Many Greetings! This will likely be the longest chapter I end up doing, unless I find a lot of content to work with for my other chapters. But yeah, this was just over twice as long as the first chapter, just because there was so much stuff I needed to happen and couldn't fit very snuggly into the other chapters. I hope this explains why it took me so long and I hope even more that you enjoy this chapter, because it actually made me cry. Once again please leave reviews because they literally make my day and help give me new ideas for some possible scenes. A quick thank you to GIANTPANDAMAN for giving me an idea for one of my scenes. As usual, enjoy! -Y

Chapter 2: Gone

November 1st, 1984

"No… take a right up here" Nancy says as she attempts to recall Hopper's words. She closes her eyes a few times before realizing she needs to see where Jonathan is going.

Jonathan drives is rickety automobile through the cold nightfall. He has his headlights on as he squints, attempting to recognize anything so he could gauge where they might be. Nancy sits beside him in the passenger's seat, doing a slightly better job at remembering how to get back into town.

She doesn't know how Jonathan just forgot the directions Hopper had given him before they left to his cabin, after all she remembers more and she wasn't even listening that much as she got into the car.

Joyce sits in the back, holding Will in her arms as she makes shhh noises to him. Every once and a while she would throw in an "it's okay, I'm here" before going back to consoling him.

Nancy resented her doing this, he was asleep anyways? It's not like he's gonna hear her, why doesn't she help us remember where to go? But she still admires her love for her child.

Nancy lets out a long sigh, putting her fist to her forehead, desperately trying to remember where to go. Jonathan picks up on Nancy's struggle, and he moves to put a hand on her leg.

"Hey, Nancy, it's not a big deal, the most important thing is we got it out of Will" Jonathan consoles, Nancy looks back at him with a worried face, her paranoia kicking into high gear. "Yeah, but El still has to close the gate… what if they can't do it?"

Jonathan sighs, keeping his eyes on the road. "Well then we at least won't have to worry about him" he gestures his back to Will. Nancy looks back at her lover, amazed at how he seems to be an optimist even in times like these.

"Where the hell are you?" Joyce finally speaks up as she looks out the window of the car. Jonathan shrugs his shoulders in response, "that's a good question" he quips, Nancy smirks at the sarcasm.

Joyce shakes her head as she squints to recognize the road. "Nonono, we're on the north side, Jonathan. The boy squints again at his mother's words, and his eyes widen. "Ohhh" he says as he pulls to the left,

The four get back to Joyce's house from there with relative ease, stopping near the left side of the yard and walking out. Jonathan and Joyce grab Will from either side and hoist him up to the steps, as Nancy goes to open the door to help them.

When she walks inside though, she's met with a cold silence, a thought instantly making its way up to her head, where are the kids?

She turns back around to look at the other two, who are making their way up the steps.

"Guys" she says in an urgent voice, making Joyce and her son stop in their tracks, they both give her a questioning look. "The kids… they're gone" she says.

Jonathan widens his eyes, "what? What do you mean they're gone?" he starts to move Will more quickly, startling Joyce into picking up the pace as well. Once they're inside, they lay Will onto the couch and look around.

"Steve's gone too" Jonathan remarks as Nancy and him look around, Joyce walks into the kitchen to make a phone call, but she notices something. "Guys!" she yells to Nancy and Jonathan. They both instantly stand up and run to the kitchen.

There lies Billy, completely asleep, with a long syringe laying on his side. Jonathan narrows his eyes, "is that that new guy?"

Joyce chimes in, "who cares? Why the hell is he in my house?". Jonathan moves to wake him up, shaking his shoulders. After a little bit, he goes straight for a slap to the face, but to no avail. He stands up and shakes his right hand, a little sore from the impact, "he's out cold" he notes.

Nancy's breaths start to accelerate as another thought pops into her head. "You think he did something to the kids and Steve?" she worries. Joyce shakes her head. "What would he be able to do? Even if he kidnapped them or something… that wouldn't explain what he's doing here" she ponders.

Joyce sighs and lets her shoulders slump, "give me a hand with him Nancy" she says in her calm voice and she grabs his legs. Nancy grabs the shoulders, but even with both of them they struggle to lift the muscular teen.

They eventually do get him into a closet and shut the door, but they hear Jonathan from the living room.

"Hey guys? Didn't that guy have a Camaro" he yells from the other room. Nancy stops to remember, "I think so? Why?" she asks as her and Joyce walk their way to the living room, where they see Jonathan opening a blind and peering out the window.

"I think I know where the kids went" he quips. Nancy runs out the door to see the headlights of a Camaro stop right in front of the house, almost hitting it. She stops for a second, expecting Steve to come out with the rest of the kids.

When she squints her eyes to see who's in the front seats, she's shocked to see Lucas in the passengers and Max in the drivers spot.

Nancy can see Lucas staring up at her, making a face she can't quite see, and she watches as Max rests her head on the wheel. Nancy slowly walks down the steps, followed by Jonathan and Joyce.

It's at this point they decide to get out. Nancy looks back to see the doors of the back seat open, Dustin being the only one to come out.

Jonathan looks at them all and speaks with his signature nervous voice, "h-hey where's Steve?"

"And where's Mike?" Joyce adds on. Nancy just looks at them… fear overtaking her whole body. The kids just stand there, all with their heads down. Silence fills the area, with only sound being that of the crickets in the surrounding night.

Each one of them slowly realizes what must have happened. "Kids!" Joyce yells with tears forming in her eyes, ushering them to explain.

Lucas and Dustin jump a little bit, but don't respond. Max is the one to look up and answer them. Her hair is messy, shirt and pants covered in goop, and her eyes are wide in shock.

"They… they didn't make it" she speaks in a bewildered voice, almost as if she doesn't believe it herself.

Nancy holds her hands up to her mouth and gasps almost immediately. She doesn't know whether she should believe them or not, the older teens stand there for a while, Nancy especially taking it in.

Multiple possibilities playing in her head as to how he died, what would happen next, why he would risk his life. She's sad, angry, shocked… this can't be happening.

"How… wha- I don't understand…" Jonathan finally pipes up. At this Dustin chimes in. "We went to Upside Down tunnels, to distract the Demo-dogs… Steve and Mike weren't able to climb out before they got them" Dustin's voice is soft and full of regret.

"Oh my god…" Joyce remarks as she puts her hands on her mouth. Jonathan immediately turns to Mike's sister, "Nancy…." he tries to console, reaching his arm out to touch her shoulder.

Nancy runs back to the house, not bothering to shut the door on her way in. She runs to the corner of the living room and begins to sob uncontrollably.

The tears stream down her face as she feels Jonathan walk up to her and embrace her. She weeps into his shoulder.

Mike had always been that stupid little brother that she always found annoying, but to know that she'll never see him again… that she failed to protect him. She doesn't believe it, that Mike isn't going to be a part of her life anymore. She wails into Jonathan's chest. Not knowing anything else to say, Jonathan just sits and comforts her.

He remembered how it felt. To see that body… the body of his own little brother. It had made him sick to his stomach, to see the paleness of him as the blood had stopped pumping.

To see the kid that was his only anchor, in getting through the divorce. He never thought he deserved it, he was just a shy little kid, not ready for the horrors of the real world, and he had to die.

Or so he thought. He remembered how lucky he thought he was, that Will was alive at all, but to see how it traumatized him still broke his heart. He understands more than most what it feels like to lose a little brother.

Nancy fights back the anger that rises within her. Steve… that god damned idiot, getting himself and Mike killed. Jonathan… it's easy for him to be like this, he never lost Will. Her cries grow silent as she kneels down onto the floor in a snail position, crying into her arm.

She sees Joyce usher in the rest of the kids, who are either in shock, or crying themselves. They all walk into the kitchen, and Joyce slowly slides her back down the door until she gets into a sitting position once she closes it. She clasps her hands together and rests her forehead, sighing heavily with a catch.

Nancy watches as everyone turns to silence, nervously awaiting Hopper, she sits there in her corner, weighing the consequences of this event. What are Mom and Dad gonna say? She thinks to herself.

But as she slowly realizes how long it's been, she too begins to grow nervous. She hopes that Mike and Steve died for a reason, and that they were able to get the gate closed.

Another few minutes pass until they hear the familiar roar of the police car. There's a collective sigh across the room, as they hope that both Hopper and El have made it out okay. Joyce moves to stand up, preparing herself to tell Hopper what happened.

The door swings open rather quickly as all eyes turn to meet Hopper, and before anyone can say anything, he opens his mouth and points with his thumb back outside, "whose car is that?" he says in a slightly worried tone.

When he finally stops to take a look around the room, his worried face only becomes more intense, as their tear stained eyes, particularly the ones of Joyce, meet his. "Don't tell me you couldn't get it out of him" he says as he shakes his head in a stone cold voice.

Joyce shakes her head with closed eyes. "He's okay… It's Mike" she stops to see Hopper's face, which turns to one of confusion and slight fear.

"He died, Hop" she states simply. Hearing it again brings new tears up to Nancy's eyes as she sobs, which Hopper notices. The police chief's eyes widen at the revelation.

"You've got to be shitting me" he says as he begins to pace around the room, running his hands through his thinning hair, ignoring the hat he has on. "How the hell?-" he begins but Jonathan interrupts him to explain.

"The kids went with Steve to the tunnels to distract the dogs so you could get to the gate… Mike and Steve must've got killed"

Hopper's brows shift from a furrowed position to a neutral one as he realizes what this explains. So that's why the dogs left us alone when we got to the tram… he thinks. So many other questions went through his head, but they were all interrupted when he heard the slight creaking of the door again, to see El standing there.

She looks weak and pale, the veins on the side of her face are visible, as the blood must have completely left to go out of her nose. The blood coming out of her nose and ears is dried, and her clothes reek of exhaustion. But when she locks eyes with Nancy's, the fear in her eyes becomes palpable.

Nancy watches as El slowly realizes that Mike's gone, and it breaks her heart into a thousand pieces, to see the girl her brother cared so much about that it made him depressed for a year completely collapse under the weight of his passing.

The house begins to shake as Hopper tries to console his daughter, but to no avail. The shaking becomes more and more violent until she falls to her knees, the house taking a final slam as pictures and kitchenware fall onto the floor. It isn't long before the girl runs out the door, and Hopper follows.

A few minutes later, Hopper walks back in, getting worried looks from Joyce, Jonathan, and Nancy. "She fainted… out cold in my truck" he elaborates, taking a seat on a rocking chair, with an exhausted sigh. "She's not gonna take this well" he remarks.

Nancy hesitates a bit before standing up and looking Hopper dead in the eye. Her eyes are puffy and red, "Hopper… what are we gonna tell my parents?" she says apprehensively. He sighs in return, "I don't know kid… my only guess is that we work with the chemical leak idea you and Bauman came up with"

She nods in return, but Hopper can still feel her worry and fear, "it's gonna be okay, kid" he reassures her, and at this Nancy's eyes once again begin to form tears.

"I don't wanna lie to my mom" she says in a high pitched whine, fresh tears cascading down her face. Jonathan stands up to once again console her, "Nancy…" he says before he hugs her. She hugs back fiercely.

"Listen, Nancy, I know this is hard, but we don't have a choice" Hopper stands up before he continues, "you'll need to tell your parents that Mike became very sick…" he stops to think about his plan. "And that his pulse went dead"

"Well then where's the body?" Joyce questions, poking a hole in this hypothetical explanation. Hopper sighs, "maybe… umm" he ponders the question.

Nancy speaks up again, stuttering from all the tears she's shed, "we could blame that on the scientists too, maybe they took the body and burned it, along with Steve's"

Hopper nods his head in agreement. "Yeah, that could work" he agrees.

