Mia gently tapped her nail against her teeth, looking out of her window without really seeing what was there. She knew she shouldn't have been worried about Luis, that this was how every win ended: him disappearing with the rest of the team to celebrate. But something felt different this time, and she couldn't fully explain what it was. Yet no matter how hard she tried she couldn't shake the feeling of unease that crept up the back of her neck when it came to the quiet moments of the previous day.

Belle's face, the accusation of guilt, still haunted her.

She'd been eight years old when Santos had died. When she'd been frozen in fear for the first time that it mattered. Hands clasped over her mouth as she hid behind the boxes in the store. It wasn't as though she'd forgotten him, far from it in fact. It was just she'd tried to allow herself time not thinking about the "What if". Not thinking about all the other ways that day could have played out.

Santos was far from gone, though. There were still times when she couldn't ignore the memories. Times when Mia thought she caught sight of her neighbour out the corner of her eye; flashes of his smile behind others', his laughter a ghost in moments. Even if somebody had the same hair colour as him, it was like looking at him all over again sometimes.

Last year had brought the negative memories kicking and screaming back to her, but she had never really given them much time. That was in her past. Mia was determined to live in the now, to think about the future. There was nothing she could do to change what had happened. Not to Santos. Not to Billy.

Max's scream had pierced everything. The noise of the mall shattered by that one moment of grief, even as the monster was destroyed. Billy Hargrove had never been the type of person Mia liked; in fact she'd actively tried to avoid him since his arrival at the school. But seeing him like that, seeing his sister broken by it. That had triggered something for her.

And Belle couldn't know about any of that. She knew nothing of the Upside Down or what had been lurking in Hawkins because she simply hadn't been with them at the time.

Mia wondered if perhaps she shouldn't call Steve. Maybe spending time with him would help to make it all a little easier to bear. But she guessed he would probably be at work.

With a deep sigh, she wiped her nail against her pyjama bottoms. Sitting and dwelling wasn't going to help her with anything. A walk. That might help to clear her head. Help her to not think about school or the play or anything like that for a few hours. That was all she needed, what might push back against the oncoming headache she could feel building behind her eyes. And perhaps she'd find out where Luis and the team had held their celebrations. Be able to check in with him rather than think about literally everything else. And so that that niggling feeling of missing an opportunity with Robin Buckley in the car could be forced into the darkest recess of her mind. Even after everything else she'd been through, Mia somehow still hadn't found the courage to ask Robin out on a date.

'So, we won,' Tey said, before shovelling a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. There was no need for him to be awake, no need for him to be offering Belle companionship while she got ready for work, but she was grateful for it. Two days. That was all she had with him before he had to make the trek back to college.

'That's what I heard.' Belle scrubbed a hand across her face and hastily stifled a yawn behind her hand. Mornings were the worst, and her run had done nothing to help quieten the racing thoughts in her head. In fact, the time had given her space to wonder about Axel. He knew more than he was telling her. But what he was hiding, she couldn't begin to fathom. All she knew was it felt dark, something that genuinely scared him.

And that was the most concerning bit about it all.

'Hey!' Her attention snapped back to her brother as the lid to the orange juice bounced off her shoulder. She barely caught it before it rolled off the table.

'Where's your school spirit, frangine?'

Belle clicked her fingers, as if she'd just remembered something. 'Oh yeah, I left it at work.'

Tey quirked an eyebrow at her. 'You've been spending too much time with Robin. You've almost got her sarcasm down.'

'Making up for lost time,' she admitted in a small voice. But that truth, the truth her tired brain couldn't quite keep back for the sake of her brother, hung heavily in the air between them.

'Anyway,' said Tey, carefully putting his spoon back in the bowl, 'what new movies you got in the store?'

Belle raised an eyebrow at him.

'No parents tonight,' he reminded her slowly, leaning forwards on the table and shifting the bowl a little to the side. 'Or are you too grown up for another horror movie marathon with your bestest brother?'

Belle smirked at him, gently rolling the lid back across the table towards him. 'Never too grown up for time with my only brother,' she assured him as he caught the lid and carefully screwed it back in place. 'I'll see what we've got.'

Eddie woke with a start. His breathing ragged, heart hammering against his ribs. A bottle clattered as he shifted; he quickly reached for it in the hopes that it wouldn't shatter. The bottom had been broken off, and he couldn't actually remember if he'd done that, thinking he might need to protect himself, or if it had been like that when he arrived. Who knew with Reefer Rick.

With a shaky breath, Eddie rested his head in his hands. He could barely call what he'd woken from sleep. A couple of minutes shut eye before Chrissy's face had come back to him. What had happened to her? Had Wayne found her like that in the morning?

