Jonathan and Nancy walked out of the Hawkin's Post Office, bummed out and defeated. After trying to negotiate with the new boss that was there-in place of Tom- they had walked out with no success in getting their jobs back. They were quite surprised that they even had anyone there to fill the spot so quickly but they supposed they had an assistant on hand. Alas, Bruce's and Tom's jokes about them had washed through the whole office, and no one wanted them to be there. So, after getting laughed at and ridiculed, they had walked out.

They stepped into the car, and Nancy cursed. "Sons of bitches," she huffed loudly.

"Hey," Jonathan said quietly. "Did you really expect them to let us back on?"

"Maybe...I don't know. With Tom gone, I guess that I thought that maybe there was a chance."

They knew that Tom had been flayed, and had been killed in the hospital along with Bruce. And even if they had somehow survived that, they knew that there was no way they could have survived after the gate was closed and the Mind Flayer was killed. Nancy realized at that point there were probably hundreds of people who had been flayed, and they had all died. And on top of that, for each person that had died, dozens of their family members and friends would be affected by it. She would be seeing shit all over the paper and news any day now, about the fire in the mall, and all the people that had been killed, including the town's chief of police.

She must have zoned out for too long, because then she heard Jonathan's voice enter her ears. "Hey," he said. "Are you okay? Is there anything else bothering you, or is it just this thing?"

"Sorry, I just, was, um...nothing, it was nothing, I was just thinking."

Jonathan started the car and got onto the road. "About what?" he asked. There was a lapse in their conversation while Nancy collected he thoughts. "Nance?" Jonathan pressed.

"All the people that died, all the flayed. They're all gone. All of them. There must have been hundreds of people in that thing, and they're all gone."

Jonathan sighed and visibly gripped the steering wheel tighter. "Yeah, I've been thinking about that too."

"How on Earth are they gonna cover something like that up?" Nancy wondered aloud.

"I don't know, but it's not our responsibility," Jonathan replied with a chuckle. "I guess we'll see what they come up with. That scientist guy my Mom took Will to last year will probably think of something."

"Who?"

"I don't know, his name is Dr Owen or something. Pretty sure he's still around."

"Ah."

Jonathan turned at the intersection and continued down the road. "Whatever it is, we'll be seeing a lot of in the news pretty soon," he pointed out. "Guess we'll just have to wait and see." Jonathan felt a pang of hunger in his gut. "You want to grab a bite to eat?" he asked.

"Yeah, that sounds nice."


Joyce walked into Will's room and found him lying bed, looking at the ceiling. One of the mixtapes Jonathan had made him was bouncing off the walls from the speakers of the radio on his desk.

"Hey," she said. "How you doing?"

Will glanced her eyes over to his Mom, and sat up in his bed. "Back from your errands?"

Joyce sat down beside him and rubbed his leg. "Yeah," she said. "I just went to...I went to the police station. Wanted to see what was going on about Hopper, if they had maybe found a body, or anything."

"Did they?"

"No," she sighed, sadness flashing across her face. "But I had a feeling they wouldn't, I just wanted to make sure, in case I missed something." Joyce got up to leave the room, but Will stopped her.

"Mom?" he asked suddenly.

Joyce turned around to face her young son. "What...what happened last night with you guys? You never told me."

Joyce's face went blank, and her eyes lost focus. She looked at the floor. Will immediately felt bad. "Sorry, I shouldn't have asked. Never mind."

"No, it's okay, sweetie, you should know," his Mom sighed, returning to the foot of Will's bed to talk to him. "We were in the...portal room, I guess you could call it. The room with the portal. This machine had this blue light beam coming out of it," she described, using a hand gesture to indicate a long shape. "And the gate, it was...right there. This machine was drilling, or something, a hole into the wall, and there was the gate. Right there. We had both the keys, so we put them in, and were about to turn them, but then one of the Russians came in."

Will stared at her, listening intently. He wanted to know exactly what had happened to Hopper last night. During the year prior, he was almost like a father to him in some regards. He was always the one who came with Joyce to the lab for his special check-ups. It had really hurt him when he found out that Hopper had been killed. But he couldn't imagine what El was going through right now.

"The Russian, he had been chasing us for a while. He almost killed us in that old farmhouse," she recalled, to which Will's eyes widened.

"Mom," he said worriedly. "How did you get wrapped up in all of this? Why were you with Hopper?" Joyce looked at him, at a loss for words.

"Just...never mind that. We were about to turn the keys, and he came behind us and threw us both off. He was really big, and really strong. He nearly killed Hopper three times.

