustin and Mike struggling on top of a skateboard. The girls laughing from the side-lines. There was a new image he could hold on to. Thank the heavens for Mad Max.

He dared to open his eyes to look at her. Max had cocked her head to the side, her look one of challenge. "Spare me the pitiful look. I won't let you get away this easily. Don't think you're exempt just because you're keeping me from freezing right now, Byers."

Will made a noise somewhere between a groan and a laugh. The pressure from the storm was still there, even though he had almost forgotten about it for a moment. "This's not as easy as it looks!" he managed.

"Bah, that little bit of snow?"

"It's rather a lot of snow, Max."

"Don't let me disturb you, then. Maximum Willpower, come on!"

Will blinked, very much caught off guard. But also a little bit amused. "Did you just make a double pun?" he questioned.

Max shrugged. "Might have." she proclaimed, her blue eyes flashing humorously. Credit to her; her distractions worked every time.

With his bubble somewhat under control, Will glanced over to El. His sister was motionless; her consciousness far away. Once, she had tried to explain to him what it felt like to enter this realm only she could access; the one they had dubbed the In-Between. Losing all feeling first; then everything increasing exponentially; only to find herself in a black, empty nothing. To Will, it almost sounded worse than the cold decay of the Upside-Down.

He wanted to reach out and touch her, show her that someone was there. But that would probably interrupt her concentration. Not to mention his own. He really couldn't spare any right now.

Will grew sombre. "How are you so sure that everything will turn out okay?" he asked Max. "That we're going to find Holly?"

"Correction: that you two are going to find her. I'm just the idiot following you along and pushing you forward." Max shrugged. "And second; yeah, I'm sure. I mean, this is just a snow storm. Some fucking bad weather. Come on. We've done too much to lose to that."

That was one way of looking at it, Will supposed. Easier for Max to say though; she wasn't the one having to hold back the 'bad weather'. He gritted his teeth as another wind hit his bubble.

"Kind of poetic, isn't it?"

Will glanced at her: "What?"

She made a vague gesture, encompassing Will's everything. "This."

"You just pointed to all of me."

"Yeah. I mean, look at this. You're the cleric, and you ended up getting the superpowers." She gave him a nudge. "Skinny little superhero."

Will huffed: "You make it sound cool. This doesn't feel like superhero."

Max pointedly glanced around. "I don't know. Looks pretty damn impressive to me."

Will followed her gaze and only now realized that he couldn't hear the storm anymore. His bubble was suddenly three times as big. When had that happened?

His surprise must have been extremely obvious. Max had a glint in her eye. "See? Self-confidence is the key to victory. Quit selling yourself short, Byers."

Will didn't know what he would have replied to that. He didn't get the chance, because in that moment El started moving again. She took off her blindfold, a shudder going through her entire body. Her upper lip was smeared red.

"Found her." she announced.


Mike squinted. He could see lights through the blizzard, coming from a few windows. He though he recognized the house; they were almost at the edge of town and Castle Byers wasn't much further. Holly would have come this way.

More importantly; if the house had light than its phone line might still work, too. It was a small hope, but the house was far enough from theirs that it might not have been affected. Mike made his way towards it.

He started when Lucas appeared right next to him and the other started speaking directly into his ear in order to be heard: "You're thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Yeah." he wished he sounded mores sure. He glanced at his wrist watch. It showed 2:30am. Mike didn't know when they had started or how long they had been out here, but the barely visible footprints that Lucas had found in irregular intervals were the only trace of Holly they had seen, and they were running out of time. Mike didn't know how his baby sister could have possibly stayed ahead of them with their pace, but she had and by now she had to be freezing.

"Your sister is going to be fine; everything is going to be fine." Lucas tried to reassure him, like he had read his mind.

"I don't think so." Mike said bitterly. There was so much that absolutely wasn't fine at the moment, and Lucas barely knew the half of it. "First we have to find them, and then…" He didn't know what then. Will would probably yell at him, for a start. And he would have every right to. Friends didn't just kiss their friends out of the blue because they couldn't keep some stupid emotions in check. Especially not friends who had been through what they had been through. He had betrayed that trust. "Will will hate me."

