Present Day

Even before I could digest what I was doing, I was running towards him.

The air in my lungs left me as we hugged in the opening of the main room, no one even said a word as we were embracing each other. I sighed in relief, relief, and shock that he was there in Derry. Both of his arms were around me, hugging me close to him as I had one arm wrapped up his back to clutch his shoulder from behind. We needed a moment to just hug each other, to know that we both were okay, and we both were alive.

Up until this point, I had no idea that Stanley was going to come here in Derry, I remember back in Georgia at the hospital when he told me he was afraid to come back. But seeing him here in front of me, it was something else and almost too much to wrap my head around. I had so many questions to ask him, but all that I could do right now was just be thankful that he was okay and that he was here in one piece.

"Wait…wait!" I gasped, pulled away from him to take him all in. He looked perfectly fine: wearing a button up shirt and a light sweater over his shirt, jeans, and shoes. His hair, wavy and curly as ever, was parted on the side and smooth away from his eyes. It was different when we were together back in Georgia, given the circumstances that we were in at the time. This time, he seemed lighter…but I then looked right down at his wrist just in case this was some kind of trick.

On his wrist was a perfectly white wrap, the lines were pristine and contrasted against his slightly tanned skin. Without me realizing it, I placed my thumb along the top of it wrapping, tracing it very lightly across the top. I smiled, knowing that this is real and not a trick in my brain.

"Don't take this the wrong way, please don't….but what in the hell are you doing here?" I asked, finally looking up right at him square in the eyes. His eyes were so warm, even with some uncertainty there but he just gave me his infamous Stanley sly smile. I heard the others walking over to the both of us, though my eyes were still on him.

"After you left that night from the hospital, I realized that I was coping out," He admitted, sounding a bit sheepish about it in admitting that he felt weak. I was shaking my head at him, having me hear the others about to argue with him.

"Stan, come on man. That's not true," Richie reasoned behind me, but Stanley shook his head.

"I know, I know. But I guess….I decided that I wasn't going to let that make me stay away from you guys," Stanley went on, a small smile was back on his face, "Then when you called me last night at the restaurant, it made me feel brave. Really Brave. I don't know how to explain it, but If you guys are going to be all together, fighting whatever this thing is…then I feel as though I need to be there too. I made the oath with you all, so I had to be here."

"You didn't have to be, Stanley," I reminded him, sounding a bit urgent as he looked at me square in the eyes. I felt like I was looking at the younger Stanley, the one who was filled with love but was afraid to show it at times. It was pretty nostalgic to ahem this moment with him, and I could tell he was going to be stuck in his ways with this as he shook his head softly at me.

"I know I didn't have to be," He answered, pausing for a moment, "But I wanted to be." Even in the times when we were kids where he needed a push from us, this was different. A change in the tides. I knew him plenty of times when we were younger, we would try to coax him to have fun with us. He was cautious, never jumping into a risk with no thought process behind it. But now it felt like he had a change of heart, and who knew if it was because he was all grown up. I sensed the change in him, and maybe the others did too.

Either way, he was here, and we were all complete.

Mike walked over then, coming over to Stanley and standing on one side of me as he was giving Stanley a small smile. I moved away a bit to see Stanley and Mike embracing each other. I was still reeling just seeing Stanley there, butterflies were coming into my stomach even after I saw Henry getting killed in mere inches away from me. I gave a quick look at Beverly, seeing the sly grin that I've seen on her before. I smiled back, yet her smile meant more.

She knew something, deep underneath.

One Mike and Stanley were down with their own reunion, Stanley reached over and laced our fingers together, staying relatively close to me as he was looked at the whole room, drinking it all in. He then finally saw the full look of Henry Bowers's dead body on the ground, his eyes were wide and shocked as we all looked too.

"Holy shit," he said in a gasp, seeing the dead body of our old bully. The ax was still lodged in his head as Richie gave an awkward cough.

