I started this a long time ago but I intend on finishing it. Something different but I hope you find something to like about it. Thank you!

Nancy woke up to the sounds of sizzling bacon. Like an alarm clock. She woke up on Joyce's couch with a large wool blanket wrapped around her. It was too comfortable to move she just wanted to stay there forever but the longer she stayed awake the more she realized her mother would be wondering where she was.

'Fuck it,' she thought.

Joyce surprised her by bringing her a tray of breakfast; more then she tended to eat in the morning.

"Oh wow," Nancy stated, pulling herself up, "Thank you...you really didn't have to."

"I wanted to," Joyce said, pouring her some apple juice, "Sorry. All out of orange juice."

"I can go get some," Nancy said, throwing the blanket off without even thinking about it.

Joyce laughed, "It's ok. Don't worry about it."

"But..."

Joyce sat down next to her. "You've done a lot for me already."

Nancy checked her phone. 2 missed calls one was from work and the other was her mother. It was almost 11:30. "Dammit is that really what time it is?"

"Forget about that," said Joyce, "Your food is getting cold."

She put a piece of toast in her face, making the girl laugh, thinking she might get a turn with the hymleck maneuver.

"I think they want me to cover someone today," she said, knowing it was James flaking out.

"Don't do it. Ever since Al left that place everything has changed," Joyce said, thinking back bitterly as she drank more tea.

"Did you work there? Before...," she still had trouble saying Will's name, Joyce always looked so fragile, like she'd crack within hearing a letter mumbled.

"Yep. Al was my boss. I worked there for 7 years. They gave me all the time I needed after he was gone. Then when i said I wasn't coming back he wanted to make sure I was taken care of. I think they only wanted to help me out for a couple months. I'm no charity case. I pay when I can...I just...," she couldn't go on, like it was too exhausting to think back.

Nancy squeezed her hand gently. Joyce looked over at her doe like eyes, "Hey...food's getting cold."

They both shared a smile and a laugh. When they were finished they scrubbed the dishes in the sink together. Nancy got a text from her mother, it was getting harder to ignore.

"Parents. Adults. They're all assholes."

"But you're an adult," Nancy said slyly.

"Hardly but I am an asshole. Don't ever trust me," she said this kind of only half serious.

Nancy gave her a playful splash with the foam built up in the water. Joyce did also before applying a bit to Nancy's face.

"You better get out of here. People are going to send a search party. Both of their smiles quickly disappeared; not exactly a great joke for either of them to be making. They sort of just looked at each other awkwardly and Nancy very passively said farewell going out the door.

She felt dumb, she wanted to go back and say something to comfort her but she couldn't think of anything. She decided it was too late, she'd be back again to make up for it, tell her it was no big deal and they'd move past it.

Nancy mainly just stocked shelves and helped out back of the store for a few hours. She should have just stayed with Joyce it became clearer now. She really worried about her especially being so close to that lab that horrible place. She became bored rather quickly, she'd rather be helping people than pricing cans. Joyce anyway.

She went home for dinner and got an earful from her mother. "You're wearing the same clothes as yesterday?" Karen said, disturbed.

"Long night," Nancy said coming inside just in time for dinner. Before she sat down, Karen snatched the plate she had laid out for her.

"March yourself upstairs right now and clean up," the mom said a bit overdramatic. Nancy rolled her eyes and dragged herself along, "I saw that!"

The well behaved girl she came to expect was really pushing her. During dinner things seemed to get increasingly awkward but Ted the patriarch of the household remained as oblivious as ever to what was happening right in front of him.

"You snuck out," Karen said a matter of factly.

"Yes," Nancy said, popping a piece of steak in her mouth to get some kind of rise out of her.

"Where may I ask?"

Nancy said the first name she could think of, "Kelly's."

Mike frowned, glaring at his sister very judging by the obvious lie.

"I don't think I know a Kelly," her mother said, putting her food aside.

"...she's new."

"Oh. So someone does want to hang out with you," Karen smiled, "Good to hear."

Nancy carved a knife into her remaining meat, "Yeah. I guess so."

She saw Mike shake his head at her in the corner of her eye. She wanted to glare at him nudge him to stop but decided to restrain her actions for now.

Nancy texted Joyce when she was alone in her room.

"Your mother and I were never really friends," Joyce texted after Nancy asked about their relationship when Will came over.

"She can be difficult."

"Most mothers are LOL."

"What do you want me to pick up tomorrow?"

"You don't have to bring me anything."

Is was a minute or 2 before she responded back with, "Well...I mean you could bring a movie over and maybe we could watch it together."

Nancy was quite taken with the offer since she never got to fo stuff like that anymore with anyone.

"Sure. What do you like?"

"You pick it. I trust you HAHAHA."

At least she had someone to talk to, someone who would listen, that was comforting.

"I'm sorry if I acted weird."

"What do you mean?"

"When you made that joke."

"Oh God I'm such an IDIOT."

"No you're NOT! I guess I just was surprised. I knew you didn't mean it that way."

"I wasn't thinking. BIG surprise there."

"No. I wasn't offended or anything. I just wanted to make sure you were ok."

There was a longer delay in responding to her, making Nancy nervous; she could almost picture Joyce sitting there on the couch maybe crying.

"Make sure you bring something fun."

"You got it!"

"Goodnight, Nance!"

