Author's note: We've almost reached the end! There will be one more chapter, and then an epilogue. I started this story back before season 2 came out, (look how slow I am), and it feels really good to finally finish it. I had so much fun creating this, so thanks so much for reading it. There will be a new, different story soon to follow. I've already started writing it, so I'll start posting that one as soon as this one is finished.

Chapter 16

The van's tires squelched as they rolled over a couple of tendrils and then came to a stop. The tendrils recoiled and released a few spores into the air, then lay back down.

"This is the place?" Sam asked Will as he looked around at the Upside Down version of Chicago. They'd pulled up in front of a three story office building which might have looked nice in the real world, but certain not down there.

"I think so," Will told Sam. "As soon as I bring us back, we can contact Lucas again."

Sam glanced at Joyce in the back seat. She didn't look any happier than he did, but she was taking this whole alternate-dimension thing very well. He wondered if she'd seen it before today.

In the blink of an eye, they were back in the real world. Sam swept his gaze around quickly, looking for threats. There were no police cars. That was a good sign. The office building, and the whole street as far as he could see, had been totally evacuated. That menacing plume of smoke was pretty far off in the distance, which meant they were well away from the fighting. All things considered, Sam concluded that they were in a pretty safe place.

"Lucas, this is Will, do you copy?" He called into his radio.

"I copy, Will," the voice came back. "I see you now. I'm inside the building to your right. Come up to the third floor."

"Copy that," Will said. The three of them piled out of the van and headed inside and up the stairs, with Joyce right on Will's heels, and Sam bringing up the rear, keeping his eyes peeled for any new threats.

After three flights of stairs, they pushed through a door that belonged to some insurance agency or something. Lucas had turned it into his temporary safe house. The first thing Will noticed was that his friend had piled up desks and filing cabinets in front of one of the windows to build himself a sniper's nest. Lucas had somehow gotten his hands on a rifle.

The second thing that Will noticed was El, curled up on a couch that had probably been put there for new clients in the waiting room of the insurance agency.

"Are you guys Ok?" Will asked as he ran over to them.

"We're better now that you're here," Lucas said, resting the rifle on his shoulder.

El didn't look so good. Will noticed the bruises and small cuts on her skin, as if she'd been dragged over a gravel road. She also looked pale and sick. She opened here eyes, sat up slowly, and gave Will a very weak smile.

"Are you Ok?" Will asked again.

"Do you know where the others are?" Lucas asked him quickly. "I can't get Mike or Dustin on the radios."

"Neither can I," Will told him, sadly. "They might have made it out of the city, so the radios are out of range."

"That'd be great," Lucas agreed. "Or they might have been captured, and lost their radios. We need to find out."

"I can find them," El said, he voice barely above a whisper.

"El, you should save your strength," Lucas told her. "You need to rest."

But she was already gone. She had closed her eyes, and gone very still. A second later, her head fell back limply as her mind left her body and went somewhere else.

"Is she finding them?" Joyce asked.

"I think so," Will answered.

"She needs to rest," Lucas insisted.

"What happened?" Will asked.

"She was in a fight," Lucas said, staring at her in concern. "I didn't go great. I had to carry her most of the way here."

"The firestarter did this?" Sam asked in a bewildered voice.

"Not him, the other one," Lucas answered quickly. Then he looked inquisitively at Sam. "Who are you?"

"Sam Ashe. I'm a friend of Hopper's," Sam told him. "Are you... new to this stuff?"

"Not really," Lucas said. "We had a pretty interesting childhood."

El gasped, bringing everyone's attention back.

Her eyes snapped open. Fresh blood was just starting to well up from her nose.

"I saw them!" She said, trying to get up from the couch.

"Whoa, slow down," Lucas said, trying to hold her back. "At least let us help you walk."

El didn't argue. She gratefully allowed Will and Joyce to swoop in and each take an arm, and she leaned heavily on them as she rose from the couch and started across the room. Will tried to hide his concern as he helped her along.

"We have to hurry," she said, he voice still sounding weak.

Will's fingers nervously played with the hem of his T shirt as the van again cruised through Upside Down Chicago. Behind the wheel, Sam was giving it a little more gas than usual. He seemed like a good guy, as far as Will could tell, and he seemed to understand the gravity of the situation. Will felt as desperate to get Allie back as if she were his own. The pit of his stomach was tied into a knot that wouldn't loosen up until they had her back. He was also worried about Mike and Dustin and Hopper, but he was a little more confident that they could handle themselves.