"Yeah, sorry. Not one of my best moments," Richie dryly joked as Eddie huffed and gave him a look, "Actually, I'm not sorry. The guy was a dick!" Eddie rolled his eyes at Richie.

"I would say it was one of your best moments since you stopped him from killing Robin," Eddie countered back, Stanley then whipped his head over to look right at me with wide eyes.

"WHAT?!" He shouted, having me groan. I felt like this was not the time for us to argue.

"Listen, Pennywise was controlling him," I said to him, the others were looking at me as I was now pointing at the body, "I could see It in his eyes. They looked glazed over and he was pretty much a fucking zombie! Plus, he was stabbed deep in his stomach and was still walking around like it was some kind of flesh sound,"

"Yeah, way to go, Eds," Richie said, almost sarcastically.

"Fuck off!" Eddie said as he then pointed to his cheek almost in retaliation.

"Wait, do you honestly think that he was possessed by the It?" Beverly asked, trying to follow what was going on?

"A bookshelf fell on top of him!" I stated to her, pointing to the fallen bookshelf on the other end of the room as they were looking too, "He stabbed Eddie, then came over here to kill Mike, with the same knife that he had as a kid by the way,"

"How do you know?" Ben asked, also not following. Mike walked over where my prosthetic arm was, kneeling to look at the knife handle without even touching it himself. He then sighed and stood back up completely.

"Yeah it's the same knife," He replied, all of us were feeling a bit spooked from it. But then he was looking at all of us, his face was drained of its color.

"Where's Bill?" He asked, all of us looking around too. Bill was not here, now we were realizing it since this all happened so fast. It made me panic a bit as Mike was now pulling out his phone and walking away from us a bit to talk with Bill on the phone. The rest of us were regrouping together making a semi-circle now as I was looking at Stanley.

"Stan, when did you get here?" I asked, now trying to piece together what happened while I was here with Mike fighting odd Henry.

"About a half an hour ago," He replied, pointing to the others, "I met up with them at the Inn. Ben and Beverly filled me in all that was going on since I guessed I walked in right after Henry stabbed Eddie. I helped Eddie with his cheek and then we saw Richie coming in, telling us where Henry was going and that you were running after him,"

"I told him you and I were at the old Synagogue before all this shit hit the fan," Richie added, Stanley was raising his eyebrow at me.

"How did it look?" He asked, sounding more curious than anything. I paused, trying to think of the best way to describe what I saw. Although it took me a while, I could only think of one phrase that I used once. Stanley, as far as I was concerned, never really wanted to go back to the Synagogue.

"It looked like a cemetery."

The others were grinning, even Stanley was smirking as I shrugged my shoulders. it was almost nostalgic to say that, since the last time I used that phrase with this group was when they came over to my house to help re-do the front yard. It was a somber moment, but it was short-lived as Mike rushed back over us wit a look of panic on his face and his phone cliched on his hand,

"Bill's going to Niebolt House on his own!" He said, now all of us were in shock, "I tried telling him that Stan was here and he should come back to us as a group, but he wasn't listening!"

It was just like when we were kids all over again, Bill wanting to go in there and face Pennywise on his own. When it happened the first time, it was chaos and it had our group split apart for some time. It was a bitter time for all of us, and now it was happening all over again since we were grown adults.

"We need to get to Bill," I said to Mike, and for the first time since we were all together in Derry, we all had the same thing on our mind.

We were going back to Niebolt.

August 1989

I hated being alone, it saddened me that I wasn't with the others.

The first thing I did when I got back to the houses was trying to scrub the sweat and blood off my body in the shower. It was hard, my fingers were trying their best to get what was left on me completely off. My head was spinning, remembering the vines that were wrapping around my neck and arm, seeing the close so close to my face that I could count his teeth, and hearing that the clown was going to rip my arm off so I was armless.

It was deafening within me.

Ever since that afternoon, I stayed at home most of the time. The only time I would ever go out was to go back to swimming classes once a week, and even then I wasn't feeling like I wanted to swim anymore. My whole mood shifted then, having me feel more solemn about my days that summer.