'Shit,' he cursed, voice rough from the screaming, from yelling at Chrissy to wake up despite some part of him knowing she wouldn't. She couldn't.

The first of the tears came then. He was no longer running from the scene, no longer terrified that somebody might have followed him. Sitting alone in the boathouse, everything finally crashed over him.

Chrissy was dead, killed by something he couldn't explain even to himself. He already knew how this was going to end though: Popular cheerleader killed by leader of a satanic group. The whole thing practically wrote itself. Sacrifice, murder. He couldn't help but bitterly remember the magazine he'd been reading only that morning.

Shit, had it really all happened within the space of twenty-four hours? All he wanted was to graduate, to finally get out of Hawkins with something that proved he was better than nothing. The diploma was his way of being better, no matter how many times he had to retake the year to get it.

But this was his final shot, and it was nothing but a pipe dream now. Taken away by a body in a trailer. Taken away because Chrissy had needed something to numb the pain and he'd been willing to try helping her.

So Eddie cried, the weight of everything finally crashing down on his shoulders. He just hoped that when he eventually stopped he'd be able to figure out a better plan than hiding in the boathouse of a dealer known to be in jail. Something better than the inevitable conclusion of a story that wrote itself.

Belle yawned as she leant against the counter of Family Video. Robin and Steve were moving between the aisles as they put videos away, their conversation loud enough for her to hear while still keeping an eye on the door. Axel had, she was loath to admit, been oddly quiet all morning. She'd tried to speak to him while opening, to question why he was so adamant that she left Hawkins again, but without the pressure of his presence she knew he wasn't getting anything from her. However their link worked, that was one of the laws that always seemed to be present.

'And then, Vickie laughed,' Robin said, drawing Belle's attention back to the room. If there was nothing she could do about Axel, she refused to let him take up any more of her time. 'And it wasn't like a cheap, fake laugh either. It was like… It was like a real, genuine laugh.'

'Of course she laughed, Robin. It's my Muppet joke. It's hilarious,' noted Steve.

'Muppet joke?' Belle asked.

'Tammy Thompson,' said Steve, moving so he could see Belle, 'what does she sound like when she sings?'

Belle merely offered him a shrug, despite knowing exactly where this was heading. Sometimes she wondered how exactly she'd ended up working in the same place as Steve Harrington and didn't completely hate it. Something about him had changed; it didn't exactly undo everything that had happened during her first years of High School, but it did ease the anxiety of being with him just a little. It was the basis of an uneasy friendship between them; both still slightly tentative because of everything.

'She sounds like a Muppet.' He chuckled softly, but Belle forced her own smirk back. In this, she wasn't willing to give him the satisfaction.

His expression slipped ever so slightly, but Robin was talking again.

'My point is that Vickie laughed and everything was just like… It was perfect.'

'But?' encouraged Steve.

'But I'm having this problem where it's like, I should stop talking, I have said everything I need to say. But then I guess I get nervous, and the words they just keep spilling out, and it's like my… my brain is moving faster than my mouth, or… or rather my… my mouth is moving faster than my brain. And it's like I'm digging this hole for myself, and I wanna stop digging, I'm trying to stop, but I can't,' rambled Robin, and Steve finally moved to lean on one of the shelves. 'And I'm doing it right now, aren't I?'

'Yeah, you are.'

Robin exhaled deeply, and Belle leaned over the counter to see her back into a poster. 'Oh, I'm hopeless.'

'No, you're not,' Belle interjected as Steve moved to lean beside Robin. 'Personally, I blame the joke.'

'Hey!' complained Steve. It was a testament to just how easy he'd been to work with that Belle wasn't worried about what insults he might throw her way. 'Just because you have people fawning over you.'

'I'm sorry what?' Belle dropped down from the counter and hurried around the front of it to look between the others. 'You must be thinking of somebody else.'

Steve hummed, but she could tell that he wasn't buying into the comment.

She merely rolled her eyes, folded her arms and looked back to Robin. 'What about Mia?'

'W – what about Mia?' Robin asked, the question tumbling from her lips a little too quickly. Beside her, Steve shifted ever so slightly. Mia was one of his best friends, and even Belle had seen the way he was trying to set the two of them up with each other. He seemed to bring her name up whenever they were at work, asking about how rehearsals had gone, how the band were doing. Belle knew it wasn't for his own benefit which only left one other reason: Robin.

'Have you told her why you're skipping out on being in the orchestra?'

'I – I'm not. With the pep rally and the games and –'

'Sound like excuses to me, right Clary?' Steve asked, a small smirk on his lips.

'Exactly.'

