El awoke slowly. Dim light filtered through her eyelids, beckoning her to the day. She kept them closed, though. Instead, she breathed deep and adjusted her head, the cradle of it feeling just perfect.
Waking up felt different than it had in days. She felt… rested. Calm. Warm.
As if beckoned, the source of warmth moved.
Eyes snapping open, El was met with a sight that she had most definitely not been prepared for.
Mike, adjusting in his sleep.
It was his shoulder that she was resting on, his arm now apparent beneath her neck. His face was turned in her direction, so close, as he laid on his back. Curiously, she tried to recall falling asleep, but she failed. She could only guess that they had both passed out and he had accidentally stayed the night.
Not that she minded…
After a moment's hesitation, she pulled herself closer into him, burrowing her face deeper into the crook of his shoulder. Relief cascaded through her as she took in his scent, bringing her mind to their lovely night. It had been so oddly... easy. Silly almost, given how nervous she'd been to talk to him about everything that had been swirling through her mind. Despite hours, days, weeks of worry for how she could possibly traverse such a seemingly unwinnable situation, when push came to shove, Mike had somehow made it all so easy.
El laid there, eyes upon him, in the morning sun. The dim light from the window bathed him in a soft hue, and time allowed her the rare opportunity to study him unbidden. The freckles that dotted the bridge of his nose stood out in the light, telling a story that she couldn't quite read, much like the night sky that he had taught her about above. His dark hair was delightfully messy, falling over his forehead and the pillow with no method to its madness. His lips were slightly parted, drawing breath, teeth marks indented just slightly on his bottom lip. His breath flowed across her cheek, brushing so soft, like a caress she had never felt before.
She couldn't hold back the smile that it all brought to her face. She could stay like this, looking at him, forever. Taking him in without all of the voices screaming conflicting instructions through her mind. She let her own breath fall into pattern with his and shifted herself even closer against his side. His arm replied, encircling her just a little bit tighter, despite the fact that he didn't seem to wake at all.
It was amazing what minds could do while being asleep…
She relished in the sensation of how light she felt lying in his arms. Such a different feeling than she'd felt mere hours before. It was as though Mike had lifted a weight from her chest during their talk, allowing her to breathe for the first time in weeks. He was so... good like that. Soft and kind. Intelligent and respectful. He listened. He never pushed. He gave. And with each of his actions he eased a door open inside of her. One that she so desperately wanted to walk through. One that very possibly offered her a new level of delicious normalcy for the very first time. It was so simple in concept, but it had always felt so far away. Yet here she was, in this moment, living it. Even if just for a moment. Existing in the space that lucky normal people could find themselves, lying in bed on a quiet morning with a gorgeous guy who accepted her, respected her, and gave her the space that she requested… Though right now she didn't want any space at all.
She felt… safe.
Her breath hitched against the realization, her eyes prickling with the softest hint of tears. Safe. It was not a feeling that she knew all that well. It was fleeting and could not be depended upon. But she couldn't deny that she felt it here, within Mike's arms, in these first moments of the day.
It made her mind run with possibilities. Of more open doors and more ease. Of futures. Of truths laid bare at his feet...
Okay, now that was maybe too crazy of an idea.
Like a little slap of whiplash against her heart, her chest tightened at the thought. She felt the barrier within her. The one that held back every secret truth about her. It was out of the question. It was impossible. Not just for her safety, but for his.
Still, for the faintest second, it all felt so very heavy upon her lips.
Her eyes softened on his face, though, still grateful for the little bit that she could have. Because here, in the hazy light of morning, she could at least lie to herself a little bit. With his arm beneath her, holding her gently, his chest rising and falling in a patterned rhythm that felt so right? She could almost forget that there was so much that she couldn't say, so much of herself that she couldn't share.
She wished that she could just pause time and stay in this bed, with this lovely sleeping man, for a little while longer, maybe just a little bit, maybe forever...
Alas, that was one power that she did not possess.
Mike twitched. His face contorted the slightest bit as his eyes began to move beneath their lids. He worried his lip for the softest moment before he shifted, rolling toward her fully. His arm tightened around her back as his eyes opened directly onto hers.
"Oh!" he exclaimed with a low voice as he found her looking at him, "Hi…"
"Hi," she purred quietly, unable to wipe the smile from her lips, "I think we fell asleep."
"You fell asleep," he replied blearily. He reached up to rub his eye, "You uh... you asked me to stay?"
"I did?"
He looked back at her then, his eyes widening with worry. "Yeah… you told me to. Should I have… should I have left?"
"No!" El exclaimed softly, her hand reaching to fall upon his chest. "No, I'm… I'm happy you stayed."
Mike looked at her for a moment, his eyes adjusting to the light, before his lips quirked up into a smile. "Okay, good. Because you kind of held me to the bed when I tried to leave."
"I did?" She gasped lightly.
"Yeah."
El's eyes widened, her heart picking up speed, "I… I'm so sorry."
Mike chuckled. His hand gave her back a comforting caress. "It's okay. I'm not complaining."
"Oh," she breathed. "Okay,"
His eyes were so gorgeous in this light. Dark and sparkling, still so soft as he continued to wake up. She wanted to kiss him. Badly. It would be so so easy. Eyes fluttering shut, she -
"- Oh, hey," he said with a thread of worry. His other hand came to her cheek, brushing her almost imperceptibly. "You uh… I think you had a nosebleed."
El cringed as her eyes popped back open. She reached up to her nose. Sure enough, she was met with a tiny patch of dried blood directly below her nostril. Turning just the slightest bit pink, she begrudgingly pulled herself from his side and out of the bed.
"Thanks, I'll um… just a second."
El got to her feet, a bit light headed from the speed with which she'd bolted from the bed, and made her way to the bathroom. The mirror reflected a dark red that stood out against her pale skin. It appeared like a mark, a reminder, that all wasn't just simply resolved.
