Ok so basically I read this amazing story by WanderingPaladin called "No More", A story in which Eleven actually dies from vanquishing the Mind Flayer in season two. We get to see Mike deal with his grief and it's really sad and really awesome and I can't recommend it enough.
So I was kind of thinking what would happen if Mike was actually the one who loses his life at the end of season two, and how Eleven deals with that.
This will inevitably be hitting similar beats to "No More" so I highly recommend you read that as well just so I don't get the bits of credit that aren't mine. But without further ado, enjoy -Y
Chapter One: Denial
Eleven sits in her room, hugging her legs with her back against the wall. She's done this a lot recently, when she woke up after she fainted, She wore a confused look on her face, as if she was always lost in thought, and in truth she was. She wanted to see Mike, but Hopper always told her that she couldn't. It wasn't like she forgot what happened, she just hoped she was wrong, maybe Mike was still alive. Her mind flashes back to when it happened.
November 1st, 1984
...
El slowly rises her eyes from what felt like a deep sleep, Hopper embracing her in a hug. "You did good, kid" he says in a tired voice.
El can barely comprehend his words, too exhausted to think. The rising elevator slowly but surely taking them up to the lab. El sees the dogs falling like rain from the walls of the cave, it looks surreal. But as she retraces her thoughts and regains her senses, she can only think of one thing in particular, Mike.
"Mike… Mike" El softly let's out, Hopper's face surprisingly contorts into one of sympathy, "don't worry, we'll see him no problem". El flashes a light smile through the exhaustion, and Hopper smiles brightly back.
When the tram stops, Hopper picks El up by the legs and shoulder blades, taking deliberate steps through the flickering halls, walking away from the main elevator with a growl, as he sees the body's of five scientists and two dogs.
He purposely steers Eleven away from the bodies, in a futile effort to keep her from the sights, even though she's seen all of these on the way to the gate.
Hopper walks to the stairway and whispers to El, "are you going to be okay to stand?". El gives him a confused look, and Hopper responds "I've gotta carry someone else". El's narrowed eyebrows slight upwards in a look of worry, "bad man?" she whispers. Hopper shakes his head.
"No, he did help the scientists but he also saved me and Mike's life". Eleven's look of worry fades away "Mike…", her heart melts just as the thought of him.
She had tried her best to see Mike every day through the void, but to touch him… to almost kiss him again, her stomach flutters to see him again.
Hopper made his way up the stairs as he slowly lowered El down onto a step. She gradually lifted herself up, with some strain, as her arms and legs still feel wobbly. She still gives Hopper a hardy nod, telling him she'll be okay.
Hopper bends down to see Owens, who is hardly awake at this point. "Hey… hey" Hopper says as he jostles Owens back to consciousness, his eye flicker open, "you good?" Hopper reiterates.
Owens slightly nods his head, "never better" he echoes Hopper's own words.
Hopper shows a slight smile, "okay we're gonna get you to a hospital, you fell down the stairs and hit your leg on a sharp end of a table, okay?" Owens nods as Hopper hoists his arm up to support him as the doctor hops on one leg.
He stops near El, who is still leaning on the railing, close to collapse similar to Owens. "You close the gate?" Owens asks, El nods as she stares at the floor.
Owens puts a hand on her shoulder, startling her slightly, as she still doesn't fully trust him. "Thank you" Owens says sincerely, with relief visible in his voice.
El nods again as she walks up the stairs with as much haste as she can muster, too anxious to see Mike to do anything else. As the group goes through the entrance of the lab, Owens sees the body of Bob, making a sound of disgust and pity.
"I saw him get attacked, even as you guys left…" Owens remarks. Hopper nods in acknowledgment.
El saunters over to the door, opens it, and holds it for Hopper and Owens as she rests on it.
They put Owens in the trunk as Eleven slinks into the back seat and collapses. "You doing okay?" Hopper asks from the front as the police car starts. "Mike… Miiiike-"
"Yeah yeah kid, you'll get to see him" Hopper sighs inwardly, as he now has to consider what it will be like with everyone knowing he was keeping her in a cabin. Eleven groans quietly.
El sees Hopper take Owens into the hospital, she was itching to see Mike again, and she was confused as to the nature of this 'not a bad man but kind of a bad man'.
After a few painful minutes, Hopper jumps back into the car and whispers to El, "alright, let's go see Mike". Hopper lights up as he sees El's reaction of joy and excitement.
El slips in and out of consciousness, her desire to be with Mike being the only thing keeping her from a deep sleep. She is awoken from her light sleep by the stopping of the car, as he hears Hopper whisper, "who the hell's car is this?".
She sees him look back at her in worry. "Stay here, someone new could be at the house" he says. El's face grows in annoyance, whimpering as she sees Jonathan's car, knowing that if they're home, then nothing should be wrong.
Hopper gets out of the car and looks back to make sure El wasn't following him. El listened as Hopper walked up to the house and quiet muffled sounds of taking ensued, followed by strange silence.
El can't handle not being able to see Mike, so she hastily opens the door, almost falling out onto the ground as she realizes how weak she is.
The night time October weather welcomes her with an instant shiver, she still walks up to the house, which is oddly silent. Everybody's home, what's happening? she thinks to herself.
The dead leaves scrunch heavily over her worn down shoes as she gets closer to the house. A part of her doesn't want to go in for some reason, but she knows she wants to see Mike, so she silently walks up the steps and opens her door.
