AN:
Guys! How the hell are you? I'm sorry for my disappearing act—had some personal issues to deal with recently. But I'm back and I promise I'll never do that again! So excited to gain some momentum with this story again—especially after last chapter's ending. Honestly, every review and PM I receive, I treasure, but I was really nervous about THAT scene and you all just made me feel so much better. It was what it needed to be, you know?
Evie, dearest, you've been so supportive and patient these last few weeks. Even so far away, you're a wonderful friend and I'm so lucky to have you. x
I'm lucky to have all of you! I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint.
-Inara x
Nine White Nights
"Do you feel lonely, Jane?"
Swirling white. Shrieking wind. Moaning house. It sounded like she felt, overwhelmed with loss.
"Tell me what you see."
A dark room. Her father, framed in silver. Dust.
So much dust.
The door, creaking open.
Mike.
"Eleven."
Dust. Breathing it in, choking on it.
Mike's eyes, his blank face.
"Where are you?"
Grey eyes.
"You don't want to disappoint me, Jane. Do you?"
Ford's hand on her thigh.
"Whatever it takes, Jane. Whatever it takes."
Mike's eyes. Blank eyes.
Mike's eyes on her lips.
Mike holding a gun.
Grey eyes.
"Good girl."
Needles. Two needles in her hands.
Cold. Cold grass, cold air, cold skin.
Sweaty palms.
Pumping heart.
"Oh, fuck yeah, baby!" Scott Keegan's hands on her.
"Good girl."
Mike's eyes.
Swirling white.
White into grey.
Grey dust. All grey.
Mike's eyes.
Mike inside her. Mike devouring her. Mike everywhere.
"El, look at me."
Ford's hand on her thigh.
Mike holding a gun.
"It's the gun."
Hopper.
"It's the gun."
Hopper in surrender.
Mike pulling the trigger.
"Goodbye, Jim Hopper."
Bang.
Jane bolted upright in bed, heart racing. Her ears were ringing; ringing with gunfire. She could still feel his blood on her hands, on her knees and shins as she clambered over to him on that creaky wooden floor. They'd made her wear that blood for far too long in the holding cell. Looking at it had made her sick but it was all she could focus on for hours. Then later, when they'd deigned to let her scrub it off, she'd taken skin with it.
Now, her hands were so tightly fisted in Nancy's robin's egg sheets that her knuckles had turned a deathly white in contrast. Not that she had much colour to begin with—four years spent underground with only a Vitamin D deficiency as company could make the fairest of anyone.
She felt nauseated. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck from her hairline and she could feel the heat coming off her chest in waves. Her eyes were sore and bleary. Her throat was beyond raw, like she'd gone days without water. Was she getting sick? Was that what this was? Maybe her immune system was struggling to accommodate all the sudden changes in her routine and environment?
Stop it, she told herself. You're just tired.
Resting her face in her hands, she jolted again when another bang reverberated through the wall behind.
Then another, and another.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Jane grumbled.
What perfect timing. Of course—of course—the shot that had woken her—that earth-shattering sound that still, to this day, remained her greatest trauma—had, unbelievably, coincided perfectly with someone well on her way to suffering le petit mort next door.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Cry. Cry. Cry.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.
Jane grimaced at the free show and dragged herself out of bed.
She was hungry but she felt too sick to eat.
Rifling through the cupboard, her eyes caught on an untouched bottle of bourbon on the top shelf.
The irony of it was spectacular: this place was stuffed to its ceiling with a functional couple's memorabilia and of course Jane was able to pinpoint the only vice she hadn't yet tried to quell the pandemonium bringing down her skull.
She could have laughed at herself for how quickly she made the decision in her mind.
Laughed. Yelled. She was living alone in Scurvy House; she was about thirty pounds underweight due to a four-year stint in a mental asylum; she was wanted for the murder of her father and probably guilty of the murder of the late mayor; the love of her life had just pulled the ol' screw, nut and bolt; and, to top it all off, her two doctors had been using her mind as a playground for just shy of a decade. Her life was a complete joke. What did a few drinks alone in a shitty motel room matter?
So stupid.
So stupid.
She already knew the answer to that, but she needed to quiet the circus.
Jane had never much liked bourbon. She'd never much liked drinking at all, really. With her childhood, she never liked being far out of her own mind.
God, again, the irony.
She climbed back into bed, curling up around the bottle with her back against the wall. It kept shuddering.
It was disappointing, really—this woman had no creative range at all. It wasn't like dirty talk had to flow like classic literature or anything, but constant repetition of the same basic phrases exposed a distinct lack of inspiration. Jane couldn't be sure that she was faking the majority of her pleasure, but she had her suspicions.
At a reasonable hour, at least, she had no issue with a degree of vocalisation during sex—indeed, often the occasion called for it—but the endless stream of keens and moans and crying out for the Lord and saviour was a bit much. Throw one 'master' in there and it could easily pass for poor quality—highly unrealistic—pornography. Candidly, it sounded much like a fifteen-year-old boy's idea of what sex might be like.
Alas, the actress showed no indication of a quick finish.
"Oh, God!"
