Christine did not know how long it took her to compose herself. There was no clock in the bathroom. But her legs were sore and her nose was stuffy. She dragged herself to her feet, splashing water on her face and pulling up her hair. She checked her dim reflection in the mirror, making sure she was presentable. Then she opened the door, and immediately took a step back.

Eleven was waiting in the hallway. She sat cross-legged opposite the door, and looked up shyly at her.

"Hey," Christine said, trying to seem casual. "Is everything okay?"

El nodded. Her eyes drifted over Christine, checking her from top to bottom. "Okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. I'm fine. I just needed to uh…"

"I understand."

Christine looked down at Eleven's earnest face. Impossibly, El smiled at her. It made it a little easier to pull herself together.

"Thanks, El. Come on. I'll get you a big T-shirt or something, and we can get some sleep."

"No," said Eleven firmly. She got up from her seat. "Mike."

"Right," Christine agreed. "Mike. Shit, you're right. Come on."

Eleven followed her to the kitchen, where Christine grabbed the phone from the wall. She dialed the number and leaned against the counter, saying a silent prayer under her breath. It took a few rings. So many she was afraid she'd get voicemail. But at the last moment, someone picked up.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Mrs. Wheeler. It's Christine Walcott."

"Oh, um…hi, Christine. It's not really a good time right now…"

"I know. That's actually why I'm calling. Did Mike make it home okay?"

"Michael? Oh—yes, he's…he's here."

"Oh, thank God." Christine nodded to Eleven, who similarly relaxed. "He ran off before I could stop him, and I had to take Lucas and Dustin home too…"

"You were with the boys?" Mrs. Wheeler asked. "Christine, what happened? Where were you?"

Christine relayed the same story she'd given Mrs. Henderson. The boys had been forlorn after AV club when Christine came to bike Dustin home. She'd agreed to take them on a joy ride of the neighborhood, only for them to run into the police cars and sirens. Before she could stop them, the boys were following the trail, and they'd ended up at the quarry with Will's body.

"How is he doing?" Christine asked as her tale came to an end.

"He's…" Mrs. Wheeler trailed off. Christine couldn't blame her. "He'll be okay. He just needs time."

"Yeah. I guess you're right."

"Are you alright? Nancy said you didn't make it to school today. If you wanted to stay here, Christine, I wouldn't mind…"

"Oh, I'm fine, Mrs. Wheeler. I was just really sick this morning. But I've got Mrs. Henderson next door if I need anything. I have to check in with her in the morning, and I still have to call my dad."

"Alright. If you're sure…oh. Hold on, Christine. Nancy wants to talk to you."

A bolt of fear shot through Christine's chest, which made her feel very stupid considering her situation.

"Oh no! I've actually got to go, Mrs. Wheeler. My dad, he…"

"Christine?"

She deflated pressing a hand to her forehead. "Yeah, uh…hey, Nancy."

"What's going on? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I was just checking on Mike."

"Mike?" Nancy lowered her voice, whispering into the phone. "You skipped school to hang out with my brother?"

"No," Christine snapped. "I went biking with the boys after school, and we stumbled onto a crime scene. Mike ran off, and I wanted to make sure he was safe. Sue me."

Eleven was still standing next to her, looking very alarmed by her tone. Christine waved away her concern, slumping against the wall. On the other end of the line, Nancy had softened.

"Was it…Was it really Will?"

"Yeah," Christine sighed. "I mean, we didn't get close, but…it looks like it."

"Shit. I mean, it's already all over the news but…shit."

"Yeah. I know."

They sat in silence until Nancy sighed.

"Christine, have you heard from Barb? At all?"

"Uh, no." She glanced at the clock, frowning. "She seriously hasn't talked to you?"

"No. And she didn't come to school, and she didn't come home… Chris, I—I think something might've happened…"

Christine's heart stopped. She glanced down to Eleven, still looking up at her with wide, probing eyes. A thousand thoughts shot through her head, all of which she shut down. She was not getting caught up in this again. Will had gotten lost and drowned. He hadn't been eaten by some monster, or taken out by secret government spies. It was an accident. There was nothing going on.

"No," Christine said, shaking her head. "Come on, I mean…this is Barb, right? Did you call the hospital?"

