[A/N] Hey, everyone! Just leaving a quick thank you for every single follow, favorite and review and read I've been getting. You guys are amazing!

"This isn't a normal family"

"But it could be. It could be" – Joyce Byers and Robert Newbie.

"Alright, sweetie", said Joyce, carefully inspecting Will's clothes in search of flaws that were soon fixed as she spotted them "Remember: if anything goes wrong, if you have any episodes…".

"Mom, I didn't have an episode in three months", Will spoke, trying to pull back from her when she tried roughly brushing his hair with her fingers.

"I know, I know. But if it happens again…", Joyce continued, resisting to her son's struggle and grooming his hair anyway.

"I should tell you right away", Will completed the sentence that he was very much used to.

"Exactly!", she confirmed.

When Mrs. Byers thought she was done, she stepped back to admire her work and gave Will a tiny grin of approval.

"Look at you; you look so handsome!", she said proudly.

"Mom, can I go now? The guys are waiting for me!", Will spoke.

Joyce looked at her watch.

"Yeah, as soon as Jonathan's home", she said.

Will frowned and glanced at the floor.

"Why does Jonathan have to take me everywhere?", he asked.

"Because, mister, we're trying to prevent anything bad from happening to you again", Joyce responded.

"Yeah, but we're safe now. And this time it's for real". Will said "Besides, Steve is going to be there to look after us".

Joyce pursed her lips at the mention of Steve Harrington. She barely knew the boy, but she hated him. Steve was the teenager who ended up in a fight with Jonathan about a year earlier and got into some trouble with one of his classmates in her house, which ended up in some broken furniture and a shattered plate. She heard rumors that he had purposely spilled his drink on Nancy's clothes after hearing she wanted to break up with him, which was very rude to say the least.

Not to mention the fridge incident. Mrs. Byers was unaware of the monster that Steve and Dustin had put inside her refrigerator until she opened the door on the next day and found herself looking at the frozen corpse of a demodog wrapped up in one of Will's blankets inside.

Steve Harrington wasn't Joyce's favorite person or even the tenth favorite one.

"Well, yeah, but he has four more kids to look after and he might not pay attention if anything happens to you", she said.

"Can't I just ask Mike to walk me home if anything goes wrong?", Will caught himself liking the idea.

"No, sir. You're going with Jonathan", Joyce spoke firmly.

A familiar rustle of gravel outside denounced the arrival of a vehicle, which Joyce concluded to be Jonathan's car. As she walked to encounter her oldest son at the porch, she mechanically reached for a cigarette in her pocket and next thing she knew, it was already lit, firmly balanced between her lips as it slowly spread its smoke in the air.

Her guess was right. Jonathan's Ford LTD was parked on their front yard, next to the clothesline on which a couple shirts and towels carelessly waved in the wind. Joyce narrowed her eyes in confusion at the sight of the girl on the passenger seat. Jonathan got out of the car and walked inside in a rush, but Joyce's hand caught him by his sleeve before he could make it to the porch.

"Jonathan, what's going on? W-why did you bring Nancy?", she spoke with a bit of concern.

The boy looked at the girl who awaited him in his car and then back at his mother.

"I'm taking her to the fair. I forgot my ticket here", he replied.

Joyce's eyes looked almost dangerous as she stared at the boy. If those dark brown irises could ignite, the whole house would be on fire.

"And aren't you forgetting anything else?", she asked accusingly.

Jonathan frowned, checked his pockets and shook his head in confusion.

"You were supposed to take Will to the fair today!", she remembered.

"No, he's… He's going next week", the boy said without any trace of doubt or guilt on his voice, but his confidence only last for a few seconds "Isn't he?".

Joyce let out a soft, stressed-out laugh and took another sip of her cigarette.

"The boys had been planning this for months, Jonathan!", she spoke.

"I-I know, I'm so sorry", he said "I don't know how I forgot… It's fine, I'll just bring him along…".

"No, you'll be with Nancy the whole time and Will is going to want to hang out with the boys…", Joyce made a pause to think "You know what? You go to the fair with Nancy. I'm taking Will".

She started walking inside.

"Mom, you don't have to! He'll be fine! The boys will be there!", Jonathan said, in vain as she walked into the house with large steps.

Jonathan stood on the porch for a few seconds before going inside as well and coming back to the car, now with his ticket in hands.

"What was that all about?", Nancy asked, looking at Joyce, who dragged Will to her car by his hand.

"It's… It's nothing. Mom's just being over-protective over Will", Jonathan replied, turning the car on.

