Steve Harrington and his whereabouts was a topic of reoccurrence, it seemed, that bounced between Rowen's various company . . . or rather a portion of her company. Concern for just where exactly he had gone had largely settled between Dustin and Nancy — the former being much bolder in posing a question or a mention than the latter. When Dustin wasn't attempting to reach Steve per the walkie that had supposedly been left in his car or trying to catch him at school, he was badgering her, and it was quickly turning from bothersome to borderline intolerable.
She liked Dustin. But as of late, he wasn't doing a very good job at keeping himself within that very small vicinity.
Nancy was, thankfully, much easier to handle. She only ever asked the occasional question or mentioned the occasional out-of-sorts moment she would see Steve across the parking lot; she could never get any closer than that without catching his attention, and when she did, he all but bolted. It wasn't outrageous, but it was enough to leave her unsettled.
According to Nancy, no longer being one for company hadn't exactly been a strange shift in behavior for Steve. Within the year that had passed since their first encounter with the Upside Down, his inclination towards being a part of the popular crowd had been indulged less and less . . . but to blatantly avoid anyone and everyone without an explanation?
Rowen had to admit, she found it weird too . . . though the mystery as to why he would not speak to Nancy in particular, nor come within range of her, was not as difficult to understand.
There was a very obvious reason as to why Steve would; anyone in their oddball, monster-fighting group could see it, and Rowen could tell that Nancy knew more than she was letting on . . . but, setting the elephant in the room named Jonathan aside, the eldest Wheeler still felt something else was up.
And, strangely, Rowen hadn't the heart to ask her to stop talking about it, even if it was getting on her nerves. She agreed, it was odd what she mentioned about Steve . . . but with the constant mention of his name, Rowen hadn't the heart to care about that either.
She expected — or rather hoped with all her might — that the number of people who asked about Steve or mentioned Steve or merely thought of him in close proximity to her would remain at the somewhat tolerable number that was two . . . but as were all things she hoped for, they either never came to be, or lasted for a very short time.
Hopper began to ask about Steve too, and in a way that was too blunt for his own good.
"What, you mean there isn't a thing going on? Don't you keep tabs on him or something?"
"Hopper," she hissed.
"What?"
"I do not 'keep tabs' on him, who'd you think I am?"
"I think you are someone he talks to," Hopper said a matter-of-factly.
"Well, I think you are wrong," Rowen spoke in the same tone, mocking him. She plopped into the increasingly uncomfortable seat behind her desk with a grunt. "Why is everyone suddenly so interested in him, anyway? Did he fall into another monster hole or something?"
"If he did, we'd already know about it."
Rowen blanked. ". . . So, it doesn't take much for you to figure out if he's fallen into the Upside Down again, but it takes you coming to me for answers I don't have to figure out if he's anywhere else?"
Hopper squinted. "Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, or something?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yeah, it does. It'd explain why you're all . . moody," he said gesturing a finger up and down her defensive form.
"Being moody has nothing to do with my lack of sleep, Hopper — why can't I be moody just because I am? You're all acting like I have the answers when I don't. Have you even tried looking for Steve by yourself? Why not just go to his house and see if he's there?"
Hopper's eyes narrowed in a way that instantly unsettled her.
"Oh, no — please," she rushed out, quickly realizing her mistake.
"Nope," he quipped, turning on his heel. "Too late."
Rowen hastily stood from her chair, following. "Hopper," she drawled, stopping at the door to his office. "Please, c'mon — don't make me."
"Why not?" he asked, plopping down into his own uncomfortable chair. "I'm a busy man. I have a station to run. I can't spend all of my time keeping an eye on one boy . . ." Hopper sat up from his reclined position to lean his elbows against his desk, pointing directly at her. "You, however —"
"I, however," she interrupted, "would rather do night patrol with Callahan."
"You would rather do night patrol with Callahan," Hopper echoed in amusement, giving her a dumbfounded smile. "What did the kid do to you?"
"Enough to annoy me to the point of no return," she stated before leaning against the door frame, arms crossed.
The chief of police raised a questioning brow. "You didn't look very annoyed last week."
"Yeah, because I was focused on trying not to get eaten," she snapped, lowering her voice. "You know? By the actual monsters we were fighting off?"
Hopper threw her an unconvinced look. "You're still going."
Rowen deadpanned. "You're insufferable, you know that?"
"I try, I really do," he sighed, leaning back in his chair.
She flung her arms out in defeat, retreating back to her desk. "You know, I've met lizard monsters that are nicer than you."
"You don't get paid for being nice," Hopper called. "And hey, you're going first thing tomorrow, alright? His house. Tomorrow morning. If you try to get out of it, I'm making you do overtime."