Nancy gets out of the passenger seat of the car after he pulls into the driveway of her house, giving a final look of thanks to Jonathan.

He looks back, "If you ever need me, I won't be far" he encourages, Nancy nods, closing the door and watching as the car rolls away off into the black distance.

She walks up the small steps to her house, her feet numb from the hyperventilating. Each step is chosen carefully, so that she doesn't collapse from the shock of it all.

She quickly opens the door, walks in, and shuts it as quietly as possible. Once she shuts it, she rests her head on the frame, taking all of the events in.

She had formulated a plan with Hopper, and was all set to shut the lab down, but lying to her parents was going to be hard.

She thinks about El, and what she must be going through. She didn't know the girl well, but if she was half as depressed Mike was when she was away, then she's definitely not taking this well.

She flinches as she hears the hasty footsteps of what is most likely her mother coming down the stairs. "Nancy!" she hears from behind her. She had rehearsed what to say to her mom for a good thirty minutes, but now that it was here, she didn't even want to look at her.

"Nancy, where the hell have you been for the past two days! I was afraid you'd gotten lost! And where's Mike?!" she berates. At her final question, she sees Nancy tense up, but she doesn't step down.

Nancy turns around with tears forming in her eyes. "Mom…" she lets out, not being able to finish. Karen's face turns to one of sorrow as she briskly walks up to Nancy with her arms open, the girl reciprocates, walking up to her mom as they embrace each other in a tight hug.

After a few seconds of hugging, Karen pulls herself back and looks at her daughter, "sweetie, what's happened, are you okay?"

Nancy cries out again, sobbing in front of her mom for the first time since she came to her about Barb.

Karen's motherly instincts shoot up, but at the moment there's nothing she can do but watch as her eldest child cries her eyes out, making her stomach churn at the possibilities of her situation.

"Mom… it's Mike…" she says, crying harder into her shoulder. Karen waits for her to continue. "He's… Mom, he's dead" she weeps out.

November 3rd, 1984

Hopper lays on his table alone, uniform and hat clad, ready to start out the gruesome day ahead of him. The sunshine of the new morning makes its way through the blankets and shines in his face, making him groan each time he slights an eye open.

It only takes another minute of sitting there until the toaster oven dings. He curses to himself, not wanting to get up if it means having to do everything else that comes with the day. But alas, he finds it within him to grab the table and hoist himself up, sauntering over to the toaster where he grabs four eggos.

They were running low on food for a while now, so he knows he needs to get the groceries today as well, but for now, Eggo's will suffice. He only needs two, so he grabs another plate and sets it across from him, putting the other two on that plate. She's gotta eat sometime he tells himself.

Within ten minutes, Hopper gulps down the two eggos and makes his way over to El's door. He decides to open the door instead of knocking, silently hoping that she'll be asleep, but not holding his breath.

As he opens the door, he is welcomed by a waft of body odor that's coming off of his daughter. He's met with her usual position on her bed. Her eyes are still bloodshot, her hair has become slightly greasy, and her clothes are a day old.

She still has the look on her face, that tells him her mind is elsewhere. He sighs, "El, you gotta use that deodorant, okay?" Hopper instructs her.

Only recently did he begin to notice that she had started to emanate a stench, so he had to go through the whole spiel about how it was natural for her body to stink at her age and that she needed to stop stressing over it.

But a part of him already misses that El, the one that was curious yet frightened by everything, and now she just doesn't do anything.

"Have you brushed your teeth?" he takes her lack of a response as a no. He relents his questioning and sighs, "I'm going off to work, I'll be back by six'o'clock, please El, don't starve yourself" he means to give El the impression that he isn't serious, but a part of him really does fear that she won't eat or drink until her body can't take it.

He slowly walks away from her room, leaving her door open in hopes that she'll at least get up and close it. He opens the door to the cabin, and lightly shuts it, stepping over the wire and making his way to the car.

Hopper stops the car in his own reserved spot in the parking lot of the police station. Even the sight of such a dreary place like this is enough to make him lament over the better days, when none of this had ever happened. He makes his way to the entrance and is immediately filled with the familiar smell of cigarette smoke.

He strolls over to the front desk, where Flo gets up and stands in front of him. She looks at him and her face quickly turns to one of confusion. "What happened to you, chief?". Hopper flashes a look at her, feigning innocence, "what?" he asks, her shoulders slump as she sighs, "there's no cigarette between your teeth Hop" she says nonchalantly, Hopper shakes his head and looks down.

"How's your daughter doing?" she asks in a suddenly sincere voice, Hopper opens his mouth in shock, and she elaborates, "Callahan told me".

He didn't expect word to travel this fast. By the end of the week the whole town might know at this rate, he sighs to himself, shaking his fishy feeling by reminding himself that the lab's days are numbered, and no one knows where he lives, save Joyce's group from the day before yesterday.

This had to happen eventually he tells himself, and it was true, considering El's sorry state, that if she didn't get out she could be in serious trouble.

Hopper relents and talks to the woman he's trusted for years. "She's not doing very well… she had a crush on that kid that died and just sits in her bed all day"

Flo gives him a look of understanding, "I'm still happy for you" she explains. She was one of the few people who knew Hopper well before Sara died, so she saw his shift in personality once he lost his first daughter. "It explains the way you've been acting for the last few months, I couldn't quite pinpoint it" she remarks.

Hopper knows he had been different ever since El came into his life, which was more than a few months ago, but obviously Flo takes the explanation she gets.

"Thanks Flo" he says through his gruff and surly voice, but he means it.

Flo smiles and hands him not an apple like she usually does, but a cigarette. Hopper gives her a confused look, "you're gonna need it" she states, giving Hopper a look, he smiles back and walks into the office.

He's greeted by officers Powell and Callahan, as usual. Powell speaks up, "mornin chief, what's this I hear about a new daughter?" he gets straight to his point like he always does. "Just doin a favor for my cousin Terry, alright?" he lies effectively enough.

"How old is she?" His friend inquires, Hopper sighs inwardly at all the questions, but doing anything other than answering them would raise eyebrows.

"Thirteen" he says as he lights his cigarette, Powell gives an "oof" and a pained look, "sounds like a lot of fun" Callahan quips. Hopper laughs it off. "Hey Callahan you hear about those deaths?" Powell moves over to make conversation with his colleague.

"Yeah man, just talking to the chief about it yesterday, he says it's some kind of chemical leak that killed 'em off" Callahan responds.

"Chemical leak?" he says skeptically as he turns to Hopper, "that's what I heard" he shrugs as he continues "some bad stuff from the lab".

"Damn… well if that's true then we won't be seeing that place for much longer" Powell replies. Hopper chuckles, "yeah, if we're lucky" he quips.

Their small talk is interrupted by Flo, "chief, the Wheelers are here to see you" she says. Hopper's face falls. "Bring'em to my office, I'll meet them shortly" he says with a serious tone.

Flo nods and walks back to the front desk in the other room. About half a minute later, Hopper finishes his cigarette and makes his way to his office. His fellow officers giving good luck looks to him.

As he walks in he sees Karen and Ted in separate chairs, holding hands. Karen however immediately stands up once she realizes he's here, and Ted does the same, albeit more slowly.

Hopper takes a good look at her. Her makeup is messy, despite there being little on, her hair is in bundles, and her eyes have bags under them. But most crucially, he sees the emotion in her eyes, the fear, and anger, the confusion, the shock, he realizes he's looking at a reflection of himself at that time.

He turns around to softly closes the door behind him and turns to the silent couple. "Before we get into anything, I wanna say that I heard what happe-"

"You better know what happened!" Karen barks, not having the patience for calm talk, "and you're gonna explain yourself!". Hopper waits a short second before responding, "and I just wanted to say that… I'm sorry" he adds sincerely. Ted nods his head, "thank you chief, that means a lot to us".

Karen however is unphased by his talk, if not insulted.

Hopper can tell by her look, so he starts to continue, "so…" he walks over to his chair. "Why don't I tell you what I know, and you tell me what you know" he lies at the end, pretending he isn't aware of everything they've been told by Nancy, "and maybe we can figure this thing out".

"Okay." she states in an unemotional voice before sitting back down, "why?" she asks.

Hopper stops, hoping she would continue, but she doesn't. "Why what?

"Why is our son dead, Hopper!" she shouts, tears filling her eyes. Hopper knows how she feels… he knows perfectly what it's like to lose a kid, and so he doesn't lose his patience. "I don't know" he states simply, Karen's frown lifts a little bit from confusion, being caught off guard by this answer.

"What I do know is that we got a call two nights ago from your daughter Nancy, she was panicked and afraid, said her brother had fainted and wasn't breathing" he fibs, having gone over this story in his head thousands of times since it happened.

"We got there as soon as we could, but by then it was too late… the paramedics had announced him dead. I'm sorry"

Karen puts her hands on her face as she begins to sob, Ted brings his arm around her shoulders in condolence. "Why did he faint and stop breathing" he asks through his breaths.

"We don't know" Hopper responds, "we've got our guys looking into it… the prevailing theory is that it has something to do with the lab"

"The Hawkins Lab?" Ted responds, and Hopper nods. "From what we know, Mike Wheeler, Steve Harrington, and Bob Newby were all within a one mile radius of the Hawkins Lab for an extended period of time". Karen's face contorts into puzzlement as she thinks about his words.

"You're saying that it's their fault?" she asks.

"Well, according to my friend Sam Owens, who works at the lab, there was some sort of chemical leak, a bunch of scientists lost their lives, but they were covered up, and it happened around the same time Nancy called the station" he finishes, sitting back to let it sink in for the Wheelers.

"What was my boy doing next to the lab?" she speaks through tears. "I'm sorry Karen, but we don't know for sure" he sees her face fall as she looks down.

Hopper doesn't want to give them this kind of despair, so he adds in a small bit "We know Will Byers goes to the Hawkins Lab for checkups, so that gives us some sort of link between Bob Newby and Mike, and we know the Harrington's house is closer to the Lab than most, so it's possible he was just hanging out with his friends in the woods".

Karen talks with Hopper for a few more hours about different possibilities on what happened, some of which hit pretty close to the truth, but none were completely right.

Hopper glances up at the clock, it reads 11:11, taking his mind back to his own daughter.

"I'm sorry, guys, I really am. I know what it's like to lose a kid, and I know that this isn't something that you're going to get over" Ted nods with tears in his eyes as Karen cries into his shoulder.

"Have you tried getting into contact with any of Mike's friends? They're usually by his side at all times" Ted suggests.

"No, I haven't gotten to them yet, but I know they know about it"

Ted narrows his eyes, as Karen begins to listen in, "well then how do you know?"

Hopper's eyes widen, he realizes that he's going to have to talk about El in front of her crush's parents. "Yeah umm, I at least know that my daught-"

"Daughter?!" the couple says in unison, Hopper had expected them to cut him off like they did, just like every other person he's told.

"Yeah, I haven't told many people about this, but my cousin's been in what the doctors call a vegetative state, and her mom can't take care of the kid anymore either, so she's been staying with me for the past few months". The Wheelers continue to stare at him, so Hopper continues with his spiel, something he's going to be getting used to saying whenever people ask.

"My cousins mom never really was a good parent, so Jane's been at a really early education level, and she's a bit traumatized from all of the nutty parental figures in her life, so she's really shy and doesn't like to go out much. I figured I didn't need the whole town breathing down my neck about her when I first adopted her".

Ted and Karen stare at him wildly, "wow, chief, I didn't know you were being a father for the past few months" Karen responds.

"Yeah, Mike was actually the one who first made friends with her, even though she could barely talk. So he was really special to her… needless to say she's taking it really rough".

