"Okay, I'm like this close to calling it." Robin's irked voice hisses at his ear from behind him where she's carefully placed herself with her menu, looking as inconspicuous as she can be in this scenario. Steve just sighs, shaking his head. "Give it a minute longer, Rob, seriously."

"Steve, it has been over an hour. /An hour/." Robin griped, the slightly older male feeling the woman's glare burning holes into the back of his head. "She would have been here by now if she was interested. Clearly, that Oliver guy you've been hanging around was totally wrong about her. He's probably outside looking in the windows and laughing at you right now."

"So, he's getting a show." Steve shrugged, the nonchalance masking his slowly growing disappointment as it rolled off his shoulders. Sure, okay, he thought that one of his colleagues at the school (that he worked at in admin thanks to the covers they had been given, he wished he'd had a better one, but Robin worked as a waitress so-) somehow getting him a date as soon as he and Robin moved to Chicago, but he had been all too willing.

That was always the mistake he made. Just too willing. Just too willing to have new memories cover up the old. Just too willing to forget what he left behind. ' Too willing to forget Eddie… ' His mind traitorously snarks at him, making his chest fill with emotions that he'd hoped to avoid for the future.

It wasn't like him and Eddie even had a chance. Hell, they weren't even together or anything when he died, but it almost felt like that given he'd had to spend almost every waking moment up until that fucking nightmare with him and the others. When Dustin had first brought him into their lives, their circle, Steve had been pissed. He was even more pissed when he found that somehow, he had common ground with the guy other than just hoping to keep Henderson and the other kids safe. He hoped to avoid the whole thing entirely and just focus on surviving Hawkins's onslaught of pure hell, but when you catch feelings for a dead guy?

Yeah, he ended up hating fucking Hawkins.

Worse part wasn't Eddie's death, however. Sure, it was bad and it almost buried him for good and he'll freely admit that now because he can. It's been over 6 years after all. No, the worst part was the slow, torturous time he had to spend still trapped there in the town that basically was filled with ghosts, still enclosed by mountains and hills and was so mundane even with the addition of a rebuilt Star Mall and other buildings till he could be done with it.

It sounded stupidly heroic, having so much money yet choosing to stay in the town you grew up in out of duty, but it was necessary. Those kids needed him, Dustin and by extension, Erica especially after Eddie was gone. He also stayed for Wayne, as the guy was now fully on his own with his nephew and Steve still felt Eddie through him somehow. He hated himself for several years for doing it, but he knows that those kids would have never gotten through those last couple of high school years without him. Or so they say in their phone calls.

Will and El moved back to California with the Byers. Lucas took Max the day after she graduated, loading her wheelchair up into the back of his car in the dead of the night and speeding off to Indianapolis with her to never look back. Dustin left for Ohio to go to college and Mike went to Arizona both to work and chase after El like he always did. Erica was the last to leave the town, shipping off to Michigan so she could attend school up there.

That left him and Robin, the only ones who wouldn't leave. So, when they realized there was nothing left. Illinois, specifically Chicago after some debate, became their destination. A city, buried in noise, a haven of people in their early 20's, their age - an escape from everything they'd ever known. A paradise.

Of course, times were changing as it was almost the 90s, but if they didn't go now, they would never get out of Hawkins. That Steve knew. So, here they were. Three months into their new lives and sitting in a diner waiting for a date that may never show up.

"Steve, I can't sit here all afternoon. Seriously, I have a night shift." Robin sighed, unwilling to disappoint him, obviously, but clearly knowing how this was going to end. "We need to either order something or get out of here before the waitstaff throws us out."

"Alright, alright, you win." Steve opens up the menu in defeat, ready to order just something for the both of them and pull out his wallet in forgiveness for the run around, when a person entering the door and setting off the bell catches his eye. It's a woman, he knows that much, but she's not like any woman he's ever seen in his life and he's seen several. Too many, in fact. She's tall, not in a clumsy way, but a graceful one that's similar to a well known supermodel.

She has broad shoulders and a stocky build, like she could benchpress him and that makes him squirm. With long curly dark hair that went past her shoulders (it's a little flat so it must have been tied up at some point during the day as Robin's hair despite being short gets similar) and eyes as brown and deep as a good coffee, Steve almost wants to throw up when he realizes she's laid eyes on him and freezes for a minute before walking right towards him.