"You say that as if it's a bad thing," she called back.
To say Rowen woke the next morning feeling unpleasant was an understatement. She was not in the mood to play "find the jock"; or "rescue the jock" if he had, indeed, fallen into another monster hole; or "babysit the jock" if she found him passed out somewhere. With her complete lack of sleep, an action as simple as gettingout of bed was enough to leave her cranky, and she was certain what was waiting would not be any better.
She intended to make Hopper pay up once she did what he gave her no choice but to do. In fact, she had a whole plan as to how that would happen, and taking his SUV to her house the night before as a means to use it in the morning was step one.
Steve's house was not on her way to the station. Not even close. If anything, it was past the station and onward . . . but Hopper never gave her time to mention that. He did not give her time to do anything but grumble all the way out the station the evening before and swipe his car keys from his chubby, ungrateful hands.
He was giving her a hard time; it would take a complete idiot not to notice that . . . what she could not figure out was why.
They had just experienced an other-worldly crisis together and barely made it out alive with all their fingers and toes intact . . . literally. She had had an unnerving feeling that she could have lost a finger or toe multiple times that night.
She ached for a moment's rest, a night when she was not plagued by dreams of monsters and tunnels that only ever seemed to get smaller, more suffocating.
Granted, a week and a half had already passed since the whole event came to a rocky, violent end. They had more than enough time to return to some sense of normalcy . . . but the thing was, those ten days had felt like mere minutes. She felt like she barely had time to breathe before he threw her right into another problem.
Rowen agreed to let go of all the ridiculous, unwanted instances she found herself in with Steve for the sake of closing the gate, not to go on as if they never happened. Sure, he apologized. He said he wouldn't do it again. But she couldn't just disregard the irritation he made swell up within her, even if she was trying. Usually, she never gave most people that chance. The moment she felt irate, the moment someone proved her right for considering the red flag, she would turn her back and that was it. They would never see her again. In San Diego, she had that option. The city was big enough to give her the freedom to disappear, to keep away from people when she did not want to interact with them.
In Hawkins, however, she did not. And in Steve's instance, she had a feeling she was going to be seeing more of him whether she liked it or not. She had been trying for the sake of her sanity, not because her opinion of him had changed.
It might have, if what happened before they jumped into a monster hole hadn't . . . but no. He made it very clear that he was just as irritated with her as she was with him.
Hopper didn't have a clue as to what had gone on between them and she did not intend to tell him any time soon . . . which, in hindsight, was probably a weak spot she should have seen coming. He didn't know, she wouldn't tell him, she couldn't give him a good enough reason to get out of it . . . thus she had no choice but to do what he wordlessly demanded and suffer through it.
She put herself between a rock and a hard place, and there was no clever way, no trick she could pull to get her out.
Rowen wanted to bang her head against a wall. Ever since coming to Hawkins, her near-perfect ability to be discreet and avoid unwanted situations had begun to slip — quite frequently. She did not care to know the reason; truthfully, she just wanted to know how to keep it from happening again.
Get away from Hopper, that's how.
He was eerily good at seeing through her excuses, and though he had never pushed it, he did not shy away from making sure she knew he could see the truth and that he knew he was good at it. It was becoming unbearable . . . though, he was not the only one who was good at it. She could read between the lines of his grumpiness and gruffness too.
To see that Hopper was concerned about Steve to some degree was not very difficult because she had, of course, been the one who received all of his questions.
Though, aside from that, Rowen felt the chief was — in his own blunt, passive way — worried for Steve; and she guessed she could understand where he was coming from. Not only was nine days of nothing from Steve enough to at least raise the question, but it was enough to reassemble half of their group — one of which she did not expect to see again.
Rowen was there for Mrs. Byers's concerned conversations and Jonathan's silent nods that said he agreed. She was there for Dustin's badgering. She was there for Nancy's occasional mentions when they would hang out in her kitchen for a few minutes until Max came out of the basement, and the time Nancy called her because Rowen was the only girl she could talk to about all the shit they were still recovering from. There were other people the junior could talk to, of course, but she would always say it was nice to have a girl close to her age around . . . and though she had really preferred not to talk about any of it, Rowen understood what Nancy felt, she really did.
Would she ever admit any of it? Never in life. Not even if the gate reopened and a Demogorgon pinned her to the ground. But still, worrying over Steve wasn't just a Hopper thing or just a Nancy thing. If it was, she would have cast it aside and told them "he's a big boy, he can look after himself" or something like that.
