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

Mike huffed as he and his friends listened silently to the sounds of the helicopter circling overhead. Every time they thought the thing was leaving it just turned around and scanned the area again. That meant someone had told them they were here. Probably his parents, if he had to guess.

The group made no attempt to leave the old bus. Lucas had tried at first, but Dustin had insisted that they all stay put. A smart idea in Mike's opinion. The junkyard was as good a place to hide as any.

"Mike, are you there? Mike?"

Dustin looked around at the others. "You guys hear that?" Mike began to search throughout the bus with Lucas and Eleven as the voice continued to talk through the radio they had packed.

"Mike, it's me, Nancy." He lurched for his backpack and fumbled through it before quickly pulling out the device and holding it close to his head. "Mike, are you there?" Nancy's voice called again. "Answer. Mike, we need you to answer."

"Is that your sister?" Lucas asked, frowning.

Yeah, it was her. But who was 'we'? Mike felt his nerves spike as he thought about what to do.

"This is an emergency, Mike. Do you copy? Mike, do you copy?"

"Okay, this is really weird," Dustin said.

Mike had to agree with Dustin. Did the strange men get Nancy too? Lucas tried to snatch the radio from him but he pulled it away and yelled, "Don't answer!"

"She said it was an emergency," Lucas replied, like they hadn't all heard her.

"What if it's a trick?" This was why he was the leader. Critical thinking.

"It's your sister!"

Exactly! Why would Nancy be looking for them if it wasn't a trick? That'd be like Erika trying to find Lucas. Unlikely and out of character. Something he tried to make Lucas see as Mike listed off the reasons nobody was safe. "What if the bad people kidnapped her? What if they're forcing her to say this?" Anyone could be a trap.

Nancy's desperate voice came over the radio once more. "I need you to answer."

"It's like Lando Calrissian," Dustin gasped, drawing a parallel to Star Wars. "Don't answer!" Mike knew at least one of his friends would get it.

"We need to know that you're there, Mike," Nancy tried yet again to get a response. After less than a second a new voice appeared on the radio. "Listen, kid, this is the chief. If you're there, pick up. We know you're in trouble and we know about the girl."

Mike furrowed his brows as Lucas voiced his exact thoughts, "Why is she with the chief?"

"How the hell does he know about…" Dustin's voice faded as they all turned to stare at Eleven. She stared back emotionlessly.

"We can protect you, we can help you, but you gotta pick up. Are you there? Do you copy? Over."

Mike cast an uncertain gaze at the friends sitting around him. They were all just kids. Could they really save Will alone? He didn't think they could, and it was up to him as the leader to save them. With a heavy sigh, he pressed down the button.

Dustin, Lucas and Eleven watched as he answered, "Yeah, I copy. It's Mike. I'm here." He glanced at each of them in turn and corrected himself, "We're here."

Steve and Valentin watched for a moment as the theater manager of the Hawk grumbled to himself and roughly scrubbed the sign over his establishment. The only words left on the marquee were 'Slut Wheeler'. Taking a deep breath, Steve approached the man and hoped that he wouldn't bite his head off. "Need a hand?" He asked cautiously.

The man turned around and peered down at his swollen and bruised face, before turning a distasteful look at Valentin beside him. "Did you have something to do with this?"

"I just...I wanna help," Steve said, feeling guilty all over again. He could admit when he had messed up. And spray painting the sign had been messed up. It wasn't fair to make someone else clean his mess.

The manager gave him a stern look, but shrugged as he climbed down from the A-frame ladder. Steve started to remove his jacket and stepped forward.

"All yours," the manager said as he handed him a rag.

Steve took the damp cloth and climbed the A-frame. The theater employees stared as he began to scrub the words from the sign. He hoped that he could set things right. That he could prove he was not as much of a loser as he felt. After the incident at Elm and Cherry, Valentin had provided zero ideas for what to do with their time. Feeling a strong sense of moral duty weighing on his mind, Steve asked if the other boy cared if they stopped by the Hawk. He had been relieved to hear no objections.

"Excuse me," he heard Valentin say quietly, clearly not talking to him.

