"Sister." Deca whispered back to El.
"Do you two want to sit down? We can talk about some things." Hopper broke the silence that clung to the room. Deca was in awe of El, she couldn't believe that there was someone in the world beside her brother that could understand what she'd been through.
Both girls sat on the couch across from Hopper. The party found places to sit in the kitchen or on the floor. El was happy, her thoughts were good and they made Deca smile.
Hopper's thoughts were fast, he wasn't sure how this would work, he felt a bit scared.
Hiding El was one thing but another one of their goddamned experiments was another. He thought, forgetting she could listen.
He remembered the conversation he had with Owens, he was gonna help El. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad. He tried reasoning with himself but the paranoid part of him was stronger.
"We've gotta figure out where you're gonna stay." Hopper exhaled the words.
"She stays here." El demanded.
"We don't have the room." Hopper replied. This made Deca feel scared.
"My sister stays here. She is family." El's eyebrows lowered.
"I can stay with Dustin." Deca said softly.
"Yeah? Is he gonna keep you in a shoe box? Or under his bed?" Hopper rolled his eyes.
"I can stay with-" Deca began.
"You can live here, with me." El told her, her warm brown eyes smiled at Deca. Hopper growled.
"If you don't want me here I will leave, but please, please don't send me back." Deca pleaded with Hopper, a tear fell down her cheek. He sighed.
"We have rules, and you will follow them and you will have lessons and you-" Hopper conceded. He was interrupted by the girls' celebrations.
"Thank you." Deca jumped up and hugged Hopper. He chuckled a bit and patted her back. She let go of him and hugged El.
"Ya did good, chief." Dustin patted Hopper's arm and smiled.
"Don't touch me." Hopper gave Dustin a warning look. Dustin put his hands in the air and backed away grinning.
Deca couldn't help but stare at the people around her. All of them were exceptional, unlike anyone she had ever met. They were kind and accepting and they all held so much love in their hearts.
She felt safe with them, especially with Hopper. He looked mean and angry but inside he was good. Deca sat back down and watched the exchanges between Mike and El.
"You should be laying down, you need rest." Mike told Eleven, he had such care and caution in his voice.
"Not tired." El replied with a smirk, El was speaking truth. Closing the gate was tolling but she had gone 353 days without seeing her friends, without seeing Mike, and seeing them made her never want to sleep again. El looked at Deca and stepped towards her.
"Ten?" El asked glancing down at her wrist.
"Deca." She corrected. El nodded, she understood wanting to separate from what Papa called them.
"Jane." El gave a small smile. Jane was the name from her mama, Deca didn't know if her mama had given her or her brother names. She hoped that she did.
"You are strong." Deca told her.
"Are you strong? Do you have a gift?" El asked. Deca nodded.
"Not like yours." Deca replied.
"Can I see?" El asked.
"Not something you can see. I can look inside people's heads." Deca explained.
"What's in Mike's head?" El smiled and pointed at Mike whose cheeks were starting to redden.
"He is worried about you, thinks you should sleep. And he doesn't want me to listen." Deca answered. She liked when people had thoughts directed to her, it was nice to be able to listen to just one of their voices.
"What about him?" El nodded to Hopper. Deca listened in.
"He is stressed. His thoughts are fast. Who is Joyce?" Deca asked, Hopper's thoughts started to wander to a woman. He worried about Joyce, how she was doing and when he would see her.
"Joyce is Will's mom. She's good." El spoke softly, she grinned. She knew why Hopper was thinking about Joyce, it was because he thought she was pretty.
"Does she think he's pretty too?" Deca asked El. El thought for a moment.
"Maybe." El said with uncertainty. Hopper could hear their conversation, and this annoyed him.
"He's a good man, he cares for you." Deca told El, she smiled at this. El knew Hopper cared about her, he was like her father. Not like Papa though, Hopper was good.
"Papa was bad, he's gone now." Deca whispered. El looked at her and swallowed, after what Kali said she wasn't so sure he was dead.
"Papa isn't dead?" Deca asked. Everyone in the room turned and stared silently.
"I don't know, haven't looked." El said softly.
"Did Kali want you to look?" Deca asked.
"She wanted me to be like her. Be angry." El replied.
"Who's Kali?" Hopper asked.
"Sister." El and Deca responded in unison.
"Another sister?" Mike asked. He hadn't really gotten much of a chance to talk to El since she closed the gate. He had barely any idea of what happened to her during that year besides living with Hopper.
"Kali finds the bad men, she makes them pay for what the did to us." El spoke, she thought of Kali. She felt sad for leaving her, but she had to save her friends.
"That's who you were with? You said you went to see Mama and Aunt Becky." Hopper looked at her, he was a bit angry but mainly concerned.
"Kali is good, her friends were good." El said aloud, inside she didn't know if that was totally true. They killed people but the people they killed were bad. El wasn't sure if they were good or bad.
"Did you see Kali? Were you in the rainbow room?" El turned towards Deca.
"I didn't know her. I don't remember the rainbow room." Deca frowned.
"Did you ever see my brother? Nine, he had blue eyes and he was tall." Deca thought of her brother.