"Dude, is that seriously what you're worried about right now? Hey! Stop beating yourself up about that, right now." Lucas' command came right when there was a short break in the wind, making it sound even harsher. When Mike glanced at him, his friend was looking at him firmly: "Okay, so you said something to Will that made him go crazy." It wasn't a question.

"I wasn't thinking…"

"Did you tell him that you like him? Like, like like him?"

Mike's head whipped around so fast he thought he could feel his neck snap. Cold panic was flooding his veins. "How…?"

"Just putting the pieces together." Lucas nodded to himself, took the numb Mike by the shoulder and dragged him under the porch of the lit house for some shelter. He rang the doorbell and turned to face his friend again. "Look, Will doesn't just up and leave, not unless he's really freaked out by something. There's not a lot left that can manage that."

"…but I could." Mike groaned, shoulders slumping. He hadn't done anything about his feelings for such a long time, and he'd managed to break that tradition at the worst possible time. And now he couldn't take it back, and Lucas had figured it out. Figured out Mike's liking of Will. Liking of boys.

Lucas glanced over his shoulder. "Whoever lives here is taking their sweet time to answer the door." he stated.

Mike barely heard him. Somehow, absurdly, the idea of everyone knowing suddenly scared him more than anything else this evening. His mind instinctively raced through the possible things he could say to deny everything. Then his remaining sanity finally caught up and reminded him that Lucas was right; that was hardly the most pressing concern right now. It didn't really matter anymore; did it? "I kissed him." the words burst from his lips.

There, now it was out. Maybe Mike would have felt relieved if he weren't feeling so guilty. "Go on; tell me I'm a freak; an idiot; whatever. I know."

Lucas stared at him incredulously. Perhaps he hadn't expected such a direct confession. "You- so you didn't just… so you really do like him, then, and you never… and you pick now to…" With a groan, he buried his face in his hands. "Idiot. Why did you not say something sooner? Fuck, so that's why he ran off. Man, if you have to kiss him at least warn him first, for fuck's sake!"

Mike let his head fall, then stopped half-way through the motion when he noticed the undertone in-between Lucas' cursing. "Wait. Are you saying I should have – are you okay with it?"

His friend's face twisted in a way Mike had never seen before. "I don't know, man, it's- it feels a bit weird. You and Will, like… I don't know." He shook his head forcefully. "But seriously; if that's how it is, you couldn't have picked any better time?! Like literally any other?"

Mike sighed. "It doesn't matter now, anyway. You saw what happened. We don't have time for this now; we have to find Will and El and my sister, and maybe afterwards I can ask him to forgive me. I'll settle for friends if he will; it's probably just a stupid crush, anyway."

Lucas stared at him like he wasn't sure what he was looking at. Finally, he shook his head: "Jesus. You are so blind, man."

Mike frowned. "What the hell does that mean, now?"

"Seriously, our cleric wears his heart on his sleeve, and the way he used to look at you…" Lucas broke off. "Fucking hell. You'll figure that out once we're out of this mess. By now Dustin should have found Hopper, and if Holly's come this way…"

He never got to finish his sentence. The door they were huddled against swung open, making the two of them almost fall headfirst into the house. Mike caught himself just in time.

The elderly woman who had opened it didn't look nearly as surprised as she should have been to find two teenage boys on her doorstep. "What are you doing outside? Come in!" she exclaimed immediately.

She looked old enough to be Mike's grandma, with a stocky frame and a cane in her left hand which she leaned on heavily. No wonder it had taken her so long to open the door. More importantly, though, Mike could see a phone receiver on the wall behind her. Now just to hope that it worked.

"Uh, sorry." Lucas apologized, taking the lead for the still slightly shaken Mike. "Could we use your phone, please? We just really need to call someone and then we're already gone again."

"Not in this storm you're not." the old woman protested, ushering them inside with her free hand. "The phone works, alright. But what is wrong with you children these days, to be outside in this weather? You could get frostbite!"

"It's really urgent." Lucas explained. "We have to call the police."

But Mike had stopped mid-step as the woman's words had reached him. "What do you mean, 'children'? Have you seen many children in this storm?"