It wasn't the same without my friends.

My dad noticed it after a day or two of me being alone at home all day when I wasn't swimming. He didn't say anything at first, in which I knew he learned that pressing me wasn't going to get an answer out of me.

But he finally broke, seeing me painting at my easel in my bedroom. I knew he was there watching, but I was still getting the last branch of my massive tree that I was painting in the right spot. Usually, I would have some rock music from my clock radio playing, but there wasn't any music being played in the room. It was almost deafly quiet.

"Sweetie," He said as he carefully walked into the room, my hand resting on my lap and my eyes were only on the canvas, "Did something happen with our friends?"

I said nothing at first, not knowing what I would say to him. What we learned from the beginning of the summer, was that the adults in Derry didn't understand what was going on, or they weren't going to do anything. Something about that made me worry about my dad. There was never a time when I thought I couldn't trust my dad with anything I could tell him, but this was different. This was something that I knew I couldn't tell him, no matter how hard I wanted to.

"We fought," I said simply, my shoulder sagging in defeat. My dad walked over to stand next to me, placing his hand on my shoulder, rubbing my shoulder gently in slow circles as I looked up at him. My dad also gave me a sad look, somehow showing that he had some kind of understanding of what I was going through.

"Even the closest of friends can have fights every once in a while," He reminded me, "What makes true friendships are friends who will be willing to come back together in the toughest of times,"

"You think that's my friends?" I asked sheepishly. I had to wonder if we were going to be those kinds of friends that would stick together, even after all of this happening to us within months. It would be heartbroken to think of not being around those guys anymore, not being able to be with them, and not be afraid of who I am.

My dad gave me a reassuring smile, leaning over to kiss the top of my head.

"I know they are."

A few weeks went by without any contact with my friends.

It was hard, so many times I was tempted to go to one of their houses and see if they wanted to hang out or ride bikes. But the rational part of me was not going to, because of the fight that we had and how it felt as though there was nothing I could do to bring us back together. It sucked, which lead to one day I was sitting on the front porch, reading my book on the porch swing in the late afternoon with the tacky air coming through the neighborhood street.

I was too lost in my book to hear tentative steps coming up the front porch steps, having me finally look up to see someone whom I didn't expect to see. He was sniffling as his bike was on the sidewalk, his hand was cradling his massive thick cast to his chest as he was awkwardly standing at the edge of the steps.

"Eddie?" I asked, placing my book down on the porch swing. This was the first time I saw him in a while, ever since he was driven away by his mother. I knew that his mother had him on lockdown, beyond lockdown with the looks she was giving us when's he picked him up. So, seeing him there in front of me and out of his house was a bit surprised.

I got up, walking over to stand next to him as could see he was on the verge of tears. It made me sad, wondering what it was that was making him feel so sad at that moment. Pushing my hair behind my ears, I finally spoke to him.

"What is it?" I asked, seeing him look down at his cast.

"I didn't know where else to go, your house was the closest." Eddie took in a large breath, "I was just at the pharmacy when I saw Greta," He said, my eyes going slightly big, "She was saying shit to me….something about my inhaler being a gazebo," My eye raised in confusion.

"Gazebo?" I asked, making sure that was correct. He nodded feverishly.

"Yeah," he took in a deep breath before he went on, "Anyways, she saw that I didn't have any signatures on my cast and she….she signed…" He stopped, his eyes were getting big and watery. I took a step closer, placing my hand on his cast and silently asking him for permission to see. I knew he was hiding something, maybe hiding what she wrote from me. He nodded his head, sniffling a bit as I carefully maneuvered his cast to rotate. There were 5 letters in black ink, sketched him and quite large on the surface of the cast, having me feel terrible in what she wrote

LOSER

I said nothing at first, but I was beyond angry with what I was seeing right in front of me. It was worse since this was permanent on his cast, and for however long he was going to look at it, it was going to make him sad and feel loser than low. I looked up at Eddie, seeing that he was so close to crying and I bit my lip, trying to figure out what I could do to make it better. There had to be something, and the last thing I was going to do was to have Eddie stay sad and feel miserable.