"No, I didn't see him." El frowned.
"You had a brother? Is he still at the lab?" Hopper asked Deca.
"No, he ran away before Papa left, I was too slow, they got me." Deca told him, she tried to block that memory. She didn't want to cry.
"What happened to you after Brenner left?" Hopper asked.
"The new doctor, he said I brought risks, he kept me in the small room." Deca told him. He nodded and looked at her with sympathy. He felt sorry for her, he felt angry with Owens.
Deca didn't talk much after that. She liked observing them, there was so much love in the room. The party all loved each other very much, Hopper loved El, Mike and El both loved each other more than Deca had ever seen. She had never been surrounded by love before.
Mike and El sat close, he smiled and touched her hair. It was curly, he didn't know she had curly hair.
Dustin sat with her on the small sofa and told her about finding El and about the upside down and Will and Steve. Deca had already seen flashes of these things in his head but she liked that he told her about it. She listened to him with a smile and hung on his every word. She liked the way he described things, his voice was unique and always had a trace of laugh lingering in it.
"Is Will safe now?" Deca asked Dustin.
"Yeah, he's ok now. He's really tired after everything the mindflayer did." Dustin replied, Deca nodded. She could feel how scared Mike was when Will was taken over by the shadow monster, he was scared he would lose his best friend.
"Thank you, thank you for everything." Deca smiled at him. Dustin liked her smile, her eyes looked brighter when she smiled. Her lips were dry and cracked but she didn't care about the pain smiling brought to them. Dustin felt lucky that he found her and that she was so cool.
"You're cool too. Cooler than me." Deca told him. He blushed, he still got embarrassed that she could hear his thoughts.
"No way, you're like Jean Grey. You're a superhero, you're a badass." He grinned. Dustin made her smile so much her cheeks hurt. She had never met anyone like him, all the people she met were bad, she didn't know people like Dustin existed.
"You are kind and funny and you have happy thoughts and good memories and you're pretty." Deca told him. His cheeks burned red and he looked down at the ground. She didn't like embarrassing him but hated that he didn't think he was cool.
"Who is Jean Grey?" She asked him to try to change the subject.
He looked up and grinned and went into a long speech of the telepathic X-men vixen. She enjoyed his voice and his stories.
They sat together for a long time, the party all shared stories that made El laugh and their thoughts were warm and kind. Deca liked being around them, she was so happy she was here. She got sad when the sun started going down, Hopper said that they needed to leave
"I'll drive you home, c'mon." Hopper said while he put on his jacket. Mike hugged El, he didn't want to let go. Deca's attention was pulled away from them by Dustin.
"I can come by after school tomorrow." He smiled. She nodded and smiled back, but the smile quickly faded into a frown. She was afraid of him leaving, she felt safe with him.
"Its alright, you're safe here. Safer than you are at my house." He tried to make her feel ok. She nooded and gave a small smile. She put her arms around him, she squeezed his shoulders.
You'll be ok. You're safe now. Dustin thought to her. She let go and he walked towards the door. He turned and grinned at her. Lucas made kissing noises at him
"Shut up, asshole." Dustin hissed at him as they walked out the door.
"Bye, Deca. Bye, El." Max gave a small smile and wave. El ignored her but Deca smiled and waved back. She sighed and followed Lucas out but Mike lingered in the doorway struggling to part his gaze with El.
"I'll be back soon; El will lock the door behind me." He told Deca, he raised his eyebrows at El and she nodded in agreement. He walked out of the cabin and El quickly went and turned the locks and set the chain.
"Mike is so different now." El exhaled the words as her back rested against the door.
"He's tall and his hair is curly, and his smile is different." She says with a small smile, Deca liked this look on El's face.
"Do you want to be called Jane or Eleven?" Deca asks her, El looked at her a bit caught off guard. She thought for a moment.
"I thought I was Eleven, but mama named me Jane. I've been Jane my whole life." She said softly.
"Who do you want to be?" Deca asked.
"I'm El to Mike and my friends and Dad." El thought about what to say. Though her vocabulary has improved over the past year she still had trouble trying to put the words together to describe her thoughts.
"You call Hopper Dad?" Deca asked. She knew what Dad meant, people used dad to describe their father in their memories. Sometimes Dads were mean and angry and other times they were good.
El didn't reply. She didn't know what to say but she also didn't really want to say anything. Deca worried that she upset El with that question.
El sat on the sofa and started flipping the dial on the television with her mind. Deca watched her with awe. The things flashing on the television were bright and loud and colorful.
"Do you want to sit?" El asked Deca. Deca nodded and sat next to her. She pulled her knees up to her chest and watched the television.
"Hungry?" El asked again. Deca looked at her and nodded eagerly.
"Have you had eggos?" El asked her with a smile.
"No, what is that?" Deca asked her.
"They are warm and crunchy, and they pop out of the toaster." El's smile was wide and genuine.
"I get them after dinner. You could try one." El told her. They continued watching television, Deca stayed out of El's mind. She focused on the sounds coming from the box in front of them, she would hear glimpses of her thoughts but try her hardest at shutting them out.