She pulled one of her black washcloths from the back of the cupboard and swiped beneath her nose with cold water, a habit that she knew like the back of her hand. She took the opportunity to quickly brush her teeth while she was at it, all while trying to put out of her mind what the dollop of blood could mean.
When she hurried back into her room, fresh faced and more awake than she wanted to be, she stopped short in the doorway. Mike looked up in surprise from where he was hunched over, sitting at the edge of her bed, with her clock in his hands. His eyes were wide, odd, almost like he'd been caught doing something.
"Is everything okay?" she asked.
"Oh! Yeah," he said quickly, putting the clock down in a clumsy fashion. "I uh- I just- I was thinking of getting one just like this? Do- Do you like it?"
She looked at him curiously. "I guess? It's a clock. It does it's job?"
Mike laughed, almost nervously. "Right yeah, sorry, I mean like," he turned his attention back to the clock, his hand running down the cord that plugged into the wall. "Does it have a battery backup or anything? You know, if the power goes out? I like having that-um-that backup? You know, just in case."
"I don't think so?" she replied, almost chuckling. The question just seemed so delightfully odd.
"Hmm, okay," he said slowly, his attention back on the clock, "Uh… Thanks..."
It was then that El noticed the actual time on the clock. With it, reality wedged itself into her morning one step further.
She sighed. "I have to get ready for work," she said, She once again noticed the sun pouring in through the windows. "I think we might actually be able to dive for the first time this week."
Mike stood up from her bed, his makeshift sleeping clothes on full display that she'd almost forgotten about. Too short pants and too big shirt. "Right, sure. I'll just… uh… can I change in your bathroom?"
"Yeah!" she replied, "I'll change in here."
Mike was out of her room quickly, closing the door behind him a little too hard.
She found herself staring at the door with a small sense of bemusement. He'd just woken up, she reminded herself. Maybe that was just what he was like in the first minutes of the day? Confused? Befuddled? Fascinated by the inner workings of a clock?
She chuckled to herself as she quickly changed into her work clothes, forgoing a shower for the day due to the circumstances. Grabbing a brush from her desk, she pulled it through her hair and redid her messy ponytail until it resembled something akin to professional. Then, she stepped out into the main room, almost at the same time as Mike.
It was then that she got her first chance to see what he had actually attempted to look like for their date the night before, now that his clothes had been dried. He wore a thin forest green sweater, pushed up at the elbows. It contrasted so nicely with a pair of dark jeans that were cut trim and fit… very well. In the few moments he'd been in the bathroom he'd seemed to just ever so slightly tame his hair, it was still a rakish mess, but now it fell in the correct directions. His glasses had found their way back on his face.
He looked… excellent.
"So uh…" he started, his eyes still oddly shifty. He leaned against her wall, his fingers finding their way to the light switch for the living room in what seemed like a nervous twitch. "You work today?"
"Yeah?" she replied, almost wanting to laugh at his continued demeanor. "Do you?"
"No, I uh… I mean I have to prep for a summer session I'm going to start teaching next week, but just, you know, working from home." he replied.
"Oh, that's cool. What are you teaching?"
"It's a thermodynamics lab. Lots of simulated experiments and stuff," He replied. His attention was aloof, not on his words. His eyes darted up to the ceiling as his fingers attempted the light switch. The light turned on. Then off.
She looked at him curiously. "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah!" he replied in a high pitch as he quickly retracted his arm back from the switch. He shook his head. It was then that she had to accept that something tight was definitely in his eyes. It had been there since he'd awoken. It made her stomach nervous. Not good nervous. Quite the opposite.
"You sure?" she asked slowly, almost cursing herself as she heard her voice waver.
He didn't reply for a second. Instead, his eyes were focused hard on her. It was disarming. Unsettling. Then, with another shake of his head, it was like he fell out of a trance. "Yeah!" he replied, "Yeah, sorry. Am I acting… weird? I'm acting weird," He shook his head again. "Sorry, I didn't sleep well, I guess…"
"Oh!" El replied, relieved to have an answer. "Was it the bed? Or did I - "
"No, it's not you. I just - it happens sometimes."
"Okay… Well, I should probably..." she pointed to the door.
"Yeah! Yeah, let's go."
El put her backpack on her shoulder and led the way to the door, Mike falling in behind her. She went out first, allowing him through before she locked the door.
She turned back to him on the front step to find him with his hands pushed deeply into his pockets. He didn't seem to notice she'd turned around, instead his attention whipped almost immediately from his feet to her still broken front porch light.
"Where are you parked?" she asked.
"Oh I -" Mike grimaced, abandoning his attention on her porch light almost immediately. "I don't drive. Remember? I'm uh… I was just going to walk."
"Oh!" she gasped, guilt cascading through her, "You… you got stuck in the storm last night because you walked through it?"
"Yes?"
"Why didn't you remind me? I could've picked you up!"
"No, really it's okay. I like walking," he said, his cheeks turning the slightest pink.
"Well, let me take you home at least," she offered.
"Are you sure? Will it make you late?."
"Only a couple minutes, it'll be fine."
Mike smiled sheepishly, "Okay, then. Thanks."
She led the way to her car in the small driveway and started it up. Mike crawled into the passenger seat, adjusting everything on account of his height, and quickly fastened his seatbelt.
"I live right off of Elmhurst. Do you know where that is?"
"Yep," she said almost too cheerily. "It's on my way to work."
She pulled from the driveway and tried to fight off the odd sensation of tension that seemed to surround him, and in doing so she let her first thought fall from her lips.
"So, do you not drive because of that car accident?" she asked as she turned onto the main road.
"Um…" Mike's voice hitched up, as though he was surprised by the topic. El winced, realizing that it was truly not the best subject choice if her goal had been lighthearted banter.
"I - yeah. That's why," he was quiet for a moment.
