The fallout was easier than Christine had imagined.

She'd gone home with the Hendersons for the night, which wasn't so bad. Dustin, ever so chivalrous, had opted to sleep on his floor so she could have the bed. What was more, he even pretended not to hear her crying into his pillow. She hoped it would dry up by morning.

She'd expected the worst part to be lying to her dad. But as it turned out, lying was coming pretty naturally to her these days. Even when he came rushing into the Henderson's kitchen, choked up and frantic at the sight of her wheelchair, Christine kept her cool.

"Dad, honestly, I'm fine," she assured him. "I literally just fell off the road. It was really dumb."

"This is all from falling off the road?" he asked incredulously.

"Yeah. I was rushing to get to Dustin and I landed on my ankle wrong, which meant landing on my arm wrong, which meant landing in the bushes on the side of the road. Don't remind me."

"Well where was this? Why were you running?"

"I was with Nancy and Jonathan at the Byers' place."

"Jonathan?" He stared at her, more confused by the second. "Why were you and Nancy with Jonathan?"

"…Homework."

He raised his eyebrows, and Christine gave him a sharp look. She indicated Dustin on the other side of the table, hoping it might look like she just didn't want to talk about it around the kids. Her father quickly nodded.

"Oh—yes. The—The homework you had…to do. Good. Well, that's fine then. Hope it went well."

Christine rolled her eyes and smiled down at her eggs. If she was good at lying, she didn't get it from hanging out with Dustin or her dad.

When the subject of Jonathan had come up again around dinner, over their traditional welcome-back-Chinese-takeout, Christine told him the truth. Mostly.

"It's all about Nancy," she groaned, twirling a fork through her noodles. "She started spending a lot of time with Jonathan after the funeral, which made Steve really upset. He really, really likes her, and I think Jonathan does too. So we went over there to talk to him about his intentions or whatever. It didn't go great. Honestly, I'm kinda glad I broke my leg. At least it diffused the tension."

"You know, this is not what I had in mind when I said you should get out more," he chuckled into his soup. "I'm gone for eight days and two kids go missing, one comes back from the dead, you break your leg and end up in some dramatic love triangle."

"Ha. I'm not really part of the triangle, Dad. I'm more like an outlier point."

She frowned down at the plastic container, dragging her fork around lazily. It was stupid to still be upset about boys after everything that had happened. Somehow, she still had the emotional capacity to be upset about everything at once. She felt like exploding, between Steve and Barb and Eleven. Sooner or later, she'd have to burst or let something go.

"Any news about Barb?" her dad asked gently.

"Not really," she mumbled. "The paper said they found her car at a bus station, a couple towns over. But it…it doesn't make any sense…"

"Maybe things were getting too much for her around here. Small town, all that pressure, the drama…"

Christine drew a circle on the bottom of the tray. It faded in a matter of seconds, disappearing in the sauce.

"I should have done more."

"Honey, you can't…"

"I should've," she said firmly. "Nancy and I were being stupid, fighting over some dumb jock. She got put in the middle, and I know how much she hated it. And then I showed up to that stupid party, and I said I was going to help her, but—but I wasn't. I was going to stick it to Nancy cause I was mad. And then she got mad at me, and I got mad at her, and we were fighting and Barb was panicking, and that was the last thing she ever saw before…b-before…"

She dropped her fork, and pressed her only good hand over her face.

Her father's chair scraped against the floor as he pulled it closer to her. He didn't pull her hand away, just gently stroked her arm.

"You can't blame yourself for anything that happened to Barbara, bumblebee. I know it hurts, to lose someone. But remember what we practiced. What was the last thing you said to her?"

Christine wracked her brain, flipping through fuzzy memories of crying in the Harringtons' living room.

"I'm sorry," she whispered tearily. "I—I said I was sorry."

"See? You told her. Even then, you knew that you were wrong, and you were trying to make it right. Barbara knew that. And wherever she is, whatever reason she left, I'm sure she's sorry too."

It pushed her over the edge. After a whole week of putting it off, reality speared her through the gut. Barb wasn't sorry. She wasn't anything. Because she was gone. She'd been dragged into the Upside Down, and she'd died there, cold and alone. And she wasn't coming back. No more comedies and fried chicken at the Holland residence. No more knowing looks and comforting glances when Nancy started talking about her love life. No more indelicate snorts or good advice or late night joy rides to get ice cream and sing in the car. Barb was gone.

