A/N: Content Warnings: Fear, Language, Disturbing Content, Death.

Ring!

All across campus the bell sounded, signaling the end of class for the day. Honestly, it couldn't have come sooner. Jonathan had been itching to review the photos he had developed. See if maybe there might be a lead somewhere in one of them.

He retrieved the keys to his car from his pocket as he briskly walked toward the student parking lot. He looked up from the ground as he approached his vehicle and paused. For some reason that he could not fathom, Tommy Hagan and Carol Perkins were making out against his car while Steve Harrington sat on the trunk. And the red headed girl from the red room was there too. As he approached cautiously, Steve hopped down from the hood and stepped toward him.

"Hey, man," Steve said, a strange expression on his face.

"What's going on?"Jonathan looked between the four, grip the satchel resting on his left shoulder tightly. He already had a guess as to what they wanted, but he asked anyway.

"Nicole here was, uh, telling us about your work," Steve replied. He could hear the threatening tone in his voice. Jonathan cast a suspicious glance at the other three, seeing condemnation coming from the girls and an amused smirk coming from Hagan.

"We've heard great things," Carol added.

"Yeah, sounds cool," Tommy parroted, his arm around his girlfriend's shoulder.

"...and we'd just love to take a look," Steve finished, "You know, as...connoisseurs of art."

He was surprised that Harrington even knew that word to be honest. The guy struck him as a bit of a meathead. But he had zero time for a shakedown, and the novelty of the interaction had already worn off.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Jonathan tried to shove between them and get into his car.

"Oh, no?" Steve asked. Tommy moved forward and swiped the bag off of his shoulder. Steve's voice dripped with fake concern as he frowned and said, "Oh…"

"Hey!" His camera was in that bag! Beginning to feel panicked, Jonathan moved forward to grab it. "Please give me my bag. No just…" Tommy did not give him his bag. Instead he tossed it over to Steve, who caught it and pointed at him.

"Man, he is totally trembling," Steve said. "He must really have something to hide. Okay, here we go." The brunet turned his back and moved next to Tommy, sitting the bag on the trunk of the car. He shoved his hand into the bag and pulled out a stack of photographs from within. "Ah, Here we go." Steve spun around and leaned up against the fender, smirking at Jonathan. He looked down and flipped through the images of the night. "Oh man…"

"Let me see." Tommy snatched the stack from Steve's left hand and looked closer at a photo in his right. The freckled teen glanced at them briefly before looking back at Jonathan and wrinkling his nose. "Dude."

Jonathan's stomach dropped, and he struggled to control his nerves. This was the most humiliating moment of his life. They didn't understand. He had just been trying to find Will.

Taking the photos from Tommy, Carol turned and glared at him. "Yeah, this isn't creepy at all," she deadpanned.

"I was looking for my brother." He already knew they wouldn't get it, especially with how he must look. He never should have taken the photos. It was a miracle that the quiet kid hadn't freaked out when he saw them earlier. But that wouldn't stop him from trying.

"No. No, this is called stalking," Steve replied, pointing at the photos in Carol's hands and nodding smugly at him. Jonathan looked at the ground, wishing that lightning would strike him and put him out of his misery.

Adding insult to injury, Nancy chose that exact moment to appear and join the others around the car. She glanced at each of them, blinking and furrowing her brows. "What's going on?" She asked carefully.

Oh, god. This was a nightmare. There was no possible way the situation could get any worse. Jonathan gulped and turned with the others stare at her, though his gaze was much less amused than theirs.

"Here's the starring lady," Tommy said with an obscenely large grin.

Nancy frowned, puzzled. "What?"

"This creep was spying on us last night." Carol gestured at Jonathan and pulled a photo from the stack she held. The girl handed it to Nancy, watching him to see his reaction. "Nicole found him in the photo room showing these off to that other mute freak. He was probably gonna save this one for later."

Nancy took the photo, a her eyes widening and her skin paling as she recognized an image herself undressing in Steve's window. Jonathan refused to meet her gaze when she looked at him questioningly, instead focusing on the ground by her feet.

Steve watched him with narrowed eyes. The popular teen moved him Jonathan and clicked his tongue before he spoke, "See, you can tell that he knows it was wrong, but...man that's the thing about perverts...it's hardwired into 'em." Now standing threateningly close, Steve pretended to straighten his shirt. He then brushed a speck of dust away before roughly shoving his shoulder. "You know, they just can't help themselves."

