A FEW WEEKS LATER
"I'm telling you, I got it right! The trivia guy was wrong." Dustin, agitated and defensive, scuffed his shoe against the sidewalk outside the bar.
"Dude. No. Face it. You were wrong," Lucas's retort was forceful - full of the frustration that had been simmering in his eyes for the last ten minutes, "You were wrong, you refused to write down my correct answer, and you lost us first place!"
"Guys, does it really matter?" Will cut in weakly, "I had fun either way."
"Yes it matters!" Dustin griped, "You think we do this for fun?"
"No." Will replied with a roll of his eyes, "This is definitely not fun…"
"Does it always end up like this?" El's soft whisper upon Mike's ear was a very welcome change of tone from the agitated scene playing out before them.
Mike chuckled. He kept his voice low in reply. "Sometimes. Not usually. But I can't stop Lucas and Dustin from taking trivia so seriously. Believe me, I've tried."
"I can't believe I've agreed to come to this so many times." Max grumbled from beside them, "I know better…"
El snorted, "You answered five questions and cheered the entire time. Admit it - You like trivia!"
"How dare you," Max growled, her eyes narrowing at El. But a spark of something new quickly lit up her expression, and with it, Mike sensed a change in topic. Max backed a few feet further away from the bickering boys and motioned for them to join her out of earshot. When they did, she leaned in and dropped her voice low. "So, I was thinking while I was, you know, dying of boredom in there. Lucas's birthday is next week… " A conspiratorial glint appeared in Max's grin. "I think we should do a repeat of your birthday, Mike."
Mike resolutely shook his head no. "Lucas will never go for skydiving. Not after last time."
"I know..." Max replied, poorly masking her dismay, "But you didn't really agree to it for your birthday either, did you?"
That was a point that Mike was easily willing to concede, "I definitely didn't."
"I think it's a good idea."
A new voice appeared on the edge of their tight circle. The girls jumped in surprise, but Mike immediately recognized the voice as a safe addition to their covert conversation. He made space for Will to join them.
"You like the idea?" Mike asked him.
Will shrugged, "I just know that skydiving for your birthday was all Lucas's idea, so it's pretty hypocritical that he's such a baby about it now."
"It was his idea?" Mike asked, his eyebrow raising, "I figured it was Dustin's."
Will shook his head, "Nope. It was Lucas. I tried to talk him out of it, but I was outvoted once he got Dustin onboard."
"Well, thanks for looking out for me, I guess," Mike tightened his grip on El's hand, rubbing his thumb across the back of her knuckles. "I think that day turned out pretty alright for me, though."
"Yeah, and I can guarantee that it would turn out alright for Lucas, too," Max cut in, "Plus, I happen to know some people on the inside, so I bet I can get a really good deal."
Max turned a pleading gaze towards El, but El did not seem convinced. "Why do you want to make Lucas skydive again?" She asked with a hint of suspicion.
El seemed to have asked the exact question that Max hadn't wanted to answer. The girl's expression turned inexplicable. She let her eyes veer away to the boys still bickering ten feet away. Then, for the first time, Mike saw something crack within the redhead's ever-hardened veneer. "I just…" she sighed, "I want him to like it."
"And?" El pressed.
"And…" Max made a sour face before finally admitting a truth that seemed bitter on her tongue. "I feel like it's my fault that he didn't like it last time."
Instead of comforting her friend, El's eyebrow raised in amusement. "So, you're finally ready to admit that there's a problem with your habit of scarring first timers for life?"
Max shot her a look, but she'd lost her edge, "Maybe a bit…"
El studied her friend for a long moment, a sense of satisfaction in her gaze. Finally, she said, "Well, the last afternoon session this Sunday isn't booked yet. We could do it then."
Max's eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas, "You'll do it?!"
El shrugged easily, "Yeah, it'd be fun. Guys?"
"I'd do it again," Will offered easily.
Mike was outvoted, but he couldn't deny the tiny bit of glee he felt at the thought of giving Lucas a taste of his own medicine. "If you want to do it, then I won't stand in your way. I'll go again."
Max clapped her hands. "Yes! Consider it booked! We're - "
"What are you guys talking about?"
Lucas's voice cut into the group. The four conspiring friends stiffened like statues.
"What?" Mike asked, maybe a little too fast.
"Nothing…" El evaded.
"The fact that Dustin straight up LOST the game for us!" Max cried - in shockingly believable fake rage.
"Right?! That's what I'm saying!" Lucas cried. And just like that, he was effectively thrown off the scent.
"Hey!" Dustin cried in renewed frustration, "Why won't anyone listen to me!? The guy was wrong, not me!"
The cacophony of embittered voices exploded into yet another round of argument.
"So, what are you doing now?" El whispered.
"Well," Mike replied, leaning close into her ear and speaking through murmured lips, "considering Dustin and Lucas are going to bicker until they go to bed, I'm thinking - "
El shot him a secret look, "You want to come to my place?"
Mike smiled. "Exactly."
El wasted no time. Raising her voice, she addressed the group, "Okay, I'm tired. We're gonna go."
"Cool." Max replied, "And you'll book the thing we talked about?"
El nodded, shooting Max a wink. "Yes."
With a final wave of goodbye, the two rounded the corner and began the short trek from the bar back to El's place. The frustrated voices of his friends took a little longer than he would have liked to fade away, and Mike found himself relieved to see the back of them for the night. "Did you have fun?" Mike asked, a little hesitantly, "The guys weren't too much, were they?"
