"Kate."

It was still dark when she opened her eyes, Kate wondering through the fog of unconsciousness how long she'd been asleep. She'd tried her best to convince Eddie to attempt to sleep, knowing he was probably exhausted, and succeeded in getting him to at least lay down with her and close his eyes for a while. They'd clambered into the spare wooden boat together, Eddie resting his head against the small amount of padding her bag offered and offering Kate her normal spot of laying her head against his shoulder. Beneath the boat's cover, she could pretend they were just spending another night by the lake when she closed her eyes, letting the soft sound of water and his breathing draw her away from tragedy and into the realm of darkness that was sleep.

Now, she was awake again, her legs tangled in the blanket and her head throbbing with another growing migraine.

"What time is it?" Her voice was thick with sleep, dampened against the fabric of her jacket.

Lifting her head from where she'd rested in the crook of her elbow when no response came, Kate realized that she was alone. It was so cold, the warmth of the blanket and boy that had sparked her late-night reminiscing gone as she felt around the small space. She figured that Eddie had given up on trying to sleep and gotten out so he wouldn't disturb her, but why he'd replaced the tarp after he'd left was beyond the logic of her aching mind. Kicking her blanket away from her feet, Kate felt for the edge of the tarp to remove it, struggling to find the crack they'd left open for air flow.

"What the fuck…"

Her groan was slurred as she swiped a hand down her face, pinching the bridge of her nose as she breathed through her groggy irritation before calling out again.

"Hey, Eddie? Can I get some help?"

Nothing.

Panic pulled her the rest of the way to consciousness. There was no reason why Eddie wouldn't help her if he was within earshot, and his reluctance about being away from the boathouse earlier in the night meant that he most definitely wouldn't have ventured away from it. Throwing caution to the wind, Kate lifted both knees to press her shoes against the tarp and push. It didn't budge, bending against her feet but not releasing its grip on the outside of the boat. The air felt thicker the longer she struggled, Kate kicking wildly against what should have been nothing more than thin plastic.

Her shoes hit the bottom of the boat with a thud, shaking it beneath her as she gave up to save her breath. It was silent for a moment, Kate staring up into the darkness as she listened for signs of life outside.

Somewhere above her, something snapped and the floor fell out from under her.

Kate's head reconnected with the floor alongside the sound of a splash, the boat rocking dangerously as she knocked into the sides. Rolling onto her stomach, she pressed up until her back hit the unyielding material that trapped her inside, running her fingers along the edges of the boat to try and find a weak point. If she could get her fingers under it and break whatever seal had formed, she could get the tarp off. That was the current plan at least, since brute force didn't seem to be doing anything but exhausting her.

It wasn't until the water had already soaked through her sneakers that she realized she was sinking. Saving her breath or her strength was no longer an option, Kate thanking the little bit of flexibility her fleeting relationship with yoga offered her as she got her feet underneath her and began to push against the lid of her buoyant coffin. Her feet slid against the bottom of the boat, the now soaked blanket tangling itself around her knees. The boat shook with her efforts, Kate unable to tell if the droplets that ran down her skin were her impending demise or despair as she began to scream.

"Kate, Kate wake up!"

His voice may have not been enough to wake her, but the shaking certainly was.

Eddie was above her when her eyes opened, Kate's fingers instinctively gripping into the leather of his jacket. She sat up quickly, scrambling out of the boat as she tried to calm her erratic breathing. Looking around, she found everything where it had been when they'd fallen asleep the night before. Her clothes were dry, the tarp was sitting halfway off the boat, and Eddie was hauling himself out of the boat after her.

"Whoa! Hey, it's okay-"

Eddie's attempt at consoling her was cut short by the slam of a car door outside, both of their heads turning to the sound. Analyzing her nightmare had to wait, Kate's concern immediately shifting focus to the panic that widened brown eyes.

"Shit."

They crept close to the window, Kate gripping at the back of Eddie's jacket to ground herself. She could see nothing around the mess of hair in front of her, but trusted that his frantic cursing would alert her of any trouble. The doors handle twisted sharply beside them, whoever was on the other side fumbling to get it open while Eddie and Kate backed quickly into the far wall.

"Fuck-" Kate's explative was cut short as the door swung open, and her breath left her body.

"Delivery service!"

Dustin Henderson stepped inside as the door swung open, grinning at them among a familiar menagerie of faces. It was silent for a second before she fell into scattered giggles, the combination of Dustin's toothy grin and the delicate waggle of Steve Harrington's fingers behind him shattering her state of shock. Kate returned the wave before she allowed herself to collapse across Eddie's back, her energy draining rapidly as adrenaline faded. With her weight supported completely in her position crushed between the rough denim of Eddie's jacket and the splintering wood behind her, Kate finally found the space to breathe.

