Hope

McChord Air Force Base

Tacoma, WA

June 25, 1986

"I'm sorry," Eleven whispered again, out loud this time, as the tears began to break free and run slowly down her cheeks. She gazed down sadly at her sister, as Twelve's lips pulled back into the slightest hint of a small.

"I caught it, Papa," she mumbled. "Papa is so proud of me."

Mike, Hopper and Kali stared in breathless silence, trying to reconcile what they were were seeing. Eleven just looked blankly at her sister, hoping it had been the right thing to do.

"Hide and seek. I found them, Papa! Cherry suckers are my favorite."

"How..." Hopper began. He stopped, unsure just what to even ask. "What happened?"

"Dream Circle," she replied, sadly. "Like Mama."

Utterly spent, Eleven buried her face into Mike's chest and sobbed. She had condemned her sister to be locked away, trapped inside her own mind just like Mama. Was she really any better than Papa for doing that? The only consolation she could grant herself was the fact that she had pulled Twelve's happiest memories to the surface before she locked her mind shut. She would forever be Papa's happy little girl, doing all the things that made him just so proud of her. She wouldn't be haunted by his betrayal, or his death, or the knowledge of her sister and the role she had played in everything that had happened to them.

Mike slowly turned his head and surveyed the wreckage all around them. Unable to stay on their feet any longer, Hopper and Kali were sitting, leaned back to back for support. It was clear he was ready to pass out from the immense pain radiating from his shattered arm and she looked deathly pale from all she had endured over the last week. Twelve lay on her side, softly muttering away her happiest memories. Beyond her, the late Dr. Martin Brenner lay in a pool of blood. When the moment had come, Mike had been surprised at how easy the decision had been to pull the trigger and save her. The full gravity of the situation would probably come crashing down around him later, but for now, he consoled himself with the fact it had been the right thing to do. Finally, beyond the body lay the wrecked remains of the plane. Since Brenner and Twelve had emerged from the wreckage unharmed, he was confident the pilots were fine and had smartly stayed out of sight and away from the surreal events taking place outside. He had to admit, it had been incredible watching her grab hold of the plane and slam it to a stop, ripping off the engines and tearing a hole in the side as though it were made of paper. Her strength had grown to incredible levels since her stay in the hospital and he couldn't help but think something she experienced while unconscious had fostered this growth. He knew Brenner had been wrong about the two of them. Far from being intimidated or emasculated by her incredible power, he felt nothing but pride for the girl he loved. They completed each other in ways his twisted mind would have never understood.

Hearing the approach of vehicles from behind them, Mike stood, pulling Eleven with him. Base security was rapidly approaching and the scene would be in chaos in moments. He felt her body tense as she saw the soldiers coming for them and watched as she slowly ducked her head, preparing her mind to fight once more.

Laying a calming hand on her shoulder, he softly said, "Not this time."

Looking up at him in startled confusion, she asked, "What then?"

"We let them take us. We don't fight. These aren't Brenner's men. It will be okay," Mike said. "I promise."

Those two simple words put her mind at ease and she nodded. "Okay, if you're sure."

Before the soldiers were close enough to perceive it as a threat, Mike slipped the rifle off his shoulder and pulled Hopper's revolver out of his pocket. Laying both gently on the ground, he stepped away from the firearms. Taking Eleven's hand in his own, they walked over to Hopper and Kali to wait. He pulled her into a tight embrace and they clung to one another.

"I promise, we're going to be alright," he repeated. "Whatever happens, I love you El"

"I love you too, Mike," she whispered, pulling him tighter to herself.

Seconds later, security reached them, rifles drawn, and ordered them to the ground. After securing the scene, paramedics were brought in and Kali, Hopper and Twelve were quickly assessed and secured to stretchers. As Hopper was loaded into a waiting ambulance, he caught Eleven's gaze long enough to mouth 'I love you,' which she immediately mouthed back, fighting to hold back her tears and knowing she needed to be strong for him. Shifting his eyes to Mike, he again gave the 'take care of her' look, to which Mike responded with a gentle nod. As the three were taken away under guard to the base hospital, Mike and Eleven were handcuffed, searched and placed in the back of a waiting car.