"Yeah, I had fun," El replied cheerfully, her smile instantly putting him at ease, "I don't really have friends I've known forever. You guys act like siblings."
Mike snickered, "Yeah, I've heard that before."
After a pause, El followed his self conscious question with one of her own. "You sure you're okay with diving again this weekend?"
He didn't have to pause before nodding. "Oh, yeah. It'll be fun watching Lucas's face when he realizes."
"For once it's not just Max enjoying the misfortune of others," she said with a laugh before shooting Mike a teasing look, "Do you think you'll be able to land on your feet this time?"
Mike bit back a smile, "I make no promises, but I'll definitely try."
El's giggle filled the night air in the most lovely way. And with that, she turned her gaze back toward the short evening walk before them. There was still a hint of warmth still lingering from the hot summer day. Grasshoppers chirped, unseen in the green growth around them.
It was a serene evening, and Mike allowed himself to simply relax and soak it in.
It was a peculiar sensation, the sense of ease he'd been feeling so often lately. It took some getting used to, if he was honest. For so long, he had lived with a mind that felt akin to a minefield. The answers he'd so desperately sought had gnawed at his mind like an infection, and they had made so much of his life feel tense, wrong, or on edge.
Life was feeling different now.
He was feeling different now.
Not the least… because of El.
Mike could hardly contain the smile that filled him at the thought of her.
It had only been a little over three weeks since El had shown up on his doorstep, lips full of honest truth that turned his world upside down and made him feel everything at once. Ever since that moment, she had consumed him at a new level, filling him with an intensity he wasn't sure he'd ever felt before. It was a sensation that would bowl him over in the most unexpected and simple moments. Like when he was half awake and her hair would tickle his skin at the very spot where she slept soundly upon his shoulder. Or when her laugh would burst from her with such intensity, sounding like the sweetest kind of freedom. How she would look at him so softly when his anxieties would creep back up, and how her honey hued eyes would chase them right back down.
In every one of those moments, words would ring through him like a bell. Words that tasted so sweet on his tongue. Words begging to be freed.
But, they were very grand proclamations, and Mike couldn't help but fear… was it too much, too soon?
Because he was just, well, Mike.
And she? She was so much more.
She was El.
The girl who was currently slowing her pace and guiding him along the small walkway toward her front door.
The girl who was taking a quick look over shoulder to ensure that they were alone.
The girl who twitched her head and popped the door lock open in a way that Mike couldn't even scientifically comprehend.
The girl who had so much to give… that it made her incredible powers feel like a footnote on the list of her virtues.
El stepped through the doorway of her home and held it open for Mike to follow. He squeezed in behind her, his back brushing up against the doorsill.
He didn't pass the entire way around her, though.
He'd waited long enough.
Mike snaked his arm around El's waist from behind just as she pressed the door shut. He buried his head into her hair, and allowed himself to be overcome by her simple subtle scent.
A soft click echoed through the dark entryway as El locked the door. Then, she let her body release back into his arms.
"This is much better than listening to my friends fight about a stupid trivia question," Mike found himself whispering, his lips falling upon the ridge of her ear.
"Much better…" she murmured.
With a light flick of his free hand, Mike swept El's hair to the side, clearing the way for his lips to reach her skin. He dropped one… two… three… languid kisses down her neck.
"Is this okay?" he asked.
"Mmhmm."
He could hear a smile in her breathy reply.
And with that, she turned in his arms, demonstrating just how 'okay' it was for her. Her kiss was insistent, revealing the impatience that she too must have felt through the evening. Mike moaned at the urgency of her touch as she raised on her toes to meet his height. Before he knew it, El was moving, guiding him blindly through the dark house, never taking a moment to pull her lips away. Hands ranging and breaths deepening, his feet tripped clumsily over shoes and bags that lined the floor of her entryway, and after a few delirious seconds, his shoulder brushed against the doorway of her bedroom.
He pressed against the doorsill, pulling her closer, but El showed no interest in stopping there. With a surety that Mike felt no choice but to surrender to, El tugged him through the door and down toward the bed -
- Yet she misjudged the distance by just a bit -
"Ah!"
What should have been a mess of limbs falling onto the soft mattress instead devolved into El stumbling toward the floor.
The pull of gravity upon El's body sparked Mike's attention back to greater awareness. Miraculously catching his own balance, he tightened his arms around her waist and stopped her fall before she fully lost her footing. El erupted into laughter as she grasped onto his arms and pulled herself deeper into his embrace to regain her balance. Then, with a chuckle of his own, Mike swept her sideways, successfully landing them both on the bed on their second try.
El fell back onto the pillow beside him. Dim street light shone through the window by her bed. It painted across her face, catching the sparkle in her eyes and lighting up the edge of her smile.
And there it was again.
That feeling.
It smashed into his chest, stole his breath, and left him stunned. It knocked at the back of his teeth, begging to be freed.
But it was too soon... Wasn't it? He'd only known her for six weeks! - Who was he kidding, though? - The very same words had almost slipped from his lips a month ago. It wasn't just going to magically disappear. On the contrary, it felt like his feelings were duplicating upon themselves every day, so much so that his skin felt like it was about to burst from his struggle to contain them. He didn't know if he could hold back much longer - Not with every second that she consumed his mind - Not with the surge he felt every time he made her laugh - Not with the soft gratefulness he felt when she encouraged him, made him feel so deeply understood, seeing him in a way he had always craved to be seen.