"Sorry I brought it up. If it's - "
"-No," Mike said, interrupting her. "It's a good question. It's not like I lost my license or anything like that. I just… well, driving is just, it's the opposite of enjoyable, I guess."
"How long ago was it?" She asked, her voice going soft.
"A few years."
"Hm," El hummed thoughtfully. "Have you ever thought about picking it up again? I mean, walking is nice but it must take up a lot of extra time."
"Yeah, I uh…" Mike fell quiet again. She looked over as she stopped at a light. He looked tense, as though he was debating what to say next. "I tried last weekend, actually," he said, blurting it out fast, almost as though he had to push himself to say it. "I uh… yeah, it still gives me panic attacks."
"Oh…" she replied. "I'm sorry."
Mike looked oddly miserable as he sat there at the red light, staring straight out the front window, stock still, eyes wide and tight. It was so similar to the very first day that she had met him, a fear rising within him that he hadn't been prepared for. She didn't even think as she reached for his hand. Slipping her hand beneath his on his leg, she said, "I get it. I've got stuff like that. Things that just drop into my brain at the worst times. Triggers and stuff."
"Yeah…" he replied, looking over at her, almost curiously. After a few seconds his hand relaxed in hers. Her arm tingled delightfully as he interlaced his fingers within hers. When he spoke again, his voice was a little easier, "I thought I'd give it a try what with everything, you know," he offered, "Because of the skydiving and stuff. It went well for a minute but it just ended up getting really bad again after a while and I kind of froze. Which is something you really don't want to do when you're driving."
"Yeah, no I get it," she said with a reassuring smile. "That's kind of the worst part about being afraid of something. You have to just do the thing that scares you over and over and over again. Every time it gets a little less scary, but in the beginning it's terrifying."
"Yeah…" he replied thoughtfully. He was quiet for a moment. His thumb rubbed across the top of her hand in the silence. When he spoke again, his tone was hesitant, "What are you afraid of, other than storms?"
She probably deserved it after asking him a such prying question, but it didn't make her any more comfortable to have it posed. She knew the answer, of course. She knew the fear that loomed, ever-present, at the back of her mind. A fear that could take away this moment, along with every future moment, of her freedom. One bad move leading the wrong people to her doorstep. A future that matched her past…
"I'm afraid of losing everything?" she said, surprising herself with her honesty. "Like, in just one moment it'll all get taken away."
Mike was quiet, but his hand squeezed hers. She found herself squeezing back as her heart grew heavy.
"That's not going to happen," he said with a surety that could only be borne from ignorance. She smiled nonetheless. It was a nice thought to believe.
"Maybe you're right," she said.
And maybe he was. It had been five years since there had been a single trace of anyone on her tail. Maybe, just maybe, he was right.
"Oh, take the next left."
El followed his instructions and about two blocks later she pulled up in front of a house that Mike pointed to.
Mike took a deep breath as she put on the brakes. He turned to her with an abruptness that she hadn't been expecting. He looked at her with a deep expression of remorse. "I'm sorry I've been acting weird this morning," he said, shaking his head. "I uh.. I had a really amazing night with you, El."
El felt herself blush as she turned to face him fully, a thread of relief settling over her. "So did I," she replied.
Mike smiled, a bit of calm filtering into his gaze, "Good." He leaned in then, quickly, and caught her lips.
It had taken her all morning to find her way back to this place, the exact place where she wanted to be, with his hand upon her cheek and his lips upon hers.
It was worth the wait.
"Can I - see you again? This weekend, maybe?" El asked as she pulled away.
"Yeah!" He replied instantly. His eyes danced a bit as he smiled. "When's good for you?"
"Tomorrow night, maybe?" she asked, hoping that she wasn't coming off too forward.
"Then tomorrow night it is," he replied, his fingers toying with hers. "Maybe we can actually go out and do something this time. Though, I can't deny that takeout and Netflix probably can't be beat.'
El couldn't contain her smile. "That would be difficult."
Mike chuckled, "Saturday, then." He looked back up to her, his expression calmer than it had been all morning,"And really, sorry for being weird this morning."
"It's fine," she replied. "You're sure you're okay?"
"Yeah," he said with a reassuring nod, "I just got stuck in my brain. Better now, though."
"Good," she said softly.
"So, I'll uh, see you tomorrow."
"Yeah, see you tomorrow."
With that, he kissed her again. This time with more weight. The same heady buzz coursed through her as it always did, so delightful and so intense. Yet, she was pleasantly surprised to find it manageable once again. It no longer tried to escape her, the sensations too overwhelming for her to contain. Instead, it filled her with a sense of something so good that she didn't even have a name for it.
"Sorry, I'm keeping you from work," he said with a laugh against her lips.
"Don't apologize for that," she replied, "This is way better." She pressed her lips against his once again. "I should go, though."
"Right, yes. I'll um… I'll stop kissing you and let you get on with your life."
El laughed as he pulled away and unbuckled his seatbelt… only to reveal that they hadn't exactly been alone.
"Well, looks like I don't need to callthat Lyft, after all!" Max said loudly as she made a few taps on her phone. She looked at them with a dramatic smirk, her voice still raised. "I can ride with El here! Since she's dropping off Mike! At 8:30 in the morning!"
El grimaced as Max stared at them through the car window, bent over with a highly amused grin on her face. Max stalked up before El or Mike could really react and opened the passenger door. "Trade out, Mikey. We're gonna be late for work."
Mike sputtered, his hand leaving hers as he looked at El in surprise, "I'll uh, see you tomorrow?"
"Yeah," she replied, rolling her eyes at the ridiculousness of the moment, her face continuing to turn red. "Bye."
"Bye."
"Scoot scoot," Max added, hurrying Mike out of the way to get in the car. "Bye!" she called over her shoulder as she took the seat and shut the door. Her expression was teasing and oh so highly amused. "El Hopper! What do we have here? Late to work AND having a boy stay the night?"
