Welcome back everyone! Sorry about the wait for this chapter, I hope you guys like it. Next chapter is going to be Mileven centered, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, enjoy chapter 13, and thank you all so much for your reviews and support!

39ClueStrangerThingsFan-Star: It is a good song, I enjoy it a lot!

Harley Grove: It's all we ever wanted, haha

Stranger Records: Thank you! I hope you enjoy this one too!

Bruh: It will be a hard chapter to write... I plan on doing it later though, toward the end of the summer. I will get to though. At some point XD

Max awoke slowly in a confused daze. She looked around, not knowing where she was for a fraction of a second, and then remembered that she was once again not in her house, but in Lucas's. She recalled the reason that she was here in the first place; her stepdad.

Her face contorted at the thought of him. She realized that her Mom was alone with him at the moment, and she felt a pang of guilt for leaving her there alone, and considered going back. But her fear and hatred of Neil got the better of her and she decided that for now, it was best to stay here.

She glanced to her left, where she saw Lucas sleeping beside her, on the air mattress that he had blown up last night. His eyes were closed and his mouth was gaping open, and he snored quietly. A grin tugged at her lips, despite the situation she was in with her parents. It brought her comfort to know that, whatever happened, Lucas would be there for her the whole time. I don't deserve him at all, she thought.

As subtly and quietly as possible, she got out from under the sheets and went to the bathroom. When she came back out after she was done, she saw that Lucas was now awake, and he was lying in bed with his hands folded behind his head, his elbows out.

"Morning, Stalker," she greeted him.

Lucas yawned. "Hi," he replied. "Sleep well?"

"Good enough."

"How does your cheek feel?"

Max brushed her fingers along the cut on her face, vividly remembering Neil's hand connecting with her face in that spot. "It's feeling better. Still stings when I touch it, though."

"Maybe you'll get a scar. That would be pretty cool," Lucas smiled.

"Ew, no," she said, disgusted by the notion. "What's with boys and scars? Face scars are even more terrible."

"Scars are bad-ass. Ask anyone," Lucas said matter-of-factly.

"Uh-huh," she sighed in exasperation. Boys.

"So what's the plan for today?" Lucas questioned.

"I don't even know," Max said. Her mind was still flooded with what had happened with her parents, and Billy; everything seemed like a blur. The only thing holding her together and keeping life somewhat in focus was her boyfriend.

At times when she was feeling upset, she found that she was past the point of crying; she had done that so much lately. But she felt like she had somehow reached her limit like she was just empty. Whether that was good or bad, she did not know. Every time she thought of Billy, she almost felt like crying but never did. It was confusing and upsetting.

But perhaps she was just moving along with the grieving process. There is only so many tears one person can shed.

"Maybe we can hang out with the rest of the party today?" she suggested.

"That sounds like a good idea, actually."

"Come in, Mike," the Super Com crackled to life and El's eyes shot open. They were in Mike's basement. They had considered spending the night in the cabin, but they didn't want to chance it; they were in a dingy house in the middle of the woods with holes in the walls. It was supposed to have been pretty cool that night, so they had decided to go back to Mike's house for the night. They had pleasant sleep on the pull-out, and now, it appeared that someone was trying to get in contact with her boyfriend.

"Come in, Mike," the Super Com repeated again. El reached out her hand to use her powers to draw it toward her, but then remembered that her powers were gone. She cursed to herself and heaved herself out of the makeshift bed.

She recognized that voice to be Lucas's, so when she spoke into the Super Com she addressed him appropriately. "Lucas, it's El. Is something wrong?"

"No, I'm good. Are you with Mike?"

She looked over at his peaceful and sleeping figure. "Yes, he's here. He's sleeping, though."

"Oh, shit, did I wake you up?"

El flicked her eyes to the clock and read that it was nearly eleven. It was late enough, and she did not want to make Lucas feel bad. "No, I was already awake. I was going to get Mike up soon anyway."

"Do you guys want to meet up at my house? Everyone else is coming, too."

El smiled at the idea. "Yes, I'll get Mike."

"Alright, cool, I'll see you guys soon, then."

"Bye, Lucas."

She let go of the button on the Super Com and placed it on the couch behind her. Finding herself in a very good mood that morning, she practically skipped over to her sleeping boyfriend, and woke him up by peppering light kisses all over his face. "Wake up, Mike."

