A/N: This chapter is a little shorter than some of the ones I have been posting recently, but I thought everything here deserved its own chapter.

The weekend was nice for Eleven. She went out to the mall with Sarah, Amy and Lucy. She picked out a dress that the others raved about and she got some makeup that the others selected for her. When she got home, she showed off the dress to Joyce who said she looked wonderful in it. The school week was hard for Eleven because of how excited she was. She noticed that Mike was acting a little different too. He was a little anxious about the dance, but he was excited nonetheless.

Finally, Friday came around and Eleven couldn't tell what most of her teachers were saying she was so excited. Carter had nothing new to report, so they just went straight to lunch. Eleven sat down with their normal group at a table in the corner and they were all surprised when some more people sat with them.

"Hey, Elle!" said Amy as she, Sarah and Lucy sat down next to them. Eleven was happy to see them but the boys were simply confused. Dustin was the first one to voice this concern;

"What are you three doing here?" he asked. It didn't quite come out like he wanted.

"We're sitting with Elle." said Sarah.

"Yes, but that also means you're sitting with us." said Lucas. "Don't you realize how much of social suicide it is to be seen associating with us?"

"Let me tell you something, buddy; we don't care." Amy said. "We are very happy with the friends we have and you guys all seem nice enough." The boys were speechless for a while. The girls didn't seem to care and just started talking with Eleven about their plans for that night.

"So… are you guys going to the dance?" asked Lucy. She was shy around new people and didn't talk as much as the others, so it was nice to hear her engaging with the boys.

"No." said Dustin. "We're going to sit at home. Probably go to bed early."

"I'm going." said Mike, somewhat timidly. The girls giggled quietly when he said this; it was obvious that they already knew. Lunch continued on like this for the rest of the period and when the bell finally rang, Eleven went with the girls to history class.

When the day was over, Eleven met the other girls at the bike racks. They were all going directly to Sarah's house to get ready for the dance but Lucy and Sarah didn't have bikes, so they all just walked. When they got there, Eleven found that Joyce had already dropped off her dress and the makeup the girls had bought. Eleven put on her dress at the same time as the other girls. Sarah, Amy and Lucy did their own makeup because they already knew how to. When they were done, Amy and Lucy went downstairs while Sarah had Eleven sit in a chair so she could do her makeup. The process reminded Eleven of the time that Mike's unpracticed hand put makeup on her so they could sneak into the school and use the AV club equipment to find Will, but Sarah was a little better at it. She had practice and knew what she was doing. After a little bit, she announced to Eleven that she was done. Eleven looked into the mirror to her side and all she could say was;

"Pretty." Eleven slowly descended the stairs to the main floor to find Amy and Lucy waiting for her.

"Oh my god! You look like a princess!" exclaimed Amy. Lucy nodded her head in agreement. Eleven couldn't say anything, she was too flattered for words.

Sarah's mom got home from work and drove all the girls to the school. Mike was waiting at the entrance when they got there. Eleven ran out of the car as soon as it stopped and gave Mike a big hug. Mike was wearing a suit that didn't fit him. Some of the parts of it were too small, others were much too big. Eleven didn't really notice how much the suit didn't fit, she just noticed the way Mike was looking at her.

The dance was in the gym. The big floodlights on the ceiling were turned off and some big strings of white Christmas lights were strung all over the room. The moon was bright that night and its light streamed in through the small windows near the ceiling providing an eerie but nice lighting. On one end of the room was a man with a big table. Mike explained to Eleven that he was the 'DJ'. He was the one playing all the music and if they wanted him to play a specific song, they could go up and ask him. Eleven looked around and saw that there were about twice as many girls as boys. Sarah, Amy and Lucy stuck together but disappeared into the crowd to start dancing immediately. Eleven was a little more timid and Mike was more than happy to wait with her until she was ready to go dance.

After about fifteen minutes, Eleven decided she was ready. She took one more look around the room and held her gaze on one of the far corners. Mike noticed this and turned to see what she was seeing. He noticed what she was looking at and they both walked over to it.

"What are you doing here?" Mike asked Carter who was standing off in the corner.

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm chaperoning the dance."

"Why?" asked Eleven.

"Because I'm a teacher and that's what teachers do."