"Oh, God!" Jane parroted, thumping her fist back against the wall and gulping down more bourbon. It tasted foul.
The couple didn't stutter.
"Fuck, baby!" the woman cried. "Oh, baby, yes! Fuck me!"
Jane rolled her eyes, taking another swig from the bottle.
More variations of the same.
"Baby, fuck! Make me come! Make me!"
Jane banged on the wall again. "For the love of God, make her!"
She heard a muffled male grumble that sounded vaguely like, "Who the—? Fuck off!"
But he had his lady friend on her way, and, with a few more porno-bunny squeals of delight, finally peace descended.
Jane kept drinking.
Pretty soon, she wouldn't have noticed if there was an orgy going on in her room and the building was on fire.
She realised her own hypocrisy here. Really, she did. Not five hours ago had she been splayed out underneath Mike practically right up against the communal walkway, but that was different. First off, they hadn't made nearly that much noise. Secondly, for all it was lacking, it had been the first real open and honest exchange she and Mike had had since she'd come back.
It was almost funny, to think that had only been Friday. She'd literally been back in Hawkins for a weekend.
A weekend.
Maybe Mike was right—maybe her speciality was destroying her friends' lives.
You get inside people, he'd said.
"But you got inside me," she murmured against the lip of her bottle, then tipped it up, swallowing again.
One weekend and already four years felt like nothing. In all that time, she hadn't even caught a glimpse of him—let alone spoken to him—and she'd just submitted to him completely like it was the most natural thing to do, like there was nothing about each other that they needed to re-learn or, hell, learn from scratch first. Four years and she'd already cried over him against the side of the bathtub. Four years and she already ached to feel him again, despite the fresh bruises and persisting discomfort.
Four years was a long time.
Just apparently not long enough.
Jane set the bourbon down on the bedside table and scrubbed a hand through her hair, staring at it. She'd definitely had enough—already a third of the bottle—but it called to her, promising that just a little more would make it all better.
Just a little more.
Jane rolled her eyes and reached for it again, already feeling disappointed in herself.
Did she have an addictive personality? Or was she just circumstantially weak, desperate to find some temporary relief from the harsh reality that Jane Hopper was a lie?
She'd tried so hard over the years to avoid thinking it. By blood or not, she was Jim Hopper's daughter. She was nobody's property and she belonged with her family and friends, free and in Hawkins. But that all felt like the lies she'd always told herself now. Even the man who had helped her believe them had been manipulating her, saying whatever he needed to in order to keep her calm and make her trust in his good intentions.
The truth was plainer now: she would always be Eleven. A zero and two ones. Not a real person.
Real people didn't have to live like this. Once they crossed over—became monsters—they belonged in prison, or deserved to be dead.
Is that what she deserved? Was this?
Did she deserve to be poked and prodded for her entire life? Did she deserve to be locked out of sight and dehumanised and used?
Had she really been so stupid in the last forty-eight hours as to start believing that a couple of discrepancies in a well-respected doctor's notes were the key to her absolution? Ford was one of the Bad Men she'd always feared—there was no way around that now—but that was for what he'd done to people like Mrs Henderson.
But Eleven?
Maybe she should have started drinking a long time ago.
Making up for lost time, she lifted the bottle to her lips once again. Her mind ran wild, remembering every drink she'd ever witnessed: Dustin, Lucas, Mike and even sometimes Will at parties; Mrs Wheeler's nightly chardonnays; Jonathan when Nancy left; Steve when Carly left; Hop when he thought he'd failed his second daughter.
Everyone drank to their own extremes at some point. Granted, it was for varying time periods and some found a functionality in it that others couldn't. Steve had been particularly bad. He'd never been so hurt. He picked himself up eventually, but in those early days it just seemed to be what was done in Hawkins: when you wanted to forget your pain, you drank. It was so much easier to forget.
Jane set the bourbon back on the bedside table and lay down, throwing the pillows off the bed and spreading out her arms and legs like she was making a snow angel.
She hadn't assumed this position in years. She could almost feel the lap of salty water against the sides of her face and the weight of Nancy's pink dress over her as wetness spread through it.
Why recreate a nightmare? she asked herself.
Why do anything at this point?
Next door, softs thuds alerted her to an encore.
Hell, no. Jane bristled. Not if they wanted to make it through the night.
She reached up, smacking the wall again.
"For fuck's sake!" she shouted over her head. "Either pay up or shut up! I'm sure you'll still get your money's worth!"
So rude. When had she become so rude? Granted, what was going on next door was definitely not without monetary exchange—it was either that or an actual porno film set—but since when had she become so abrupt and offensive and…tactless?
When no further noise came, she realised it was probably way back when she'd politely—but no less wrongly—copped four years of incarceration.
She reached out for the room's light switch with her mind, and, next second, she was immersed in blackness. Reaching further, she found a boombox in the room beneath her and turned its volume up to full blast. She heard shouts of confusion and objection erupt building-wide, but she tuned them out, focusing only on the static noise. It would stop soon enough. She didn't need long.
It was almost like feeling nothing again—being nothing.
Drifting.
Staring into the abyss.
She was weary, her limbs heavy. Even her eyelids resisted lifting.