Mike groaned. "What time izit?" he muttered, rolling over in bed.

"Eleven o'clock. Lucas called," she replied.

"Whadid Lucassay?" he slurred, still groggy from his sleep.

"He wants to hang out today, with the rest of the Party. At his house."

"Aren you goin' tuh Will's houze?"

"That's later. We probably aren't going to be moving my things in there until tomorrow, I'm just sleeping there tonight, remember?"

"Oh, yeah," he remembered. "And we goin' to Lucas's houze today?"

"Just wake up," she said exasperatedly, but while laughing. "Or you won't get a single kiss from me today."

Mike shot up after hearing this. "I'm awake, I'm awake," he said loudly. "There, you see?"

"Mm-hm," El smirked, and walked to the bathroom. Mike saw his girlfriend walking away from him, and paused his mind just to admire her for a few brief moments. He was stunned over the fact that since six months ago after seeing her for the first time in a year, she had changed and matured so much. And in that time he could see that she was slowly blossoming into a young, beautiful woman. Her curves were much more pronounced, and her body had grown in all the right places; her ass, her breasts, her beautiful hair; she was absolutely stunning.

Shaking his head and trying to calm his hormones, he let her use the bathroom in peace and went upstairs for a shower.

After saying goodbye to his Mom and grabbing a quick breakfast for himself (and some extra Eggos for El) Mike had darted downstairs, given El her food, and taken off together through the back basement door to go to Lucas's.

They had decided to walk; it was a nice day and the sun was out, and a cool breeze was drifting across Hawkins that gave just the right temperature to be comfortable in summer clothing. They reached the driveway of the Sinclair household and saw Will and Dustin coming from down the street across from them.

A smile broke across all of their faces when they saw one another. They met at the foot of the driveway and all exchanged hugs.

"How you feeling, El?" Dustin asked.

El smiled. "I'm good right now."

Will and the rest of them nodded. "Well, let me know if you need anything from me, El," Dustin said, placing his hands on her shoulder and giving it a friendly squeeze.

"Yeah, me too," Will said. "Especially now that we are going to be living together."

Dustin froze with shock and surprise. "What?! When did this happen?"

"Maybe you'd like to find out inside?" Lucas called from the front door that he had just opened. He waved his friends toward him.

They went inside the house and hurried into the basement, saying hello to Mrs. Sinclair on their way. Max was already down there when they reached the bottom of the stairwell.

"Max!" El squealed happily and ran to meet her best friend. She was incredibly thankful for Max being in her life now. It was amazing to have a close friend in her life who was also female; it was always good to know that there would always be someone available to her whenever she needed advice on girl stuff, or just wanted to get away from all the boys in her life; there were so many, even too many it felt, at times.

They finally separated from their hold on one another. "How are you?" Max asked.

"A lot better," she replied, still beaming. "What about you?"

"Same here," Max nodded. "I've been with Lucas, like...every night this week, except for one. It's helped. A lot."

Dustin snickered. "Reallyyyyy…?" he said. "Must have been having some fun, am I right?" he teased.

Max blushed, but Lucas had other ideas. "We've been having more fun than you and Suzie. All you guys do is sing," he shot a playful jab back at his friend.

"Ohh, Jesus," Dustin sighed, rubbing his temples. "Please get off my back about tha-" But it was too late.

"Turnnnn around…. Look at what you seee-eeee-eee…" the entire party was singing now, and Dustin looked like he wanted to kill himself.

"Might I remind you, that song is what saved all of our asses that night," he said loudly over their singing.

"Is what you guys sing when you're having phone sex?" Max teased.

"Fuck you!" Dustin said, but even he couldn't hold back his laughter.

"Wait, what is all this about? I'm so confused," Mike interrupted the conversation.

"Oh, nobody told you and El? Dustin and Suzie decided to sing that song when we were running away from the Mindflayer in our car! It was fucking ridiculous!"

"Are you shitting me? Why would you be singing at a time like that?!" Mike asked incredelously.

"It was because we needed to know what Planck's constant was to unlock the safe. And Suzie was only willing to give it to me if we sang that song."

"Didn't you tell it was serious?!"

"What was I supposed to tell her? 'Yeah, we're just saving the entire world from Russians and monsters from another dimension.' Yeah, that's real convincing."