"I tried to grab the gun, but he knocked me out. Him and Hopper were fighting, and they somehow ended up on the deck next to the machine, the machine that was drilling the gate. That was when I woke up. I saw them, fighting. Hopper got knocked down by him, and his head was right by the machine. I thought he was going to get decapitated," Joyce's voice cracked briefly, and her eyes started to glisten.

"Hopper was able to pull him down, and the Russian hit his head on the machine. I don't know how he didn't die right there. Hopper got up, and threw him into the machine. His body was torn to bits, and the machine, it...it malfunctioned when he threw him into the engine. Some kind of disk, of energy came out of it. It was like looked like electricity, or...I don't even know. It made some barrier, and blocked his way back.

"I was able to grab both the keys with the help of my keychain, and I knew I was able to turn them both. And I was going to, but...Hopper was still there, trapped." Joyce's pursed her lips and rubbed her eyes. "And he looked at me, from where he was standing. And he just nodded at me, and smiled. Just smiled.

"I knew what he wanted me to do. I knew what I had to do. So I looked down, and I...I turned the keys."

Will continued to sit motionless on his bed, speechless at what he had just heard. He felt his emotions start to rise up in him, but he willed them to stay hidden for just a few moments longer, enough to wrap up the conversation with his Mom. "So," he murmured. "Then what happened?"

"There was a really bright coming from the machine. So bright I couldn't even look it at it when it was happening. It must have exploded, because when it finally stopped the thing had been destroyed. And I went to look, to see if maybe he was there, but...there wasn't even a body."

"Wait," Will said suddenly, sitting up from his lying down position. "There was no body?"

"No," she said. "Which was weird, because when we passed by the exit, we saw some...well," she chuckled in spite of herself through her teary eyes. "I can't even call them bodies. They were just...lumps of flesh and bones. They had been turned to mush, just like Alexei said."

Ignoring that last bit about Alexei, because he didn't know who he was and he didn't want to take the conversation off on another tangent, he had a thought. "But," Will thought aloud. "If there wasn't a body, then...then maybe he survived somehow? Maybe you just didn't see him."

Joyce considered what her son had said for a moment. Maybe he was right. Maybe he had gotten out. Maybe there was some kind of exit she didn't see. Could he have jumped through the gate?

"I don't know, sweetie," Joyce said sadly. "Maybe, but...I don't want to hold onto this. The more I think about it, the more it'll just destroy me inside. If he lived, then I hope he's okay...but I'm not gonna get my hopes up."

Will reached in to hug his Mom. She was crying now, and Will felt some tears dripping down his face as well. He had never seen his Mom in this much emotional distress about something that wasn't related to him. It made him feel terrible. He wished he could fix it all for his Mom, but he knew he couldn't do that.

"I'm so sorry, Mom," he consoled. "But he didn't die in vain. He died saving all of us. And that's how we'll remember him."

His Mom pulled away, and kissed his forehead. "Thank you, sweetie. That means a lot to me."


Mike and El arrived at Mike's house after walking for about half an hour. El's leg was still in a lot of pain, and both of them were tired in general. Mike's face was still cut from the night before, and he knew he would have to come up with a solid excuse to tell his Mom. He also had to figure out what he was going to do with El, because his Mom didn't even know who she was, let alone seen her.

In his head, Mike hatched a plan for him and El to get by his parents without raising suspicion. Mike grabbed his girlfriend's hand and looked at her brown, beautiful eyes. He could have just become lost in them, but he had more important matters on his hands.

"Okay," he started. "Here's the plan. The backdoor to the basement is probably locked, so you're gonna wait right outside of it and wait for me to let you in. I'm gonna go through the front door, and tell my Mom that I spent the night at Will's, and the reason why I have this cut is because…" he trailed off, trying to think of something believable. There weren't many things that could give you a gash that badly, on the face of all places.

"Tell her that you fell off Will's bike?" El suggested. That excuse had crossed Mike's mind, but it seemed too simple. An easy lie that her Mom could perhaps see right through. But it was all he could think of, so he decided to go for it. "Okay," he said. "Let's see how that goes."

Just for good luck, El pulled her boyfriend down and gave him a peck on the lips. Mike smiled, and went around the house toward his front door. He tried the handle, and it was unlocked. Bracing himself for the worst, he stepped inside.

"Hello?" he called out.