What greets her is a sight she didn't expect. The first thing she notices is Nancy silently sobbing in the corner, with Jonathan trying to console her. She has no idea what went wrong, but more and more of her is getting scared.
She looks to her right and she sees Joyce looking straight at her in a look of pity. She has her hands clasped up to below her chin with a slight hunch, appearing to be on the verge of tears.
Will lays there, completely out. Maybe he's still sick? Maybe the plan didn't work? Eleven thought to herself.
She looked further to her right to see Hopper leaning on the wall, with a look of pity and regret, not a face she usually saw on Hopper, which scares her even more.
The more she appears to be confused, the more she sees the people around her scrunch up in sadness. She finally peers over to the kitchen to see Max, Lucas and Dustin at the table.
Max sits at the end of the table with a look of shock, with her eyes wide open and her hands on her temples, looking to be on the verge of tears as well.
Dustin and Lucas however are freshly stained with tears all over their face. As they see El, Lucas shuts his eyes and moves out of his chair, walking over to the end of the kitchen and leaning over the sink. Dustin's face bursts into a new set of tears as he silently cries.
But one thing she notices after seeing all there was to see, is that someone important to her was missing. Her face moves over to Dustin as she furrows her brows in worry, "where's Mike?" she asks softly, a small part of her fearing the worst.
Dustin closes his eyes and shakes his head slowly, making her heart beat faster.
"El… sweetie" El hears a voice from behind her, she whips around seeing Joyce looking at her, new tears leaking out of her eyes. "...Mike?..." She questions again, with a bit of a catch in her voice. Her breathing was now rapid as she looked sporadically around. Where is he? she wondered.
As she looks around, no one seemed to be able to tell her what she was asking, and now she was starting to get terrified, fearing the absolute worst.
Hopper finally speaks up to her, with tears actually welling up in his eyes as well. "Eleven…" Hopper spoke, using her full name. El looks back to him with a scared look, close to crying.
"He's gone…"
Hopper says softly. El's face goes white, her stomach churns, and she wears a look of absolute horror, as she doesn't believe what she's hearing. Gone? No… nononono. El starts to breath so fast it sounds as if she's about to hyperventilate.
She can hear the high pitch whine that comes with each inhale, her sight starts to become blurred with tears.
"No" She says quietly as she shakes her head from side to side
Hopper closes his eyes, looking pained just to talk to her. "El-" He begins to speak, "No… Mike… nonono". She looks around the room, all eyes focusing on her. The room begins to go blurry and shake.
Blood oozes out of her nose, and she realizes that she's actually making the entire house shake, despite how exhausted she is, with new blood starting to come out of her ears and nose.
Hopper grabs the window sill with the shaking, and he speaks to El slightly more pressingly, "El… please calm down". El looks at him with a flabbergasted look, you want me to calm down?.
All the words she has learned in the past year escape from her, as she can only utter two words.
"Mike… nooo…." El falls on her knees, her fingers and toes go completely numb. She stands straight up and runs out the door.
She limps over to the car, where her stomach starts to stir, working it's way up her body as she throws up on the grass.
She can do everything but cry, her body is stiff and numb, and she doesn't understand any of it. She can't fully comprehend that Mike's gone, the thought of it just confusing her, it's so much to take in.
She lies there on the ground outside, unbothered by whatever may be happening in the house. "No… I promised..." she whispers to herself, one final time before fainting.
…
El wakes up from her dreamscape, but in too tired a state to think about where she is or what's going on around her.
She believes for the shortest of instances that she's in her room, and that all of this was some sort of bad dream. She can go back to watching him through the void, with at least a hope of one day seeing him again.
But as she becomes more and more awake, she begins to take in the things around her. She lies in Hopper's car, but it isn't moving.
She tiredly looks around to see Hopper still in the front seat, looking down at his steering wheel with his hat in his hands.
As the events of the past night replay through his head over and over, only one question pops into his head, what the hell am I gonna do? He sits in his car, parked right outside the trail that leads to his cabin.
He stopped driving a while ago, but he just wants to think. His daughter is lovesick for this boy for an entire year, and then when he comes back into her life, he dies?
The kids had told them that apparently Steve was convinced to go into the underground Mind Flayer network, so they could steer away the Demodogs from him and El.
A part of him knows that this was a good idea, as he probably wouldn't have been able to handle all of the dogs. But damn, he did not think Mike and Steve were gonna get eaten.
He doesn't want to tell El how the kid died… but he knows she's bound to ask. He can't imagine what's going through his own kids head right now.
He needs to find someway to reach to his kid. El had always been, for lack of a better word, obsessed with Mike.
His brain was telling him that she couldn't be that distressed, because she had only known him for a week. But his heart told him that Mike meant the world to her, and for that to be taken away… he really didn't know.
He also realized that this would be a nightmare to explain. The bodies were lost, so he couldn't even prove that they had died. What would their parents think?
He has a lot to think about, but a part of him really is sad that Steve and Mike died. That Wheeler kid must have been a god gift from heaven, the way El had described him, even if he never knew the kid well.
He breathed a heavy sigh, and got out of the car, lifting the half asleep El into the cabin.
November 2nd, 1984
Jim Hopper slams his hammer into the last nail. He finally finished. After he put El into bed, he went straight to work at picking up the heat lamps, cleaning up all the debris, and nailing blankets over the windows El had broken.
His stomach is still churning, as he's desperately afraid to face his daughter this morning. He had thought about preparing breakfast, but after all of the work he did last night, he decided just to make Eggos.
