Eleven was making her way to the Wheeler's house one Wednesday morning.

It was the day before Thanksgiving, and the boys were already in what they called their Thanksgiving Break which meant that they didn't have classes for the rest of the week—which also meant Eleven could go hang out with Mike the whole day.

Lucas, Will, Dustin, and Max, who were taking advantage of their break, has decided to sleep in. Eleven, however, took advantage of their break in a different way. She took it upon herself to see Mike as much as possible, going to his house as early as she could, even if it meant that she had to wake him up herself.

Mike never complained, though.

So, here was Eleven, already in front of the Wheeler's house.

A smile subconsciously made its way to her face as she knocked on the door three times.

…

But there had been no answer.

Frowning now, she knocked again.

"Eleven?" she heard Mike yell from inside. "If that's you, you can come ahead inside!"

She didn't need to be told twice. Focusing on the knob, she imagined its inner workings, and willed for the door to unlock. An audible click resonated from the door, and she happily skipped inside, shutting the door behind her.

"Mike?" she called out, seeing the living room devoid of anyone else.

She heard a light sniffle. Her brows crinkled.

"Mike?" she called out again.

She heard someone suck in a breath, then Mike walked in the living room, wiping his eyes. "Hey, El," he said in a somewhat sullen voice. "I was just chopping some onions."

Eleven frowned, noticing that something was wrong.

Mike continued talking, not noticing Eleven's frown. "Mom had some business to attend to today, and tomorrow morning, so she had me chop some vegetables to lighten up her load for Thanksgiving dinner." He once again sniffled, wiping his eyes with the sleeves of his sweater.

Her frown deepened.

Mike turned around to head back into the kitchen. "I'll just clean up, then we can go watch a movie in the basement, alright?" he said, his head slightly turned to look at her. "You can go ahead there and put in any movie you want."

Eleven watched him retreat into the kitchen, a frown still on her face. She didn't move an inch, so when Mike came back to see her still on the same spot, his brows crinkled, and he asked, "Is there anything wrong?"

Eleven nodded, crestfallen.

"What is it?"

Pursing her lips, she answered, "You're sad."

Mike was taken aback. "What?"

She pointed up at his face. "Crying."

"Wha—" he began, then stopped, realization dawning on him. "Oh… it's the onions."

Eleven frowned at him again.

"The onions—it makes me cry," he explained further, then smiled at her. His eyes were still a little puffy. "It's okay."

Eleven didn't think it was okay, but Mike thought the dilemma was over, and brought his arm up to put around her. They walked together to the basement.

As they were watching Star Wars, with Eleven cuddled up on Mike's side, and his arm around her, she still couldn't help but frown. Mike was too engrossed in the film to notice, as he always was when any Star Wars film was showing.

Mike leaned over to whisper some random fact in her ear, and she played along with his excitement, but she just couldn't forget Mike's face with his eyes all puffy and his voice all sad and sullen.

So, when the time came that she had to go home, she set herself on a mission.

It was Thanksgiving morning, but Hawkins was in a crisis.

Lucas had been woken up early by his mother, much to his irritation, to go next door to the Wheeler's house.

"Maybe it was a robbery."

"I don't know," Lucas told Mike, "but she said the clerk seemed a little spooked."

Mike looked up at him, momentarily stopping from his task of dividing up the chopped onions to give the other half to Lucas.

"The manager swore that they ordered, like, three times more of everything than usual for Thanksgiving," Lucas continued, "but when they opened up this morning… all the onions were gone, but everything else was still there."

Mike looked at him like he was crazy. "What the hell?"

"I know!" Lucas looked at him incredulously. "It's some kinda conspiracy…"

"Really? Out of all the things someone could conspire about, they decide on onions?"

"Whoever did it must've had a reason."

"They're onions, Lucas—"

"I know that!"

Mike, again, gave him a funny look and continued dividing up the chopped onion. He really didn't want to give too much talk on the onion conspiracy. He's had enough conspiracies to last a lifetime.

"How come you have onions?" Lucas asked suddenly.

Mike abruptly set the container of chopped onions down on the table and let out a frustrated sigh. "What are you on about, now?"

"I'm just saying, everyone else doesn't, but you do."

"My mom bought them yesterday!"

"Look, man, it's just a little sketchy."