"I did," Nancy insisted. "And I called her parents, and her parents called the cops…"

"The cops? But…Nancy, I'm sure she's…"

"Gone. She's…She's just gone, Christine."

Christine's mind was reeling. Not two days ago Mike had been telling her the same thing about Will. And now Will was…

"Did they really call the cops?" she asked feebly.

"Yeah. I gave a statement and everything. They're gonna send deputies to school tomorrow to talk to everyone."

Christine cursed under her breath. This was bad. This was unimaginable. It was the last thing she needed right now.

"Look," Nancy said. "I know things have been really shitty. But I need you to come to school tomorrow. You're the last person that saw her al…You're the last person that saw her."

Her misstep sent a shiver down Christine's spine. She leaned her head against the wall.

"Yeah, no. I'll be there."

"Thanks." Nancy took a shuddering breath, and lowered her voice again. "You're sure you don't remember anything? From the party? Did she say something to you? Anything about where she was going?"

"No, nothing. After you…um…I was just really drunk, you know? So Barb set me up on the couch and I passed out."

"That's it? You just…went to sleep, and left her alone?"

Her tone was enough. The unsettling sorrow in Christine's chest found a comfortable alternative by turning into anger. Her hand tightened on the handset.

"I didn't just go to sleep. I passed out because I was upset and I was drunk."

"Yeah, Christine. I was there. I know how drunk you were."

"What, so it's my fault now?"

"No. That's not what I said."

"No, it's just what you meant. You wanna talk about leaving people alone? How about the part where you went upstairs to change clothes and told Barb and me to get lost?"

"This is not my fault," she hissed. "I told you guys to go home. It's not my fault you decided to have a breakdown on the couch. If you'd left together, none of this would have happened!"

"A breakdown," Christine echoed derisively. "Exactly. I had a completely spontaneous breakdown out of nowhere, which had absolutely nothing to do with you. And that makes it my fault. Well if it's my fault, why didn't you look for Barb in the morning, Nance? Cause I woke up in Steve Harrington's house alone. Which means you woke up before that, saw me, and left me there. Where was Barb then, huh? Did you look? Or were you just too excited about your first walk of shame?"

"Shut up, Christine."

"No, Nancy, you shut up. I will come to school and talk to the cops tomorrow. But I am not gonna talk to you."

She slammed the phone onto the hook so hard she swore the plastic nearly cracked. It made a loud ding, which startled Eleven at her side. Christine immediately felt awful. She'd been so wrapped up she forgot the girl was there.

"Sorry," she sighed. "I'm sorry, El."

"Not okay?"

Christine laughed dryly. "Yeah. Not okay. But you don't have to worry about it. That's not your problem."

She herded Eleven down the hall, grabbing her suitable pajamas from the bedroom. El changed into cotton shorts and an oversized Elton John T-shirt, while Christine dragged the couch cushions into her bedroom.

It had been a while since she'd built a blanket fort. Thankfully, the basics were hard to forget. She stacked the cushions in the corner, wedging them between the end of her desk and her dresser. She used pushpins to secure the sheets into the wall, not caring about the holes it left in the fabric. Then she laid out some spare blankets and an assortment of pillows. By the end, she had a nice little canopy nest that she'd still be able to see from her bed.

Eleven smiled when she saw it. That was enough to assuage Christine's anger for the time being.

"Alright. Get in there, kid. Is that big enough?"

El crawled into the fort, assessing her surroundings before she nodded.

"Good. You want any water? Snack? No? Okay. I'm just gonna change, and then it's lights out."

Christine grabbed her own pajamas, stepping out to the bathroom to trade her sweats for shorts. She brushed her teeth, got her own glass of water, and was not surprised to find Eleven wide awake and waiting for her when she returned.

"Lights on," said Eleven, as Christine's hand went for the light switch. "Please."

"Wow," Christine said with a smile. "So they don't teach you 'brother,' and they don't teach you time, but they do teach you please and thank you. Alright. Lights on."

She double checked that her windows were locked and the curtains were shut tight. Then she crawled into bed.

"I'll be right up here if you need anything," said Christine. "And if I'm asleep, you can just push me until I wake up. I won't be mad, okay?"

"Okay."

"Good. So…Goodnight, El."

"Night."

