Lucas made it to Hawkins by Monday morning and he could only waste so much time at his parents' house before heading over to Dustin's. Even though he had given himself several pep talks during the trip, he still sat in his car for twenty minutes before gathering the courage to walk up to the door. Will and El had already arrived and were sitting at the kitchen table. The guys had prepared him but he still felt a little shock at seeing her again. It didn't help the nerves in his gut.

And even though Dustin had told him, even though he knew it to be true, the question had to be asked.

"After you defeated it, the Demogorgon, you came right here? You didn't do anything else?"

El stared at him (another friend grown up in a flash) and seemed to know what he was thinking. They hadn't told her the details, but she knew...she knew he was referring to Mike somehow. She emphasized each word. "Friends don't lie."

"You promise?"

She simply nodded, the word "promise" feeling wrong on her tongue. Lucas gently grabbed her shoulder, the corners of his mouth twitching.

"It's good to see you, weirdo."

Hopper arrived around four that afternoon with a heavy file box, his hair a mess and eyes looking like he hadn't slept in days.

"Okay, boys, here you go. I went through most of it and put all the files that I thought you might want to take a look at on top." He took the top folder and dropped it on the table. "Project Pollywog."

"Project what?"

"Pollywog. 1984 to 1991." He surreptitiously glanced at Will before continuing. "After we brought Will back, the lab kept tabs on him. Wanted to see if he'd exhibit any side effects or changes after being in there so long."

They all looked at Will, who asked, "How long were they watching me?"

"Years."

"Did you know about it?" Will looked at the chief, his eyes a mix of fear and anger.

Hopper paused before responding. "Yes. But I didn't know about what they found."

"What did they find?" Dustin asked.

"Will, maybe you want to explain?"

Dustin and Lucas both whipped their heads to stare at Will, who looked hesitant. They thought they had shared everything. To think that Will had been harboring secrets...it seemed impossible. They both ignored the fact that they each had their own secrets. El gave Will an encouraging smile. He nodded back and explained what happened after he returned, the slugs, the visions. Once he was done, he rubbed his neck sheepishly. Dustin sat back in his chair with an exhale.

"Byers, I can't believe you never told us. That's wild."

"I didn't want to worry anyone. I was terrified of making it worse for everyone."

Lucas patted his shoulder. "It's okay man, we get it. We just wish we could have helped."

Dustin nodded in agreement. "So when was the last time you saw a slug?"

"1990."

"And the last time you saw the Upside Down?"

"Maybe a year ago."

"Damn."

Hopper picked up the folder again and started pulling out papers. "Yeah, well, while they were watching him they found out about the slugs. It doesn't look like they figured out the visions part though. But they captured some of the little buggers and experimented on them."

He passed papers around the table, Dustin especially eager to get his hands on them. El looked through a stack of photos. They took time reading through them, each sharing what they were learning as they went.

"They tried to breed them."

"Yeah, looks like they were successful."

"They were mostly interested in the mucus, you know, the snail slime. They tested it on rats, put it in their food."

"Look here, they ramped it up to just giving it to the rats straight. It was like the rats were on steroids. Super strong, super smart."

"Guys, they moved on from rats. They started experimenting on humans."

"What?"

"Yeah, looks like they told the subjects it was drug experimentation."

"Guess some people will do anything for cash."

"They watered it down at first. Just a little bit of mucus in a cup of water."

"Yeah, but it didn't take much. See, these subjects were getting only 10% strength and they were already exhibiting symptoms."

"The subjects didn't really react like the rats though. Like they were mentally affected but it didn't make them hyper intelligent. At least not in the watered-down state."

"What do you mean?"

"It like heightened their emotions. Some went manic, a few totally depressed, one developed high anxiety. It affected each one differently. Most of them reported hearing voices. A few even had hallucinations. One guy was convinced that his mother's ghost was with him, he kept seeing and hearing her."

"Shit."

"They look sad. In the photos."

"Okay, so what happened when they gave them stronger doses?"

"They didn't. Program was shut down while they were in the middle of phase one human experimentation."

"Probably around the end of the Cold War. A lot of things over there changed then."

"This is insane."

Lucas leaned over the table and sighed. "I might have something that could help."

"What?"

"It's at my house. I'll go grab it and be right back."

He grabbed his jacket and swiftly walked out. Hopper reached back into his bag and pulled out another file.

"I did a little more digging. About those kids," he said, looking at Will. "Look here, Gerald and Susan Sanford - that's their parents - lived in Hawkins right after they got married. He was over at the steel mill and she did some secretary work at the bank. And here, look at this, look where they lived."

Will followed Hopper's finger and raised his brows. "That was practically next door to me. They would have been my nearest neighbors. I don't...I guess I don't remember them. Do you think my mom would?"

"I dunno. They only lived there a year; they moved to Bloomington in '89. She was pregnant at the time and they were having complications so they moved to the city. Better doctors." The chief shrugged.

Will looked up at him. "Billy. Billy was born in '89."

Dustin chimed in. "Do you think…?"

"It could all be a coincidence but it's pretty weird."

They heard the door open; Lucas was back. He placed a worn folder stuffed with loose papers on the table.