"How is that sketchy?"

Lucas shrugged, then continued, "Well, having a girlfriend with superpowers could definitely have its perks."

"What?"

"Tell me, when did you last see Eleven?"

"Yester—" Mike's eyes grew wide. "Oh, god…"

Lucas cheered. "Ha!" he yelled out, bringing his hands up in the air in triumph. "And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you solve a mystery." He grabbed the half-full container of chopped onions from Mike's hands and shot him a grin. "I'll see you later, dude. Thanks for the onions." He winked at him, then exited the house.

As soon as Lucas was out of the house, Mike rushed to his room to put some sneakers on.

Eleven woke up to incessant knocking on her door. She had stayed up late the previous night, and therefore did not visit Mike as early as she usually did. Groggily, she stood up and regretfully opened it, only to be greeted by Mike's admonishing look.

Suddenly fully awake, she stood there, staring at him. They looked at each other silently for a few moments.

"Good morning," she finally said, breaking the silence.

"Good morning to you, too," he said flatly.

"Mi—"

"Is there anything you wanna tell me?"

A blush crept up Eleven's face, and she tried to hide it by looking away. "N-No," she stammered out. She had always been terrible at lying.

"Oh, really?" Mike pressed on, taking a step closer to her.

"Yes," she insisted, avoiding his eyes.

"Then why aren't you looking at me?"

The blush on Eleven's face was now on full force, as she could literally feel the heat radiating from her. "I—" she stammered, digging around her brain for a possible reason, "—I don't want to."

She mentally berated herself because, seriously, when did she not want to look at Mike? But she must not get caught.

"Yes," she declared, more determined this time, "I don't want to look at you." As she said that, she looked straight at his face.

Mike blinked, looking right at her. "But you're—" he began, but shook his head, trying to stay on the subject at hand. He shifted back to his admonishing look, then said, "El, I'm serious."

Eleven bit her bottom lip, then her face suddenly contorted to look mad. "But they were making you sad."

"What—"

"You were crying."

Mike looked at her, dumbfounded. "They're just onions."

"They made you sad!" A weird rumbling sound came from her closet, and Mike almost jumped.

Trying to calm her down, Mike brought a hand up to rest on her shoulder, while his other hand rested on her cheek. "I wasn't sad," he tried to explain calmly. "It's just a thing with onions. They have this chemical that irritates your eyes, and it makes you kinda tear up."

Eleven gave him a final glare, then her expressions softened. "Okay," she said, accepting his explanation.

She stepped away from Mike then walked over to her closet, whipping the door open. Dozens and dozens of onions tumbled out. A single onion rolled its way to Mike's foot, and he stared at it, stunned.

"And this is—" Mike started.

"All."

Mike nodded slowly, trying to comprehend the number of onions that was previously stored in her closet. He looked over at Eleven, who was starting to turn red in shame, the ridiculousness of the situation finally dawning on her. "You really are something," he tried to comfort her.

She didn't budge, and only stared at the onions on the floor.

"Hey," he said, trying to get her attention.

She looked up at him, frowning. "Are you mad?"

"I'm not mad!" he quickly said. "This is gonna make a good Thanksgiving story next year." He tried to laugh, but stopped when he saw that his joke didn't cheer her up.

He walked over to her, carefully avoiding the many onions on the floor, and cupped her face in his hands. "Hey," he said. She looked up at him. "You did it because you thought it made me sad. It was pretty… sweet."

Her face contorted angrily. "You're stupid," she said, glaring at him.

"What?"

"You should have told me."

"Told you what?"

"That you weren't sad."

"I…" Mike trailed off, dumbfounded. "I didn't, did I?"

"No."

He sighed, then moved to wrap his arms around her. "Alright, I'm sorry that I didn't clarify that I wasn't actually sad."

Eleven huffed against his chest.

"But we really do need to do something about your… tendencies," he said matter-of-factly, putting her at arm's length.

Eleven rolled her eyes, but nodded.

"Alright, but first we need to give back all these onions." He looked around the several onions scattered around the room's floor. "How did you manage to bring them all back here without Hopper noticing?"

Eleven smirked, and Mike looked back at her with a dumb but curious expression, which slowly turned into a smile. He laughed.

"You amaze me," he said. "Did you know that?"

"Yes."