There had been something oddly comforting about having Steve driving; not that Belle would admit it to him. Or to Robin, who had been doing her best to make them friends since they'd started working together. But now the others were in the shop, and she was waiting for someone to come back with news. She sat in the driver's seat, ready to drive off it they needed to.

Despite how she was meant to be paying attention, she couldn't help but allow herself to dwell on who Axel really was. How he looped into everything. The fact she couldn't feel his presence meant she could think without worrying what he might say, but it also meant she couldn't keep some sort of tab on him, either.

Axel was a number, nineteen by the sounds of things. Going on Vecna being one, and their superpowered friend Eleven, Belle was going to go out on a limb and say he was less powerful than them. If that was even how it worked.

But why had he been talking to her? Why was it Claribel Barrow that had heard his voice in her head, and not one of the others who knew about the Upside Down and everything that it meant? He'd never given her any indication that he'd spoken to other people. Even when she saw him in town and things, he barely seemed to interact with them. The exception to that rule had been Tey.

Tey... Eddie had worried that he'd never worried about Wayne, but she'd assumed Tey was safe far away from Hawkins. Who really knew the reach of Vecna, though?

'Belle?' Eddie's voice was tentative, and it pulled her attention away from the spot on the floor that it had been focused blindly on. He stood just behind her, trying to keep out of sight. 'You OK?'

'Never better,' she murmured, shifting so he could sit beside her.

He hesitated for a moment before dropping to sit just behind her.

'How're you?' She shifted ever so slightly, leaning around the chair to better see him, knowing that his hiding space was probably the safer option. Dustin paced in front of them, a guard of the doorway.

'Not good,' Eddie admitted, resting the crown of his head back against the wall, his attention firmly away from her. 'We're buying weapons that might not even work. Driving, might I add, in a stolen vehicle. Probably not the best of plans.'

'It was the best we had,' Belle assured him, trying to fill the words with as much certainty as she could muster.

'And if this doesn't work?'

'It'll work,' Belle told him, leaning slightly closer to him, her attention straying to Dustin and Lucas. 'These guys know what they're doing.'

Silence settled uneasily between the two of them. Despite all the horrors they were about to face, she guessed Eddie was thinking about what might face them when all this was over. His desire to finally graduate seemed like a distant memory now. How could he finish if his name wasn't cleared?

'You're gonna get that diploma, Eddie Munson,' she vowed, shifting to take hold of his hand and giving it a squeeze. 'You're going to wave it in Higgins' face. Because we're going to fix this somehow.'

Eddie's attention lowered to their hands, and when she moved to let go, he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. 'Together?'

'Together,' she promised.

'What the hell is taking them so long?' asked Dustin, drawing Belle's attention to him.

'Maybe there's nothing –'

The door burst open, all attention shifting that way. 'What happened?'

'Gotta go,' noted Steve, throwing something at Eddie. Belle had already shifted in the seat though and turned the key in the ignition.

'Your old friends are here,' said Erica.

'Shit!' cursed Lucas.

'Let's go! Let's go!' yelled Dustin as Steve dropped into the passenger seat.

'Sit! Sit down!' called Steve. 'Go!'

Belle didn't need telling twice. The order had barely left Steve's mouth before she was pulling away; slightly glad to be doing something. To have something other than Axel and worry to occupy her thoughts. She just hoped the RV wasn't going to be awful to drive.

Mia felt exhausted. If it wasn't worry about Max, about the part she was about to play in all this, it was concern for Luis. Seeing him in the shop had been the final nail in the coffin. They'd drawn up their sides of this. He might not have believed Eddie had called the devil to do his dirty work, but he certainly thought he had a hand in it all. The crowbar suddenly didn't feel like it had been such a big deal. Not when Jason was buying guns and Luis had done nothing to dissuade them from their current course of action. She just hoped he didn't take one.

'Headache?' Belle asked softly. While everybody else was working outside, making the most of the field Steve had directed Belle to, she'd taken refuge inside, trying to find what other tools they might find stashed away. The tools Eddie had brought with him to hotwire the thing were strewn across the table.

'No,' Mia admitted, realising that this was the last time she'd been alone with the other girl since that day in the drama room. Since she'd seen her eyes go white and she'd mentioned things she had no right knowing. 'For once I actually don't.'

'Maybe that's a good thing.'

Mia heaved a deep breath. 'When is quiet a good thing with the end of the world nigh?'

'Not sure,' Belle mused, stepping up beside her and picking up some plyers. 'Don't think I've ever experienced it before.'

Mia scoffed.

'What happened last year?'

Mia heaved a deep breath. She guessed it would only be a matter of time before questions came up about that. After all, there hadn't been much time to properly update her on everything that had happened.

'The Russians –'

'Not that,' Belle said, causing Mia to look at her sharply. 'I got Steve to tell me while I was driving. Fill in the blanks Nancy couldn't. It's just...' She let out a huffed breath, making Mia's brow furrow in confusion. 'You and Robin –'

'We're friends,' Mia said hastily, but the words seemed to stick in her throat. She shook her head. 'Trauma bonding isn't the best basis of things.'