She was laid out on some kind of medical diagnostic workstation—like a dental chair, except instead of a spit sink beside her and an operatory light above, it was all just screens and dials.
Something else was off.
Heavy as they were, she could still feel additional weight on her wrists and ankles. Knees, too. Neck. Freezing metal against her bare skin.
The whole room felt like an icebox. It was more than air-conditioning; her breath was a ghostly phantasm swirling above her in the stark space. The air felt so unforgiving in this place—like the lasting chill imparted by a dissatisfied drill sergeant… Or a disappointed, unloving father.
Jane was too drowsy to panic. She was too drowsy to feel much at all right now—even being confused seemed like an incalculable amount of effort—so she just lay there listening.
"Her responsiveness is beyond anything we could have hoped for."
It was a man who was speaking. No one she recognised.
"Speed of response increases with every trial, as does sensitivity to cues. In the last series, we found that even in increasing distracting stimuli interference, she still obeys all subconscious directives."
He and to whomever he was speaking were standing somewhere behind her, undoubtedly viewing all the same screens she was. There wasn't much else in the room.
So much white.
Jane felt a twinge in her side. Careful not to move her head at all to betray her consciousness, she peered down the length of her body. Her hospital gown was cut down her side, a large slit allowing points of entry for what looked like giant, curving claws—metal, of course—all resting against her skin in a neat line, just shy of puncturing the surface. Directly beneath them and protruding from the same contraption, were long, translucent tubes. These, indeed, had broken skin. It looked as though they had been carefully—surgically—inserted between each of Jane's ribs. She had no way of telling how deeply exactly, but she could feel her drowsiness beginning to ebb as she encountered true reason to panic.
The tubes were attached to a tank of clear liquid. With nothing coming out of her through them—not even the slightest bloody tinge—it could only mean one thing: something else was going in.
Unaware of his patient's sudden objections to his administered treatment, the man continued, "I know I had my doubts, but Ford was right; by stripping the rational blockers, the whole process just becomes a simple matter of stimulus-driven attentional orienting—leading, not controlling. And with that reduced role, any remaining suspicions she might harbour are effectively rendered unfounded by her own mind. In a conscious state, she internalises everything—it becomes her mind's most natural inclination." He sounded unabashedly impressed with himself. "It's quite remarkable."
A second voice responded, this one female. It was equally unfamiliar to Jane, yet somehow even less appealing—like cold fish.
"Don't sound too pleased with yourself, Howard. The subliminal design is, I grant you, an achievement, but you've produced these results in an entirely controlled environment. What is the value of my investment when you still have no idea how to isolate the trigger? You promised me Ford would be extraneous by month's end, and, thus far, all you've managed to do is reiterate how critical he continues to be to her psychological conditioning." She sighed loudly. "Do you know how a dog revolts when it doesn't trust its master? It bites."
Jane heard footsteps approaching—heeled footsteps—and immediately closed her eyes, striving to appear serene.
She heard the woman's voice directly over her.
"I don't care what you have to do, Howard."
Jane resisted flinching as she felt fingers grasp either side of her mouth, pushing her lips out of shape.
"I want my attack dog in one week. If you're not up to the task, I will find someone who is."
"Very good, ma'am," the man named Howard uttered, sounding nervous but no less determined. "I won't rest until it's done, if it proves necessary."
"Perhaps you won't, Howard, but she must," the woman said. "You have barely three hours until sunrise. Make sure she's back to daddy dearest by then."
Jane remained very still, listening to one pair of footsteps recede. She could feel the man still above her, watching the woman leave, and she knew she'd be damned if she gave herself away now.
She couldn't see herself to be sure, but she could feel what she guessed to be electrodes adhered to her face and just below her ears, and a full cap gelled to the rest of her head.
Claws, tubes, and electrodes. What in the actual fuck were they trying to achieve here?
They had to be sick themselves, right? All this couldn't possibly just be in the name of pure science. Papa had been abusive, for sure, but he'd never cut into her like this. He'd wanted her obedience—he'd bullied her and manipulated her for it. He'd made her believe that in some twisted way, he'd loved her. He'd made her love him. Love him, fear him—Jane couldn't be sure it hadn't been the strangest, most damaging blend of both.
It was awful, but there was some sense to it. Papa had been working for the government—for their country. Who was this man working for? What was his end goal?
Suddenly, Jane felt breath on her face and a hand on her thinly-covered stomach.
"She's gone now." His mouth was very close to her face. "No point pretending with me." He gave her a shake. "May as well open your eyes. Won't make a difference, in the end."
Reluctantly, Jane did, watching him straighten up.
"Why won't it?" she asked guardedly.
The man shrugged. He was a little past middle-aged, but not nearly as old as Ford. He did, however, lack that empathetic effect to his features that his superior, Jane now realised, merely wore as a mask.
"Does it ever?"
Jane frowned, feeling colder than she had before, and this time it had nothing to do with the arctic temperature of the room.
"Have I been here before?" she asked, already knowing the answer.
The man couldn't have projected less sympathy if he'd tried. "Sweetheart, we've had this exact conversation before."
