NINE / June, June, June

It is amazing what the body can do when you test it. Nine knew that firsthand. That being said, her physical limits have never truly been challenged before. Not like this.

She ran as fast as her legs could carry her through the forest, relying solely on instinct and will to keep her wounded feet moving. With her, she carried an unconscious girl on her back, and although the June was eight years younger, she was taller and weighed just as much.

Nine began to panic. She had no clue about the world she had found herself in and no idea where she was going, but she had trusted June to get them there. Now, they both had to rely on Nine's scrawny legs and nonexistent sense of direction. Their lives depended on it.

There was no way of telling how long they had been running. Minutes? Hours? Days? How was Nine supposed to know? And she was cold. So cold, and exhaustion ran deep into her bones. Just as she thought of giving up, she noticed June's slow and strained breathing in her ear, reminding Nine that she had to keep going. She had to find help. She had to save her.

Nine knew it was all her fault that this was happening to June, and the thought echoed in her mind until it was the only thing she could hear. Not the gentle breeze or the chrunch of leaves under her feet or the voice of someone calling after her.

Stumbling upon a tree she thought she recognized, she worried she had been running in circles. Nine had died once before, but they were both about to die out here together if she did not figure something out. Starting with poor June. But it was then, as she came across the familiar tree, that she slowed her pace to a walk and turned into the world around her, almost hoping it would shout an answer at her.

And it did.

"Hey, wait up!" she heard someone call in the distance behind her, accompanied by several sets of running footsteps. "Let us help you!"

Help. She stopped in her tracks and gently moved June off of her aching back and onto the ground. Her chin and neck were covered in the blood she had coughed up and her face was smeared with dirt. She just hoped whoever was after her would be able to help save the young girl.

"Is she dead?"
"Dustin!"
"It's a serious question, Lucas."

Nine could not speak. She realized she did not know and the guilt rang over in her mind again and again. Dead. Dead. Dead? June was supposed to live. She had seen it! Nine knew the future could change, but not now. Not today. She willed it not to happen.

She cradled June's head to her chest, wishing for her to feel just how sorry she was. Lifting the hem of her own hospital gown, Nine tried to clean the blood off of June's face but it mostly just smeared around. Why? Why? Why?

The footsteps silenced as they caught up to her. At first, none of the people said anything, and neither did Nine. She just kept feeling crushed under the weight of guilt as she tried to soak up the blood on June's face. Not once did she look up to her whoever was chasing her until one of them crouched in her peripheral and muttered to himself.

"Holy shit."

Looking up, she expected to find him staring down at the mess of blood and dirt and sweat painted over June's unconscious face, but he was not. He was studying Nine with wide eyes of wild disbelief, a look she had grown to associate with any of Papa's new employees. A similar reaction was drawn from both of the boys he was with, and it immediately put her on edge.

The boy who crouched next to her, who appeared to be older than the other two, reached out to touch Nine. She flinched away immediately, pulling June in closer to her.

"I know you don't know me, but I need you to trust me, Nine. Please."

He was proving himself to be the exact opposite of trustworthy. How did he know who she was? He must be working with the doctor. He must have escaped the locked basement and sent them to find her. She shook her head a little too violently at him. No. No. No. With June still in her arms, she felt herself slowly inching away.

"I know Ten."

She froze.

"We all do."

Her eyes danced between all three of them. The boy who was crouching before her had a look in his eye that was almost begging her to believe him. The two younger boys standing behind him nodded in confirmation.

Once again, Nine pulled June closer to her chest, but with her other hand reached out and grabbed the begging boy's wrist, searching his memories with one intention in mind. Ten. Ten. Ten.

Steve's two shithead friends had ditched him at a party in the city, and he was contemplating leaving when someone interrupted his thoughts by obnoxiously shouting, "Party's here!"

Steve looked toward the door, curious to see Indianapolis' best, just in time to catch sight of two beautiful, dark haired girls walking through the door. They squealed with excitement as they hugged their friends.

"You don't find girls like that in Hawkins," joked Nate, and Steve turned to see that his friend, along with his friend's new roommate, Kevin, had rejoined him in his corner of solitude. After what happened with Nancy Wheeler last Halloween, Steve decided he was not one for parties.