El's laugh fell away. Her glistening honey gaze wrapt onto his with a curious intensity that did not help to calm his feelings.
DING DING
Mike stiffened as a text notification chimed through the room. In that split second, air rushed back into his lungs.
El paused just long enough to reach into her back pocket and drop her phone, unviewed, upon the bedside table.
Her wide eyed attention swept back to Mike. "Were you going to say something?" she asked expectantly.
Mike froze.
He wished he'd been ready to say something. Yet, that tiny interruption had been all it took to scare the words back down into his chest.
Mike pulled together a shaky smile and shook his head. "It's nothing," he mumbled.
It was absolutely not nothing.
Maybe El was being stubborn, but she didn't really care.
She buried her face deep into the crook of Mike's shoulder, cutting off her vision from the morning light that was pouring in through the window, willing it to go away. Her arm tightened around his chest, "Just a little longer? It's Tuesday. You don't teach on Tuesdays."
A husky chuckle reverberated through Mike's chest. His voice was thick from sleep. "Believe me, I don't want to leave. This is what happens when I procrastinate until the last minute, though. Now I have only one day to grade fifty-two finals."
El cringed a bit. A hint of guilt snuck into her voice, "Is that my fault?"
"No," Mike replied kindly, his dark eyes peeking out with amusement from behind his droopy eyelids. He stroked her hair in a reassuring way, "It's my fault. I need to have better time management skills and maybe not play hooky with you for days on end. But hey, the class is done tomorrow. Then I won't be teaching for a month and a half, so you can have me all to yourself."
El hummed her approval, "I like the sound of that."
"Me too." His fingers twisted softly into the hair at the nape of her neck, "Hey, do you mind if I use your shower before I go? It'd be easier if I went straight to the campus."
"Sure," El said, but she didn't pull away. Instead, she propped her chin up onto her hand and caught his eye. A devilish glint appeared in her smile, "You have to pay for it, though."
Mike replied with a rakish grin. Beneath the covers, his hand slid down up her back, pulling her closer into him. "Is this payment?" he muttered. His words brushed warmly against her lips before he closed the space with a kiss.
"Mmhmm…" she breathed.
And in that moment, El allowed herself to melt into Mike one final time before the official start of the day.
His kisses began as pecks, but they gradually grew deeper, heavier.
A familiar wave of heady warmth shot through her, straight down to her toes.
Once upon a time this intense feeling that he elicited within her would have completely unraveled her. The light above them would have burst, raining glass down upon them.
Not anymore.
Sparks of intensity still burst through her at Mike's touch, and they did so in a dazzling array, but she felt a harmony within her now. Her power felt… tempered. Quelled. Softened by an immense safety that she was beginning to feel in his embrace.
Or maybe…
Maybe she'd just had a lot of practice in containing it.
Because honestly? El had had a lot of practice containing this feeling lately.
The truth was, she had hardly spent a night apart from Mike in weeks.
Maybe they were rushing things. Hell, they probably were. But El couldn't find it in herself to care. How could she care when every one of his touches made her crave the next one more? How could she care when whole novels of her life had spilled from her lips and onto his attentive ears during those endless nights, making her feel lighter than she could ever remember feeling before? And how could she care when she was beginning to burst with something new? Something that was feeling deeper with each passing day?
She was long past overthinking anything that had to do with Mike, though. She had wrapped herself in knots over Mike in the beginning. At this point she had accepted the simple truth that she'd probably known all along: Nothing felt better than this.
The crescendo of Mike's sweet kiss cut off abruptly. His grip dug into the small of her waist. He buried his face into her neck and groaned out a tortured laugh,"You're going to be the death of me. If I don't leave now I'm not going to find the strength."
A satisfied giggle escaped El's lips, "I get it. You're responsible. Go." Accepting reality with grace, she rolled toward the wall side of the bed and made space for Mike to get up.
Mike rolled toward her, though, not away. And when her gaze fell upon his, her breath caught.
He was giving her that look again.
Intense and mercurial, it had been flashing through his dark eyes so often as of late. And just like every other time - he disarmed her, making her chest burst with something that she couldn't quite name.
Mike smiled then. And, like always, the intensity of the moment diffused as quickly as it came.
He pecked a quick kiss upon her forehead, rolled out of the bed, and made his way to the shower.
Eyes closed, El savored the simple sounds of him moving through her house. His hands opening the towel cupboard… the click of the latch on the bathroom door… the soft hiss of the water echoing through the house as the shower started. It put her into the most comforting and delightful trance. And for a long while, she had no idea how long, she felt no need to move. With a dazed smile painted to her lips, El allowed herself to simply sink into the bed as her body buzzed with the fading sensation of his touch.
It was a dinging phone that pulled her out of her reverie.
Curious, El forced one eye open. She clumsily reached for her phone on the bedside table.
Not one, but two texts greeted her.
The first, from last night...
"Hey kid, I'll be in town for work tomorrow. Was thinking we could get breakfast."
El's second eye popped open, and they both widened.
The second text was brand new.
"Pulling up now."
El's stomach dropped like lead in a lake.
"Shit!"
Gasping, El shot out of bed and scrambled for clothing, but before she could even get fully dressed from the wrinkly clothes that were easily accessible on the floor, a heavy fist knocked upon her front door.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!"
Like Cinderella's clock striking twelve, the dream El had been living in for the past three weeks - perfect, easy, serene - crumbled for the thin facade that it was at the sound of his knock. The positive simplicity that she'd been clinging to turned sharp. Everything she'd been trying to avoid rushed back into her mind.
