Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Stranger Things.
Chapter 1: The Girl

"Billy?"

"Can you hear me?"

Max looked down at her brother's battered body, struggling to see his form through tear-fogged eyes. She examined him closely, his torso filled with bloody bandages, his chest and arms were covered in black and blue bruises. His once seemingly perfect hair was now in a disarray of unruly curls.

"Damnit Billy, you just had to go and get yourself involved…" She muttered.

Get it together dingus- he was always such a jerk to you-
He's still my brother, he may be a jerk, but he saved all of our lives.
He doesn't deserve this, why didn't I see sooner that the mind flayer had gotten to him.
-It might have made a difference.

A few tears slid down her cheek as she looked up towards his blackened eyes, she quickly wiped her tears away at the surprise of his eyes fluttering slightly.

"Hey! His eyes are moving!"

"Hunny, he might be able to hear you but the fluttering in his eyes... is just reflexes. He's going to be out for God knows how long, I don't want you getting your hopes up, okay?" Billy's nurse explained as she watched the hopeful young girl next to her.

Max turned to stare at the old nurse, she judgementally looked her up and down, until her eyes filled with rage.

"What would you know anyway? You're not a doctor and you don't know my brother!"

"Oh, my apologies, I wasn't trying to upset you, I just don't want you waiting around for something that may or may not happen." The nurse retreated to the doors exit.

She was distracted from her thoughts when familiar faces entered the room they came in single filed, one after another: Lucas, Dustin and Mike. Their faces painted with concern but also a considerable amount of sympathy- sympathy for her.

"What are you guys doing here? You don't have to worry about me, he's going to wake up soon and he'll be back to be his normal jerk self." She forced a smile on her lips.
"Max... We're really sorry, we never wanted to get Billy involved in this, I mean we know he did a lot of shitty stuff… but he sure as hell has made up for it… he saved all of our lives... that's why we're here. We wanted to thank him." Dustin comforted with a warm smile./p

"Well you'll be able to thank him properly, he's going to wake up real soon, I saw his eyes fluttering before, I bet he'll be awake by dinner- he never misses dinner." She bite her lip nervously.

"Well in that case, I guess I better get out of here before he's coherent and gets enough energy to bash me." Lucas chuckled, clearly trying to lighten the mood of the room.

"Ah, it's not that bad-- been there, done that. He hits like a pansy." Steve sneaked a joke from the doors entrance.

"Ha, He kicked your ass and you know it!"

"It's still too soon." Steve retorted with a teasing smack upside Dustin's head.

"Well I hope he wakes up soon, El told me to call her when he does... it might be enough to get her and the Byers back here." Mike shrugged his shoulders in hope.

"Ms. Byers wouldn't come back here unless the chief came back from the dead." Lucas added.

"Jeeze, Kiddo have some respect, we don't even know that he's dead, El has no powers to be able to even find him." Steve pressed.

There was a long silence between the group at the mention of the chief, Max could feel the deep mourning within the room, it was thick- so thick that it felt like you could cut it with a knife.

The group all looked to the floor, to anything in the room- to avoid looking at each other.
They were interrupted from each other when the same nurse as before walked into the room with purpose, clearly interested in checking on her patient.

"You all are going to have to clear out of here, I need to do his vitals and then the Doc is going to want to come in here to check him over." She demanded with a tapping foot,
"you can always come back during visiting hours you know. You all look tired anyways, you should go home and get some sleep."

"Yeah let's clear out guys." Mike agreed, he gestured with his hands for the rest of the group to follow his lead.

"You gonna be okay?" Lucas squeezed one of Max's shoulders.

"Yeah, I'll be out in a sec', I just want to say goodbye."

"Okay cool, I'll wait in the lobby, walk you home?" He gave a small smile.

"Thanks." She kissed him gently on the cheek and watched as he made his way towards the lobby, following the rest of the group.

Once she was satisfied she was alone, she came over to the side of the hospital bed where her once strong and seemly fearless brother laid. She placed her hand into his.

"I know things have been bad for so long... and I know that you hate me- or at least you act like you hate me…. But you need to know that all the bad stuff you've done doesn't even come close to the one good thing that you did. You saved us Billy. You need to wake up, I need to see more of the person that I saw the other night. Please Billy, please--wake up." She swallowed the lump in her throat.