"Oh my god" Karen says as she meets her eyes with Ted's, "our Mike, making friends with a girl" she says as she begins to cry, but with a smile, Hopper smiles. "Pretty sure she had a big crush on him too" he laughs. Karen nods, "if only he knew".

"I think he did…" Hopper adds in, followed by a silence, with Karen thanking him for the consolement with her face.

"So how does she know about Mike's death?" Ted questions, Hopper shrugs his shoulders "she's barely talked to me since it happened, couldn't ask her if I tried", Ted sighs at this. "I wish I could meet her" the mom adds, talking to herself more than anyone else, "well, she's a mess right now, but soon… I promise" he says taking a page out of El's book, and at this Karen stands up and shakes his hand.

"Thank you for your help Hopper" she finishes with a teary smile, as Ted stands up and likewise shakes his hand.

"I'll call you guys if any new information arises… meanwhile I want you guys to keep in touch with Nancy and Holly, to make sure they're okay" Hopper says as he ushers them out the door.

"We will" Ted responds as they begin to leave his office.

7:00 PM, it's already pitch black out. Hopper walks with his flashlight up the familiar trail, scanning the ground for the small amount of gravel that shows him the way.

It isn't long before he arrives at his cabin. The house itself is completely dark, with no light coming from within, which causes Hopper to worry a little bit, not that he actually expected El to get up and turn on any lights.

He walks slightly faster than he was before, up to the house and performs the secret knock.

Knock knock, knock, knock knock knock

This is followed by silence. He performs the knock again, louder this time, his paranoia spiking up. When this is once again followed by silence, he mutters to himself, "shit".

He knows that El probably isn't in the greatest of moods to use her powers and open the door, but she wouldn't leave him out in the cold would she?

He begins to shout through the door, "El, it's me! I know you don't want to use your powers right now… god you're probably not even paying attention to me right now, but you've gotta let me in okay? I'm gonna freeze to death!".

Still silence.

"Shit shit shit" he lets out, starting to worry if she was even in the cabin, or if she had run off. He looks around, and notices that his windows are still replaced with old blankets.

He sees this as his only chance to get in, so with a hardy sigh, he walks over to the nearest window and attempts to climb through. He puts his right leg over the window with some strain, unattaching the blanket from the nails with ease.

What isn't so easy is that he needs to somehow get his whole body over the sill. He decides that it needs to be quick, like ripping off a bandaid, so, in one fell swoop, he ushers his whole body to the right, making his way into the house, but landing on the table that the window sits above, and breaking it with his weight.

"Ughh" he groans as he slowly stands up to look at the pitch black room. Luckily his eyes have already adjusted to the night outside, so he could still mostly see.

He shuffles to turn on the overhead lights of the living room, shutting his eyes from the sudden brightness. He looks back at the broken table and groans, realizing he'll have to get a new one. He takes a closer look and sees a broken plate, and still sitting there are two cold eggo waffles.

The sight makes Hopper put his face in his hands and sigh through his nose.

He suddenly remembers why he had to break the table in the first place, and quickly makes his way over to El's room. He realizes that the door's still open, meaning she never bothered to close it, yet another small defeat.

As he walks in he sees El in the same clothes, sitting in the same position. "There's no way you've been doing this all day" he thinks out loud to her, she doesn't respond. He goes over and sits on the bed with her, looking her in the eyes.

"El… you probably didn't even realize, but I had to climb through the window just to get in" he waits for a possible response. After a few seconds, El does acknowledge his existence, "heard", she states simply.

Hopper's shoulders slump, "if you heard me, then why didn't you open the door? I was left out in the cold El…" he lightly scolds, putting an arm on her shoulder. Usually he would be much more upset, but he couldn't will himself to be too mad at her.

"Sorry" she says in a very half-assed manner, Hopper picks up on this and sighs. "I'm guessing you haven't taken a shower?" he guesses, El shakes her head in response.

Hopper grabs her my her waist as she slowly grabs onto his back, "c'mon then" he says with strain as he lightly lifts El off of her bed, her legs slowly sticking out to touch the floor so she can stand, he hears the all familiar cracking that comes with her movement.

Once she stands up and steadies herself, Hopper grabs her hand and leads her to the bathroom.

"Are you gonna need help again?" Hopper asks, El looks down and whispers, "don't want to shower".

He sighs at this and slowly grabs each hand to raise it up, taking off her shirt, she doesn't resist. "I'll take that as a yes" he quips before getting her ready for a shower.

After he finishes cleaning her up and gets new clothes for her again, he sets her back onto the bed, to which she quickly sits her back on the wall again and brings her knees up to her chest. It pains Hopper so much to see how much she wants to just sit there, and take things in.

He gives her one last look before a thought pops into his mind. He goes to the kitchen to grab a cereal bar from the lazy susan, and he walks back into her room and places it on the counter.

Maybe if she doesn't want to move, then she'll at least eat this. He doesn't even think it will work, but it's worth a shot. He goes back to the kitchen and begins to prepare himself a real dinner.

The next morning, he repairs the blanket for the window and calls in to take another sick day. He's got a lot of errands to run today, so he'll need today. He goes back into El's room to say goodbye, but when he walks in, he immediately notices something peculiar.

There lies El in her normal position, awake for god knows how long, as he's come to expect, but he sees that the cereal bar is no longer there, and what remains is instead an empty wrapper.

He walks over to the counter and grabs it in gleeful awe, he feels tears begin to make their way to his eyes, so he looks up. He can do this. He can help her… one step at a time, he reminds himself.

November 13th, 1984

Eleven can see nothing but blackness. She feels herself… existing, but cannot perceive it.

She can't feel her body, she tries to move her head from side to side, but she doesn't. When she looks to the left, she can see the left, and when she looks to the right, she can see the right, but she cannot comprehend the motion of her turning her head. She looks down but cannot see herself, only the void.

But in an instant the void turns to a lush field, the brightness of the day making her back away. She looks around her again to see gorgeous wheat fields, stretching in all directions as far as the eye can see. She looks up to see a beautiful rainbow, and she lets go of a massive breath she didn't realize she had.

She looks to her right to see, out of the wheat fields, three sunflowers, and to her left, another four sunflowers. She finally recalls the nagging thought in her brain.

Breathe. Sunflower. Three to the right. Four to the left. Rainbow.

Upon realizing the visual representations, she turns around to see an old shed with a singular door. It looks to be no bigger than an old outhouse, one where people would go to use the bathroom.

It's old and rusted, with plant life seemingly growing around it and retaking it. On the top of the entrance the words Hawkins National Laboratory are spray painted. She moves over to take a closer look, but is interrupted by a serene voice.

"It used to be bigger" El hears from behind her. She turns around yet again to see the figure of her Mama, Terry Ives.

She wears the outfit she wore when El went to see her, but her hair is now completely loose, left free to dangle from her scalp, reaching to her shoulder blades. Her skin is perfectly clear and smooth, but El's immediate thought is how can she see me? I can't see myself?

Terry seemingly reads her mind and nods slowly, "it's okay Jane, we can all see you"

El does a 360 to see if anyone else is there, but she finds no one. Terry continues, "it used to be all there was, but the roots have made it shrink" she gestures to what looks to be the roots of a tree, even though there is nothing but wheat and sunflowers for miles.

"Papa is inside, do you want to see him?" the woman adds.

"No…" El responds, and Terry smiles, "good"

El's mother extends her hand, to which El grabs, even though she sees no hand of her own. "Let us go see the tree" she says as she looks forward, walking the opposite direction to the lab.

They both walk for a long while, seeing nothing but wheat, retracing the roots back to what her mama said would be a "great tree".

Eventually, the pair make their way to the woods… but they look familiar. Mama once again seems to read her mind. "These are the woods in Hawkins… for a long while there was only the lab, but one day, these woods appeared, and so did the great tree that destroyed the lab" she explains.

El remembers when she first escaped from the lab. She remembers the sirens of the lab as the scientists began to pay little attention to her. She took this as her opportunity to run to her room, but she must have been mistaken, for when she ran to the door that she had thought to be her room, she was instead greeted by the woods.

Behind her she saw the walls of the massive lab, but in front of her was a beautiful landscape, it mesmerized her. She thought about going back to her room, but she was too scared to disappoint Papa like she had, so she instead opened the chain link fence with her mind and ran into the woods. The rest was history.

But she doesn't remember any tree that destroyed the lab, it was the dogs that destroyed the lab, wasn't it?

Her thoughts were interrupted as she felt her mother stop dead in her tracks and gasp, El looks to what she was looking at, and sees the all to familiar residue of the Upside Down on a lone tree.

She glances down to see that the giant roots that they are following have become dark and dead. "We must make haste… to see if the great tree is okay" she murmurs as she looks at El. Terry bolts into a run, dragging El behind her, who struggles a bit to keep up. She finds that it isn't that she gets tired, just that she isn't capable of running as fast as her mom.

It doesn't take much longer until the whole forest is dead, with the thick and noticeable pheromones that are prevalent in the Upside Down taking form. She's here… the one place she saw every time she entered the void. The home of the Mind Flayer and the Demogorgons.

After a little bit more walking, El notices the great fiend in the distance. She doesn't know it, but she can feel the presence of something terrible. El and Terry slowly walk towards it, hands still held together.

The closer they get, the bigger the fiend becomes, and the more El can make out it's appearance. It isn't long before they are very close to it, and El focuses her eyes.

It's a dark monster, made of living shadow, with tentacles that stretch as far as the eye can see, and red lightning erupting around it. It looks familiar… but El can't quite pinpoint where she's seen it. Terry speaks up, "who are you, fiendish traveler? And what has happened to our great tree?"

The entity shifts its head to look down at them, and it's voice booms, not out of its mouth, but out of the air that surrounds them, with multiple disgusting voice closing in on El's ear, as if they were all whispering to her, telling her the same thing. "I have slain your mighty tree, proving myself the new lord of the realm"

"Our great tree, fallen? I do not believe it!" Terry shouts back. "Believe it, or don't believe it, the truth is the same" it retorts. Eleven does not know this tree, but she feels an overwhelming sense of dread at the fact that it is dead.

She looks down in despair, as does Terry, but they hear a familiar masculine and gruff voice come behind them.

"That may be so… but as this realms protector I command that you show us our tree. Do this and I will bend the knee, as I did for the tree, and the lab before it" Hopper shouts as he walks up to El and Terry from behind.

He reaches for Terry's arm as their hands intertwine. "Father protector…" she says as they accept each other in a warm embrace.

"Very well, you may see the husk of your fallen ruler" the entity relents as it shoots up into the sky, the wicked red lighting ceasing with it's passing. El finds herself running at full speed towards the tree.

Even though she can't see it in the distance, she somehow knows exactly where it is.

Once she reaches is, she takes in the sight. There lies an enormous tree, seemingly bigger than all of the others combined, and in its epicenter lays her first real home.

Her blanket fort.

Within it she sees her one and only love, Mike Wheeler, sitting within the fort, and merged with the dying tree, with Upside Down residue all over him.

His breaths are short and strained, but El walks up to him and stares deep into his eyes. They're the eyes she's seen countless times before, in her dreams and in the void, the eyes of the boy who cared for her, and comforted her in her darkest time.

"The great tree saved your life with a kiss… perhaps if you do the same, you can save him" Terry suggests from behind. She doesn't need to tell El twice, as she plunges her lips into his, hoping desperately that it will save him. But nothing.

Her mother sighs, "maybe your kiss is not enough" she says, the hope escaping with her breath. "No…" El replies, but it does nothing. "Maybe you can still love and care for him, and he won't truly die" Terry adds, giving El a small bit of hope.