Jane swallowed, trying to appear undaunted. This was difficult, considering her current position.
"So, what now?" she demanded. "What happens at sunrise?"
The man moved around her to the workstation and began fiddling with dials. "Oh, you know, the usual: you wake up in the middle of nowhere, you go home and pop more pills."
Jane watched him closely as horror dawned. The sleepwalking.
She hadn't spent her nights these last few months wandering around aimlessly in the clutches of REM sleep. But of course she hadn't—with all his noise traps, Hopper had made it practically impossible for her to stumble out of her room without waking him. Whatever state of consciousness she'd been in, her awareness and coordination certainly hadn't been impaired.
"And until sunrise?" she asked nervously.
The man chuckled. "A far better question." He pointed to the screen directly in front of her—the largest by far. "Watch the presentation. Follow the prompts."
Not wanting to obey any command he gave her but really having nowhere else to look, Jane focused on the screen.
What came up confused her.
She didn't know exactly what she'd been expecting when he'd said 'presentation', but it certainly wasn't what looked like a highly pixelated cartoon.
She'd seen Mike play a game that looked much like this before—some fantasy quest computer game. She'd bought it for him, actually—she couldn't remember for which birthday. He'd played it like a zombie with no other vocation in life until he finished the campaign.
But now the picture sharpened. It was difficult to explain—Jane didn't know quite how to put what she was seeing into words. It was so clear but somehow also distorted. It was like looking at layers and layers of video footage playing directly on top of each other.
Insects feeding. A slaughterhouse floor. Argon lights.
"Why am I looking at—ung!" She cut herself off, choking on sudden agony as her entire body convulsed and seized up.
Jane realised it wasn't just the pain—she was really choking.
She couldn't form words.
She couldn't breathe.
It was like her respiratory system was entirely paralysed. Her mouth was open, but she couldn't draw in any air.
The pain itself was like needles—needles everywhere; thousands at once. Millions, maybe. She couldn't make any sense of temperature—was it hold or cold? Scalding or freezing?
It didn't matter.
It was unbearable.
Then it stopped—just as suddenly as it had begun, leaving her with light spots across her vision. She gasped frantically, sucking in air.
"What are you doing to me?" The question was so close to a sob.
The labcoat tsked. "Jane, Jane, Jane. You could never begin to understand."
"The tasering, jackass!" she shouted.
"Actually, a taser runs off about zero-point-zero-zero-two-one amps at average performance," he replied calmly. "But that's child's play. What you just experienced is closer comparatively to touching a power line." He indicated her side. "Those tubes are your lifeline. No surface burns, no permanent neurological damage, no organ failure. Just allows you to feel…our full disappointment, when you don't follow our instructions."
"I was just asking a question, you sadistic son of a bitch!" Jane seethed, and almost wished she hadn't.
Blinding—blinding pain. No air. She could feel her blood inside her—it felt like it was straining out of her veins.
Then, again, it stopped, just as abruptly as before. The noise that escaped Jane was definitely a sob this time. She strained against her restraints. No wonder she could feel the pain everywhere—between the restraints and the claws, she was one giant conductor from at least a dozen entry points.
"You should thank me, you know." Howard tapped the tank beside her. "It's my solution. Without it, you'd be dead and unrecognisable by now."
"I wonder why you're not selling it over the counter!" she spat, tears running from the corners of her eyes.
He shook his head censoriously, wiping them away with the back of his finger. "We don't want that, Jane. The aim is to keep you as dry as possible. If only you could remember… It can be so much more unpleasant than this."
She trembled involuntarily and shied away from his touch. It wasn't from fear as much as shellshock.
And hatred. She was afraid, obviously, but the fear paled against her hatred. She thought of throwing him across the room; imagined squeezing his brain until he dropped dead on the arctic floor.
Enough thinking.
She splayed her fingers, pouring all her power—ever trace of it—into pulling his blood through his skin like she would pull a needle through a cross-stitch—a million needles, all at once.
And agony erupted.
Fire.
Ice.
Outer space. No air. Vacuum. Sheer absence.
God, pain.
Jane felt the claws digging into her side as her back seized and arched, and she could now certainly feel the presence of the tubes inside her.
It stopped, and, at this point, she was beyond caring if she wept.
"You didn't think we hadn't thought of that?" Howard mocked her. "You want to know the best part of all of this, Jane?"
Jane gritted her teeth, saying nothing.
"The best part…" he said slowly. "Is that I'm not even flipping the switch. Those electrodes on your head… Your brain is monitoring your psychological defiance and is processing your own punishment. You are literally bringing this on yourself!"
He took her chin in his fingers and pushed it back to face the centre screen before her.
"Just watch the presentation and follow the prompts. It's very simple; no need for pain. You always learn, you know. You're always disobedient for a time, but, eventually, you understand: it's better this way. This isn't real—it's just a game. It's better just to play."
Jane swallowed as the recordings started rolling again.
"The less you resist…" His fingers stroked along her throat and tapped the metal restraint that held her down. "…the sooner you won't feel the need. Then, you can forget. It'll be like this never happened."
His words echoed, but Jane was losing touch, with them and the room around her.