I then had an idea.

"Wait here," I told him, seeing him watch me in confusion as I bolted back in the house.

Eddie and I sat side by side as I had his cast in my lap, my tongue sticking out and my Red pen going to work. I could tell he was watching me with intense eyes while I was doing the work, but it was soothing and quiet for the most part. He wasn't crying anymore, in fact, he was leaning against my side now seeming to be so tired from all that he was feeling, but I didn't mind. At this point, I needed some physical contact with the others and this was more than what I wanted.

"There," I said, moving away for Eddie to see. He peered down, his eyes going big for a brief second as I drew a massive but delicately gorgeous V over the S in the word. I knew if I painted too much on the cast he would b win massive trouble with his mother, so I had to make it minimal at least. Now, it had a new word that I knew best described Eddie.

LOVER

"Thanks, Robin," he said as we were still leaning on each other, watching the sun going down behind the houses and trees in front of us. It was nice and quiet, only the sounds fo the branch and leaves swaying in the wind were heard.

"You're welcome," I murmured back, his cast was still resting on my thigh as we were somewhat entangled together. Eddie was quiet for a moment, maybe feeling a bit better with how I tried to fix Eddie's cast. It was nice to be with Eddie, out fo all the Losers in the club that would seem grounded and reserved, and yet willing to go out of their way for a friend, it would be Eddie.

"I miss our friends," He replied, his head on my shoulder as we were feeling a bit more somber. A part of me was nice to have someone else who was missing the others too, and since Eddie wasn't there for the fight that we had, he didn't understand what was said and how it was all handled. I felt bad for him, so I wrapped my arm around his shoulders as I nodded slowly.

"Me too, Eddie. Me too,"

Present Day

We all walked together towards Niebolt, going in numbers since now it was completely dark outside. Mike was leading the way with Beverly, the rest of us following along just as determined to get to Bill. It was now getting beyond serious for us, hearing that Bill encountered the clown on his own and he was so enraptured to get rid of Pennywise solo. We couldn't let that happen to him again.

Stanley and I were walking in the back. I did grab my prosthetic arm from the library, yanking the knife out of the arm with a bit of force. Although it was Henry's old knife and it had some history behind it, I could still use it in case we did need it against the clown. It was better than nothing. While Stanley and I were walking side by side, I was trying to adjust my prosthetic back onto my arm. I could feel Stanley's eyes on me as I was doing this, almost looking at what I was doing gravely.

"Can't believe he did that to you," He muttered as I finally got it to fit right. I nodded in agreement, replaying all of it within my mind.

"It happened so fast," I agreed with him, "I didn't think he was capable of doing that at all, which was why I knew he was possessed by Pennywise."

"But that clown has to be way more powerful now," Stanley said in a grave tone as we were walking in strides together. I had to look over at him, seeing him almost zoning out in his deep thoughts as I carefully placed my hand on his arm.

"Are you regretting coming?" I asked, not wanting to sound hurt about it. He immediately looked at me, seeing how I was staring at him like I was a puppy who got kicked in the stomach.

"No. Not at all, Robin," he replied quickly, looking ahead, "The one thing I am regretting though is not coming sooner,"

"We told you already, it's okay," I reassured him, rubbing my thumb along the top of his sweater, "We're glad you're here. Even when we told you that we could handle this, not it's like we're all….whole."

"Whole?" he mimicked back.

"We were all together as one group when we fought the clown before as kids," I reminded him, "And now we can definitely do it again."

"You're so sure about this," Stanley commented, not in a mean way, but as a statement.

"Yeah I am," I agreed with him, placing my hand back in my pocket, "I'm more sure the anything. I now the others are too."