"Touche."

They all flopped onto the couches in Lucas's basement, and were quiet for a moment.

"Aren't your parents, you know… wondering why you've been gone for so long, then, Max?" Will asked.

"They were on vacation," she replied.

"But didn't they get back on the eighth?"

"The ninth."

"So why did you sleep here last night?"

Max sighed, knowing that it was probably time to tell the rest of her friends about the situation she was in with her parents. "I ran away from home yesterday."

The group was silent for a moment, wide-eyed and incredulous. "Why on Earth would you do that?" Dustin asked, his brow furrowed.

"My house is just… not a very nice place to be in right now, now that my parents are back, and with Billy and all."

"I don't mean to be rude or anything," Mike said, "but does that cut on your cheek have anything to do with that?" Max reached for her cheek, almost covering it up before she realized there really wasn't a fucking point.

"Yeah, that was my Dad," she replied quietly, looking at the floor.

"Are you okay?" El immediately asked, expressing deep concern for her friend. Max nodded in return, but she could tell that Max was hiding the true extent of her feelings. Even El, with her still limited knowledge of social queues, could tell that Max was hurting badly.

"So you're staying here with Lucas?" Mike asked.

"Yeah,"

"That's good," El said. "I've been with Mike, it's amazing."

"Uh-huh," Dustin snickered, along with Will. Their teasing laughter was met with a menacing glare from Mike.

"What are you guys doing today?" asked Will.

"El's moving her things from the cabin into the Byers' later today," Mike replied, to which the rest of the party exclaimed.

"Is El moving in with the Byers'?" Max gasped excitedly.

"Yeah, it looks like it," Will smiled. He hadn't really given it a lot of thought before this point, but the idea of having a sister, (assuming that at some point his Mom would legally adopt her) someone new in the family did kind of excite him. Even though that she would be leaving with them soon, he wanted to make sure that she made the most of her time left in Hawkins. And he was determined to be the best brother possible to her.

"That's great," Lucas said.

"Yeah, except now Mike's girlfriend is his best friend's sister," Dustin howled with laughter and rolled onto his side on the couch.

"Okay, shut up! They're not actual siblings! And you're assuming that Joyce is gonna adopt El!"

"What else would she do? She's a kid, she needs a legal guardian!" Dustin carried on laughing, now on the floor after falling off the couch. "Especially when she starts going to school," he added.

"And they would be step siblings, remember?" Lucas pointed out.

"But they're living in the same house! What if Will walks in on them sucking face or something?!"

"Jesus, Dustin, that's not gonna happen…" Mike muttered, but even he was having a hard time not smiling. Agree with Dustin or not, he was always going to be the funniest one in the Party. Even El was giggling a little bit, which was one of Mike's favourite things to see. Once he had finally calmed down, he turned to face Mike.

"Sorry, what were you saying? Before I pointed out that you're dating your best friend's step sister?"

"El and I are moving her stuff into the Byers' later today," Mike restated, giving a grin to El.

"Can we help you guys?" Max asked. She was desperate to keep herself occupied, she didn't want to be thinking about her situation with her parents at all right now. Plus, it did sound like fun. The whole party together, doing something normal, helping their friend move. Okay, maybe the fact that the house was a trashed mess of broken wood and glass wasn't quite normal, but normal enough for the party.

"Yeah, that sounds cool," Mike said. He knew that time alone with El was amazing, but right now he was feeling like hanging out with all of his friends. "You guys wanna head over there right now?"


The gang had met up with Jonathan and asked him to use his car to move El's stuff back to the Byers'. After enthusiastically agreeing, they had all crammed into the back of the old car and gone over to the old cabin.

As they approached, El already felt the emotions within her stirring again. Even though she had had a nice time with Mike the previous day, it still brought her nearly to tears when she saw her old home in complete tatters. She swallowed the lump in her throat and stepped out of the car. When Mike got out after her, she immediately sought his hand with hers. Their hands latched together, and she instantly felt stronger and warmer; it gave her the courage she needed to go back into her former home.

The Party and Jonathan walked to the front door, in silence. No one knew what to say, really. The last time they had all been in this cabin together had been the fight, where they had nearly died; a traumatic experience for all of them. That was probably the reason that everyone hadn't dared to speak a single word, because of all the thoughts rushing through all of their minds simultaneously.