"Is she okay?"

Kate's head lifted at the question, catching the tail end of Steve's concerned glance before he moved to set the bags down on the cluttered work table. Her answer was muffled against Eddie's shoulder, neither of them ready to move.

"Rough night."

"Not a fan of water beds?" Dustin chimed in.

She almost laughed, if not from an exhausted amusement at the pun, then at the annoyed expression that crossed Steve's face before he turned his back on them to unpack the groceries. Feeling Eddie sigh heavily beneath her, Kate decided to spare Dustin from whatever irritated tirade was brewing in the boy beneath her.

"Dust."

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

"O-kay."

Untangling herself from Eddie, Kate joined the group around the table, watching fondly as he quickly laid claim to a box of cereal and a beer. Her gaze lingered as he opened the bottle with his keys and climbed back into the boat, ignoring the sickness that stirred in the back of her throat as it creaked beneath him in favor of turning towards the snacks that sat among rusty tools. She wrinkled her nose at the now-five pack that Eddie had taken advantage of as a second fizzy crackle filled the air, followed by the sharp sound of metal hitting the ground.

"Here."

A hand held out a bottle, already opened, into her peripherals, and Kate turned to the person it was attached to. Steve's smile was tight as he nudged the bottle towards her, twisting the label to face her so she could better read the curling crimson letters. The bottle of cherry Coke was cold between her palms as she took it, Kate turning the bottle thoughtfully as she decided whether she wanted to question this act of kindness or if it was best to leave it alone. Deciding it was too specific to ignore, she turned to Steve before he could escape back into the growing group of teenagers that congregated at the water's edge.

"How did you know?"

"What? Oh-" Steve's brow nearly disappeared into his hairline as he stumbled, turning back to her with confusion before his eyes settled on the bottle in her hands. "Uh, he," He nodded towards Eddie, now deeply engrossed in a conversation about how the rest of their night had gone with Dustin. "He told Henderson, I guess, when they were talking about what you guys might need."

"Oh, well, thanks."

"Don't mention it."

Steve stayed staring for a second too long, before he turned on his heel and moved on, glancing back at her once he'd taken his place leaning against the pillar beside Dustin. Grabbing a bag of chips before following after him, Kate couldn't bring herself to climb back into the boat. Instead, she took a seat on the floor beside it, crossing her legs beneath her and opening her nacho cheese flavored breakfast with a pop.

"So we got, uh, some good news and some bad news. How do you prefer it?" Dustin said, looking between Kate and Eddie with what she could only assume was supposed to be a reassuring smile. Eddie answered before she could get a word in, talking through a mouth full of cereal.

"Bad news first, always."

"Hold on. Is this actual good news or is this a Henderson 'Oh I broke my mom's favorite vase but don't worry I already checked and there's super glue in the kitchen drawer' good news?"

All eyes turned to Kate, her question hanging in the air as Dustin sputtered for a response.

"That was one time, I was te-"

"Dustin."

Steve was trying his best to keep them all on track despite the smile that was desperately trying to twist the hard line of his mouth, shaking his head at the kid's attempt to argue. He rolled his eyes at Kate when she tilted her head back to look at him, sending him a knowing smile before she righted herself once again Dustin sighed, shaking his head before turning his attention back to Eddie.

"All right, bad news. We tapped into the Hawkins PD dispatch with our Cerebro," Dustin began, like they were all supposed to understand what that meant. "And they're definitely looking for you. Also, they're, uh, pretty convinced you killed Chrissy."

The boat creaked as Kate leaned over it to lay a hand on Eddie's arm, her heart sinking into her stomach as her small glimpse of hope that had brought the sparkle back to his eyes faded into the dull darkness of uncertainty once again. He turned to her at the touch, looking over her face quickly before returning to the conversation.

"And the good news?"

"Your name hasn't gone public yet. But if we found out about you, it's a matter of time before others do, and once that gets out, everyone and their shallow-minded mother is gonna be gunning for you."

Robin's explanation of this so-called "good" news sucked all moisture from Kate's throat, her soda doing little to help as she knocked back a good third of the bottle. Luckily, she had swallowed by the time Eddie had regained enough breath to speak again.

"Hunt the freak, right?"

"Eddie-"

Kate couldn't help the way her voice cracked, and for the first time in her entire life, she was thankful when someone spoke over her.

