Chapter Eleven

"El, are you alright?" asked Hopper as he gently shook her. She opened her eyes and looked at him. He noticed that she seemed slightly upset. "What's going on? Were you checking up on your brother again? Is Will alright?"

Eleven stared at the floor hearing Mike's voice saying "Friends don't lie" in her head. Hopper had proven himself to be her friend. "I-I'm sorry. I had to."

"You had to what?" asked Hopper gently.

"Will was hurting, he was really hurting. I had to tell him I'm okay," said Eleven. "I didn't tell them where I am, just told them I'm okay."

Hopper took at deep breath, sat in a chair and put his face in his hands.

"Are-are you mad?" asked Eleven cautiously. Hopper looked up and shook is head. Knowing that Sarah was out there and alive, he couldn't blame Eleven for wanting to contact her family and let them know she was alright. He'd give anything to hear from Sarah.

"No, kid, I'm not mad. Your family has every right to know you're okay. Just promise you'll be careful. Your family is being watched and so is Mike's."

"Watched?"

Hopper nodded. "There are some powerful people who suspect you're still alive and they don't want to let you just go and live with your family, understand?"

"I understand."

"I will get you safely back to your family, kid, I promise. I just need to find out who we can trust and who can help us." Hopper handed Eleven a bag filled with packages. "Merry Christmas, kid."

Eleven had heard her family using the work 'presents' in reference to similar packages for Will. "Will didn't want to open his presents today. He was too sad."

"Yeah, well, he probably won't be as sad anymore knowing you're safe," said Hopper. "You did the right thing by letting him know. Now, go ahead and open your presents. I'll fix you up something to eat and then you can get some sleep. We have a big day of cleaning up the cabin tomorrow. And I found something in your room at the lab. If you don't want it, I understand."

Hopper pulled out Eleven's old stuffed lion- the item that had been her only comfort for so many years. Knowing that Will had one just like it, made it that much more special. Eleven smiled, took the lion and hugged it. Hopper ruffled her hair.

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Joyce was unable to sleep that night. She felt a certain amount of elation knowing that her daughter was alive and- for the moment- safe. She also felt frustration with the fact that Eleven had to hide and that certain people were also watching Will. The living room was filled with boxes of items people in town had gotten for Will. She had finally been able to talk Will into opening his Christmas presents. He'd gotten an Atari with a few game. He and Mike at set it up and played it for a few hours. It gave Joyce some comfort to see Will enjoying himself for the first time in a while.

Jonathan had spent the evening trying out his new camera. He seemed to want to take pictures for Eleven's sake. He, like Will, was in better spirits than Joyce had seen him in a long time once he learned that his newly discovered sister was safe.

Joyce finished her chamomile tea, set the cup in the sink and walked down the hallway. She leaned on the door frame. A small amount of moonlight illuminated Will's face. He seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Joyce began to formulate a plan in her head. Why if she had Will contact Eleven and meet them somewhere. They could all go to a new town and start a new life.

Joyce's eyes drifted to Mike, who was curled up on the floor in his sleeping bag. Her head was flooded with all the problems of running away to start a new life. Where would they go? How would they keep themselves safe? Were would they get the money? And finally, could she take Will away from his friends?

Joyce walked over to Will's bed and knelt beside him. He was clutching his old stuffed lion. She caressed his forehead, hoping she wouldn't wake him. "We'll figure this out, Baby. I have no idea how, but we'll figure it out."

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Over the next few months, Will was taken to Hawkins lab for regular check ups. It wasn't Joyce's first choice, knowing her daughter had been a prisoner there, but she didn't have much of a choice. How many doctors knew how to treat a child who had poisoning from breathing the toxic air of an alternate dimension for four days. Will's recovery had been stunted because he had used his abilities so soon after returning and not having enough time to fully recover according to Dr. Owens.

Hopper always accompanied Joyce and Will to the appointments. He had never wanted them to go into that place alone and having Eleven living with him had significantly increased that feeling. Eleven didn't want he brother and mother in that place, even though the new people didn't seem as bad as Papa's people.