Bleach—it wasn't an image like the rest, but she could smell it; it was burning her nostrils.
Bones cracking against tiles. A woman crying, begging. Stinging palms as she crawled on broken china.
The shrill electric whining of a dentist's drill. Jane could feel the vibrations in her teeth—in her very soul. The drill tunnelling deeper and deeper.
An old woman sucking and coughing on a tube. Wrinkled, shaking hands. Paper-thin skin. Eggplant purple bruises.
Screaming. A baby crying.
Echoes of anguish.
Jane didn't know how long passed by before she realised that some of these recordings were actually animated. The quality of the artistry was like nothing she had ever seen before. It was staggering—they were almost impossible to separate from the real ones.
This isn't real. This is just a game.
This isn't real. This is just a game.
This isn't real. This is just a game.
Forget.
You can forget.
Never happened.
She was in the void.
Or, at least, it looked like the void. It felt like the void. All around her was darkness, but instead of silence, she could hear drums.
Water slopped around her ankles and she realised she wasn't just skimming this void now—walking on water like she wasn't really quite here; she was as corporeal as hailstones in a storm.
As corporeal as the hundreds of gravestones surrounding her now.
But they weren't gravestones.
Jane waded forward to see that they were rows—endless rows—of upstanding blocks of wood. They were all perfectly aligned, perfectly chopped. She stood amongst them like the only one not to belong, a tiny distracting speck in the overall picture, otherwise flawless, ordered and unmarred.
The drums were growing louder, but Jane could hear a rushing sound—like heavy rain, or a cascading waterfall. The drums were everywhere, but the rushing…
She turned.
Flickering in the distance. She didn't know how she could see darkness flickering within darkness, but, then again, she didn't know how she could see these posts, how she could see herself. The void was hers, after all. She'd never needed to explain it before. It wasn't another dimension or the gap between or somewhere others could go…
It was inside her.
It was how she found things.
That was the extent of her rationalisation of it, after all these years—it was how she'd explained it to Mike and Will and Steve and Hopper.
So, if that was all it was—if it was just how she found things—then what was she doing here now? What was she looking for?
What were these posts? Why were they here?
If they were here, then where was she?
The rushing was growing louder, the flickering growing more frantic. And closer. So much closer.
It was like shards of black ice glinting in the distance as they spun through the air toward her.
That's it, she realised. They were spinning toward her. All of them. It was like she had a bull's eye painted across her chest.
The drums were deafening. She could barely hear herself breathe over the rushing.
Shards, flying right for her.
Jane turned. She ran.
For how long could she outrun them? She'd never been the fastest runner in reality. What was she like here? She'd never really tried.
But again, the void was inside. If it belonged to her, then so did the shards. But they were sharp, deadly. Still coming at her.
If they were hers, then why could they cut her to ribbons? Why would they?
Inside or not, Jane could feel a very real stitch spiking in her side—the worst stitch she'd ever had. It was like her insides were tearing. Her legs screamed and her heart hammered and she could feel pain all over. Fire everywhere. It felt like running in the desert, flashing between night and day—bitter cold and scorching.
How fast can you run away from your own mind, Jane? she asked herself. How fast can you run?
How fast can you run?
She could feel the drums beating through her and the water shook and shuddered. The rushing reached the height of its crescendo and Jane glanced behind her, knowing there wasn't enough time.
She couldn't run. She couldn't outrun.
She'd never been a runner anyway.
The shards sliced into her, swarming her like insects. She screamed.
"Jane! Janie!"
Arms restrained her as Jane fought her way out of the darkness. She could feel warm wetness on her cheeks and down her jaw, and her throat was raw from crying.
She clutched sleeves and, under them, strong forearms. She could hear herself gasping—blubbering, even—before her stinging eyes found Dustin's; serene, calming blue—the kind of blue you could never doubt.
She was trembling, half-upright in her terror, and she let her forehead fall against his chest. He cradled her to him.
"We've really got to stop meeting like this," he murmured, hushing her gently.
Jane heard the front door creak open and closed and then the rustling of shopping bags in the kitchen. Steve's voice rang out as he came toward the bedroom.
"Okay, I've unpacked the rest of it. Is she—" He stopped in the doorway, reading the room. "What happened?"
Dustin shook his head almost imperceptibly but Jane felt it against her hair. She eased away from him, leaning against the wall and pulling the sheets over her.
"Welling," she eventually managed.
Steve came to sit on her other side. "What about him?"
She closed her eyes, shaking her head. She already had so many memories she wished she could forget, but now, without even leaving bed, she'd managed to stumble upon yet another? It was like losing every dice roll in Vegas.
"He's been working with Ford all along," she said hollowly. "The sleepwalking… It was just another effect of the Phluctine, like we thought. It just…"
How could she even begin to explain?
"Brown Eyes?" Steve prompted softly, and Jane felt his hand on hers.
She glanced his way. "I don't know for how long, or if it was only the times Hopper found me wandering, but I was in some drug haze… I couldn't remember where I'd been."
"But you remember now?" he asked.
She nodded bitterly. "A lab. I don't know where, but it could've been underground—it had no windows. With some woman's funding, I was his guinea pig for some subliminal messaging experiment."