"Mike's mom gave this to me after…" He shrugged, unable to finish the sentence. "It's his old D&D campaigns. I guess she thought I might want them. But there's other stuff in here too. He wrote like journal entries sometimes." Lucas didn't mention that the folder had first sat on his desk unread for a year, that he finally opened it on the first anniversary of that November night, that by the time he was done reading his face was covered in tears and snot, that some of it still haunted him.

"Some are like typical high school stuff or movies he liked. But…" Lucas rifled through them, pulling out specific pages. "Here, read these."

Dustin took the loose leaf papers from him and read them aloud.

11/12/84

It's been a year. A whole year. Winter, spring, summer, fall. I can't believe it's been that long. Will is different now. He doesn't want us to know, but we can tell. But I think we're all different now. Sometimes I think I'm forgetting what she looked like but then she'll show up in a dream. She's always happy in my dreams.

5/27/86

I hear her voice sometimes. I swear I hear it. And I can't tell if I'm just crazy or if she's reaching out to me. She could be trying to talk to me from the Upside Down. What if she's stuck there? I wish I could talk to the guys about it. I don't think they'll believe me. They never talk about her. They probably think she's dead. And if Lucas gives me one more look I'm going to scream.

8/15/88

I've been hearing her a lot lately. And sometimes I dream about her, but it's not really like I dream about her as much as she's in my dream...I don't know if that even makes sense. Like it feels like she put herself there, instead of my brain thinking her up. I don't know. I just wonder if she's there for a reason.

11/2/88

It's every night now. She's in all of my dreams. Sometimes we're doing normal dream stuff or something fun. But a lot of times she's just looking at me, trying to talk but I can't hear her. I think she's asking for help. I don't know what to do. But I have to do something.

Dustin finished reading and looked up at the others.

Lucas said, "They sound like those files. It was all I could think of when you read them before."

El stared at the paper in Dustin's hands without seeing anything. All that time, Mike thought it was her. All that time… She didn't notice the few tears that escaped down her cheeks. But Will saw.

"Hey, hey this is not your fault. El. El, look at me. This is not your fault. Mike would not blame you for this," he implored, kneeling in front of her chair to look her in the eyes. Her face scrunched up and she leaned onto his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her and wondered if this was what fatherhood felt like.

"Is it possible that he was infected somehow?" Hopper asked.

"I had a voice too." The others looked at Dustin in surprise. "I would hear this voice, more and more, telling me that I wasn't good enough, that I - that I wasn't smart enough. That I should have figured out how to find El. I figured it was just my mind, that maybe the stress was making me crazy, that everything it said was true." He paused, drawing in a deep breath. "Maybe…maybe I was infected too."

"Do you still hear it?" Hopper asked quietly.

Dustin nodded. "Sometimes."

Will looked at Dustin with shocked eyes and whispered, "Me too. I thought it was just me."

"Wait, you-"

"Yeah. I thought it was just my thoughts, you know? But it would tell me everything that could go wrong. How I could get hurt, how others could get hurt. It's why - it's why I never did the things I wanted to do. You know, I wanted to move to New York and live with Jonathan? But I was so...afraid to leave Hawkins. I'd say to myself, you won't make it, you won't be okay. But maybe it wasn't me saying those things."

"Oh my god," Lucas suddenly said as he dropped his head into his hands. "Me too. Mine was so angry, it made me so angry. It made me hate everyone. Because they didn't know or understand or they...God, it made me want to leave everyone behind. And I knew that it wasn't anyone's fault, I'd tell myself that but another part of me didn't care. I was tense all the time, I had to go to a chiropractor. I was grinding my teeth...I still do. It hasn't really gone away, any of it."

Standing up from the table, Dustin began to pace, furiously thinking. "Okay, so it's obvious that Will was infected. And let's say, at least for argument's sake, that we're all infected. How would that happen?"

Lucas leaned his head on his hand. "We must have ingested it somehow. The mucus."

"Do you think the lab was messing with us?" Dustin asked. Will's face turned white.

"No, it was me," he softly said, staring off at the wall. "I threw them up in the sink."

Dustin stopped pacing. "You mean they got into the sewers?"

"No. My house is on the edge of town. We had a septic tank, and a well system." He swallowed hard. "I contaminated our water. And you guys were at my house a lot after I got back. You must have drank it hundreds of times."

Hopper spoke up. "But what about your mom? And Jonathan?"

"No, it makes sense. My mom's anxiety got so bad after that. I just thought it was because she'd gone through something traumatic. But...maybe she was infected. And Jon...he always blamed himself for my disappearance. He got really dark and angry and said that he wasn't good enough for us. And then he moved away. 'Cause he thought it was better for us." He looked around the table at their faces, his eyes wide. "No, it makes total sense."

"Why was Mike's the worst?" Dustin asked.

"I don't know. Maybe...maybe because we just thought it was our thoughts and he thought it was Eleven?"

"He didn't know if she was really out there or if he was going crazy," Lucas said, staring at his hands.

There a solemn pause and then Hopper cleared his throat.

"So now the question is: how does Billy factor into all this?"