Jonathan clenched his teeth, choosing to focus on the grinding noise in his head instead of on Harrington, who proceeded to rip one of the photos to pieces. As the paper tore away, Tommy emitted a highly amused cackle.

"So…" Steve tossed the pieces in his face and turned away. "We'll just have to take away his toy." He walked back over to the car, beginning to rummage through the bag once more. Jonathan's eyes widened when he realized what was about to happen.

"Steve," Nancy whispered, attempting to calm her boyfriend.

He moved forward to stop Steve. "No, please, not the camera," Jonathan pleaded. It had been a gift for his birthday. And his family was poor. He wouldn't be able to replace it.

Tommy jumped in front of him and pushed him back threateningly, preventing him from reaching the car.

"No, no, wait, wait...Tommy. Tommy," Steve said. The freckled teen backed away, chuckling. Walking over with Jonathan's camera now in his hand, Steve held the camera out for him to take. "It's okay. Here you go, man."

He didn't trust Harrington, but what else could he do? Swallowing his pride, Jonathan reached out to grab the camera from the other boy. His heart began to race when he noticed Steve's grip start to relax. The image of the camera crashing to the ground and shattering into pieces flashed through his mind.

"Stop."

The pair both slowly turned to see who had intervened on Jonathan's behalf. The strange boy from the red room stood by the entrance to the parking lot, his piercing gaze leveled at Steve. As far as Jonathan knew, the guy didn't have a car. Or even friends with a car. So why was he here?

Surprisingly, Steve didn't drop the camera like he had started to, giving him time to grasp it. As Jonathan took the device, he noticed a look of confusion pass over the other teen's face. Like Steve didn't know why he hadn't dropped the camera.

"Oh, you two freaks a package deal now?" Tommy let out a laugh, elbowing his taller friend. "Looks like he wants in on the action."

Flashing one last menacing look at Jonathan, Steve gestured to the group. "Come on, let's go. The game's about to start," He said before turning to walk away with Tommy.

Jonathan's brow squished tightly together. He hadn't expected Harrington to just let it go. If anything, he had figured they would start harassing the would-be hero. That was twice now in the span of sixty second that the guy had acted strangely. What was going on?

"Boo." Tommy pretended to lunge at the strange boy when the pair passed him, but the blond didn't even flinch. The freckled teen cackled and continued after Steve.

Carol ripped another one of Jonathan's photos to pieces and tossed it to the ground with a flourish. "Bye," she sang before she and Nicole followed after her boyfriend.

Jonathan watched them leave, his face burning hot, before looking down at his camera. Noticing movement in his peripherals, he peeked over at Nancy to see that she was looking at a sliver of a photo on the ground. He really wanted to explain and apologize. He didn't want her to hate him.

"Hey, Nance! Come on!" Steve hollered in the distance, already on the street.

Nancy hastily gathered the rest of the scraps from one of the torn pictures and looked at Jonathan. He could recognize the anger in her face, and anger that made him avert his eyes, stomach churning once more. She turned and ran off to join her boyfriend, fragments of the other shredded photos blowing off with the wind.

He felt awful. And the fact that his camera had come out of the altercation unscathed didn't do anything to help that feeling. Suddenly remembering the other boy who had stepped in, he turned to thank him. "Hey, I appreciate the-" But when he looked back up, he saw that the quiet teen had already left. Alone in the parking lot, Jonathan clutched his camera and sighed heavily.

"El!" Mike yelled as he and his friends approached the girl with their bikes. She turned to look at him, revealing a troubled expression on her face. "You okay?" He asked. When she nodded, he wheeled his bike around so that it faced away from her before patting the back seat. "Hop on. We only have a few hours."

Honestly, he was happy she had met them at the agreed upon time. When he had given her his watch he was a bit nervous that she didn't really understand, despite her claiming otherwise.

Walking up to the bike, Eleven swung her leg over so that she sat straddling the seat. The same seat she had ridden the night he had found her and brought her home with him. The girl grabbed his shoulders and lifted her legs up to rest her feet on the bars on the back wheel.

Trying not to focus on the warmth coming from behind him, Mike followed after Lucas and Dustin and peddled off into the trees.

