More to the description:

Post-Season 3. Yeah, long wait and withdrawal resulted in this fanfic containing my S4 theories.

Eleven and The Byers moved to New Mexico and now a question arises whether El should go to school along with Will. When it's decided that she is going, she has to go through a brand new experience of being thrown between high school teenagers without her powers and without The Party. Very old scars hidden deep in her mind start to emerge as she meets new people and as her body starts to change. What will happen when she will finally meet Mike again on Thanksgiving? And what will happen when the years of abuse and trauma she endured in the lab will begin to show severely on her mental health? Are there still hidden secrets of what happened in the lab? What will she have to go through to get her powers back and finally accept herself and her past. Will she manage to safe Hopper in the end?

Trigger warning: you can expect angst, hurt/comfort, violence, referenced rape and no-con, pannic attack/depressive states, so please be aware of it before you read. This chapter could be just rated T, but it will get darker.

And I don't own Stranger Things ofc.

New Mexico, October 1985

"Mum do you really think it is a good idea to send her to school?" Jonathan asked.

"I mean... it's not like I don't want to go. It's gonna be fine if you help me with the... studying," El said quietly sensing the tension in the room. Will just continued eating his dinner quietly.

"See? She wants to go," Joyce shrugged and gave a sigh. "I am sorry, but I won't have much time to home-school you El, the new job is..." She wanted to say it was time-consuming and stressful but she realized they were all having a hard time and she should be the one who would support the kids. Also she was naturally worried about El going to school for the first time, till now everyone wanted to keep her hidden from the world. Even Hopper. She never went to elementary school or middle school or any school, and now they were just going to throw her between the high school teenagers. "Sweetie, if you don't feel like it though... we could wait..."

"Wait for what?" El interrupted. "Hopper would want me to go. He said: don't live in a cave." Joyce smiled sadly moved a little by El's words.

"I am going to be there with her, it's going to be fine," Will said. And El smiled at him gratefully.

"Okay... but whatever the kids will be saying. Whatever will happen, you two will tell me, okay?" Joyce smiled lightly. El and Will nodded. Jonathan promised them that he would take them to school and from school every day and if anything would happen he would always protect them. It occurred to El again that now she is in need of her new brothers' protection, because her powers... still didn't come back. She felt so weakened.

A weird sadness and nervousness grew in her mind and the next morning she was totally stressed about her first day at school. Even though she was also excited to see how everything will work. "Okay just take care you two, I will see you in the afternoon okay? I love you both. You can do it!" Joyce hugged them both before she hurried to work. Jonathan took them to the school as he promised and told them where he would be waiting for them after school. Then they were alone. At least it was two of them.

They looked at each other. "Let's do this?" Will smiled nervously. She gave a nod but the nervousness was also written all over her face. It reminded her of the brief visits to school with the boys back in Hawkins, but these kids... were not like middle school kids and she could no longer rely on the fact that if she would be in trouble, she would use her powers. It didn't feel comfortable at all but in her mind she repeated to herself what Hopper told her about the cave. She closed her eyes and tried to take a deep breath as they approached the school building. She was thinking about Mike, who would also be in his junior year and would be also experiencing this first day's nervousness. But it could surely not be compared with her first day. Because it was the first time ever... in more aspects. New school, new people, new town, new state... everything would be new to her.

"You okay?" Will asked quietly.

"Yeah," she opened her eyes and they walked in. In the hall she noticed a few boys and girls were staring at them. She tried not to make eye contact with them. She was definitely not in need for too much attention. As they walked, few kids gave them weird looks and started to whisper with their friends. Will was guessing this was because they were not just juniors but also strangers or... maybe just weirdos. He was used to this.

At school El and Will were fixed at each other for the first few weeks. She didn't talk to almost anyone else, although few kids seemed quite sympathetic to her. There was Cathy, who became her partner in biology classes, where partners were assigned by the teacher, she was actually very nice to her and the two of them managed to share some inside jokes about the biology teacher in a matter of days. She missed Max a lot, but Cathy looked like someone of "her species" she could really like too. And she was happy with that.