'And, didn't she give you a lift last night?'

'Yes, but – I mean, we were just...' Robin groaned, gently hitting her head against the poster.

Steve nodded, as if conceding the argument for the moment. It was certainly something they'd come back to again at another time, Belle was sure of that. 'We're both hopeless.'

'If only we could just, like combine,' Robin suggested, putting her fingers together to create a mesh.

'Combine?' asked Steve sceptically.

'No, think about it,' Robin said. 'I know exactly what I want, and I've found the girl of my dreams, I just can't get the courage to ask her out.' Steve hummed his agreement, but Belle wondered if he was thinking the same as her: Robin wasn't talking about Vickie any more. 'Meanwhile, you go on like a million dates. And you have no idea what you want.'

Steve hummed again, nodding to further accentuate his agreement.

'So if we just combined, all our problems would be solved. Because, I mean, alone let's face it –'

'We totally suck,' finished Steve.

'Totally and utterly.'

'What about the bad bits?'

Steve's expression crumpled ever so slightly as they both turned to look at Belle.

'Well, if you combined, there'd be one of you with all the good bits, but the other'd have all the bad. What happens to the latter?' Belle took her ponytail down so as to retie it. 'Or do you just get rid of them entirely?'

'Get rid of 'em,' said Steve quickly.

Robin was quiet for a moment, mulling the idea over.

'You really want there to be some poor sap worse than both of us out there in the world?' Steve asked, raising an incredulous eyebrow.

'Not sure the world's ready for that,' teased Belle, earning a flash of a smile on Robin's face.

'Ooh!' she said, attention shifting to the spot just over Belle's shoulder. 'I think I found our morning movie.' She hurried past Belle, who sidestepped just in time not to get knocked into. 'Doctor Zhivago.' She held up the video as if it were a treasured belonging.

Steve groaned. 'You know I don't do double VHS.'

'But it's about doomed love.'

'You really want to be reminded of that?' Belle asked, moving back behind the counter.

'Relatable's good sometimes,' Steve noted, grabbing the cart with more movies in.

'Precisely. Also, Julie Christie is b – b – bonkers hot in this,' Robin said. 'Like, seriously, the most beautiful creature I have ever seen in my life.'

Belle shifted her attention towards the TV, wondering how many times, exactly, they'd already run Doctor Zhivago on it. But the news bulletin caught her eye.

She swiped the remote off the side and turned the volume up a little.

'We're in the Forest Hills Trailer Park in East Roane County,' the presenter said, and Belle's stomach dropped.

Her thoughts strayed back to the evening spent in Eddie's trailer, learning about Dungeons and Dragons, making her character sheet. Eddie had been patient as she tried to make sense of everything he'd been telling her. She wasn't sure any of it actually sunk in; but he was so excited about it all, had a smile on his face the whole time, how could she not have been drawn in?

'We don't have a lot of details right now, but we can confirm that the body of a Hawkins High student was discovered early this morning,' the reporter went on.

'Shit,' Belle whispered, her thoughts running away from her. What if it was Eddie? Who else lived in the trailer park? She had no idea, but –

'Belle?' Robin asked, a hand placed firmly on her shoulder.

Belle felt her chest constricting. Loss and Hawkins were becoming far more linked in her life than she thought possible.

'Hey, hey.' Robin's voice was louder this time, her face directly in front of Belle's, blocking the rest of the news report. 'It's OK.'

'Someone's dead,' Belle said, her voice small but still able to give that truth.

'Yes,' Robin said simply, and the honesty of that simple word helped Belle focus. Helped her to accept that it was her imagination running wild. The body could be anyone, and while that still terrified her it didn't hit quite so close as it might have done. Robin was, she knew, with her; everybody else she knew was probably at home, listening to the same news and worrying about the same things. Nobody would know anything for certain until after the family had been made aware.

Belle nodded. Robin searched her face for a moment before finally stepping away. Belle's attention drifted back to the television, hoping that when a name was released, it wouldn't be one she knew; followed swiftly by the guilt that that selfish thought brought with it.

Mia's attention remained locked on the screen; the television that had been her distraction since returning from her walk suddenly provided her with yet another thing to worry about. Her father's whistling had stopped abruptly and she felt his hand on her shoulder as the news reader continued to give them no information, and yet their words about a student's body being found echoed in her ears.

'Where's Luis?' her father asked in little more than a whisper. His words in the quiet English of a man trying to remain in control of his emotions.

'I – I don't know,' Mia admitted, her mind reeling. There was no chance that they would have ended up at the trailer park for the party, that much she was certain of. All of them seemed to live in the more affluent parts of town. Seemed to avoid the trailers unless they were causing trouble.