Steve was sitting on the tiled floor of the high school, waiting in the hallway for the basketball game to start. His back was leaned against the lockers with one leg bent and his right arm resting in his knee. Tommy sat on the bench directly across from him with Carol's head in his lap. Nancy remained on her feet, standing beside him.

Tommy and Carol were talking about something, but his mind was elsewhere. Back in the parking lot.

He didn't understand what had happened. When he had handed that creep Byers his camera, he had fully intended to drop it and let it smash to pieces on the asphalt. But when that weird Pierrot guy showed up and looked at him, he had found that he couldn't let go. And he had tried… but it was like his hand wouldn't listen. Like he couldn't make his body do anything but look at the strange blond that continued to stare at him.

Staring with those empty eyes that Steve hated so much. He wasn't even sure why the boy had intervened. He wasn't involved with what they were doing, and as far as he knew Pierrot wasn't friends with Byers. There was no use in dwelling on it, though, so he brought his attention back to Carol and listened to her tell some story that sounded completely made up.

"So, I told Mr. Mundy… 'The solution of ten plus Y equals...blow me'," Carol, causing Tommy to laugh.

Yeah, Steve was right. The story was totally made up. "Bull, if you did that, you'd be in detention right now." His friends liked to exaggerate to seem more badass, but he really thought they would have learned to do it better by now.

"Saturday," Carol replied, proving his point. Mr. Mundy didn't have Saturday detention. He would know, he ended up in detention pretty regularly.

"I bet Mr. Mundy's still a virgin," Tommy said, looking up at the ceiling lights.

"Oh, he's so a virgin."

Steve leaned his head back and listened to his friends loudly laugh, again finding himself questioning why he hung out with them anymore. He wasn't exactly super mature himself, but his friends were downright childish at times. Like they were stuck in eighth grade.

"Maybe you should blow him, Carol. Help your grades a bit," Tommy snickered, earning a hard slap from the girl.

Turning his gaze to Nancy, Steve's brows raised when she suddenly turned and began to walk away. "Whoa, Nance, where you going?" He asked, frowning. She was supposed to watch the game with them. With him. Was she upset with his friend's jokes?

Nancy turned back, fumbling with the strap of her bag. "I - I totally forgot. I told my mom I would um...I would do something with her."

Steve frowned harder. He recognized that thing. The thing she did with her eyebrows. The thing she did when she was lying. He scrambled to his feet as she turned away again. He grabbed his jacket and started to follow her, gesturing behind himself toward the gymnasium. "Well, what do you mean? The game's about to start."

"I'm sorry," Nancy replied dismissively, continuing down the hall.

"I - what the hell's wrong with her?" Steve asked, sighing and glancing back at his friends. Why did it seem like he was always having to fight for her time and attention?

"Maybe she freaked out when you tried to go all psycho on the psycho." Tommy leaned forward and clasped his hands together, mouth trying to avoid breaking into a smile. "You know, before the other psycho showed up."

"Oh, give me a break." He seriously doubted that was it. Byers had been taking pictures of her undressing, why would anything other than that freak her out? No, something else was definitely going on with her.

"What'd you expect, dating Miss Perfect?" Carol blew a large pink bubble in her chewing gum and popped it.

Mike strolled silently through the woods, hands gripped tight on the handlebars of his bike as Eleven walked next to him. They hadn't spoken much since he and the guys had picked her up. Not that she spoke much anyway. He resisted the urge to question her again about what had happened while she was waiting for them, instead choosing to listen to the leaves crunch under their feet.

"Why did they hurt you?"

"What?" Mike asked, caught off guard by the sudden question. The girl pointed at his chin and he quickly looked away, briefly touching the cut. "Oh, that. Uh… I just fell at recess."

"Mike…" Eleven whispered.

"Yeah?"

"Friends don't lie."

Behind them, Dustin and Lucas followed, listening to the pair's conversation. Mike sighed, embarrassed. He hadn't meant for his lessons to be adopted that fast, and he really didn't want to be with the others when they had. "I was tripped by this mouth breather, Troy, okay?" He replied truthfully.

"Mouth breather?" Eleven asked.

"Yeah, you know...a dumb person," Mike said. "A knucklehead." He didn't know why he kept forgetting that she didn't understand slang. It was like his brain didn't function normally around her.