The depressing colors of the Upside Down that rolled past the van's windows didn't help his mood. Even without his very bad memories of that place, its very appearance seemed tailor made to cause hopelessness and despair.

Sam touched the brakes, but only a little, as they came down a highway exit ramp. The concrete and asphalt were completely devoid of others cars. From their perspective within the Upside Down, Will and his little van full of people might have been the last humans on Earth. He just hoped the area would be equally as deserted once they returned to the real world. The less people who saw them right now, the better.

"There..." El whispered weakly from the back seat, then wiped her nose preemptively against the little drop of blood that was sure to come. Sam glanced into the rear view mirror to see where she was pointing, and followed her directions. Without really stopping, he turned left off the exit ramp and headed down the street. They were in an old industrial district. Several big warehouses loomed up on either side of the street. Even though everything looked dead and decayed in the Upside Down, Will guessed that these particular warehouses might have been worn down and abandoned in the real world as well.

"That one..." El said, slowly lifting herself from the back seat. Will watched her with concern. She refused to stop using her powers, even in her weakened state. He didn't doubt that she knew her own limits better than the rest of them did, but it really looked like she was at the end of her rope. He felt a small twinge of mixed emotions as he realized that she'd probably looked and felt the same when she'd helped to find him in the Upside Down all those years ago. If not for her, he'd have died in the demogorgon's nest. And she'd done all that when he'd been a complete stranger to her. He'd spent years wondering about it. Of course he knew that Mike, Lucas, and Dustin would risk life and limb to save him back then, but El had never met him. It had taken him a long time to figure out why. After a while, he'd decided that a few people, a very few people in the world, were just good.

Sam brought the van to a stop. Several tentacles recoiled as they were crushed under its tires. El was already trying to climb out of the Van. Lucas and Joyce were equal parts trying to help her get up and trying to slow her down so she wouldn't hurt herself. It made Will's heart ache. He wondered if her powers would run out at some point if she got too exhausted, or if she could just keep using them until they drained her battery beyond its limits. His eyes flicked down to the blood on her sleeve. He suddenly wondered if El's own powers could kill her. He shook his head and tried not to think about it. Right now he needed to bring them back from the Upside Down.

Using his own... peculiar ability didn't drain Will like it did El. On the contrary, he could feel it getting easier with practice. Leaning back in his seat, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It took almost no effort anymore. With a little mental push, it was done. Will would gladly have swapped with El and let her be the one who didn't have to pay a cost to use her abilities. Her's were more useful, anyway.

Even before opening his eyes, he could tell that he was back in the real world. The others were already climbing out of the van. Will followed them, taking in their bright new surroundings. The wet tentacles on the ground were gone, replaced by dry, crumbly pavement. The ominous storm clouds that always hung overhead in the Upside Down had been replaced by bright blue sky. At least, the sky was bright and blue in one direction. As Will turned around the glance back toward the heart of the city, he could still see that angry plume of smoke from the battle that had taken place there, or maybe was still taking place.

El was already at the door to the abandoned warehouse. It looked like she wanted to walk on her own, but Joyce and Lucas were refusing to leave her side. As Will went to catch up to them, he noticed that Sam was watching their rear, and searching the area for any sign of bad guys. The sight made Will smile and feel just a little better. It reminded him of Hopper.

The warehouse inside turned out to be as empty as the street was outside. Whatever business had gone on there, it had long since moved away to Japan or something. Broken glass and crumbled plaster crunched under their feet as they went. Maybe this place had also been a source of amusement for the trouble-causing youth of the neighborhood. Will lifted his walkie talkie to his mouth as they made their way through the unlit rooms.

"Dustin, do you copy? Over." Only static answered him. Will wasn't too surprised. He'd figured that Dustin and Mike must have lost their own radios, or they would have made contact long ago.

"I don't think there are any agents around to hear us," Lucas suggested. Then he raised his voice and shouted in no particular direction. "Dustin!"

For a long moment, there was only dusty silence. Will held his breath as he waited. Somewhere off in the distance, he heard the sound of feet scuffing over broken glass and plaster.