The MPs wasted no time and began with the interrogation as they drove across the base. Mike answered most of the questions for both of them and laid out the story as it had happened. It sounded too fantastical to believe, though the officers could provide no better explanation for the dismantled aircraft, the obliterated warehouse or the catatonic twin currently being taken away for evaluation.

After another quick search for concealed weapons, Mike's wallet was confiscated and the two were un-cuffed and placed into neighboring holding cells. Before leaving them, the officers warned it would probably be quite a wait as there were more than a few things that had to sorted out to even begin to corroborate their story.

Moments after the guards left their cells, Mike heard the lock unlatch on Eleven's cell and the door slide open. That was followed by his own unlocking and sliding open as well. Eleven stood there, nose red and eyes glistening as the shattered emotions of the day ran slowly down her cheeks. She walked into his cell, siding the door shut and locking it again behind her.

"I didn't want to be alone." she said sadly.

"Come here," Mike said gently, holding open his outstretched arms.

Eleven walked over and sat on the bunk with him, settling into his lap and resting her head on his shoulder. Wrapping his arms around her, Mike settled back against the wall behind him, getting comfortable and knowing they would likely be sitting there for a while, until the soldiers could figure out what to do with them.

After several quiet minutes, wrapped up in each others arms, Eleven softly asked "Is he really gone?"

"Yeah, he's gone." Mike confirmed. "It's really over this time."

"Thank you," she said, leaning up to plant a kiss on his cheek. "I think he had me believing what he said. I don't think I could have done it myself."

"It's what we do: we catch each other when we fall and we do what has to be done to keep each other safe."

She nodded and curled herself tighter into Mike's embrace. Closing her eyes, she tried to shut out everything that wasn't the two of them.

As Mike and Eleven sat waiting in their cell, a flurry of activity was occurring elsewhere on the base. Kali and Twelve were placed in separate hospital rooms under armed guard, though neither was in any state to attempt an escape. Hopper was immediately taken in to surgery to begin the lengthy process of reconstructing his shattered arm.

Meanwhile, Mike and Hopper's wallets were searched in an attempt to determine just who they were dealing with. Behind each of their ids, which were quickly determined to be forgeries, the soldiers found matching business cards for Dr. Sam Owens, North Central Region Chief for the CIA. The cards included instructions to contact him directly in the event of an emergency. After verifying he was who the card claimed him to be, Dr. Owens was contacted and the unusual situation was explained. Within hours he was on a plane headed west to come sort things out. After meeting with those who had been working tirelessly to clean up the day's messes, his next stop was to get Mike and Eleven released from the cells where they were being held. The guards were initially startled, upon opening Eleven's cell, to find the girl missing. However, even the most cynical of the guards couldn't help but melt just a little upon opening Mike's cell and finding the two of them fast asleep, wrapped in each others arms.

After waking them, Dr. Owens ushered them across the base to reunite with Hopper as he was recovering in the hospital. The doctors had spent hours piecing his arm back together and were confident he would eventually have full use of his right hand again, though it would probably take additional surgeries to completely repair the damage. Mike and Dr. Owens decided to give Hopper and Eleven a few minutes to reconnect in private before going in to join them, and instead went into the room next door to check on Kali. After a day of fluids and rest, and her more significant wounds having been cleaned and stitched, she was doing remarkably well.

"So, you must be Mike," she greeted as they walked in. "Jane's told me a lot about you."

"She's told me a lot about you too," he responded coldly. "Especially about the last time you two spoke a couple weeks ago."

Kali's eyes dropped with guilt. "I'm sorry. I know all this was my fault."

After stewing on this thoughts for a moment, Mike continued, "I'm certainly not okay with what you did. But she forgives you, so I forgive you too."

"Thank you," she said, finally meeting his gaze. Only then did her eyes glance over at the man who had come in with Mike.