But it wasn't. Dustin worried, Mrs. Byers worried. She was pretty sure every single person that stood ready to take on a Demogorgon in the Byers house was worried except for her; and if they did not stop asking her questions, she had a feeling she was going to explode. Which — along with Hopper's stubborn will — was why, on a bitterly cold morning, she reluctantly parked his K5-Blazer in front of what she could only describe as a whole mansion.
Steve's house was big — no . . . huge. If he was keeping the secret that his parents were millionaires, she wouldn't be surprised.
Rowen bundled up in a forgotten, oversized police coat that had been laying in the passenger seat and stepped out, slamming the door with more force than was needed. She didn't care. Hopper was going to pay in every aspect for making her do this.
Her, of all people.
Rowen wasn't the only one with a license or a bike. There were other, less-perturbed acquaintances and friends of Steve's that were more than capable of driving over to his house themselves; busy or not, they had a few minutes to spare . . . and yet none of them did. Why does no one do anything for themselves around here?
She was making her already sour mood worse.
Against her expectations, as she walked up to a pair of large red double doors, Rowen noticed the lack of a pristinely perfect lawn. For whatever reason, she had expected Steve's residence to hone the same perfect appearance as Nancy's house . . . but the only thing that seemed perfect was the front doors. The house was huge, yes, but even that lacked the picture-perfect glow that had blinded her when she biked to the Wheeler's alongside Dustin.
Still, dingy paint and very, very overgrown foliage around the perimeter aside, the house still looked pretty impressive. In truth, anything bigger than a four-by-four, eleven-hundred square foot house would leave her gaping to some extent. Rowen had never lived in a bedroom that was larger than what she figured could be made into a lavish walk-in closet, even when the beach was only a short walk away from her kitchen.
Forgoing another moment of gaping, she marched up the tiny front steps and knocked.
Admittedly, she was hoping for an immediate reaction; that Steve would answer the door and tell her everything is all right so she could leave. It was to the point of wanting to return to her normal schedule of phone calls and calming a frantic Mrs. Galepsky, claiming she saw a burglar in her window or that the owl was staring at her again.
But no . . . there was no response, no muffled sound of movement inside that she could catch. All Rowen could hear was an abundance of wind, blowing through the leaves and making them brush against each other until they relented and fell from their branches. It formed a chorus that was almost overwhelming and, in a way, reminded her of waves crashing against the shore. The sounds were similar enough . . . though one big difference, she noted, was that when she heard the latter, she was usually on a warm, sandy beach, and it did not chill her down to her bones.
She hated winter. Not because summer was so lovely — it was, in fact, very capable of becoming just as uncomfortable — but because her body was stubbornly refusing to adjust to a different climate. She felt chilled by the slightest wind, and the lightness of her clothes did not help.
It was why she wore a giant, slightly smelly police coat now, waiting for someone to open the godforsakenly big doors in front of her . . . but no one answered.
Rowen knocked again, this time a little harder. "Harrington!" she called out. Nothing.
She put her ear to the door . . . once again: nothing. She groaned. The dead were louder than this.
"Listen, if you're alive in there, just give me a sign — I don't have to come in."
All she received in response was another gust of wind, blowing right through her and making her shiver despite the coat on her shoulders.
"C'mon, it's cold out here!" she complained.
Rowen then decided to be aggressive with her knocks, banging her fists without a care for who heard or who she disturbed. Had she not been in such a rush, she might have noticed that the right door was not all the way closed . . . but she had not. Not until her fist collided with it, and it creaked open.
She stopped mid-bang, fist hanging in the air as the door slid away to reveal the inside of the house.
Rowen narrowed her eyes at the seemingly self-moving door. "Okay . . ." she drawled quietly.
Did she dare to peek her head in? . . . Like any other idiotic character in a horror movie: yes, yes she did.
Rowen had to keep herself from gasping as she took in the interior of the Harrington house. The entrance looked more like an art gallery than the beginning of a home. Paintings hung on both sides of the doors as well as to her left and to her right. A rug of birds sat underneath her converse — oddly, she noted, matching one of the paintings. Though, after getting over the initial confusion of why the front of the house looked like an exhibit, Rowen came to realize that everything else was just . . . big. Big and open, to be more specific. In her own house, everything was closed off. The rooms were separated from each other to an extreme degree, almost as if the builder knew what kind of family would be living in it. There was certainly no art on the walls, or a stairwell that led up to a balcony overlooking the living room.
Admittedly, she felt more like she was on a movie set and less inside a house someone actually lived in — which probably explained why she felt an almost theatrical sense of suspense as she walked further inside.
She really hoped she would not walk in on yet another murder scene. Reliving the sight of Mews's mangled body was not something she was ready for, whether the one that was potentially waiting to be found was made by an escaped demo-dog or not.