El sighed as she put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb, "We're only going to be a couple of minutes late."
"You're avoiding the second part of my observation."
El bit back a smirk, "Maybe."
At that, Max turned abruptly and playfully tapped El on the shoulder. "What happened?! I need to know!"
El shrugged, "We just… we were watching a movie and we fell asleep. Nothing really happened. Not really."
"Did you talk to him?"
El bit her lip, "Yeah."
"And did he reply with - " Max tossed her hair dramatically, "Oh, El. Whatever you need, however slow you want to take this, that's fine! I just really want to spend all the time I can with you forever and always because I think you're perfect in every way and I'm totally obsessed with you."
El hid her face and giggled as she turned a corner. "Not exactly."
"But pretty much?"
"Maybe a little bit," she conceded. "Not that dramatically, though."
"I TOLD YOU!" Max exclaimed, poking El in the side. "Did you have a good time?"
"I had… the best time," El replied, not even able to hide her expression.
Max squealed, "Oh my God, you're the cutest thing in the world when you're in love with that weirdo. It's adorable."
"I'm not in LOVE with him."
"Yeah, sure okay, right," Max replied. "But you're close. That face your making definitely has love written all over it."
"Shut up." El whined.
"Shut up because I'm right?"
"Shut up because you're the most annoying person I know!"
"How dare you, I'm your best friend. I just want you to be happy and you look so frickin happy, so just let me enjoy this."
"You know, you really don't have room to talk," El retorted. "What is this? The third night this week you've stayed the night with Lucas?"
"I'm not keeping count," Max said elusively, "but thanks for having Mike out of the house, by the way. His room shares a wall with Lucas's so that meant we didn't have to pay any attention to how loud we were."
"Oh my God, Max!" El cringed.
"Just saying! So, you're seeing him tomorrow night, huh?"
"Did you listen to our entire conversation?" El scoffed.
"Just the end. Have plans?"
"Not yet."
"Well, you do now," she said matter-of-factly, "You're double dating with me and Lucas."
"Oh, we are, huh?" El replied with amusement.
Max sighed, "Lucas has this thing he really wants to go to at some nerdy science place? El, I really like him but God that's going to be boring."
"Oh you do like Lucas, a lot" El teased, "You don't go anywhere unless you want to. Let alone to 'nerdy science places'."
"Don't rub it in. I'm trying to keep it cool," Max conceded. El could sense the slightest hint of blush breaking through her friends tough exterior. "Will you come?"
"It does sound like something Mike would like," El offered, "I'll ask him."
"Great," Max replied with a true sigh of relief.
"But I'm letting Lucas know that you would usually never say yes to this type of thing so he knows how much you like him," El added with a smirk.
Max gasped, "You wouldn't."
El laughed in reply, her smile delightfully large, her morning feeling so very perfect. "Maybe I wouldn't. And maybe I would."
What kind of epic self sabotage was this?
Mike shook his head, almost hoping that he could shake off his feeling like a dog shook off water. His lips still tingled from where he'd kissed her and his hand was still clenched in the shape of hers from where she'd taken it in the car. The truth was that he had just spent the night with a girl for the first time in as long as he could remember. More than that, waking up beside El had just felt, for the first few hazy seconds, like exactly where he belonged. God, she looked so beautiful with the sun's rays falling upon her cheek, hair splayed out lazily across the pillow, soft sleepy smile in his direction.
Mike opened the door to his house and closed his eyes as he shut it, letting himself take a moment in quiet. He tried to focus on how it felt to touch her skin, on how her hair had tickled his cheek to wake him up, on the deep amber hue of her eyes and how they searched his so curiously before she softened and she kissed him in the bed as the storm continued through the evening, on how she kissed him, slow and deliberate, as though she was testing waters that might be too cold, only to relax into him, allowing them both to let time pass by unbidden in the dim sanctuary of her bedroom.
Mike sighed contentedly. The memory served well to chase away the preposterous thoughts that were still, after an almost sleepless night, racing through his mind. Thoughts that had nothing to do with how it felt to be near her, or with how he felt his heart softening in a way that he didn't even know how to breathe through. Nothing to do with her at all.
Or did they?
"This is ridiculous," he muttered in frustration as his brain chimed back it's damning question.
Mike was a man of science! He had a degree on his wall and another in the works! He knew how electricity worked! He also knew how it did NOT work. And it did not work through control of the human brain, no matter how amazing and mind blowing that sounded, and no matter how amazing and mind blowing that person was.
Even if it was El.
Honestly, he was almost impressed. The lengths that his mind would go to stop him from fucking enjoying his life were absolutely outstanding. It wasn't taking this from him, though, not this time. He wasn't going to lose himself in an unending quest for answers. He was going to enjoy his morning, even if it killed him. He was going to rest. He was going to put on some coffee and make a nice breakfast. He was going to take a long shower.
He was going to simply allow himself some time to actually enjoy that something in his life was going really really well.
And that's what he did.
He was proud of himself. For the remaining glorious hours of the morning he put it from his mind. He didn't think about how she had twitched and how the lights had seemed to react. He didn't think about the still blown out bulbs at her front door, and how they had shattered when she'd almost kissed him. He didn't think about how she had breathed his name in a gasp as the air filled with screeches and a nearby building erupted into an electrical fire.
He didn't think about it because he'd thought about it all goddamn night, the pattern weaving itself in a way that seemed so ridiculous and reaching and stupid. A pattern that was likely etched into her ceiling from how long he'd laid there, eyes blown wide, staring up as his mind ran a marathon in the dark.