Christine smiled at her, and then laid down on her back. Her body was absolutely exhausted. She'd spent last night on a couch in an alcohol and grief induced haze, only to bike home and sit on the floor for a few hours. More biking, the baffling realization that she was being pulled into some kind of kidnapping scheme, a very long day of babysitting, followed by more biking, more walking, and stumbling onto an active crime scene. Every muscle of her body ached. But her emotional nerves seemed too raw to sleep.

She couldn't erase the image of Will's body from her mind. Then there was Nancy's voice, telling her that Barb was gone, and that it was all her fault. Then Barb's body would replace Will's on the stretcher. Christine would squeeze her eyes shut, and press her head a little farther into the pillow.

If her nightmares were this bad when she was awake, she couldn't even consider being unconscious.

But she wasn't the only one evading sleep.

"Who is Nancy?"

Christine rolled onto her side, looking at the fort where El was peeking under the sheets.

"Nancy is Mike's older sister. When you have the same parents, remember? She's my age."

"Friend?"

"Ha. She's supposed to be, yeah." Her laughter didn't make sense to Eleven, and Christine struggled to explain. "Nancy's…done a lot of things friends shouldn't do. So I'm mad at her."

"Lie?" El asked.

"Yeah, for a start. Lie. Leave. Hurt. Blame."

"That's not friend."

"You'd think, right?" Christine frowned at her dresser. "But I guess I've been a bad friend too. I've blamed her for stuff. I've avoided her and called her names. Honestly, I don't know who's right and who's wrong anymore. I'm just…mad…"

Eleven nodded, though Christine wasn't entirely sure it was possible to understand. She hardly understood herself these days.

"Who is Barb?"

God, just hearing her name made Christine want to cry now.

"Barb's my other friend," she whispered. "She's been between me and Nancy this week, trying to make us friends again. And she had to put up with a lot of really dumb stuff. But now…no one can find her."

"Gone?"

"Yeah, for now."

"Like Will?"

"God, I hope not."

Christine choked back a sob, and chanced a glance at the fort in the corner. El was frowning too, staring at the ground. She was guarded in so many ways, but Christine still felt like she could read every expression that flicked across her face. Sadness, pity, guilt…

"Hey," Christine said, propping her head up on her elbow. "This isn't your fault, okay?"

"Mike…"

"I don't care what Mike said. He was upset, and he was hurt. So he hurt you instead. You were just trying to help, and…they were just sad it didn't work out."

Eleven looked at her from the floor, whispering imploringly, "Will."

"What about him?"

"Will," she repeated insistently.

That was it. Christine wasn't sure what she was trying to say. So she forced a small smile instead.

"It's okay, El. Look, I don't know what you showed the boys that made them think you had superpowers, but there's no way you could have known what happened to Will. It's not your fault."

Eleven pouted, and hugged her legs closer to her chest.

"Try not to worry about it for now, okay?" Christine offered. "Just get some rest, and we can talk about Will in the morning."

She rolled onto her other side, and squeezed her eyes shut. She would hold her breath until she passed out if she had to. She just wanted to stop thinking for a few minutes.

At some point in the night, she must have drifted asleep. There were no dreams, no nightmares about Will or Barb or Nancy. But one moment she was thinking she would never be able to fall asleep again, and the next moment someone was pushing insistently on her shoulder.

"Chrissy. Chrissy. Up. Chrissy! Up! Please!"

Christine jolted awake, clutching at her chest.

"Wha? What's—Eleven? Shit, what's—what's wrong? What's happening?"

"Chrissy, come!"

Small hands grabbed at her arm, pulling her out of bed and toward the door. Panic seized her, and Christine stumbled to her feet, racing down the hallway and into the living room. She half expected to see soldiers in heavy stealth suits storming her living room, or the creature from The Thing hanging from the ceiling ready to eat them. Instead, the living room was empty—if not a little messier than it had been when she went to bed.

There were papers all over the floor. Her first thought was that her homework had been blown all over the room, but—no. It wasn't her assignments. It was Will's missing poster, all of them, spread out over the floor so his face could stare up at her.

"What the hell…?"

Eleven did not stop. She pulled Christine into the living room, forcing her to sit on a clear bit of floor. Then she walked over to the stereo, flipped a few switches, and powered it to life.

