Thank you for reading!

"Ain't No Mountain High Enough"

'Cause baby there ain't no mountain high enough

Ain't no valley low enough

Ain't no river wide enough

To keep me from getting to you

- Diana Ross

Once Eleven had calmed down, Joyce helped her out of the kiddie pool. Mike was waiting with a big towel, and he wrapped it around Eleven and led her over to the bleachers, where he and the other boys surrounded her, rubbing her back and helping to warm her up. She seemed drained, all the life gone out of her. Hopper couldn't look. It was too much like Sara—the dark circles under the eyes, the pale face, the shorn head. He wanted to take whoever had hurt that little girl and lock them away where he could punch the living daylights out of them at least once a day.

But he couldn't do that. What he could do was get back to that gate and get to this Upside Down and bring back Joyce's son and try to end this nightmare for all of them.

Once Eleven was settled, he drew Joyce aside. "She said something about Castle Byers. Is that your house? Is Will at your house?"

"No, it's a fort. He built it himself."

"So this fort, where is it?"

"Uh, it's in the woods behind our house …"

"He used to go there," Jonathan added. "To hide."

Clearly it had worked, at least so far. Hopper didn't like the way Eleven had melted down there right after she talked to Will. It felt too much like something had happened to the kid. He felt an urgency to get moving before there was time for anything else to go wrong. He stalked off, leaving Joyce and Jonathan behind. They hurried after him as he burst out through the doors of the gym.

He turned and glared at them both. "Hey! Get back inside!"

Joyce glared back at him as she realized what he meant to do. "What, are you insane? No, I'm going!"

"Look, something happens to me, I don't make it back—"

"Then I'll go! You stay. Are you kidding me? He's my son, Hop! My son. I'm going."

Hopper knew better than to argue with her when she got like this. He used to love it when she got like that, when she went toe to toe with him and wouldn't back down. Everyone backed down for him, especially when he was mad—but sometimes Joyce got mad enough to stand her ground. This time, though … this time wasn't getting in trouble with a teacher, or his parents, or sneaking beers. This was going into some sci-fi horror movie nightmare where one person at least had already died and from which they had no guarantee of coming back, and he couldn't stand to think of her lost there. It scared the shit out of him. But she was right—Will was her son, and she had never given up, never stopped believing. She deserved to go. She needed to go, just like he would have needed to go if it was Sara lost there.

While he was wrestling with his fears, Joyce turned to Jonathan. "Listen, I need you to stay here."

"No!"

"And—and, watch over the kids …"

"No, Mom, I can help!"

Over his protests she pulled him close, holding him like it was the last time, trying not to be afraid that maybe it was the last time. "Please, I need you to stay," she repeated. She needed to know one of them was safe, that he would be okay while she was gone.

From the car, Hopper shouted "Joyce!" in a tone that meant business.

"Please," she said to Jonathan. "Please."

"Okay."

"Joyce, come on!"

"I'm gonna find him," she promised Jonathan. "I'm gonna find him."

Then she tore herself away from Jonathan and got in the car with Hopper, who peeled out of the parking spot in a way she remembered vividly—the way that said he had backed down, but he was pissed about it.

"He's my son, Hop," she said softly while he drove, his knuckles white on the wheel and his jaw clenched. "He's been somewhere I can't get to, where I can't help him. I'll go out of my mind if I can't do … something. I promised I would come for him. I have to."

"I know," Hopper bit off. "All right? I know. Doesn't mean I have to like it."

Well, that was fair enough. Joyce held on to the car door handle while he took a turn on two wheels—or at least, it felt that way.

By the time they pulled up in front of a chain link fence in the middle of the woods, Hopper had calmed down. Thinking out the plan for how to get to the gate had helped. It had taken his mind off the fear. He grabbed the wire cutters out of the back seat and got out of the car. Joyce came with him to the fence.

"So this is your plan?"

"Worked for me before, didn't it?"

"Well, did it?"

Okay, maybe not all that well, but he had come out of the place with clues, important clues. "Come on, trust me," he said, cutting his way through the fence. He turned and reached out a hand to her. "Do you trust me?"

She looked up at him, her brown eyes so like he remembered, and she nodded and took his hand. He held it tightly until she was through the fence, and then they hurried across the grounds toward the distant building.

But they didn't make it to the building. The floodlights came on before they even neared the doors. So, Plan B it was, then. He only hoped it wouldn't take too long.