Every time he found his mind edging back there he thought about her instead. He thought about the warm sensation that was continuing to grow within him whenever he was with her, a feeling that made it seem like everything was okay, even if everything had gone wrong. He thought of the way that she had just grabbed him in her living room, kissing him with a sense of want that he could only have dreamed of. He thought about the way she reached for his hand with such kindness as he stumbled through her questions in the car, a kindness that had served to ground him enough so that he could easily admit to her, and to himself, the source of his bad week. Mostly, he thought with awe about the look in her eyes whenever he caught her gaze; a look that made him feel oddly certain that he was not alone in how he felt about whatever was happening between them. Because whatever was happening between them? It felt magical. Heavy in the best way. Pulling at parts of him that he'd forgotten existed.
He thought about her so much that it was as though he had conjured her when his phone buzzed around lunch time.
Heart jumping, he pulled it out to find the name he wanted to see.
El: Hi :) about tomorrow night. Max wanted to know if we wanted to go with her and Lucas to some 'nerdy science thing' at some 'science place' (her words not mine). Want to go?
Mike snickered, his fingers typing fast.
Sure! Do you know any details? Or should I ask Lucas?
Her reply was immediate -
That'd be great! I don't think Max knows anything.
Mike smiled, the idea that he'd see her the next day serving to buoy him further. After texting Lucas for the information and finding out tickets needed to be bought, Mike made his way back to his room to make the purchase.
He eased his laptop open and smirked. A photo of scientists from a grainy news clipping stared back at him, the supposed 'villains' of the Hawkins National Laboratory that he'd read about a couple nights back.
He snickered as his eyes skimmed across the text in an effort to close the window, but his laugh died on his lips...
"...Chronic nosebleeds…"
Something deep in his gut stalled like a broken record, heavy and unyielding. He gulped as his eyes froze upon the q&a interview with a supposed subject called only '008'. He'd hardly paid attention to it the other night…
"Do you have any side effects from your time in the lab?"
"You mean other than the PTSD? A few. The powers I have don't cause problems if used minimally, but I grow fatigued and sick if I use them too much. I can be physically weak for days and I get chronic nosebleeds. I can't go to a doctor to find out if it's causing damage, too dangerous, so I just have to live with it."
"Tell me about life within the lab? What did they do with you when they weren't testing on you?"
"I was left in my room alone most hours of the day. It was basically like a jail. They did send people in to teach me necessary things I needed to know, for experiments and tests. That was why I was taught to read, to count, and just some basic knowledge and history about the world. So I could conjure those visuals for people when the made me. But other than that, I was kept in a room alone."
"Alone? We've heard reports of multiple children. Were you not aware of them?"
"We were mostly isolated from the other children. At least I was, most of the years. I heard whispers that there were other kids there but I never saw any except one."
"Tell us about that child."
"She was a baby. Can you believe that? I don't know where they got her or how but they were testing on a baby, the fucking bastards. I think back and it still makes me ill. I was at least 4 or 5 when I was taken, but a baby? That girl didn't know anything outside of that world."
"Do you remember anything about her? Her skills? Did she have any at that time?"
"I know she'd already received her identification marker. Imagine tattooing a baby. Disgusting. She was marked with 011. Eleven. That was all I knew her as. She was four when I escaped, so I don't remember much and I don't know how much she could do. The only thing I ever saw was that when she had temper tantrums in our room, you know, because she was a baby, it affected the lights in the room."
"The lights?"
"Yeah, they would flicker or pulse. One time she started wailing and the lightbulbs just popped. Glass just rained down on us from the ceiling. They had to move our room because she'd burnt out the sockets…"
Mike wasn't sure how long he sat there, frozen in place. He wasn't sure if he'd stopped breathing or if the room had chilled to ice. He wasn't sure how his heart could beat so fast for so long, or if his hands would work from how much they were sweating. He just knew that his eyes felt raw when he finally blinked, the words seared into his retinas so much that he could see them behind his eyelids.
Glass rained down… burnt out the sockets… chronic nosebleeds… Eleven… the lights…kept in a room alone… weak for days… like a jail… chronic nosebleeds… chronic nosebleeds… El- Eleven… the lights… the lights… the lights…
"This is crazy this is crazy… this is crazy..." Mike breathed through a jittering jaw, but that didn't stop him as his body seemed to lurch and his fingers dropped hard on the keys. He struggled to get the words out, but finally his shaking hands input 'Hawkins National Laboratory' back into the search bar. With a laser-like intensity he leaped down the rabbit hole.
It seemed so absolutely insane. So far fetched and ridiculous, but that didn't stop him. Quite the opposite actually. He burned through tabloids, conspiracy sites, newspaper articles and everything he could find. It was about thirty minutes in that his eyes blew wide open and his breath officially caught in his chest.
A police report, only two lines long, from about 12 years back, detailing that Chief James Hopper had visited the laboratory.
He could almost feel El's shirt he'd slept in on his chest once again, Hawkins PD emblazoned upon the cotton.
Mike looked at the date with a gaping jaw, shook his head frantically, and dashed out of his bedroom.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he'd heard the living room ignite with chatter at some point in the recent past. It must have been mid-afternoon. Dustin and Will had gotten home and video games were echoing through the house. He moved in a rushed trance as he entered the living room and stopped short. Will and Dustin looked up in surprise.
"Hey...?" Dustin said hesitantly as he pressed paused on the videogame. He looked Mike up and down. "No offense, but you look like shit."
"I didn't get much sleep last night," he replied, his voice flat. Hoarse.
"Didn't you have a date?" Will asked with a smirk.
"Yes."
"Oooh! Didn't get much sleep huh?" Dustin teased, "Pray tell, why would that be?"
"I don't have time for your bullshit, Dustin," Mike snapped. "Will, I need to talk to your mom."
"Okay, that is NOT the thing to say when you're asked about not getting sleep on a date," Dustin retorted with surprise.
"Why my mom?" Will asked, almost wary.
"It's…" Mike sighed, "It's about the lights."