'Did you like her before everything?'

The answer burned on the tip of Mia's tongue, and yet she couldn't voice it. Belle was Robin's best friend; she was a friend to Mia; she was one of the least judgemental people Mia knew. And yet, she hadn't properly admitted her attraction to Robin to anybody. Not in words, at the very least. All her little conversations with Robin could be construed as friendship if looked at in the right light.

Still, she didn't think that was what Belle was hinting at. Least of all because Robin had admitted – while they were under the influence of drugs – that they'd both said they liked girls.

'I know Robin,' Belle said, moving to check the kitchen area for useful things instead. 'And I know you. Something changed after the Russians.'

How could it not have? Mia had thought in that instant that they were all going to die. She'd thought she would see her best friend and the person she'd been crushing on for a good few months would die and there was nothing she could do about it. When all was said and done, it really should have been the moment that she took destiny in her hands and said something to Robin.

But she'd bottled it. Billy had died. The kids were all traumatised and Steve was holding it all together for the rest of them. She'd thrown herself back into school, into getting the most recent production and trying to make her final show the best it could be.

'Just... I'm pretty sure if you wanted to hang out more, without the Scooby Gang hovering, I think it'd be good for both of you.'

Mia glanced towards her, but Belle was stretching up to reach a higher cupboard, not looking her way at all. Did she know that Mia liked Robin as more than a friend, or was she just trying to help them get to know each other outside of the horrors of Hawkins life now?

Someone knocked on the RV wall, and Mia grabbed the tool nearest to her: a hammer.

Robin appeared in the doorway, practically swinging herself through it. There was a smirk on her face, but it dropped as soon as she spotted the weapon.

'Sorry,' Mia muttered, hastily dropping the hammer back on the table.

'I was just coming to see what you slackers were doing,' Robin teased, though there was an uncertain edge to her voice.

'Got bored of working with Steve?' Belle countered, the smile obvious behind her voice.

Robin poked her tongue out at her, attention flitting briefly to Mia, before she shrugged. 'When you want to do something useful...' Her words faded as she jumped out.

Belle scoffed. 'I don't think there's anything else in here,' she said, dropping to sit at the table. 'Might as well enjoy the good weather.'

'You coming?' Mia asked, starting towards the door but realising her friend wasn't following her.

'In a bit,' she said, offering a small smile.

Mia wanted to press the point, but the RV suddenly felt too confining. Who knew what horrors they were about to be faced with. What might happen.

'Yell if you need us.'

'Always,' Belle assured her, and Mia couldn't help but wonder how true that actually was.

Belle kept the small smile on her face until Mia was out of the RV. She hoped it didn't look too strained, hoped that she wouldn't linger to check in with her. The whole conversation about Robin had been the safest conversation to have as she felt the pressure of Axel's presence at the back of her mind. Anything to not think about what they were planning. Just in case. But she worried she'd said too much, pressed too hard.

You're going back there. There was accusation behind Axel's voice, but also a kind of resignation that she hadn't heard before. Clary you need –

Need to what? she thought bitterly, and she could practically feel him flinching. He's threatening my home. My friends.

Friends that didn't look for you?

The words made her blood run cold. She balled her hands on top of the table.

Three years, Claribel, and not one of them knew where you were.

And she hadn't wanted them to. The hospital had been bad enough with her family coming to visit. The pitying looks behind their eyes, the concern, were things she still thought she spotted shadowed in their expressions when they thought she wasn't looking. Looks she'd tried to limit by not letting anybody close since she'd returned.

But some people had forced their way into her life; had returned with the full force of her missing them. Robin was one, but Eddie was another. Mia, and she was slowly beginning to realise even Steve had somehow managed to make himself somebody she could rely on.

No, she assured him. Axel's words were a lie and she knew it. A reminder of the things he'd said in the beginning; comments only now she wondered if they weren't part of some grand scheme. A scheme put in place for Vecna, for the moment he needed people to open gates. But they did look, she reminded him. Tey said –

He might've lied.

He didn't, she told him firmly. Not only was it not the kind of thing her brother would have lied about, but Robin had told her so. Eddie had told her so. And yet she'd still not had it in her to tell either of them the truth. Robin had got closest to it, though Belle's excuse was staying with family the whole time.

Silence settled between them, and for a moment Belle wondered if he was going to leave again. But she could still feel him, hovering at the edge of her periphery.

Who are you, Axel? she pressed, wondering if perhaps now there was no hiding from his link to Vecna, he might actually be forthcoming with that information. Or would you prefer I called you Nineteen?

No! His insistence on the matter made Belle put her hands to her temples. It was the most force he'd put into any of their conversations, and she bit back a yelp of surprise. But at least it clarified one thing: He was like One and Eleven. He knew them and that took a little of the power away from the mysteries surrounding him. She felt him take a shuddering breath. No. That was never my name.

The silence was pressing this time, but Belle refused to break it. More questions bubbled up inside her, but she knew from her own dogged determination to avoid answering people that pressing would only make him clam up. She couldn't risk that, not if he might give them something more to use against Vecna.

I can't do anything if you go back there, he whispered eventually.