"Holy shit, Harrington." Robin's surprised whisper falls on a half deaf ear as she saddles right on up to them in grease-covered overalls (So she's a mechanic? Oliver never said that.) and flops down, looking a little freaked out, but very, very embarrassed. "Oh, god, I am so sorry I'm late. The traffic is terrible at this time of the afternoon. I'm glad you're still here!"

Steve almost wants to bathe in her voice. It's a lower voice, but it still feels silken like honey and it sticks to Steve's senses like flies stick to flypaper. Breathless, it takes a good moment for Steve's brain to reboot itself and kick in before he holds out his hand, patented Harrington charm already oozing its way from him. "It's okay, I figured there might be a problem. I'm assuming Oliver sent you? My name's St-" Oh wait, he can't introduce himself like that anymore. Along with the new job, came new names. "-my name's Richard, but please, call me Rich."

The woman looked almost mournful at the fact that he doesn't introduce himself as Steve, which is a little weird, but she then takes his hand when he offers it, her touch electric and terribly, achingly, familiar. "It's nice to meet you, Rich." She doesn't offer her name, but Steve finds that as they get talking, he kind of doesn't really need it.

She's amazing.

Every word that comes out of her mouth, Steve is hanging onto. He can practically hear Robin's snickers behind him as he absorbs everything about her and blocks out the noise and environment around him. It seemed very extreme given this was a first date that could lead to absolutely nowhere, but the more she spoke, the more he felt like he knew her. They talk about everything. Their jobs (so she /is/ a mechanic, cool) and their small city roots (she moved around a lot and Steve briefly touches on Hawkins, but it seems both of them curl their lips at it so he slides it off the table) and then finally their interests.

He talks about sports and he laughs at her terrible ability to not really name teams and she starts to talk about…Dungeons and Dragons…and it makes his blood run cold a little. She must see it on his face because she becomes embarrassed a second later.

"Yeah, I know it's a dumb roleplaying game, but I just really love it and-"

"No, no, no don't defend yourself." Steve tries to reign the conversation back in before it can go off the rails, shaking his head. "I know some of it. The kids I used to babysit back home played it relentlessly. I also had a…friend who practically made it his religion. How did you get into it? Were you introduced by someone, find it yourself? Do you DM or just play?"

It seems she's even surprised that Steve kind of knows what he's talking about, though there is a flicker of sadness behind her eyes when he mentions the kids and Eddie in passing, like she understands that somehow. Nevertheless, she continues to talk, passionately talking about the campaigns she's made and creating a network of DnD players in the local area since they didn't have one and it was more popular in the city.

In fact, they talk so much that they forget to order food, just taking the free drinks the waitstaff keeps bringing around. It gets so late into the evening even, that he's not even aware Robin's left them for her shift till he hears his pager go off informing him of such. Huh.

Looking outside for a moment, Steve winces as the setting sun harshly beams into his eyes and it seems that the girl sitting across from him does the same, hastily pulling the sleeve of her coverall up to check her wrist, most likely a watch. "Shit, it's pretty late. I'm usually home by 4:00 and it's already 5 minutes to 6. Seems we've been talking for a while."

"I mean, we, I-" Steve corrects himself hastily. God knows the last thing she needs to know about him is that his lesbian best friend was /spying/ on them thanks to his asking. "I got here at 2:30 and you got in at 3:30 or so, that's actually pretty short."

"Well, whaddya know? Glad you are keeping time, big boy." The way she says those last two words make time stand still, the two of them frozen as they stare at eachother completely bewildered. Steve because only Eddie would call him that and her because, well, why does she freeze? It wasn't like she knew the significance of that nickname or his life. Right?

He looks at her more closely this time and he knows she can see that because she backs up to the point where she looks like she's cornered and wants to run, the sleeves of her coveralls still pulled down from where she was finding and checking her watch. It only takes him a moment to see bats, the horrible fucking creatures he'd grown to loathe and hate, spilling out in faded ink from her right forearm and scars, peeking out from the collar of her shirt, pink and light and barely noticeable going from her neck to just under her jaw.

Exactly where some of Eddie's scars would have been if he survived. Exactly where Eddie's tattoo was on his arm, one of many. Perhaps he's truly lost it like some people thought he had. Perhaps the 6 years that he's been trying to fight his way through have caught up to him and he's projecting all these things onto some poor helpless girl who has no idea that he's so incredibly fucked up it's insane.