Thankfully, there was not another Dart quietly feasting in the corner of the living room. No, in fact, what she saw was somehow what she had expected . . . and she did not feel like rousing it. Steve was so still on the couch that she wondered for a moment if she really did walk in on a murder scene; but no. Despite the way he lay flat on his stomach, she could still see his chest rise as he inhaled, then sunk back down as he exhaled.
Though, she had to really look to see. There were no curtains, but all the blinds in the room were shut tight, blocking the majority of the watery morning light. It was not quite the perfect replica of a cave, but the lack of warmth that seemed to settle within the house was making it feel like such. Rowen had wanted to rid herself of the police coat, though she only found herself clinging to it more.
She wondered if Steve was as exhausted as he appeared to be. Despite the darkness of the room, now that her eyes had adjusted, she could see him a little better. He was crashed on the couch in a way that reminded her of how she would wake up after one too many solo cups, and he looked about five times worse. Tissues littered the floor around him, which gave her the assumption that he was either sick or taking his and Nancy's unofficial breakup very badly.
It was almost pitiful . . . almost. She still wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. And because she did, Rowen looked for the nearest set of vertical blinds, yanking them open.
Steve reacted as if she had just resurrected him, dramatic, Frankenstein-like groan and all . . . but, to her aggravation, instead of sitting up, all he did was shield his eyes by burying his face into a pillow.
Rowen rolled her own. This was going to take a little more effort than she felt like giving.
Looking around for something solid but not to the point of injuring, she grabbed a pillow from one of the other seats in the room and threw it at him. It didn't hit him in the head, but it hit hard enough on his back to make him startle.
"Wake up sunshine."
Steve groaned once more, appearing to at least have roused from whatever stupor he had been in. Though his position remained the same.
Rowen dragged her feet over to the front of the couch.
His one groggy eye squinted. "Mom?"
"Do I look like your mom?" she deadpanned.
His blink was almost slothlike. "No," he croaked.
"Then why'd you say 'mom'?"
"Dunno."
Rowen crossed her arms, surveying the sight. Steve had buried his face in the pillow again as if he was trying to dig through it.
"The hell are you doing?" she asked.
Another groan ensued. "Trying not to throw up."
"Well, if you keep laying on the pillow like that, you just might suffocate yourself before it can happen," she told him with an amount of enthusiasm that was, admittedly, a little concerning.
He mumbled something she could not quite catch.
"What?"
Steve just barely moved his face off of the pillow, revealing his mouth a squished nose. "Before it can again," he slurred.
Rowen blinked. "What — you mean you've thrown up already?"
"Twice."
She grimaced. "You know, if you didn't lay on your stomach like that, it might not feel so terrible."
"Can't."
"Can't not lay on your stomach?"
"Can't feel my arms," he mumbled.
Rowen glanced at the body part mentioned. Steve's arms were squished underneath his stomach at a weird angle, looking as if they had been in that position all night. No wonder he couldn't feel them, they probably fell asleep.
If she had not been forced there, she probably would have laughed at the sight. But, for whatever reason, Rowen was not amused in the slightest. In fact, she was completely, thoroughly done with the person in front of her . . . and the person who made her come there . . . and everyone, to be frank.
She shook her head. "Okay, I'm not looking at this anymore," she decided matter-of-factly. "If I do, I'll probably get secondhand embarrassment."
In one swift movement, Rowen had stepped towards the couch and determinedly pulled at Steve's shoulders, attempting to haul him up . . . though it took more force than she expected. He let all his weight sink like a lead rod and wasn't doing a thing to make it easier. But it hadn't gotten the better of her. Rowen managed to eventually push him up into a sitting position, though when he got there, he still looked as groggy and miserable as before. She wondered if this was how he always looked when he was half asleep or if he was just really, really out of it.
Or neither.
Once Steve settled into said sitting position, everything seemed to kick into overdrive. His eyes snapped open, his stomach made one very loud, unsettling grumble, and suddenly he was up, racing into another room.
Rowen didn't have to follow him to garner an answer to her question. Hearing his knees bang against the tile and an unsettling noise that said he was spilling his guts yet again was enough to tell her everything she needed to know.
For a moment, Rowen considered leaving it at that and retreating back to Hopper's SUV, giving Steve the chance to save face . . . but instead, she followed his trail. From the living room, she wandered into the kitchen — a blindingly white, yet modest room whose counter was littered with stacked cereal bowls and half-eaten plates of food — then, after recovering from the brightness of it, found the hall, where a bathroom door swayed slightly, most likely from being forced open.