Maybe she could just ignore him! Yes. Let his knock fall on deaf ears!
...But her car was in the driveway, and he had a key to her house...
A second knock sprung from the door.
...The shower still hissed from the bathroom…
Maybe she could handle this quickly - Very very quickly.
El cursed emphatically under her breath and jogged to her front door. She prayed that her hammering heart wouldn't be audible as she opened the front door and stared directly into the eyes of the man who made everything she'd been desperately barring from her mind flash right back to the surface.
"...Hi Dad..."
Jim Hopper stood in her doorway.
He looked… different. His police uniform was freshly pressed. His face was clean shaven. He'd even gotten a haircut?
Honestly, he looked better than he had in years.
Or maybe it had just been a while since El had seen him.
It had been almost a month, after all...
… A month of cutting their phone calls off after two quick minutes, all before giving him a single breath to ask questions that she did not want to answer. Days and weeks of delayed replies or outright ignored text messages. Invitations to the cabin that had been met with excuses about 'work' and 'chores'.
Anything to avoid talking about, well, any of it.
It felt weird to push him away, but it wasn't as weird as how he'd responded to it.
Or rather how he'd not responded to it.
He'd been letting her do it. He'd been giving her… space. In the weeks that had followed the 'incident' at the cabin, Jim Hopper hadn't pressed her. He hadn't asked about the files that he'd originally demanded she read. He hadn't asked about the man who was, currently, right now, at this very moment, naked in her shower. He hadn't pushed her about any of it at all.
Jim Hopper had been acting supremely weird.
But... judging by his shadow in her doorway... El suspected that her time was finally up.
But did he have to choose right now?
"Morning, kid," He said casually. He held up a paper bag and a cup of coffee as he stepped into her home, "Brought you breakfast."
El pushed forward the slightest amount, trying without success to block the large man's entry into the house. She tried to keep her voice casual, but her raging heartbeat was making it hard. "What are you doing here?"
He shot her a curious glance, "I texted you last night. You didn't get it?"
El shook her head lamely and stepped another inch forward to block his way, "No?"
He shrugged, "I've got a regional meeting with the Highway Patrol here in the city today. Thought I'd stop by and spend a bit of time with my daughter before I go." He once again held up the large paper bag and a cup of coffee. The scent of fresh coffee and maple syrup hit her nose. Her stomach betrayed her with a growl. With another step forward, he broke past her pitiful blockade and easily entered the kitchen. "I stopped by that place you like on the corner. Got you a waffle."
In the pause after his words, a very important sound ceased.
The water hiss from the bathroom…
Panic shot through her in a fresh splay, and she did the only thing she could think of. Her booming voice was about three levels too loud as she said, "I'm really surprised to see you here, DAD!"
She desperately hoped that her father hadn't noticed how she'd tilted her voice directly toward the bathroom door...
But it didn't matter -
"WHAT?"
-Because it had backfired. Spectacularly.
Mike's befuddled voice rang from the bathroom. Her father's brow furrowed, and before El could even take another breath, the bathroom door opened.
"What did you say?" Mike asked innocently as he stepped out, dripping wet and clad only into a towel wrapped around his waist. He looked at her curiously for a second, and with one more damning step into the room, his eyes swung to the previously unseen corner of the kitchen.
The corner where Jim Hopper now stood.
Mike's eyes bugged, and an electrically tense silence stretched through the too-small house.
Frozen like a deer in headlights, dripping on the carpet, Mike seemed to forget for a few seconds that his legs worked.
Then, with an instant jolt, he darted into her bedroom and slammed the door.
El pressed her eyes shut as a sickening jolt crashed through her. This was the - last - way that she'd wanted to address this topic. She braced herself for a booming angry voice. She cringed in anticipation of heavy booted feet attempting to storm through her bedroom door. She readied herself for a fight that she so desperately did not want to have.
Yet, while that was what she expected... it was not what she received.
Instead, she was met with limp empty silence.
Seconds passed before she found the courage to peek out of one tightly squinted eye toward her father. He looked stunned. He looked deeply uncomfortable. But angry? Not exactly.
"So that's why you missed my text…" he finally said, his voice quiet. His eyes were stitched tightly upon the coffee cup in his hand. "How long has that been going on?"
El's lip curled into a knee jerk sneer. "Don't act like you didn't already know."
That got his attention.
"How would I know?" he asked with a scoff.
Weeks of frustration were beginning to ride upon the adrenalin that was coursing through her system, "Oh, I don't know, maybe because spying on him has been one of your favorite hobbies for years?"
Jim Hopper let out a gut shaking sigh. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and grumbled, "Kid, I've left him alone since I talked to him. It's been weeks."
"Don't lie."
He shook his head, "I'm not lying."
Something in his voice cut through her emotion, and El found it within herself to meet his eye.
He wasn't lying...
"Why?" was all she could think to say.
A weird hesitation came over him. Her father did not meet her gaze when he said, "He's cleared. That's all I'm going to say. He's not involved with them."
"I know that," she said firmly, "but you wouldn't listen to me. Why do you believe that now?"
A flare in his eyes told her that he had a very specific answer. Yet… he was not going to supply it. "Just trust me. I have my reasons. He's not on the list anymore."
It had taken him a minute, but the real Jim Hopper had finally arrived in her kitchen. Evading details. Saying no more than he absolutely had to say. Keeping her in the dark.
"Hey," she spat, standing her ground, "You demanded that I should know about this stuff now. Tell me what you know."
