"Oh, child of my heart… farewell."

Wonder Woman, Issue 322

Eleven opens her eyes and feels the empty space next to her. In her half-awakened state and still drunken with sleep she stretches out her arms into the cool sheets covering the unoccupied half of the bed and feels a sort of freedom that comes with having space to herself that she has grown unaccustomed to. And then there is a thought that bursts into her mind, like lightning forking across a clear sky. Max, she thinks. Max.

She sits bolt upright and peeks under the sheets. As if Max could be hiding beneath them, curled up into a ball, just out of sight. Stupid, she thinks. Think. Think. She lets the sheets slide off the side of the bed and into a heap on the dusty floor. In the darkness lit only by the pallid light of the waning moon that filters through the window blinds she fumbles for the switch on the bedside lamp and, finding it at last, casts the room in the fading glow of a failing incandescent bulb. She peers into the shadows in the corners of the room, almost expecting to find a pair of pale, blue eyes gazing back out at her. Nothing, she thinks. But the smell of her still lingers in the air. The scent of soap and warm cotton. She can't have gone far, Eleven thinks. She hopes.

She thinks back to when they had gone to bed the previous night. Night, she had said. Night, Max had said back. Eleven had opened her eyes briefly and seen Max sleeping peacefully next to her. Her shoulders rising and falling with each soft breath. She reconstructs the last few moments of her consciousness in her mind and replays them over and over again. There had been nothing amiss. She thinks. The light had flickered but she had chalked it up to the generator acting up or the bulb being old or some optical illusion. But it had flickered all the same. She feels her stomach ache as she slides out of bed and has to brace herself against the wall to stop herself from falling victim to a dizzy spell that overtakes her. When she has found her feet again she stumbles towards the kitchenette.

"Max?" she calls out. Quietly, at first, in the vain hope that she might be hiding just around the corner, waiting for her. As if this might all just be some sort of elaborate prank that she and Lucas and the others had hatched. Maybe to see if – she shakes her head and puts the thought out of her mind. "Max," she says again. Louder this time. Her voice reverberates around the cavern of the empty kitchenette. There is nothing and no-one there. No-one sitting hunched over the couch where sometimes Max would read or curl up and pretend to read. No-one at the corner of the table where one morning Eleven had stumbled out of bed to find Max staring out of the window, her eyes red with what she had supposed was sleeplessness. No-one and nothing except the echoes of her disembodied voice bouncing off the walls and the linoleum floor and back to her, as if mocking her fear. Max. Max. Max.

For a moment she thinks she might be dreaming. She pinches herself on the arm, feeling a sharp stab of pain and wincing and hoping that when she opens her eyes again she will awaken with Max next to her, still peacefully asleep. But when she does she is still there, standing alone in the gloom, listening to the sound of Hopper's snoring like waves crashing across the shoreline. You should wake him up, Eleven thinks. Wake him up. But that would mean shaking him from his sleep and attempting to explain what has happened while he slowly clambers out of the pit of his stupor and tells her that everything is okay, everything is okay, even when it isn't. It clearly isn't and there is no time. There is no time.

She flings open the trailer door and feels the cold night air prick against her skin as she steps outside onto the grass and the dirt that sticks to her clammy skin. "Max," she calls out into the darkness. She is almost yelling now. Almost, because if she were to actually scream out as every bone and muscle in her body is willing her to it would make it all real. Max would really be missing. In danger. It could really be him. But now at least she has the comfort of telling herself that there has just been some sort of misunderstanding. A sort of desperate optimism that lets her believe that Max had said something about all of this the night before and that she had just forgotten, so eager had she been to finally drift off to sleep. That she is sitting somewhere, just out of sight and earshot and so focused on her book or the music in her ears that she has not noticed that there is someone out there with her, looking for her.

Eleven takes a few steps forward before she is startled by something rustling in the bushes near the trailer. She blinks and the moon seems to flicker, like an enormous lamp hanging over the world being switched on and off. She stretches out her arm in front of her in readiness, feeling her heart leap and the adrenaline coursing through her body and a chill overtaking her limbs as images of the past flash before her eyes. Yet it all ends with the sound of beating wings and a shadow in the shape of a bird emerging and fluttering away. Eleven sighs and now she feels the ragged edges of the pebbles half-buried in the earth press into the soles of her feet and she stumbles about trying to find a patch of earth that she can bear to stand in. A stillness returns to the campground and the trees at the edge of the campground meld into a single black standee against the backdrop of the night sky.