"Well, that makes sense," Dustin acknowledged regretfully. "I mean, they couldn't have gotten you to do any of the things they did without an indoctrination program of some kind."
"But it doesn't make sense!" Jane insisted. "All this time, I thought it was the Periphax that was the root of this, whatever this is! It was only after the Periphax that I became a candidate! It's the only thing that ties all Ford's victims together, but I wasn't even on it when the sleepwalking was happening—just the Phluctine! And on top of that, that was sophomore year—nineteen-eighty-seven! I didn't even meet Welling before I was committed two years later!"
Steve squeezed her hand. "Except apparently you did, Brown Eyes."
She shook her head, pushing her hair out of her face. She felt sick.
Steve noticed. "Are you okay?"
Again, she shook her head, only more animatedly this time, and threw herself off the bed.
She collapsed over the toilet bowl in the bathroom just as vomit came spewing out of her mouth. There wasn't much to it—it wasn't like she'd eaten much in the last twelve hours.
Speaking of.
She turned her face to see the boys loitering in the bathroom doorway, and frowned. "What time is it?"
Steve checked his watch. "Just after eight. Why? Mike told you we were coming, right?"
"I slept all day," Jane realised aloud.
"Probably a good thing." Dustin tried to find the silver lining. "You were overdue for a decent rest."
Jane winced, her head aching dully.
"Slept through most of the hangover," she muttered, finding a silver lining of her own.
"By the way, Janie," Dustin remembered suddenly. "Will said he's sorry he couldn't come tonight. He's got a huge presentation for the Design director first thing, but he'll come straight after work tomorrow. He's called dibs on the shift."
"Shift?" she echoed.
He nodded, gesturing to Steve. "Yeah, we were talking about it last night. Now that it's not safe at our place, we're all going to rotate shifts staying here with you."
"Babysitting me," Jane translated.
"It's not a big deal," he insisted. "You just said it yourself—you spent the whole day passed out. I know, ordinarily, you can take care of yourself and literally anyone stupid enough to try to hurt you, but, face it, you're not yourself right now. It's not your fault, but it's also nothing to be ashamed about. We're your family; we're here for you."
Jane sighed. "Fine. It makes sense. So who's my knight in shining armour tonight? You?" Her gaze flicked over to Steve. "Or you?"
They both looked awkward all of a sudden.
"Actually, we've both got big days tomorrow, too," Dustin hedged.
Jane glanced between them and knew where this was going. "No."
Dustin grimaced apologetically. "He's the only one with a pretty clear plate in the morning."
Jane's jaw locked, her response stiff. "Of course."
"But hey," Steve piped up. "You spent all of yesterday together. I'm sure you managed to work through some of your issues, right?"
As if on cue, Jane felt an uncomfortable throb and evaded the question.
"So, you did speak to Mike today?"
"Briefly."
Dustin's expression was openly blank, if a little on edge. Clearly there'd been no mention of last night's antics, or she'd be able to read it all over his face.
"He told us about Mayor Culkin. Gonna have to get in touch with Bee sooner rather than later."
"I remember the needles," Jane said. "Or I think I do—a flash of them, at least. Unless they were the only imagined thing in a slew of real memories, I think our theory must be right."
"You really think you killed him?" Steve asked quietly.
Jane met his eyes. "I really think I did."
"I just don't get it." He shook his head. "You killed Culkin, they wanted office—I get that. The connection's pretty clear. But then if they were already testing their program on you before the Periphax—before the candidacy—what was that for?"
"That's exactly what I said not five minutes ago."
He held up his hands. "Okay, Madam Hopper. Full credit for the question goes to you."
Jane rolled her eyes. "We're going to have to talk to one of them sooner or later, you know. Informed conjecture only gets us so far. I was going to go straight for Ford but as far as I can tell from what I remember, the bitch in charge seemed to want him out ASAP. I think Welling's our guy."
"Which will mean breaking into Central State." Dustin looked at her like she might still be dragging her feet toward sobriety. "Janie, think about what you're saying."
"And think about how many other options we have left!" she fired back. "Think about what happens the longer we wait to finish this! People could be dying every day—we don't know!"
He watched her carefully, but she saw a sadness in his eyes. He of all people couldn't argue with that.
Without really having another option over which to reach an accord, the matter seemed to be settled. Will and Mike could weigh in later.
At the thought of Mike, Jane realised she wanted to take another shower before he arrived. Her mouth felt furry, and she was dying for a glass of water. A full routine of ablutions was in order while she still had the time. Not that she expected anything like last night to happen again, but she at least wanted to feel clean if she was going to feel like crap for the rest of the night. Flawless logic.
Pushing herself up from the floor in front of the toilet, she ushered the boys out and opted to start with her teeth. Her breath stank of vomit and alcohol.
She could hear Dustin and Steve in the kitchen, joking around and insulting each other—second nature to them now, it seemed.
Once she'd brushed and flossed, Jane closed the door partially. She would have felt more comfortable shutting it all the way but one burst of hot water in this bathroom turned it into a choking hotbox. She'd learned that the night before—lack of ventilation was an understatement.