Cathy would sit with her and Will during the lunches and when they were alone she would ask El if they were together, but El told her that they are living together as siblings now and she told her about Mike, but not in great detail of everything that happened of course. She had some trouble when kids started to ask her, why should they call her El since her name was Jane and the teachers called her Jane too. El tried to explain her second name was Eleanor and that her and her boyfriend kinda set it as her nickname. They would give her weird looks but slowly everyone started to refer to her as El and no one gave second thoughts anymore.

When it came to people who genuinely liked her in the new school apart from Cathy, there was also Tommy. He helped El when she dropped her books on the stairwell. She got lost in her thoughts and stumbled on the steps, she almost forgot again she no longer possessed her powers and dropped the books thinking she would simply draw them back to her arms. When this didn't happen she remembered the reality in instance and she kneeled down to pick up her books. She heard some girls bursting in laughter. But Tommy stopped and kneeled down too to help her with a genuine smile on his face. He asked her if she was the new girl coming from Indiana, they talked just for a bit and she found him very nice. He said he liked her style, which she appreciated a lot. She couldn't stop thinking about Mike though, so she didn't talk to Tommy very much afterwards although he continued to give her smiles and they always said hi when they met. Tommy was kind of popular among kids, so soon others would casually start to say hi to her. "Hey, you are actually becoming popular," Will would make a joke and they would laugh. But the fact was she was more popular among the boys. The girls, especially the school's queen Amy and her gang would hate her exactly for that. Mostly because Amy loved Tommy as they dated in their first year, so very soon she started to be jealous of her and all the attention she was getting from the boys.

El wasn't much aware of the attention and tried to focus more on the studying, never really talking to anyone but Cathy and Will. She couldn't tell anything more about herself to anyone anyway, and she didn't want to lie. Because friends don't lie. This made the idea of someone becoming too close to her almost impossible. And she felt alone, almost all the time. Even in times she was with Cathy, because sometimes she couldn't answer her questions and since she couldn't answer she didn't feel rightful to ask her anything in return, often they would end the conversation after few minutes and there was nothing else to say, so the friendship couldn't go too deep.

Will on the other hand would get to know some guys from the Physics' club and he was also happy with that. To the others he was known as the boy who was always around El, and who was her adoptive brother. And he and Jonathan really were great adoptive brothers to her indeed. They would help El with her homework and everything but she got used to the teaching very quickly and she worked hard, so after a few months she became almost an A student. She also read a lot of books, she liked the feeling of escape. And she missed Mike. She was looking forward to him coming for Thanksgiving. They phone-called anytime they could, but it was hardly enough for her. Luckily enough, Thanksgiving was coming fast.

Few days before Thanksgiving

That day she felt strange from the moment she woke up. As usual she would get up and go to the bathroom. She washed her face and stared at her reflexion in the mirror. Suddenly she heard someone whispering her name. "Eleven." She turned around startled but saw no one. She took a deep breath. Her head was heavy as the dreams from the last night were so vivid. She didn't feel like going to school. Especially because there was supposed to be PE class that day and she was already stressed about it. She told herself that she will manage: it's just a stupid PE class, El. She just felt so clumsy lately and there was something else that scared her even more. Nevertheless, she tried to put herself together and went back to her room to get ready. Then she had some Eggos for her breakfast along with the boys to cheer herself up a bit. As usual Joyce kissed her on her forehead briefly, hugged the boys and hurried to the work. Then Jonathan took them to the school and went to work himself. He also found himself a new best friend, his name was Argyle and he was a delivery boy, apparently they had a lot of fun together.

Cathy waited for them before the entrance and they would go together to the classes. During the day El barely said a word and in the PE class she started to feel really dizzy and weird as they were forced to run more lapses on the track. She had to stop to catch her breath and other girls would laugh at her. But she didn't care much and the teacher let her rest for a while.

When the class finally ended, there was the shower she had to survive. It was the thing that actually scared her the most. It reminded her too much of the lab showers. And of what happened there. She always breathed in and out deeply before she entered the school showers, then she washed herself as quickly as possible and left. Cathy never understood, but thought she is just a shy girl and never commented on it. El was glad she didn't. Today she actually enjoyed some of the warm water streaming down her face and her body. Her anxiety was gone for a few seconds until she looked down to her feet and saw the water.

The water was pink... almost red. She realized it's her blood. And the blood was coming down her legs, she realized her abdomen was hurting. "Eleven," she heard that voice she heard in the morning again. She started to scream.