"No, not that", the girl said "It seemed that she was mad at you".

Jonathan shook his head, driving carefully through the bumpy dirt road that led out of their home.

"I, uh… I forgot that I was meant to take Will to the fair today. That got mom pretty upset. I don't think I've heard the last of it yet".

"I… I can go home. You can take me some other day…", Nancy said.

"No, no!", said the boy "It's alright. Mom's taking Will and I don't really know if I can talk her out of it".

Nancy looked down at her nails and moved her chin forward, thoughtful.

"How is she holding up?", she softly asked.

"She's… I don't know. Sometimes she's alright, sometimes it feels like she's falling apart", the boy eyed his mother's Ford Pinto through the rearview mirror.

He sighed. Bob's death had been an emotionally crushing event for Joyce and she certainly hadn't recovered from it, yet. She was smoking a lot more lately, enough to bother her sons, even though they didn't complain. Out of all people who had been through the same hell as Jonathan, only Nancy and Joyce had lost someone who they deeply cared about. The two women he loved the most were scarred for life and there was nothing he could do about it.

"I… I just wish I could have met him better. I was so scared that he would be a jerk like dad… But he was there for mom and Will all along. He…", Jonathan's voice began to shake and suddenly he felt Nancy's hand holding his.

"He didn't go in vain. We're all alive because of him", she said, looking into his eyes, even though he was staring at the road.

He simply shook his head.

"You're right", he said, putting an end to the conversation.

They didn't speak much during the rest of the drive.

"I told you it was a stupid idea!", Lucas said impatiently.

Mike, who was walking around the living room carpet, eyeing his watch every few seconds, stopped to look at his friend. Lucas impatiently sat on the couch as he witnessed his friend going crazier at every minute that passed. Because they were all going to meet at Mike's place that afternoon so Steve could pick them up, Mrs. Sinclair had allowed her son to sleep over. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said about the rest of the Party.

Max, who had skated her way there from her home, sat on the La-Z boy, monotonously leafing through an old and torn-apart X-Men comic that she brought in her backpack.

"It was not! She's coming", Mike said with all the confidence he could muster.

"Are you even listening to yourself?", the other boy asked "El is not supposed to go anywhere without Hopper unless it's your home or Will's. There's no way he's letting her come with us".

"Why don't you want Eleven to come?!", Mike snapped.

"I'm just being realistic, man!", Lucas replied, getting up from the couch.

"Can you guys just stop fighting? You sound like five-year-olds", Max monotonously said "Maybe Hopper is just a bit late".

"Just late", Lucas repeated in disbelief.

Max was the skeptical one of the Party. Whenever a situation looked bad or hard to believe in, she always found a reasonable explanation for it that would make the scenario slightly brighter, which would be an amazing quality if she was in any group of friend except for that one.

"Yup, just late. Like when people get stuck in traffic or take too long to dress up…", she spoke.

"Maybe…", Lucas admitted, sitting back on the couch.

"Guys, just relax! We still have time", Max said, which made the boys relax a bit.

Mike didn't go back to his stressed march around the room, but he couldn't help but stare at the watch every now and then and tap his foot on the floor. Lucas, who didn't expect to wait that long for his friends, sat quietly at the couch and impatiently stared the floor.

Suddenly, Max looked up from her comic and then all around the room as if she was trying to spot something out of place.

"Do you guys hear that?", she said, putting the comic book aside.

"What?", Mike asked.

"Shh!".

Mike and Lucas went silent, trying to perceive the noise. There was indeed a stuffy static-like sound coming from somewhere in the distance. The boys identified it before Max did.

Without a word, Mike ran to the basement followed by an equally concerned Lucas and a curious Max. The sound got more and more noticeable as they approached the source: Mike's walkie-talkie that lay in Eleven's fort in a corner. Dustin was yelling at the top of his lungs through it. The sound was muffled due to the weak signal, but still very recognizable.

"Guys, this is urgent! Anyone there?! Mike?! Lucas?! Steve?!", he said.

Mike flew through the basement, knocking over a chair and kneeled in front of the bed of pillows, picking up the radio and pressing the speaker button as soon as he could get a hold of it.

"Hey, Dustin, it's Mike! You're late; we're waiting for you! What's wrong?!", he asked with increasing concern, expecting to hear something worthy of being called a code red.

"Holy. Shit", Dustin started, "Mike, I've been calling you for twenty minutes. Why are you always on this channel?"

Mike took a while to notice he hadn't changed his walkie-talkie from channel eleven ever since he last spoke to Jane through it.