I just – I just need some air, Max had said that morning. Eleven had watched her shuffle out of the trailer door, her book under her arm. Do you want me to come with you, she had said. It's okay, El. We'll hang out in the car. She plays the moment over and over again in her head. It's okay, El. It's okay. She had smiled at her but there had been a light missing from her eyes. Had there been anxiety in her voice? Fear? Irritation? Any sign that something might have been awry? It seems impossible to separate her memories from the pounding that she feels in her chest. You should have followed her anyway, she thinks. Stupid. Stupid. Should have followed her outside. Trailed just beside her, in case she needed anything. Needed her.

Eleven walks around to the back of the trailer. The lights of the town stretch out against the horizon, disappearing into the stars that glimmer in the cloudless sky like white flecks of paint on a dark canvas stretched over the world. There is the sound of cars on the highway, the mechanical rumbling of engines and the screeching of brakes and the wind rushing beneath tires gliding along the asphalt. In the distance, the mountains stand solemnly, watching over her. And sitting meditatively on the ground, running what looks like a hand absentmindedly through the grass, is the silhouette of what Eleven dares to think is a person.

Max, Eleven thinks. Max. She calls out to it but the silhouette does not turn its head. Eleven runs toward it as fast as her legs will carry the weight of her body that still clings desperately to the remnants of her sleep and without treading on the sharp stones and fallen branches that jut out from the ground. Even then she stumbles over something and toddles perilously forward until by some miracle she manages to keep herself from tumbling over. Max. She tries to call out again but now she is not sure if the sound she hears is her voice emerging from her throat or only her own thoughts screaming in her head. Max. In any event the silhouette remains unmoved.

In the darkness the distance is difficult for Eleven to judge and it is as though time and space are working against her, as if she is being pulled further and further away with every step that she takes. The sounds of her footsteps are muffled by the long grass and with the blood ringing in her ears she can barely tell if she is still running at all or if all she can hear is the thudding of her heartbeat. The whole world begins to ripple as if encased under frosted glass and it is only when she feels a warm droplet on her arm that she realizes that tears have begun to pool in her eyes and just as her legs feel as if they will give out from under her she finally reaches the figure and feels a cool sense of relief trickle slowly down her spine when she sees that it is not just a shade conjured out of her imagination.

"Max," Eleven says, feeling her words catch against her breathlessness. "Max – I thought I'd lost you –"

"El?" Max croaks, turning to look at Eleven. Even in the dim light her eyes seem to glisten a lustrous blue. The wild cornflowers of Indiana seeming out of place amongst the bare, dusty landscape. They are streaked with red, like veins of iron running through cloudy gemstones.

"What are you doing out here?"

"Sorry. I just – I just needed some air."

"You said that this morning," Eleven says. Her exhaustion makes the tone of her voice sound more accusatory than she intends and she offers Max a small smile in the hope that she has not noticed.

"Did I?" Max says. She lets out a long sigh and the beginning of a defeated laugh that she quickly stifles. "Sorry. I guess I'm losing it."

Eleven sits down next to Max. In the cool blue-black early morning the dust in the air is sweet and it mingles with the smell of soap and cotton. It reminds Eleven of the scrapyard outside Hawkins; the red soil that would stay damp long after the rain had passed; the scent of minerals and rust and waterlogged piles of dead leaves and wildflowers crushed underfoot that would linger in the air.

"Max," Eleven says.

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

"I –" Max mumbles. "Yeah. I'm fine." She looks away and to Eleven it is as though some light in her eyes has been extinguished, the flame burning behind them snuffed by an invisible hand. They sit silently side by side, listening to the chirping of the insects in the bushes and the frogs on the banks of the nearby river and, in the distance, the mournful song of an owl. Eleven had never minded the silence between them. It had always seemed to say something that she could never put into words. There was something about the comfort of knowing that they would have the time to say the things they needed to in the future and being able to luxuriate in a wordless present. But now the silence hangs over them like a heavy blanket of smoke. It fills her lungs and makes it difficult for her to even breathe.

"Max," Eleven says eventually.

"Yeah?"

"You can talk to me."

"I know, El," Max sighs. She does not turn to face her. "I know."