"Knucklehead?" Eleven again failed to interpret what he was trying to say.

Mike sighed and started to unload his feelings. "I don't know why I just didn't tell you. Everyone at school knows," If he was honest with himself, it was nice having someone in his life who didn't know he was a loser. "I just didn't want you to think I was such a wastoid, you know?"

"Mike…"

"Yeah?"

Eleven looked straight into his eyes. "I understand."

"Oh. Okay, cool." Maybe she wasn't as lost as he thought.

"Cool," Eleven repeated, grinning at him.

Mike studied her for a moment, an odd feeling forming in his stomach. His mom called the feeling butterflies, and said it was a form of anxiety. But he didn't think they could be the same thing, because the feeling was more pleasant than nerve-racking. Smiling to himself softly, he continued onward.

The streets of Loch Nora were quiet and still. The night prior, Nancy had instructed Barb to pull over on one of the roads a few blocks from Steve's house. That was the same road that she was now walking along, searching for any clue of her missing friend's whereabouts. She spotted the familiar car parked where they had left it and approached carefully, kneeling over to peek through the driver's window and seeing saw no signs of Barb.

The only thing in the car was the sweatshirt Nancy had changed out of the night before the party. The ignition lay similarly empty, a sign that Barb had not returned to her car at any point after she had left.

"Barb?" Nancy called, standing back up and looking around the quiet neighborhood. "Barb!"

She trekked the distance to Steve's house, letting herself into the backyard through the tall, wooden fence that guarded the property. There were no signs of life here either. The swimming pull sat full and unmoving, nothing but a few leaves floating on the surface. Turning her gaze from the pool, she stared out into the dense forest behind the Harrington home.

"Barb?" Nancy called again.

And again she received no response. She gripped her bag tightly with one hand and whipped her head to the left as she suddenly heard rustling in the trees. It was coming from the other end of the property.

Following the noise, Nancy found a small clearing at the edge of the woods. "Barb?" She called quietly through the trees. Another rustling sound echoed, from behind her this time, and she spun to investigate. "Barb?"

Again more leaves rustled behind her, followed by a strange screech. Nancy quickly turned in place, eyes bulging and breath hitching when she spotted the shadow of a large figure rush past. She stumbled backward, hitting the ground with a rough grunt. Panicking, she scrambled back to her feet and fled, glancing behind her for the strange, faceless man.

Joyce stood in the kitchen smoking a cigarette, listening to the sound of the swing creaking on the front porch as it drifted in through the open window. Just out of her range of vision, a string of Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling began to light up one by one. The family dog started to bark, drawing her attention to the phenomenon. Putting her cigarette in the sink, she went to investigate.

She watched , confused and amazed, as the lights continued to twinkle, one after another, creating a path to the shelf next to the TV in the living room. Staring at the shelf, she noticed the lights form the path again, and she rushed forward to move the object. Behind the cabinet, she noticed a long forgotten cubby. Kneeling down in front of the doors, she pulled the cubby open and stared at the empty compartment.

There was nothing there.

The woman sighed, the hope that had been building in her chest quickly vanishing. Suddenly struck with an idea, Joyce turned and pulled out a tangled wad of Christmas lights from a box on top of the shelf she had moved. Unlike the large colorful ones littering the ceiling and walls of her home, these lights were small, plain and white. Taking the bundle, she crawled into the empty space and sat in a hunched position with her knees drawn up to her chest, cradling the lights between her hands and closing her eyes.

"Will, are you here?" Joyce whispered. Almost immediately the ball of lights began to glow brightly in her hands, drawing an gasp from her chest. "Okay! Good, good, good, good, good." She thought hard for a moment about how to communicate with him. "Are you...um, blink once for yes, twice for no. C-c-can you do that for me, sweetie? Can you do…"

The lights shone brightly and then faded to dark.

"Oh, good boy. Good boy." Tears filled her eyes as she struggled to ask the question that had been plaguing her since she first realized he was communicating through the lights. "Baby, I need to know…Are you alive?" The lights shone bright once more and faded. Joyce felt a weight being lifted off her shoulders. "Are you safe?"

For a moment the lights remained unlit. Without warning, they glowed brightly. Any relief she might have felt was instantly crushed as the lights dimmed and immediately lit up for a second time.

No.