Would they have decided to cause trouble?

Or would somebody have decided that they needed drugs?

Her father swore, his voice still quiet but there was a force behind it that finally drew her attention away from the television. He ran a hand through his hair, turned away from her so she could no longer read his expression. No longer see exactly how this was affecting him.

'Do you know where any of the team live?'

Mia opened her mouth to admit that she didn't, but turned back to the television. The police had already cordoned off the trailer. They had admitted that they weren't going to release a name until the family were aware. But how long had they been there for?

'Mija?' Her father's voice had the slight bite of panic behind it.

'No,' she admitted, turning back to him. 'But... but if it was Luis –'

'I know,' he said, his thumb running down the stubble of his jaw. 'But we still need to check in with him.'

Mia nodded, her insides squirming. Would he even know that something had happened? The high of last night's win already destroyed because of yet another horror in Hawkins.

'Maybe the Carvers know?' she suggested.

Her father nodded, pulled her in for a tight hug that she knew had everything to do with the relief that she was there, before he hurried out into the hallway to grab the phone.

She just hoped that it wasn't Luis. That it wasn't anybody she knew.

Eddie hadn't yet dare leave the safety of the boathouse. He'd been tempted to head into Rick's house, to see if the comfort of a proper bed and food might help him. But he couldn't. Guilt gnawed at him. Could he have done more for Chrissy? Should he have stayed rather than leaving her behind?

Alone. He'd left Chrissy alone. There was nothing he could have done to help her. But still. Leaving her alone...

A noise outside sent Eddie scrabbling beneath the tarpaulin covering one of the boats. He banged his knee against the bottom, but bit back the curses ready to tumble from his lips. His heart beat a terrified tattoo against his ribs.

Maybe it was just Rick, out early for some reason. Maybe Rick could help him. But then again, perhaps asking for help from a man known to get arrested wasn't the best of ideas.

Silence filled the boathouse, somehow made Eddie's breathing sound like it was blaring through an amp. He was sure it wasn't that loud though, but he put his hands over his mouth just in case.

Nothing. No sirens screamed and no more noise followed the sound that had sent him back into hiding.

There was still time though. So Eddie carefully laid back down in the bottom of the boat, gripping the broken bottle just in case he needed it.

The shop doors were hauled open, causing Belle to almost drop the VHS she was putting back. The bell jingled with the movement, further announcing the arrival of Dustin and a red haired girl before they hurried in as a whirlwind of activity.

'Hey, guys,' Dustin greeted as Belle slowly wandered towards the desk.

'You guys see this?' Steve asked, indicating to the news report that was still rolling on the screen behind him.

'How many phones do you have?' Dustin asked instead of answering.

'Someone was murdered.'

'How many phones do you have?'

'Why?' Belle asked, stepping up beside Dustin.

'Doesn't matter,' Dustin dismissed, glancing between the three of them. Belle could practically see the repetition of the question on his lips, but Steve jumped in.

'Uh, two.'

'Technically three, if you count Keith's in the back,' corrected Robin.

'Yeah, three works,' said the redhead – Max? Belle couldn't quite remember.

'What are you doing?' Steve asked as Dustin dumped his bag on the counter and slid across.

A scoff of appreciation escaped Belle.

'Woah, what are you –?' demanded Steve.

'My pile!' complained Robin as Belle leant against the counter.

'No, no, no! My tapes! Dude!'

Belle let out a low whistle before looking to Steve. 'Looks like you're going to have to do more work.'

Steve glared, but Dustin was already behind the computer.

'What are you doing, man?'

'Setting up a base of operations here,' Dustin told him, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world to do. He was already tapping away at the computer keyboard as if he belonged there.

'Is this – Does it have something to do with Eddie?' Belle asked. It felt like something had shifted from beneath her. The amusement of moments earlier gone in an instant.

Dustin paused, his attention slowly shifting to her as Max hurried around to his side of the desk. 'Do you know the others' numbers?'

Belle opened her mouth, but quickly closed it again, trying to make sense of why Dustin would want to call the rest of Hellfire, and why he couldn't just go to them himself. 'I, uh, no I don't. But why do you want them?'

Dustin and Max shared a look that Belle couldn't properly decipher.

'This is about Eddie? Your new best friend,' said Steve bitterly. 'Who you think is cooler because he plays your nerdy game?'

'I never said that,' defended Dustin.

'Seriously, you guys, maybe on a Monday you can play around in here like toddlers, but it's Saturday,' said Robin, stacking the VHSes back up on the counter. 'It's our busiest day.'

'Why do you need to call the others?' Belle asked, leaning further on the counter.

