With Hopper's order to get cleaned up in place, Nancy immediately rushed to aid El. She was still slightly overwhelmed about seeing the little girl again without warning, after only meeting her briefly last year. Like her younger brother, Nancy had been almost certain that El was dead - or gone for good at least. But she should've known better; El's resilience has never failed to shock them all.
Slipping one arm around her waist, Nancy helped El off the couch as the rest of Joyce's honorary guests went to organise the house for the night. El groaned slightly as Nancy pulled her up, almost collapsing back onto the couch again as her knees threatened to cave in.
"C'mon, El, we can do this. The bathroom is just down there," Nancy encouraged, pointing her head at the hallway in front of them.
El clung onto Nancy's waist for dear life as her head spun a little. Closing the gate had evaporated every ounce of energy from her. She forced herself to stay upright as Nancy supported her weight. Together, they eventually made it into the bathroom. El resisted the urge to collapse onto the tiles right there and then. Nancy guided her over to the toilet and gently sat her down, letting her catch her breath.
"I'm gonna run you a nice bath, okay?" Nancy said gently, kneeling down in front of El and stroking her back. "I'm sure Joyce has bubble bath that we can use, that will make it extra nice. Does that sound good?"
El didn't have the faintest clue what 'bubble bath' was, but it sounded lovely, so she just nodded her head in response. Nancy smiled down at her and went over to the bath, turning on the hot tap as far as it could go. Walking back over to El, she then reached over El's head to where Joyce had a container full of products. Her eyes quickly caught the half-empty container of bubble bath. She grabbed it and showed it to El, who looked at it curiously.
"This… is bubbles?" El said, looking at the light blue liquid with confusion.
Nancy smiled. "It will be in a second. Hang on."
Nancy opened the container lid and spilled some of it into the bath, which was quickly filling up with steaming water. She then rolled up her sleeves, bent down and swished her hands around in the bath. El watched in amazement as huge, floating things began to appear in the bath.
Once she was satisfied that there were enough bubbles, Nancy turned around to El with a smile. "See? It's a bubble bath now."
El smiled in astonishment. "Bubbles," she murmured. "Can I get in now?" she added quickly. She was excited to have a bath that didn't involve her having to go into the Void.
"You can get in in a few minutes, it's nearly done. We need to get these clothes off you first," Nancy ordered as she bent down to start untying El's shoes. "And that make-up, too," she added, giving El a smile. "Although judging by Mike's face, he'll be sorry to see it go." Nancy chuckled to herself.
"What do you mean?" El asked.
Nancy paused and looked up at El. "I just mean that… well… it's pretty clear to me that you mean a lot to Mike. He hasn't been himself since you left, and it was breaking my heart cause I wasn't sure how to help him. I can tell how much he cares about you, especially by his face from when you walked through the door earlier!" Nancy laughed.
El blushed and looked down at her bare feet, wriggling her toes. Mike cared about her, and she definitely cared about him.
Once Nancy had successfully removed El's clothes, she helped her over to the bath and carefully guided her in, one foot at a time. El sighed contentedly as the hot water soothed every ache in her body. She leaned back against the bath, closing her eyes with a smile, thinking about how good her life was at that moment - everyone she cared about was alive, the gate was closed, and she had Mike back again.
Mike.
She suddenly remembered something. A question that she had been waiting to ask ever since she'd started watching the show Days Of Our Lives on her little TV in the cabin. She knew that she couldn't ask Hopper about it; he always rolled his eyes when he saw her watching the show and muttered something like "pointless crap" under his breath. It needed to be someone who knew about this stuff, who could make El understand it all. Someone like…
"Nancy?" El asked, opening her eyes again.
"Mmm-hmm?" Nancy answered, as she gently washed out the gel from El's hair.
"What… is a boyfriend?"
Nancy almost choked on her on saliva. She looked at El, whose expression was filled with pure innocence, and tried not to embarrass her by laughing. Judging by El's lack of social knowledge, Nancy guessed that El had been waiting to ask someone this question, and didn't know how to bring it up in conversation. Nancy reigned back her emotions; she needed to handle this carefully.
"Where did you hear that word, El?" she asked.
"On TV," El replied simply. "Days Of Our Lives. They say it a lot. And 'girlfriend' too. What do they mean?"
Although she found it a little bit funny that El was highly invested in soap operas, she was a bit relieved that she hadn't discovered that word from Mike. Nancy was sure that it would eventually happen in time, but not yet - they were still too young, and she was sure that Hopper would kill her if she encouraged her brother and El's relationship any further.
Nancy thought about her next choice of words. "Well, a boyfriend is a boy who you care about a lot. And who cares about you. And… you spend a lot of time together, and you hold hands, and you look after each other. Things like that." She was unsure how much sex education El had received so far in her life, but Nancy guessed that it wasn't much. She knew that she would have to explain it to her soon, but not now. That conversation could wait for another day.
El thought about Nancy's definition. "So… does that mean that Mike is my boyfriend?"
Oh shit. "Not really…" Nancy said, trying to find a way to climb out of this hole that El had dug her into.
El looked at her confusingly. "But you said that Mike cares about me, and I care about him, so why would he not be my boyfriend?"
"Because… because… being someone's boyfriend or girlfriend is a big deal. You kind of have to ask the person and talk about it with them before you can call them that. Do you get it?"
El nodded slightly. "Yes. I think so. When do I ask Mike then?"
Nancy resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands. She continued washing El's hair to distract herself. "Sweetie, I think you and Mike should wait before you talk about all this stuff. You've been gone for a long time, so you should just enjoy being together again for now. All of this boyfriend stuff can wait - you care about each other, and that's all that matters. Okay?" She smiled at the young girl as she began to rinse her hair.
El considered this for a few moments before replying. "Okay," she said eventually, smiling back. "Thank you."
"No problem," Nancy replied, "I'm happy to help. If you ever want to talk to me about anything, just ask."
"Okay, well I have another question," El said, holding her head back so that Nancy could clean the last of the suds from her hair.
"What is it?" Nancy asked. She braced herself for El's question; What is sex? What is a condom? How do you know that you love someone? But El's question, surprisingly, turned out to be none of those - it was actually something that Nancy never could have predicted.
El giggled slightly before speaking.
"So, is Jonathan your boyfriend now?"