He doesn't know how El's going to be when she wakes up, and due to the way she shook the house out of pure shock last night, he prepares for the worst.
It doesn't take him long to realize how tired he is after he finishes. Luckily he has a bunch of extra sick days, so he's going to try to be there for El, and help her with whatever she needs.
He doesn't want to let the Eggos get cold, so he decides to wait until El gets up for him to prepare them. Hopper nervously shuffled around the table, setting plates and putting the toaster in the right place, all just to pass time as he waits for El to get up.
After about thirty minutes of sitting he checks the clock, 10:00 AM. Hopper begins to worry a bit. She's never usually this late to breakfast, unless something happens.
A part of him wants to give El as much space as possible, but he decides to check up on her. He moves over from the kitchen to her room, making quiet steps with his thick socks in case she's still asleep.
What he sees confuses him.
He sees El, wide awake, sitting with her arms wrapped around her legs while she rests on the head of the bed. She's still wearing her day old mascara, and the gel in her hair is slowly coming off as her hair starts to go back to curls.
The dried blood is still visible from her nostrils and ears, but there seems to be a tad of dried blood coming from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes show no tears, but they are bloodshot, and she appears to be staring off into space.
This sight startles Hopper a little, but he knows how she must feel. After the doctors had told him that Sara was going to die, he didn't cry, not for a little while at least. He just… took it all in.
Hopper doesn't like to think that Eleven cared for Mike as much as him and Sara, but saying that to her was the last thing he would do.
"El?" Hopper talks, quieter than intended. El doesn't acknowledge his existence. "El… have you gotten any sleep?" Hopper asks.
El slowly shakes her head as she continues to look at the end of the bed. Hopper sighs. "El, i-if you want to talk, you can" he tries to remind her that he's still there for her, but she doesn't react to his words.
"well you at least need to take a shower, okay?" Hopper says. He doesn't want to argue with her, so he tries his best to be soft.
At this El finally moves her bloodshot eyes to Hopper's, to which he inwardly sighs. "okay." she states without a hint of emotion, but Hopper notices the strain in her voice. After another five seconds of no motion, El moves her hands and her legs, Hopper hears the cracking of most of the muscles.
God how long has she been sitting here like that? he thinks to himself.
Once El stands up from her bed she waddles a little, but wills herself to stand up straight. While she stands for the first time since she found out about Mike, the breeze from her window hits her, and she realizes that it's still real.
A subconscious part of her hopes that it's just a really bad dream… and she's always disappointed when she sees that it's not. She sighs a little, it's small, but it's powerful. Hopper's face falls as he walks over to El and embraces her in a silent hug.
El doesn't emote to this. She doesn't even hug back. Hopper relents and kneels down to her level.
"We'll have Eggos for breakfast when your done, and I'll get us a new tv to watch, okay? I'm not going to work today so we can just stay here" he suggests, El once again lightly nods as she walks over to the bathroom. As she walks on in, she doesn't bother turning on the lights, shoving the door back with so little effort it doesn't even close.
Hopper opens the door slightly to turn on the lights, he sees El take off her jacket as she moves to get ready for the shower, Hopper sighs and closes the door.
A few minutes after he hears the shower turn on, he walks over to sit on the couch, but before he even gets the chance, his phone rings. He groans loudly before limping his way to the ringing telephone. He picks it up.
"This is chief Hopper" he says in an exhausted voice. "yeah, I know chief, where are you right now?" the snarky voice of Officer Callahan speaks up. "I'm taking a sick day today, I can't come in" Hopper tells him simply.
"Okay well sick or not, you gotta come in right now"
"Why?"
"You probably didn't hear, but three people died last night"
Hopper's shoulders slump at his words, he's not sure what he expected, but he had hoped for a day he could take care of his daughter, and maybe not deal with the events of last night.
Callahan takes Hopper's silence as an invitation to continue, "the radio shack guy Bob Newby, Steve Harrington, and Ted's son… Mike" Callahan takes a second to remember the kid's name.
Hopper debates over what to say. The deaths of these people and the crisis in the lab is forcing his hand, but he has to come out. "Yeah I do know…" Hopper thinks for a short second. "I still can't come in today, my daughter-" but he's cut off.
"Daughter?!"
"Yeah… well she's a daughter of my cousin, but she's not doing so hot so I've been keeping her with me for the past…" Hopper stops, he knows if he says year it will sound too unbelievable, but saying today would be even less convincing. "few months, and ummm, she was a really good friend of the Wheeler kid, so she's taking it a little rough."
The phone stays silent for a few seconds, until Callahan speaks up, "oh my god, I didn't know you were taking care of someone… why didn't you say anything?"
Hopper sighs, not wanting to come up with the whole story on the spot.
"she's a little late on her education because of how she was raised, so we've been taking it slow" he stops to analyze his words to make sure they sound believable.
"Damm… wait so do you know how the kid died?"
Shit. Hopper didn't realize how his story suggested that he knew the deaths of Bob, Steve, and Mike.
He remembers what Nancy and Jonathan has told him about their chemical leak idea, and he figures that Nancy must have explained Mike's death to her family, so he decides to work with that.
"I don't really know much about it… something about a chemical leak" he lies, pushing off the finer details of the story for later, maybe when he asks Nancy what she told her parents.