Dustin looked between the two of them, trying to figure out who to answer first. 'First off, Robin, I empathise, but this cannot wait until Monday.'

'Because calling all of Eddie's friends is an emergency?' Robin said before he could explain further.

'Correct!' Dustin said, glancing back to Belle.

'Is he the student?' she asked in a small voice. Desperation clawed its way up her throat. Would Eddie's uncle have been the one to find the body? Was there a reason they weren't announcing the name yet?

Robin briefly caught her hand on the counter and squeezed, but Belle pulled away. She just needed the facts right now, then she could figure the rest out.

'No,' Dustin said after a moment, and relief crashed over Belle that she felt bad about. He glanced at the screen, then at Max. 'Can you just fill them in while I do this?'

'Fill us in on what?' Robin asked.

Max took a deep breath, attention shifting uncertainly towards Belle.

'She's good,' Dustin assured her softly.

'Last night,' Max started, her attention shifting between the three older teenagers. Belle tapped her fingers nervously against the counter; her heart thundered a tattoo against her ribs. 'I saw Chrissy Cunningham, cheerleader outfit and all, going to Eddie's trailer.'

'Chrissy?' Steve asked doubtfully, only to earn a sharp glare from Max.

'The dog barked, TV had static interference, and then all the lights and electricity crackled.'

Steve's face paled ever so slightly, and Belle noticed a slight tightening of Robin's expression. She couldn't help wonder what she was missing, but right now that wasn't important.

'Eddie screamed. Ran away.'

'He screamed?' Belle asked, her insides squirming. She knew Eddie wasn't brave in some senses, but for him to be that scared?

Max nodded, her lips pulled into a soft frown. 'He was scared, like really scared, and then he jumped in his van and sped away.'

Silence followed the admittance. A little of the tense knot from Belle's stomach loosened.

'So,' Steve said, his attention shifting from Max to Belle and back again. 'It's Chrissy. In Eddie's trailer.'

'Eddie didn't do this,' Belle said, attention snapping to him in an instant. 'He… He wouldn't.'

'Seconded,' piped up Dustin, hands still flying across the keyboard. 'And does any of that sound familiar?'

Steve huffed out a breath, ran a hand through his hair, but he didn't refute the point like Belle assumed he would.

'I need some air,' she said, dismissing herself. The room suddenly felt like everything was too close. She pulled the door open and headed a little down the pavement, away from the window. Closing her eyes, she rested her back against the wall, trying to make sense of everything that had happened.

The tinkling of the bell cut through the quiet of the shop, and Robin wanted desperately to follow her best friend outside. Steve caught her arm before she could, held her back with a small furrow between his brows.

'It's a lot to take in,' he admitted. 'Especially if it's Eddie.'

'It isn't,' Dustin piped up from the computer.

Steve shook his head ever so slightly, his attention on Robin. 'It's your call, telling her about everything.'

Robin opened her mouth but hastily shut it again, for once the words not tumbling out. She wanted nothing more than to tell Belle the truth about everything that had happened in Hawkins, if only so it made her understand why Steve knew things about her; why she'd grown closer to him than either of them could have imagined. If it helped her to realise that even if Eddie had been behind it, he might have been under the influence of something darker, then all the better for it.

Not that Robin was hoping it was anything to do with the Upside Down. The place had been destroyed with Starcourt. She desperately wanted to believe that.

But part of her wasn't sure she could laden her best friend with everything that had happened in her absence. She'd been spared the other horrors of Hawkins over the last few years, and Robin was determined to save her from the additional burden of that knowledge.

But what if the threat was back? What if not knowing put Belle in danger?

'Did you want to tell Mia?' Robin asked in little more than a whisper.

Steve's attention drifted to the doorway. Belle had taken herself away from the window, so Robin couldn't see her at all. She couldn't see how it was affecting her so far. And this was only scratching the surface of everything. She wondered how the truth would make her react.

Would she disappear again?

'No,' Steve admitted, drawing her attention back towards him. 'But Mia knowing helped in the end. Helped her with it all. It... it helped me too.'

'But Belle...' Robin whispered. Her friend had already been through so much. She didn't really want to give her anything more to worry about.

'Probably deserves the truth,' Steve admitted. 'But like I said, it's up to you.'

Robin nodded, before turning back to the others. Right now, they needed to try finding Eddie. If he confirmed that it was something to do with the weird in Hawkins, then perhaps it was time to share the truth with Belle. Finally time to unveil the one secret Robin had been keeping from her.

And if this was a completely mundane killing? Then Robin would have more time to figure out sharing the truth with her, if only so the guilt of lying didn't eat her alive.