"Are you angry with Max because of her laughing with Mike?" Deca asked softly. El looked at the floor.
"Yes." She whispered back.
"I didn't like that feeling. I'm sorry you felt that." Deca tried to offer sympathy.
Neither of them knew what to call that feeling but they both remember the sick feeling it put in their belly and the way it dried out their throats and the way their hands balled into fists because of it.
After a while, there was a knock at the door. It was the special knock. El stared at the door and unlocked it with a small tilt of her head.
Hopper walked in and glanced at El and Deca sitting on the plaid sofa. It looked like they were getting a long, he really hoped they were.
Jim couldn't help but chuckle a little. He was turning into a damn den mother. Not only did he have a teenage daughter, but he just brought in another pre-pubescent stray. His cabin was turning into the house in "The Facts of Life".
"Hungry?" He asked the girls. They both nodded in response, their eyes not leaving the television.
Jim put three tv dinners into the oven and then opened the fridge to get himself a beer. He popped the top and took a big gulp.
He leaned against the counter and could feel Deca's eyes on him. He turned and looked at her, her eyes shot to the floor when he noticed her stare. He wondered if she was listening to his thoughts. He thought and looked back to her.
I'm living in the twilight zone. I've got two girls in my house that can throw things at me with her mind or read my thoughts. He chuckled at the thought.
Guess you heard that. He thought while smirking at her. Deca had a small smile on her face.
"We've gotta set some ground rules." Jim pulled a chair up so he sat facing them.
"You can't just read our thoughts. Thoughts are private and it's not polite to listen." He told Deca.
"Why?" She asked.
"Because its not. People have private thoughts that they don't want anyone to hear." He replied.
"Dustin said its cool. I'm like Jean Grey." Deca started getting defensive.
"Well you can read Dustin's thoughts. Not mine, not El's, not anyone's." He told her. She sighed and nodded.
"And you have to do lessons. Reading, writing, arithmetic." Jim spoke. El smirked, Deca tried her hardest to block out El and Jim's thoughts.
"Can I go to school with Dustin?" Deca asked. She liked the way school looked through Dustin's eyes. Learning things sounded fun.
"No, its not safe." Jim told her.
"The bad men are dead." Deca replied.
"There could be more, they'd find you at school and they'd take you back to the room." He told her, his voice was low and cautious.
Deca just nodded in agreement. Jim wanted to protect her, just like El. The timer on the oven dinged and they all sat down at the table and ate their TV dinners. Deca didn't really like meatloaf, it was mushy, as El called it.
After dinner El and Deca got eggos. Deca liked them, they were crunchy and warm. Jim went to his room to get on pajamas and El changed too.
"You good to sleep on the couch?" Jim asked. Deca nodded. He looked different out of uniform, not as scary.
"There's a pillow and a blanket. It shouldn't get too cold tonight; the fire should keep you warm." Jim told her as he set a quilt and pillow on the couch next to her.
"Thank you." She bowed her head to him.
"Story." El said in a sleepy but demanding voice. He nodded and followed her to her room. He left the door open. Deca watched El get herself comfortable in bed and Jim grabbed a book off the nightstand.
He started reading and his voice made Deca feel sleepy and safe. She stood up and took off the sweatpants, so she was just in the thermal and boxer shorts.
She threw the quilt over her body and she put her head against the pillow. She closed her eyes and listened to Jim's voice. She started falling asleep when she got pulled into a memory. It was hers, of the bad place.
The door to her room had opened along with the lights turning back on and when she walked into the hall she saw bodies and blood. So much blood.
She started running, she almost fell when she slid through a puddle of blood. A trail of bloody footprints followed her to the stairwell. She didn't know how to get out, she was scared and sweaty and her heart was thumping in her ears.
She opened the stairwell and started walking down the hall. She stopped in her tracks when she saw the monsters. They were feeding on a man, he wore green scrubs and he was quickly dying. She could hear his thoughts, he didn't feel the pain of them ripping apart his entrails.
He felt love and he was content. There was a warmth inside him. Deca felt the tears fall down her cheeks. She could feel his consciousness slipping away.
His thoughts started fading and she felt them go out like a dying flame. There was deafening silence. He was gone. She felt him leave.
Deca sat up breathless, the tears burning her eyes blurred her vision. She couldn't breathe, she was stuck in that feeling, in that silence.
She tried to inhale but her throat was closed up. She kept feeling it. The fading. Death. It scratched at her throat and squeezed her heart. She was petrified by the fading that haunted her.
Her breath came back into her lungs when she felt Jim's strong hand on her shoulder.
"Breathe, breathe." He told her, he breathed in deep through his nose and out through his mouth.
"Like this, in, and out. Good. Just breathe." He reassured her as she took deep breaths. Her breathing steadied, and she wiped the tears with the back of her hand.
"You alright?" He asked her, his comforting hand still on her shoulder.
"Bad memory, of the bad place and the monsters." She whispered, her voice shaky.
"You don't have to be afraid of the monsters, or the bad men." He squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.
"You're safe now, Deca. You're home."