Christine's father held her as she burst into tears. It was hard to cry, physically difficult when she was restrained by the sling and the cast. Her frustration made her cry harder, and eventually, her father had to pick her up and carry her to bed. He didn't ask about the pillow fort in the corner. She wondered if he noticed that seeing it made her sobbing worse.

Somehow, the lying still wasn't the worst part. It was a good contender, along with the nightmares she kept having about the Demogorgon and the Upside Down. She was always trapped there, but she found different things every night. Barb's body. Eleven's body. Nancy's and her dad's and Steve's. All the boys battered and broken with sunken eyes and vines crawling over their limbs. She'd tug at them and tug at them, but nothing could break them loose. Sometimes she'd run from the Demogorgon for what felt like hours, only to jerk awake and find she'd only been asleep for fifteen minutes. It was exhausting. Even when she was unconscious, she didn't seem to be getting any rest.

Somehow, that also wasn't the worst part. It wasn't lying, or crying, or having nightmares, missing her friends or jumping every time she turned the lights off.

No, the worst part of the whole thing was this goddamn wheelchair.

She'd never felt so inconvenient in her life. Hawkins was not built to be accessible, and she'd never really noticed it until now. Everyone around her had to accommodate for her, and she was absolutely sick of it. She didn't like being a burden.

It was impossible for her to use her bike, which meant they had to set up a carpool to get her to and from school. Her father was going to work late every morning so he could drive her and Nancy. He assured them he'd cleared it with the office and shifted his hours, but it still made her feel like crap. Mrs. Wheeler drove them home every afternoon, and Christine would stay with them through dinner until her father could pick her up after work. This change would have happened anyway, since Nancy no longer had Barb to drive her home. But watching Mrs. Wheeler struggle to fold the wheelchair and stuff it in the back was enough to make Christine consider ripping the sling off and dealing with the consequences.

Nancy's schedule had changed too. The office had given her a pass to leave early and arrive late to class so she could ferry Christine around the school. Most people would've adored a pass like that, but Christine knew it was stressing Nancy out. She was a nerd at heart, and wanted to spend as much time in class as she could so she didn't miss anything. She told Christine that it didn't matter to her, that she was happy to help, that they both knew there were more important things than schoolwork at this point. But she always did it with a tight smile that showed her growing strain.

The other problem was that picking up Christine meant Nancy kept bumping into Steve.

"You still haven't talked to him?" Christine asked one afternoon, over a week later.

They were doing their homework in Nancy's room. It was a hassle to get up there. Christine had to hop up the stairs one step at a time with her arms around Nancy's shoulders. But the girls valued the privacy more than the extra work. Anything was better than working in the living room while Mr. Wheeler snored over The Price is Right.

"You know I haven't," Nancy sighed. "I'm too busy to think about it right now. You come first."

"And I appreciate that. But you can't keep using me as an excuse to avoid him."

"I'm not avoiding him."

It was a feeble excuse at best. Christine sent her a knowing look, and Nancy folded immediately.

"I just feel like it's best for both of us," she amended.

"For you and Steve? Or…for you and me?"

Nancy smiled sadly. She pushed her homework aside.

"Christine. I'm really sorry."

"No, I'm sorry. I was being dumb, and…"

"Maybe we both were," Nancy insisted. "Just…Just let me go first, okay? Please?"

Christine pouted, but leaned back against Nancy's headboard. Nancy nodded, and wrung her hands in her lap.

"That whole week, I…I blamed you for a lot of things. I think it was just easier, you know? Than acknowledging it. And I told you that you were being a bad friend, but…I was being a bad friend too. Worse, even. I never should've kissed Steve. I knew something was up when we went to that party, and I just ignored it. I was so…I don't know, excited that he liked me that I didn't think about how it would look, or how it would make you feel, or how shitty he was being to you. I mean, he manipulated you into bringing me just like he was always doing with your lab reports and…that's so messed up."

"That's what Barb said," Christine confided with a weak smile. "I remember being on the phone with her after we had that fight. She was like 'you cannot be that dumb.'"

"Yeah," Nancy laughed. "Yeah, she said that to me too. And I knew what he was doing but…he's just so good at making you feel…"

"Special," Christine said with a nod. "I know. That's why I kept doing the work. Even when I knew you guys were dating, I just kept doing everything he asked me to. It's just stupid."

"He's stupid," Nancy insisted. "You're smarter than twelve of Steve. Screw him."

"I thought that was your job."

Nancy's jaw dropped, but Christine was smirking. She giggled at the look on Nancy's face, and was promptly smacked with a textbook.

"Ow! Watch it, I only have one good leg."