With the rest of the group in tow, El slowly stepped into the building, and inhaled sharply, and reminded herself that she was with Mike and the rest of her friends and that everything- no matter what- was going to be okay.

"What should we start moving out, El?" Mike asked her, turning his head toward her so that his deep, brown eyes connected with hers. She slowly turned her head around, surveying the cabin, trying to sort her thoughts in her mind as to what she wanted to take back with her.

"There are some boxes under the floor. I want all of-" she paused. "I want all of the boxes that have to do with Dad. I want the box that says 'Sara,' the box that says 'Vietnam,' and everything else. And I want the box that says 'Hawkins Lab.'"

Everyone nodded, not wanting to question any of the decisions being made. This was El moving out, and they were going to do it her way.

Mike was about to join the others in moving the boxes, but El pulled him aside. Mike gave her a questioning look. "Are there boxes in your room or something?" he asked, and El just grinned to herself and walked toward her bedroom, his hand still clasped in hers.

"No…" she murmured, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Just come."

When they reached her bedroom, El let go of his hand finally. "I just wanted your help with my room," she finally answered. "You're the only one I want to help with this part."

"Oh," Mike said, almost breathlessly. She wanted her help with her bedroom? It didn't really surprise him, he guessed, considering all the personal stuff she had in there, a lot of which that he wouldn't really want his friends seeing. He couldn't have even imagined how much teasing would have resulted in that.

"There's a left-over box we can use," her beautiful voice interrupted his thoughts. "I want to take everything."

"Everything?" he repeated dumbfounded. She wanted every single drawing, card, gift, and picture in this entire room to bring back to the Byers'? "Can we at least throw out my Ghostbusters picture?"

"No!" she said, laughing. "I told you, I love that photo." Mike's heart skipped a beat when he heard that word. Love. If he could choose one word to describe his feelings toward this perfect girl that stood before him right now, it would be that word. Had El chosen that word on purpose? Was she dropping a hint? Maybe she loved him too? A part of him was wondering ever since the fourth, if she had heard him accidentally admit his feelings toward her, when he was arguing with Max. If she had heard him, then she had chosen to ignore it. Why? He did not know.

Shit. He was probably just overthinking this whole thing anyway.

"And I still don't know why," he said, shaking his head but grinning all the same. "I'll be careful with all this stuff."

"Good," she said. "If you break any of it, I'll have to use my powers on y-" she abruptly stopped her sentence.

"What?" Mike asked, chuckling. When he didn't hear his girlfriend finish her sentence, he turned around from where he was crouched by the empty box. Her face had fallen, and there were tears brewing in her eyes.

"Oh my God, El, what happened?" Mike asked, nearly in a panic, practically running across the room to her. As soon as he was within arm's reach, El flung herself forward and buried her body into Mike's tall frame, sobbing into the fabric of his shirt. "What's wrong, El?"

"My p-powers," she stammered through her tears. "I k-keep forgetting that th-th-their gone."

"Shhh, it's okay, I know," he murmured into her ear. "They'll come back, I know it."

"H-how do you kn-know?"

"Because, how could they just go away like that? You've had them your whole life. Maybe they're just… recharging."

"But it's been days," she sobbed.

"You used them a lot that day. Maybe it'll take a while," Mike tried to reason with her, but El still had her doubts.

"What if the Mindflayer t-took them?"

"No," Mike suddenly blurted, louder and more abruptly then he would have liked to. Even though he was assuring and comforting El, even he had his doubts as to whether her powers would come back. And even though it was true he never liked her just for her powers, it made him nervous, knowing that in some evil dimension out there, some giant monster was trying to kill the girl he loved.

And if he somehow came back, and El didn't have her powers to fight back, well… they would all be one hundred percent screwed.

"He couldn't have taken your powers. There's no way, it can't work like that. It's not that simple, El… those powers, they're a part of you. No one can take them. They'll come back, I promise.

El appreciated all that Mike was doing to help her. She was feeling a little bit better, finding sense in his words. Those powers were a part of her, it was a part of her DNA. They couldn't just be gone.

Right?

Thanks for reading! As always, let me know what your thoughts are, what you want to see more of, whatever. I always love to here what you guys think! Take care :)