"Nay… it is too late for our great tree, we must let him pass like so many others in the realm, so that you can continue to live" Hopper says, doubting the powers of the great tree. El doesn't want to part with Mike… she wants to stay here and him forever.

"If you do not relent, then you will stay apart of him, forever. You musn't cling, for he is not the same, as his soul has already left, and only the husk now remains" Her father adds on. "Father protector, you lose hope too quickly" Terry argues, but yet another voice comes in.

"No, he doesn't, he only wants what's best for Jane" the old and calming voice of Dr. Owens cuts in. He goes over to kneel with El, who is now hugging onto Mike for dear life. "Jane… this horrible world, the sadness and anguish of our new realm… I have the power to change it"

El's eyes widen, as she desperately wants things to go back to the way they used to. "But… the great tree has to die. His soul must completely leave this realm, which means you must let go of him"

"No!" El shouts back without a second of thought. "Would you rather suffer in agony than save the lives of countless people of the realm?".

El takes more time to consider his question, but she looks back at Mike, she sees his cold dead eyes, and his struggling breaths, and the goop completely covering him. But she doesn't want him to leave, she isn't ready to say goodbye, so she hugs him even tighter.

"Yes…" she states coldly, resting her head on his chest as she sighs.

Owens stands back up. "Very well… you've chosen to doom your family"

"I'm sorry… but I can't leave Mike" she says as she closes her eyes, hearing the red lightning strike next to her, hitting Hopper, Owens, and Terry. She keeps her eyes closed, her whole body shaking as she clutches Mike and buries her face back into his chest.

"Please don't leave me Mike…."

She wakes up in a jolt, her forehead glistening with sweat as she looks around her room and realizes her situation. It had all been a dream.

Her first actual dream since it happened. It wasn't real, but a part of her wishes it was, because she would at least get to see Mike again. She sits on her knees and bends down, resting her forehead on her fist, which is rested on the bed.

El lets out a heavy sigh, quickly letting out short bits of her breath at a time, the realization hitting her harder with each passing second. He's still not here.

"I'm sorry, Mike" she whispers to herself as she jumps back up to her normal position. Her arms reaching around her legs, tucking them up back to her chest. She once again begins to stare at the foot of the bed, as per usual.

She had finally started to get some sleep, thanks to the persuasion of Owens, since he last came, but never before had she dreamed of anything. When she first had a real sleep the day Owens came over, she didn't dream of anything, just blackness, she remembers the blackness of that night vividly for some reason.

The next few nights she didn't remember much, she didn't think there were any dreams, but she couldn't say for certain.

She had thanked herself for not getting any dreams, because they were just a distraction. She didn't want to distract herself, but Owens convinced her to at least eat and sleep, and since then her dad's been really helpful with slowly getting her to do more stuff.

She glances at her clock and sees that it's already 12:00 PM. Hopper had woke her up earlier and said he was going to be home early, but she was too tired to listen that intently. She can't remember why he woke her up to tell her that, but it wasn't very important.

After about 20 minutes of sitting, she decides that she probably is starting to stink, so she gets up and used her deodorant, after that she walks over to the bathroom and lazily brushes her teeth.

Enough to make her breath smell good, but definitely not getting her teeth clean. She slowly walks over to the toilet to pee, but only a few drops come out. This once again reminds her of how thirsty she is, so she gets up without washing her hands or flushing and moves to get herself a glass of water.

After only a few gulps, she decides that she's done drinking, but the Hopper inside of her mind is telling her to finish the whole thing, so she reluctantly does so.

But before she can drink the last of the glass, she hears a loud knock at the door.

This makes her jump and almost drop the water. Hopper doesn't knock anymore, he just uses the key, and that's not even the secret knock. She wonders if the bad men are forcing him to open the door, so he's not using the secret knock on purpose.

She decides that that's the only logical explanation, and moves to her room to hopefully hide. But before she's able to shut the door, her curiosity however is spiked when she hears the knock again, this time different.

Knock, knock, knock knock, knock. Knock, knock

She furrows her brow, not expecting such a weird knock. It isn't the standard three knocks she had grown used to hearing from different people, but it definitely isn't the secret knock either, so she wills herself to go up to the door, telling herself that if she looks out the window just a little, they won't be able to see.

She moves the curtain ever so slightly to see who may be at the door, and to her surprise she sees Dr. Owens, looking as jolly as ever, tapping his feet to whatever song might be playing in his head as he hums.

Relieved, El moves over to the door and slowly creaks it open, peeking her head out. Owens looks in front of him for a bit, confusion flashing in his face before he looks downwards slightly to see El.

"Nice to see you El, how've you been?" he greets, El shrugs her shoulders in response, but is reminded by her inner Hopper voice to let him inside. "Want to come in?" she suggests in a nervous tone, hoping she said it right.

Owens smiles widely, as if her offer has some deeper meaning, and he laughs "I'd love to come in"

El opens the door further to let him limp into the cabin, and shuts it close when he's all the way through. He looks around for a bit, furrowing his brow after he's scanned the place, looking back to El, who's just standing there with her hands clasped together, waiting for him to talk.

"Where's your dad?" he asks, El shrugs again and responds "he said he'd be back by now".

Owens lets out a small "huh" as he shifts his eyes to meet Eleven's. "Are still okay with talking without Hopper?" he asks. El widens her eyes, shocked once again that he'd bother to make sure she was okay with talking to him, taking a lot of pressure off her shoulders.

She reminisces before responding, thinking about how there's only one other person who would bother to ask if she was okay and giving her a choice. Her stomach churns at the thought, as the only reason Owens is here is because he's trying to convince her that… she inwardly shakes her head of those thoughts.

"Yes" she whispers, Owens smiles and gestures towards El's seat at the dining table, offering it to her. She shuffles over to the seat and sits down, but Owens doesn't take Hopper's seat across from her, instead moving over to the fridge.

"Now I'm not much of a cook, but I make a mean bologna sandwich" he says as he grabs some of the meat from the fridge. "Do want to eat?" he asks, once again giving El a choice that Hopper never would, even if it didn't make a difference whether Hopper forced her to sit down or not.

She shyly nods, "yes… hungry". She silently hopes that Owens will be excited for her improvement, and to her joy, he cracks another wide smile. "Great! So I take it you've made some improvements since last week?" He questions as he begins to make two bologna sandwiches.

"Yes"

"So have you been eating breakfast and dinner too?" he asks, El puts her face down. "Dinner, but I sleep through breakfast mostly". El looks back up at Owens, afraid he'll be disappointed at not eating, what Hopper refers to as, "the most important meal of the day", but to her surprise his smile widens.

"So you've been getting sleep too? That's great, kid" he says. El feels a sudden enthusiasm for her improvements, so she continues, "yes, and have been walking around the house more… and showering" she begins to list off the things she's done, to Owens' amusement.

Once she's done, he brings over two plates, each holding a sandwich and a handful of grapes. He sits them down and goes over to fill up waters.

"That's awesome El, I'm really proud of you" he finishes, El flashes a tiny smirk of pride. Owens sits down in Hopper's chair and begins to dig in, El mimicking his movements and taking a bite out of her own sandwich. Owens chuckles, "so with these improvements, have you been feeling any better?"

El shakes her head in response, "no… still not sad, like you say" Owens gives her a nod of understanding before leaning in, "have you been talking to your dad?"

El shrugs, "talks about his day, like he always does"

"But what about you? Have you been talking?"

"No… talks about his day, and tells me he's there for me, and I listen"

"Okay… but other than that, have you tried to distract yourself at all?"

El gives him a look that says, are you crazy? Of course she isn't going to distract herself from Mike, that's not fair to him…

Owens raises his hands up in surrendering manner, "I'm sorry, but I'm telling you El it makes you feel much better". El rests her head of the table, clenching her hands into fists before letting out an annoyed growl, "don't want to feel better! Want to feel-" she stops to think of a word that best describes how she's feeling, remembering how Owens characterized her situation as her feeling empty"

"Want to feel… full" she says as she rests her back on the wall on her right, looking back at Owens. She isn't really sure if her words make a whole lot of sense, but it's the best one she can think of.

Owens gets the message though, he closes his eyes and sighs, feeling an overwhelming sense of pity for the young girl before her. "I know El… I know. It feels like Mike left a hole in your heart, and I'm sorry to say, but that hole's never going to fully close"

El moves her eyes to her lap, not wanting to look him in the eye, because he's too right. "But El, you've still got a lot of your heart left to give, and you shouldn't shut that out too," he explains. El sighs and goes back to eating her sandwich.

Owens himself is a little shocked at this, but he doesn't show it. An outburst like that is atypical in someone who's going through denial, so a part of him expected her to react a little more to his words. He shrugs it off however, everyone's different he thinks as he lets the silence play out for a bit.

El continues to munch on her sandwich, popping the occasional grape in her mouth, content to just sit there in silence. But after a while, Owens breaks it, "El… I want you to keep in touch with your dad, okay? He's suffering too, because he doesn't wanna see you like this" this sends a pang of guilt through El's body, knowing that Hopper has been trying desperately to be there for her since it happened.

She gives him a look, knowing he still has more to say, and he continues "Just, every day, tell him how you're feeling. Even if you feel the exact same as you did the day before, just talk to him. It's just as important as eating and sleeping".

El sighs and nods her head, not really wanting to get into another argument about how she doesn't want to distract herself by talking to her dad. She doesn't say a word, moving once again to eat more of her grapes and drinking water.

"So…" Owens continues with the conversation. "I hear from Hopper that Mike's funeral is coming up in a few days". She narrows her brows and gives him her usual confused look, "funeral?"

"Yeah, funeral" he restates, continuing to eat his sandwich. El shifts her eyes to the left before going back to his face, shaking her head a little. Owens finally gets the message, "you don't know what a funeral is?" he asks, El shakes her head again.

"Well it's a little bit like a party, do you know what that is?" El nods her head at this, her furrowed brows finally returning to their normal position. "But parties are usually happy, because they're celebrating… but a funeral isn't happy. Everyone wears black clothes, because it's a tradition, and they gather around to listen to a few people talk about whoever died, and they grieve"

El sits back, absorbing all of the information that was just thrown at her, looking at the floor to comprehend his words. She looks back, "grieve?"

"Yeah… it's what you're doing right now. It's what you've been doing, and it's what you'll be doing for a long time"

El face turns to a sad frown, "empty… for long time?"

"Not exactly, you see when you grieve, you feel a lot of different emotions, and emptiness is just one of the first ones, but everyone's different". El gives him a hopeful look, "feel different… eventually?" she asks, and Owens nods sympathetically, "one day, if you keep talking to your dad, you're gonna be able to let go, and continue your grieving process"

El's eyes widen, remembering the dream she had only a few hours ago. Owens picks up on this, "El, it's not a bad thing to stop feeling empty, and it doesn't mean you'll stop caring about Mike", but she shakes her head at this, making the doctor give her a puzzled look.

"Don't get dreams much anymore, but this morning I had one"

Owens eyebrows shoot up in concern, "what was your dream about?" he inquires. El sighs, trying to remember the details. "Mike was a tree, you were there… and Hopper and Mama" she lets out.

"Mama?" Owens questions, and El realizes that he wouldn't know who she was. The memories flood through her, of how her Mama was brainwashed by the scientists, and now her brain can't make her body do many things besides whisper a few words.

She frowns deeply at Owens, the little trust she had for him momentarily going away, "you took me from my Mama" she whispers. Owens heaves a great sigh, "I know El… it wasn't right what we did" he admits, making El look up at him again.

"I always thought that I was doing my patriotic duty as a scientist, helping the government protect us and our nation. I knew everything about you, Eleven, I knew that we took you from your mother… and the worst part is I could have done something about it" he shakes his head in shame, making El feel a bit of sympathy, but still having anger towards the bad man.