Hopper hopes that this is enough to shut Callahan up so he can be there for El, and thankfully, the officer relents. "Okay well, just thought I'd let you know, Karens been barking at me for the past six hours"
"And I'll get it figured out tomorrow… I just can't come in today" Hopper says, letting his frustrations make their way to his tone.
"If you say so Chief, but you better be here by tomorrow".
"I will… bye" Hopper quickly says, putting the phone back on the wall hastily.
He once again moves his head to check the grandfather clock in the back of the room, noting that it's been nearly 20 minutes since El's been in the shower. He sighs, and begrudgingly goes to check on his daughter.
Walking to the bathroom door, he knocks on it loudly, hopefully getting a response. His shoulders slump when no response is heard, even if he wasn't really expecting anything different.
He opens the door that she never bothered to lock and makes his way to the middle of the bathroom, stopping at the sink.
"Hey El?" he says louder than normal, still hoping to get her attention without him having to go up to her.
After a moment of silence he slowly walks forward and grabs the corner of the shower curtain. He hesitantly moves it to the side, and his heart stops at what he sees.
El lays there, head propped up on the wall of the shower while her body occupies the rest of the space given by the tub.
The makeup and hair gel isn't fully off her face, but she still stares off into space, seemingly contemplating her life.
Hopper lets a pained tear fall down his face as he sees her. Usually she values her privacy, always having clothes on in front of Hopper since the first month of her living in the cabin, usually she bothers to get clean, always making an effort to change out of her pajamas, brush her teeth, and look all around presentable, even when she almost never has a place to be.
But here she is, laying on the floor of the shower, as if she's taking a bath, just letting the water hit her face.
"El, come on, I need you to get clean at least" he begs, but to no avail. It hurt him so much to see her in such unfathomable agony, such that he couldn't really understand how she felt or what she was thinking.
Hopper had helped get her washed up, put clean clothes on her, and got her to sit at the table, even if she wouldn't eat.
November 6th, 1984
El sat in silence in her room, her stomach growled for food, and she had an itch on her cheek, but she ignored it. She desperately wanted to close her eyes, because they burned, but she ignored it.
The past few days had been weird for her, she really wanted to see Mike, and every once and a while she would forget that she couldn't. Moving wasn't hard for her to do, she just didn't want to move, she didn't want to do anything.
Every night her dad helped her take her clothes off and wash herself, because she didn't want to. Every morning her dad would prepare her food and put her in a chair, but she didn't eat because she didn't want to.
She saw her dad get distressed, she saw him feel afraid every time she didn't eat, and she was sorry. She wasn't trying to make him feel bad, or to make him worry, but it was the least of her concerns. Mike was… gone?
In the past two days, she began to walk around the cabin a little bit more, but more often than not she would sit.
Her dad would make phone calls to people a lot when he stayed home, and when he didn't stay home, he always had such an exhausted look on his face when he walked through the door.
She also stopped using her powers recently. It wasn't that she couldn't, she just didn't want to.
When Hopper was locked outside after she didn't open the door, he had to jump through one of the blanket covered openings to get in. He said it was a good thing they hadn't got new windows yet.
Hopper asked her if she was going to continue to not open the door, and when she didn't respond he started to use a key. El always felt bad about these things, but she didn't care enough to stop.
Today was the third day Hopper was going to stay home, and usually she would be excited to have some company, but now she wanted nothing more than to be alone.
Her reminiscing is cut off when she hears a light knocking from the door. She doesn't visibly react, but she's annoyed that her thoughts were interrupted.
She's met with the gruff voice of her dad as he opens the door, "Eleven," he says as he gestures his arms out to grab El by the shoulders.
When she continues to stare off, he shakes her, which finally makes her look at him.
She looks up and down at his face, taking him all in. A part of her just now realizing he was even here. He pauses as he opens his mouth, trying to find the right words.
"Do you remember Dr. Owens?" he asks softly, head cocked down with his eyes looking straight up to meet her gaze. El nods her head, "bad man" she says in a shrewd voice.
She realizes just now that she had lost her voice sometime ago, but she never realized. Despite her weak voice, Hopper's eyebrows raise up as he wears a hopeful smile, seemingly proud that she's talking at all.
It makes her feel bad that he's so happy just because she talked, but she pushes the thought aside. "Yeah, that's right" Hopper says, the enthusiasm distinct in his voice. "But he's not a bad man, he's come to help you".
El's brows furrow, "help… me?" she barely speaks above a whisper despite her attempts to talk normally.
Her speech seems to have reverted back to the way she talked when Mike had first found her. She thought it would make Hopper sad when she didn't use the words she had been taught, but he seems to be happy whenever she talks at all.
"Yes, El" Hopper shifts his body so that he's sitting on the bed with her.
"We all want to help you, but you just need to talk to us… please" he begs to her.
She can feel the sincerity in his voice, and her heart hurts a little to see the man she's grown to love sound so desperate to help her.
But her nagging voice keeps telling her that it would somehow be insulting to Mike if she doesn't think about him. And that maybe she's wrong about Mike, maybe they all are… he might still come back.
After all, Mike called her for three hundred and fifty three days just in case she was alive, her subconscious tells her is wouldn't be fair if she didn't do the same.
She moves around so she sits on her knees and faces Hopper, a look of whining on her face. "Don't want to talk… want to think… alone" in her final word she looks straight into Hopper's eyes, she doesn't want to hurt his feelings but she needs to be alone.