Loud static filled the room. Christine covered her ears, wincing as Eleven fiddled with the tuner controls. She wouldn't have been surprised if the static woke up the neighbors.

"El, stop," she pleaded. "You have to turn it down. And that's not how we play tapes. Remember, you have to press this, then…"

She reached for the stereo, only for Eleven to push her arm away. "Wait."

"Wait for what? For my ears to bleed?"

"Will."

"Will?" Christine sank back onto the floor. "El, we've been over this. Will is gone. There's nothing you could have done. You have to stop this."

"No. Will."

Christine sighed, watching in despair as Eleven continued to obsess over the controls. She did not know how to get through to her. It was quite possible there was no way. She was so sure of herself now, determined not to change her mind.

Whatever place Eleven was running from had clearly groomed her in a certain way. She knew how to behave and understand, but not how to communicate or navigate her surroundings. She'd been given no agency, and forced to accept whatever was presented to her as truth. Maybe that had something to do with the powers she thought she had. She had either been told she had these abilities, or convinced herself of it out of some psychological need for control.

Christine had read in books that people with dementia often had delusions to make sense of their reality. You weren't supposed to correct them, in case they became confused, or violent. Maybe brainwashing was the same way. She just had to play along.

"What is it, El?" she asked softly. "What do you need to show me?"

"Will," Eleven repeated, focusing on the radio. "Listen."

The static continued its assault on their ears. Christine waited a few seconds before jumping in.

"Is…Is that…? I hear it. I hear him."

"No."

Eleven gave her a sour look. Evidently, she'd been caught playing pretend. Christine sagged, pushing stray hairs out of her face.

"Look, El, I don't know what you're doing, okay? I don't know what we're doing here, and I don't know what you expect to hear. What I do know is that Will is…"

"Listen."

Christine bitterly closed her mouth. She would count to twenty, and then she was going to bed. This was ridiculous. She wasn't prepared for this kind of babysitting. She didn't get paid enough to deal with delusions. Hell, she didn't get paid at all. All she wanted to do was go to sleep and…

She heard it.

"Wha…?"

Eleven stopped moving the dial. She kept her hand on the stereo, her eyes squeezed shut. Like she was focusing super intensely. A thin trail of blood seeped from her nose.

And there was the sound again. There was still a curtain of static, but underneath it all, Christine could hear something. Someone humming. She glanced at Eleven, just to be sure. It didn't look like she was humming. Her throat was stock still. But before Christine could come up with another explanation, the sound changed.

"So come on and let me know…should I stay or should I go?"

That was definitely not Eleven.

Christine moved closer to the stereo, listening to the feeble voice. It definitely wasn't a radio broadcast. She'd heard that song by The Clash, and it didn't sound like that. It could have been radio interference, someone on a hamshack or supercomm nearby. But Christine had never experienced interference like this on the stereo. And there were only a handful of boys she knew who had supercomms.

"Is that…" she started, and this time she meant it. "Is that actually…?"

"Will," Eleven confirmed, with a small smile.

"You mean, he's…"

Eleven nodded.

"But…" Christine stared at the radio. "No. I mean, I saw his body. We all saw his body."

"Hiding," Eleven corrected, shaking her head.

"Hiding where, though? You brought us to his house today, and that's not where he is. That's exactly where everyone keeps looking for him."

"There," she said, nodding. "But…no."

"There but no?" Christine repeated. "What does that mean?"

Eleven frowned, clearly distressed that she could not find the words she wanted. The radio static flared, and Will's voice vanished.

"Woah, wait!" Christine leapt for the stereo, turning the dial back and forth. "Can we get it back? We need to—to record it or—or something!"

Eleven pushed her hands out of the way, and started the process all over again. But Christine had just been struck with another idea.

"Wait…could…could you find Barb like that?"

She watched as Eleven considered the notion, then nodded feebly. "Try."

"Okay. Try is—that's great. Hold on."

Christine jumped to her feet, racing down the hallway and back to her room. She scanned the corkboard over her desk. There were plenty of pictures of her, Nancy and Barb. They tried to take pictures with the whole group as often as they could. But Christine didn't want to confuse Eleven by showing her Nancy too. She finally selected a picture of her and Barb from a recent sleepover. They were splayed out on the floor, heads next to each other as they lay in opposite directions. Christine had her tongue poking out, while Barb's face was red from laughing so hard. Nancy had jumped up on the couch to take the picture. It was a good one.