But it wasn't an issue. Dustin and Steve were like the brothers who'd never want to look. Not that she had much going on at the moment anyway.
Stripping down and stepping into the bath, Jane tried to remember the last time she'd been fully naked in front of anyone—in a sexual context, that was. Privacy at CSH was pretty non-existent.
She'd never done more than push her panties down for Scott Keegan, and Mike…
With Mike, she realised, the last time had been in his basement one night in sophomore year, when they'd recreated her blanket fort.
God, had it been that long? It couldn't have been. They'd fucked like rabbits right up until the end—even when Mike was home sick with a fever of one hundred and two. Granted, she'd done most of the work that time, but still. Surely once in two years she'd actually taken her clothes off?
She racked her brain but couldn't recall. Not one time. There'd been a lot of panties-to-the-side moments, which she'd always attributed to their enduring attraction and the countless resultant 'need you know' situations in which they'd found themselves. That period had been the height of her button-down phase as well, so the extent of her nudity usually only involved a few ripped buttons. But no; no birthday suits. Surely that wasn't normal?
Jane frowned, glancing down.
And she saw them.
Six puncture scars—each about the diameter of a thick drinking straw—lined up her side, with six matching thinner scars running directly parallel. The second set were more like nicks, deeper at the front and then dragging down toward the larger scars. Like she'd arched into the inflicting object.
Jane studied them, feeling vaguely numb.
Logically, she should have realised they'd be there—now, at least. But it was just too surreal. Six years since she estimated her after-dark horrors with Welling occurred, and she was only just noticing the scars now?
How could she only be noticing them now? How strong had their hold on her been?
Had it simply been a matter of telling her once that the physical damage didn't exist, or was it a more regular thing? Had it been part of therapy and she just couldn't remember because they didn't want her to?
But now, all of a sudden, she could—the important things, at least. She was remembering more and more. It seemed she couldn't avoid it now—some new horror rose up out of the dark every time she closed her eyes. Because the drugs were finally wearing off? Or for some other reason?
It sounded so easy, so simple—close your eyes and have everything become clear—but Jane knew the dark underbelly of that deal. She knew she couldn't stop now—there was too much at stake—but she couldn't help feeling like, despite how bad things had been as they were without answers, remembering was worse.
It was selfish, she knew, but all the pain, all the horror—she didn't want to endure it again. What if what she remembered now wasn't the worst? What if, sometime soon, she closed her eyes and remembered murdering the mayor? Stabbing him with needles, watching the life drain from his eyes… It was like watching Hopper die—she'd been powerless to stop it then, and, no matter how many times she relived it now, she could do nothing to change it. What if there was more—more she didn't even have an inkling about at this point?
And, even more selfishly, what if that 'more' contained the sort of suffering she encountered last night: her own personal suffering? Tubes forced inside her, electrocution, shards of glass… She had felt all of that. Even as echoes of the past, those memories had proven excruciating.
Her fingers traced the scars gingerly, like she half expected them to still hurt.
Not only was she only just seeing them now but she'd entirely subconsciously kept Mike from seeing them for two years. What else had she hidden in plain sight without even knowing? If she threw herself further down this rabbit hole, how much more deception would she find?
Mike had looked at her like a stranger at Fause. She'd understood it then, from his viewpoint, as much as it had hurt—as much as it had felt like the realisation of a fear she'd ignored for the longest time.
But now she felt a deeper fear.
What about her was even real anymore?
She turned off the shower, feeling drained, like somehow its heat had sucked what little energy she had left out of her. Then she felt a slight prickle at the nape of her neck, like a deer in the forest sensing intrusion, and looked up.
Mike stood half inside the doorway, his fingers still curled around the door's edge as he leaned into it. His watch glinted in the fluorescent light.
Jane met his eyes, a mixture of caution, love and outrage swirling in her gut. She wasn't sure which emotion won out over her face.
Mike's expression was blank at first, giving nothing away as he took in her coffee stare; her parted lips, breathing quietly unsure; her blonde hair, sticking wetly to her neck and shoulders. Briefly, dark intensity spiked as his gaze grazed over the red spot on her breast, but he didn't dwell.
For a moment, Jane forgot that she was a road map of experimentation and abuse. She just wanted his eyes to delve deeper, feeling so vulnerable and alive under his gaze that he may as well have been touching her. A shiver built up her spine and released gooseflesh down her arms and legs. Her nipples peaked and she felt that all too familiar need for him stir deep inside her.
They were nothing but their issues at the moment—how could she forget?—but there was something so safe about feeling vulnerable in front of Mike. Maybe that was the heart of her problem—how could they grow back together as they were now if she was just desperately trying to relive the bliss of the past?
Especially when some of that bliss had clearly been a lie.
As if he could hear her thoughts, Mike's expression grew shadowed, his eyes sparking with doubt, distrust—even anger.
Jane realised he'd found her scars.
He stepped inside, slowly, focused, closing the door behind him. Jane stiffened as he came closer—until he was standing at the edge of the bath and he reached forward to touch her—and he paused, glancing at her eyes.
