Soon
"After you," Jonathan said as he opened the hospital door as El tried not to fall on her face using the crutches the nurse had showed her how to use, but she just couldn't get used to the feeling yet, luckily she would only need them for a week.
Mike and Max walked on opposite sides of her in case she really did fall.
Mrs. Byers and Will waited by the car a few feet away, a door already open for her.
"You know you can keep the comics right," Max said as they stopped by the car as Jonathan went around and put her bag of clothes from the other night in back.
"I couldn't their yours," El said and handed them back.
Max let out a breath but took them, "Fine, but we need to have another sleepover so you can read the rest of them got it," Max said getting in.
El nodded as she got in next to her and Mike closed the door before going over to join Jonathan in the back.
Mrs. Byers started the car and they took off a moment later.
"So Dustin and Lucas will be waiting for us there right?" Will asked looking back at them as they drove.
"Yeah," Mike said from the back, "Nancy and Steve too."
"I can't believe Steve is going to help move," Max said.
"Who wouldn't want to see what Hopper has in that cabin," Mike said, "He probably has a map to all the bodies of the people who looked at El wrong."
Everyone seemed to smile at his words and even El couldn't help one herself.
She remembered the way he would look at people when they would stare at her when she first started going around town more freely, the not too quiet things he would say behind their backs. It had been embarrassing at the time, but now she wanted nothing more than to hear him say that Mrs. Miller shouldn't be looking at her when she should be worrying about her 84 cats if it meant he was still with them.
El snapped back to reality as Mrs. Byers turned on the dirt road that had become so familiar she could walk it blindfolded, the trees casting shadows over them as the cabin came into view.
Mrs. Byers pulled up and put the car in park before she turned to her.
"El if you want to wait in the car while we take care of this it's okay."
"No, I'll be okay," El said her voice sounding stronger than she actually felt.
Mrs. Byers nodded before she opened the door and got out everyone following after.
Jonathan went around and grabbed some empty boxes from the back as the rest of them started for the porch where Dustin, Lucas, Nancy and Steve stood waiting, already having boxes out and ready.
Mike wrapped his arm around her waist to keep her steady as they walked up the short set of stairs.
"We would have gotten started but we couldn't find the key," Nancy said.
"It's fine, I got it," El said and focused on the locks like she normally did. It had become so easy that she didn't even bother having a key. But nothing happened.
She let out a surprised breath as she took a step back. It had never taken more than a day and a half at most for her powers to recharge, but it had been three days and still nothing.
"El?" Mike asked concerned.
She looked up to see everyone looking at her, waiting.
"Sorry, I guess I'm still recharging. But there's a key on top of the door frame," she said looking down, her cheeks warm.
"That makes sense, you used your powers over and over again last week, it will probably take a few more days to reach full again," Dustin said as Steve walked over to the door and easily grabbed the dusty key from the top.
"Yeah, "Mike said reassuringly as Steve unlocked the door. "I bet you'll be back to kicking ass by next week."
"Who's ass is she kicking?" Max asked as she followed everyone into the cabin.
"Well school starts next month," Mike said helping her inside.
"Let's just focus on this right now," Mrs. Byers said and El heard the tone of something in her voice as if she knew something they didn't, but maybe it had to do with cleaning out the cabin.
"El where do you want us to start?" Nancy asked.
El looked around the place that had become her home, had been the first place she hadn't been scared of outside of Mike's house, had smiled in, had been happy in.
"I-I don't know," she said finally because she didn't. Didn't know where to start taking the life she'd known down.
"How about me and you start in your room," Max said, "And the others can just start going through things that you may want to keep."
El nodded and everyone started in different directions to start packing up.
Max took a box from Mike and she and El started for her room.
El opened the green door to her small room and looked across the few things she had.
A poster here and there, her peach radio on the dresser with a few stuffed animals along with her school books and other small things looked back at her.
"Let's start on your closet," Max said and opened the white door and started to take things out and put them in the box as El went over to her dresser and started to take her folded clothes out and put them in another box on her bed.
For the minutes it took her to mindlessly pack her things up she was happy to think of something besides the pain in her chest. That was until Max called out to her. "Hey, El what do you want to do with all of these stuffed animals?"
El looked up to see Max holding out a large shoebox full of little toys. El limped over to it and picked a small rainbow tiger up and held it a moment. The world seemed to slip away as the memory of the day she got it came back to her.
"Hey El I'm home and I have something for you," she heard Hopper call from the living room.
She opened the door to her room and peeked out the crack. It had only been a month since Hopper had found her in the snowy woods and she hadn't gotten used to other people yet, let alone a door she could open and close whenever she wanted.
"Come on," Hopper said spotting her, "It's a gift."
"Gift?" El repeated in question, never having heard the word before as she opened her door and took a slow step out of the warmth of her room.
"Umm yeah, a gift is a thing given willingly to someone without wanting something in return. A present."
"Present," El said as she eyed the paper-wrapped box in his hands.
"Yeah present," he said sitting down at the kitchen table, setting the box down in her spot. "I figure you missed Christmas day but you can still have the gift part."