"But I was told that it was 'the lesser of two evils' and that it was for the 'good of the people', and I believed them. But when I saw those dogs attack the station and kill all my friends and Bob, poor fella, I knew that this wasn't the right thing to do" he opens up. "I'm sorry, El, if it wasn't for us, you'd be happy with your mom"

Silence fills the room again, with El only looking at the floor, not knowing how to respond, and only after a few seconds does Owns continue, "but now El, I'm doing everything I can to help you, and I know it's not much but I'm trying to do a little good again" he says sincerely, El nods at this, and continues with her dream.

"Yes… Mama was there, and you told me that I had to let go of Mike to save the land from the… umm t-the… MIND FLAYER!" she yells, remembering the image of the shadowy monster that plagued the realm, she remembers how she had stopped it and closed the gate, and what Mike and the kids had called it. It was the Mind Flayer.

Owens furrows his brows, "the Mind Flayer?"

"Yes! It controlled the dogs, and it infected Will"

"It was the hive mind…" Owens remarks to himself upon realizing what El was talking about. "Yes!" she adds on.

"It was the thing that had conquered the tre-" El's thoughts were interrupted. Knock, knock knock. Her eyes shoot open and she looks back at Owens, who wears a smile. "Ah, Hop must be back" he says as he puts pressure on his cane to get up from the seat, slowly making his way to the door. El turns around, "no" she warns him, Owens turns around with a look of confusion, "what do you mean 'no'?"

"Dad's knock…" she explains as she makes the knock that Hopper made before using the key. "Secret knock" she adds. The doctor's eyes narrow in concern, "well who else knows we're here?", El doesn't respond, but walks over to the window to slight the curtain back.

Owens sees her eyes widen, but not in fear, rather in surprise, and without another word, El moves the curtain back and walks over to the door, but Owens stops her, "El! Who is it?"

She rolls her eyes, as if he was stupid for not knowing, "Nancy" she answers, Owens looks down at the ground, trying to remember the name, "Wheeler?" he asks, and El nods her head. The doctor's face turns to one of pity, thinking about what she must be going through right about now.

"Hold up El, let me answer it" he suggests, slowly making his way to the door, trying El's patience while he's at it. He quickly opens the door to see Nancy.

She has bags under her eyes, as did all of the Wheeler family at this time, but this one wears an overabundance of makeup, unlike her mother, with her hair pulled back into a ponytail.

She wears a light polyester jacket and pink gloves, and a simple pair of denim jeans, holding a box that reads "Jane" in marker.

Her brows instantly furrow, seeing the doctor that she had talked to and used as evidence against him in order to shut down the lab. Seeing him in El's cabin instantly made her nerves shoot up, as the scientist knowing where El lives is that last thing she wants to see. "Doctor Owens?"

Owens nods his head, looking around her to check if anyone had accompanied or followed her, seeing no one, he addressed Nancy, "It's nice to see you again Nancy, and I'm truly sorry about your brother…" he remarks, the girl only nodding in response.

"So what have you come to visit me out here for?" Owens asks, keeping a charade by implying that he lives here alone, Nancy scoffs, with worry in her voice, she retorts, "I know Hopper lives here Owens, now what have you done with El?". Nancy's question turns into more of a demand by the end, and her breathing accelerates, as she looks down at Owens' bad knee, ready to kick it and save El if she had to.

Owens raises his hands in defeat, "If you know about El then… I'm sure this all just one big misunderstanding, you see Hopper invited me to give El some counseling because she hasn't been doing well, so I've been coming here for the past week, helping her"

Nancy's eyebrows raise in skepticism, not believing that a scientist who has every reason to want to hurt El is in fact helping her.

Owens picks up on this though, elaborating, "Hopper saved my life when during the crisis, this is the least I can do. Would you like to come in?" Nancy stepped back, unsure of what she would be getting into, Owens simply laughs, "Nancy, if it makes you feel any better, if this was a trap, I would have lured you in with El".

He then opens the door a little more to see Eleven, sitting in her blue plaid pajamas and a gray shirt with red stripes on the arms. Her hair is the curled mess it always is, and if Nancy didn't know any better she would assume that El just woke up, but she could see more than tiredness on her face.

She looks at Nancy with as a sincere a look she can muster, "it's okay Nancy, Owens isn't a bad man". Nancy sighs, still skeptical of the man she had such a disdain for when her and Jonathan were taken to the lab. "O-okay" she relents before walking into the cabin, Owens shutting the door behind her.

After looking around a bit, she looks right at Owens with another, I might just kill you face. "Where's Hopper?"

"That's a good question"

"I called him and he said he was going to be here at 1:00"

"I did the same, I guess he got held up with something" Owens shrugs before going to the kitchen, "you eat lunch?" he asks, looking back into the fridge to grab some meat. "Yeah, I had a small something before I came up," she says, Owens nods and shuts the fridge.

An awkward silence hangs over them for a little bit as the doctor goes back to sit down. "So… how can we help you?"

Nancy's face falls, as she's reminded of why she came up, and the box that she's holding. "What's… in the box?" El perks up, seeing her name written on it.

Nancy sighs, "we were, umm, cleaning out the basement and Mike's room… and… this, this is just the stuff that I wanted to give to you," she says, the sadness palpable in her voice. El looks at her with her soft hazel eyes, almost to ask for me? Nancy looks down.

The girl turns to Owens, "can… we go to my room?" she asks Owens, he smiles in return, "sure thing kid" he says, finishing his lunch. Nancy gestures her head over to the door, "is that your room?" she asks, El nods her head shyly.

They both walk in, the smell hitting Nancy like a truck, with El seemingly noseblind to it, she hides her scrunched face and turns to El.

"What have you been doing all week?" she says, trying to make some small talk. El shrugs and sits on the bed and goes into her position, and looks at Nancy, the teen furrows her brows in return. "Been sitting… like this, for long time… makes dad sad" she explains. Nancy nods, a wave of pity hitting her, knowing exactly what it feels like to lose Mike.

Nancy goes to sit on the end of the bed, placing the box down between them, El moves up and sits on her knees, peering inside.

"This is just the stuff I was able to sneak away from mom, she kinda wanted to keep everything" Nancy adds, opening the box. El is immediately hit by the familiar smell of the basement, the nostalgic memories filling her mind.

She heaves a large sigh, being reminded of the better days when she could just hide in his house. Nancy moves to grab the first things out of the box, being multiple small blankets and covers that she recognized.

"These were the blankets… that made up your fort when you stayed at our house. My mom made me take it down, but I thought I could at least give you the covers if you wanted to rebuild it, with this" she reaches back down the box to hand her a picture of the blanket for, sitting peacefully in the corner of the basement.

El envies the simpler time, desperately wishing she could go back to it. "Thank you…" she responds quietly, clutching the covers for dear life. She now knows exactly where her new thinking spot is going to be, either that or she's going to be holding these when she thinks in her bed.

Nancy pipes up after a nice bit of silence, "I don't really know you that well, El. When I first heard about you, you were just some kid that Mike was apparently hiding in his basement… but when I saw you together at the school, the way you looked at him, and the way he looked at you, I could just tell you two were in love" she opens up, El listens to her intently, absorbing her words but not really emoting.

"And the way he acted, after we thought you died… El, I really don't want you to get depressed like he did" she continues.

El slowly nods her head, "saw Mike talk to me for 353 days, but he can't hear me like I heard him… and I can't feel him anymore"

"Can't feel him?" she furrows her brows, El nods and elaborates, "When I was stuck here with Hopper, I could always feel him, even when I didn't see him in the dark place… but now I don't".

El's stomach churns at what this empty feeling means, she feels her stomach swell, and gets an urge to throw up, but holds it back. "How are you feeling?" she asks.

Nancy stops and looks down, thinking of her next words. "I don't know… everything?" she guesses, "I'm sad… I'm angry, I'm shocked, sickened, scared… I don't even know what to feel"

El opens her eyes further with each word, surprised to see her feel all those different emotions. "The more I think about it, the worse it gets. I don't know how our family's going to move on".

The girl doesn't respond, not understanding Nancy's emotions, thinking that she's a bad person because she isn't sad yet. This feeling is only made worse when Nancy responds with her own question, "how are you feeling?" she asks, looking El straight in the eye.

She sees El's eyes dart down, seemingly in shame, and pausing to answer the question. "You feel everything… I don't… I don't feel anything. Empty" she finishes, looking back to Nancy to see her reaction.

To her shock, she doesn't see Nancy disgusted at her for not caring about Mike, but empathetic. A tear runs down her face as she grabs El and hugs her. "I'm sorry… I know you cared about Mike more than anyone else in your life… and I know he cared about you the most"

El looks at her, almost not believing what she's saying, "it's true… Mike loved you so much El" she says through her tears.

El hugs back, burying her face in the young adults shoulder. Another while of silence, neither releasing from the hug. El enjoyed the presence of her one true love's sister, they could both grieve together at least.

Eventually Nancy broke the silence, a question popping into her mind, "are you going to Mike's funeral?" she asks, El shrugs in response looking at the floor, "want to…". Nancy sighs, "well just about the whole town knows about you,''.

El's face widens in shock, "what?!" she begins to worry, breathing going rapid as looks sporadically around her room. "El, it's okay" she rests a hand on the girls shoulder, "Hopper has a story for you, and no one has questioned anything so far" she reassures, but it does little to calm her down.

"But-but what if the bad men, t-they could take me again" she worries, but Nancy keeps her consoling up, "they still don't know where you live, and he told me that he's working on getting you an official birth certificate, you've got nothing to worry about"

Nancy rubs El's shoulders for a bit, waiting for her to calm down. "So, so I can go… outside?", she finally speaks up, and Nancy nods her head, "yeah, I think so, why else would he be telling everyone about you?".

El looks back up at her, "so I can go to the funeral?" she questions shyly, Nancy shuffles her hands in her pockets, "well, that's another thing I wanted to mention" she slowly takes out a small envelope from her back pocket, handing it to El.

The girl hastily opens it and reads it out word by word. "Dear… Jim and Jane, it would make us very happy if you would come to the mem-or-i-al for our son Michael Wheeler, on November the 15th, in the grave-yard near west 13th street, we hope to see you there" she reads aloud, and looks back up at Nancy with a frown on her face, "mem-or-i-al?"

"It's just another word for funeral" Nancy explains. "You and Hopper are invited to come, if you want" she adds. El looks at the card, her heart touched by Nancy allowing her to come, "thank you" she whispers, before leaning in for another hug.

Hopper runs to the cabin at lightning speed, checking his watch for a short second to see it read 5:00, "shit" he mutters under his breath, he knew he would be late after the officers had asked him to help them search the area around the Hawkins Lab, and he didn't have an excuse, so he had no choice.

But, as usual, he lost track of time, completely forgetting that both Owens and Nancy were going to come to his cabin today. He didn't know what to hope for. A part of him didn't want them to just leave, because he'd have to call them and apologize and all that crap, but another part of him was scared that they let themselves in, and that means he wasn't there to protect El.

I'm about to find out he figures, grabbing the key he has in his pocket and quickly opening the door.

He looks around all different directions, but sees no one, the only thing he notices is a box sitting on the counter that reads "Jane" in big bold letters.

He peers in it to see multiple items that he knows don't belong to her, but he shakes his thoughts away and moves to El's door, knocking lightly before coming in. He walks in nonchalantly, shaking away the adrenaline that was still in his system.

He sees El sitting in her usual position, but this time she was clutching blankets, blankets he didn't recognize. Not only that, but a card lay at her feet, so he walks over to her and ruffles her hair.