She didn't know if his groans were from pain or sheer embarrassment, but she could hear them all the same as she leaned against the wall opposite the smaller room. A flush echoed, bare feet slapped against the tile.
"God, that's gross," she heard him mumble.
Steve emerged from the bathroom with squinted eyes and a hand on his forehead, looking as if he was ready to trudge back to the couch. When he realized he was not alone, however, he stuttered to an immediate halt. Rowen raised her brow, and all he could utter was an: ". . . Oh."
"Oh, indeed," she said, to which he did not have a reply. Rowen was very aware of his situation, and she knew he knew she was; the realization dawned on him in a matter of seconds as he looked down at the tissue in his hands, his wrinkled clothes, down the hall to where she could only presume a mess he did not want her to see was waiting. There was no mirror in the hall, but she had a feeling that the urge to check his appearance in the bathroom mirror was a thought among millions now swirling in his head.
Though, rather than give him a hard time, she decided to play nice. Admittedly, she didn't have enough energy to mock.
"Listen, I'm just gonna go radio Hopper and then leave," she said, jutting her thumb down the hall. "Don't worry about cleaning up or . . whatever it is you were thinking of doing."
Rowen turned to begin her attempt to find the front door, a little too full of pride to ask for help.
"Woah, wait —" Steve sputtered out from behind her. "Hopper? Why do you need to call Hopper?"
That had her coming to a halt. Rowen turned. "To tell him you're alive, what else?"
Steve said nothing, looking just as confused by her words as she did by his question.
Rowen scoffed. She was beginning to feel frustrated. "You do realize that he and Mrs. Byers were on the verge of thinking you had disappeared, right? Dustin was convinced you had died or something."
His look was dumbfounded. "Died? Why would he think I died?"
Rowen shrugged in an exaggerated manner. "Gee, I don't know. I mean, nothing major, just that no one's heard from you since that night at the Byers', which, in case you forgot, is a big deal considering what just happened."
Steve looked as if he was preparing to have a lecture thrown in his face. "Listen, I'm sorry. I just —"
"You just what? You just didn't have time to talk to anyone all week because you were gonna be late for doing absolutely nothing?" she said, gesturing to his clothes. "Because you were tied up? Did you have to feed the dog?"
"Why is this such a big deal to you?"
"It's a big deal because I'm the one getting all the repercussions here. We come out of the woods together with Dustin and suddenly everyone thinks I have all the answers to where you are."
Steve blinked, giving her a sluggish once over. "Well, you are the one that's standing in my house."
"Yeah, because I'm the only one who gets shit done around here," she snapped. "Hopper claims he's too busy, Nancy thinks you're mad at her, Dustin hasn't had the thought to come here himself for whatever reason . . . Did I mention he thought you were dead?"
"Well, I'm not, as you can see," he grumbled, moving past her towards the kitchen. "I've been here the whole time."
She glared at his back in disbelief. "Yes, and that's exactly the problem," Rowen snapped, following him. "I mean, c'mon, could you not have picked up a phone or something? Or not've avoided Nancy like she's said you have? Or, for the love of God, find that walkie Dustin left you and answer him — he is driving me insane."
"Listen, I didn't mean to do any of that, okay? I've been sleeping a lot, and every time I'm up I feel like my head is going to explode."
"Oh, so you didn't mean to? Well, in that case, it's totally fine. Completely. Utterly."
"Ha ha."
Once Rowen reached the kitchen, she caught him searching through an upper cabinet. She hadn't realized he had been holding a pill bottle in the other hand until he shut the door, bringing out a glass. She eyed the label on the bottle.
"I'm assuming the exploding head is why you need a whole bottle of aspirin in one go," she said, watching with a speculative look as he shook a handful out rather than just one.
Steve pretended to look as if he hadn't been caught. "I — yes. Yes, it is . . It's also why I've been spilling my guts, in case you didn't hear my uncontrollable vomiting back there," he tried biting back. Though, when he did, it sounded less like a retort and more like a pity party. Steve dropped his gaze to the counter, mumbling. "I've barely eaten anything and I still feel sick."
"Well, I'm so sorry that you feel that way," she said, words dripping with sarcasm. "But next time you feel like dropping off the face of the planet for a week, could you do me a favor and tell someone —"
Steve suddenly clutched the edge of the counter, rubbing a hand over his forehead. "Could you just — keep your voice down?" he blurted, cutting her off. "Please?"
Rowen deadpanned. "Okay, you know what? Forget I was even here. It's not worth it. The more I keep talking to you, the more I waste my time."