"Exactly." Robin's confidence faltered when she realized she'd interrupted Kate, but there was no time for apologies now, not with Dustin steadily picking up the awful onslaught onto Kate's frazzled nerves exactly where they had left it the night before.

"So, before that happens, we find Vecna, kill him, and prove your innocence."

"That's all, Dustin? That's all?" Eddie snapped, his sarcasm barely hiding his panicked fidgeting.

"Yeah, no, that's pretty much it."

Was it wrong to want to slap a child? Her urges were probably unjustified, but the utter ease at which everyone else in the room was taking this news was stirring, no, aggressively whisking the anger that was bubbling beneath her surface like they were collectively attempting to make a meringue out of her misery. Convoluted metaphors aside, Kate was ready to snap, and there was little standing in the way of it aside from her concern for the equally brittle boy currently holding a HoneyComb box so tightly that it bent beneath his fingers. Breathing hard through her nose, Kate crumbled the top of her chip bag with enough force to tame her temper and allowed herself a small outburst to hopefully steer them all back towards rationality.

"You've got to be fuckin' kidding me."

"Listen Eddie, Kate-" Robin leaned on an oar as she looked between them with refreshing sincerity. "I know everything Dustin is saying sounds totally delusional, but we've actually been through this before. I mean, they have a- a few times, and I have once. Mine was more human-flesh-based and theirs was more smoke-related, but bottom line is, collectively, I really feel we got this."

Eddie turned to Kate, raising his brow for her input. Completely at a loss, she shrugged, mirroring his confused expression before she returned to looking between the four people currently attempting to explain this nightmare. This was ridiculous, they had to know that this was ridiculous, but the fact that Steve jumped into the conversation alongside Robin like they were talking about something as casual as the latest movie release and not the fragility of Eddie's future gave her a different impression.

"We usually rely on this girl who has super powers, but uh, those went bye-bye, so…"

"So we're technically in more of the-"

"Brainstorming phase." Max added into the mess of broken explanations, killing Kate's last hope for one of them to be sensible about all of this.

"Brainstorming."

The snap of Steve's fingers beside her lifted her head, Kate's brow furrowing at the proud smile that he wore. They talked about this as if they were planning a school project, and through her irritation at the lack of seriousness, she wondered how much these kids could have been through for this conversation to seem so commonplace among them. Whatever happened, one of them must have gotten hit on the head too hard at some point, that she was sure of.

"Th- There's nothing to worry about." Dustin stuttered, his voice cracking in a way that was all too familiar to her.

Maybe they were just far better at pretending it was okay than she'd thought, but either way, there needed to be at least one person arguing their nonsense, and Eddie seemed too stunned to speak.

"...You understand that you all sound absolutely out of your minds, right?"

"Well, listen-"

Steve's argument, or whatever it might have been, was drowned out by the sudden sounds of sirens. A rush of blood filled her ears, deafening her to the frantic muddle of voices behind her as Kate climbed to her feet so quickly her head began to spin. Someone caught her elbow, who she didn't care to know, and helped her to regain enough balance to make it to the front window.

"Eddie-"

The rustle of plastic behind her drowned out her worried call for him to hide, her fingers pressing against the dusty surface of the window just in time to watch a police car go screaming down the road past them. She felt the others at her heels, Dustin ducking under her arm to look out of the window below her.

"Where are they going?" Her question wasn't meant for any of them, nothing more than confused musings as the last police car disappeared behind the trees. "That just goes deeper into the forest…"

"Something's wrong."

A voice rarely heard drew her attention, Kate turning her head to find Max standing inches from Dustin's shoulder, her eyes distant and her brow furrowed. Dustin shifted in front of her, nearly pressing his cheek to the glass as he fought to follow the emergency far after it had passed them by.

"We gotta go." He said suddenly, nearly running into her side as he lead the pack that went barreling out the door

"Wait, what are- Hey!"

They all stopped, turning to Kate slowly. She froze along with them, listening as her scream mixed with the wailing that faded into the distance and the sounds of the world outside returned to nothing more than the gentle shifting of waves. Closing her eyes to recenter herself, Kate tried again.

"Sorry, I just- What the fuck are we supposed to do, just wait here while you all go out and play detective?"

"Basically."

"Great, thanks for clearing that up, Dustin."

"Look-" Steve stepped forward, hesitantly settling a hand on her shoulder. "I know this is a lot to swallow all at once, I've been there, but you've gotta' trust us. We'll be back as soon as we know something, just- Just relax, okay? And eat something, you look like you're about to pass out."