Will experienced a couple of brief flashes into the Upside Down. They only lasted a couple of seconds, so he convinced himself they were just in his head. Part of him felt like he should tell Mike and his family, but he didn't want to worry them. Dr. Owens said that he was likely to experience PTSD after everything that had happened. He decided that he would talk to Eleven if and only if they got significantly worse.

One day in mid March, Will was sitting in the exam room with his mother and brother. Hopper had gone to talk to the doctors. "I'm going to find out what's going on," said Joyce after a few minutes. "Jonathan, stay with Will."

Joyce headed down the hall. She knew that Hopper was likely talking about the cover ups with Dr. Owens, but she hated being in the building and hated her son's being in the building.

"Chief, this will all be easier if you and Joyce Byers trust me," Joyce heard Dr. Owens saying as she was about to knock on the door of his office.

"Why should we?" asked Hopper. "Your people are still treating her missing daughter like a fugitive and trying to convince her to turn over her son."

"They think the girl is dangerous. It's not easy for me to convince them otherwise when she did kill a lot of people that night," said Dr. Owens.

"She killed people who had imprisoned her most of her life," said Hopper. "And those people were trying to kill all of us. They people calling her dangerous are the dangerous ones."

"I personally agree with you, but I'm between a rock and a hard place. It's one thing to keep them away from Will, but it's something else to keep them away from his sister. I'm doing what I can. What is it going to take for you to trust me?"

"For the millionth time: getting them to leave Joyce and her kids alone, getting all of those kids Brenner and the others kidnapped back to their parents and bringing my daughter back to me."

Joyce froze. Had Hopper said what she thought he had said?

"We may be making some progress with that," said Dr. Owens. Joyce heard him ruffling through some papers. "Does this girl look like Sarah?"

"Where was this?"

"It was a party for Tess corp. Apparently, people were claiming she was Argus Tess' granddaughter, but she doesn't look like him and no one had seen her before or since. None of the Tess family recognized her and apparently, one of their designs went missing,"

"You don't know where she is now?" asked Hopper.

"This is the first lead," said Dr. Owens. "Do you think this girl could be Sarah?"

Hopper paused. "I know it's her. I remember that birthmark on her neck."

"Okay, we'll follow up on this lead," said Dr. Owens.

"That'll go a long way to earning my trust," said Hopper. "And see what you can do about getting them-whoever they are-to leave Joyce and her kids alone while you're at it."

"Will do," said Dr. Owens. "Here are Will's test results from today. Take these to Joyce and I'll be over in a few minutes to discuss them with her."

Joyce quickly stepped to the side so she wouldn't be visible when Hopper opened the office door. He noticed she was there as he closed it. He gestured for her to follow. When they were out of earshot, Hopper asked:

"How much did you hear?"

"Enough," said Joyce. "Sarah's still alive?"

"Yeah," said Hopper as he briefly fidgeted with Will's paperwork then handed it to her. "Brenner's people faked her death. It seems to be a pattern with them, but they experimented on me and some other men in my platoon without our knowledge and Sarah ended up with abilities. A couple of the agents told me before they tried to kill me that night."

"Why didn't you tell me?" asked Joyce.

"You've got more than enough to worry about already, Joyce."

"That doesn't mean I wouldn't want to help you," said Joyce. "Is there anything else you're not telling me?"

Hopper stopped and looked at Joyce carefully. "I have a few secrets I'm keeping from you. I don't want to keep them, but I have to for now. You might be angry with me when you find out what they, but I have to keep those secrets for now."

"You aren't helping the lab poison the town's water supply, are you?" asked Joyce.

"Nothing like that," said Hopper.

"Then what?" asked Joyce.

"You'll find out soon enough," said Hopper.

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Back in the cabin, Eleven pulled off her blindfold and wiped the blood from her nose. If she was communicating with Will, she didn't need to do anything that caused a nosebleed, but she had decided to follow her mother and see what they doctor said about Will. She had not expected to learn that Hopper had a daughter that Papa had kidnapped.