Steve kept scrubbing, the red letters slowly beginning to fade. He had to grip the sign with one hand to balance himself when he suddenly felt the ladder shake. Looking down, he noticed his friend coming to a stop at the top of the other side of the A-frame, another rag in hand.

"What are you doing?" Steve asked, eyes going wide.

Valentin simply blinked at him, before turning to start rubbing at the other end of the words. "I am helping my friend."

Steve stared with a slack jaw at the blond. He knew Valentin didn't mind being there, but he hadn't expected him to help. Why would he? Valentin hadn't been part of the defacing of the theater. With a shrug, he decided not to question the assistance, going back to the task at hand. As he vigorously moved the rag back and forth, he thought about who he had been and who he wanted to be.

"I can't believe I did this to Nancy, you know?" Steve admitted out loud. "I don't even know who I am sometimes."

"It is no use now, to pretend to be two people," Valentin replied from across the ladder. Steve thought he detected a slightly teasing tone in his voice when he added, "Why, there is hardly enough of you left to make one respectable person."

He guessed Valentin had a point. There he was, cleaning a sign he had just helped spray paint obscenities on earlier that morning. Well… Tommy had spray painted the obscenities, but Steve had driven them there. He thought back to Tuesday when Valentin had told him that he made no sense. When Valentin had pointed out the clashing aspects of his personality.

"King Steven, both protagonist and antagonist?" It had been a loaded question that Valentin had asked. Steve was brought out of his thoughts when the blond spoke again. "So tell me, friend. Who will you choose to be?"

It was honestly creepy the way his new friend had a habit of responding to questions he hadn't asked. Almost like he could read his mind. Or maybe he was just that much of an open book.

Steve mulled over Valentin's words as the two finished removing the last scarlet letter. Once they had finished, he tossed his rag back into the bucket at the top of the ladder and wiped his aching brow. Valentin climbed gracefully down the A-frame and observed the theater manager smiling happily up at the sign. The blond turned back to look at where he now leaned against the spotless sign and stared into the blue sky.

It had been a good question. Who was Steve Harrington?

Mike rested his cheek on his hand and waited for help to arrive. Eleven was seated next to him and Lucas in front of him, both glaring as Dustin paced back and forth from the front of the bus to the back, over and over.

"Will you stop pacing?" Mike asked. He was going to get dizzy watching Dustin.

"It's been way too long," Dustin replied as he continued to pace. Mike rolled his eyes when the curly-haired boy flailed his arms around him wildly. "Do you know what? Maybe you're right. Maybe this is all a trap and the bad men are coming to get us right now!"

"It's not a trap," Lucas said. "Why would the Chief set us up? Nancy, maybe, but the Chief?" Mike made an annoyed gesture at Lucas for throwing his sister under the bus. His friend wasn't wrong, but it still hadn't been cool!

"Lando Calrissian," Dustin replied.

"Would you shut up about Lando?"

Mike looked over at Eleven, who was looking at the other two in confusion. He had forgotten that she didn't know about Star Wars. He sighed and prepared for the incoming argument.

"I don't feel good about this," Dustin leaned down and yelled in Lucas' face, "I don't feel good about this!"

"When do you feel good about anything?" Lucas roared back.

Dustin went back to his pacing as Mike watched Lucas raise his hand to his temple. Being the most high-strung of the party, he knew Lucas was probably nursing a massive headache. The bushy-browed boy huffed and looked back down at the floor. The sound of an approaching vehicle instantly grabbed all of their attention. Dustin darted to the front of the bus as Mike, Lucas and Eleven hurried after him. Watching through the grimy windshield, Mike noticed two unmarked, black cars pull into the junkyard.

"Shit!" Dustin squeaked out.

Damn it, Mike knew it had been a trap! Why didn't he just trust his gut? "Go, go, go, go," he muttered as he ushered the others back to their hiding spots at the back of the bus.

"Lando," Dustin spat at Lucas.

Lucas ignored Dustin, whispering anxiously, "You think they saw us?"

"Both of you, shut up," Mike replied. Their bickering was going to get them all caught. Next to him Eleven peaked nervously over the bus seats.

