He returns to the past to Tommy slamming on his chest and the taste of cherry lip balm in his mouth. He jolts up, almost smacking into Carol who must have been helping give CPR. His heart thrums and jumps, like a skipping needle on a record.
El's not woken in the commotion, but the rest of them are now leaning in; fear firm in their eyes.
"What the hell?" Tommy asks, he grabs Steve's collar. "I said, what the hell?" he shakes Steve.
"I went back."
The boy's eyes widen, and he lets go immediately. "You're still… that other…"
Grief again, sorrow. Tommy's come to the same realization Steve is. The Steve of this timeline is dead. El had said it, he'd not wanted to believe it. Had Tommy not been performing CPR, would he have died in this timeline and popped into another? Killed that Steve too?
His chest hurts, like he has broken ribs. Shit. The easy instructions Dr. Shelton laid out had been for if this body wasn't going to get impacted. They were going to have to wait and do things the hard way. The panic and fear in the room feeds his own.
His vision blurs, with only one emotion compounding in his system. The voices blur out and he can feel himself being yanked by the collar but it's only an acknowledgement. Physically it's happening to someone else. Breath, just breath, echoes in his mind but he's forgotten how.
He's saved, strangely enough, by Mrs. Wheeler. Her anger drives his attention back to the present and his eyes focus on her in the sea of panic around him. His breathing still feels erratic but at least better. She descends the staircase and takes in the scene with more grace than Steve has ever seen in his life. At first, she is angry at the mess and water and thinks it's all game. But then her eyes fall to him.
Concern. Yes. But knowledgeable concern, enough to be in control.
And then she sees the dryer, the smashed hole in the wall, and the dead monster on the floor. Her control slips just a little.
"What in—" she can't even finish her sentence, not having words. Her panic is starting up and Steve's left spinning once more.
Her focus goes back to Steve. And Mrs. Wheeler's focus changes her emotions. She's no longer panicking. Steve gobbles air, lungs aching.
"Tommy, let go of Steve's collar." Mrs. Wheeler's voice comes out as calm and in control as she is becoming internally. "The rest of you back up, he is having a panic attack. I can handle this." She walks forward.
"Mike go get your father from upstairs and turn on the television show for your sister so she doesn't come looking for me." She kneels beside Steve on the floor. She gives him a kind smile, but continues to speak to her son, "I then want you to get the phone and call the police."
"No, no cops," Mike says, pointing at the couch, "They'll take El away. There are these government men wanting to lock her back up and never let her see the light of day."
Mrs. Wheeler gives Mike a pointed look that makes him melt. Her gaze turns to the girl on the couch and then it goes to Barb. "Would you mind calling your mother." Her gaze then flicks to Carol. "Yours too. Let's get them here before we call Hopper directly. His number is in my phonebook. Hopper won't let them take the girl."
Barb gives a sharp nod. "Let's go." Barb grabs Carol's arm and they both leave.
"Alright, Steve." She gives him another smile. "I need you to count backwards from five. And when you get to one, add all the numbers you said up together."
She turns to the others in the room and continues to dish out orders. "Lucas, Dustin, go get all the towels and blankets from the hall. Tommy, I'm going to go have you get some ice for Steve. Will, would you take Jonathan, go get my blow dryer from the bathroom and find the electric heater in the closet under the stairs. You're going to have to move a lot of stuff. Nancy, make sure Mike remembers to turn on the tv."
With the last of the sneakers going up stairs, the panic dies within Steve. His breath evens out, he can think clearly again. "I'm sorry about that Mrs. Wheeler." Empathy is a bitch.
She wipes at his cheeks and wipes her pant leg. "Nothing to be sorry about." She looks around her again, her gaze taking in the sight of the beast not seven feet away.
Steve is prepared for the panic now, it simmers inside of her, but doesn't overwhelm her.
She looks back at Steve, "How about we go upstairs and get you cleaned up?"
Steve shakes his head, eyeing the little girl on the couch. He's not sure he can carry her with his ribs hurting like this.
"Well, this is… this is something," Mr. Wheeler walks down the stairs scanning and then focusing on the creature on the floor. The man isn't panicked just very confused.