He closes his eyes and shakes his head, his look of despair turning into one of stubborn determination as his stony voice returns, "this is not negotiable" she gives him her signature confused look, which Hopper answers, "it means we're not going to argue over this, I want you in the living room in two hours, okay?" he says with a fierce resolve, putting emphasis on each word to make sure she understands.
El flicks her eyes down to look at her lap, she wants to argue but she doesn't want to make Hopper feel bad, "okay" she relents. Hopper gives her a quick nod as he stands back up and walks out of her room.
...
Hopper sighs as he finishes his call with Owens, hanging up the phone back on the wall. He rests his head against the wall as well. This past week has probably been the hardest… maybe second hardest week of his entire life.
The Harringtons and especially the Wheelers had given him hell the entire week, even though he was able to cover the story up thanks to Nancy's chemical leak idea, there were some holes that needed to be filled with Nancy and Jonathan's help.
It hurt his heart to see Nancy having to lie about his own brother's death, and he was pretty sure she at least really cared about Steve, so he couldn't imagine what it was like for her.
He thought about seeing how she was doing every once and a while, but for the police chief to check up on some random girl more than once would raise quite a few eyebrows.
Plus he had his own daughter to deal with. He moves his eyes to the door to El's room at the thought. Like I'm really helping all that much, he thought to himself sarcastically.
He knew she would grieve, pretty heavily he imagined, but he never expected this to be her reaction. Curled up into a ball all day, barely talking to her own dad at all? In such a hard time like this?
He didn't understand. But with Owens, there's hope. After all, he is a trained psychiatrist and one of the few people who actually knows El's whole story, so it's his best option.
...
El sits in her normal position, on her normal spot on the bed. She glances at the clock to see that it has indeed been two hours, but she decides to wait for Hopper to call for her, wanting to milk every last moment as if it were precious to her.
She hears the door opening without the secret knock, and she hears her dad and the bad man exchange greetings as they talk for a few minutes. She begins to grow nervous… afraid that the bad man will do experiments on her, or that he will think she's sick because she hasn't eaten much.
She remembers when Hopper had just left her a cereal bar on her nightstand in desperation a few days ago, because she hadn't eaten anything since Mike went away.
She didn't really want to, but she had grown too hungry to resist it, especially because Hopper wasn't making her sit at the table, so she begrudgingly ate it.
The following day, Hopper had walked in and saw the wrapper of the cereal bar, he breathed a heavy sigh of relief as he looked up at the ceiling. Neither one of them acknowledging the others existence.
Her thoughts are interrupted however, as Hopper knocks on the door. She hears the muffled voice of her dad, "kid, someone's here to see you" he says in a raised voice.
El sighs as she begins to move her legs and arms, the cracking of her joints once again reminding her of her exhaustion.
She slowly makes her way to the door, the nervousness of greeting the bad man pulling at her stomach more and more with each step.
The creaking of the door startles Hopper, who stood in front of it with his back turned, now shifting to look at her. She only peeks her head out of the door to look at the bad man.
He stands there in a relaxed position, holding a glass of water in one hand, with a cane in the other, and a large bandage wrapped around the wound on his leg.
The sight of him reminds her of a happier time. Even though the world was in danger from the Shadow Monster, she would still go through the pain of closing the gate a thousand times over to have her Mike back.
But to her shock, the doctor stands there with a toothless smile, looking… jolly. A far cry from what the bad men usually looked like.
She relaxes a little from his friendly presence, before remembering who he was, and what he did.
Her dad kneels down to meet her eyes, "this isn't some experiment or anything, he just wants to talk to you" he tries his best to console, but it does little to ease her nerves. She's about to retort, but the bad man speaks up.
"Maybe I should handle this, Hop" he suggests as Hopper nods and walks away.
The doctor limps his way to the girl, putting pressure on the cane where he would normally use his right leg. He looks at her with his eyebrows raised as he sticks up a hand.
"There's no need to be afraid, obviously I couldn't hurt you even if I wanted to" he says as he points to his leg and laughs at his own joke. El is unphased, but the man isn't discouraged.
"You see, I was actually moved to the Hawkins Lab from Cincinnati after Dr. Brenner had… well" he finishes by widening his eyes and moving his straightened hand across his neck. El furrows her brows at this gesture, but he laughs it off.
"So, that means we've never met in person, and I've never introduced myself Jan-oh" he snaps his fingers and points at her.
"What would you like me to call you? Jane, Eleven, or did your dad give you a new name" he gestures over to Hopper.
At this he finally waits for a response, and El tenses up. She's surprised the man hasn't commented or written down anything, especially related to her bloodshot eyes, greasy hair, or teenage stink.
El takes a few seconds to respond, hoping the man would relent, but he doesn't.
She finally works up the nerve to show him her harsh, lost voice. "M-Mike calls me El… short for Eleven" she states weakly, not looking up at him.
After a long second of silence, the man claps his hands together, startling her, "well then it's nice to meet you, El, my name is Dr. Owens, but you can call me Sam" he says.
Another surprising move is that he doesn't walk over to shake her hand, like Hopper had told her to do when meeting someone for the first time. She silently thanked him for this, desperately not wanting to touch anyone right now.
Owens walks over to a chair he grabbed from the dinner table, with Hopper bringing over another chair next to El.
He gives her a smile and walks away, she gives him a look that says please don't leave, and her dad picks up on it, shaking his head and raising his eyebrows in sympathy as he walks to the kitchen and leaves them alone. She knows he's only a stone throw away but it's still enough to make her feel as if it's just her and the bad man.