She sat there for several minutes later, her hand still placed in his, her cheeks stained with tears. She watched his eyes, fluttering back and forth, wishing, hoping that they would just fall open; but it just didn't seem to happen.
Once she had accepted that the nurse had been right… that his eye fluttering had just been his body's reflexes, she placed his hand back on the bed, then rose herself up. As she began to make her way towards the door, she stopped dead in her tracks, "The girl." Had she heard that? Or had she only just imagined it? Had she really just heard a faint whisper?

She quickly sprinted back towards the side of the bed to see if in fact she had been driven to madness, she met her face with his looking for any sign that he had spoken. That he had perhaps been awake for even just a second.

"Billy?! Billy?! Can you hear me, open your eyes! Listen to my voice! It's me, it's Max!" She gently shook him, attempting to wake him—

"Nurse! Nurse!"

After a few moments the anxious nurse came barrelling into the room, "What is it hunny!"

"He spoke! I heard him speak!"

"Okay, okay, let's have a look, calm down okay." Max watched as she considered her claim, she closely examined her beaten brother, "Well! He did wake up didn't he?" she peered anxiously from the foot of the bed, ensuring that the nurse had enough space to do her work, feeling that just her mere presence was enough to affect the results.

As the weathered nurse checked over the recordings of the heart rate monitor next to the bed, she shook her head with disappointment, "sorry sweetie, but I don't think it was him you heard speaking, I think you're tired and you need to get some sleep. Come on let's get you out of here." She herded Max out of the room.

"But I heard him- I heard him say… The..g.i-…"

"It was nothing, I am telling you right now, if he does wake, it won't be now. Or even tomorrow. His wounds are too severe, a coma is the body's way of coping with trauma and let me tell you he has suffered some trauma."

Max turned to her, with an initial look of anger but it quickly turned to pain, "what the hell would you know? You have no idea, you weren't there- you don't know!" she shouted angrily, before turning on her feels, to flee the hospital.
_

"El! Are you almost done in there, I gotta go!" Will banged on the bathroom door.

Ignoring the banging on the door, Eleven laid further back into the bathtub, her eyes covered with an old pink bandana, her face in harsh lines as she concentrated at the task at hand. After several unsuccessful minutes she abruptly pulled her petite body from the tub and placed her worn pink fluffy dressing gown on.

She walked to the mirror and splashed her face with some cold water before placing the bandana into her gown pocket. She looked at herself disproving in the mirror, her hair in a mess of waves, thick black bags under her eyes- a symptom of her constant nightmares.
She couldn't sleep not after everything that had happened. Not after the way it had ended.

Need my powers.
She opened the door to see her whole adoptive family standing before her.

"What were you doing in there?" Jonathan raised an eyebrow.

"Stuff."

"What kind of stuff?" Joyce interrogated, with a stamping foot.

"Getting ready for school," heading towards her bedroom for sanctuary, she pushed in between them.

"Well, that's a white lie if I ever heard one- you don't start school for another week... you're a bit early." Joyce stalked in behind her, "I hope you weren't trying to use your powers El, you're still took weak to even be thinking about it."

"Trying to find dad. Trying to find Billy. Help them get out."

"What do you mean… Get out?"

"I dunno. Just have a feeling. Need to find them." She added.

"El Hunny, Hop didn't make it, you know this. We've talked about it." Joyce reminded with a painful smile.

El ignored her comment and attempted to keep heading towards her bedroom door, she just wanted to be alone. Just needed to think, to plan, she would try again, to connect to them through the radio just as soon as she rested again.

"Why didn't you use the radio or the T.V.?" Will pointed to the old radio on the living room shelf.

"Powers don't work, got to start all over again."

"Oh… El you know yourself; Hop wouldn't want you using them if it meant you might hurt yourself." Joyce reasoned.

"I know. But I miss him."

"Need dad." she said, as a tear rolled down her cheek.

"I know…. I know…" Joyce pulled her into a warm hug.

"…Why Billy, why do you need to help Billy, he was so horrible to you El, don't you remember. Plus, you know he's in the hospital." Jonathan questioned curiously.

"Him and I are the same."

"The same?"

"Yes."