"That again?" Will said with a sigh, "Mike, I'm telling you. It's just a theory my Mom has."
"Well, I think she might be onto something, so I want - I need - to talk to her."
Will regarded Mike for a long moment, but Mike did not waver. Finally, he shrugged, pulled out his phone and dialed. "Hi Mom. No, I'm fine. Mike wants to you talk to you, actually. About… the light explosion? Yeah, I don't know. He's… here, just talk to him."
Mike mouthed a big silent 'thank you' to Will as he snatched the phone from his grasp. "Hi. Mrs. Byers?"
"How many times do I have to tell you Mike, please call me Joyce," she replied kindly on the other side of the line, "So, you've got me curious. What do you want to know?"
Mike looked at the boys and, making a split second decision, took the phone back to his room and shut the door. He kept his voice low as he continued. "You mentioned that you went to the police after that night, right? Do you remember if you talked to Chief James Hopper?"
At that, she scoffed. Loud. "Of course I talked to Jim, and he blew me off. Hard. Multiple times."
"You asked him about the lab?" Mike asked, his voice beginning to sound desperate.
"I did…Mike, what is this about?"
"I just…" he thought quickly on his feet. "I think the same thing is going on here, or something really similar. If he maybe knows something then… maybe I want to talk to him?"
"Why do you think he would know anything?" She asked darkly.
"Because I've now found two police reports that state he visited the laboratory a couple years before it was closed. Do you remember what month this happened at your house, by any chance?"
"Oh, of course," she replied easily, "I've got a whole folder on it. Here, give me just a minute. I'll pull it out." Mike felt his hand shaking as shuffling crackled through on the other side of the line. Finally, after a crinkle of papers, Mrs. Byers continued, "The electrician's receipt is from November that year. The 9th. I think they came by three days after it happened, maybe?"
Mike looked down at the computer screen at the second of two police reports on the screen, dated November 5th.
"Yeah, I think he knows something," Mike said heavily, his stomach turning to lead. "How exactly did he push you off?
At that, she fell quiet.
"Mrs. Byers? You there?"
"I don't know if I should be talking about that," she said hesitantly.
"What do you mean?"
"Mike," she asked, her voice serious. "Are people unsafe?"
Mike could only think of El.
"I think so, maybe."
At that, she took a deep breath. "Okay, well… Will didn't know about him so please don't mention this, but... we had been seeing each other."
"You and Chief Hopper?" he asked, his eyes bulging.
"Yes, not for long but I thought maybe it was, you know, going somewhere. But then," her voice layered harsh once again, "when I went to get his help with the lights and I told him my theory he…" she huffed, "he told me that I was being delusional and that he didn't want to continue seeing me."
"Whoa."
"Yeah… so, when I say that police blew me off, that is what I mean."
Mike's stomach tightened another notch. "What do you… know about him?"
"Oh, I don't know much anymore," she said, "Still the Chief of Police. Divorced a long time ago. Daughter died when she was really young. Cancer."
Mike's eyebrow curled up in surprise. "His daughter… died?"
"Oh yeah," she said, "Years before this happened, though."
Mike's chest began to release, his breath coming easier, he almost laughed as she continued. This was crazy. He was being crazy. This was -
"- And oh, I think I heard he adopted a foster kid at some point, but that was years after we stopped talking - "
The release stopped, ice returning even thicker to his veins.
"Foster kid?" He stuttered. "Do you know if it was a girl? Or-or a boy?"
"Really, I don't know much, hun," Mrs. Byers said apologetically. Then, with more hesitancy, she asked, "Why do you think that people are unsafe, Mike? Are you alright? The boys? Are you all safe? "
"Yeah! Oh yeah," Mike spurted emphatically, his energy spiking as his breath continued to tighten. "It's just. I've seen a couple things. Not just what happened at that bar. And I think whatever happened at your house is - is happening here. And it's, whatever it is, its unsafe. So, I'm just trying to get all of the information I can so I can figure out what's going on because it's -"
"- driving you crazy?"
"Yes," he said empathically.
Mrs. Byers laughed, "Mike, honey. I get that. OH!"
"What?" Mike barked.
"I just… wow, how did I forget this?!" She exclaimed. "Wow, time flies. The city has a ten year moratorium on police and city records and the like. I always meant to go find out what I could when the records became available but I didn't realize how much time had passed! Listen, how would you like it if I went down to public records and did a little digging?"
"You can… do that?" he asked.
"Yeah! I know Barry who runs the place. I'll give you a ring if I find anything?"
"Okay? Sure. Thank you."
"Call you in a bit, then."
"Do you have my number?"
"Sweetie, you've been my son's best friend for twenty years. I have you on speed dial just in case," she said with a laugh, "It's a mom thing. Oh, and can you hand me back to Will? I have to…"
Mike didn't hear the rest of what Mrs. Byers said as he said a quick yes and barreled out of his room to hand the phone back to Will. He returned to his room without another word, and laid straight down, his eyes stitched to the ceiling.
He'd been hoping that Mrs. Byers would poke a hole in his hypothesis but… too much lined up. The connecting points were too direct for him to dismiss them. But one thing out of all of it surprised him. It stirred his stomach and made him shake. It wasn't the science behind this possibility that was causing him to feel ill. It wasn't the implications it could have on his studies, on physics, and science as a whole.
It was El.
If his absolutely INSANE theory was right… if El had been tested on at this… this place… and if, as a resulte, she had spurts of some kind of… energy expulsion… then that meant that they happened suddenly, inconsistently, followed by nosebleeds and migraines and…
What if she couldn't control it?
What if she was hurting herself? Her body? Her brain?
What if… what if she didn't even know?
That was when it clicked. In the blink of an eye, all of his doubt flew from the window.
El, without knowledge or control over something so powerful… could be killed.