She looks over to Owens with a look of worry as he drags the chair over to sit across from her and grabs a notebook and pen.
She tenses up at the sight, knowing that the bad men always had a notebook and paper when talking to her.
Once again, to her shock, he picks up on it and asks, "do you want me to put these down?", her eyes widen as she thinks, how does he know what I'm thinking?
The doctor notices this too, "El, it's my job to understand people, you see…" he says as he puts the notebook down, "it's my job to understand people, because the more I understand, the less they have to tell me, and so it's easier for them to tell me what they want to".
He gestures to the empty chair, "do you want to sit down?".
El doesn't want any part of this terrifying interrogation, but she's already tired from standing, so she nods and moves to sit in the chair across from him.
Her shoulders slump once she sits there, looking him in the eye and ushering for him to continue.
"Man, you must be pretty exhausted" he comments with a light smile, El nods back.
"Not only that, but it sounds like you've lost your voice" he says, his eyebrows raised in concern. Here it is, here's the part where he talks about how she looks, and how sad she must be, but she admits that she feels a little better when he isn't holding the notepad.
She only nods again. "How much sleep have you gotten since it happened?" he asks. She looks at the ground.
"Don't like sleep… doesn't help"
"What doesn't it help with, El?", she doesn't respond to the question, moving on to something else.
"Wish I could call him" she admits. Owens' eyes narrow, maintaining his empathetic look.
"Do you think he's still alive?" his words make a shiver go up her spine as she sighs. To hear those words… alive from someone else reiterates what she knows to be true but doesn't want to think about.
She shrugs, "he called me for three hundred and fifty three days, and he thought I was dead"
"So you feel you should do the same?" he guesses correctly, making her look up at him. She doesn't respond because she assumes he already knows the answer.
She watches as Owens reaches to grab not his notepad but his glass of water, finishing it off with a sigh of refreshment, like they do in the commercials.
This makes El realize just how thirsty she is, not having any water since yesterday, when she forced herself to gulp some down.
She subconsciously parts her mouth, tongue separating from the roof of her mouth as she feels the lack of saliva. Owens moves to refill his glass of water, walking to the kitchen as he continues to ask questions.
"So, have you been doing anything lately?"
El continues to look down at the floor, shaking her head, but as she realizes that he isn't looking at her, she speaks up in her whisper of a voice "no…"
She hears him walking back, so she looks up, only to see his hand extended with a glass of water, she readily takes it.
"Do you miss him?"
El takes a sip of her water before she looks back at the ground to think. "Don't know"
She hears Hopper shift around, she perks her head up to see him looking at her with a confused face.
She begins to regret doing any of this in the first place, How could I not know? I'm must be heartless. But she dares a glance at Owens, who to her shock is simply nodding his head in understanding.
A part of her is profusely thankful to him for this, as she feels less abnormal around him.
"That must be frustrating" he says in sympathy as he leans in slightly. She slowly nods while looking at him, "yes…"
"It's okay though, it doesn't mean you don't care about him", he stops for a second before continuing, trying his best to be sincere, as he rests a hand on her knee.
"Just because you don't cry, doesn't mean you aren't sad" he says, giving a look to a confused Hopper, who decides to turn back around and work on lunch for the three.
She gives him an apprehensive nod, feeling a little safer around him. "In fact I think you are very sad… but that's not a bad thing". She gives him a look that says really? in a hopeful way.
"Think of it this way, how would you feel if he wasn't sad at all when you disappeared?"
She didn't consider this, she can only imagine how upset she would be if Mike didn't care that she was gone. "Bad" she states.
"But El, I won't lie to you, not talking to your dear old dad isn't going to make you feel better"
She looks over to Hopper, who was still turned but had stopped what he was doing, probably listening in intently on the conversation. El looks back to Owens with a confused look.
"But… you say it's okay to be sad"
Owens shakes his head lightly, "it is okay to feel sad, but what you're doing isn't making you sad… it's making you feel empty"
El lowers her head, recollecting on how she's been acting the past few days. "But I don't want to do anything else" she argues.
"That's okay" he offers, which makes El crack a smile in thanks, unaware that Hopper has started to watch them, his mouth open in shock at seeing his daughter smile in any capacity since Mike's death.
He knows it wasn't a real smile, like a smile of happiness and contentment, but it was still a small smile of thanks… Maybe this Owens thing really was a good idea.
"If you don't want to talk to him, then you don't have to until you're ready. But it will always be scary, so don't avoid him just because you're uncomfortable" he advises. El nods her head in understanding.
They're moment of silence is interrupted by Hopper, "okay everyone, lunch is ready" he says in a bored voice, trying his best not to be excited for El's shell breaking ever so slightly.
Dr. Owens face brightens up with excitement. "Great! I'm starving" he says as he walks back to the table, dragging his chair with him.
El's breathing speeds up a little as she looks at Hopper and sighs. "Don't want to eat" she tries her best to whine with her weak voice.
Hopper heaves a sigh, as he looks at her with an empathetic look. "El" he begins, but is cut off by Owens.
Hopper silently hopes that the doctor doesn't tell her it's okay to not eat, but he waits with held breaths.
"El, you've been hurt by a lot of people in your life, and you're hurting right now… but you don't need to hurt yourself by not eating and sleeping. It must feel like you're doing him a disservice by distracting yourself"
At this El feels her shoulders fall as she looks at the floor in shame, still in awe and slightly frustrated at how he reads her like an open book.