"And what if I'm not?" Stanley as we were getting closer to the house, He sounded uneasy with the gout of going in there, having the both of us slow down a bit as the others were picking up speed, "What if I'm not ready to go in there I'm not as sure."

"Stanley," I called his name, the both of us locking eyes as I gave him a small smile. This was a bad time to reconnect with him, but it felt like he had to hear what I wanted to tell him, "If there is one thing I know about you, you're very self-assured of yourself."

It was true: Stanley never falters who he was and what he wanted to be when he was younger. I never once saw him falter in who he was, whether it was his religion or his hobbies. He had his battles within himself, especially that summer when he was dealing with Pennywise in his own manner. I knew that much to be true. But when he was around us, he wasn't afraid of what kind of person he was.

"You guys did that," he replied softly, a small smile on his face. I knew he loved all of us as his friends, he held us very close to his heart even in times where it was hard. Stanley was more secluded about it compared to Eddie or Mike for that matter. But he cared, and he loved us.

We finally saw the house in view as we were now in a light jog, finding a figure walking up the porch steps slowly. Before he could even reach the other, just like what happened so many years ago, we were there to stop him.

"Bill!" Beverly called out, all of us slowing down into a walk across the street and through the front fence as Bill looked at each of us. I could see he was angry, maybe whatever happened with the clown while he was away with us really worked him over good. We were all huddled together, but Bill instantly saw Stanley next to me.

"S-S-S-Stanley?" He called out, his voice sounding a bit broken. I peered up at Stanley next to him, seeing Stanley smile softly at his old best friend.

"Hey Big Bill," Stanley replied, saying the exact same thing he did on the phone the night before outside the restaurant. Bill smiled widely, almost seeming vulnerable. I could tell that he wanted to go vote rot hug Bill, but maybe this was not the time or the place. But then the moment was broken when Bill then pointed at the door, looking at the rest of us.

"I s-s-started this. It's my fault that you guys are all here. This curse, this fucking thing that's growing inside you all, it started growing the day I m-m-made you all go down into the Barrens because all I cared about was finding G-G-G-Georgie," Bill explained, he was just as bold as he was when we were kids. None of us said anything, though we felt the energy he was giving out, "Now I'm gonna go i-i-i-in there, and I don't know what's going to happen, but I can ask you to fo this."

Beverly, being the closest to him, leaned over and grabbed a rusty fence pole within her pale fingers, groping it tightly as she stood back up and stared at Bill.

"We're not asking you either," Beverly said to him.

"Bev—" Bill was about to argue, his face melting down with the thought of us following him.

"We didn't go in there alone, Bill. We're not going to do this alone now," Mike reminded him in agreement.

"Losers stick together," Ben said in agreement. I felt Stanley reach other to lace our fingers together, squeezing them tight. I looked at our joined hands and then at Stanley, seeing him lock his gaze at me. I could tell he was wondering what I was going to do, not in a bad way, but seeing if I was willing to go with him. I squeezed his hand back, showing him that I was going to go in there with him. I looked back at Bill, noticing that he was looking at both of us.

"Were going with you," I said to him, Stanley nodding his head in agreement while we were still holding hands. It felt like we settled it: going into the house together. The mood was already sinking in, and it only took a few seconds before Eddie cleared his throat.

"So…does anybody…wanna say something?" Eddie asked we were all looking at each other wondering the same thing.

"Richie said it b-b-best when we were here l-l-l-last," Bill commented, now all of us were gazing at Richie. He looked confused, trying to remember exactly what he said back when we were kids.

"Uhhh….I don't wanna die?" he asked, hoping it was right.

"Nuh-uh," Bill replied with a shake of his head.

"You're lucky we're not measuring dicks?" Richie asked, in which we were almost wanting to roll our eyes. He looked down at the ground for a brief seconds before it struck his brain.

"Let's kill this fucking clown?" He asked with raised eyebrows. Bill then was having a smirk on his face as he nodded his head. Richie then had a determined look on his face.

"Let's kill this fucking clown!"