"Ted, would you carry the girl upstairs, I'm going to help Steve."
"Of course, Karen." He's not graceful in picking up El, his back creaks, but he manages to get her up the stairs without dropping her.
Karen Wheeler is a whirlwind of an actual adult, and the women of PTA are a force against Hopper, who brings a tearfully happy Joyce along as well as several other police. And eventually the U.S. Government arrives with their suits, briefcases, and guns. The women and police of Hawkins may be willing to keep their mouths shut for peace in town, but they aren't willing to let go of the little girl.
Steve's wonders why they didn't think to involve more adults, having someone else know what was going on would have only eased the load. It would have prepared everyone to look out for oddities and perhaps saved more lives. But they have them now.
Carol's mother, an ex-lawyer, reads the fine print on everything. And she, Nora, has much to say on the matter and rips the black fountain pen from Tommy's hand even though he'd only been fiddling with it. Then she slaps him on the back of the head for good measure.
In this life, Barb doesn't die. But there are several missing people. A hunter and two middle schoolers named Alison Jackson and Jeremy Kirby. The government fakes their death like they did Will's. Bodies pulled from the quarry, the hunter must have stumbled across the kids hanging from the edge and tried to help. The town mourns them. Their real bodies are never found.
In this life, Steve attempts to warn them as much as he can. He works with Dr. Owens, not at the lab, but in a mockup doctor's clinic in town. Both he and El go there together for assessment. And then, only after the initial assessment is complete is Steve enabled to 'go-between'.
The damage is one-sided, with Steve of 1983 taking the full blow of damage. Half-a-month has passed in 1983 but only a few hours in 2007. Time is irrelevant and flows without reason.
"A non-linear structure," Dr. Owens remarks, "I can only image how this will impact all we know about the universe."
Steve doesn't believe it impacts much, but his comments are ignored.
Their solution to the worst damage is to attach him to a mechanism that simulates a pacemaker without the need for surgery. They fear operating on him. They've no idea how anesthesia will work with his body. Even his cells don't seem human anymore, replicating at rate that normally would be cancerous if the cells weren't dying so fast. Not that it appears to be aging him in the slightest either. Steve only notices he eats more, and poops less.
They attempt to describe something about his DNA, but even he doesn't know what they mean when they say it. The risk in surgery is they don't know what the hell they'll do if something goes wrong, and he bleeds out. They don't happen to have glowing green blood on-hand. Attempts at extraction result in the glow dulling within an hour and macular degeneration occurring after that. Unusable. Attempts at flash freezing failing, it doesn't freeze until the glow is gone.
In 2007, Shelton believes the solution to termination is about relaying the formula that got him to go back in time. She's dead set on him memorizing it and the proof behind it. The formula is three pages long full of characters with subscript and superscript and derivatives — whatever the hell that was — and then there was the proof. The proof could be a book and is full of much worse things. Strange symbols and signs that are supposed to confer 'logic' but there is no logic or reason in them.
"I'm in the past, isn't that proof enough?"
Both Shelton and Nelson scoff at him.
The good news in 1983 is that no school for him until things settle down and he's guaranteed to be 'safe around others.' His broken ribs make a good excuse so they use of his injuries and then some, he must use crutches whenever he goes out and about. Not that he goes anywhere except the grocery store or to see El (and Barb who's now El's big sister.) Wherever he goes the government follows.
To his surprise, only a week passes in his stay-at-home stint before Tommy comes to him.
"It wouldn't be normal for us to not hang out," is what Tommy says, but what Tommy feels is a very different story. Tommy's concern leeches out, unchecked.
"I'm not your Steve, Tommy." He doesn't deserve concern for having killed the Steve of 1983.
Tommy's lips twist in a half-grimace and half-smile, "Except you are."
There's little talking Tommy out of coming. Even trying to tell Tommy that no, they don't even continue to be friends after the Upside-Down showdown makes the boy laugh. And commenting that the laugh is annoying, makes the boy laugh harder.
"Pretty sure, if we ever fought monsters together; we'd be inseparable. I'm sorry I didn't get to know about it in the last life."
Strangely, Steve finds he can't argue with that. The incident had been the reason Steve had matured and gone a different way.