"Dustin?" Lucas called again.

Then they heard the distant sound of a baby cry.

El almost launched herself in the direction of the sounds. Lucas and Joyce hurried to keep up with her.

"Dustin!" Lucas yelled again.

"Lucas, is that you?" Came Dustin's voice. Will's heart jumped. It was nice to hear good ol Dustin's voice again.

After running through several more rooms, and stumbling over some old, unused machinery, they found him. Dustin, clutching Baby Allie tight to his chest, ran at them with a look of greatest relief on his face. His clothes were covered in dirt and dust, as if he'd literally been hiding under a desk or under one of those rusty old machines.

El reached Dustin first, grabbing him and her baby into a tight hug. He wrapped his arms around them like a big panda. Her knees sagged, and Dustin helped to keep her upright.

"You Ok?" Lucas asked.

"I'm lucky you guys found me," Dustin said. "I was at the end of the line."

El suddenly lifted her head and looked around in alarm.

"Where's Mike?" She asked.

"We got separated," Dustin said. "We... He... I..."

"El put her hands on his shoulders and looked him in the eyes. Fear and concern and a dozen other things flew across her face. "What happened?" She asked in a shaky voice.

"They took him," Dustin told her.

Mike had been thrown hard into an uncomfortable plastic chair, and then had his hands cuffed to the table. Both the table and the chair were bolted to the floor of the little interrogation room where the cops had put him. Mike looked angrily around at the featureless walls. There was one door, which was locked, and a one way mirror. Assuming the agents or the cops or someone was watching him through that glass, Mike scowled at it. He had nothing else to do.

Chained to the table as he was, he couldn't escape. Even if he could somehow get out of the handcuffs, he wouldn't get very far. His fractured leg still sent shooting pains through his body, as if he were repeatedly making that fateful last step off the ladder that had gotten him in this place. His broken hand didn't feel any better.

The only thing that took his mind off the pain, the only thing worse than the pain, were his thoughts of the others. He didn't know if Dustin had gotten away with Allie, or if he'd been captured as well. Or maybe killed. The agents wanted Allie taken alive for their twisted experiments, but maybe they didn't care about the others. Maybe they wouldn't mind shooting Dustin and taking the baby from his dead hands. He also worried about El. He had no doubts she'd be able to handle the monster, but anything could happen. There were hundreds of people with guns and trucks, and a pyrokinetic who was burning down the city. Mike just wished they could all go back to their safe and quiet home where nothing bad ever happened, where nothing would ever come and take away the people who meant more to him than his own life.

The lock clicked and the door to Mike's little interrogation cell swung open, interrupting his thoughts.

Mike didn't know the man who walked inside, but he glared daggers at him anyway. He was tall, dressed in a gray suit without a tie, had gray hair, and a face that looked like it never smiled. The man stared back with an unreadable expression, ignoring Mike's glare. He sat down in the opposite chair.

"Mr. Wheeler," he said. Mike only continued to glare back.

"My name is Security Director Carver. I've had my eyes on your family for years. Years."

Mike didn't blink. He didn't know if this man had come to threaten him, to gloat, to kill him, or something else, but he wasn't going to give him any satisfaction by showing fear.

"Years," Carver repeated again. "And you haven't caused me any trouble, until now. A quiet suburban family with a white picket fence who never poked your heads up and never needed my attention, until now. What changed, Mr. Wheeler?"

Mike didn't respond.

"Now my job is security," Carver said, after realizing that he wasn't going to get an answer. "It's my sworn duty. The security of the innocent people who've gotten themselves caught in the crossfire today. You know they never asked for any of this. Even your security, Mr. Wheeler. I'm here to protect you."

Mike shook his head in disgust.

"You don't believe me?" Carver said, a hint of anger in his voice. "Look outside. There are dangerous things, inhuman things, that came here because of you and your family. This fight is bigger than you. You need my help to survive."

"Your help? All of this started because of you!" Mike yelled.

"Wrong!" Carver shot back. "All of this started because of you. You and your family. Look at what's happening to the city. Is that what you want?"

Mike ground his teeth and didn't speak.

"Now I can help you. I can protect you. I can take your family someplace safe, far away from here. But I need your cooperation. Tell me where they are."

Relief flooded through Mike's body. They were safe! The bad men hadn't caught them yet. It was just him, and he wasn't going to give up anything.