"How you been doing?" she shrugs, moving her eyes every which way. Hopper can tell she's got something on her mind, but he chalks it up to her being her usual self.

"Owens and Nancy come here alright?" she nods at the question, continuing to not make eye contact with him.

He reaches down to touch the blankets, to which El immediately takes them away, and looks him straight in the eye with a stern face, "they're Mike's" she says, scooting herself away so he can't touch them.

Hopper sighs, realizing that she's acting out of place, even considering the events of the past two weeks. "Hey, El, what's on your mind, huh?" he asks, she reverts to looking around the room again, before her eyes land on the card by her feet, and they stay there.

Hopper looks back at it, "can I see this?" he asks, El fights a bit of hesitation before giving the "okay"

Hopper reaches to grab it and opens it up, reading the contents within. After he finishes, he mutters, "funeral on the 15th… hmm". El looks back at him, her face full of pleading, as he knows what she's about to say. "Can I go? Please?"

Hopper knows the risks, he knows them too damn well.

Mike's death is a life changing event, but in the back of his mind, he still fears for her safety, not being completely ready to take that extra step by introducing her to everyone. No one knows what she looks like, and that may change, especially when the Wheelers see her.

"El… it's not a good idea" he gets up and walks away, not wanting to continue an argument that he knows he'll lose. To his shock however, El gets up and follow him.

"But-but dad! I need to grieve!" she tells him, Hopper gives her a funny look, knowing that El's just throwing the word out there without much thought. "El… what if someone catches you, what if the Wheelers recognize you from when the bad men showed them pictures of you.

"But I had no hair!" she argues, but Hopper isn't having it.

He turns around and walks to the kitchen to prepare some kind of food, ready to tell El to get a shower running, but he hears her yell back, "DAD!" she exclaims at the top of her lungs. He looks back at her in shock, "this. is. not. negotiable." she echoes her own dad's words, he stands there gobsmacked.

"I am going" she commands, challenging Hopper's patience. "Not if I don't drive you" he retorts, looking her back in the eye, challenging her to speak up again. "I'll walk"

"You don't even know where it is"

"West 13th street"

"You don't know what that means!"

"I'll find it!" she shouts, throwing her hands down in frustration. "El, I'm telling you no! End of discussion!" Hopper finishes, "and I'm telling you yes!" she continues.

"I have to see him…"

"He's dead El! You won't be seeing him, you'll be looking at a rock with his name on it for a few hours! Endangering yourself and the people you care about for no reason!" he stops talking, thinking about what he just said, he knows he took it too far.

El's face of anger disappears and is replaced with one of, well, Hopper can't quite tell. There isn't any frustration anymore only… panic.

She runs to her room and shuts it as hard as she can with her powers, using them for the first time in weeks.

She runs to sit on her bed, clutching the covers as hard as she can without ripping them, as she buries her face into the yellow blanket. Her breathing is intense, reaching the same levels of hyperventilation that she felt when it when she first found out.

She wants to cry… she wants to cry so bad, because she knows she's supposed to, but she can't summon the tears. She remembers her dream, how Hopper had lost hope in the trees power, and how he told her to let go of the tree, so it can die in peace.

She lies down, her head near the foot of the bed, and her feet near the pillows. She closes her eyes, still breathing heavily, attempting to feel the blankets between her numb fingers, but to no avail.

November 14th, 1984

Hopper wakes up to the sound of birds chirping out his window, like he always does, but this time it feels off, even though he can't quite pinpoint it. It feels like he's not completely there, that his senses are numbed, but he hadn't been drinking or smoking right before bed like he usu-

His thoughts are interrupted by the sound of crying. He immediately jumps up, remembering what Owens had said about El accepting Mike's death. He runs out of his room and straight into El's making a slight turn in the living room to make it to the door. But when he opens the door, he doesn't find El.

He doesn't find her blankets, her bed, her cabinet, or her nightstand. It's as if the room was completely cleared, as if no one lived here.

But there is something. There sits a woman, crying with her back turned to him. He moves over to her, the creaking of the floor alerting the woman to his presence, she turns around to face him and he sees who it is.

It was his wife, Diane, sitting there with a tear stained face, sitting in front of a tombstone. She runs over to Hopper, crying as she does, "oh Jim!" she says as she hugs him tightly, burying her face in his chest. She lets him go to walk over to the stone, it reads "here lies Sara Hopper. 1971-1978".

The room goes black, all windows and walls disappearing to show a void. Diane was gone, and only him and the tombstone remained. He takes a moment to look, remembering the way he couldn't continue after Sara, losing himself in his grief. Just like he feared for his new daughter…

With the thought of this came a hideous sight, the grotesque and decomposed hand of Eleven shoots out of the ground in front of the tombstone, along with the rest of her body.

She wears only a hospital gown, with the buzzed hair she had a year ago, and the number 011 carved into her wrist, which was nothing but bone.

Her face was either rotted flesh or completely skeleton, except for her eyes. Her eyes remain the beautiful hazel they always were, but they're filled with tears.

The tears completely fill her eyes, but they never fall. The putrid being that had become El grabs him by the collar with her bony hand, she looks him in the eyes, the tears finally falling out, before the being grabs a knife from seemingly nowhere and shoves it not into Hopper, but into her own heart, which was never beating to begin with.

He watches as the child lets out an ear piercing scream, the body quickly crumpling to dust, and finally completely going away. Hopper looks back at the tombstone, which has changed to say, "Jane Hopper, 1971-1984".

The broken man finally lets his own tears fall… "no… El, please…" he whispers to himself, looking down at the ground before she hears the giggles of young girls. He looks back up to see the tombstone gone, but two figures he knows to be Sara and El.

They're holding hands, and their decomposed forms are no longer visible, with their skin clear as the day, and their presences full of life. But they turn around from him and walk away, with Hopper finding himself unable to move to catch either of them.

El stops holding Sara's hand a good distance away from Hopper. The younger girl keeps walking into the void, but El stops and looks back at Hopper. She smiles, with tears in her eyes, her smile is of warmth, happiness, contentment, all things that he pains to see his daughter smile for again.

She speaks, her voice as soft as always, "I won't stand here for long, dad" she whispers, yet he can still hear.

Hopper jumps out of his bed with a shout, sweating through his clothes completely as he looks up at his window to see the night sky, the clock reading 3:43. He sighs, realizing that it was all just some messed up dream, letting the tears fall from out of his eyes, he wipes them on his sleeve and gets up, taking in the whole experience.

I won't stand here for long, dad

The words echo through his mind, quickly giving him a pounding headache. He looks out his window and stares at the trees in the distance. He thinks about that funeral, how much it would mean to her.

Mike was the first person to ever mean anything to her other than fear, the first person to show her compassion and love. He remembers Sara, and his guilt, his anger, his grief. He went back to Hawkins not six months after her death, drinking and medicating his life away.

Hopper understands how El feels, at least hopes he does, and he knows that nothing is going to stop her from going to something like this.

El lies under the four covers that made up Mike's old fort, each blanket having varying degrees of thickness. She had fallen asleep to once again no dream, but still wishing she could stay there, better than this hell, she thought to herself.

The blankets still smelled like Mike's basement, but she knew they wouldn't stay that way forever, so she holds them up to her nose, and keeps it there, alternating between blankets every so often.

She had thought about running away at night. After all, Hopper's always a heavy sleeper, so it's not like it would be hard, and that would give her extra time to find west 13th street, or ask someone. But she loves Hopper, and she doesn't want to make him sadder than he already is.

Deep down she knows he just wants to keep her safe, so she doesn't blame him for not letting her go… but that doesn't change the fact that she is going. She has to see Mike…

The thought of those words make her want to throw up. Hopper told her that she wouldn't be seeing Mike, just looking at a rock with his name carved in it, and she knew he was right.

She still does, but it doesn't stop it from feeling like a hundred rusty nails poking and stabbing at her soul. She doesn't want to let go of the great tree. And if it means the realm is cast into darkness then so be it.

He sighs into her covers, the emptiness washing over her. She debates in her mind whether she should tell Hopper that she's leaving.

If she does, it would make him mad and he would try to stop her, even though he would fail, but if she doesn't, then he would be scared for her, and worry if she was safe. And it would ruin the chances of her going out again for a long time, which doesn't really bother her right now.

She lays there for a couple more lonely seconds until the door quietly slides open, revealing her dad, with bags under his eyes from what looks to be a lack of sleep.

He wears the same shirt he did yesterday, with more comfortable pants than jeans.

He leans his back on the door frame, not bothering to walk in, and looks at her, tiredness and sadness in his eyes. El slumps up, resting her back on the wall, legs still under the blankets as she looks back at him.

"Were you drinking beer again?" she wonders in a soft voice, Hopper lets out a sigh, moving his hands down his face to stretch his eyes wider. "No… just had a bad dream" he explains, El's eyes look back down in pity.

She knows exactly what those are like, constantly afraid of getting a nightmare about Mike now that he's… gone. Usually, whenever she was scared she would think about Mike, so what would she do now?

There is no more anchor. No more constant in her life that brings her happiness, and because of that she's hollow.

"Nightmare" she whispers as she looks at the ground, Hopper nods, "yeah, a bad one"

"Sorry…" she says, Hopper begins, "El… it's not your fault. It wasn't about you, or about the funeral" he lies, not wanting to worry her more than she already is. "But… I just couldn't get any sleep, because I was thinking about you".

El's eyes perk up, wondering what he could possibly be thinking about. "I know you're gonna end up going whether I like it or not… and I don't want you to be alone" he says in as comforting a voice as the old police chief can muster.

El's face lights up, not necessarily in happiness, but in shock, "You take me?" she asks. Hopper shakes his head with a smile. "No, I don't take you, I will take you, remember it's future tense" he reminds, El sighs in relief, worried for a second that he just faked her out or something.

"Thank you dad" she says, Hopper's smile grows even wider, "You're welcome, kid. Now, let's get you in the shower"

El coils out of her bed, moving over to the bathroom, Hopper begins to follow her but she stops him. "I can do it myself, dad" she remarks, and Hopper breathes a sigh of relief, "awesome, kid" he ruffles her hair and then walks over to make some breakfast.

November 15th, 1984

"Ah… no, too tight" El complains as Hopper fumbles around to get the pearl necklace around her neck. "Is not" he remarks, moving the front of the necklace to touch her neck so he could close the endings better.

"Is too" she argues, but as soon as Hopper finishes, it falls and lands on the lower part of her neck, inches away from the base, as is rests on the back of her neck.

"Just had to clip it together" he reveals. El fiddles with the pearls for a short second, deciding that they're in a good spot.

She glances in the mirror to take herself in. She wears a long but not bloated black skirt, that goes down a little bit further than her knees, and a nice black t shirt, with another long sleeved jacket that goes around her arms and back, but leaves the front open, probably so that her two necklaces are visible.

One is a short necklace that is made of pearls, she was given it to her by Mike when the boys decided to dress her up to go to the school a year ago, she had told Mike that she didn't want to wear it because it was uncomfortable, but today she insisted upon wearing it to the funeral to Hopper.

Another necklace droops down to her chest rather than the base of her neck, it has a nice green gem in it that her dad calls an emerald, and it apparently was passed down from generation to generation in the Hopper family.

Hopper had wanted to do something with her curly hair, but El told him that she wanted it the same, so he just made sure there was no grease or dust in her hair.

She did however ask for some makeup to put on her face. Apparently Mike put some on her a year ago and told her she looked pretty, so she badgered him to get some the day before.

"There, all done" he steps back to take in his work, "you don't look half bad, kid" he remarks, El continues to stare into the mirror, taking herself in. "Pretty?" she looks at him through the mirror, "definitely, El" Hopper smiles, and she smiles back, if only to reassure him that she would be okay.