She forced herself not to think bitterly about how little he'd actually done. But the seed of it must have translated to him somehow because he chuckled bitterly.

Yeah, I've been such a help, I know, he said wryly.

Axel – she started, but she could already feel him pulling away.

I protect family, he muttered, and then he was gone again.

Belle carefully hit her head against the table. What had she done?

'Belle?' She sat up again in an instant, finding Eddie's brown eyes wide with concern and locked on her. Slowly, he lowered himself into the seat opposite her, his attention never once deviating from her. 'What's wrong?'

She wanted to tell him the truth, wanted to explain everything and just how much she might have messed up. But she couldn't. Shattering his hope that the plan was solid... She couldn't bear to do it.

The alternative was possibly walking into a trap.

'What if Venca knows?' she asked in a tiny voice. 'Knows we're coming for him?'

Eddie was silent for a moment. A moment that dragged out long enough for Belle's attention to go to the sink; to the soap and the urge to wash her hands clean of what she might just have condemned them all to.

Carefully, he reached out to take her hands, holding them in the middle of the table despite the array of tools that littered the space around them. His hands were warm, comforting as he trailed his thumbs across the backs of her hands.

'In D&D,' he said softly, 'Vecna was meant to be the most powerful enemy that the campaign could come up against. Do you know what happened?'

'It was a game,' Belle whispered, unable to pull her thoughts away from how badly she might have messed up.

Eddie gave her hands a firm squeeze, drawing her attention back to him. Despite everything, there was a small smile on his lips. 'They beat him. Dustin, Mike, Erica, the rest of Hellfire.'

Belle nodded. Not because she could accept that logic, but because she thought Eddie needed the reassurance that he was right on this. If there was hope they could beat him in the game, then there might've been hope they could beat him now.

'Just... Can you promise me something?' he asked, causing her to tilt her head a little as she surveyed him. There was a seriousness about his expression that she was growing increasingly familiar with. Over the past few days she was pretty sure she'd seen it more than in all her time knowing him. 'If there's danger, don't go running towards it.'

Belle scoffed, moving back slightly. But Eddie didn't release her hands. 'Why would I go running towards danger?'

'The lake?'

'Everybody dove in.'

'When the jocks were outside?'

'I thought they could be civil.' That earnt a wry smirk, and even she had to admit it was a tentative reason at best.

'The fair?'

Belle opened her mouth, but no excuse for that came to mind. She could still see the shock on the shot man's face. See the anger of his friend as she offered to help do something. She'd wanted to run off, try finding the man that had done it. They'd practically been dismissed by the balding man, and Eddie had to all but drag her out of the fair before she started investigating.

A week. That was how long it had taken her to talk to him again. To realise that he'd been right. There was nothing they could have done, and if somebody had a gun the best thing was to not head towards them.

'Promise me?'

'And if I do? Promise not to, I mean,' she said, gently rubbing her own thumbs against the backs of his hands. How could she complain at Mia and Robin for not doing anything if she didn't either?

A small smile curled onto his lips. 'Nothing,' he told her, giving her hands another squeeze. 'But when all this crap's done, how about an actual date?'

Belle chuckled softly as he pulled his hands away from her, and offered one to shake. 'Deal. To the date.' She shook his hand, and wasn't too surprised when he moved to place a quick kiss on the back of her hand.

'That's something at least,' he murmured, and she was grateful that he didn't press her to promise something they both knew she'd probably have to go back on as soon as something bad happened.

Robin's attention was on Mia, who sat near the window beside her. She looked sick, and Robin really didn't blame her; she'd meant what she said to Steve, she really had a bad feeling about all of this. At least she had Belle on her other side though, a reminder that her friend was still there. That she hadn't disappeared. But as soon as they reached Creel house, Mia would be gone. Robin would be on her way to fight Vecna again, with that sinking feeling in her chest that they weren't all coming back from this. If any of them.

'Mia?' she asked softly, shifting forwards on the seat. She felt Belle move, closer to Eddie so as to give Robin the space she needed. If all this worked out, she was going to finally get Belle to admit to her feelings about the metalhead. To him.

Mia's attention snapped to her, the shock of it almost comical but not enough to earn more than a small quirking of Robin's lips.

'You know I said about Little Shop of Horrors?' Because that had been playing on her mind ever since the words tumbled free. She hadn't outwardly said anything, but between Belle and Steve over the past few months, and their insistence that there was something there... When else might Robin get a chance like this? 'I... What I actually meant to say – and I don't think I made it clear or... or if I did –'

'Go together?' Mia asked, her voice barely more than a tentative whisper.

Relief flooded through Robin. 'Yeah.'

'I'd love to,' Mia said, and Robin was already mentally berating herself, knowing that there was a declining of the invitation somewhere in there. 'But, can we do something nearer than in December?'

'Yes,' Robin said eagerly, grinning despite everything that was happening around them. The end of the world was something that terrified her; it was something she knew should have been a priority over sorting out her love life. But if Steve still had hope; if Belle could still slowly open up to somebody else, then why shouldn't she give it a go herself?

'It's a date,' Mia murmured, and Robin couldn't have been happier to hear those words.