"Ah…" Joyce's hands clenched the lights tightly and her breath trembled. "I need to know where to find you honey. Where ...where are you? Can you… can you tell me where you are? Can you…" She started to whimper as she realized the system that she had just established couldn't help him answer that question. "Please, baby, I need to find you. Tell me what to do. Please just… Will…"

Inspiration struck again. Moments later Joyce ripped open an old can of solid black paint. Grabbing a paintbrush, she started to paint an 'A' over the living room couch directly under the bulb of a Christmas light.

"I don't know, Chief," Officer Powell told Hopper as they sat across from each other at a desk in the library, a light shining dimly between them.

"What don't you know?"

"This lady, Terry Ives, sounds like a real nut to me." Powell gestured his hand at the article in front of him. "Her kid was taken for LSD mind control experiments? She's been discredited. Claim was thrown out."

"Okay, forget about her." Hopper slid the article about Terry Ives aside and presented one titled 'MKUltra Exposed' to Powell instead. It included a photo of Dr. Brenner with several patients. "Take a look at this," He pointed at the man in the picture. "Dr. Martin Brenner."

"Who?"

"Brenner," Hopper repeated. "He runs Hawkins Lab.'

"Okay."

Hopper leaned back in his chair and scoffed, an unimpressed expression passing over his face. "You don't find that interesting?"

"Not really," Powell shrugged. "He was involved in some hippie crap back in the day, so what?"

"No, this isn't hippie crap," Hopper said, leaned forward again and staring seriously at the other man. "This is CIA-sanctioned research."

"Doesn't mean he had anything to do with our kid."

"Come on. Look at that." Hopper pointed at the photo again. "Hospital gowns. All of 'em. Now that piece of fabric that the teacher found by the pipe. That sure looked like a hospital gown to me, huh? Am I wrong?"

Powell shook his head slowly, staring down at the picture. "I don't know, Chief."

Hopper sighed heavily and flopped back in the chair. "Come on, man. Work with me here. I'm not saying that there's some grand conspiracy. I'm just…" His hand slapped on his thigh. "I'm saying maybe something happened. Maybe Will was at the wrong place at the wrong time and he saw something that he shouldn't have."

"It's a reach." Powell didn't connect the dots.

"It's a start." Hopper connected them twice over. Before the other man could respond to that, Officer Callahan's voice suddenly came over his radio.

"Hey Powell, is the chief with you?"

Reaching across the table to pull the radio from Powell's shoulder, Hopper pressed the button and answered. "Hopper here. What do you got?"

A minute later he and Powell burst through the library doors and raced down the steps from the entrance. They ran for Hopper's truck and before Hopper could even fully seat himself, he turned the engine on and started the lights and sirens. With screeching tires, they backed out onto the street and sped off towards the outskirts of town.

Dusk had fallen as the boys walked their bikes, with headlights shining, out of the trees behind Will's house. They were following Eleven, who now strode with purpose. She came to a stop in front of the Byers' home and turned to Mike. "Here," she said.

He stared at her in confusion. "Yeah, this is where Will lives," Mike replied, admittedly impressed that she had known that but still worried she might have misunderstood what he meant about taking them to the place where Will currently was.

"Hiding," Eleven added.

"No. No, this is where he lives," Mike replied, staring at her intensely. "He's missing from here. Understand?" His intense stare was met with an expressionless one.

Lucas and Dustin finally caught up with him and Eleven, Dustin dropping his bike to the ground in exhaustion. Lucas frowned at the pair. "What are we doing here?"

"She said he's hiding here," Mike replied defensively, gesturing to the house.

"Um...no!"

Dustin's breathing leveled out and he groaned loudly. "I swear, if we walked all the way out here for nothing-"

"That's exactly what we did." Lucas interrupted, pointing at Eleven. "I told you she didn't know what the hell she was talking about!"

That wasn't it. They just didn't trust her. But Mike knew Eleven wouldn't lead them on a wild goose chase… Right? Frustrated with the situation, he turned to Eleven. "Why did you bring us here?"

"I-" Eleven stammered.

Lucas didn't give her a chance to answer, turning to him. "Mike, don't waste your time with her."

"What do you want to do then?" Mike asked, rounding on his friend. And Lucas said tell their mom's again he was going to to kick him in the shin.

"Call the cops, like we should have done yesterday!"

