Will comes home so quietly that Eleven doesn't even hear the front door open or close. Like usual, she's in her bedroom. Hopper and Joyce and Jonathan are all out in the living room, and as much as she wants to go out there and join them, she doesn't. She'd even go so far as to say she feels like she can't, even though she knows Hopper would tell her to stop being stubborn and come be a part of the family if he knew how she felt.

Sometimes, it seems like the people around Eleven can read her emotions better than she can read them herself—or like they think they can, anyway. She'll just have to take their word for it that she's lonely because she's been this way for so long that she can't tell what's real anymore.

She doesn't hear the front door open or close, but what she does hear is Joyce saying casually, "Hey, Will, sweetie. How was your walk?"

Eleven can't make out the response. "You were gone a long time," adds Jonathan with what sounds like suspicion to her, but she doesn't hear a reply from Will to that, either.

She's pretty sure she's the only person in the house who knows where Will really went—that Mike drove down from Hawkins to see him—so she's probably also the only one who realizes that something might be wrong. She waits to hear Will and Jonathan's door swing open and shut, but when she thinks she does and goes in there to check on Will, the room is empty.

"Will went down to the basement," calls Hopper. "He said he wanted to call Lucas."

But Eleven has a sinking feeling that Will didn't go downstairs to call Lucas at all. "I need to talk to him," she says uncertainly.

"Well, you better go catch him before he makes the call, then."

She's spent so little time in the basement of this house that it doesn't really feel like she belongs to the family that owns it, which is fitting, really. It's dumb. She knows that every person in this house loves her and wants her to be happy, and she doesn't know why, all these years later, she still doesn't feel like she belongs.

At least at first, that was probably in part because of Will, but it hasn't been like that lately—certainly not by the time he talked to her in that makeshift isolation tank and pulled her back from the edge in Max's mind with Vecna. If anything, Will is the person in this house who these days feels most like a friend, which means it's doubly important that, if something has gone wrong between him and Mike, Eleven pull him back from the edge.

Sure enough, down in the basement, Will is not on the phone. He's sitting on the ground underneath the phone, but it's still sitting in its cradle on the wall, and his hands are on his head, covering his ears like he doesn't want to hear a word. "Will?"

He looks up. His eyes are crinkled like he's sad. "Eleven?"

"Will," she repeats.

She never really knows what to do or say when she's near anybody who's sad. Actually, Eleven never really knows what to do or say around anyone, period—but it's especially true when that person is sad, anyway. Mike didn't make her feel that way, of course, but that's over now. Papa didn't make her feel that way, either, but she tries not to think about Papa, realizes that there's a discrepancy between how he made her feel and what he actually did to her.

But Will is her brother, and in spite of all his own emotional hangups, he's worked hard in the last year and a half to be there for her—to take care of her. They take care of each other, and it's her turn now, so she sits on the floor next to him, leans her head on his shoulder, and says, "Was it bad when you saw Mike?"

Will sniffs. "Maybe. I don't know. We didn't fight, but I think… I think I might have lost him."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He considers this for a moment. "No. Not yet. Ask me later, though? I know it's not good to—to bottle this stuff up. That's what got me in trouble before."

"Later," Eleven promises. "Will you be okay until then?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. It's not like last time, I swear."

But Eleven isn't so sure, not when they stay down on the floor in the basement without saying another word for another two hours—when Will keeps sniffling like he's about to cry. She hopes he doesn't. She doesn't like being around crying people, especially because it makes her feel powerless to help them if she loves them, and she does love Will, even if it took them a while to get there.

It's boring, sitting on the floor with Will, but what's she going to do, leave him there? If she were a different person, maybe she'd take him outside, invite him downtown, accompany him into the living room where people with better people skills than Eleven could try to cheer him up—but she's not. All she can do is all she knows how, and that's to sit here in silence with her head on his shoulder so that at least Will isn't alone.

Will isn't alone. She can't do much, but she can make sure of that.

When they've been sitting so long that her bottom hurts, so long that her mind is tormenting her with everything Vecna and Papa and Owens ever said and with the way Max looked when Eleven saw her in that hospital bed, she puts a hand on Will's and says, "We should go up. It's not good for you to stay down here all day."

"Right," said Will. "It's only different this time if I remember to use everything I've learned."

He makes no move to get up, so Eleven pulls her head off of his shoulder, stands, and reaches a hand down to him. When he takes it, and she pulls him to his feet, his hand is shaking. She can see his legs shaking, too.

"Let's go in your room," she says when they make it to the stairs.

"But Jonathan—"

"Jonathan will want to know," says Eleven firmly. "You don't have to tell him everything, not yet."

In the boys' room, Will doesn't do anything, not even when Eleven roots around in his stuff to bring him his sketchpad and notebook and pencils. She's struck by a growing sense of deja vu, remembering the week Will wouldn't get out of his bed, the week before he started taking trazodone. What happened with Mike that's got him in the same state? Is he in the same state as before, or is it really, as he says, different this time? She's skeptical, but then again, what's he been learning in therapy every week if not how to survive episodes exactly like this?