It took her a little longer to find the front door than she had hoped, though that hadn't kept her from stomping all the way to Hopper's Blazer, yanking the door open with as much force as she had when she closed it earlier. Rowen swiped the receiver from its resting place, signaling for the one who put her in this situation to begin with.
"What's up?"
"Have no fear, the Jock Jerk lives."
She heard a grunt of approval. "Well I'll be, you survived after all."
"Oh, shut up," she snapped. "You owe me."
"Oh, I do? And what exactly is it that I owe you?"
"Being able to spend a week as far away from him and you as possible. Maybe an eternity."
She could hear Hopper chuckle. "Okay, what happened?" he asked, ready to take whatever story Rowen was about to dump on him.
"Not only did he leave the damn front door open like an idiot, but he was passed out on his couch and whined like a kid when I woke him up. I almost got thrown up on."
"What, did he take one too many drinks last night?"
"That's what I thought, but, no. I know what being hungover looks like, and that not it . . . but he's been throwing up anyway. He said he's been spilling his guts multiple times, actually."
"What do you mean?"
While Hopper voiced his question, Rowen managed to start the SUV. "I don't know," she told him once the initial crank of the engine died out. "He just said that he has."
The line went quiet for a moment before Hopper asked, "Has he been eating anything?"
"Well, whether he has or not, I don't think it matters when he's been coughing it all back up."
"It kinda does, Rowen. If he —"
Whatever Hopper had said next went unheard. Rowen hadn't bothered to close the front door when she came outside — for whatever reason, she did not know, but she convinced herself in that moment that it was to teach Steve a lesson of some sort. Though, whatever reason aside, when a very obvious, loud-enough-to-cringe crash came from within the house, she heard it as clear as day. And she had a bad feeling that she knew exactly what happened.
Slowly, she lifted the receiver back to her mouth. "Uh, Hopper? I think I'm gonna need to call you back."
Once he was informed of just what exactly had caused the crash, Hopper told her explicitly to stay put, and to not leave Steve alone. Much to her displeasure . . . though she didn't exactly have much room to focus on that. When Rowen came back into his house, she found Steve passed out, collapsed on the kitchen floor with his shirt soaked from the glass of water that hadn't been touched, rather knocked over when he came crashing down.
The glass had shattered all over the floor and the stack of bowls that had been sitting behind him lay in heaps of broken pieces in the sink. She wasn't sure what Steve had done to knock all of it over, but somehow the majority of it had crashed in there and not on him.
He was still conscious, though just barely . . . and with the way he mumbled, repeatedly mentioning his head and how it hurt, despite her grumbles and complaints that had stuck with her since she woke, Rowen began to panic a little. What's more, she had absolutely no idea what the hell to do.
Even so, she had managed to pull her suddenly rampant thoughts together long enough to think. She had done what she did when he was sprawled on the couch and lifted him up by his shoulders, putting him at least, for a moment, in a sitting position. Rowen was not sure why she hadn't noticed it earlier, but after she had gotten him upright once more, the cut underneath his hair seemed painstakingly obvious. It wasn't bleeding, thankfully, though — when she had assured herself that she could leave him alone for a minute — it had been that one piece of information that sent Hopper into command mode. The same way he had spoken when demo-dogs were about to surround them carried right through the radio.
Still, despite the assurance of Hopper's 'don't worry, I'll handle this' tone of voice, Rowen felt antsy. She really didn't want to be charged with an accidental murder — which, when she thought about it, wouldn't be murder but a suicide of sorts, as Steve was the one who tripped himself. It didn't make her feel any better.
All the grievances that had stirred within her before had vanished, leaving her jittery and waiting for Hopper for what felt like an agonizingly slow ten minutes.
He told her not to go anywhere, and she didn't. Not when she heard one of the patrol cars roll over the not-so-pristine lawn. Not when he stalked heavily into the house and rushed into the kitchen. Rowen did not move; not until he told her to.
Thankfully, Steve had the decency to already have pants on — however many days ago he did so aside — thus, once he was up, all they had to do was throw a jacket over him and manage to hobble through the house, all the way outside, and slide him into the SUV.
Though Rowen had the best intentions in mind when sitting him up, Hopper told her it was better that he lay down, especially when the road to the hospital was bumpy. She would be lying if she said she did not open her mouth to protest when Hopper told her to hold his head in her lap as a means to keep it still . . . but opening her mouth was about all she had a chance to do. If she wasn't convinced the chief was concerned about Steve before, she was then when he gave her one of his glares. No back-talk, it said.
None was given.