"Right well I have! Everyone must think it's such a good idea to play outside, and never mind the fever or the toes falling off! I used to work at the hospital, you know, and I've seen more than my fair share of stupid folk like that. Older folk than you, too, but mostly it's boys your age. Irresponsible. You two need some hot tea and mittens before I'll let you back out that door, and then your parents will get something to hear…"

Mike's thoughts were racing. He cursed himself for not thinking of this before. Holly and he were wired very similarly, fervently though he might deny that. Despite her being only six and just coming up to his knees, her first thought must have been to call the police, too. If she had come this way and seen this lit house…

"Excuse me," he cut through the woman's stream of words, "have you seen a girl? Small, six years old, wearing a rainbow jacket? She's my sister and we are looking for her."

The woman looked at him in surprise. "She is your sister?"

His heart skipped a couple of beats. "Is she still here?!" he asked breathlessly.

"The poor thing was half-frozen." the woman shook her head. "Told me to call the cops, too, but I told her 'No; first I'll make you a hot cup of tea!' What was she thinking, being outside in this weather…"

"Where is she?!" Mike interrupted. "You didn't let her leave, did you?!"

"What- of course not! She's right back there in the kitchen, with some hot tea. Right worked up she was; took me some time to get her to sit down. Young man, how could you let such a little girl…"

Mike had already stormed past her. In addition to relief, there was now anger building inside him. Holly would get something to hear from him, and he didn't even care that their mother would no doubt give her a far worse speech than he could ever come up with…

That though process came to an abrupt stop, just as Mike did when he stormed into the kitchen. The room was empty, save for a steaming mug on the table. No Holly anywhere.

Lucas barged into him from behind, startled at Mike's sudden stop. His eyes, too, fixed on the steaming mug. "Where is…?"

"Holly!" Mike yelled, in the hope that she would just be over in the next room. But no little sister came running around the corner. Then he saw the window. The pane was thrown open, with a cold wind blowing in from outside.

Mike cursed silently. Damn his stubborn, stupid sister. "She's gone!" he told the old woman who came shuffling in behind them.

She stared at the open window. "But she couldn't have… I only just left to open the door…"

"She can't have gone long! Come on!"

"We should still find her footprints." Lucas added.

They left back through the front door and hurried around the side of the house. Snow drifts had piled up almost to their knees and they had to move agonizingly slow. Maybe Mike was imagining it, but visibility seemed to be improving. The storm seemed to be letting up.

Still there was no sign of his sister. When they turned the corner, he couldn't see any footprints on the ground. But the fence to the neighbouring garden had been blown over, making that the only possible way to go, and Mike started in that direction. Scratch his mother's speech; Holly would certainly get something to hear from him first.

He was already half-way over the fallen fence posts when Lucas suddenly called, "Mike?!"

Mike stopped and turned around, following his friend's line of sight. At first he didn't see what he was pointing at. There was just a pile of snow right below the roof, only sticking up a little higher than that around it. Then Mike saw the little speck of colour in the white that Lucas had noticed.

Just a piece of it stuck out of the heap. Rainbow-coloured. And, barely visible, five blue little fingers attached to it.

His brain short-circuited. He rushed towards the heap, grabbed for the hand and pulled. The little body of his sister emerged from the snow, covered head to toe in the same rainbow colours. The edge of some rusted piece of metal emerged with her. Holly's face was blue, just like her fingers. Her eyes were closed.

Please no. Please don't let this happen. Mike put his ear to his sister's chest, frantically searching for a heartbeat, but through the layers of clothing he couldn't hear anything. "Get help!" he cried over his shoulder at Lucas. He heard his friend rushing off.

Holly was ice-cold. Like Will, once the Mind Flayer had him. Mike remembered that clammy feeling of his skin vividly, though he fervently wished he didn't. He hugged the small body in his arms in an attempt to spend as much warmth as he could.

"Ugh."

It was little more than a breath that escaped from Holly's lips, but it was a life sign. Mike nearly sobbed with relief. He hugged her tighter, cradling her head against his chest. If he could just get her inside quickly, that terrible blue colour would vanish from her face…

That's when he noticed the blood.