"Night Joyce."

The trouble was finding something for them to watch. Maybe nothing too violent. Nancy had distanced herself from rom-coms...she did remember seeing she had one of those dual VCR/DVD players in her living room. She had a VCR herself, maybe she didn't mind fantasy films as long as it wasn't 3 hours.

She dreamed that night. It had to be the weirdest one she had in a while. She was standing alone in the woods. It was quiet no animals. There was this fog rolling in. Someone jumped out of the fog at her and wrapped their arms around her. This didn't turn into a nightmare. Joyce was panicking and putting Nancy in her car.

"You're safe. You're safe. You're safe...," she repeated this several times. One hand on the wheel and the other on Nancy's chest, holding her back. It was weird but whatever this threat was, whatever they were running away from she felt everything was ok with Joyce there.

After she woke up she wanted to text Joyce, check up on her but decided it was too late, she'd see her later the next day. She didn't want to worry her. She was already through do much.

With her mother off her back, Nancy could do her own thing. She spent time cleaning her room and looking for the right movie to take with her. She thought she found just the one. Though she admitted she had never seen it before.

She biked out to see Joyce around lunch. That's when saw those kids again only this time they were blocking her path.

Some of the girls she recognized from school. Except for the one scary looking guy with the mullet.

"Where you off to in such a rush, hon?" One girl asked, grabbing her handle bars.

"Aw," said one, "She's got a basket."

"What is she like 12?"

"Then she skipped a bunch of grades because she's in my chem class."

Nancy didn't really say anything but tried to get them to let her through. None of them budged. What was strange was some of them looked too preppy to be hanging around the obvious looking troublemakers with their dirty jeans and vests with band logos and obscenities. Buying drugs maybe?

"It's alright. We won't hurt you," smiled the guy that might've been their leader, this greasy kind of look to his skin when he did.

"I...I have to go."

"Oh so she does speak!" They all laughed.

"You're Nancy Wheeler," one said in a snarky tone.

"W-what?" Nancy asked, pretending not to hear them.

"Oh she's friends with Byers," the greasy guy laughed; the harder he did the more alcohol Bancy could smell off his breath.

"The Hawkins Witch," one girl laughed, pushing into Nancy's bike carelessly.

"What does she look like?"

"What do you do over there?"

"What's in the basket?"

They all circled around her, mocking her; Nancy couldn't think of a time where she was more afraid than she was now. She just wanted to peddle through them. As fast as she could and get to Joyce.

One girl with frizzy red hair; almost like her friend Barb's placed her hand on the bag in her basket. "What do you have in here?" Without thinking, Nancy grabbed the girl's arm. The girl didn't like that one bit. Nancy of course hadn't been in a real fight. Well anyone who saw her knew she wasn't built for it. One slug to the face and she was on the ground with her bike spinning her down in some soft wet muck.

Everyone joked around and nothing to help her. She wanted to cry. A different girl kicked her while she was down.

"Whoa ok thats enough," greasy guy said seriously for a moment.

"Fuck off, Billy!" Frizzy redhead said.

Billy? Must've been Billy Hargrove. These were the cool popular kids? Seriously. The group walked off and left her to pick herself up. She sobbed in her sleeve, wiping away the stinging and salty tears. She felt so ashamed, humiliated for letting that happen. She couldn't bike any more because of her leg getting pinned under the bike for so long. She held onto the bike and limped her way to Joyce's.

Joyce heard thumping around outside on her porch she got suspicious. When Nancy came in with her bruised face she sprang right up and ran to the door.

"Oh my God what happened?!"

Nancy grabbed Joyce and planted her face into her armpit. Joyce held her there for a minute, holding her delicately. She hadn't comforted anyone like this in so long but it all came back naturally. She held her face and looked her over, almost ready to cry herself. She took her ti the fridge where she got some ice she put into a ziplock bag.

"Ah!" Nancy cried as Joyce pressed it against her cheek.

"It's ok. It's ok." This reminded Nancy of her dream. The comfort it brought.

Joyce helped her over to the couch; Nancy felt so stupid leaning on her for support. She sat her down.

"Let's look at that leg."

She rolled up her pant leg and saw the bruising the scratches. She elevated the leg on a pillow despite there being no break. She just wanted to do everything she could. Nancy smiled up at her as she applied a bag of frozen peas on her injury.

When things were calmed down she told her everything.

"You're a brave kid. I don't know what I would've done."

"I...I didn't know what to do," Nancy couldn't fight the waterworks. Joyce saved her with some Kleenex.

"Do you...want me to call someone? Your mom?"

Nancy shook her head, "I don't want anyone to know."

"Ok," Joyce smiled warmly.

"Can I stay here tonight?" Nancy asked hesitantly.

"Of course you can, sweetheart."

Joyce cooked them something. Just a frozen lasagna but it did its job. They watched 'The Never Ending Story' on VHS. Joyce had seen it before but didn't let on. Nancy was hoping this would cheer her up but it only made her sadder especially the part where a boy's horse got stuck in a swamp and slowly sunk into it completely. It only slowly started to get better after that.

They both snuggled up to each other. Both tired. Nancy knew this was where she wanted to be. She didn't want to leave. She looked over at Joyce. This longing stare. Joyce turned and was about to ask if she needed anything when Nancy kissed her right on the mouth.

To be continued!