"But you and I both know that he wouldn't want you doing that to yourself"
El slumps in defeat as she begrudgingly makes her way to the table. She still doesn't want to do it, but she knows Owens has won, and she can't say no to her stomach for much longer.
…
The meal itself wasn't as lively as Hopper had hoped.
In fact, Owens had opted in engaging him in small talk rather than El. They exchanged looks, Hopper's asking what are you doing? And Owens telling him, just roll with it. After a while, Hopper begins to see what Owens might be getting at.
Slowly but surely El's expression had changed. At the beginning of the meal, she seemingly wanted nothing to do with them or the food, but as him and Owens were talking, she appeared to have something on her mind… perhaps the doctor was prompting her to speak of her own accord.
"Doctor… Owens?" she asks through her coarse voicebox. "Just call me Sam" he responds with a smile.
El ignores his request and continues with her question. "Been feeling… that I am empty… like you say" she admits, her eyes darting towards the food that she has only slightly touched.
Owens takes another bite of his sandwich before continuing, acting like her opening up and talking to him isn't a big deal, which to Hopper it definitely is. "And that's okay… it's a lot to take in"
El opens her mouth to speak, but quickly shuts it again, unsure of what to say, but Owens picks up on her emotions.
"I know you feel that if you stop sitting in your room and thinking about him, then you're hurting his memory, but Mike died so you co-" Owens closes his eyes and bites his tongue.
Hopper looks at him, confused as to why he stopped mid-sentence, he then steals a glance at El, who had shifted her glance away from Owens to the middle of the table.
He sees her chest rise and fall slightly faster as she gazes back up at Hopper with puppy dog eyes. "Want to go… to my room"
Hopper's brows jump in shock as he looks back at Owens, the doctor opens his eyes and nods in defeat.
He desperately wants El to eat more food and maybe get a little bit more help, but he decides to trust Owens, sighing inwardly as he spoke "okay, kid"
El quickly gets up and hastily shifts her way back into her room, quietly shutting the door. Hopper gives Owens a flabbergasted look, to which he slumps.
After a few good seconds of silence, he speaks up, "The hell just happened, doc?"
Owens gives Hopper a look, "that was my bad… dammit" he mutters to himself, and then looks up at Hopper, who is waiting for him to continue.
"I tried during the entire thing to not mention Mike by name, or that he died, and I let it slip" he rests his forehead on his hand. "What do you mean?" Hopper inquires.
"She still doesn't completely accept that Mike's dead. So to hear that from me is gonna make her upset"
"So you're telling me she doesn't believe you?"
"No, she does, at least a part of her does… it's that she doesn't want to"
Hopper's brows relent as he sighs and shakes his head in pity.
"Poor kid" he mutters to himself, strongly fighting back tears. Owens elaborates, "she doesn't want to believe he's dead, so quite simply she doesn't accept it, she's in denial Hop"
Hopper furrows his eyebrows yet again, "denial?" Owens nods his head, "you ever heard of the five stages of grief?"
"The five stages of grief?" Hopper repeats, Owens picks up on his apprehensiveness.
"It sounds worse than it is" however he stops before continuing as he widens his eyes a little and moves his hand to right, considering the truth to his previous statement.
"Not helping…" Hopper quips as he ushers for Owens to continue.
"It's a popular theory in psychology. Basically when people lose something or someone so valuable to them that they begin to grieve, certain patterns tend to emerge"
"What kind of patterns?" Hopper questions with concern.
"Well these patterns have been separated into five different stages, each one happening sometime after the other" Owens explains as he makes a fist with his hand and slowly opens up each finger. Hopper remains silent and pushes him to continue.
"The first stage is denial, second is anger, third is bargaining, fourth is depression, and the fifth is acceptance. Typically the more severe of a loss, the easier it is to recognize these patterns, and El is very clearly in the denial stage"
Hopper sits and absorbs the information as Owens elaborates.
"She's not going to be expressing her grief at all that much. In this stage people typically keep their emotions bottled up, because they don't fully accept the grief they're suffering from. In El's case, she doesn't want to accept the Mike is actually dead, and so she's hiding in her room, practically shielding herself from any truths that might challenge her thought process."
Hopper looks back at the table and puts his face in his hands.
"But eventually, she'll be forced to accept the truth whether she likes it or not, and when that happens, it's gonna hit her like a ton of bricks" he says as he moves his hands together, one of them fisted, demonstrating what he says with his hand gestures.
"There are some instances, where people never fully accept the loss and stay like that forever. Denial's tricky that way, you can get lost in it without help. But with both me and you looking out for her, it's not gonna happen" he assures him.
Hopper sits there, head still in his hands as he mulls it over. After twenty seconds of comfortable silence, he finally speaks up, "damn Owens… that's a lot to take in"
More silence follows.
"Are you gonna be okay?" Owens asks, startling Hopper for a second, he looks at him with wide eyes. "Am I gonna be okay? I'm a little more worried about El" Hopper retorts, Owens however looks at him and sighs, "you're mental health is important too, this is gonna be hard, it's gonna be terrible depending on how things turn out"
Hopper catches on to what Owens is implying, but he desperately shakes those hideous thoughts from the deepest corners of his mind.
He shoots the doctor a glare, who only shrugs in response, "she's gonna need her pops… don't keep yourself from rest, like her". Hopper picks up on the emphasis of his words, realizing his rest means more than just falling asleep.