"It's not like that," he said with a shake of his head. Then, his cheeks blushed a bizarrely unexpected hint of pink? "Listen," he said quickly, "I'm not here because of…" his gaze flitted to her bedroom door, "because of him." He turned back to her then, hooking her gaze with his own. "I'm here because we can't go any longer without talking about the files. I know you haven't wanted to have anything to do with me lately. But, if you're not going to talk to me then I at least need to know that you're looking out for yourself. That you know enough to keep yourself safe."
Layers beneath his tough and stoic demeanor, something forlorn brewed in this tone.
And it was then that El realized it...
He was hurt.
"Have you looked at the files?"
He finally asked the question that she had been evading for weeks...
Yet, much to her surprise, her anger had begun to ebb. In its place, a hint of guilt started to rise. She averted her gaze and shook her head 'no'.
She expected disappointment. She expected him to yell. Once again, he defied her expectations.
"Want me to go through them with you?" He offered after a pause, "It might be useful to do it with some of my insight."
While El wasn't too surprised by his offer, she was completely surprised by his tone. He spoke with an uncharacteristic amount of… patience.
"Thank you," she said slowly, surprised to find herself meaning it, "But I think I need to do it myself."
"Okay," he said, his eyes once again focused on his coffee cup, "Maybe you can come by the house once you've done it. We can talk through it. This weekend?"
"Okay," she heard herself agreeing.
"Saturday?" he asked.
"Maybe. I don't know, yet," she said quietly, "I'll have to check with work."
"Okay. Well, just let me know. I'll um… I'll get out of your hair, then. You're clearly uh…" he cleared his throat, "busy. But here, you still need breakfast."
He stepped forward and handed her the breakfast he'd brought her.
It felt like a peace offering.
"Thank you?" she said softly.
He nodded, turned on his heel and made a beeline straight for the door. "See ya, kid," he said over his shoulder as he pulled the door shut behind him.
The door was closed long before El found the ability to stutter, "Bye Dad."
A swirl of emotions erupted through her in the fresh silence of the living room.
"It's safe now," she called out in a daze.
Mike immediately opened the door and stepped out of her room. He was fully dressed. His wet hair was combed through with his fingers. The fear of God was painted in his eyes. "How am I still alive?" he managed to ask, his voice creaky with apprehension.
El couldn't help the embarrassed shudder that shook from her chest. "I don't know. I should've checked my phone last night. He texted," But a tiny smirk crept to her lips as she took a good look at him. "Your shirt is on backwards."
"Oh!" He exclaimed. With frenetic movements, he wriggled around until the shirt was on correctly.
El wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer, but she had to asked it anyway, "Did you hear everything?"
His head was just popping back out of his shirt as he said, "Yeah. I could hear him perfectly. That just happened really differently than I was expecting? Right?"
"Yeah, you're right," El replied, "I'm relieved. But he was acting… I don't know…" there was no other word to explain it, "Weird?"
"Yeah, definitely weird." Mike agreed, before dropping silent for a second. There was a question in his eyes, but he wasn't sharing it.
"What?"
"Well," Mike's tone was hesitant, "I haven't wanted to pry, and you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but... is there a reason why you've been putting off going through the files?"
His question, so straightforward, made it very difficult for her to dance around the topic. Which is exactly what she'd been doing for weeks, if she was honest. You'd think she was a professional dancer for how hard she had tried to evade the topic. In fact, she'd gone further than that. In a way, El had been trying her best to convince herself the silver lockbox didn't even exist, at all.
She'd shoved the box to the back of her closet the first chance she'd gotten, covered it in old blankets, and tried to push it out of her mind.
Then, she'd thrown herself into everything that was good and fresh and new in her life.
But why?
"I guess I just don't want to go back there." she admitted simply. Like clockwork, the unwanted tears that crept up whenever she stepped too close to the topic began to ring her eyes.
She was comforted by Mike's warm hand sliding down her arm until it wrapped around her hand. "You don't have to do it by yourself, El."
El clearly inferred his meaning, but it made her cringe.
Could she do that to him? Could she bring this sweet innocent man even deeper into the truth, after she'd already exposed him to so much? She'd already told him so much, and he'd taken it in with surprisingly little fear. But the files... A whole lifetime of documents that laid out the darkest parts of her life in grave detail?
What would he think of it?
What would he think of her?
"It's heavy stuff," she warned.
That was an understatement.
"I know," he replied, "but I don't want you to feel like you're alone with it."
A sad smile ghosted across her lips as she saw the earnest care in his expression.
But still…
"I think I should do it alone," she said solemnly, "but I'll let you know if I change my mind."
She didn't want to change her mind. Not if she could help it. She could to it, and she could do it alone. Away from the expectant eyes of her father watching every page and casual adding gut churning detail after detail while she took it all in. And away from the innocent eyes of Mike, who she feared might see one too many things... and realize that maybe he had waded into something a bit too deep.
She had to do it alone.
Or at least? She had to try.
So on Tuesday, she decided to do just that.
...but she didn't succeed. She laid in bed until 11am and then passed the day binge watching a show she had minimal interest in.
On Wednesday, she came home from a half day of work with renewed commitment. She got so far as opening the closet that time. She kicked off the blankets that hid the box. She stared at it for a few moment.
Then, she shut the door.
On Thursday evening she even told Mike that she was going to do it, hoping to add some accountability to the equation. She succeeded in pulling the box out of the closet. She set it on the coffee table by her couch. She stared at it. For hours.