Hours later, when they hear the phone ring, Joyce comes into the bedroom to say, "Mike's on the line, Will. He wants to talk to you."

She says it cheerfully, like she doesn't know that something is wrong with Will, and how could she? Will doesn't talk to her, not anymore and especially not about this. Will and Eleven look at each other, Will's eyes big and afraid, and when he minutely shakes his head—

"He'll call back later," says Eleven without taking her eyes off of Will.

Joyce pauses. "Is everything all right between the two of you, Will?"

"Yes," says Will. It's the first word Eleven's heard out of him since before they came upstairs.

And then—then Eleven has an idea. She waits until Joyce has left the room, turns to Will, and says, "If I talk to Mike instead, is there anything you want me to say to him?"

She had to get Mike's phone number from Will—after all, before she and Mike broke up, they only ever talked using Cerebro and her walkie. The most normal Will has sounded all day is when he's rattling off the number. She takes that as a good sign, even if it's just wishful thinking.

It's not that Eleven wants to talk to Mike. In all honesty, she doesn't. They left things in a pretty good place last June, when they were alone in Mike's car for the drive from Sullivan to Hawkins and talked, but it wasn't easy to get over him, and she's not keen on reminding herself exactly what she lost when she lost him. But she's not doing it for herself or even for Mike—she's doing it for Will, who taught her to cook, who kept her company for long school days at the kitchen table and for weekends and evenings in her room when she felt too afraid to come out, who made her feel for the first time since Mike that somebody was willing to listen to her. If she can give Mike a message to put Will's mind at ease when Will doesn't have the strength to do it himself, then she's going to. She's got to.

In the basement, her hand shakes as she dials the number. Mike answers on the first ring. "Will?"

"No," she says uncomfortably.

Mike pauses. "El?"

"Hi," says Eleven.

It's weird to even hear Mike's voice on the line. Things didn't go badly last June, but El was pretty much expecting never to speak to him again. For him to be here, now, on the phone with her, when she's about to talk to him about the boy he's dating instead of her—

"Did he tell you what happened?" Mike asks.

"No." She gathers her strength. "What did you say to him that made him this way?"

"What way?"

"Mike," she says warningly.

"I didn't say anything to him," Mike retorts. Then his voice softens. "I mean, I didn't call things off with him or anything. I just… told him that I've been feeling insecure about stuff."

"Insecure?"

"Why are you asking, anyway? If he has something to say to me, he can call me himself and tell me."

"He doesn't want to talk," El informs him. "He's not in a good place." She sighs. "I called to tell you to be careful."

Mike goes very quiet for a moment. Finally, he says, "I know. I'm being careful. We're taking it slow, and we—"

"But are you sure?"

"What?"

"Are you sure of what you want? You shouldn't have done this if you weren't sure. Will can't afford to take that chance."

Mike sighs. "That's not fair, Eleven. Why am I supposed to have all the answers? Why can't I be as confused as he is?"

"Because you're not sick. He's sick, Mike."

"And I guess he asked you to call me and fight his battles for him like he's six years old and you're his mom or something, did he?"

"No." There's an edge to Eleven's voice. "He asked me to tell you that he's sorry."

Mike's voice wavers. "He's sorry? He doesn't have anything to be sorry for."

"I know that. You know that. He doesn't know that."

"God damn—can you just put him on the phone, please?"

Mike's obviously not getting it. "No," says Eleven.

"But I can fix it. If he's messed up because he thinks I'm leaving, and I'm not leaving—which I'm not—then I can make this whole misunderstanding go away."

She can hear the desperation in his voice, and as weird as it is, as much as it hurts, she wishes for Will's sake that she could make Mike understand that what Will needs isn't Mike. Eleven doesn't know much about relationships—she was raised in a lab, for crying out loud—but as much as Will says this isn't like last time, she's pretty sure it is like last time, at least to a degree. Will didn't need Mike last time, either, even though he thought he did. He probably still thinks he does.

She learned her lesson last time, though: it's not up to her to interfere and make decisions about what's best for Will. So when she treks back upstairs and into Will's room, she tells him, "Mike wants to fix it. He thinks it's a misunderstanding."

Since she left, Will has retreated into a ball underneath his bedsheets. He's facing the wall, but when she speaks, he rolls over to face her and opens his eyes. "I know what he thinks. He told me what he thinks. He doesn't want to walk away, and I don't want to walk away, either, but I think I might need to, Eleven. If this is how I react the second things go a little wrong, and we've barely been back in each other's lives for a couple of months…"

It's like last time, she thinks. It's a hint of it, a preview of coming attractions, and if she knew how to get Will off this ride—but the only way off is this, and it's going to hurt.

It's going to hurt.