"Or that," Kevin said with a nod.

Steve turned back to discover a girl with short hair wearing blue denim shorts and a black long sleeved shirt walk through the door. She was pale, even in the peak of summer, and Steve could not help but admire the shape of her button nose and the curve of her full lip, even from a distance. She was not just pretty, and immediately Steve knew it was not just a passing attraction. He felt drawn to her as if she were magnetic.

He let his eyes trail down her figure, but they were stopped short by the hand on her waist, and for the first time Steve noticed the boy standing next to her. Tall and lanky, he was dressed in all black and his arms were covered in badly drawn tattoos. She had a boyfriend. Shit.

The way she looked up at him with all of the care in the world sent a wave of jealousy through Steve, and it made him stop and ask himself why. He had only ever observed the girl for a few seconds, let alone ever spoken to her.

Some muscular guy walked over to them and handed the happy couple drinks, and then leaned in to whisper something in the boyfriend's ear. The boyfriend grinned before kissing the other guy. Holy shit. Not a boyfriend. Well, not hers anyway. All lost hope was regained.

Steve smiled to himself as the girl downed the drink in her hand a beelined to the kitchen alone, taking note of the unique sway to her hips as she walked. Apparently his shithead friends had been watching the short scene unfold, too. "Damn. The things I would do to that girl…" Nate deadpanned.

"Don't be a dick, man," Steve snapped in defense of the stranger. He downed the rest of his drink and pushed past his friends in pursuit of the kitchen.

"Where the hell are you going, Steve?" Nate called after him.

"Where the hell do you think?"

"Aww, come on man. She's way too hot, even for you," Kevin said.

Steve knew they were right. This girl was so attractive it hurt, but he also somehow knew that she was so much more than that. A feeling in his gut told him he needed to talk to her. That somehow she was special. Maybe he was just crazy. Or maybe it was the alcohol.

Either way, he made his way through the crowd and into the kitchen to find her sitting on the counter in the corner, drink in hand, lightly swaying from side to side to the beat of the music. He stopped in his tracks when a girl in a denim jacket (one of the squealing, dark haired girls from before) handed her a shot, which she threw back even though her expression seemed pained by it.

Denim jacket girl began firing questions, though over the music Steve could not make out what they were saying. The girl of interest answered everything by simply shaking her head from left to right or up and down, until one comment caused her to throw her head back laughing before her friend scurried off to join the rest of the party, leaving the girl alone.

Her grin faltered when her friend left, though she returned to contently swaying. Steve continued to go unnoticed, but the magnet slowly pulled him closer. She leaned her head back against the cabinet behind her and closed her eyes, the remnants of a smile ghosting her lips. Steve could tell this party was the last place she wanted to be, and smiled to himself at the one thing they already had in common.

Her pull on him grew stronger and he took a deep breath, crossing the rest of the kitchen to where she sat near some bottles of booze and mixers. 'Just act like you don't care,' he reminded himself. He took a deep breath and looked up to her, his eyes skimming all the details of her face. 'Don't fuck this up, Harrington.'

He heard himself begin talking, but he could not remember what he was even saying. She lifted her head and opened her eyes to look at him, and he felt his heart drop to his stomach.

Ten. Nine dropped his hand and she felt a whirlwind of different emotions run through her. She looked back to the boy crouched before her, and this time she was the one in disbelief. 'He knows Ten,' echoed through her mind and suddenly she was so close to seeing her sister again she could almost taste it.

"Help?"
"Yeah. Yeah, of course."
"She needs help."
"Shit. Right."

The boy leaned over and listened for June's breath. His eyes went wide as he scooped the young blonde girl up in his arms and started in the direction they had just come from.

"Signal Hopper, tell him to meet us at my car."

He took off running with June, and Nine scrambled to her feet to sprint after him. However, she was weak and did not make it very far. Leaning against a tree for support, she stopped to catch her breath. The other two boys had been running after her, and trailed not to far behind. Once she was stopped, they caught up quickly.

"Wow, you're fast."
"You don't need to run, we'll catch up with them."

Nine looked back and forth between the two boys and nodded, but her jumbled mind really was not sure what to think. She reached for one of their hands and looked for Ten.