His foot twitched in place. Eleven looked at Mike anxiously as he loudly told Lucas,"We are not calling the cops!" How many times did he have to tell them that was a horrible idea?

"Hey guys…" Dustin, who had stopped listening to the argument, moved a few feet away and looked at something off in the distance.

"What other choice do we have?" Lucas stepped closer to Mike, getting in his face.

"Guys!" Dustin yelled this time, commanding their attention. Mike and the others turned to see what he was yelling about as the sound of sirens filled the air. They huddled close together and stared toward the road in front of the property, seeing two cop cars and an ambulance sped by with their lights flashing.

"Will," Mike exhaled.

He felt like his breath had just been ripped from his longs. Simultaneously, he and his friends pivoted and ran to their bikes. Eleven hopped onto the back of his and they sped after the emergency responders, tired legs paddling harder than they had ever paddled before.

He felt the water at his feet and opened his eyes, again in the In-Between.

A pattern was emerging. For the last few days, when he found himself here, there were always Others. But said Others were always associated somehow with that missing little boy. The only outlier had been Benny Hammond. But he suspected that Eleven had a connection to the boy, and Benny had definitely been killed because of her.

This time there was only Ms. Byers. The woman had seemingly just finished painting the letter 'Z' on her living room wall. He took note of all the floating letters forming the alphabet over her couch. Above each letter was a bulb from a string of colorful lights. But he wasn't quite sure what the letters or the lights were for.

"Okay. Okay, baby, talk to me." He watched Will's mother rub her hands together, as if she was waiting for something to happen. "Talk to me. Where are you?"

His curiosity peaked when he saw, like last time, a whisper of Will appear in the reflection of the water below and reach toward a letter. As his hand drew closer to it, the light over the 'R' lit up. Curious. Wherever he was, Will had figured out that he could communicate via electricity. And his mother must have made a similar discovery, leading her to hang up countless lights for the boy to talk through.

"R! Good, good, good, good." Ms. Byers nodded as the small bulb flickered off. "That's good. Come on, come on." Will moved again and next the light over 'I' flickered on. His eyes followed as Will lit up more letters, hearing the woman repeat them out loud when her son pointed at each one. "I… G… H… T… H… E… R… E." Will stopped, letting his mother decipher the message.

"Right here. Right here?" The woman asked, brows knitting together. "I - I don't know what that means. I need you to tell me what to do. What should I do? How do I get to you? How do I find you? What should I do?"

He didn't blame her for panicking. Even he wasn't sure where Will was. The child was clearly 'right here', as his message and his reflection implied, but the 'right here' Will occupied was neither the In-Between or the real world. 'Right here' was somewhere else.

He could sense that hysteria was filling Ms. Byers again, but he was brought out of his observation by that familiar sensation shooting through his spine. The hairs on the back of his neck stood straight as if he was shocked by electricity. He glanced down at the boy's reflection to see that the boy had started to freak out.

Will noticed it too.

The monster was coming and Will knew it.

Which meant the monster was wherever Will was.

The boy frantically began to spell, and he saw the bulb over the 'R' light up again. He watched as the 'U' lit up, and then finally the 'N'. Run.The taste of rust filled his mouth as a chill passed through Will's mother when the red light hovered over that last letter. Suddenly all the lights began blinking wildly and Will sprinted away, expression twisted in terror.

The monster was here.

Ms. Byers could see something happening on a wall behind them, but he couldn't. Not the wall anyway. What he could see was a clawed arm tear through a hole in space. He reflexively stepped back as the woman gasped. The horrific creature began tearing more into her house and Will's mom stumbled away, the burst of adrenaline she no doubt just experienced carrying her with almost inhuman speed.

Maybe it was the overwhelming tide of fear coming from the woman, or maybe it was the sense that he himself was in danger, but he decided to follow suit and soon found himself alone in the darkness. He took a moment to ponder what he had just witnessed. The creature was able to create pathways it seemed. But pathways from where? And for what purpose?

His contemplation was cut short as the sound of sirens began to loudly echo through the void.

Deciding to leave where he was, he walked toward the noise. The sirens grew clearer and eventually he saw emergency vehicles and a crew of rescue personnel appear. The Hawkins Chief of Police materialized with another officer and he titled his head, following the man's eyes and noticed another figure dragging something out of what he believed was water.