Eleven knew she could find Sara, but she needed a picture. She tried to think where one might be. She remembered seeing Hopper putting some old boxes into the floor late one night. She paced back and forth trying to think where the hole in the floor might be, then realized it must be hidden somewhere. She began to wave her arms to move the furniture. The chair got caught on something and tipped over. Eleven noticed a hole in one of the boards. She stuck her finger in and lifted it up. She leaned over and saw the boxes. One of them was indeed marked "Sarah."

Eleven crawled into the spaced under the floor and heaved the box up. She began flipping through stick drawings that were a lot like the ones she had done at the lab. She finally found some envelopes with pictures. There was a little girl with blond hair and pigtails. Eleven turned the radio back on and put on her blindfold.

She quickly found herself in the void. There was a blond haired girl about the same age and her, Mike, and Will. She was sitting on a bed and staring off into space. Eleven started to approach her, but was pulled from the void with the sound of Hopper's secret knock. Eleven pulled off her blindfold and stared at the door. She decided to confront Hopper directly. She jerked her head and unlatched the locks.

Hopper entered and stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed that Sarah's box was open. Eleven held up Sarah's picture. "I-I saw her in a room. I can help find her."

"How did you know?" asked Hopper.

"Was checking on my Mom and she heard, so I heard. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I didn't want to use you, kid," said Hopper as he took Sarah's picture back and ran his fingers over it.

"U-use me?"

"Yeah, I know myself and I want my daughter back more than anything. If I let you help, it could put you in danger. You've already been through enough. So have your mother and brothers."

"But I want to help," said Eleven earnestly. Hopper sat on the sofa and started wringing his hands. He looked at Eleven.

"You say you saw Sarah in a room, do you know where the room is?"

"Not yet, if I could go-" Eleven pointed at the front door. Hopper shook his head.

"Like I said, I want to find Sarah more than anything, but I'm not going to put you in danger to get her back. Understand?"

Eleven stared at the floor and nodded sadly. "Yes." Hopper stood up and put his hand on her shoulder.

"I appreciate that you want to help. It shows that you're a caring person. This Dr. Owens seems to want to help all of us, I'm just not sure about his bosses. Maybe we can work something out soon so it'll be safe for you to be with your family. I'm going to keep working at that-" Hopper stopped and looked at the hatch door to the crawl space thoughtfully. "Hang on a second, kid, I may have an idea."

Hopper went down into the crawl space and came back up carrying a large paper book.

"What's that?" asked Eleven.

"This is a directory for southern Indiana. If you saw the address in here, do you think you could tell if Sarah is there?"

"Maybe," said Eleven. She'd done something similar a few times at the lab.

"How about you look through this while I'm at work during the day. I'll see if I can check out more directories from the library. This could be a way for you to help find Sarah without putting yourself at risk."

"I can do that," said Eleven. She started to open the directory, but Hopper took it back.

"Not yet. We're going to have some dinner, then you're going to get some rest. Got it?"

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Will hadn't felt like having a party for his 13th birthday. He had agreed to more for Eleven's sake as she had never gotten to experience a birthday. Eleven had seen Lucas, Dustin and Mike's birthday parties through Will and had a lot of questions about birthdays. They were having his party in Mike's basement because the Byers house wasn't big enough for all the the guests and it wasn't warm enough for an outdoor party yet.

The main reason that Will didn't want to have a party was because people stared at him all the time. Before he had disappeared into the Upside Down, most people ignored him. He'd always been fine with that as he didn't like attention. He had to constantly fight the desire to to use his invisibility as extended periods of it made him sick.

Will was the point of contact for his mother, brother and Mike to talk to Eleven. They'd give him extra hugs then whisper something meant for his sister. Will was starting to feel as though he was intruding on private moments between his sister and the others. He was beginning to feel frustrated, but also feel guilty for being frustrated. He was the only way for anyone to communicate with Eleven at that moment and no one was at fault for that.