"But it's not something you do." Mike said, trying to force some information out of Carter that he wasn't sure was actually there.

"It's a big public gathering and I thought it would be safer if I was her. That's it. Honestly. Now… go back and dance. Have fun." Mike and Eleven reluctantly turned back but neither of them felt ready to dance anymore. Instead, they went over to the big table on the other side of the gym and Mike poured them both some punch. After about three cups of punch and a bag of pretzels each, they no longer thought anything was wrong. A slow song came on and Eleven remembered what Joyce told her to do during a slow song. She grabbed Mike's hand and pulled him to his feet. They made their way to the edge of the crowd. Mike put his hand on Eleven's waist, trying to be confident. As the song continued, they fell into each others' arms and just enjoyed dancing with each other.

The song was about to end when the lights flickered and the music cut out for a moment then returned. Nobody really noticed except for Mike and Eleven. Mike lifted his head off of Eleven's shoulder to see a concerned look on her face.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"It's here."

"What's here?"

"The thing that attacked us in the forest on Halloween." Mike's face also turned serious and he tried to push back his fear in order to do something about it.

"What should we do?" he asked. Eleven thought for a moment, trying to come up with a plan.

"It's only after me." she said.

"So?"

"So I should go somewhere else so everyone else here isn't in danger."

"I'm coming with you."

"No. It's too dangerous."

"Save your energy for fighting whatever is after you There's no way I'm letting you face it alone." A little bit of fear left Eleven and she felt a warm feeling when she realized exactly how much Mike would do for her.

They were able to sneak out a door to the side of the room and they didn't think anybody saw them. They wandered deeper into the school and eventually got to the school library.

"Here?" Mike asked Eleven. "It's certainly far enough from the dance."

"This should be good." Eleven said, not entirely sure. The two of them began mentally preparing themselves when they heard it;

"Elle! Why did you two leave?" It was Amy. She was running towards Mike and Eleven with Sarah and Lucy following close behind her.

"No no no." Eleven said, more terrified with them there than she would have been alone. "You three can't be here."

"Why not?" Sarah asked. "Do you want to spend some alone time with your boyfriend?" Amy and Lucy tried to hold back giggles but soon stopped when Eleven stayed as serious as she did.

"You have to go. Now." Eleven insisted.

"Too late." a frightened Mike said, pointing towards the big door at the entrance to the room. The figure was there again. Still completely dressed in black, but they could see a little more detail this time. The big black cloak it was wearing reminded Mike of Emperor Palpatine from Return of the Jedi. The main difference was that there was no wrinkly old face below the hood, just a completely black mask that obscured any face that was behind it.

"Who's that?" Amy loudly asked. "You trying to scare us?" she yelled at the figure. Mike and Eleven rushed over to try to get her to be quiet, but what the figure did next was enough to do that for them. The stapler from the librarian's desk lazily floated up from the table and stopped about a foot from the figure. Amy was stunned by surprise but she did manage to say; "OK… that is a little bit scary." The stapler took off at full speed towards them. Mike and Eleven pulled the rest of the girls behind one of the nearby bookshelves for cover. They were able to withstand a barrage of office supplies for a while by staying on the move and going further back through the rows of bookshelves. About a minute later, they panicked when they found themselves trapped in a corner. They saw the figure coming from one side so they desperately ran to the other. They were back out in the big open space in the middle of the library. They looked around to see where figure had gone to. It was on the opposite end of the space. There were two openings in the bookshelves that weren't blocked by the attacker. The group ran towards the first one only to have some other shelves move of their own accord to block them. They ran towards the second escape route but the same thing happened. The whole group tried to push the shelf out of the way except for Eleven who stayed in the middle and started staring down their attacker.

"Elle! What are you doing?" Sarah yelled after she saw Eleven just standing there. She thought her friend must have had a death-wish or something. A three-hole punch rose up off the desk next to the figure, the group watched in horror as they expected Eleven to be decapitated by the flying office equipment. Instead, all the books on the shelves surrounding them flew off and buried the mysterious figure. Eleven stumbled for a moment. Mike ran towards her and caught her as she fainted and fell to the floor. Her nose was bleeding so he took out a tissue from his pocket and started to clean her up. He forgot about the other girls for a moment until Lucy, usually the quiet one, was the first to say something;

"What… the hell… was that?" Mike turned his head and got ready to explain when they heard a loud noise as the big door flew open. Agent Carter rushed in, expertly handling a gun that he obviously didn't feel comfortable holding. He examined the situation. He saw three terrified girls, Eleven unconscious in Mike's lap, and a big pile of books in the middle of the room.