Three men climbed out of the cars and gazed around the junkyard. They moved about the area slowly, careful to investigate every nook that might be hiding Mike and his friends. Each man carried a sidearm gripped tightly in their hand.

Mike watched stealthily through the glass as one of the men paused and took notice of something crammed beneath their broken down bus. Shit, the bikes! He ducked down below the window and closed his eyes, steadying his breathing. Footsteps began to approach the door of the bus, and he knew it was all over.

The sound of the door sliding open followed, and Mike looked to his friends, seeing fear reflecting back at him in their faces. They were all very confused, however, when they suddenly heard the men outside shouting and grunting.

"Hey!" A voice yelled before making a noise of pain.

"What the-!" A second voice hollered before doing the same. Then the bus shook as if something was thrown against it. The bus door creaked open again and the kids all stood from their hiding spots to see Chief Jim Hopper enter with his gun held up at the ready. They were saved!

"All right, let's go," Hopper ordered, breathing heavily. Mike and the others simply gaped at him, and the man impatiently repeated, "Let's go!"

Wasting no time, Mike grabbed his bags and ran after Hopper with his friends, not wanting to stick around for the government agents to wake back up.

Darkness had fallen over the Byers' home as Nancy, Jonathan, and his mom waited in anxious anticipation on the living room couch. Jonathan chewed at his nails again, a habit he had always struggled to break. Luckily, the nerves were hitting everyone just as badly, so his mom didn't pay enough attention to scold him like she usually did.

A light flashing through the curtains and the sound of a car squealing made them all jump up. His mom hurried to open the front door before rushing out onto the porch. Following after her, he watched as Hopper climbed out from his police truck with the kids. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding, thanking God that they were all alright.

"Mike. Oh, my God. Mike!" Nancy ran past him as she called out to her brother. She hugged him tightly before pushing him back to arm's length. "I was so worried about you!"

"Yeah, uh, me, too," Mike muttered, clearly not used to Nancy showing him affection.

Nancy rolled her eyes and slowly turned to look behind her brother. Jonathan followed her gaze and realized she was staring at the girl who was watching them from beside Dustin and Lucas.

"Is that my dress?" Nancy asked. Jonathan shook his head, heading back inside and waiting for everyone to trail after him into the house.

Several minutes later he watched, fascinated, as Mike held up a sheet of notebook paper that his mom had provided the kid at his request. Mike used Will's red marker to draw a sort of makeshift diagram. They had given the kids a brief rundown of all that had transpired over the week, and were shocked to find out the kids knew more than them.

Jonathan listened closely with his mom, Hopper, and Nancy as Mike explained, "Okay, so, in this example, we're the acrobat." The thin boy pointed to the stick figure with the marker, then to the dot. "Will and Barbara, and that monster, they're this flea. And this is the Upside Down, where Will is hiding."

His mom peered at him with wide eyes from where he currently sat between her and Nancy on the living room couch. Will's friends each kneeled on the floor at the coffee table across from them.

"Mr. Clarke said the only way to get there is through a rip of time and space," Mike finished.

"A gate," Dustin clarified.

"That we tracked to Hawkin's lab," Lucas added.

"With our compasses," Dustin explained further. Jonathan was totally lost, and he was willing to bet it showed on his and everyone else's face since Dustin sighed and continued, "Okay, so the gate has a really strong electromagnetic field, and that can change the directions of a compass needle."

"Is this gate underground?" Hopper asked from the living room recliner.

"Yes," the girl - Eleven, they had said her name was - nodded. Eleven was, in Jonathan's opinion, both a very strange and very cool name. Will would have loved it.

"Near a large water tank?" Hopper asked again, looking directly at the girl. He then realized that Hopper had been there. The gate must have been in the lab he told them about.

Eleven nodded and whispered, "Yes."

Dustin narrowed his eyes at the older man. "H-how do you know all that?"

"He's seen it," Mike answered for his friend. Eleven snuck a scared glance at Hopper who continued to stare at her with a calculating gaze.

Joyce interrupted the staring contest to ask the question Jonathan had also been dying to know. "Is - is there any way that you could...that you could reach Will? That you could talk to him in this-?"

"The Upside Down," Eleven provided as she looked up into the woman's hopeful eyes.