Punching himself in the thigh, Steve makes a move to speak again when she does, getting up from her seat. "Actually now that I think about it, I really have to go. Something I've got to do at home. It was really nice to meet you, Richard. Sorry I can't stay."

Her taking off was literally like the starting bullet of a race coming out of a gun and Steve's off and running swiftly after her, catching up to her when they're out in the parking lot and he grabs her arm. "Wait! Wait, please." Thankfully she does and she can't look him in the eye. He doesn't know why she can't, but the foreboding feeling creeping up on him in the last few moments and his heart hammering in his chest just might have the answer as he pleadingly asks her. "What's your name?"

At first, he thinks that she's just going to placate him, give him an answer that she thinks will make him let her go and watch her leave. That's not what she does, as it's moments, seconds even, before she speaks quietly for only them to hear. "Edith."

Edith. Edith, so /close/ to Eddie. Edith was a derivative of Edward, wasn't it? Could she be? Could she really, really be? Could there even be some possibility or was he finally having that mental breakdown that Robin was warning him of so many years ago?

"Your last name?"

She finally looks at him, truly looks at him, haunted eyes staring him down. "You already know my last name-" She says under her breath before she spits out the ending. "-Harrington."

It all crashed onto him in that split second, the past bleeding into the present and culminating in a wash of colour and earth-shattering realisation. The scientists had found no body, when they had gone down there. That's what they said to them, him and Wayne, when they asked them to keep a look out for him secretly from the kids. They said that Eddie's body had most likely been eaten by the bats and that not even a skeleton remained. Looking at this girl now, that was all one big dirty lie.

Steve couldn't help himself and crushed the girl, Edith, to his body in a hug that could possibly have broke her in half if she hadn't looked (and felt) as strong as ever. He held her to his body, even as rage surged though him like a hot iron. How dare they lie to them!? How dare they keep this from them, for months, for years! She didn't deserve that.

How long had she been in Chicago? How long had she been alone for without anyone, even her uncle, the man that raised her? How long had she been…god, those fuckers. He didn't even care that she was completely different to when he last saw her, he just cared about one thing right now. Pulling back, he held her face gently in his hand, thankful that she hadn't suddenly pulled away or worse, highly emotional as he struggled to find the words to say.

"You're alive."

Her eyes looked so haunted, just like Robin's and his and everyone else's. He wanted to wipe that look from her face, even if it matched the words that she suddenly spoke, tumbling out like the rain did most nights. "I woke up and no one was there. They wouldn't let me leave, wouldn't let me see anyone. I was in pain and alone and they wouldn't tell me anything. I didn't know if Wayne was okay, if you were, if the kids were-"

"Ed- Edith-" Steve just held her, looking at her. "We all thought you were dead. They told us that you were dead, that your skeleton was even gone. Wayne was fucked up after that shit, he still is. He still thinks he sees you sometimes, when he looks out into the forest beyond the trailer. The kids could barely function. /I/ could barely function." Edith looks at him with wide, borderline tearful eyes and Steve's heart just breaks all over again for her. He can't imagine how hard it was for her, let alone her knowing how much it affected them. "We all lost a part of ourselves in the Upside Down and it was you."

He can't help himself after that sentence but to swiftly lean down and kiss her like he hadn't just poured his heart out to her, like everything wasn't aching and hurting and his whole body felt weighed down by a ton of bricks taken from other people's houses. Everyone's problems on him, because Steve Harrington had always been able to carry them.

He doesn't expect Edith's arms to encircle his neck and receprocaite, but they're now making out like the world is ending (ironic, but whatever) and they're both shedding tears, but fuck it, no one's watching them. When he pulls away, her face is flushed red and her lips are starting to stain red from overuse, but he doesn't care as she pulls him back in and the world drowns out again just like when they were sitting in the restaurant.

It's not their first date, Steve finds out after the emotions dry up. In fact, it's the first of many as now Steve's got her back, there's no way in hell (or Hawkins) that he's letting Ed go again and disappear into a purple haze like in his nightmares long after what happened. He doesn't know exactly how she would feel about that, but it seems she doesn't mind given her grip on him is lighting up the parts of him he'd long though had since burned out.

He couldn't wait to see what else the move to Chicago and her brought to his new life.