But she couldn't bring herself to pop the lock.
By Friday afternoon, she accepted the truth: she couldn't bear to do this alone.
So, despite how nervous it made her to ask him, she felt relief when Mike dutifully showed up at her doorstep on Friday evening. He brought a pizza, a six pack of beer, and a reassuring smile.
She couldn't communicate how grateful she was.
El managed to stall for another hour to have dinner and to hear about his day, but finally, there was nothing left to stand in the way.
"Are you ready?" Mike asked gently, pulling the box closer to them on the coffee table.
What a question.
El wasn't sure how to answer. Because if there was one thing she'd learned in the last week, it was that she wasn't sure if she would ever be ready for this.
...As long as the box remained closed, nothing had to change. Secrets could remain secrets. She could continue the willfully ignorant existence she had led for so long. She had a shield from things that she was terrified to learn.
But her father was right, loathe as she was to admit it. El was an adult now. Frankly, she had been for quite some time. She had to take some responsibility of this knowledge.
It was her knowledge, after all.
Still, she couldn't deny that her hands were beginning to shake for fear of what she'd learn.
"Thank you for doing this with me," she breathed, her eyes stitched to the box.
"Of course." Mike's voice fell softly on her ear, and after a moment his hand slipped into hers. Her fingers wrapped around his immediately, clinging to him like a ship throwing its anchor into turbulent waters.
With more effort than it took to do almost anything, she finally willed her power forward… and popped the lock.
Her fingers wriggled between his, hesitant to let go.
"Can you take them out?" she asked.
"Sure," Mike replied immediately. He reached forward without hesitation. He held up the lid and gently pulled out a stack of manila folders. Pushing the box back out of the way, he laid them down in the center of the table.
It was so unbelievable that a five-inch stack of manila envelopes, printer paper, and staples could bring such icy cold dread to her gut.
Mike had fanned the folders out before them. The tabs were clearly labeled in her father's handwriting.
There were six folders in total. They read:
Accident - Wheelers
Dept. of Energy
State Police
FBI
Hawkins Lab - Staff
The final one made El's body go rigid:
Brenner
Mike set the one with his own name to the side. Then, he quietly asked, "Which one should we start with?"
El took a deep breath, but it didn't do much to clear the dizzying trigger of 'danger' that was blaring in her body. She nervously scanned the folder's tabs. Her eyes stopped on FBI.
It felt like the safest choice.
She reached for the folder herself, easing it out from between two others, and placed it on top of the pile. With a shaky hand, she pressed it open. A stapled bunch of papers laid inside. Extra staples had been added over the years, making the corner of the stack look bitten and torn. It seemed like a chronological ledger. Judging by the fact that the first entry, written in her father's small chicken scratch, referred to her as "011"... the beginning of this ledger was very very old.
The first pages contained incredibly detailed paragraphs of intel about the FBI's response to her disappearance. Many details made sense to her, but an equal portion of the information felt a little hard to parse.
The detailed entries continued for about fifteen pages, and covered about three years worth of information.
Then, something shifted.
The first pages had contained only one or two dated entries per page. Each had been written out with a great amount of details. Yet, a few years on? The entries became shorter, more simple. At times seven or eight entries were crammed together onto a single page, spanning months.
Then… years.
Increasingly, a phrase began to pop up:
"No updates"
El leaned in closer and rifled through to the present day. The FBI ledger came to a very anticlimactic end. The final entry was six months old:
"No updates. Investigation still does not appear active."
Curiously, El pieced through the final papers at the back of the folder. Paper clipped photos were pinned to bios of FBI agents who had been involved, none of whom she recognized. Their personnel files hadn't been updated in the better part of a decade.
The FBI file had taken all of 15 minutes to read. End to end.
El wasn't sure what she'd expected, but it surely wasn't that.
"Well, it looks like the FBI moved on from you, doesn't it?" Mike offered, with a positive softness.
"Yeah, years ago," El replied breathlessly, "If any department had gone cold it would be them, though. I don't think they were as heavily involved."
"Well, that's good news," Mike murmured. He gingerly took the folder from her hands, closed it, and placed it back into the lockbox. "Ready for the next one?"
"Yeah," El said, with a bit more confidence this time. She pointed to 'State Police'.
Mike nodded obediently and eased the requested folder out from its spot.
This folder was… thin. And ten minutes later? They were done.
"The State Police haven't been involved in almost nine years?" El exclaimed in a stupor.
The surprises did not stop there.
Much to her shock, even the Department of Energy file was sparse in recent years. Its most recent substantial update was over five years old.
And while Hawkins Lab - Staff was extremely hard to look at, and full of photos of terrible people whom she hadn't seen since childhood… the records themselves? They were littered with those same confounding words: "No Updates."
The files had all gone so fast. The sun hadn't even fully set by the time that there was only one folder left...
Brenner.
It was on instinct that El grabbed Mike's hand.
"I don't want to do this one." she said stiffly.
Mike ran his thumb over the back of her hand. "What is it?"
"It's... " she didn't like to think of the name that she used to call the man, but it was all she'd ever known him as before she'd escaped. Things like that had a way of sticking. "It's the man who raised me. The head scientist. Papa."
"Oh," Mike turned to her, his eyes filled with concern, "Maybe we can take a break before this one, or - "
"No," she said firmly, cutting him off as she rallied her courage. Straightening her back, El willed herself to reach for the folder.