His mother walked quickly toward his from kitchen. She stopped about a meter in front of him, and crossed her arms. "What on earth is wrong with you, Michael?! No message? No note? No phone call? Nothing! Do you know how worried I've been about you?!"

Mike winced, knowing that this was going to be a rough conversation, but before he could even open his mouth to explain himself, his Mom was yelling again. "And where is Nancy? Have you heard from her either? She hasn't called me in forever, she better be with Jonatha- wait, Michael, what on earth happened to your face? Are you okay? Oh my God, sweetie…"

"Mom!" Mike interrupted. "Jesus Christ, I'm fine. I just fell off Will's bike yesterday. And I'm sorry I didn't call, Will's phone was...his phone line was down, it just got fixed when I called you. So I couldn't call you before that. Can you just...tell me what my punishment is so I can go downstairs?"

Mike's mom gave him a quizzical look. "You think I'm going to punish you?"

"Well...I mean, yeah. I didn't call you for so long, and...what, you're not?"

His Mom uncrossed her arms. "Okay. I can't really get mad at you for not calling because, if you are telling the truth, then you weren't able to call, and that's not your fault. But still, it's not that long of a walk. You could have just came over and told me. I've been worried sick, especially with the fire at the mall."

Mike looked at his Mom expectantly, awaiting his sentence. "You're grounded," she decided. "For...three days. Any longer, and I'll want you out of the house."

"Okay," Mike replied, grateful that his punishment wasn't that severe. "Thank you."

Mike left his Mom, and started to walk down the stairs to the basement. With every step there was a creak, and with every creak he became more excited to see El. He felt bad, given the circumstances, but the thought of him spending a whole day, perhaps more, completely alone with El made him really excited. And he knew El would be upset, and he would be helping and comforting her for the majority of the time, and would also probably wind up letting her cry into him at some point, but nonetheless.

He unlocked the backdoor and opened it. El wasn't there. He stepped out of the doorway and looked to his right, and saw El hiding behind the bushes in the back garden. He smiled.

"Come in," he said, to which El returned the smile and stepped into the house.

"Just leave your shoes over there," Mike said, indicating toward a rubber mat by the door. El kicked off her shoes and walked gingerly into the center of the basement. Mike followed her, and scratched the back of his neck. He took into account that she was still wearing Joyce's oversized pajamas. "Do you, um...want some nicer clothes? I can grab some."

El chuckled to herself. "What?" Mike asked, feeling a smile starting to spread to his face at the magical sound of El's light laughter.

"Nothing, this just...reminds me of that night. The first night that we met."

"How?" Mike asked.

"You gave me some dry clothes. When I was in the fort that you built me. Remember?"

Mike's heart became fuzzy at the memory. He vividly recalled the stormy evening that he had been with Dustin and Lucas, wandering around Mirkwood looking for Will. Then he had heard rustling in the bushes behind him, and his life was changed in the second after.

"I remember a lot of things from that night," Mike reminisced. "I remember hearing you running around in the trees, thinking it was a wolf or something. I couldn't have been more wrong."

El walked toward him and hugged him, digging her fingertips into his back, breathing in his scent. She closed her eyes, and ran her right palm along the length of his spine.

"My life changed so much that day, El," Mike murmured, closing his eyes and resting his chin on the top of her head. "Me too," she replied.

They stood in the center of the room, wrapped in each other's arms for a few minutes, just breathing, enjoying one another's presence. It calmed them both down from the events of the last two days. El's mind started to wonder, and she started to think of that first night again that she spent in Mike's basement. She remembered the clothes that Mike gave her when she was sitting on his couch, shivering and wet. She remembered changing in the bathroom, after almost getting naked in front of Mike's friends. She bit back a laugh at that memory. She remembered showing Mike her "011" tattoos, and how he reacted. She remembered when Mike had given her the name "El." She remembered the blanket fort that she had slept in, and then had a thought.

"Mike?" she quietly asked.

"Yeah?"

"Can we build a...a 'fort'"?

Mike looked at her with a confused face. "What?"

"That is what it is called, right? A...fort?"

Mike let go of her, and put his hands in his pockets. "I mean, yeah, we can. But why?" he said, with almost a laugh. He was fine with building a fort with El, but he wanted to know why on Earth she would want to.

"I don't know, I just...I want to lie down in one with you."

Mike's heart swelled and he grinned. "Sure, El."

Thanks for reading this chapter, sorry for the longer wait. I'm working at my own pace right now, but no more than 3 or 4 days for the next one. Please drop a review, I'm curious to see what you guys all think about the story so far.