"Make sure you get some for El alright?" Jess whispered to Mike as they waited for the Eggos to pop up.
Mike nodded.
"I know."
Jess smiled, looking at the basement.
"What did you two talk about?"
"Nothing much, really. It's a shame she has to leave. I would like to have another girl in the party." Jess mumbled, causing Mike to smile sadly at her.
"I know. If the circumstances weren't dire, I would have welcomed her to the party once we got to know her a bit more." Mike agreed.
"I have my own nickname for her too, though, only I can call her it," Jess says, smirking at Mike.
"Really? What is it?"
"Once." She replied.
Mike rolls his eyes and Jess giggles.
"How original."
The Eggos popup, Mike taking two of them and shoving them in his jacket pocket.
They each take two Eggos and put them on their plates.
X
Mike makes sure Jess sits next to him at the end of the table and not in the middle between him and Nancy because Jess was still upset about Nancy's comment about her yesterday night.
They both shove their Eggos into their mouths, so they can greet El good morning and give her breakfast.
"Slow down, Mike and Jess. That's disgusting."
While Jess refused to reply and just flips her off, Mike glared at Nancy.
"Do a lot of studying last night?"
"Yeah, actually, I did."
"What was your test on again? Human Anatomy?"
Jess giggled softly as Nancy kicked his leg and he kicked her leg back.
"Hey, what's going on?"
They both look at Mrs. Wheeler.
"Nothing."
Jess sips on her cup of OJ, winking at Mike who just smiles and rolls his eyes.
X
The two pulls up the blanket that was covering the fort and found Eleven playing with Mike's supercomm.
"Hey, you found my supercomm. Pretty cool huh?" Mike says, smiling at her.
She looks up to see Jess and looks back down at the supercomm.
"I talk to my friends with it. Mostly Lucas and Jess 'cause they live so close. Signal's pretty weak."
"Yeah, it really is." Jess chuckled.
Eleven looked at Mike who gets the Eggos and hands them to her.
"Got you breakfast." He says, Jess smiling as El took a bite out of the waffle.
"So listen, this is gonna sound a little weird, but I just need you to go out there. Then go to the front door and ring the doorbell. My mom will answer and you'll tell her that you're lost and that you need help. But whatever you do, you can't tell her about last night or that you know us. Understand?"
Jess looked at Eleven, biting her lip.
"It's actually no big deal Once, we'll just pretend to meet each other again. And Mike's mom, she'll know who to call." Jess assures the girl.
Eleven looked at the two before replying.
"No."
Jess furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.
"No?" Mike asked, equally confused.
Eleven shook her head.
"No."
"No...you don't want my mom to get help?"
Eleven looks back up at Mike, shaking her head.
Jess got closer to the girl, and Eleven looked at the girl's blue eyes.
"You're in trouble, aren't you?" Jess says quietly, looking at Eleven's brown eyes.
Eleven frowned, looking down and up at her again.
"Who...who are you in trouble with?" Mike asked.
Eleven looked scared, as if what she might say will hurt them.
"Bad." She whispered.
Jess frowned, still a bit confused.
"Bad? Bad people?" Mike asked.
Eleven nodded, causing Jess to widen her eyes, in fear.
But not for herself, but for the wellbeing of Eleven.
"They want to hurt you?" Mike asked, Jess biting her lip in worry.
"The bad people?" Jess asked.
Then Eleven did something unpredictable.
She made a finger gun and pointed it at herself, to Mike, and finally at Jess.
Jess gasped, her voice cracking, her hand covering her mouth.
Eleven put it down, frowning apologetically at Jess but asking;
"Understand?"
Jess let in a deep breath and unwilling to trust her voice, she nodded.
"Michael and Jessica, where are you? We're going to be late. Let's go!"
"All right, We'll be back. Just stay here, okay? Stay here."
As they got up and out of the basement, Jess grabbed Mike and gasped through her tears.
"M-Mike she's our age and she has people, BAD people who want to kill her and anyone who helps her! I-"
"I know Jess, I know. It shocks me as well. But, are you still in on helping her?"
She gave him an 'are you fucking serious?' look.
"This just gave me more reason to protect her! We're skipping today." Jess says, Mike nodding.
"I agree."
Jess sighed.
"I wish we could tell the boys but, Lucas doesn't seem to trust her. I get where he's coming from, but there's no reason to act so mean."
Mike nods as they walk outside, getting on their bikes.
"Let's go so we can trick my parents that we're going to school."
Jess nods, both of them riding their bikes in silence.
X
Back at school, Dustin and Lucas had sat at their desks.
"Oh, this is weird," Dustin says, looking over to see the seat next to him and the seat next to Lucas were empty.
"They're never this late."
"I'm telling you, his stupid plan failed," Lucas says, rolling his eyes.
"I thought you liked his plan."
"Yeah, but obviously it was stupid, or he'd be here. Jess too, if she wasn't staying at his place the night."
"If his mom found out a girl that wasn't Jess spent the night-" Dustin says, imagining the worse.
"He's in deep shit right about now."
"Hey, what if she slept naked?"
"Oh my God, she didn't. If Jess were here she'd flip you off."
"Oh, if Mrs. Wheeler tells my parents..." Dustin groaned.
"No way. Mike would never rat us out. And Jess has a major cr-" Lucas froze, knowing he wouldn't live to see another day if Jess found out he told Dustin she had a major crush on him.
"And Jess wouldn't either."
"I don't know."
"All that matters is, after school, the freak will be back in the loony bin, and we can focus on what really matters, finding Will."
Dustin sighs, looking back at the empty seat next to him that would normally be seated by Jess.