"Tell me where they are," Carver said again, not angry this time, but insistent.

"Go to hell," Mike said. He wasn't even angry. If anything, he felt better. As long as he didn't talk, the bad men wouldn't get what they wanted.

Carver leaned in close. Mike could smell cigarette smoke on his clothes. Carver put a hand gently over Mike's own, which was still handcuffed to the table.

"People are dying out there, Mr. Wheeler. It's my job to clean up this mess. I'm not a very patient man. Tell me where they are." He pressed down hard, and the broken bone in Mike's hand crunched.

Mike's eyes filled up with tears from the pain. "I don't know where they are. And even if I did, I'd never tell you." Mike blinked away the tears and glared at Carver again. "I would never tell you."

Carver stood from his chair, leaning all his weight on the one hand. The bones popped and cracked. Carver twisted his hand. Mike tried to pull away, but the handcuffs held him in place. Carver squeezed the broken hand again, and Mike almost shook from the pain.

To his own surprise, Mike felt more relieved than angry. Carver could hurt or break him all he wanted, but the important ones were safe.

"You'll never find them," Mike said, almost feeling brave enough to smile. "I told them to leave me as a decoy so they could escape. They're probably a hundred miles away by now. Before tomorrow, they'll be out of the country. El isn't the only special one, you know. All my friends have powers. They're gone, and you'll never find them."

The tiny interrogation room inside a Chicago police station looked about as sinister in the Upside Down as it probably did in real life. Will shivered as he looked around the cramped little room with nothing but a table and two chairs. It pained him to think of Mike locked up there, with no way to know that his friends and family were about to rescue him. Will hoped that his friend wouldn't fall into despair. The he'd keep believing that they'd rescue him.

"Are you sure this is the place?" Will asked.

El wiped more blood from her nose and nodded. "Sure," she confirmed. Even in the dim light of the Upside Down, Will could see that her skin was pale and her eyes were sunken. She leaned heavily on his shoulder as the two of them positioned themselves exactly where they hoped Mike would be when they shifted. Then Will took a deep breath, and pushed with his mind.

Mike grunted in pain again as Carver leaned on his broken hand. "Tell me where they are," the man demanded.

Mike only gritted his teeth.

Suddenly he was aware of two more people in the room.

One instant, he'd been alone with Carver, then there were two people standing on either side of him. Mike's head snapped quickly from side to side. It was El and Will!

Carver looked up in surprise, too. El lashed out a hand toward him, and he was thrown violently through the one way mirror, landing in a pile of shattered glass.

El shot over to Mike and threw her arms around him before he was even aware what was happening. He felt Will's hand touch his shoulder, and then the world around him dissolved and shifted into the dark shades of the Upside Down.

El tightened her iron grip around Mike's neck, and he stood up to return her embrace. After he'd done it, he belatedly realized that the handcuffs hadn't come with him into the Upside Down, so he could use his hands again.

Her hug was so tight, if he didn't know how much she loved him, he might have thought she was trying to kill him. He buried his face in her hair, which helped to hide the tears in his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, but his voice didn't want to work. He hugged her back just as tightly.

"Alive," El almost sobbed.

"Mike tried to talk again, and ended up making a sound that was half way between laughing and crying. Then something else flashed through his mind.

"Allie!" He said.

"Safe," El answered immediately, her own face buried in his shoulder. "She's safe. With the others." A second later, she seemed to lose all her strength and sagged weakly in his arms.

"Whoa, are you Ok?" He asked.

"Fine. Just tired," she whispered into his shoulder.

All of her weight shifted onto Mike's broken leg. He winced. The pain was bad, but the happiness was better.

"We should get back to the others," Will interrupted gently. "I guess you guys can both lean on me. We don't have far to go."

Dustin paced nervously back and forth as he waited. He hated waiting. His anxiety was made worse by the memory that he couldn't shake. That memory of one last look over his shoulder as the bad men grabbed Mike and took him away. Dustin hated that he'd left Mike to be taken. No matter how many times he'd told himself that it had been the only way to keep Baby Allie safe, he didn't feel any better about it.

The baby in his arms started to make little agitated noises. She was probably picking up the vibes he was sending out. He didn't want her getting as anxious as he was. That could be dangerous.