Mike bolted up from his bed and back to his desk. He grabbed his notebooks and leafed them open. Weeks of deadend attempts at figuring out the lights, and the insane spikes up during the skydives holy shit, stared back at him.
His hands began to move a pencil fast, rethinking all of it with his new possible hypothesis at the center. And he didn't know for sure if he was right, but he did know one thing.
If he was right… he could help her.
And if he was right? He had to help her. To understand it. To harness it. To control it. They could do tests, figure out what was happening and how, and in that he could help her. He could maybe even keep her safe.
But before the took any further steps, he needed more evidence…
He wasn't sure how long it was, thirty minutes or three hours, but it was like he snapped out of a trance when his phone rang.
"Hi, dear," Mrs. Byers said on the other line. "I looked through everything they had and… there was nothing."
"Nothing?" He chimed back desperately
"Honestly, it was weird. It seemed like things were missing? Wouldn't you think that there'd be information about what happened at that.. at that place? After all these years?"
"The files were just… empty?"
"Almost."
"Okay, well, thanks for looking," Mike said, discouraged. He thought fast, "Hey, if I texted you pictures of the light sockets I was talking about, would you be able to tell me if it looks like the same thing you saw?"
"Of course."
Without missing a beat, Mike jumped up and darted out of his bedroom door.
El was just wrapping up for the day, cataloging gear after a final tourist dive when her phone rang. She fished it out of her bag and was surprised to see her dad's number.
"Hi?" she said into the receiver.
"Hey, kid," he said. Her chest tightened as she heard the gruffness in his voice. "Any interest in coming home for dinner tonight?"
"I was just there day before yesterday…" she replied, befuddled.
"And I can't see my daughter two nights in a week?"
"I - what - "
"El, come home for dinner," He stated clearly. His voice was heavy, heavy in a way he only used if…
El's blood turned to ice.
"I'll be there in an hour."
Both of them hung up at that, no pleasantries shared at all.
"Hey, wanna go to Thelma's?" Max asked as the walked into the storeroom. "It's 2-for-1 wings tonight."
"I can't…" El replied curtly as she turned to pick up her bag, "I have to go to my Dad's." She crossed almost immediately to the door before she stopped and turned back to her friend. "I'm sorry, can you… can you find another ride home?"
Max looked at her curiously. "Is everything okay?"
"I…" she swallowed her real answer, "I think so. I just have to go."
"I'll find a ride," Max replied quizzically. "Goodnight?"
"Night!" El called back, already out the door.
The drive toward Hawkins felt like forever and a day. She could hardly contain her speeding. She wished she'd asked more questions on the phone, though she knew he wouldn't have answered anything over a phone line with the fact that anything, anytime, could be bugged.
But, wow, it had been so long… There hadn't been a peep in years. And still, just like that, in a split second, the fear that always itched at the edges of her mind found a reason for its existence.
What if they'd actually found her this time? She'd been so careless lately. Something could have gotten back to... to someone. She shivered anew at what had occurred at Thelma's, the backroom exploded like a love letter to her powers, there in public for all to see.
She drove faster until the curves of the backroad to her dad's house appeared, too dangerous to speed. She went as fast as she could, though, and she was in her dad's driveway in under an hour.
"You were fast," her dad called from the kitchen as she bounded through the door.
She didn't answer, she just looked at him, eyes wide and terrorized.
"Okay, it's not that bad. Take a breath. At least I don't think it is," he said, holding up his hands. "Someone looked at the files."
"The files?" She asked, confused.
"At the public records office."
"How do you know?" She replied, her voice clipped and tight. "Who was it?"
At that, he grimaced. "I have some files flagged. The real ones and then some red herrings. Barry's supposed to call me if any of them get pulled."
"And they pulled the… the real ones?"
"Just the ones about that night. About that lab."
"Who was it?" she asked emphatically.
"He… doesn't know," Hopper spat with abject annoyance, "He was out to lunch when it happened and his assistant just said 'a woman who said she was a friend of Barry's' came in."
El looked at him with a dropped jaw. "Didn't… there was no… like, check in?"
"Oh, there is," he said, his anger flaring. "She didn't use it."
"Is there a surveillance - "
"- wasn't running."
"What?!" She yelped.
"El, calm down." Hopper walked toward her carefully. "It could be nothing. It could be a kid's school project for all I know. All I know is that no one has ever pulled these files since they became available a few years back. So, we have to stay alert."
"What did the files say?"
"Oh, don't worry about that. They said nothing," Hopper said, shaking his head, "I've completely redacted them. Can't not have them there, though."
"Is that… legal?"
"Oh, it's highly illegal," he replied with a smirk, "But then again, harboring a superpowered child fugitive is also illegal so I think I became a crooked cop a long time ago."
At that, a little bit of the panicked fire in El's chest extinguished. "It could be nothing." She repeated.
"It could be nothing. It could be something," her dad sighed, "Listen, I didn't want to call you home like this when it could be nothing, but you know I couldn't tell you over the phone."
"I know."
"Just keep a low profile, got it?"
"Yes," she said soberly.
"Now, do you want some mac and cheese while you're here? I can't say I had a real plan for dinner so that's all I've got."
At that, El smiled, just the slightest bit. "Sure."
El tried to relax in her father's company for the next couple of hours. They watched a short movie while they ate. He was kind, not pushy, and didn't really pry over her feelings on the matter, which was nice because it allowed her for a moment to forget that it was happening.
But it all came rushing back the second that she walked out of the cabin door to go home. It all felt heavy, too heavy. Instead of walking to her car, her feet dragged her in another direction under the waning haze of twilight. She found what she was looking for easily, and just as it always did, it brought her the tiniest bit of calm.
It was what she always did when something was on her mind: a wander through the trees of her father's land. The lush overgrowth always felt like a comfort. It helped her clear her thoughts in order to lay out plans. It was the best she'd been able to do when she'd been young. The trees had provided the only alternate experience to the inside of the cabin during her two years in hiding. Plus, the frest air and green had always seemed so precious after a lifetime indoors.