"Down. Yeah," Joyce whispered.

Eleven nodded, prompting Nancy to ask her, "And my friend Barbara? Can you find her, too?" Very slowly, the girl nodded again.

Mike stood up and grabbed the handheld radio on the table. "We're gonna need this. And a table and chair."

"She can use the kitchen table," Jonathan replied before turning to the girl. "Anything else?"

Eleven nodded once more and added, "Photo."

They made their way into the kitchen and gathered around the table as Eleven sat down in front of Will's walkie talkie and the torn photo of Barb on the diving board that Nancy had retrieved. The radio played nothing but static and they all watched her closely. She sat silent for a moment, when suddenly the lights flickered around them. Jonathan and the others gazed up at the ceiling in awe.

Eleven opened her eyes, shaking her head this time as she glanced at his mom. "I'm sorry."

"What?" Joyce asked, breath trembling. Jonathan squeezed his hand on her shoulder in a show of support. "What's wrong? What - what happened?"

"I can't find them," the girl replied, beginning to cry.

Jonathan let go of his mom's hand and turned away, mind racing. If she couldn't find Will, did that mean... they were too late? "Here, sweetie," he heard his mom say to Eleven behind him. "Let's get you cleaned up."

She escorted her out of the kitchen and down the hall, no doubt to their bathroom. He stayed still, gazing vacantly into the void of his living room. After taking a moment to collect his thoughts, Jonathan turned back into the kitchen and leaned over the table where everyone was now standing, including his mom who had returned from the bathroom.

"Whenever she uses her powers, she gets weak," Mike told to the older group.

"It's like the more energy she uses, the more tired she gets," clarified Dustin.

"Like, she flipped the van earlier," Lucas recalled for them what had happened that morning. Jonathan wished he could have seen that. Wished Will could have seen that.

"It was awesome," Dustin said bluntly.

"But she's drained," Mike added.

"Like a bad battery."

"Well...h-how do we make her better?" Joyce asked, face full of concern.

"We don't," Mike replied, sighing heavily. "We just have to wait and try again."

"Well, how long?" Nancy asked.

Mike shrugged apologetically. "I don't know."

"The bath," Eleven's voice suddenly responded from the hall near the bathroom. Jonathan and the others all spun around to face her.

"What?" Joyce asked.

"I can find them," Eleven whispered, looking cautiously around the room. "In the bath."

When Eleven had explained that she could search better in the bath, Mike had quickly realized that a normal bathtub wouldn't cut it. Especially because, from what she had told them, she would need complete silence and darkness and there was no way they would get that in Will's tiny bathroom.

The older group had walked into the living room to talk, leaving him and his friends to figure out the next step.

"What do we do?" Lucas asked, tapping his fingers on the table. "Can't we just take her to the local swimming pool or something?"

"No, you heard what she said," Mike reminded him. "She has to have total isolation. No distractions whatsoever, like a... like a..." He struggled to remember what it was called.

Dustin shot up excitedly and said, "A sensory deprivation tank!"

"A what?" Lucas replied, frowning.

"A sensory deprivation tank!" Dustin glanced repeatedly between the two, a grin on his face. "Remember? Mr. Clarke taught that lesson last month about alternative medicine and said that some places use them to help clear the mind!"

"Okay," Lucas nodded as he followed along. "So we just have to get her into one of those tanks."

"That's a problem," Mike replied, realizing yet another issue. "How are we going to find one?"

"Maybe we don't," Dustin said. Mike turned to look at his friend, raising an eyebrow when the curly-haired boy jumped up and walked over to the phone… The brand new cordless phone!

"Ms. Byers, can I use your phone?!" Dustin asked loudly, making Mike and Lucas flinch.

Will's mom rushed back into the room, eyes-wide. "To call who? And Dustin, how many times have I told you to call me Joyce."

They all struggled with that. It was weird to call your friend's mom by her first name. Will had tried for a while to get the others to just call her mom too, but that didn't feel right either. So Ms. Byers it was.