"This is Dr. Owens," Mike introduced. "He's the reason we aren't being shuffled away to disappear right now."

"Nice to meet you," she greeted.

"Nice to meet you as well," Owens offered. "Sorry it couldn't be under better circumstances. I've actually been trying to get in touch with you for a few years now, but you're very good at covering your tracks. Feel up to leaving the room for a few minutes?" he asked, nodding his head toward the wheelchair parked in the corner of the room. "There's a few things we all need to discuss."

After helping her into the chair, Mike pushed her out the door and over to Hopper's room. It was clear that both father and daughter had shed more than a few tears, though neither was much inclined to hide the fact anymore. After everyone was thoroughly reunited, Dr. Owens spent the next few minutes explaining what had been happening while the four of them had been locked up and recovering.

"So, some good news," he began. "Once the doctors sign off on both of you, you'll all be free to go home. I'm sure you're getting used to it at this point, but all of you will need to forget any of this happened and keep it to yourselves. As far as any official reports are concerned, the plane suffered engine failure on takeoff. Dr. Brenner and his daughter were killed in the resulting crash. The pilots were so rattled by what happened, they are just fine with corroborating the story, and the plane has already been hauled off to be destroyed. The base commander is happy to be rid of him, and the last few politicians with any connection to Brenner are falling over each other to distance themselves from what remains of his work. I think you are all free and clear of anyone trying to come after you at this point."

He paused and let the good news sink in, before getting to the more sensitive question. "We do have one loose end that needs to be tied up. Jane, you have a twin sister who, despite the official reports, didn't die in a plane crash yesterday. I'm making arrangements to have her placed in a care facility in Chicago where we can keep a close eye on her. At some point, we'll need to know exactly what happened to her. For now, I just need to know if she is any kind of threat? From what I've heard, whatever you did to her brain has her completely zoned out; is there any chance of her coming back to her senses?"

"Only if I let her free," Eleven confirmed guiltily. Mike put a reassuring arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him.

"Good enough for now. I'll let you guys visit while I have a little chat with the doctors."

It was another two days before they were ready to release Hopper and Kali to fly home. Dr. Owens had offered to arrange a place for Mike and Eleven to stay on base, but she refused to leave Hopper's side. She decided if he could sleep in a chair by her side for a week, then she could do the same for him. At one point, a soldier arrived carrying the two black duffle bags, recovered from the station wagon. The location of the car was quietly slipped to local police, so it could be returned to its rightful owner. Checking the contents of the bag, Mike was surprised to find the shoulder holster with the revolver tucked safely inside. Catching Hopper's eye for a brief instant, Mike pulled the folded letter out of his pocket and tucked it quickly back into the pouch on the holster, for Hopper to do with as he wished once they were home.

The next day, the unusual group of six boarded the private jet Dr. Owens had arranged and took off toward home. Owens spent the majority of the flight reviewing stacks of reports detailing just how all of the arrangements were proceeding. Hopper and Kali slept for most of the flight, still on heavy doses of painkillers to aid in their recovery. Twelve sat buckled in her seat for the entirety of the flight, a serene smile plastered to her face, muttering softly about games of catch and cherry suckers. Eleven and Mike sat arm in arm, blissfully hopeful that things were truly over and perhaps she could live the quiet, peaceful life she deserves.

Hawkins, IN

August 12, 1986

July came and went with life gradually returning to normal for the extended Hopper family. The chief made an invitation to Kali, offering to turn his home office into a proper bedroom for her to stay with them. While she was grateful for the offer, the ideas of small-town life and family still felt too confining to her. As a consolation, Dr. Owens helped set her up with a real apartment in Indianapolis and a job to start establishing a stable life for herself. Still, she drove up to Hawkins about once a week for dinner with her new family. After so many years of running, the idea of settling down and planting roots was more than a little scary but she fought her way through. To help her along, Dr. Owens kept a standing phone appointment with her every Tuesday evening, putting his psychology degree to good use and making sure she was doing alright.