Hopper walks out of the room to look at the grandfather clock, realizing the time. He himself dawns a simple black tux, and a pair of nice navy blue jeans.

He had combed his hair back, but El said she didn't even notice when he asked about it, so he didn't think much of it. He walks back into her room, thumb pointed to the door. "El, we better leave soon, or we're gonna be late" he suggests, El nods her head, and they both leave to get into their car.

El pays extra attention to each road they pass, and each turn they make, hoping to memorize the road to the graveyard so she could visit it whenever she wants.

Not only that, but it does a good job of distracting her, as each time she thinks about where they're going, and what it means, her stomach tightens in fear, the ricketing of the police car not helping too much.

She doesn't know what exactly a tombstone is, Hopper had told her that it was a flat rock standing upright, that had the name of whoever died on it. He said that most of the time the people's bodies were buried under the stones, and at this her dad seemed to stop, looking her dead in the eyes with a look of hidden fear.

Maybe he was scared of the bodies? She had thought. But when she asked if Mike's body would be there, he told her that they couldn't find the body, so there was only a rock.

She doesn't think too hard about the fact that Mike isn't going to be there, because when she does she just gets even more scared. Her reminiscence is interrupted by the sound of Hopper's gruff voice.

"Now El, there's going to be a lot of people… and they know I have a daughter but they've never seen you before, so they might come up to you and ask questions. And if they ask questions you don't know, or ones that have to do with your past, just let me do that talking" he explains, El apprehensively nods her head, and Hopper picks up on her nerves. "It's okay El, I'll be right with you the whole time, and Nancy, Joyce, Jonathan, and the boys will be there too" he consoles, keeping his eyes on the road.

El nods again, she sighs, trying to shake the fear from her mind.

It isn't much longer until they arrive. Hopper quickly gets out and moves over to the passenger seat, opening the door for El while she gains her bearings. Breathe. In and out, in and out, she tells herself, remembering what Hopper had told her to do in a crisis like this. "You ready?" Hopper asks as he holds out his hand.

She knows that accepting her hand means walking into a world where Mike is gone, but she slowly takes her hand, wanting to feel full again one last time.

They both slowly walk over to the field filled with stones, and she notices a few people dotting the field at different tombstones, but the one they're headed towards is the one with an actual crowd.

It's a quiet windy day, with the crowd talking in hushed whispers, all wearing black just like her and Hopper. A man in the back walks up to them as they approach, holding a clipboard, the contents of which El can't quite see due to his height.

"What are your names?" he says softly, Hopper speaks up, "I'm Jim Hopper, this is my daughter, Jane" he quickly responds. She sees the man flip through the pages of his clipboard before releasing his eyes from a squint, "Ah, here you are, you'll be seated in row 2" he says.

El notices Hopper widen his eyes at this, not exactly knowing what row 2 means. She waits till they leave to ask her dad, "row? Like row a boat?" Hopper chuckles at this a little and explains, "no, you see a row is kind of like a line, but its in a different direction. Say you're waiting in line to do something, then you're behind someone and in front of someone, but in a row there's someone on your right and on your left instead of front and back". El nods her head in understanding, "why row two?" she asks.

"That's a pretty good question, kid, usually the family and important people sit in the first few rows" Hopper answers.

It doesn't take long before they're in the midst of the crowd, Hopper shoots his head up and moves it from side to side, looking for someone, while El clutches Hopper's arm for dear life. All the people she sees here look friendly, but they're also unfamiliar, and they look at El with questioning eyes.

"Hop!" the voice of a woman calls from behind, him and El turn around to see the comforting sight of Joyce Byers, with Will following behind her.

"Hey Joyce" he moves to shake her hand, but she ignores it and goes straight for the hug. "How've you been, Jim?" she looks at him with her mom eyes, making sure that he's doing okay.

"I've been doing fine Joyce, was a little afraid of this because, well, you know" as he says this he gestures to El, who's squinting her eyes at the wind that's blowing in her face. Joyce kneels down to her, "hi El, have you been doing okay?"

El shrugs, not wanting to go in depth about her feelings right now, because all she really wants to do was see Mike. Joyce's face turns into the one she's seen her most in, a mixture of exhaustion, worry, and pity. "You look very pretty, El" she says in her warm voice, El forces a smile, "thank you, you look pretty too".

Joyce wears a simple black sundress with long sleeves, and a nice necklace in the shape of a star. Her hair is bundled up, and she has a noticeable amount of lipstick on. The boy behind him is wearing a tight tuxedo with a bow tie, seemingly lost in deep thought, but visibly uncomfortable.

"Elev- Jane!" Dustin yells from behind her. She turns around to see Dustin and Lucas walking up to her, their mom's in tow. "Hey… Jane" Lucas says as he slowly looks to Hopper, hoping he's keeping to the plan by calling her Jane.

Hopper rolls his eyes, "it's okay kids, Eleanor's just her middle name," he explains, winking at the end so they get the message. The kids nod and look at each other, "hey, guys" Will says as he's finally snapped back into reality, waking up to the other kids and hugging him. Dustin's face turns, "oh, dude, you've never met El before".

Will turns again to look at El, she looks back. Their faces don't emote but their eyes tell a story. A story of understanding, not only for shared trauma but for Mike's death, as they were the closest to him than any of the others. A moment of silence is shared between them, but it's broken by Lucas fake couch, trying to relieve himself of the awkwardness. This alerts Will and he moves to shake her hand, "hi, I'm Will… Mike's told me a lot about you".

"Mike's told me a lot about you" El says softly, slowly reaching up and grabbing his hand. Their hands resonate with the same cold, the cold of despair, and the cold of emptiness.

"Chief Hopper, there you are, I'm glad you could come. I would have understood if you hadn't given how your daughter's been taking it" Karen says as she walks over to shake Hopper's hand, "you'd be surprised, Mrs. Wheeler. Ever since the invite she's been dead set on coming, whether I drive her there or not" he laughs, she smiles brightly at him, the tears still fresh in her eyes.

"Joyce, I'm so glad you could come too" Karen turns to look at Joyce, the Byers mom smiles back, "I'm happy to be here, Karen, I am so sorry for your loss, it isn't fair at all" she consoles, Karen nods, closing her eyes to hold back the tears.

"Trust us, we know what it's like more than most" Hopper adds in, referring to Sara and Will, even though Will turned out to be alive. Karen looks down to see a girl staring back at her. Her face looks focused, as if she's trying to find the Mike in her, and from that Karen knows exactly who this girl is.

"You must be Jane…" she says, extending her hand like to the multiple people she's done before, El takes it and shakes.

Karen then kneels down to look at her face to face. Without a shadow of a doubt, El is one of the most beautiful girls she's ever seen.

She wears two gorgeous necklaces and pretty dress, but her favorite thing about this girl is the hair. And the way it curls perfectly like hers used to when she was a kid, even though it was brown instead of blonde.

She realizes just how lucky Mike would have been to be with such a princess, and she immediately wants to accept her as part of the family. Especially because of the knowledge that her son's death has been eating the girl up inside. Karen looks her in the eyes, those eyes.

They aren't tear stained like her own, but she can see the grief in them… she can see the love for her son in those eyes. She can't stand the thought of what Mike's life would have been like with her, so she hugs El and cries.

El doesn't know what to think. When she saw Mike's mom for the first time, she looked sad, really sad, and she secretly wished that she could be the same. She could tell it was Mike's mom without her having to ask, she could see the small little features, like the nose, the slight dimple, but most importantly the eyes.

Karen knelt down beside her, and took a second, seemingly taking her all in, and a part of El desperately hoped she liked her. But to her shock, she begins to cry again and hugs her, and she doesn't know what to think.

For a second she doesn't respond at all, but she realizes that this is Mike's mama. She's the one who cared for him, who clothed him, who put food in his belly, all things that he would learn, all things that he would do for El when she first found him. El hugs back, gripping her like she was her own mom. "I'm sorry…" she whispers, "I'm sorry too" Karen responds.

She finally peels back after a while, holding El by the shoulders, "you look gorgeous, Jane" she adds on, smiling at her, El smiles back "thank you".

Karen sighs, dropping her shoulders and getting back up off her knees.

"The service is about to begin, so I better get going," she explains, walking off to the front of the tombstone with Ted, who's talking to some older man in a tuxedo.

After a little bit of catching up, everyone begins to find there seats. Joyce still engaged in conversation with Hopper. "Must've been quite a few tears over the past couple of weeks" Joyce quips, looking up to Hopper, whose face turns stone cold, not exactly what she was expecting.

"Not a single one…"

Joyce furrows her brows, and Hopper closes his eyes, not planning on crying during the funeral, only being there for El. She places a hand on his arm, "I'm so sorry" she whispers, Hopper shakes his head.

"Doctor says she's in denial, apparently it's gonna hit her like a truck, when she fully realizes". Joyce leans her head on his shoulder, "we'll be there for her," she remarks. "Always" he responds, as the funeral begins.

El notices the same man in the tuxedo that was talking to Karen and Ted walk up, he sighs, gathering his papers and placing them on a wooden stand.

She finally gets a good look at the tombstone, which is ordained with flowers, and multiple pictures of him. She realizes just now that this is the first time seeing Mike's face since it happened.

The fuzzy hair that always stuck every which way, the slight hunch, the freckles dotted like stars on his face, and his eyes, the eyes that always seemed to understand, to care. To see him again… she feels terrified.

The cold despair of knowing that his presence had left the world, it's harsh on her soul. The feeling quickly overwhelms her, as she buries her face into Hopper's arm, wanting to shield herself from this hideous existence.

The man begins to talk, but she doesn't listen, she only trembles in the arms of Hopper, unsure as to how he's reacting, but hoping he just lets her stay there. She can hear crying in the distance, probably from a lot of people, and she wishes she could watch and cry to, but she doesn't want to cry.

To cry would be to accept that he's gone, to let go of the great tree, and she can't do that. She can't watch either, because to watch would be to gaze upon a truth that shouldn't be real… she can't.

It isn't long before the speech is finished, in which she hears even more crying. She peeks up from her position to see Nancy and Holly, standing in front of the tombstone, both holding roses. Holly looks too young to understand anything that's going on, but Nancy holds her hand, and whispers something in her ear. Holly then puts the rose down in front of the tombstone, and Nancy waits a short second, her sobbing becoming too much to bare, as she lets her own rose fall.

After some people she doesn't know also begin to kneel down and place their own roses, she sees Lucas walk over, his putting his own rose down onto the stone, followed by Dustin, and then Will, after this she feels Hopper shake her shoulder, the one she isn't currently holding.

She looks up to see Mrs. Wheeler holding a dozen roses, realizing that she must have been handing them out to close friends and family, and she initially reaches her arm to take it, but stops. She would have to walk up and leave it for Mike…

She finds that she can't touch the rose, becoming frozen with fear. She knows that if she grabs it, then she'll have to let it go, she'll have to give it to Mike, and she can't.

She reels her arm back and looks down, shaking her head. She's afraid of what Karen will think of her, but she simply isn't capable of doing it. She sees Hopper lightly push the box down, shaking his head.

And to El's surprise, Karen nods in understanding, putting a finger on El's chin, and slowly raising it. She nods at El, eyes teared over. El stares back at her with her shy brown eyes, and moves back over to Hopper to bury her face again.

She hopes Karen isn't upset with her… not that it makes a massive difference, because Mike is all she can think about.

The orange sky soon makes its presence known, as the service ends and all manner of people get up for the after party. There were many emotions felt by the end of the service when it came to leaving.