"Then maybe you should be more careful with your words," Nancy warned. Still, she was grinning. "But seriously. Forget Steve. I'm not gonna hang out with someone who uses my best friend like that. Or someone who used me."

"You?" Christine squinted at her. "What do you mean he used you?"

"Let's face it, Christine, he just wanted to…you know. Sleep with me. Barb warned me when we went to his house, and I didn't listen. But…she was right."

"No, she wasn't."

Nancy looked over at Christine in surprise. "Chris…"

"Look, I know that I've been pissy about this whole thing from the start. And Steve's done a lot of fucked up things, to me and to you. But you can't look at him and think he doesn't care about you. That's insane."

"No. No, it's—it's not…"

"It is, Nancy. Steve really likes you. I mean, he kept talking to you and checking up on you even after that party. He lashed out when he thought you were cheating on him—which I will totally kick his ass for after my leg heals—but it's because he was really heartbroken. And then he came back to apologize, admit he messed up, and that he wanted to make it up to you."

"You can't think he was being serious," Nancy said dismissively.

Christine shrugged. "Actually, I do."

Nancy didn't look convinced.

"Think about it like this," Christine offered. "When he realized what he did, he went to apologize to Jonathan. Not to you. Jonathan. If this was all about getting you to sleep with him, wouldn't he skip the one on one apology and go straight to convincing you he was sorry?"

"I don't know. I mean, I guess…"

"Exactly. And, I don't know if you've noticed, but he hasn't exactly been buddy with Tommy and Carol this week."

"That's just because Tommy's using him as an excuse," Nancy reminded her. "You know he told everyone he and Steve duked it out because he doesn't want to admit you almost broke his nose."

"That may be true, but the point still stands. And I didn't get the chance to clean the graffiti at work."

"Christine, anyone could've done that…"

"But they didn't. Anthony told me."

"And?" Nancy said adamantly. "That's like, the bare minimum he should've done. So what?"

"So, it's a start. I mean, don't look now, but it seems like Steve's genuinely trying to be a better person."

"You're insane." Nancy shook her head, grinning incredulously. "I can't believe you want to give him the benefit of the doubt. You of all people."

"I'm a sucker for a redemption arc," Christine said offhandedly. "And a nice head of hair."

They giggled together for a while. It almost felt like being back on her living room floor, drunk off sugar and soda and pizza, playing Truth or Dare while horror flicks played in the background.

Nancy sobered first, fixing Christine with another bittersweet smile.

"You still like him," she observed.

"Yeah, I guess." Christine sighed, and let her head thump back against the wall. "I know that sounds super dumb, but…it's hard not to like him."

"I know. But that's exactly why I can't go back to dating him, Chrissy. I don't want to let some guy come between us again. If there's anything that I've learned this week, it's that you're way more important to me than any boy or any test. I can't…I can't lose my best friend again."

"I don't know. We make a pretty explosive combo—Psycho Bitch and the Slut."

Nancy let out a breath of laughter, and rolled her eyes. "Shut up, dork."

"So is that it?" Christine asked, sitting up a little straighter. "Can we be friends again?"

"Yeah." Nancy smiled, and nodded her head. "I'd really like that."

"Great…then it's my duty as your friend to let you know that Steve's crazy about you, and you're still not allowed to use me as excuse to avoid it."

"Ugh! Christine!"

"I'm serious, Nancy," Christine countered. "You think I haven't learned the same lesson this week? I'm not gonna let some stupid thing like jealousy get in the way of your happiness."

"Chrissy, you make me happy."

"And so does Steve. Besides, you not dating him isn't magically gonna make him like me. If he likes you, he likes you. And I know how much you like him, logical flaws aside. So it might take me some time to get over it, but…I'm not gonna stand in the way of that. You can't live your life always putting other people's feelings first, Nancy. Life's too short, you know?"

Nancy nodded, but she still looked conflicted. Or…no. Conflicted wasn't the right word. She looked almost put out. Clearly the conversation had not gone the way she'd planned it to, and she wasn't happy with the result.

Christine narrowed her eyes.

"This isn't even about me, is it?"

"What?" Nancy's head popped up too fast, her ponytail bouncing wildly. "Christine, haven't you been listening to me? Of course it is."

"Ugh, Nancy!" Christine whined, flopping onto her side in the pillows. "I cannot believe you are about to make me have this conversation."

"What conversation?"

"This conversation! About you liking Jonathan Byers."

"What? What—no! No, that's—that's totally not what this is about!"

"So you admit it?" Christine baited. "This isn't about that, but you do like him?"

"No! I—I do not like Jonathan."