"Christmas?" El asked sitting down in her chair looking down at the red paper with what looked like little green trees with lights on it.
"Let's just say it's a day where people give gifts out and eat too much food," Hopper answered, "Now open it up."
El gently grabbed one of the sides paper and started to pull down on it but stopped when she heard Hopper start to laugh.
"You don't have to be careful with it, go crazy kid."
El smiled then as she did what she was told and ripped at the paper, letting it fall to the floor in pieces until a brown box sat in front of her.
She looked up excited to find Hopper smiling at her as if he was the one opening the present instead of her.
She looked back down and slowly opened the lid to find eyes looking back at her. A smile broke across her face at the 20 or so stuffed animals and toys looking back at her.
She reached in and pulled out one and looked at it a moment.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It's a tiger," he answered.
"Like tony the tiger from t.v.!" El said excitedly.
"Yeah sure," Hopper said.
She had pulled out each one of the new toys and spent the whole night learning the names of the animals he had gotten her before falling asleep watching Tales from the Dark Side next to him in the chair.
"El?" Max asked snapping her back to reality.
"Sorry," El said looking back up, "I'll keep this one, you...you can donate the others."
"Are you sure?" Max asked raising an eyebrow.
El nodded and turned away placing the tiger in the box of clothing, she bit her lip as she watched Max put the stuffed animals on the bed with the few other things she was giving away before she went back to cleaning out the rest of her dresser.
It didn't take long for her and Max to finish her room, leaving the furniture bare and empty.
"Are you sure this is all you want to take?" Max asked looking at the boxes as the others loaded them in the back of Mrs. Byers car from where they stood in the living room.
El looked around herself, even if they hadn't taken much it still felt so empty, almost cold in away.
"I'm sure," El said nodding.
"Hey, El what should I do with this?" Nancy asked from where she kneeled next to a box filled with folders.
El went over to her and gently took out one of them and opened it to find it was the papers and photo she had used to find her mother, along with the one on Kali.
El ran a finger down the old yellowing picture and for a moment she wondered what her life would have been if she hadn't been taken. Would it have been normal and less painful?
But then she wouldn't have met the people she loved now. "Keep," El breathed, her voice almost a whisper as she looked back up.
Nancy nodded and stood taking the box, not asking why or who the photos were of and she was grateful for it.
"Alright I think that's everything," Mike said as he stopped next to her, the poster that had been hanging on her wall in his hand along with her peach-colored radio. "You ready to go?"
"Yeah," El said and started to follow after them but stopped suddenly, a sound catching her attention. She turned and slowly walked back in until she stood in the middle of the room trying to pinpoint where the sound was coming from.
"El you okay?" Mike called back to her from where he and Max stood at the bottom of the stairs.
"Fine, I'll be there in a second," El called back, not looking at them as she moved further into the house as the sound got clearer and clearer.
She stopped as the words rang out around her, sending a wave of goosebumps down her arm even in the July heat.
"I'm still here."
"Hopper," El said out loud in a whisper.
"No," the voice said from right behind her now.
El turned and found Billy standing inches away from her.
She took a surprised step back as a gasp escaped her lips.
"Hello El," he said, a wicked smile across his lips, "Surprised to see me?
El shook her head as she slowly backed away, "You can't be here, I saw you die," El said.
Billy took a step forward still smiling, "You really think you can get away from me that easy?"
El hit a wall then leaving her nowhere to go as he stopped in front of her.
"I died because of you. The Mind Flayer wanted you! You were the one it should have killed, not me," Billy whispered into her ear as she turned away from him.
"Billy saved me," El hissed closing her eyes, "He made that choice himself."
"You really think so?" He hissed back, "Is that what you're going to tell yourself when it's your friends at your feet. Just like Hopper they will die trying to save you. What are you going to do now that you can't protect the ones you love? Will you cry? Will you scream when there's nothing you can do?"
She felt something cold run down her cheek like a finger of a corpse making her gasp and open her eyes but found the room empty, the lamp on the kitchen table flickering.
She reached up as something warm ran down her cheek and found it was tears. She was crying and she didn't even know it.
"Oh, honey."
El looked up to see Mrs. Byers in the doorway before she walked over and took El into her arms.
"I know it hurts," Mrs. Byers said, "But don't keep it bottled up." She pulled away and held her at arm's length, "You can talk to me anytime you need understand?"
El nodded, but she didn't take her eyes away from the lamp as it gave one last flicker before going out.
"Come on," Mrs. Byers said gently and put a hand on her back guiding her towards the door.
El looked back once to see the cabin looking normal as ever, but a whisper reached her just before Mrs. Byers closed the door.
"Talk again soon."
AN/
Alright, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Sorry if the story feels like it's going a little slow but I promise things will pick up in the next few chapters as things really get going. But I also may not be able to post the next one until sometime next week since something came up but I'm going to try my best to upload every few days. Anyway thanks for reading, it means a lot to me. If you want to review and give me your thoughts and or any criticism on what I could do better please feel free, it always helps.