Eleven watches Max fiddle with something clasped in her head. She leans into take a closer look, being careful not to disrupt the train of thought that she can see hurtling through Max's head. It is a hairclip. When she squints Eleven can barely make out the outlines of two roses, traced in fading gold, the green of their leaves appearing gray in the pale moonshine. She has seen it before. The Snow Ball, she thinks. She remembers walking in and seeing her, her red hair aglow in the light of the fluorescent bulbs and the reflections of the disco ball hanging from the roof of the gymnasium. A thin braid of hair tucked beneath the hairclip adorning the top of her head like a flower crown. She remembers something in her sighing as Lucas led Max away onto the dancefloor. In the end she had buried that feeling deep in the back of her mind because she had seen Mike gawking at her dumbfoundedly from across the room and she had thought then that her world was already complete. But then the moment would play out again and again in her dreams and she would see herself there again, Max holding her and the snow billowing outside and Eleven counting her freckles and feeling the tickle of her breath on her nose, even in the knowledge that he was waiting for them outside.

"This is where she was from," Max says. The sound of her voice jolts Eleven back to the real world and she sees Max running her hand through the dirt, picking up a fistful and letting it trickle back down between her fingers.

"Whose?" Eleven says.

"Mom."

"Oh."

Is that all you're going to say? Eleven thinks. Just – oh? She should have something more to say. Some verbal balm to help soothe Max's pain, some words of comfort to offer. But she cannot find them. Stupid, she thinks. Stupid. Maybe Max couldn't talk to her after all. In the end she reaches out and puts her arm around Max's shoulder, drawing her nearer, feeling Max shivering and her warmth. She almost expects her to flinch but to her relief she leans into the embrace.

"She always talked about moving back to Nevada," Max says. "From San Diego. Or Hawkins. Or - wherever. Back home."

"Home," Eleven says. She feels the shape that the word leaves on her lips as it leaves them. The way the vowel reverberates deep in her throat.

"She'll never get the chance, El. Because of me."

"What do you mean?"

"Just, I don't know. First Dad left. Then Billy. And now Mom," Max says. She chokes the words out between sobs that leave her gasping for air, as if merely mentioning their names is enough to drain the life from her. As if she is drowning in a sea of loss, desperately treading water, barely keeping her head above the surface. "Maybe I'm cursed, El. Maybe Vecna was right. Maybe I've been cursed since I was born."

"Max."

"Maybe – I don't know."

"Max." Eleven reaches over and takes Max's hand and gives it a squeeze.

"Maybe I'm just meant to be alone."

"Max," Eleven says. She sees Max's cheek glistening in the moonlight. "You are not alone," she says. She rolls down her sleeve and uses it to wipe away the tears.

"Maybe you should stay away from me," Max says.

Eleven feels Max pull away, the cold air rushing in to fill the space between them. The sensation leaves a queasy feeling in her stomach. Like when you drop on a rollercoaster, she thinks. "Why?" she says.

"Because – because I don't want to lose you, too."

They let the words hang in the air and Eleven feels the uneasy quiet that descends upon them. Her stomach tenses with the old fear that she has not felt ever since the final gate had been sealed shut. The fear of loss. They had spent so long being hounded by One and the Mind Flayer and all of the monsters of the Upside Down that it had seemed impossible that she could lose anyone after they had all been defeated. And yet she feels Max drifting away while she is stuck on the shore, desperately trying to catch her with an outstretched hand.

"You won't," Eleven says. "I promise."

"How do you know?"

Because – Eleven thinks. Because I – because I love – they had always made confessing your love for someone look so easy in the television shows that she had watched in Hopper's cabin or in the comic books that she had read with Max. There would always be some sort of grand speech about the sun and the moon and the sea and the stars and a love that would survive even after the light had vanished from the universe. And yet when Eleven looks inside herself it is like peering into a raging conflagration of emotions that she cannot even begin to translate into words, the knowledge that it has always been her – always been because of her that she had the strength to carry on and to fight on even when it seemed that all had been lost, it has always been her –

She looks up and sees Max looking expectantly back at her. Those bright blue eyes opened wide in anticipation, almost seeming to plead with her for some form of reassurance. But what if – she thinks. It is there again, the whispering at the back of her mind that has now grown into a thunderclap. What if she isn't like you? The feeling in her stomach has only grown more intense and now she feels as if she could pass out at any moment. What if you really do lose her? And then Max really would be all alone, with no-one to confide in or to turn to when the night became too dark to bear. And then her solitude would all be Eleven's fault.