It had already hardened in the cold, but Holly had a big gash on her forehead, right at the hairline. Mike ghosted his hand over it with concern. It almost looked as if she had been hit over the head. His eyes fell on the pile of snow, then on the rusty piece of metal that had been buried alongside Holly. It was long, with small bars set in regular intervals. Mike could see a jagged edge where the metal seemed to have been violently ripped apart.

By the time he made the connection and noticed the creaking noise overhead, it was too late.

He looked up just as the second roof-gutter they were crouched underneath gave way under the pressure of snow that had piled up; the metal screaming as it tore free from its embedding and fell, directly towards them. An avalanche of snow came with it.

The world seemed to shrink. In the split second he had, Mike did the only sensible thing: he lifted his arms to protect his head and used the rest of his body to shield Holly as best as he could. He closed his eyes, waiting for the impact.

The world became very quiet all of a sudden.

After a good five seconds, Mike realized that nothing had happened. What? He lowered his hands and looked up – and then he saw his friend standing there, just a couple of feet away. Mike blinked at him, uncomprehending. He had to be hallucinating. "Will?" he said uncertainly.

The Will-hallucination looked at him; his face twisted in concentration and his eyes flicking back and forth between Mike and something above his head.

Mike glanced up.

Above them, the entire mass of ice, snow and roof gutter was floating in mid-air, only inches separating it from his head. Mike's mouth fell open. He turned back around to his friend. Will gritted his teeth, and the absurd cloud that had nearly buried Mike and Holly moved. Agonizingly slowly so, but it did move, until the air above them was clear. Then Will gasped and his knees crumpled. With a muted ploof, the avalanche crashed down a few feet behind the Wheelers. A split second later, Will followed.

"Will!" every fibre of Mike's body wanted to rush over to him, but he didn't dare let go of Holly, either.

Lucas solved his dilemma, turning up with some man by his side who must have been a neighbour or something; it didn't really matter. His friend forcefully pried Holly from Mike's hands and they carried her off. By the time Mike had bolted over to where Will had fallen, Max and El where already there, having turned up from somewhere and pulling him up from the snow.

"Got him." El said, sounding relieved. "Got each other."

"Jesus Christ, did you see that?!" added Max, sounding breathless.

All three of them looked dead-tired. Will just looked awful. His face was smeared with dirt and tear lines, dark circles appearing under his eyes. His nose was bleeding and he looked worryingly pale. But he was breathing and his eyes were open, and in that moment that was all that mattered to Mike. The dread that had sat with him since his friend had stormed out of the house fell somewhere by his feet, giving way to a feeling that was almost relief, if the situation weren't so serious. He moved in and slipped one of his friend's arms over his shoulder, taking over from Max, who looked like she could barely stay upright herself. Neither could El, now that Mike looked at her.

She caught his gaze and gave a slight nod. "It's okay. Found you. Found her. All safe." she said. Tiredness and urgency still sometimes brought forth that concise way of speaking that she had all but shed in the years after the lab.

But her words calmed Mike down a tiny bit. She tended to have that effect. That and the fact that Will was okay, at least more than before. "How- how? How did you find us? Were you together? Max, did you…"

Will gave an incoherent noise.

Mike twisted to get a good look at his face, worry and anxiousness coming right back. He still had trouble processing what he had seen his small best friend just do. On the upside, that combined with the single-minded focus of get them to safety now effectively stopped him from thinking about anything else. "Will?"

"M' fine." came the muffled answer. The hazel eyes blinked up at him, unfocused but with recognition. "You're – okay." he muttered.

"Ssh, don't talk." Mike admonished. With a quick glance at the two girls, he made sure that they were still holding up. "Come on. Inside. Lucas's got Holly there already. You need to warm up."

The four of them had to make an odd sight, carrying each other more than walking across the doorstep. Mike didn't really care; they were here. From then on, the rest of what happened was all a blur for him. There were faces, familiar and unfamiliar; hugs; hot tea; police lights and questions and then at some point he just sat down somewhere and passed out.


Well, the new season came and went real fast, didn't it? And with it came the ideas to write more stuff. But this time, before I start anything new, I'm finally finishing up the stories that I left hanging for one reason or another. This one in particular I've been dying to complete.