She'd kept up the habit as her boundaries had grown, until a tiny well worn path had appeared throughout the woods' expanse from years of her pacing. Her little private trail started from the left side of the cabin. It meandered through the trees to the left and wound its way up the tiny hill at the far end of the property. Finally, it cut back, following the tree line beside the sparsely used road, her foot falls weaving in and out of the trunks along the aligning ditch toward the gravel driveway and beyond.
She'd pattered through her thoughts on her little trail countless times. In the cold. In the snow. On windy days and sunny days. And on one occasion, while trapped within a storm.
Though she loathed the memory, she couldn't help but think about it every time that she passed the mailbox. And even if she'd succeeded in shaking it herself, her father would never let it fully slip from her memory.
El wasn't sure what had been on her mind that night. Her upcoming move to Indianapolis, maybe? The odd sensation of what life would be like when she was living on her own? She was never sure. But she had found herself deeply lost in thought as the sun disappeared and the sky turned black. So lost in thought, in fact, that she hadn't registered the approach of a storm. In her defense, it had crashed out of nowhere that night, and with a sudden torrent, it had opened straight down upon her. She'd stopped in place, right up against the largest tree near the driveway, at the spot where the ditch ended and the flat surface leading from the road to the driveway began. Hair matting quickly to her face, she sheltered under the large branches to chart the quickest path to rush back to the house.
Yet, before she could take a step, the screeching of tires had blared harsh in her ears. She'd spun around right as the lights of a car tilted and rounded upon her, careening in her direction at an uncontrolled and breakneck speed. Not just toward her, but toward the massive tree that the car was truly no match for.
Her reaction had almost been instinctual. Almost. When she thought about it later, she couldn't deny that something in her had felt an urgency bigger than herself. An urgency for them, whoever they were, barreling toward her and the tree like a train flown off of the rails.
That urgency had coursed through her, making her push too hard and too fast. The sensation of the hood crushing in on itself was so intense that she could have convinced herself that she'd done it with her own hand. The car halted immediately, stopped by her power. From it's crushed hood shot a soft thread of smoke. She froze, hand in the air, rain spattering her sight within the blinding headlights. And for a split second she forgot… it was only she who was blind.
The shock of being seen, hand throwing power through the air, blood upon her nose, still made her body run cold with fear over three years later.
El shook her head as the memory flashed fresh. That was old history, she reminded herself. Years of silence had proven that there was no need for her to worry about that person. She was sure that her father had gotten to the bottom of the incident, or at least that he had tried, but she had resolved to never ask. She didn't want to know. Honestly, she wanted to forget.
She only hoped that the person, or persons, were okay, and that they'd been confused enough to not connect the dots.
Maybe they hadn't even seen her at all…
El left the memory behind, the concept of that night feeling just a little too fresh with the news she had just learned. She got in her car and headed home right as the sky turned to black.
I think it looks the same? Maybe? It's a little hard to tell. Can you get another picture?
Mike bit his lip in frustration at Mrs. Byers's text reply. The truth was, he couldn't get another picture. He'd already jumped through so many hoops to get Dustin to drive him to Thelma's for dinner without it being suspicious. He'd had to sneak away, saying he was going to the bathroom, only to slip into the game room instead. The old wood paneled room hadn't been cleaned since the incident the past week. The seared Contra machine was still in the middle of the room. Just as Mrs. Byers had explained but Mike hadn't noticed that night, the lights on the ceiling had in fact exploded. Some of them had, anyway. He could only reach one close enough to take a picture, the ceiling being too high even for his long arms to easily reach.
But clearly, the picture hadn't been good enough.
He knew where he could get a much better picture. At a much better height. But he really didn't want to do that.
But as he pulled back, questioning his potential actions, he could only see El, bleary eyed with blood dripping from her nose, holding her head, in pain.
Maybe it would be worth it.
That got him back out the door at midnight, and a laser focus that brought him marching straight to her home.
He gulped as he stopped at the thin walkway to her door. Her house was dark, no lights on at all, and it gave him a bit of relief. He moved as quietly and slowly as he could, hands shaking against his phone with his camera open. He was grateful for the burnt out porch lights, for they concealed his totally invasive movements. Praying that he would go unnoticed, because it would be potential relationship suicide to be found on her front porch unawares at 12:30 at night, Mike stepped gingerly onto the tiny patio and moved to the left where one of the sconces, or what was left of it anyway, was at his eye level. With a grimace, he lifted his phone and held his breath. His finger pushed to take the picture. The delay of the flash made his stomach roil. He winced as the bright light flashed into the empty and broken socket, illuminating his location for the most split of seconds.
It was going to have to do, one picture, because this was -
-the light in the kitchen flickered on.
Light flooded the patio from the window on his right.
Shit! he mouthed silently as his arms and legs clumsily pulled away and tripped on a planter that he hadn't even noticed by his feet. It crashed off of the patio and onto the cement below, cracking loudly.
He didn't stay behind to see if there was any more movement. His long legs were good for one thing: running away as fast as he could.
El pushed herself deeper against the wall for her kitchen, her heart in her throat. She held her breath even though it hurt to do so. Edging her way against the wall, she finally pulled up the courage to look out of the curtain. She could not see anything on the patio. Letting out her breath, she slid down the wall, tears edging at her eyes.
That had not been a cat. The movements were not lithe and small. They sounded like the size of a human. On her front porch. After midnight. Making flashes. Then running away…
The files pulled at the public records office in Hawkins didn't feel like a fluke anymore.
El fought back a strangled cry.
She knew, in her gut, somehow... someone had found her…
Thanks so much to those of you that have left comments recently! It's been so great to hear from all of you and what you're thinking about this. Just a couple chapters left!