"We need to make a sensory deprivation tank," Dustin replied. "But we don't know how, so I need to call Mr. Clarke to-"

"That's fine," Will's mom interrupted with a wave of her hand, probably tired of having to hear so much science stuff. "Just, be careful okay?" Dustin didn't wait for her to finish talking before he started dialing a number.

Mike narrowed his eyes before Lucas voiced the same thought he had just had. "Why does Dustin have Mr. Clarke's number?"

Dustin motioned over to them for a pen and paper as the line rang. Mike had just managed to find one and hand it over when his friend started to speak. "Mr. Clarke? It's Dustin. Yeah, yeah. I just, I...I have a science question." Mr. Clarke clearly must have been just as confused as he and Lucas were.

Mike looked around as the rest of the group made their way back into the kitchen to listen while Dustin attempted to fix their newest dilemma. "Do you know anything about sensory deprivation tanks? Specifically how to build one?" Mike could only imagine how Mr. Clarke had taken that.

"Fun," Dustin answered flatly. After a moment he added, "You always say we should never stop being curious. To always open any curiosity door we find." Mike wondered if, when they returned to school, he would be the teacher's new favorite student, since Dustin would clearly be losing the spot. "Why are you keeping this curiosity door locked?"

He watched curiously as Dustin made his way over to the table and motioned for him to move. Once he did, Dustin sat down and began to scribble instructions onto the notepad, nodding while he followed along to whatever the teacher was saying.

"Uh-huh. Uh-huh? How much?" The pen scratched out an amount onto the notepad. "Uh-huh. Yep, all right. Yeah, we'll be careful. Definitely. All right, Mr. Clarke. Yeah, I'll see you on Monday. I'll see you on Monday, Mr. Clarke. Bye." Dustin ended the call and turned immediately to Will's mom and asked, "Do you still have that kiddie pool we bobbed for apples in?"

"Uh, I think so. Yeah." She looked to Jonathan for confirmation.

"Yeah," Jonathan nodded.

"Good. Then we just need salt." Dustin waved his pencil as if it would materialize the material. "Lots of it."

"How much is 'lots'?" Hopper asked.

Dustin took a moment to consult his notes before blowing their minds. "Fifteen hundred pounds."

"Well, where are we gonna get that much salt?" Nancy asked. Mike noticed a look of realization dawn on the chief's face.

Nearly a half hour had passed when Hopper's truck and Joyce's car sped into the Hawkin's Middle School parking lot, coming to a screeching stop in front of the gymnasium. A few minutes later, Jonathan joined Hopper in loading up a cart with large bags of de-icing salt. He grunted as bag after bag quickly flew through the air toward him. He caught them and began to heaving them onto a palette when a sudden realization struck him.

"Hey, wait." Jonathan caught another bag Hopper had tossed to him and loaded it onto the cart. "It's not gonna snow next week, is it?" It was almost mid-November, that was about the time the weather usually turned.

"Worst case, no school," Hopper replied with as sigh as he tossed him yet another bag. And that answered his question. Now to the big one that had been bothering him.

"Even if we find Will in there…what are we gonna do about that thing?" Jonathan asked, a chill running up his spine.

"We're not gonna do anything," Hopper said, continuing to move the bags. "I don't want you anywhere near this, all right? Your mom's been through enough already."

No, that wasn't all right! "He's my brother," Jonathan snapped. He would be damned if he stood by and did nothing while they rescued Will.

"Listen to me. I'm gonna find him. All right?" Hopper broke from his gathering of the salt to grasp his shoulders tightly. "You gotta trust me on this. I am going to find him."

Hopper returned to collecting the bags of salt as Jonathan frowned. Honorable as Hopper's answer was, it still hadn't answered his question. What were they going to do about that monster? Sure, cops were good at finding, and he believed Hopper could find Will, but what good would Hopper be to anyone if that monster got him first?

Jonathan glanced back just in time to catch the next bag of salt that Hopper had thrown his way.

A/N: I always forget how many episodes the season has. Next chapter is the last part of Episode 7! Then we are in the home stretch!

I'm contemplating how I want to handle Valentin moving forward. I like the idea of only depicting him via other people's perspectives, but I also have things I want to be experienced from his perspective. Let me know if you have thoughts.

Until next our stars align!