Figuring he could use the help and Steve's kitchen, Dustin recruited Rose to help make a birthday cake for his mom, which they both quickly realized was a mistake. Neither of them knew what they were doing. He found the directions impossible to follow, and so they played off it like a guessing game. Dustin kept using the terms 'oops' while Rose kept using the term 'sweet salt,' because she could not remember the word for sugar. They got halfway through stirring the batter when they realized Steve did not even own a baking pan. Casualties included the entire bottle of vanilla extract they dropped into the mix and the three eggs they lost to the floor.

They were about to just give up when Dustin remembered Max and El had made a cake for Mike's birthday. He called Max for help but every time one of them tried to explain their situation, it sent them into another fit of giggles, so they just told her to hurry. She showed up quickly, expecting some sort of emergency. Instead she discovered Dustin and Rose looking like little kids on the kitchen floor, with each covered in a layer of flour while they clutched their stomachs and laughed so hard that their ribs ached.

Ten. They truly knew her, too. So Nine would pretend to trust them until she actually did.

A cold gust of wind sent shivers down her spine and the boys noticed her outfit for the first time: a tattered hospital gown covered in dirt and June's blood. The dark skinned boy shed his outermost layer and held it out for her. Nine blinked at the coat a few times before the other boy - the one who's past she had just seen - took it from his friend and draped it over Nine's shoulders. It was warm from the boy's body heat and she wrapped it tighter around herself. She thanked them both with a small smile.

"You look just like her."
"Uh, no shit, that's how twins work."
"I know damn well how twins work, it's just… uncanny."

After she found herself looking back and forth between the boys again, she began walking in the direction the other boy took June while the younger kids followed closely behind and continued to talk amongst themselves.

The first thing she saw past the trees were two cars, just like the ones June had warned her about. Except these ones were stopped. Three boys stood between them, looking down at the ground. Nine recognized one as the boy who took June. The other two looked younger - the same age as the two boys she was walking with now. On the ground was June, receiving chest compressions form an older man dressed in all beige as he begged her to stay with him - it was becoming her mantra.

The boy who took June noticed Nine near the edge of the woods first, and began walking over to her and the boys, but he was just in her way. She pushed through him and sped over, falling to her knees on the ground next to June, earning her shocked reactions from the three new boys. But Nine was too busy taking June's cold cheeks in her hands.

She could not see anything, no matter how hard she tried. June was gone.

No. That's not right. It was not supposed to end like this.

"No. No no no. She lives, I saw it… I-I saw it."
"I'm doing everything I can, kid."

Tears threatened Nine's eyes but she could not allow herself to cry. Seeing the past had made her weak, but she would not let it show. She had to be strong. For herself, and for June.

Nine knew what it was like to die. She knew June was lost in the peaceful black with no need to remember anything at all. But Nine took the girl's hand in both of hers and tried to project her own present into June's lifeless body, anyways. She tried to think thoughts about how sorry she was, and how guilty she felt. Thoughts about how hard it was to die and come back, but that June was strong enough to do it. How they would eat strawberries on her birthday, and how they would find Ten and Alex, and how everything would be okay. They would be okay. She just had to come back first.

But then Nine realized she was crazy. She was not projecting, she was holding the hand of a dead girl and thinking of all the things she wished she could say but did not know the words. Then she realized she hardly knew June at all. But that never mattered because they had shared a mutual goal and understanding which lead to an indescribable bond. They had wanted nothing more than to help each other, but Nine had let her down. June was gone.

The man stopped the compressions to check her pulse, but everyone knew she was not coming back.

"I'm so sorry, June."
"Junie Fletcher?"

Nine looked up to see the smallest boy, one who was not in the woods with her, looking to her. His eyebrows were raised expectantly for a question Nine did not know the answer to. The raven-haired boy next to him frowned.

"You know her?"
"Yeah… If it's really Junie. Jonathan knows her brother, but I haven't seen them around in a while."

Her brother. He knows her poor brother. It was a stab to Nine's heart. They had both been so close to getting everything they were after. So close to Alex and Ten. So close to eating strawberries in May. If only, if only, if only.

"Is he Alex?"
"Yeah…"

A single tear slid down Nine's cheek. It is amazing how much the heart hurts when it breaks.