"Why don't you let me hold her for a little while?" Joyce asked, coming over to him.

"Oh, thanks," Dustin said, distracted. He couldn't stop thinking about where Mike might be right now, or what the bad men might be doing to him. "Thanks," he said again. Joyce took the baby and bounced her in her arms. In a second, the baby was making happy little noises. Dustin felt very lucky to have Joyce along with them on this mission.

He resumed his nervous pacing, cringing a little as he noticed that he was crushing some of those little gray worms with each step. The Upside Down seemed to be full of the gross little things. He glanced around the street where they'd parked the van. Lucas was checking his rifle to make sure that the caustic atmosphere wasn't going to damage it. Sam was leaning against the van smoking a cigarette. Dustin kept pacing. Only Will and El had actually gone inside the police station to look for Mike. The rest of them had stayed behind with the van. The idea had been to send as few people into danger as possible. But, now that Dustin reconsidered it, Maybe El should have brought more backup with her. She'd looked as weak as he'd ever seen her.

"Mike!" Lucas shouted.

Dustin snapped out of his unhappy musings and spun around. There he was! Mike Wheeler, whole and alive, though he was walking on just one leg and hanging on Will's shoulder for support. Dustin felt so happy he could have cried.

Hanging off of Will's other shoulder, looking worse than ever, was El. Baby Allie must have sensed her coming, because she started joyfully calling out for attention.

Dustin and Lucas both rushed forward to take the weight of their friends off of Will's narrow shoulders.

"We've got the party back together!" Dustin cheered.

"Now let's get outta here," Lucas added.

"Hold on," Joyce said quietly. She gazed sadly at El. "We're still missing one person."

El gazed back at her with dark, hollow eyes. She looked like she needed to sleep for a year.

"I know you've been through so much," Joyce said, her voice catching. "And it's not fair for me to ask you, but I can't just leave him out there, and I don't know where-"

"I can find him," El said, her voice so weak and quiet that Dustin could barely hear.

Joyce's eyes watered up. "I'm sorry."

El took Joyce's hand gently. It might have been a reassuring gesture, but Dustin also wondered if El was just too weak to say anything else. Lucas had been helping her stand, and he let her slowly sink to her knees so she could concentrate. El closed her eyes and went very still. Lucas and Mike crouched down on either side of her, Mike still favoring his leg, and waited with obvious apprehension for El to work her magic.

Everyone waited quietly while she knelt there, even Allie. El's eyelids twitched a few times in response to whatever she was seeing inside her head. A small trickle of blood began to run from her nose.

Her face screwed up in a painful expression.

"Is she Ok?" Lucas asked quietly.

She twitched again.

"I don't know," Mike said, sounding very afraid.

Suddenly El sat up straighter. Her eyes flew open, but then rolled back inter her head. She started to slump backward to the floor, but Mike and Lucas caught her.

"El," Mike yelled.

Lucas put a hand under the back of her head to support her neck.

"She won't wake up," Make said trying to gently shake her awake.

The baby started to cry.

Hopper and Franc peered around the corner of an old liquor store on a downtown street corner as they watched a few more of those green Army trucks cruise past.

"We could steal one of those," Franc suggested.

"Too conspicuous," Hopper told him. "We need something that will blend in."

Franc looked a little further down the road. There were a few of those black sedans that the government agent types drove around. He nodded in that direction.

"Better," Hopper agreed. "Now let me do the dirty work. You attract too much attention."

"I'll follow your lead," Franc said. Suddenly he felt a flash in his mind. He stood up straight and cast his eyes down the opposite street away from the trucks.

There was a single figure standing off in the distance, slowly moving closer. He was still too far away to see him well, but the one oversized arm was hard to miss. And those eyes... Even at such a distance, Franc couldn't have missed those eyes. He felt a pressure building inside his head. The quiet whispers grew louder, telling him what he had to do.

"What's wrong?" Hopper asked, looking to Franc, who stared transfixed at the approaching figure.

"He's here," Franc rasped, his voice barely escaping his suddenly dry throat.

"Then let's get out of here," Hopper said.

Franc couldn't tear his eyes away. He couldn't drown out the voices, either.

Suddenly there was a van almost on top of them.

One minute it hadn't been there. Now it was.

Franc and Hopper threw themselves out of the way as the van barreled down on them.