She had no choice but to nod, running a hand through her hair until her finger hit knots. He was right, obviously, there was nothing she could do but follow them in blind faith. Anything else would mean leaving Eddie behind to deal with this by himself, or that she didn't believe what he said had happened with Chrissy, which she absolutely did. So, she watched as they headed back up the driveway for the second time in twenty-four hours.. She was just about to head inside when Dustin called out to her, turning her head just in time to catch the walkie-talkie that was tossed into her chest before he took off back towards the car and nearly threw himself into the backseat with a final command.

"It's only for emergencies!"

"Yeah, whatever-"

The door slammed too hard behind her as she retreated back into the boathouse, the sound knocking around inside her skull alongside the troubling thoughts she'd collected over time.

"You okay?"

She didn't have to turn around to know that Eddie was behind her, her eyes unmoving from the license plate pulling out onto the main road. It wasn't until she felt the warmth of him leaning in beside her that she pulled her attention from the now empty street. First, it went to the hand that had placed itself on the window sill beside hers, the wood creaking under his weight as Eddie leaned around her shoulder in search of her gaze. Then, she was sucked into those damned eyes of his, glistening with the remnants of panic even now as they softened back to the saccharine warmth she was so fond of.

"I'm sorry, I'm just-" Her own sigh knocked her off balance, Kate sinking into the support of his shoulder as the adrenaline that had been fueling her so far escaped with a single breath. "I'm just, I dunno', stressed? Which sounds so fuckin' stupid considering you're the one in trouble here…"

Telling him that the ambiguity of the entire ordeal was grating on her already thin nerves seemed pointless when she'd been committing herself to the same treatment for the past two years, and besides, it felt incredibly selfish to be complaining about her irritability to someone with far better claim to the term "victim" than hers.

"You wanna talk about, uh, what happened before?"

"It's nothing, just a bad dream."

"About what?"

It was so hard to keep anything from him when he was looking at her like that.

She'd always joked that he looked like a Pit Bull, especially when he smiled in that wide, open way that pushed dimples into his cheeks and created lines in his skin that she hoped he would learn to love as he grew older. Now, he reminded her of the dog her dad had sent her a photo of the very last time he wrote, a mutt with sad eyes that watched the man she refused to recognize as a father figure with a vigilance that only came from betrayal. Broken, timid, a ghost of his truest self, of the boy who painted chronicles of terror across card tables and turned classroom roundtables into courtrooms, of the man she let climb through her window at any hour of the night, at any season, and watching that brilliance fade as almost too much for her. She couldn't, no, she wouldn't crush him any further.

Now, Eddie couldn't seem to focus, his gaze periodically moving to the empty treeline before returning to drowning her in their concern.

"It was just-" Kate sighed, cursing at her cowardice. "It was weird. I'm sober, stressed, and we've just learned that monsters exist, can you blame me?"

She wanted nothing more than to fix the mess that was his hair, watching as it tumbled into his face as he shook his head. Returning to sitting on the floor, Kate forced herself to finish the bag of chip's she'd opened, if not for the taste than to hopefully consume enough calories to keep her going for a while. The sugar of her soda helped calm the shaking of her fingers, its taste made sweeter by the fact that Eddie had made sure that she'd have something to enjoy among all the chaos.

They were quiet for a long time, Eddie pacing the creaking floorboards while she watched the waves shifting outside the confines of their lakeside prison. A slam of a car door outside startled them at some point, Kate scrambling to join him in hiding beneath the window, his nose barely peeking over the sill before he relaxed into the floorboards with a huff.

"It's just some pensioner two doors down, looks like he's heading back towards town."

"At least you picked a quiet place to hide." Kate sighed, swallowing around the cotton that filled her throat before allowing her forehead to rest against her knees.

She'd expected Eddie to have some smart-mouthed response, to grab another beer and return to pacing, anything other than the sudden, stumbling question that lifted her head so fast it sent a strain down her spine.

"Why are you here? I mean- Fuck, I didn't mean it like that. I mean, how did you get mixed up in all of this shit…"

"Dustin called me. He said you were missing, that something had happened, what else was I going to do? Leave you?" He barely flinched when she shoved a finger into his forehead, knocking his head back against the wall behind them with a gentle thump. "Not a chance, Munson. You've been stuck with me for six years, and you'll be stuck with me until we're both in wheelchairs, suffering from the consequences of our dumbass choices."

Catching her hand in his, Eddie wrestled her away from her plans of further scuffing up his hair, twisting her arm away from him with gentle strength and pinching into her sides until she gave into giggling. Where they found the energy to return this mirage of their normal selves, she would never know, but she was thankful enough just to see him smile again as they crumpled into a heap, their breathing broken by the occasional, fleeting laughter.