Some got excited to leave, like Holly, who was too young to see this as any other occasion than one where she had to wear uncomfortable clothes for no reason and put a flower on a rock. Some were exhausted, like Hopper, who never had an especially close relationship to Mike, but felt nothing but empathy for the people who had to suffer. But some didn't want to leave at all, like El.

As the black suit and dress clad crowd make their way over to a nearby building, presumably where the after party is, El finally peels her eyes from Hopper's arm to see all of this, but when she looks back at the tombstone, she sees that no one is near it.

The Wheelers are all hugging together in a tight circle far off in the distance, and the rest are already mostly gone. A few people still remain, making conversation with each other as they prepare to leave, but it isn't long before El and Hopper are the only ones standing there.

"C'mon El, I told Joyce we'd be going to the after party with them, do you know what that is?"

Silence.

"It's just place where people go after a funeral to talk and eat some good food, there won't be as much crying…"

Silence.

"El? Are you coming?"

Silence. A long silence. She doesn't hear Hopper say a word, but she can feel his presence behind her. She hears him sigh, "do you want to be alone with Mike?". El doesn't want to speak… So instead she walks over to the grave, with each step feeling like a choice, a choice to talk to Mike again, so when she makes her way over, she kneels down, looking straight at the tombstone that reads

In Memoriam

Michael Theodore Wheeler

1971-1984

El feels her knees crumble, supporting her torso with her arms, feeling the sun touch her right cheek and ear, and shining upon the stone like a beacon. She hears Hopper walk away in the distance, and when she looks back, he's standing at the end of the rows of seats, resting a hand on one of the chairs and looking off into the distance.

She turns right back around to look at the tombstone.

"H-hi Mike…"

"It's been… long time since I talked to you"

All she hears is the wind hit the trees and the grass, with the occasional bird chirping in the distance.

"I wish I could have talked to you more, because I know we both had things we wanted to say…"

"I don't think I looked the same when we finally got to see each other, I was wearing makeup and hair gel"

"M-my normal h-hair is actually curly, which means it bends a lot on its own"

"You would have said it looked really pretty…"

"I've got a lot smarter since I last really saw you too"

"I know what a lot of words mean… l-like compromise, tragedy, hysterical, a-and… kiss"

"I know what you did at the cafeteria last year, I know you kissed me. And I would have kissed you back if I knew what it was"

She realizes that the cafeteria was the last real conversation that they had, and she bows her head.

"I really wish I could kiss you, and be your g-girlfriend. I saw that on tv, and I hoped that's what we were going to be, once I saw you again"

"I promised a lot of things to you… I promised that you wouldn't lose me…"

El's breathing starts to get heavy, it dawning on her the times she promised things that'll never happen.

"I p-promised that I would go to the snowball with you…"

"Mike I'm so sorry… I really wanted to keep my promises. I-I don't know where you went, b-but I hope it was somewhere nice, like the blanket fort"

"I loved you, Mike… and I really hope you're happy, even without your mama or dad or your friends"

"I promise, I promise that I'll never forget you"

"I still love you Mike…"

El ends it there. Letting the silence wash over her as she leaves her conversation with Mike. She realizes that her head is laying on the tombstone, but it doesn't take her much longer to feel the epitomic dread, the one she felt when she first heard that Mike was gone.

Her blood goes cold again, realizing that this is just a rock with a name on it, and that Mike isn't here, nor will he ever be. She jumps up, running out of the graveyard and into a nearby forest, "hey!" she hears from afar, the voice of Hopper, but she ignores it.

Once she's a fair distance into the woods, the sun slowly but surely leaving the sky, she vomits. And then she vomits again, and then again. "Aaaahhh!" she screams, letting the dead leaves around her float in the air and then get torn apart with her powers, tiny piece by tiny piece until it looks like the leaves are disintegrating rather than being torn.

Luckily for Hopper, who was afraid he had lost her in the woods, was alerted by a scream of pain, and then a mysterious wave hitting him and sending him flying back into a nearby tree.

He knows it was El, so he runs as quick as he can over to her, fearing for the worst. What he sees however is his daughter on her knees, tiny pieces of leaf scattered all around her with three patches of vomit sitting right next to each other. She was having a panic attack.

Her whole body felt numb again, and she was breathing faster than she ever had before. El was terrified she would hyperventilate again.

But maybe if she hyperventilated again, she would wake up next to the portal again, the dogs falling like rain from the walls of the cave, as Hopper consoled her. And when she got back home, Mike would be there, and they would kiss and be boyfriend and girlfriend and be happy together forever. But the Hopper inside her head knows what to do,

Breathe, breathe, breathe. In, and out, in, and out, in, and out.

Her breathing begins to slow down, and she begins to steady herself, closing her eyes and letting the blood flow through her once again as she calms down, but that nagging voice inside her head keeps talking, so she turns around to see Hopper slowly approaching her, his hands held out in attempts to not worry her, as he repeats "in, and out".

The sight is nostalgic, reminding her of the first time she saw him doing this in the woods.

She had just found a batch of Eggo waffles in a box out in the middle of nowhere. Must be my lucky day she thought to herself, before she turned around and saw the police man that had been with her at the school a few months ago. She immediately thought that he had trapped him, but she remembered that he was with Mike, and Mike was a friend.

That was a better time. Sure, she was starving, aching, thirsty, gross, scared, and an all around mess, but at least she didn't feel the way she's feeling right now.

"Hey Karen, sorry we're so late, but we need to go home" El hears her dad explain to Karen. "Oh… I'm so sorry, is everything okay?" she wonders, her typical mom voice shining through.

"After you all left, she had a moment with herself and the grave, and she had a bit of a panic attack" Hopper explains.

Karen's hands move over her mouth and she gasps, "oh my goodness, is she going to be okay?" she worries, Hopper nods his head, "yeah, I hope so, but we're gonna just head on home if that's okay with you"

"Of course, just drive safe, okay? And thank you so much for coming down for us today" Karen responds, Hopper says his thanks and greets Joyce goodbye as well, but it all happens in a bit of a blur for El.

The drive home is similar. Because it's mid-november, the night sky was in full effect by the time they got into the car, and El's mind was completely occupied with her new emotions after having a panic attack to pay any attention to the road ahead of her.

A new feeling had seemed to replace her when she regained her bearings in the woods, and she couldn't understand what it was. It wasn't something she experienced before, not when she heard about Mike's passing, not when she kept herself in the same position for days, not even when she talked to him by the tombstone.

Her heart and mind are racing at record speeds in attempts to figure out what she's feeling. And seemingly in an instant, the two stop by the familiar sight of the cabin.

El and Hopper get out, keeping silent on the way, and with a flick of her head, the door opens, much to Hopper's shock that she hadn't done that for over two weeks now. When both walk in, a collective and heavy sigh is released from both parties, glad to finally be home, if for no other reason than to rest.

El saunters over to the box that reads "Jane" in big bold letters.

As Hopper moves along to the kitchen and looks in the fridge. She realizes that she never completely looked inside the box to see everything, but as she dug through the box, the feeling she was keeping inside for the car ride was becoming more intense.

She looked through the stuffed animals, the Millenium Falcon toy he had, and eventually gets to the bottom of the box. But what she sees in there makes her freeze.

It's Mike's supercom… the one she had used to find Will, the one he had used to call her for three hundred and fifty three days.

She grabs it out and holds it for a second, the feeling in her heart becoming palpable as she flicked it over to channel eleven, the channel he used to call her.

The static of the station… it was a sound unlike any other, and a sound she recognized all too well. She stands there for a long while, listening in to the white noise as the memories flash back inside her mind.

She remembers running wildly in whatever direction she felt like in the rain. It made her terrified, because the only time she had water on her was when she was drinking, crying, or taking one of those painful hydro showers.

The rain wasn't painful, but she had never experienced it before, as if the entire world was having a shower, and it felt so cold on her head, the tiny hairs unable to keep her warm. And that's when she saw Mike and his friends, their flashlights shining in her face as they stood there in shock.

Mike had stepped up and offered her his jacket without thinking, "Who are you? Are you okay? Where are your mom and dad?" he bombarded her with questions, but she didn't really understand him at the time, because of the noise of the rain and the speed at which he was throwing the questions.

Her mind is thrown back into reality however, as she truly realizes what exactly it was that she was feeling in the car.

It was sadness… a raw, utter, absolute, and extraordinary sadness.

Splat…

At this realization, she feels the cold drop of a tear fall onto her hand. And then another, and then another, and it just keeps coming. She begins to shake, being hit by a wave of despair and misery unlike anything she had felt before.

Mike was dead… the boy that took her in when she was most scared and trusted her even though she was a freak, a freak with no hair and no smarts, the boy that still cared about her. The boy that El fell in love with.

Mike is dead… and he isn't going to come back to her. Not now, not ever.

"Dad…" she turns to her dad who's still roaming the fridge in the kitchen, he can hear the sadness in her voice and lifts his head. His jaw visibly dropping and his eyes widening, tears immediately forming in his eyes.

It all hit her… everything that she had held inside her for the past two weeks finally became too much, her emotions pouring out of her uncontrollably. She falls to her knees, the supercom sliding out of her grip.

Hopper rushes over to his sobbing daughter, holding him in a hug with all his might. "It's okay El" he consoles, stroking the back of her head.

El begins to break down piece by piece, her sobs being the only thing that makes a sound out of her. She clutches to her dad like he was her lifeline, staining his shirt with tears, tears that wouldn't stop coming if she tried.

"Nooo… p-pllease no-o-o" she says, interrupted by her own hyperactive breathing. To Hopper's surprise, the longer they sit there, the worse it gets, El starting to scream in emotional pain, muffled by her dad's shirt.

At this point Hopper's crying too, seeing the unequivocal pain his daughter's in. When she sat in her bed, doing nothing at all, he could hardly understand what she was thinking or feeling, but with this it all makes sense.

Every second that passes is another reminder that she'll never see her world again. Never get to smell him, to touch him, to kiss him, to hear him, to talk to him, to feel his presence… not ever again. It isn't a feeling that she's ever felt before, but this is no time to feel anything other than sadness, so she continues to wail into Hopper's chest.

She has to let go of the great tree, she knows she has to, but at least wants to say goodbye to him one last time.

"Mike… Don't leave me" she begs to herself, Hopper being unable to do anything besides cry with his daughter on the floor, for as long as she needs.

"Mike."

Damn. That really did make me cry just to write that. I really hope you enjoyed reading this, even if you weren't technically happy lol. The dream sequences might have been a little confusing, but I hope I didn't make anything too hard to understand.

Basically it's just symbolism. "The Realm" is obviously El's psyche, and Terry says that it all used to be the lab, until the great tree shrunk it down so that now only Papa lives inside. Obviously the great tree is Mike, and symbolically speaking Mike was the one who saved her from her trauma of the lab, and introduced her to positive emotions like happiness and love. But the great tree was defeated by the shadow monster, which is symbolic of the Mind Flayer killing off Mike with his dog minions. Also Hopper is the father protector because his number one priority is keeping El safe, whether she likes it or not. The reason I had Hopper and Terry hold hands is because El sees Terry as her mother and Hopper as her father, and subconsciously wants to have a loving father and mother that are together, just like everyone else. Owens appears, saying that he can save El from this horrible realm, and in truth he can help her move on, but in order to do that she has to let go of the tree that she's clinging to, in other words move on from Mike's death.

I would go into Hopper's dream a little bit more but that's mostly for you guys just to enjoy and doesn't have as much symbolism, it just shows Hopper's fears that he has for El and in general.

Anyways, I hope the pacing wasn't too bad, and if I'm lucky I was able to make you cry at least once, because there are a few heavy scenes. Thank you all for your reviews as well, and yes, I will be continuing this series, doing at least four more and maybe five. A pleasant night to you all -Y