"Whatever happens," Eleven says. "Whatever happens, we'll face it. Together." She nudges Max with her shoulder and sees a small smile emerge across her face like the light that now emerges from beyond the horizon with the breaking dawn. Max sniffles softly and drops her shoulders and Eleven, sensing that least some of her sorrow has dissipated, lets herself breathe out, too.

"Hop – I mean, Dad says he thinks you have your own superpowers," Eleven says.

"Yeah?" Max says.

"Yeah. He says he's afraid of you."

"What? Why?"

"I don't know. He just says – says you make him nervous? I didn't think anything could make him nervous."

Max laughs and rests her head on Eleven's shoulder. Eleven can feel the pulse in her temples against her neck. Another time, she thinks. Another place and another time. Her nausea begins to leave her and slowly she regains the feeling in her limbs. Another time. Sometimes loving someone just means doing what you can to make sure they are safe and happy, she supposes. Even if that means not telling them how much you really love them.

"I don't know," Max sighs. She lets out a final sob. She has been crying for so long that there are no tears. "I just don't know how I'm supposed to just – keep on living. You know? Like nothing happened. It doesn't feel fair, El."

"Max. You do not have to forget about her."

Max does not hear her. She takes the hairclip and holds it in front of her face, studying its contours and running her fingertips along the outlines of the roses, as if committing them to memory. "This is all I have left of her," she says. She wraps her hand around it and squeezes it tightly. "Just this – stupid little hairclip."

"You don't have to forget, Max," Eleven says. She puts her hand on Max's shoulder and gazes into her eyes. "You know," she says. She feels a lump in her own throat. The memories of her own childhood flooding back into her mind. Images planted in her head long ago in the void by a woman that had never been given the opportunity to speak a word to her and yet for whom Eleven had longed ever since she had been old enough to long for anything. "I still think about my Mom. All the time."

Eleven sees Max nod back at her silently.

"I miss her. I miss her so much," Eleven says. She feels tears beginning to trickle down her own face and she quickly wipes them away with the collar of her pajama top. "But Hopper – I mean, Dad – he says that she'd be proud of me. She'd be proud to see me, living. And so I think about her, all the time. I carry her with me in my heart."

They sit and watch the light of dawn, a pale band of rosy gold against the deep ultramarine of the early morning sky, slowly creep over the edge of the world. Eleven watches Max dig at the dirt before her, using her fingers to claw at it to create a small divot. Max takes the hairclip and looks over it once more. She runs the fingers along its surface, feeling the pattern against her skin. Then she brings it to her lips and gives it a gentle kiss before she places it in the ground and uses her palm to bury it under the soil, patting the dirt down until the surface of the earth is featureless again, as if it had never been disturbed to begin with. There is something in Eleven that knows precisely what is happening. Something within her that senses the great burden that Max has sought to bury together with the last memento of her mother. The knowledge that the grief they share is only the persistence of a love that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

"Home," Eleven says.

"Yeah," Max says. She manages a sort of wistful smile, her eyes glazing over as her mind wanders away and she turns to stare out at the horizon. "She's home."

Max rests her head on Eleven's shoulder. Together they sit in silence and gaze at the sun as it emerges, a great, orange orb that seems to quiver as it clambers higher into the sky and slowly unravels the dark fabric of the night sky to reveal the soft glow of morning that casts the landscape in a palette of yellows and browns and returns warmth to the world. From time to time Eleven glances over at Max and sees her looking back at her, her eyes like great pools of still water, an oasis in the arid desert that surrounds them. They watch as fires of red and yellow and gold and pink are lit by an unseen traveler in the sky behind the dark shadows cast by the mountains, still looming like solemn marble statues in the distance. I - I - I. The voice still stammers in Eleven's head, loud enough to drown out the birdcalls coming from the trees behind them and the sound of an alarm clock ringing in the Wheelers' trailer. I love you. I love you, Max. But she cannot bear to break the blissful stillness that envelops them like an embrace. The red glow of Max's hair and the freckles on her face. The crinkles at the corners of her eyes when she smiles. The sound of her breathing and the way that the rising and falling of her chest seems in time with her own. The old, familiar, quiet closeness.

It is another hour before Hopper calls them back inside for breakfast and they sit at the table in the kitchenette and he makes Eleven a mug of cocoa and offers Max one too and she declines with a shake of her head. The same old ritual that they repeat each morning, as if they had done so since time immemorial and would do until the last of the light from the stars died out.