"Oh God. Please tell me it's not the kid," the Chief whispered.

He glanced to the right and noticed movement behind a fire truck, turning to witness the children from the other night arrive. Mike, Dustin, and Lucas. And Eleven was still with them.

That gave him something to consider at a later date. He chose not to focus on her, instead looking back at the small body, dripping wet, being laid onto a life basket. He was right, there was water here. He looked toward the sound of heavy breathing, seeing the Chief turn away. This must have stirred up many unpleasant memories for the man. He could remember the glimpses of the little blonde girl he had seen in the Chief's head a few winters ago.

His gaze followed the boat as it drew closer, seeing a flash of a sleeveless red puffer jacket with a block of yellow under the collar and a light brown bowl cut. He blinked a few times, tilting his head again when the appearance of the body didn't change.

"It's not Will," Mike pleaded nearby. "It can't be."

As the boat was pulled in even close, he heard Lucas speak next. "It's Will. It's really Will."

He turned and watched recognition pass over Mike's face, followed by desperation, and then sorrow. Dark chocolate and the rain. An overwhelming combination that he had yet to experience. He struggled to resist it as the young boy started to walk away.

Eleven, similarly baffled and distraught, tried to touch the boy's shoulder and opened her mouth to speak. "Mike…" He frowned as Mike slapped her hand away in anger, making her jump back in shock.

The sound of Mike's yelling filled the void. "Mike? Mike what? You were supposed to help us find him alive! You said he was alive!" He could tell that this was the most pain the child had ever experienced. The type of pain a child usually didn't have to experience. "Why did you lie to us? What's wrong with you? What is wrong with you?"

"Mike…" It was clear Eleven didn't understand. She could only gaze sadly at her friend, who was hurt and angry.

"What!?" Mike yelled again. Eleven flinched at the venom in his voice. She shook her head and the boy stormed away.

"Mike. Come on," Lucas called after his friend. "Don't do this, man. Mike…"

"Mike, where are you going?" He saw that Dustin was now crying. "Mike!"

Mike had disappeared, a sign that he had truly left them. Lucas hollered after him. "Mike!"

He watched Eleven place her hands over her face in anguish. She didn't understand, and he could not fault her for that. The reason she didn't understand and the reason he wouldn't have been even remotely sad, even if he were to suddenly gain emotion of his own, were the same. The body they had pulled from the water…

It was not Will Byers.

Jonathan was pulling down the road leading to his house when his headlights illuminated his mother's figure running toward him. He slammed his brakes, screeching to a stop in front of her. She screamed and threw her hands up in defense, out of breath and panting heavily. He recognized the look of panic on her face and jumped quickly out of his car.

"Mom?l" He closed the door and rushed toward her outstretched arms. "Mom, what happened?" She whimpered and desperately reached for him. He stumbled over and pulled her into a hug. "It's okay. Hey."

She cried heavily in his arms and he questioned what she had witnessed that sent her fleeing into the night.

Mike burst through the front door of his home, struggling to breath. The noise of his entry alerted his parents to his presence, Karen and Ted having been sitting in the living room with his sister and some other adults' he didn't recognize. He couldn't control it anymore. His body trembled as the damn broke,and tears began to fall from his face.

"Michael…" His mom quickly stood up and approached him, her mouth open and her brows drawn together. "What's wrong?"

Will was dead.

His best friend was dead and he was alone. Mike stood there shaking and sobbing, reaching out for her. He clung to his mother, her arms wrapped around him as he let himself weep bitterly for what he had lost.

He had slowly walked away from where body had been recovered and into the empty void once more. After an unknown amount of time had passed, he found himself behind a car. His footsteps carried him around toward the front of the vehicle, where he noticed Jonathan and Ms. Byers illuminated in the headlights. Jonathan held his mother tightly as guttural sobs erupted from her chest. He heard the sound of sirens wailing in the distance, gradually growing closer.

And…

For a moment…

He considered if being unable to feel might actually be a blessing.

A/N: Did you know I cry every time I watch this episode? Something about Heroes playing in the end when they did over the body, and especially Gaten crying, really pushes me over the edge.

Of the Parts so far Part 3 has been the shortest, but that's because it had a lot of Eleven backstory scenes that I feel were not important for my story. Next chapter starts Episode 4.

Thanks for reading! Until next our stars align.