Sometimes, when he was alone in his room late at night and he was certain that Eleven was no longer watching him, he would curl up under his blankets and cry in frustration. His frustration with his situation and not talking about it because he didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings was made worse by his occasional momentary flashes to the Upside Down. He normally would have at least told Mike about something like that, but didn't want to bother him. He really didn't want to tell the doctors at Hawkins Lab about it as he feared it would give them the excuse they needed to take him away from his mother.

On his thirteenth birthday, his momentary flashes to the Upside Down became what everyone would refer to as episodes. In his last class of the day, his teacher Miss Davey had decided that she'd have the class sing Happy Birthday. Will put on a brave face, but wanted to sink into the floor and disappear. Eleven had told him she was working on something, so Will went under the table in the A.V. room to cry in frustration. It felt empty when people who had repeatedly demonstrated that they did not care about him wished him a happy birthday. The attention caused him anxiety.

"Will," said Mike as he broke Will out of his thoughts. "What are you doing in here? Are you okay? Is El okay?"

Will crawled out from under the table and wiped his eyes. "El's fine."

"Are *you* fine? What happened?"

"Nothing. I'm just tired of everyone staring at me all the time and they're doing it a lot more than usual today," said Will.

"We couple wait in here for a few minutes if you want," said Mike. Will shook his head.

"My Mom will be here soon. I don't want her to worry." Will headed to the hallway, but Mike grabbed his arm.

"Will, wait-"

"Mike, please, not now. I just can't," said Will.

Mike nodded and released Will's arm. "Alright, but I'm here for you if you need me."

"I know," said Will. They walked to their lockers.

"Well, if it isn't Fairy and Frog Face."

"Not, now, Troy. Back off!" said Mike through gritted teeth. He tapped Will's shoulder and gestured to indicate that they should keep walking. Will complied.

"I still owe," said Troy maliciously. Mike and Will remained silent. "And since it seems to bug you more when something happens to the fairy than when it happens to you yourself-"

Mike started to react when he understood Troy's implication, but he wasn't quick enough. Troy shoved an unsuspecting Will as hard as he could, causing the smaller boy to fly forward and slam onto the hard floor and the contents of his book bag to spill onto the floor. Several of their classmates gasped in horror. Mike angrily swung his back pack and hit Troy in the face with it sending him reeling,

"You're gonna pay for that, Wheeler!" said Troy when he regained his balance. He started toward Mike, but Lucas and Dustin who happened to be at the other end of the hall when Troy shoved Will, charged at Troy and knocked him to the floor. Mike stared in awe for a moment. He and his friends had become much more bold since taking on an inter-dimensional monster and a bunch of federal agents, the school bullies were considerably less intimidating.

Mike turned to see Will cradling his right arm (which looked broken) and inching backward until he was against the wall. Mike noticed that Will's head was bleeding. He was looking around with a terrified expression. It was as though he didn't see the other students. Mike rushed to his side. "Will!" Mike grabbed Will's shoulder. Will seemed to snap out of whatever trance he was in. "Will, what happened? Are you okay?"

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"I have to see Will, please!" Eleven begged when Hopper got home. She had been looking through a directory trying to locate Sarah when Will hit the floor from being shoved by Troy. She knew that she could find Sarah if she could leave the cabin. She also knew that she needed to see Will in person to help him. She knew that something very scary was happening to him and he was afraid to talk to her or anyone else about it.

"It's too dangerous, El. I'll check on him, alright?" said Hopper.

"He's scared of something," said Eleven. "Please, I have to help him. He's not telling me when we talk in our heads."

"Do you really think something's going on?" asked Hopper.

"Yes!" said Eleven tearfully. "Will needs help."

"Alright, I'll take you to the hospital later tonight; but you have to do exactly as I say. You can't help your brother if the wrong people see you, understand?" Eleven nodded.

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Okay, this chapter ended up being longer than I anticipated, so I broke it into two chapters. The next part will be up when I finish it, hopefully by the end of the weekend. I'm off to see Captain Marvel. Maybe there will be a surprise season 3 trailer at the screening. I can dream, can't I.