Heart slamming fresh at her chest, she managed to press open the yellowed folder. On the top of the stack, staring right into her eyes, was a photo of the man who had raised her. With his cold calculating gaze and ice white hair, he stood in the photo perfectly composed, just like he always had been.
She hadn't forgotten one bit of his face.
A strangled whimper almost escaped her lips, but she beat it back.
"You okay?" Mike whispered.
El nodded curtly, "Yes. He's just hard to remember."
Steadying her fingers, she reached for the photo and set it aside, turning it on its back. There was no reason to torture herself with his face.
What came next was her father's logbook, just like all the rest. However, this one was detailed the comings and goings of just one man.
As El combed through the folder, she found herself desperately grateful that she had left this one for last. Her father's notes began in the days and weeks before he'd smuggled her out of the lab, and they continued with almost daily updates for years. Sometimes it was just a sentence, sometimes it was multiple detailed paragraphs.
Her father had tracked Dr. Brenner with expert precision.
Through his notes, one thing became clear: Dr. Martin Brenner was the true reason for her father's diligent work.
His updates were detailed with constantly changing intel on Brenner's constant attempts to find her. Long after the FBI and State Police files had been riddled with 'no updates', Brenner's movements continued in stride.
It wasn't as though El was surprised to learn this. Dr. Brenner was a relentless man, and he had lost something that he believed belonged to him. Still, to see it all in such stark detail? It sent the coldest of shivers up her spine.
And yet...
Much to El's shock, even Brenner's movements had trickled off over time.
For the past three or four years, her father had listed nothing more than the man's whereabouts. Increasingly, her new favorite phrase began to make its grand debut in his file.
No updates.
Unlike the other files, her father's tracking of Martin Brenner hadn't fallen off, though. He still made an update at least every few weeks. Yet they were sparse in detail and rarely held any new information.
By the time El shut the folder and placed it back in the lockbox with the others, something was brewing in her.
"I don't understand." she finally stuttered.
"What don't you understand?"
"I mean… this can't be all of it, can it?" she asked as a frenetic discomfort built within her, "There has to be more. Missing files or something."
"I don't know," Mike replied skeptically, "It seemed pretty thorough to me?"
She considered Mike's opinion, but still - it didn't make sense. The collection of her father's work seemed to point to a truth that was so hard to believe: The worst was in the past. In some cases, Far in the past. But how? Of course, she knew things were safer than they'd been during the first few years, but by this wide of a margin?
"If this was all that's currently happening. Why didn't dad tell me?" she mumbled, confounded.
Mike hummed in understanding. "Well, maybe he doesn't see it that way."
El's eyebrow curled in tense curiosity, "What do you mean?"
Mike shrugged, "I'm just thinking, you know, your dad took me hostage on the mere hunch that I worked for them."
"You're saying he's paranoid?"
He carefully considered his response, "I think anyone in his position would be paranoid," he finally said, "He's experienced every single thing that we read here. He could just be really on guard after all these years, you know?"
El stared in silence at the papers in front of her, Mike's observations echoing in her ears. She could see it. She really could.
But how could she let herself believe it?
How could she believe that so much of this was... over?
El would never understand why that was the moment when she fell over the tripwire, but tears began to skirt hot tracks down her face before she even noticed their presence. They were thick, and grew thicker, until she was an inaudible mess collapsing into Mike's arms. It all seemed to come up at once. Pure dark pools of pain that resided in her bones, places that lived in shadow, tucked away and untouched, they were draining from her in a swirl of grief? Shame? Hope?
All of the above.
Nothing felt clear, and once the rush of emotion that had bowled her over finally began to ebb, she felt nothing but deep empty exhaustion.
Time passed along with her bawling in his arms, and Mike didn't know what to say.
What could he say?
There wasn't exactly a guidebook for helping a telekinetic girlfriend face the trauma of her government conspiracy escapee past.
So he said nothing. He just held her and let her cry until his the shoulder of his shirt was sopping wet.
All the while, he tried to keep his own emotions in check. Because everything he just learned?
It made his blood boil.
Like, for starters? Simply as a scientist! These people had corrupted something he was so passionate about. They had taken incredible knowledge and used it to turn a child - a child! - into a weapon. Then, they had gone to the ends of the Earth to get that child back, seeing her as nothing more than a possession. The flagrant lack of scientific ethics itself would have been enough to drive Mike into indignant rage.
But this wasn't just any child. This had been El. Soft, kind, loyal, beautiful El, who, judging by the tears that still seemed to be silently falling so many minutes later, was haunted to the depths of her soul by the names and faces that she had just faced.
And rightfully so.
Mike was beginning to find it hard to remember sometimes, much to his absolute surprise, that she was who she was. That she had lived the life she'd lived. And in this moment, with it all literally spread out before him, it seemed almost impossible to believe. For, the El softly crying into his chest seemed so... delicate. So vulnerable.
It made him want to wrap her up and protect her in any way he could.
Which was CRAZY, given who she really was.
But maybe that's what made these moments, when she would open up to him, all the more poignant. This woman was a warrior in every single way. She had lived a life on guard more than he ever could have imagined. She was bigger and brighter and more incredible than anyone he had ever gotten to know.
Yet here she was, leaning into him for comfort.
What had he done to deserve her?
He didn't know.
But he did know one thing. He would try his absolute best to continue to earn her confidence. Because more than anything, after this, Mike realized what El really needed was someone whom she could trust.
For, in her entire life she'd only ever had one person that she could trust. A man who had sacrificed so much of his life to keep this girl safe. And suddenly, Mike found himself understanding Jim Hopper.