"Why didn't you use the phone, like a normal person?", he said, ignoring the previous question.

"Uh, I don't know. Maybe it's because you line has been busy for three hours?!", Dustin said.

Mike assumed that his mother was probably on her room, chatting with one of her friends on the phone again.

"What's wrong, Dustin?", he finally asked, not as concerned anymore.

"Remember last night when you said it wasn't a big deal to come home late?", Dustin said enigmatically.

Mike looked back at Lucas and Max, receiving only a concerned shrug from Lucas.

"Yeah, what about it?".

"It turns out my mom freaked out when I came back!", Dustin informed "Now I'm grounded and I can't go to the fair anymore".

"What?", Mike, Max and Lucas yelled in unison.

"She can't do that!", Lucas said.

"It turns out that she did, Lucas", Dustin said, acknowledging the presence of the other two kids along with Mike "We'll have to go some other time".

The three other kids eyed each other for a moment. Mike hesitated before pressing the speaker button again.

"Dustin, you know that we can't", Mike replied.

"What do you mean we can't?", Dustin inquired.

"You know that we've been planning this since September. We were supposed to go today because it's the only day Steve is available to take all of us!", Mike said "Jonathan's taking Will to a concert next Saturday and I have to go to the dentist Sunday".

"Then why can't we go the next week?", Dustin suggested.

"Because I have to go to Erica's stupid school play the next week!", Lucas said, running out of patience "Besides, Steve's dad is going out of town for work that week and Steve is coming with him. That's why we all agreed on going today!".

Dustin went quiet on the other side for a while.

"Alright, we have to go next Friday, then", he spoke.

"No, my mom grounded me for scratching her car on accident. I'm not supposed to leave home on weekdays unless I'm with Billy", Max took the liberty to grab the radio and answer Dustin herself.

The boys cringed when she mentioned her psycho of a brother. They weren't fond of Billy at all, especially after the incident last November. If going to the fair on a weekday meant having him around, then they would do anything they could to prevent it from happening.

"Oh, come on! There must be some other day we can go!", Dustin insisted.

Unsure of what to say, Max passed the radio back to Mike, who was about to press the speaker button, when the tuneful ring of the doorbell echoed through the house.

"W-we have to go!", Mike said, flushed "I'm so sorry, Dustin, but we're all going to the fair".

"Wait, Mike–", Dustin tried to argue before Michael pushed the antenna down, cutting the signal and silencing the device.

Mike stomped upstairs before Lucas and Max even got up from the floor and hastily opened the door, half expecting to see Eleven standing right there next to the chief, but he came across a tall teenager with a complex haircut on which some generous amount of hairspray had been certainly applied.

"Whoa, slow down, kid! The fair isn't going anywhere, alright?", Steve said, taking off his sunglasses and hanging them on the collar of his shirt.

Michael knew that he couldn't look any more disappointed, but there was nothing he could do about it.

"Oh, I thought… Never mind. Did you see the chief on your way here?", he asked.

Steve looked down Maple Street as if that would help him to access his memories quicker.

"Not that I remember of", he said and added, in a worried tone "Why? Did you mess up or something?".

"No! No, it's not that. I was… Forget it", Mike said.

By then, Lucas and Max had already made their way up to the front door to meet the newcomer.

"Where's Dustin?", Steve asked after immediately noticing the absence of his little partner.

"His mom grounded him and he can't go to the fair today", Max said.

Steve frowned

"She can't do that!", he exclaimed.

"Yeah, but she did", she confirmed.

Steve nodded neutrally, though he seemed disappointed with the news.

"Alright, let's go, then", he said, eyeing his watch "Everyone in town must be heading there right now. We should leave before traffic becomes a pain in the…".

"No!", Mike interrupted "We can't leave just yet!".

Steve looked at him with an expression that irradiated confusion.

"Why not?".

"We're waiting for someone else to come", Mike said.

"Are you freaking serious right now?!", Lucas asked "Mike, you have to accept the fact that she isn't coming".

"She is!", Mike confirmed.

"How do you know?!", the other boy inquired.

"I just do", Mike replied.

"You 'just do'?", Lucas repeated in disbelief.

"Yeah. I just. Do", the dungeon master spoke in a tone that didn't encouraged further arguing, then turned at Steve "Please, just give us ten more minutes".

Steve eyed his watch once again and scratched the side of his head in concern.

"You know what, screw it. I'm getting paid to babysit you little freaks anyway", he mumbled.

"Babysit?!", Lucas asked indignantly.