"You are such a bad liar. We might not have been speaking for a while, Nance, but I'm not blind. I was third wheeling for a solid two hours while you two were playing horror house."

"No way! Christine, it wasn't…"

"If I have to listen to you say 'it's not like that' one more time this month, I'm rescinding our friendship. Every time you say that, it is exactly like that, and you are just trying to run from your own feelings."

For a moment, Nancy resembled a very distressed fish. Her mouth gaped open and closed. She was searching for some kind of excuse, some obvious reason to ward Christine off, but she could not find one. After several seconds of choking sounds, she fell forward onto the mattress and screamed into her blanket. Christine cackled, and Nancy looked up at her with hair in her eyes.

"Do you hate me?" she asked in distress.

"I could never hate you," Christine assured her. "I don't always understand you, but…I guess you just have a…very wide spectrum of taste."

Nancy smacked her again.

"Ow! Hey, I'm allowed to be critical! That's part of the best friend deal, right? I have to judge if they're worthy of you."

"Of course he is," Nancy sighed. "I mean, he saved my life, you know? That's not something a lot of people can say."

"I know, I know. There's a lot of stuff that you two went through together that no one else was there for, and no one else will ever understand. I get it. It's just…it's Jonathan Byers, you know? He barely talks to anyone at school, and he hardly sticks around outside it."

"It's just cause he has a job. He told me he picks up shifts at the auto shop to help out his mom. And he just…doesn't like talking to people. It's hard, and he isn't super sociable. That's not that weird, right?"

"No, but taking pictures of people from bushes is. Taking pictures of people from bushes is actually my main concern here."

Nancy groaned and rolled onto her side to face Christine.

"I know. And I shouldn't forgive him for that. But he apologized, right? And then he worked to make it better. How is that any different from forgiving Steve?"

"Because Steve…It's because…" Christine pouted. "At least Steve's cute."

"Shut up! That is so shallow!"

"See? Even you don't think he's cute!"

"I do!"

"Oh my God, you think he's cute?"

"No, I—He's cute in his own way, okay?"

"Yeah, like ugly cute."

"Christine, stop!"

"Fine! Sorry, I'll stop picking on your boyfriend."

Their giggles died off quickly, and Nancy pressed her face into her blankets.

"He's not my boyfriend," she said, reminding both of them of the facts. "Right now, neither is Steve. And if I'm being honest, I…I don't know what I'm gonna do."

Christine bit her lip. Her first impulse was to make a joke about the plights of Nancy Wheeler, trying to decide between the two boys who were head over heels for her. But for once, she swallowed her sarcasm, and tried to think of something helpful.

"You've just gotta give it time. Think it over, and do what feels right. Go through a pros and cons list or something."

"Chrissy," Nancy groaned. "They're people, not a science project."

"I know, but writing it out helps organize your thoughts. I'm not trying to give you an equation, just something that could help."

Nancy frowned but grabbed her notebook. She flopped onto her stomach, taking her pencil and creating a chart with four columns: Jonathan (Pro), Jonathan (Con), Steve (Pro), Steve (Con).

She went off on her own, rambling to talk things out, scribbling down notes in her book. Christine watched with a bittersweet smile. She knew it was Nancy's problem to figure out. Whatever conclusion she came to, she had to do it on her own, and Christine didn't want to interfere. But she could've told Nancy the answer right off the bat. All she had to do was look at the first thing her brain had written down.

They spent the hours before dinner neglecting their homework to talk about boys. Christine expected it to be uncomfortable, full of the same awkward pauses as the conversations they'd had after Jenny's party. But after two weeks of fighting monsters and breaking bones, it seemed like they'd finally got past the awkwardness. Christine grabbed for Nancy's pens and tried to scrawl a long list into Steve's pro-column, which all looked like chicken scratch cause she was using her left hand. Nancy had plied her for all the information she could remember about hanging out with Jonathan in middle school, before he'd ditched AV club for the art department. Christine held back her comments about the stalker photos, even as Nancy wrote it on the page, and added her own line to Steve's cons.

"Dumb as dirt." –Barbara Holland

Dinner was a quiet affair. Mr. Wheeler seemed to like it that way, even if it made the meal feel more tense. After a week of eating with them, Christine was beginning to understand why Nancy hated mealtime so much. It was nice to have a large family to sit with, but Christine would take a low-key takeout meal with her dad any day.

After about fifteen minutes, Mike asked to be excused. He'd barely touched his food, but his mother didn't put up a fight as he disappeared into the basement.