A now heavy silence hangs over them, neither one of them knowing what else to say, until Owens chimes in, "I better get going" he says as he stands up with his cane, he turns around again to look at him.
"See you next week"
"Yeah" Hopper says as the doctor begins to leave, but another thought crosses his mind, "hey… thanks for helping El" he says with true sincerity, "it means a lot to me" he explains.
Owens smiles, "I'm sure it does, and it's the least I can do after you saved my life" he replies. "I'll be seeing you, then" Hopper finishes as Owens nods and walks out the door.
…
Hopper lets his hand off the pan as he reaches to punch in the numbers for the microwave. Boiled hot dogs was never his favorite, but it's about all he has.
He second guessed himself when he first put the peas in the microwave, knowing El's intense hatred for them, but he shrugs it off, figuring that El probably wouldn't eat anyways.
He quickly turns on the new TV with the built in remote that he had bought just a few days earlier, figuring now was the perfect time to use it. Once he had finished it all, he set his meal onto a plate, leaving half a hot dog and a handful of peas just in case.
After about five minutes of eating in peace, he truly begins to realize how sad he's been without El as her normal self.
He wonders if she'll ever really get over this, after all, Mike was the first person she had ever gotten to know. He feels the all too familiar urge of tears begin well up in his eyes, not only for himself, but for his poor girl.
He silently lets his tears fall, putting his forehead up against his hand in shame as he wants more than anything to just be there for El, and for her to trust him. He can't imagine what she's thinking right now… what she feels. It eats him up.
He sighs to himself as he wipes the tears from his eyes, c'mon Jim you've got to be strong.
Just as he lowers his head to contemplate, he hears the creaky hinges of a door squeak open. And lo and behold, there she stands, shifting her way out of the door, head down in shame. "...hungry" she says.
Hopper can't tell if she was whispering or trying to talk normally with a voice that's getting worse and worse, but he doesn't care, as his heart melts at the sight.
He slowly gets up out of his chair and walks to his daughter, kneeling beside her and taking her in a hug.
Hopper feels the tears leak out of him once again, not holding back in front of the person she loves most. El can feel the hiccuping motion of her dad's sobs, making her wobble as she whispers, "I'm sorry… didn't mean to hurt you"
Hopper pulls away, his eyes red and wet, "it's not your fault, I can't imagine what you're going through right now, El", she slowly nods as her stomach grumbles again. Hopper smiles, "c'mon, let's get you some food and water"
They walk over to the table and begin to eat in silence. Hopper chuckles as she still eyes the peas with apprehension. Even with all that's happening, you still won't touch those peas.
He gives a sincere smile as he bends over and fumbles her curly hair. She smiles… once again, not a real smile that she used to give when he did it, but a small smile of appreciation nonetheless.
As the pair gets close to finishing their meal, Hopper speaks up, "you think Owens helped?" she stopped fumbling around with her peas and looked up at him, "don't know" she responded after a few seconds.
Hopper has a slight hunch that he really did help her, because he knows that she would have never come out to eat without the talk from the doctor.
But he also knows what he said at the end, and he could feel that she isn't ready to admit to herself Mike really is dead.
His stomach churns at the thought… the day when she fully realizes that he's gone, and he honestly doesn't know how she'll react, which scares him even more.
"El"
"Yes?"
Hopper pauses for a moment, forming his next words carefully, "I know you're not ready to really talk to me about how you feel… and I respect that" he sees her face shift in relief, which he thanks himself for.
"But when you're ready, El, I-I will always be there" he says as a fresh batch of tears begins to coalesce in his eyes.
El thinks for a bit, and slowly gets up from her chair and walk toward Hopper, embracing him in a hug, "thank you… I trust you dad".
Hopper feels the tears come back in full force, as that was the first time she had ever called him dad.
He holds her in his arms for what seems like hours, neither one of them wanting to let go of the other, but as Hopper reads the grandfather clock, it says 9:26. With a heavy sigh, he moves to part from El, but he notices that she doesn't budge.
He takes a good look at her face and sees that she's in fact completely out. She had finally gotten some much needed sleep.
He had thought about shaking her awake, but he figures she needs this, and plus the movement that he has done hasn't even woke her in the slightest.
He slowly carries his only family back into her room, in the same position he held her when she shut the gate just about a week ago. How could things change so dramatically so fast? He wonders to himself.
He gently plops her down onto her bed, noticing that the covers haven't been moved since she left and got that make over, which is something he'll need to ask her about sometime in the future.
He sighs at the fact that she probably barely slept at all, and if she did it was because her body quite simply forced itself to.
It all doesn't matter now though, as he sees his daughter, for the first time in a week, actually asleep. It isn't a comfortable sleep, and he can't even guarantee it's a happy sleep, but her body just can't take any more.
Hopper has no idea what he's going to do. He loves her with all his heart, she's the only one he really loves anymore, and to see her deal with this breaks his soul into a thousand different pieces. El told him she trusts him, and Hopper's not going to let that trust go to waste.
His feeling of sadness is replaced with a fierce resolve. In the end he doesn't even know how to help her, but god dammit he's going to try.
What did you guys think? Please leave reviews telling me what you liked and disliked, I plan to have a chapter for each of the stages of grief, and maybe a few others dedicated to fleshing out a post-Mike world rather than a post-Mike Eleven, so let me know if you think that's a good idea, and of course go and read "No More" if you haven't yet because it will make you cry. Thank you all! -Y