Hopper was coming along well in his recovery, though as originally anticipated, he had required a second surgery in late July to repair the damage in his hand. Everyone at the station liked to tease him to no end about his arm. As far as any of them knew, he had taken a bad fall off a ladder while cleaning out his gutters and he desperately wanted to inform them all it was actually a telekinetic teenage sociopath that had been trying to torture information out him. Despite Owens' reassurances that they were no longer being hunted, he knew there was no way to drop the real story without outing Jane in the process, and it would cause no end of problems if the town knew of her abilities. So he kept his mouth shut and endured their good-natured ribbing.

As he had predicted, the nightmares settled in for Mike not long after their return to Hawkins. Some nights it was just reliving the events as they had occurred, right up to the point of shooting Brenner. Worse were the nights when he acted too late and Brenner managed to win her over and Eleven turned on all of them. The first time he had that one, he wound up on her front porch at two in the morning, sobbing and unsure how he had even arrived there as he was both bike-less and barefoot. For a change, she got to be the one to help piece him back together and assure him he had made the right decision and that she was, in fact, safe. Her own nightmares came back with a vengeance as well, and it wasn't long before Mike was sleeping at her house most nights. In the beginning, Hopper had insisted that Mike sleep on the couch but after finding them together on the living room floor for the third morning in a row, he relented and allowed them to share her bed. He laid out the ground-rule that her door stay open and the understanding that he would - and did - check on them randomly through the night. As much as his fatherly instincts screamed at him to send Mike home, he knew their mere presence at each other's side in the night did more for their healing than anything else could.

On August 9th, Mike proudly presented Eleven with her very own telescope in honor of her real birthday. It had taken mowing countless lawns in addition to a small loan from Nancy to buy it for her, but it was all worth it for a smile of pure delight as she slid the bright paper off the box and realized what he had bought her. A few days later, he had an evening all planned out - much like what he planned back in June - for stargazing, helping her try out her telescope to get an up-close look at the moon and watching the Perseid meteor shower, which was expected to peak that night.

As the sun sank toward the horizon, Mike stood scraping the grill on Hopper's back porch. While the chief had insisted on doing the actual grilling himself, flipping burgers just fine with his left hand, he was more than happy to relinquish the hard cleanup work to Mike while he kicked back with a beer. As Mike worked away at the bits of charred beef, he looked out across the back lawn, his eyes falling on Eleven. She had a blanket spread out in the grass and was seated in the middle, back straight and eyes gently closed with the warm evening sunset sparkling off her face. He knew she was currently 100 miles away making an important weekly visit. No matter how many times he reassured her she had made the right decision, she still couldn't help but wonder if there was something more that could have been done and he understood the importance of these visits to her own healing.

A few minutes later, Eleven opened her eyes with a long sigh. She didn't know if it would ever be safe enough to unlock her sister's mind again, but she was willing to work on helping Twelve heal, as long as it took. Rising to her feet, she turned and found Mike standing right there, as she knew she would. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close as she buried her face in his chest.

"How is she this week?" Mike finally asked, breaking the silence.

Eleven gave a noncommittal shrug. "A little better, I suppose. Instead of screaming the whole time, she just sat there and glared while I talked. I guess it's something," she added, brightening a little.

"It'll be up to her whether she's able to come out of this someday, but you're still doing more for her than any of the doctors can. She's lucky she has a sister who loves her enough to even try."

Looking deep into Mike's caring eyes, she marveled at all they had come through together. She knew in her heart, Papa was wrong about the two of them. Their love was real, and whatever came along, they would face it together. Eleven leaned in for a kiss as the first shooting-stars of the night began to streak their way across the sky.

Somewhere, locked deep inside her teenage mind, five year old Twelve smiled as she prepared for another game.

"Hide and Seek Papa! Count to fifteen. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven."

She paused, her face slowly pulling down into a puzzled frown. Eleven; something about the number didn't feel right as she spoke it. The feeling only lasted a moment before she smiled and continued counting.

"Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Ready or not, here I come!"