She had to give herself credit, she went a whole fifteen minutes with Steve's head in her lap and did not utter one word . . . though because of this, and the complete lack of any talk at all, her mind began to reel. Selfishly, for the entire ride, she had hoped he wouldn't throw up again. But otherwise, she was left to wonder: what had he done to cut his head so badly? Had it been there before she showed up at his house? It didn't look like it . . . but she wasn't a doctor. And there had been nothing in his kitchen or around him to show her he had hurt himself.
Rowen felt her own head begin to ache. It seemed every time she started to feel annoyed, aggravated, or just blatantly fed up with him, something bad happened. And she always felt like she had caused it somehow, no matter how ridiculous. Cuts, bruises, hurt feelings, head injuries. She didn't want any of that to happen. She didn't want to be the bad guy.
She didn't want him to die. She just wanted him to leave her alone.
But, even when he did, things still happened.
When they arrived at the hospital, Hopper managed to help Steve in on his own. Rowen filled out paperwork, the chief spoke to the doctor. They spent an hour or two waiting in stiff, uncomfortable chairs until the doctor came to collect Hopper, and Rowen was left on her own in a hallway that was almost to white to handle. It reeked of the extremely clean, sterile smell all hospitals had and she was not happy when a flood of memories abruptly returned with it.
The only time she had ever gone to the hospital for herself was when she sprained her ankle in a surfing accident. She was eight, and the board was about twice her size, much too wobbly to balance on her own . . . especially when a gigantic wave had appeared out of nowhere. Rowen had been too full of pride to try and paddle away from it. She wanted to take it head-on and, as expected, failed miserably. She was thrown off harshly, and as such hurt her ankle when falling into the water. It was stupid. It was dangerous. And her mother's face screamed all of these things, but she hadn't uttered any of it.
She had been as pale as a sheet and as shaky as one of the branches that shook under Hawkins's unruly winds, but she hadn't uttered any of it.
Though her dad most certainly had, and he would continue to all of the times Billy ended up being the one at the hospital.
Rowen wondered more than once within the time she spent sitting why Steve's own parents weren't there. Or better yet, why they weren't at his house. She didn't want to dive into that story; no doubt, it would have been something awkward and uncomfortable . . . but still. It was strange. Her own dad was a piece of shit, but even he had the decency to show up.
When he finally came out, Hopper took her aside, claiming the doctor was giving Steve a list of things to take and things to do.
"He had a concussion," the chief told her quietly.
"A concussion? Seriously? I wasn't even gone for a minute and he managed to bang his head that badly?"
Hopper ran a calloused hand over his face. "No, Rowen, he had the concussion before you showed up."
She blinked. "What?"
"For a couple days, at least," he explained, looking over his shoulder briefly. "There's a gash on his head and the doc said he must've taken a beating . . ."
Rowen suddenly felt her stomach plummet. ". . . Oh."
Her mumbling had caught Hopper's attention. "What?"
She sighed, agitated. "Okay, so, you remember when I told you how he and Billy had gotten into a fight?"
A brow was raised. "Yeah?"
"Well, there was a lot of swinging and a lot of crashing into things, but — . . . it got to a point where Billy started punching at his face, and he just — he kept doing it, and doing it, and we couldn't get him to stop until Max stuck that thing in his neck and . . . Well, you saw Steve's face."
"What about the gash on his head?"
Rowen hesitated. ". . . There might've been a plate?" she eventually muttered.
Hopper lifted his head in a way that she came to realize most adults did, came to realize that she was starting to do herself. "Why didn't you tell us?" he eventually asked, holding a hand out to the side as if it would emphasize his words.
"I don't know — I mean . . . yeah, he looked terrible, but we didn't think it had gotten to the point of a concussion," Rowen paused, fingers twitching at her side. That feeling of wanting something to do had been returning lately, the itch for a smoke that crept up her spine when in San Diego. She had given in to it less and less over the past year, but stealing one from Hopper's coat pocket had ignited that old habit. It was almost overwhelming. "We put a couple bandaids on him, and by the time we got back, he seemed fine. He was acting like his normal annoying self."
Hopper was not happy, if the lines on his forehead and steely glare weren't enough to tell. She expected it. She could see it all over his face, worn and tired. It seemed everyone looked worn and tired these days. She wouldn't be surprised if she looked like a corpse with how little she had slept for the past week.
A hand was dragged over the chief's face once more. "Okay, well . . ." he sighed. "We at least got him here before it could get worse. Apparently, you showed up just in time."
"Yeah . . ." The word barely escaped her lips.
The mumbling had caught his attention. "You alright?"
"Yeah," she said, a little louder this time. "Peachy."
Her sarcasm was nothing new to him. Neither was it to see her offstandish, blunt, snarky; if anything, it was normal Rowen behavior . . . and yet. After everything, he could tell something was different.