She didn't know whether it was because she didn't want him to touch her or because she did and didn't trust her reasons, but Jane knew that after last night, regardless, he didn't deserve to right now.
It was a moment of clarity as to what they had become. They weren't hopeless—she refused to believe that—but they weren't who they'd used to be. She knew they never would be again but the idea of building a new future together from here was as confusing as it was challenging to imagine. She wanted to—she had no doubt—but where to go from here?
It really was growing harder and harder to keep the faith.
Carefully, Jane climbed out of the tub and wrapped a towel around herself. Mike didn't move, not even to face her. He just stood there with his fists balled at his sides, breathing slow, staring at the air where only seconds ago, her scars had been.
It was so unnerving, being this close to him yet so far away. Four years ago, Jane would have thought it impossible. They were El and Mike.
But now, what were they?
Not wanting to agonise over the answer yet again, Jane realised just how much she didn't want to be in here. Not with him. Not with everything that they were and weren't and all the uncertainty about what they could or couldn't be.
She turned to flee, and suddenly Mike snapped back to life.
Her hand was on the doorknob when she felt him suddenly behind her. His body ran the length of hers—she could feel him against her everywhere—and he towered over her as he flattened his hand against the door over her shoulder, holding it closed.
She could use her power to throw him off, but she knew he knew that she would never. She'd promised years ago, she would never.
She felt his cheek against her ear, dry against damp. She felt his other hand through her towel, holding her to him. Her feet were apart on the cold tiles. Her skin was still hot from the shower but she could feel how she was burning, the sharp sting of the cold air curling up under her towel making it impossible to ignore his breath against her throat as he turned his face slightly into her or how he pulled her tighter against him, like there could be no space between.
It was impossible to ignore. It felt impossible to resist. All she wanted was to let go of the knob, take his hand that was on her, and drag it down—make him find her. Make him remember. Make her come apart.
But she couldn't. She realised now, she should have told him 'no' last night. It was still too soon. Maybe this was one way to find each other, but they had to talk. They had to heal.
This—what she felt on the brink of right now—would never work. They would only hurt each other more.
She turned her head a fraction, pressing her cheek against his as she whispered indignantly, "What, are you going to have me here, too?"
His chest rose and fell in deep, powerful breaths against her back and, for a moment, she thought he might say 'yes'—might throw off her towel and make her his again as he crushed her against the door.
But he let her go, wordlessly. He released the door and she slammed it between them before finding Dustin's laundry bag in the bedroom and throwing on a pair of baggy pyjama pants and an old, well-loved Rolling Stones T-shirt that Jane guessed had been Mrs Henderson's in a previous life.
When she came out to the kitchen, Mike was standing there with Dustin and Steve, silent and vaguely disgruntled but otherwise acting like nothing had happened.
Seeing her, Steve spoke first.
"So, Brown Eyes, there's dinner on the stove. Now that Mike's here, Dustin and I are probably going to head off, so… You'll be all right?"
Jane crossed her arms over her chest as she stood on the other side of the bench from the three of them, and she glanced at Mike. He looked away.
"I'll be fine."
Steve picked his coat off the bench and came around to kiss her on the cheek. "Don't blow me away with conviction."
Dustin gave her a quick one-armed hug as he followed behind Steve and, five seconds later, they were gone, locking the door behind them.
Jane turned reluctantly back to Mike, the wide berth of the bench standing between them. They were a mirror image of each other: arms crossed, measured expressions, stubborn stances.
Jane chewed on her lip for a moment before she broke the silence.
"So…"
Mike held her eyes and after a moment, his expression faltered. Some of the tension in his shoulders relaxed and he looked at her like he might actually want to hold a conversation tonight after all.
It wasn't an overwhelming leap toward recovery, but it wasn't nothing.
Jane still wasn't sold he had his priorities straight, though. She wondered if he even had priorities or if this was still just too surreal for him that he was taking it day by day, minute by minute… Impulse by impulse.
Eyes on her mouth, he replied huskily, "So."
Okay, so, doubt me not—I know Mike is acting super caveman-y at the moment and I'm sure his mood swings are getting to a lot of people, but bear with me, because the next few chapters are very Mileven-centric while still rolling the plot forward. Among other things, he'll finally properly speak to her. Craziness, right?
Also, I've been thinking recently that with the pretty consistent heaviness of this fic, you guys might be interested in reading some lighter stories? I'm not going to prioritise that over this story—I've kept you waiting for too long to suddenly put this on the backburner, and that's not what I want anyway—but I was thinking even just some one-shots about memories Jane mentions in passing in TRWD. For example, when Mike is home sick as mentioned in this chapter. Would you guys be interested if I occasionally popped up anything like that? Would you have any suggestions, if so? I'm always keen to try to give you what you want while staying as true as I can to the characters. E.g. I'm not going to write Mike and El as rival gang leaders. Although... haha
Anyways, review, PM me, favourite. You know the drill. I just love the feedback and it reminds me you're all real, I guess? Weird thing to say, I know, but the whole online community thing is new to me. Each review, it's like, "Real people are reading my story!" :P
Okay, enough from me. Happy weekend everyone!
-Inara x