"I thought you were just hanging out with us!", Mike said.

The teenager bit his tongue and gave the boys an apologizing look.

"Don't take it personally. I like hanging out with you guys, but if my mom offered each of you some cash for you to spend some time with me, wouldn't you take it?", he asked.

"How much you're earning by watching us, exactly?", Max asked.

Steve locked his jaw, realizing how deep of a hole he had dug for himself by telling the kids he was getting paid to take them to the fair and he knew how much deeper it would get if numbers got involved. It would be embarrassing to confess how large the amount of money it actually was and even more if he had to confess he tried – And achieved – to raise the price a little bit with each one of their mothers. Their trust was damaged enough already. He didn't want to tear it apart.

"Well, uh, I…".

He barely had time to start the sentence when a large beige vehicle turned around the corner and decreased its speed as it drove closer to the Wheelers' home. The words Hawkins Police Dept. were clearly legible in black paint on the door and a blue and red siren adorned the jeep's top.

"You've got to be kidding me", Lucas said.

Mike opened a surprised grin and ran towards the jeep, bumping into Steve on his way towards it.

The doors opened and the chief stepped out, wearing a pair of jeans and a dark brown jacket instead of his police uniform. Though his haircut was fairly decent, his head seemed incomplete without the brown police hat on top of it.

"Sorry we're late, she couldn't decide what to wear", he said, sounding tired.

Jane jumped down from the passenger seat with the happiest of smiles on her face. She had a modest amount of makeup applied to her face and her hair was neatly combed, though not as fancy as it had been in the Snow Ball. She wore a light blue blouse and a pair of jeans as well.

Hopper and the other kids watched as she ran towards Mike like she was made out of metal and he was a magnet. They wrapped each other in an exaggerated hug and didn't let go for a while. Lucas rolled his eyes at the scene.

"Hey, El", he softly said.

She simply rested her head on his shoulder.

Steve vaguely gestured at the girl and looked around interrogatively, hoping that anyone would notice his confusion.

"Wait, what?", he asked "Who the hell is this girl?"

"That's El. You know, the girl saved us from those demodogs a few months ago?", Lucas explained.

Steve took a better look at the girl. Was that the kid who showed up at the Byers' dressed up like a punk?

"Well, yeah, but where the hell did she come from?", he asked, wary of the seemingly innocent kid who reluctantly stepped away from her hug with Mike.

They all looked at the boy. He had been through the same hell as them. He had fought monsters, seen other dimensions and acknowledged the existence of a huge government conspiracy. Still, he had only a slight idea of what actually happened. For example, he didn't know the first thing about Eleven and no one had taken their time to explain anything to him.

"Well, you see, she's…", Lucas started.

"It's a long story, son", Hopper said, walking past Steve and standing in front of Mike, who stared at the cop with distrust "Listen, kid. I'm letting her come under a few conditions".

The challenging look on Mike's eyes turned into an interrogative expression.

"She'll be under my watch the whole time. Anywhere she goes, she'll need my permission. She can't use her powers at all and you kids can't wander away from me", Hopper continued "These are the rules".

"But Steve will be watching us the whole time", Mike argued.

Hopper looked at the teenager who chatted with Lucas in a low voice, not daring to drive his eyes away from Jane.

"Well, I guess your moms will feel much safer if I'm there too", he spoke, coming back into the jeep.

Mike opened his mouth to say something, but the chief was already closing the driver's door and getting ready to start the engine.

"Can El at least come with us?", the boy asked.

Steve widened his eyes.

"Uh, I dunno", the chief said, trying to come up with an excuse that was not I won't leave my daughter in a car full of teenagers even if my life depends on it "I mean, Steve already has the three of you guys to look after…".

"We won't cause any trouble", Mike said "I promise".

That damned word.

Hopper scratched his ear.

"Look, kid, I, uh…".

"Please?", Jane asked, leaning on the passenger window.

Hopper started the engine.

"What the hell", he mumbled "Alright, kid. You can go with them, but behave, for God's sake".

By the time he was driving ahead of Steve's red BMW on his way to the fair, the chief couldn't help but glance at the rearview mirror every now and then and wonder if that whole thing had been a mistake. Not knowing what was happening in Steve's car was driving the chief insane. He sighed. The things he wouldn't do for a cigarette at that moment…

Next Chapter Preview: The case of Jason Allen's dog draws some undesired attention. A strange teenager shows up at Mr. Wheeler's door. A potentially deadly creature finds its way to Dustin's house and the boy finds out something unexpected about it.