"Guys, you there?"
A beat passed, then two, then three. The static suddenly cuts out.
"Mike?" They hear Nancy's voice, "no way is that you!"
"We're in Hawkins, the lot of us," he looks at Argyle, "plus one,"
"Oh my god, it's so good to hear from you, you won't even believe."
There's whispering on the line before it seems someone else has grabbed hold of the talkie.
"Look, you guys need to get to Forest Hills, y'know, where Max lives. Safe to say, you'll have to see it with your own eyes." Dustin states.
Jonathan springs into action, putting the car into reverse before they pull away towards a new destination. A destination where hopefully, they can get answers.
El grips her hands once again and lets out a sigh as she stares out of the window to see tall trees and lamp posts flashing light every minute or so as they pass by. The recurring thought of how she needed to be ready to face One, how she needed to feel ready, springs up again. It springs up from the fact that a fear has been steadily building in her mind as she recounts the experience of her power feeling like it could disappear at any time, that it could disappear at particularly the wrong moment. How it could mean the difference between life or death. And she feels a weight on her shoulders, hulkingly huge, and it just presses down on her as the seconds trickle by. Yet, she stays silent, pretends it's all fine.
Because they're counting on her, of course.
Nancy is pacing, "are we really going to be able to, just, fight this thing? Do we even know Vecna's weaknesses? If it even has any. You guys know how, on the brink I was. You guys know, okay. Are we not just putting them in danger too?"
Steve interjects, "Nancy, the more numbers of us there are, the better chance we all have. Wouldn't you say? Hey, maybe there's a miracle and Jane gets her powers back snappy, right? You know, in the heat of danger and all that?"
Dustin sighs, "no, we know she lost them for good. We need a plan of action. All we've got so far is go in, weapons a-blazing, cut his head off or something. That's not a plan. That's a death trap."
Dustin rubs a hand over his face, "we're going to die."
Robin says, "no, we're not."
Everyone turns to look at her.
"We have what he doesn't. We're united. And we have music! Look, he feeds off trauma, right? We just need to, to be impenetrable to him! Or he'll take us one by one. We'll stick together, too. He knows we can help each other connect back to reality; he could potentially take advantage of us being split up. He might even try to do exactly that if he knows we're there. Send those nasty death pigeons after us, and then we run into the woods all willy-nilly. Nancy going one way, me the other. Boom: dead."
Steve says sarcastically, "oh, that's what we want to hear! 'Boom: dead.' Very inspiring."
"She raises a good point, though, Steve. Maybe we need to get out everything Vecna could target us for. Make it so he can't get a way into our heads and use every bad thing that's happened to us."
"Like, a therapy session?"
"I mean, maybe! It if comes down to it. H-He used Barbara with me. But, Steve, it wasn't fair of me to blame you, not fair to even blame me. How could we have known? No one suspects someone they love is going to die like that. The guilt I felt, Vecna used it against me. I'll always cherish every moment with Barbara, but I know now, letting it fester like that; it does no good, for anyone." Nancy turns away, feeling emotional, and Steve places a hand on her shoulder in comfort, in forgiveness, and at the touch she turns back around, smiling shakily at him.
"Okay, so anything we feel guilty over, even just bad over. Get it out now before Vecna gets us? How does it help though? Isn't music the only reason you guys got away in the first place? Right, Max?" Dustin questions.
Max startles, her face having been deep in thought. She gulps.
"No. No, it isn't. Music may have snapped me out of Vecna's grip - I could finally see a way out. But that isn't what saved me. Not completely."
Everyone looks at her, intently. Nancy seems to understand what she's about to say.
"I only broke free, when I saw Lucas." She tears her eyes away, nervous.
"Me?" He whispers.
"I saw you, yelling like the others, really scared for me. Every moment you tried to get through to me when I felt so… low. It gave me the hardest shove, like I finally felt. I don't know, like before, I agreed deep-down, about all the stuff Vecna was saying, but I knew you'd, any of you guys really, you'd call bullshit. I felt all the feelings I'd felt all year, sort of, melt away. All I wanted was to get back to you."
Lucas rushes Max in a hug, "I love you so much. You know that right?"
Max's eyes tear up, "I love you too," she sniffles.
It isn't long after, once they'd decided a course of action before they would trek into the Upside Down, that their second half of friends arrived.
"They're here!"