"El? El..." Cathy put her hand on her shoulder gently to calm her down but El shuddered. "El, it's okay." Amy and other girls started laughing as El was freaking up.

"Oh my god, just stop yelling and go to get some pads," Amy rolled her eyes. El barely heard her anyway but Cathy turned to her and told her to shut up. El stepped back to the corner and curled up on the floor.

"What is happening to me?" she whispered to Cathy with tears in her eyes.

"Is she serious now?" Amy asked and the other girls laughed.

"I told you to shut up, Amy! Get out of here!" Some girls just left at that point as it was really starting to feel strange. The lights started to flicker for no obvious reason. "Eleven, just don't move now okay! It's just a little bit of blood we can handle, right? I am just gonna wash you up now." Not again that voice. El didn't quite know what she was going through emotionally. But it later was described to her as a panic attack. Her heart was pounding so heart she could hear it and the strangeness of the moment haunted her to the deepest core.

"No..." she whispered answering the voice she heard. "Noo," she repeated.

"Or what, Cathy? Look at her, she's crazy, absolutely crazy!" Amy raised her voice and El looked up to her face frowning. Crazy? "When did you start to talk to weirdos? What will you do? You and... weird Jane Eyre orphan here! Seriously, how can she not know? She lived in a monastery up till now?"

"F* you, Amy!" Cathy uttered. If El had her powers, she would already shut up Amy and her bullshit by herself. She was not in the mood, she would probably just... And then it happened as she could no longer handle it. The lights flickered out completely with a loud crack as the bulbs broke. And also the small windows near the ceiling shattered and the glass was on the floor now. Girls started to scream and left the bathroom running. "Seriously, Cathy, she is a lunatic," Amy said quietly in shock and ran away. They were left there in the dim and silence. Cathy approached El slowly.

"El, are you okay? Just don't listen to Amy. Something probably... something probably happened with the electricity. It's okay." El was trying to calm down as she was in a complete shock. Are her powers back now?

"The... the blood," she whispered.

"Oh... It's just your period. Is this the first time this happened to you?"

"The first time? What do you mean... period?"

"Oh okay. This is perfectly normal for a woman. Don't worry, it's gonna be fine."

"For a woman?"

"Yes, it means you can now have kids, it happens every month from now on," Cathy said. "It is annoying but you get used to it. Have you never spoken about this with your mum?" El shook her head, still scared to death.

"Jane Hopper and Catherine Williams? What the hell happened here?" The PE teacher - Mrs. Barker entered the room. "Girls told me about the argument..."

"El just got her first period, Mrs. Barker. Amy just laughed at her and then something happened with the electricity."

"Oh I know... it's like this in the whole basement floor," Mrs. Barker nodded. "Let's just get Miss Hopper warm." She handed them some towels and also some tissues and some tampons. "I will have to take you to the principal's office though, ladies. Will you take care of Miss Hopper, Cathy?" Cathy nodded. "Don't worry, Jane, it's gonna be fine. I'll make sure nobody comes in here and I will bring you your clothes, okay? And I will call your parents." She gave El a smile and left. El was still shivering so Cathy put the towel around her. "She said parents? Papa... Hop. Joyce. What is happening, just what is happening to me?" El thought.

"El..." Cathy said sadly. "I'm sorry. Such a drama. Don't worry, okay? Maybe you will have some cramps but it will stop in a few days. And then you will get used to it. I'm sorry to tell you this is a normal part of women's life. But... It's fine. It's just fine. You will see," she tried to sooth her. "Here are some tissues. And these... these are used to stop the blood from... being all over you. You get it?" She showed her some tampons. El looked at her with confusion.

"No," she whispered looking at the weird thing Cathy was holding.

"You just put it... inside? You know what I mean?" Inside? Her heart beat fastened again. "Oh... okay. Don't worry, it doesn't hurt..."

"It hurts," she whispered unwillingly.

"Oh... did you ever... try?" Cathy was also confused now and even to her it was starting to feel very weird, even her 10-year old sister knew more about these things and Eleven was 16 now. Just don't move now, Eleven, it won't hurt.

"Liar," she whispered. "It hurts..."