So, they tend to crash in the kitchen, not the living room like they used to after school to drink his father's whiskey. Fighting monsters, signing government contracts, giving CPR to your best friend has matured Tommy into someone Steve barely recognizes.
Steve cooks (and man does he enjoy real fucking food and access to ingredients) while Tommy gossips. He gets to hear about the others this way. Then they eat and work on homework together. And the U.S. government isn't giving Steve a choice about homework. In fact, they are planning on forcing him into every math and science class feasible to get what they need.
Steve doesn't resist. If he could understand just a quarter of it, it would be easier to remember, wouldn't it? Because now he is the difference between saving everyone he loves and destroying any hope they have. And he's failing, miserably, almost ripping out his hair every Thursday on 'go-back' days.
The homework was something they'd never done before, but its peaceful. The amount of concentration needed by the two of them blocks out emotions which is icing on the cake.
And then, one-day, Carol shows up. And then another its like he's hosting a giant party. Nancy, Jonathan, Barb with El are knocking on his door. Followed by Mike and his crew of misfits, to 'see El.'
Steve sighs, but he lets them in, giving a half wave to the guard detail hanging outside of his house.
The new norm makes the place less lonely. The young adults sit in the kitchen. The kids are in the den playing DnD. Even Mrs. Wheeler will come in from time to time, after carpooling the kids over, and help him in the kitchen (probably just to steal his recipes if he's honest — she's competitive at PTA potlucks according to Nancy.)
December comes, the guards outside of his house dwindle till none exist.
He's given minor reprieve of winter break before he'll be expected back in the halls with a bookbag.
Christmas comes, and he's left remembering what it's like to live in an empty house. It's his father's deal in China. He'd been gone five months already and would be gone for several more. This would be one the man would never stop talking about. Steve knows the number to call, his father's secretary, it's in the kitchen drawer; but just like in his last life, he can't seem to make himself open it.
The U.S. Government is a bit pleased he's alone, it makes things easier. Steve agrees, but sometimes… That night, Tommy pulls Steve from the house, quite literally and Steve barely gets to lock the door. Together they go to the quarry with a six-pack and sit on the hood in cold weather and stare at stars only to be joined by Carol, Barb, Nancy, and Jonathan two hours later — they bring their own drinks.
There is comfortable silence in the group until Jonathan drops the bombshell after taking one long swig.
"We bought a gym membership and put Will in the sauna last Friday. Will puked slugs after. He threw them up in the sink and they went down the drain at the facility."
The attention of the group goes to Steve after that.
The timeline doesn't seem right, Will hadn't gotten sick until next year. But maybe it was a heat thing? Steve relays what he knows, which sadly isn't much since he hadn't been involved the full time. Mostly because he'd been knocked on the head by Hargrove. He at least knew about Bob's heroic save at the lab and El's closure of the portal. And Demodogs.
"El's not going back to the lab," Barb declares. "She isn't getting involved in this."
El's the only one who can close the portal, but Steve keeps his mouth shut. They'd figure something out, they always did.
"Who's Bob?" Jonathan asks.
Steve taps the hood of the car. Unsure of what to say. He thought Bob and Joyce were a thing. "A really great guy, you used to speak highly of him. He was good for Will and your mom. I never really met him."
"What's his last name?" Jonathan continues to prod.
"Newby. At least that was what was on the gravestone."
The night returns to silence, broken only by the popping of beer cans.
Of course, Jonathan would use the information. He goes behind his mother's back to set her up on the date with the guy and strangely enough, the date goes well. "I was right in my other time," Jonathan tells them as he sits down at the bar in Steve's kitchen. "Bob is a really great guy."
Jonathan will always be a creepy, sneaky bastard. At least some things never change.
January comes and with it his backpack is slung over his shoulder, full of homework for once. Tommy hovers five feet from him, warily watching his every move. The concern isn't unfounded. The hormonal emotions pushing against Steve's empathy is a bit much. His own emotion flickers to mimic each person he passes. Thankfully, majority of people are happy to see each other after break. Having Tommy's concern right next to him is almost a reassuring presence.
He's forgotten one minor thing though, just a tiny one, its 1984 and he's taking history.