The first time Hopper had seen her had been as abrupt as the times he saw her brother's car flash through the streets, a stripe of blue and painstakingly loud music. She was dressed in something he now figured she would never wear again, crazy long hair pulled back, arms and face still tanned from life on the West Coast, where he could only imagine she had spent years under constant sun.
But, after being in Hawkins for only a few weeks, he could see she had already paled. It was lackluster, her appearance now. Her hair fell freely, managed but unacknowledged, only brushed at or pushed away when it got in her face. The bags under her eyes were to be expected. A lack of sleep plagued everyone in their not-so-little group, but the tell-tale sign of being dragged in a million different directions was apparent across her face. Rowen was exhausted, and showing up at the station was not making it any better . . . though making her stay home didn't seem to either. He wanted to make it easier on her, but it hadn't helped.
He hadn't helped. Sending her to Harrington's house was meant to be a harmless push, a means to get her out of her comfort zone that consisted of a phone and Flo's desk. But instead of an innocent shove, an innocent interaction, all she got was a bundle of nerves and a problem she could not handle. The way her voice carried over the radio had been evidence enough.
She was paler when he found her — if that was at all possible — bundled up in the police coat he had left in his Blazer. Rowen had quite literally done what he told her to do: she hadn't moved, and she hadn't left the kid alone. She had opened her mouth to argue when their seating arrangement came up, but even then she didn't put up much of a fight. She hadn't liked it, but he could see through his rearview mirror: she did what she was told. She made sure Harrington didn't go anywhere, that his head wasn't jostled around by the bumps in the road or the way his car could not seem to quit rattling. It wasn't completely necessary, now that they were on the other end, but Hopper hadn't wanted to take any chances.
He wondered if she cared more than she let on, but he wasn't going to indulge his curiosity by making her even more uncomfortable. Still . . . there were ways to find out without posing the question.
"If it's Harrington you're worried about, don't," he tried. "He's gonna be fine."
"I'm not worried about him. I'm just tired . . . I've been tired ever since that night."
Tired. He huffed. When were any of them not tired lately? It was bad enough that Joyce had almost lost Will once, and that he had run himself in a circle trying to look for the kid; that El had gone through more than any twelve-year-old should, and that the rest of them were dragged along for the ride, only to come out worn and utterly traumatized . . . but to have it happen all over again? And have two more dragged down with them?
Hopper had never considered therapy, but with the way things were going, he was beginning to wonder if it wasn't such a bad idea.
But he couldn't do that, could he? Even if he wanted to. None of them could. Therapy meant being honest, and the things they experienced just weren't that which you could be honest about. Not when the government was holding a gun to your head.
He wanted to sleep. Just once, peacefully, devoid of blue limbs and screeches and the gut-wrenching feeling that he had let everyone down. Rowen did too, he could see it. But if the way she looked was any indication, he could tell she'd been having nightmares too. And they couldn't exactly retrain their minds and keep themselves from having them either, could they? Not immediately, anyway . . . He could do one thing, though.
"Look, I don't know what's happened between you two," he eventually said, shaking his head. "I don't need to . . . but I appreciate you going over there, even if it wasn't the most pleasant thing."
Rowen fought back a tired smile. "Well, someone had to do it. Seems no one else has the balls," she muttered. ". . . Besides, I couldn't just leave him there on his kitchen floor. I'm not that heartless."
"No, you're not," Hopper agreed, though he spoke more earnestly than she had ever heard him. "You're a good kid."
Rowen huffed in a way that said she didn't believe him. Trying, she thought. The tired smile she had fought had disappeared completely.
firstly, i want to credit the concussion idea to another fic called "damn good babysitter" which i read on ao3.
secondly, i did not expect this chapter to be as long as it did, but im glad it is because i did not want to present you guys with another short one. the pace for this little side plot is going faster than i wanted it to be considering it feels like it happens so soon after the end of s2 . . . but if it went any slower i do not think it would read well, so i just decided to go with this. (':
also ! after considering this story for a while, i have decided that when i arrive at s3, i will be posting a separate fic for it! with all that i have in mind for the rest of "like a lady" i know i will be hovering around 30 chapters, which i feel is a good place to end it since s3 is a whole other plot of its own.
also x2, i would really love to hear your opinions on rowen as a character and how you feel about the way things have been progressing. i have been rereading this fic and, admittedly, i am not happy with the earlier chapters anymore. they feel a little blah to me — especially in regards to rowen and steve. it feels like i have not built them up enough, you know?
though it may be just me, which is why im asking you guys for your thoughts. (':
as always, thank you guys for being so wonderful and sticking with me for this long! please leave a review if you can!