"What?" Cathy was growing anxious now as El seemed to be totally lost. "Mmm... You can also use pads if you want. You just put them on your panties and... El?" El was just staring at the blood now and became unable to listen to what Cathy said. Is this a dream? Nothing made sense to her.

"Mike," she mumbled softly.

"Oh El. It's okay, I promise."

"Promise?" El looked up.

"Yeah. I promise," Cathy nodded. "Do you want me to fetch Will?" El didn't know but she nodded. "We're gonna find him, okay? Now let's just dry you up and I will get your clothes and some pads. Where is Mrs. Barker?" She went to the door only wrapped in a towel where Mrs. Barker just came with their clothes. "I called Mrs. Byers and she is coming. Just put the clothes on and come back." Cathy quietly asked her to fetch her some pads as she understood the tampons scared El. Mrs. Barker quickly fetched her some. Cathy then tried to help El stand up and helped her with the clothes and the pad. Then they went to Mrs. Barker.

It was dim everywhere as it was the basement and the electricity stopped working. The teacher had to bring a flashlight so they wouldn't fall on the stairs where it was almost completely dark. They met Will running to them in the hall on the first floor as they were following Mrs. Barker to the principal's office.

"El!" he ran to her alarmed. "What happened?" he whispered to her but she just didn't want to talk about it.

"I think she will tell you later," Cathy said.

Joyce rushed from the work to the school driving as fast as she could. She was angry with herself as she didn't think this could happen so unexpectedly. But how else could this happen? There were other things to solve, so there was no time for this girl talk yet. Maybe she was avoiding it. Her whole life she was only raising boys. She had no experience with girls and not at all with traumatized girls. Now she wasn't sure if poor El had any idea what was happening to her. "Oh my god, oh my god..." The teacher told her on the phone about power being down and some girls who laughed at her girl. Oh, she was so worried about her. "Forgive me, Jim, I should have talked about this with her. I should have known you never had... and no one else. The poor girl... I'm so stupid." She was almost crying and drove as fast as she could, almost crashing the other cars. "Fuck you!" she would scream at them although she was the one being the crazy driver. When she arrived she parked the car in the school's parking lot and rushed to the building.

In the meantime, El, Cathy and Will were waiting in front of the principal's office. For some reason El was still shivering. The cramps weren't helping her. Cathy had to be the one who tried to describe the Principal what happened. When she started to mention the blood and the women's problems he almost spat out his sip of coffee and everything must have been called other names so he wouldn't feel uncomfortable. Cathy was annoyed with men sometimes. The real problem was what Amy already told to the principal. Amy was in fact his niece, so the conversation was quite effective. The fact El wasn't able to say much on her account didn't help, Cathy could argue as she wanted, but he wanted to talk to El alone. Cathy had to leave her there alone with him.

"So Jane, is it? Why does everyone call you El?" he asked. She disliked the way he looked at her. She just wanted to go home and cry. She wanted to curl up in Mike's arms.

"It's just a nickname." She hid the 011 tattoo on her wrist with her palm.

"Okay..." he said slowly, obviously having suspicions.

"Well... El. Amy told me you were really scared, that you screamed a lot, haven't your adoptive mother taught you about these women's... problems?"

"I am only living with my adoptive mother shortly. Before I lived with my father... he died a few months ago," she was proud she said that calmly without showing her fear and sadness.

"It was also your... adoptive father though, right?"

"Yes." Did he really just ask that?

"It must have been very traumatic, darling. How are you feeling in the new home? New school?" She could sense that he didn't mean the darling at all. He knew there was something weird going on. He saw the basement. He was not stupid, she hated him for some reason already.

"I... am fine. My brothers, Jonathan and Will... and Joyce too, they are all very kind to me," she said, still managing to keep calm.

"Are they?" he almost interrupted her.

"Yes, more than I could ask for," she didn't even blink.

"Good afternoon," Joyce burst into the office with her usual energy. "Mr. Peterson, I came as fast as could." El looked at her, feeling like bursting into tears. Joyce gave her a worried look and put her arm around her shoulder. "Honey," she kissed her cheek. "Are you okay?" El nodded but Joyce saw how bad it was.