"He's like this all the time, now," Mrs. Wheeler said to Christine, as if she hadn't watched Mike do the same thing for the past five days. "I just don't understand it. After all that, Will comes back. You think he'd be ecstatic."

"I think he's just drained, Mom," said Nancy. She was free to defend her brother so long as he wasn't in the room. "He went through a lot. He just needs time to process."

"I know. I just wish he'd eat…"

"Actually, do you mind if I'm excused too?" Christine asked. "The meatloaf is delicious, Mrs. Wheeler. My pain meds are just affecting my appetite."

"Oh, of course. I'm so sorry, Christine."

"It's fine. Thank you."

Nancy got up, wheeling her chair around into the living room. Without instruction, she looped around until they'd reached the door to the basement.

"Think you can get down there okay?" she whispered.

"Yeah," Christine assured her. "Down is fine. I just need to convince Mike to carry me back up."

Nancy smiled, patted her on the shoulder, and walked back to the dining room.

It took Christine some time to situate herself. She stumbled out of her chair with as little noise as possible, and swung the door to the basement open. Then she had to ease herself onto the floor. It was tough to close the door behind her, and even harder to do it quietly, but she managed it by the tips of her nails and a quiet click.

"Okay, Mike," she called down. "If you want me to leave, you better say it now, cause it's gonna take me about five minutes to get down these stairs."

There was no response.

Christine grit her teeth, and with one hand on the banister, began to scoot her way down the staircase. She had to go one step at a time, moving her good leg and then her butt. Her cast hung awkwardly out in front of her, dangerously close to smacking the stairs or the railing. But finally, she was able to hop down the last few steps.

"You're gonna break your other leg."

Mike had not looked up. He was sitting in the blanket fort under the table, his radio in his hands. It hummed faintly, but the sound was steady. There was no warbling interference or mysterious voices to be heard.

"Well you could always help me," Christine reminded him.

"Nah. It's funny to watch you hop around."

"Glad my pain amuses you."

She stuck her tongue out at him, and hopped the last few feet to the fort. He scooted over so there was room for her, and lifted the blanket roof so it could clear her head.

Neither of them said anything. They listened to the static on the supercomm, Mike occasionally changing the channel in case he could get a different result. It must have been ages before he finally turned it off.

"I do it too, you know." Christine stared down at the radio. "Leave my stereo on, scan through the channels. It's driving my dad up the wall."

"Have you heard anything?"

She shook her head.

"Then how do we know if she's out there?"

"Cause she's Eleven," Christine said with a shrug. "I think she was a lot stronger than either of us knew. And if Will can survive in the Upside Down for a week, I'm sure she can."

"Twelve."

Christine turned to Mike, her brow furrowed. "What?"

"It's been twelve days," he explained. "That's more than a week. That's almost two weeks. If she's still there…"

"Then maybe she's not," said Christine. "It's like the magazine, remember? Sometimes you can't control where you come out or…"

"No." Mike shook his head down at the radio. "She's here. I know it, I just…I don't know why she won't come home."

That sat in silence again, until he felt comfortable enough to confide one other thing.

"I thought I saw her. When we got back from the school. There were all these agents here, talking to my parents, telling them we had to let them know if she contacted us. And I swore I saw her in the window. I've done everything I can to get her back. I've tried calling her. I've tried leaving out Eggos. I even left the fort up. I don't understand."

"Mike," Christine said softly. "If your house in under surveillance, coming back here is the last thing she'd do."

"What about your house, though? It's safe haven, right?"

"It was. But they know about me too. My place was crawling with agents when you guys were hiding in the junkyard. I wouldn't be surprised if they opened up all my phones and put bugs and stuff in them."

"Do you think that's how they found us?" he asked brokenly. "At the school?"

"No." Christine clenched her jaw. "No, I don't think that's how they found you."

"Then what did we do?"

Christine twisted on the floor, grabbing one of Mike's hands.

"We didn't do anything wrong. You saw her, right? She's out there, somewhere. She's alive and she's hiding, and we both know how good she is at that. I think…I think we just have to accept that wherever she is…we're not what she needs right now. It's too dangerous, with either of us."

"But this is home. She…She has to come back."

Mike took his hand back, covering his mouth as he coughed. It was a suspiciously wet cough, but Christine let him cry in peace. She didn't want to wound his pride.

Maybe this, she thought. Maybe this was really the worst part. Not the lying, or the injuries, but the not knowing. The closure that no one could give them.

She leaned a shoulder against one of the chairs that was acting as a column for the fort.

"She will, Mike. I know it. My blanket fort's still up too."