Hell, if he'd been in the man's shoes? Mike might have done almost everything the same thing. Including keeping documentation on a random student scientist who had had a clear run in with his telekinetic daughter.
El's breath had fallen to a slow and steady rhythm against his chest. She had gone a bit limp, and it almost seemed as though she had faded off to sleep. In the silence, Mike found his attention called to the single unopened file that remained on the table. The benefit of long arms meant that he could reach for it without jostling her. A trill of nervousness settled into his stomach as he placed the folder labeled with his own name onto his lap.
Mike hesitated and checked in with El's breath. Steady and slow. Steady and slow.
The ruddy corner of a photo was sticking out of the edge. Mike eased the folder open and took a peek. His breath caught in this throat. The photo was taken slightly off center in a hospital waiting room. An injured man sat unaware of the camera that had taken the photo from the corner of the room.
The injured man was... him.
He looked… broken. A bruise loudly smarted along his collarbone, his torn shirt was hanging limply to the side, showing off the injury's black and blue pain. His hair was disheveled. The pale of his skin was almost translucent, like he had seen a ghost.
His eyes, though, were what made Mike unable to look away.
They were empty. Vacant. The young man in the photo was swimming in shock. He was unable to make sense of what had just happened to him. A million thoughts were tangling in his mind, and none of them could resolve, or would resolve, for years to come.
Mike could remember the moment like it was yesterday. Yet here he sat, in a room where he was finally surrounded with every answer he had ever searched for.
El stirred. He felt her stiffen against him.
"Sorry," Mike said quickly, "I can put this away."
El shook her head. Her voice was a little raw, a bit forlorn, but steady. "No. It's about you. You deserve to know."
The rest of the folder held documents. Hospital admission documents for both him and Holly, detailing their stays in the ER. Plus, a handwritten log, just like the ones they'd found in the other folders. He took his time to read the dated entries. By the looks of it, her father mostly seemed to follow Mike's movements on the college campus. Tracking the buildings he worked in, and attempting to name and label the colleagues and professors he had in an attempt to trace them back to Brenner or HNL. The ledger was full and extensive, though it was less consistent in the last year or so. The most recent date was from just three months past. He couldn't help but let out a dark chuckle, "If only he'd kept this up a little better. He probably would have figured out about us even before we even did."
Below the ledger was a set of photos held together with a paperclip. Mike removed the clip and fanned them out. There were six photos in all, each showing different angles of his badly damaged car in the parking lot of the hospital.
At that, Mike let out a soft gasp. "I can't believe he has these," Mike breathed, a sense of awe creeping into his voice.
"What?" El asked. She pulled herself up a bit to take a good look.
"This right here," he pointed excitedly to the damaged hood of the car in one of the photos, "This was why I couldn't ever let it go. It wasn't even because I saw you. I was convinced I hallucinated you. If it wasn't for this damage to the hood of my car I might have let it go. I could never figure out how it happened."
It was an odd bit of damage. The hood of the car was crumpled, but not in a way consistent with impact in a traditional car accident. Instead, it was crumpled in the center, as though a hand had crunched it as easily as a piece of paper.
"I'm sorry I damaged your car." El replied sheepishly, with such an innocent tone that Mike simply had to laugh.
"Don't apologize for saving our lives," he said lightly. He collected the pictures and pinned them back together. Setting them carefully into the folder, he closed it all and placed it back in the box with the rest.
"Are you okay?" El asked with trepidation as he shut the box. "With all of that?"
"Yeah," Mike replied, finding her hand again and pumping it in a reassuring manner. "I mean, it's weird, you know, knowing that someone was spying on me like this. But - "
Her face went white as a sheet in an instant. "I'm so sorry," she said sadly, "He never should have done this to you."
"No," Mike replied calmly, "That's not what I meant. It's okay. I think I get why he did, now. After seeing all of this. This was his way of keeping you safe."
El nodded, a grateful look in her eye. Then, she actually smiled a bit, "Lot of good it did him, keeping tabs on you like this. Seems like I fell right into your arms anyway."
Mike laughed, "Well, that was clearly all part of my nefarious master plan."
El tried to keep a positive look on her face, but it faltered. He could see something fearful in her eyes.
"What is it?" Mike asked, suddenly self conscious, "Should I not have said that?"
"No, it's not that," she said, her eyes tracing back over to the box, "It's just..." she hesitated, seemingly afraid of the words she was about to speak. Her voice was so quiet, so thin, when she finally spoke. "Doesn't this all... scare you? I mean, you know everything now. Is it.. too much? ...Am I -"
He cut her off, his answer fell so instantly from his lips. " - No."
"Why?" she asked quickly, almost frustrated by his response, "Nothing about this, about me, is normal. Or safe. Why?"
Why?
...Wasn't it obvious?
Wasn't it written all over his face?!
A rush of feeling overtook him. Mike licked his lips upon a shuddery breath. "El, it's because - " So many words lined up on his tongue, poised to fly bravely into the air. But… he hesitated just a split second too long, and every fear shot in. Like a record scratch, his courage crumbled. "Because you deserve it," he found himself saying, kicking himself as each lame inadequate word fell from his lips, "Plus, you've been endlessly kind to me. Even when we were strangers. You deserve the same."
El's eyes scanned his face, searching for something.
Eventually, she gave him a sad smile.
"Thank you, Mike."
One chapter left, for real now! Thanks so much for reading :)