Will and Sara sat on the ground, legs crossed under them, and their backs against each other. Sara was facing the residents of Hawkins and Will was facing the kids from Derry. Will kept looking from Beverly to Richie to Bill and back again. It was still hard to see Richie and know for a certainty that it wasn't Mike, but it was slowly getting easier to do.

"You ready?" she asked him as he shifted his weight around behind her.

He nodded, "Yeah, let's just get this over with."

"Wasn't my idea," she said defensively before falling silent.

At first, nothing happened. She screwed up her face and dug her nails into her knees, her knuckles turning white.

Will was about to ask what was taking so long when he heard her. She kept repeating, "God, I hate this. Son of a bitch, this hurts. Fucking humans."

"Is the ranting necessary?" Will asked with an annoyed sigh. He realized he'd said something wrong when Bev cocked an eyebrow at him.

"I didn't say anything," Sara mumbled like someone who had been interrupted while they were in the middle of doing something important.

Will was about to turn around and ask one of his friends if she really hadn't said anything, but before he could he froze, eyes wide and mouth slightly open. His words were stolen from him as his mind overflowed with a lifetime of information from the girl sitting against his back as his own thoughts and memories did the same to her.

"Where am I?" a little girl screamed as she pulled and kicked at the restraints holding her down.

"It's alright, Nine," a blonde woman with a white coat said gently. "Everything is going to be fine now." Despite her words and soothing tone, the girl was not fooled. Everything wasn't going to be fine.

"It's raining, man," Jonathan said as he pulled his coat in to zip it up. "Do you want to head back?"

Will looked at his older brother, who was probably thirteen or fourteen at the time. Then he looked at their project. It wasn't much now, but it would be amazing when he was done. "We're so close...we have to finish it, Jonathan."

His brother smiled at this, "I was hoping you'd say that."

"Nine, I'm going to give you another chance to cooperate," the blonde woman, Mama, said, leaning forward against the table they were sitting at. There was a guard in one corner of the room and a white cat upon the table, sniffing at a plate of food that was laced with poison. The cat knew this and wouldn't touch it.

"I will not make Snowball eat that," Nina said, defiantly and stubbornly. This was a few days before the gate had been opened, but it was a fresh memory. Snowball had been one of the girl's only friends in the lab who she could actually see and touch. When the guard had crossed the room to the table and broken the cat's neck she had screamed and sobbed, trying to reach for the cat. They wouldn't let her, though. She screamed and sobbed until long after they'd thrown her into the white room.

Will shivered against the cold of the dark, dank place that could have been Castle Byers, but it wasn't. Not quite. Everything was...wrong here. It was the upside down. He was sure he was going to die, but he tried to stay hopeful. Gently, so the monsters wouldn't hear him, he sang his favorite song, Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash.

An enormous turtle with green skin and kind eyes gave the girl a quizzical and friendly look before asking, "Are you certain you don't want to know who you are? Where you come from?"

"Hey Zombie Boy," a girl that Will had never met before said with a nervous smile. "You wanna dance?"

In truth, Will had no interest in dancing with this girl. He had come to the Snow Ball to spend time with his friends. The fact that he was a social reject made it a certainty that no one would approach him at the dance. Still, he had ended up dancing with her anyway. He'd hated it, but didn't share that fact with any of his friends. If he did then he'd have to tell his friends why.

"Well, that is one of the things to find out sometime. Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive- it's such an interesting world."

The man who was holding her as he read to her made her feel safe. That was all Will could see him so far. That was, at least, until she turned away from the book he was reading to her to see his face. Will nearly shot out of his skin when he saw it was the chief, only...it wasn't. He was younger and clean shaven, but it was still him.

"Daddy, why aren't our roads red?" the little girl who would one day become Nine and then Nina.

Hopper chuckled and shook his head like this girl was always asking questions, which she was. She always was. "I don't know. Maybe there are still places with red roads?"

"Can we go there?" she asked. "When I get better, I mean."

His face dropped at this. She knew that she would get better. She didn't really feel sick. She knew it scared him, but he just had to see. She'd be okay. "Sure, kid. We'll find a place with red roads when you get better."

Will was sitting on the floor against the wall, watching and waiting as his girlfriend of a glorified three weeks sobbed in his bathroom. He didn't know how else to tell her that he just...wasn't into her. It wasn't anything personal. It was hard to pretend. He couldn't tell her though. He couldn't even tell his mom or his brother. Plus if he did...it would be the end of his already crappy reputation.

"I'm sorry, Jenna," he told her for the dozenth time.

Sara woke up from a nap, looking to see her mom or her dad, but they weren't there. Instead, there were strangers. The same blonde woman who had killed Snowball. Mama. She sat upright and stared at the woman. She was usually a brave little girl, but she didn't like these strangers.

"Where's my daddy?" she asked. "My mommy? My parents?"

The blond woman gave her a smile that had no warmth. "What parents?"

A man held her down while another covered her mouth to muffle her screams before they began. Then the world went black. When she woke up again she was Nine.

"Holy shit!" Will exclaimed, gasping for breath once his head cleared enough for him to focus on the outside world.

"Yeah, that'll happen," Richie said

"Beep beep Richie," Sara said, her breath short.

Her nose was bleeding in a stream that wasn't heavy, but it was steadily not stopping. Her eyes were unfocused and she was shivering.

Hopper was the first one to notice this and he warily moved to kneel in front of her. He put a gentle hand on top of herself and leaned down to get a better look at him. "Are you okay, kid?"

For a moment she wanted to jump into his arms and cry, but she stopped herself. She pulled her hand away from his and shook her head. "I feel like shit, but that's why I didn't want to do this."

"Oh my god," Will said from behind her. "Oh my god!"

Still connected to his thoughts she knew what he was worried about. She rested her head against his shoulder and shut her eyes. "Yeah, I know...I won't tell."

"You won't?" Will asked doubtfully.

With a smirk, she said, "No. I won't. You should, though."

"I will..." he answered. "Eventually. What about you, though?"

"Are you going to tell?" she asked.

He looked at Sara's friends and considered for a moment before saying, "No." Then he smirked and said, "You should, though."

She managed a small smile and shook her head, "We'll see."

"Alright, are we doing this?" Richie asked, rubbing his hands together. "Tell us all the elements on the periodic table!"

Dustin scoffed, "Like she knows the periodic table."

"I'll have you know she and I made a song out of it so we could memorize it," Richie said smugly.

"Let's just get this over with," Sarah yawned. "I'm tired...and cold."

Alright so this night at Steve's is taking forever, but they'll be on their way to Derry in the next chapter. Cross my heart and hope to die.