She careened back into the living room, passing the picture to Eleven with a trembling hand.

"She's the one on the right. With the red hair. Obviously, you know. The one that's not me. Sorry, um…"

But Eleven wasn't listening to her rambling. She stared intently at the picture, as if she was memorizing every detail before closing her eyes. Then she brought her hand back up to the stereo, and spun the dial.

Christine held her breath as she watched the needle move. Nothing was happening. That was bad, right? Had it taken this long to find Will? Was it because Eleven had found him already? She knew she was being impatient, but she was so nervous she could have hurled again.

Time ticked by. The static grew to be a comfortable white noise, and Christine's ears zeroed in on the clock instead. Each tick felt like a bang against a gong, echoing inside of her skull. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

She counted as the seconds turned into minutes. It definitely hadn't taken this long before. Weird sounds were beginning to come through the stereo, but none of them sounded like Barb. Cats and whimpers and strangled moans. Even the snippets of commercials there were passing sounded eerie in quick succession.

The dial spun faster, and Christine watched as blood began to trickle out of Eleven's other nostril.

"El…?"

The girl didn't respond. She squeezed her eyes closed tighter, her hand steady on the radio. Christine was afraid to touch her in case—what? Would she lash out? Would it fry her brain? Would Christine get electrocuted or thrown across the room?

Blood seeped from her ear, and Christine threw caution to the wind.

"Eleven, stop!"

She grabbed the hand that was on the stereo and broke the contact. Eleven's eyes bugged open with a gasp, and she immediately sagged into Christine's arms. She was pale, her skin slick with sweat, and Christine could have traced the purple veins in her forehead.

"Shit. Shit! Shit, shit, shit…"

She scooped Eleven up into her arms, rushing back into the bedroom. Carefully as she could, she laid her out on the bed. She was still breathing at least, though it wasn't a huge comfort. What if Eleven had fried herself trying to contact Barb, just because Christine had asked—if she couldn't do it again, or didn't wake up at all?

Christine pushed the thought aside and ran back to the kitchen. She began grabbing things at random. Paper towels, regular towels, glasses of water, soap, bread, for some reason. She piled it all back into her arms and sprinted back to her bedroom.

It was a good thing Eleven was already blinking her eyes open. Otherwise Christine might've had a heart attack.

"Hey, no," she hushed urgently, as Eleven tried to sit up. "Lie down, it's okay. I got you."

El didn't put up much of a fight as Christine fussed over her. She cleaned the blood from her face, and then did another onceover for the sweat. Eleven's eyes were only half open, but Christine could still feel herself being watched as she worked. She only let Eleven sit up long enough to take a couple sips of water. Then she lowered her back to the bed, and pulled the blanket up to her chin.

"God, I'm so sorry," Christine whispered, shaking her head. "I never would have asked if I knew it would take so much out of you. I don't know what I was thinking."

"Sorry."

"No," said Christine. "No, you don't have to be sorry. You tried to find her and that's—that's way more than I should've asked. It's…It's more than I've done, anyway."

Christine bit her lip, smoothing the blanket unnecessarily. She'd been spread thin over the last few days, but she couldn't help feeling like she was failing on all fronts. She was pushing Eleven after less than a day. She couldn't even have a conversation with Nancy without screaming. She'd been so wrapped up in herself that she hadn't even noticed Barb had vanished. The punches just kept coming.

Something brushed her hand, and Christine snapped out of her reverie. Eleven's hand was hovering over her own, like she was still debating if she wanted to take it. She pursed her lips tight when Christine looked at her, and let her hand fall the rest of the way.

"Chrissy. I understand."

Christine took a shaky breath, grinning as she wiped her eyes. She'd had enough of crying over the last five days. It was a wonder her body still had tears to produce.

"Just get some rest, El," she offered softly. "I'll talk to the boys in the morning and we'll figure out what to do. We'll find them."

Eleven nodded, her eyes already starting to droop. But she had one more question before she fell asleep.

"Stay?"

"Yeah," Christine assured her, moving to lie down next to the bed. "It's okay. I'm gonna stay."