"Mrs. Byers," the principal said. "I am glad you could make it. That they let you go from your work." Even Joyce could sense the false sentiment in Mr. Peterson's discourse. "Please sit down. And Jane, please if you could give us a minute. And please tell you brother and your friend to return to their classes. You can wait for your mother in front of the office. Polly will give you some water... if you want. Thank you for now." El nodded and left the room. Outside Will and Cathy hugged her.

"He said... you should go back to your classes," she mumbled.

"Don't worry about him. He is a moron," Cathy whispered, so Polly - his assistant - couldn't hear her. "And don't worry about anything else, okay? You will be fine. If you will need anything, call me, okay? I'll see you tomorrow. And we can... talk about it. Bye guys." Cathy was very worried; she knew how mean Amy could be. And she knew this is not the end of it.

"Bye," Will said and El just nodded. Cathy left them and went to her class.

"Are you okay? What happened with the electricity?" Will asked quietly once Cathy was gone. "It was... you?" El again managed only to give him a nod. She still shivered so Will gave her his sweater. "Here. We'll talk about it home, okay? We need to talk to Mike and the others. I'll see you there..." El gave yet another nod to him and he ran to his class. El pulled his sweater over her head and waited for Joyce. Polly offered her some water, but she only drank a sip of it.

Then Joyce stormed from the office and took her hand. "C'mon El. We're going home." As they walked in Joyce's pace, El heard her whispering some curses.

When they walked from the building they and they were out of sight and they were sure no one could hear them either, Joyce hugged her tightly. "El, sweetie, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." El took a deep breath. "Oh, honey. It's my fault, I should have talked to you about menstruation. What about the basement... the electricity, the windows?"

"It was me," El sobbed.

"Oh my girl, I will take you home now. We'll have some chocolate okay?"

"Eggos?"

"Yeah, Eggos too. I love you so much, El. You'll be safe I promise. I promise"

"You really promise?"

"Yes."

The truth was she was really worried. Back in the office Peterson was talking about what Amy "his own niece" told him. That "Jane" had no idea about what happens to girls at that age, that she screamed and whispered words that made no sense. That the other girls were scared of her, that "Jane" is really a shy girl and wasn't even able to tell him what happened and her friend Cathy had to tell the story. He told her that "Jane" went hysterical. He told her about the very weird circumstances of all the bulbs and windows in the basement being cracked or broken. He knew this was not Jane's fault, but he found the whole situation at least very suspicious. He said that Amy also noticed that there is something on Jane's wrist she is trying to hide. He swore to Joyce that he will keep an eye on Jane and on the Byers' family, all of them and that he is ready to call social services. And that it is his duty to report any suspicion of child abuse or serious mental illness of a student, who might have self-harm tendencies.

Joyce just wished they would be more careful with the decision to send El to school, she wished Hopper would still be here. They would be in Hawkins. She wouldn't have to separate Nancy and Jonathan, El and Mike, Will and his friends. They together went through some serious trauma and she just let this happen after all of that. Now she faced the danger of child's services taking her children along with El away from her. She wished Hopper would advise her what to do now.

At home she took care of El. She made her some tea and explained some more about the period and shared her experiences giving El some tips. Then they just relaxed and watched some TV shows eating chocolate and Eggos. El fell asleep in Joyce's arms. When she woke up she didn't want to talk about it, especially not with the boys.

She tested her powers in her room but she couldn't move a thing. She just felt like sleeping. Along with Will they talked to Mike and the others about what happened but they didn't mention the menstruation at all. El wished she could talk with Max about it. But her talk with Joyce was enough for her now anyway.

At school she felt very awkward, Amy made fun of her, but she managed to ignore her. Cathy wished to talk to El more about what happened, but El just couldn't tell her details anyway. So she found herself avoiding Cathy's company. That made Cathy believe that something wasn't okay.

Note: If you are familiar with Stephen King's Carrie, you recognized the shower scene. I can assure you from now on the story won't follow plot of Carrie. I just thought this event might be very interesting part of El's experience and it would start series of the secrets emerging.

Also, I wanted to note that the high school setting won't be so prominent in the next chapters, so don't expect too much of high school problems, the setting and plot will become much darker, so be aware of that.

Note 2: This is my first Stranger Things fanfic posted online so I will be very grateful for any feedback, if you made it till the end with a feeling that you need to read more, I love you. You can acces it also on wattpad and ao3. I have some chapters pre-written so you can expect regular updates.