"What happened?" he asked.

"It came back." Mike said promptly. "The same thing that came after us on Halloween."

"And you two didn't think to tell me?"

"It didn't cross our minds. We were busy trying to figure out how to make sure whatever that…" he pointed to the pile of books. "…is didn't wreck havoc in the gym."

"Fair enough." Carter said after his examination of the situation. He was about to look for the attacker in the mountain of books when he noticed the three terrified girls again. "Who are they?" he asked.

"We're Elle's friends." Amy managed to say. "We came looking for her after we saw them leave the gym." Amy's comments made Mike think of something;

"Why aren't you in the gym?" he asked Carter.

"I saw that you two weren't there and assumed the worst." he said, walking over to the pile of books. "Apparently I was right to assume that." Carter kept the gun at the ready in his right hand and started digging around in the books, looking for the attacker. About five minutes later, he had moved every single book and there was nobody to be found in them. "It must have gotten away in the confusion when I got here." Eleven stirred and attempted to sit up.

"Oh good!" exclaimed Mike. "You're awake." He gave her a big hug.

"What happened? After I threw all the books at it?" she asked.

"We don't exactly know." said Carter. Eleven was able to sit up completely and took a look around the room. She too had forgotten that Sarah, Amy and Lucy were there. Carter noticed this and attempted to help solve the situation.

"I have some memory drugs in the chemistry room." he suggested trying to help. "We can give them some and they'll forget this night ever happened." Sarah, Amy and Lucy seemed to become even more terrified at this suggestion, but Eleven helped them out by saying;

"No. It's time they knew the truth."

Mike picked up Eleven and carried her to the chemistry room with Carter leading the way. He unlocked the door, led everyone inside, then locked it again behind them. Carter wheeled out the big comfy chair that he had behind his desk and Mike sat Eleven down on it. The rest of them took a seat except for Carter who went to the back of the room to look at all the readings he got on his equipment.

"So… the truth?" demanded Amy. Mike started the story all the way back with the day Will went missing. He told them about when they met Eleven (and that her name was Eleven, confirmed by showing them the tattoo on Eleven's arm). He went on to tell them about their findings and the final fight with the Demogorgon. If the girls hadn't been involved in a fight against a telepathic figure in a black cloak, they probably wouldn't have believed a work anything they said. Carter picked up the story from there and he told them about his first visit to Hawkins. He mainly focused on the part where he got Eleven back from the Upside Down. He didn't tell them too much about The Coalition, but Mike understood why and the story still made sense without that part. Finally, they got to the recent part of the story. They told about Carter's unexpected return and the attacks that Eleven had gotten as well as the first time they met the figure in black on Halloween.

When they were finally done, the three girls were silent. They had so many questions but none of them wanted to go first. After a long, dead silence, Sarah was the first one to talk;

"So… the headache you got at my house during the sleepover… that was someone trying to attack your mind?"

"Yes." Eleven answered. "At least that's what we think it was." Amy then stood up and began to walk towards the door. She grabbed the handle but it was locked and wouldn't open.

"Could you open the door?" she asked Carter.

"Why?" he asked in return.

"I can't deal with this right now."

"What?" asked Lucy. "Mike and Elle… or Eleven… or whatever she wants to be called… they've just been through all this too and we need to listen to them."

"But the thing I can't get over is that El lied to us. She didn't tell us something that could have protected us."

"But that's not what she did." said Lucy, being surprisingly vocal. "She didn't tell us her whole story for two reasons that I can think of. Either she is ashamed of her past life and wanted some friends that didn't know about it and just saw her as a normal person, or she was trying to protect us." Eleven was glad that Lucy was willing to stand up for her. She was even more glad when she saw Sarah nodding along to everything Lucy was saying. Amy calmed down and sat back down in her chair. She took a few deep breaths, then asked one more question;

"Now that… that thing has seen us… will it come after us?"

"No." Eleven said very sure of herself. "It isn't after you, or Mike, or Carter. It's only after me."