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"What'll I Do?"
What'll I do
When you
Are far away
And I am blue
Whot'll I do?
- Irving Berlin
They brought Owens in to look Will over, and Joyce tried to hold on and not freak out while he conducted his examination.
Hopper was there, too, and it felt better to have him with her. He looked good, he looked like himself, like nothing had happened to him down there with the vines. Joyce was relieved—it was bad enough with all this stuff happening to Will. If Hopper suddenly started being taken over by the Upside Down, she'd have sunk down on the floor and just given up, she thought.
Owens frowned at Will. "Do you know your name?"
"Will."
"Your full name?"
"William Byers."
"Do you know who I am?"
That one took a second. "A … doctor."
Owens nodded. "Have we met before?"
"I don't remember."
"You don't remember me? Okay. How 'bout, uh—" He pointed at Mike. "How 'bout this guy here?" Will followed the pointing finger, looking at Mike, who waved. "Know who that is?" Owens asked.
Will's face was blank as he thought about it. Scary blank, like there was no one inside him, Joyce thought.
Owens patted Will's shoulder reassuringly. "It's all right. Take your time."
"That's … my friend. Mike," Will said, the words coming slowly and with no emotion.
Joyce exchanged a look with Mike and smiled, although it didn't feel like much of a victory.
Next to her, Hopper said, "What about me, kid? You remember me?"
Will turned that blank gaze on Hopper. Very slowly, he shook his head.
"They tell me you helped save me last night. You remember that?" Hopper asked.
Another slow shake of the head.
Owens asked him, "Do you remember anything about last night? About … what happened?"
"I remember … they hurt me."
Joyce remembered that, too, Will's agony. She turned her head away, not wanting to remember that, not wanting to be here listening to her son sound like a robot as he answered these questions. Bob put his hands gently on her shoulders, and there was some relief in knowing he was there.
"You mean the doctors?" Owens clarified.
Will shook his head again, but with more vigor. "No. The soldiers."
"The soldiers hurt you?"
"They shouldn't have done that," Will said flatly. "It upset him."
Owens removed a snapshot of Will's drawing, handing it to Will. "When you say 'it upset him'—is that him?"
Will nodded.
Taking the picture back, Owens turned to Joyce. "Now, I want to try something. It's going to seem a little odd, at first, but I think it's really going to help us understand what's going on here." He put a hand on Will's shoulder. "Is that okay?"
Another nod. "Okay."
They wheeled a cart into the room. On top of the cart was a cage with a piece of one of those gross vines in it.
"Now, Will, I want you to just let us know if you feel anything," Owens said. "Okay?" He looked at the man who had brought the cart in and nodded.
Taking up a blowtorch, the man lit it and slowly lowered the flame toward the piece of vine. Joyce could hear it squealing as the flame came toward it.
"You feel anything?" Owens asked Will.
Will was tense, watching the blowtorch nervously. "A … little sting."
"It stings. Where?"
"My chest!" Will sat forward, his hand going to his heart.
"Okay." Owens nodded again. The man lowered the blowtorch, closer to the vine. "How about now?"
"It—it burns. It burns!" Will was in pain now, his whole body twisting to get away from it. "It burns!"
"Where?"
"Ah, uh, everywhere!"
Joyce had been rubbing his legs, trying to calm him, but it was clear that wasn't going to help. As long as they attacked the vine with the flame, Will would be in pain. "That's enough!" she shouted, trying to be heard over the vine's and Will's screaming. "No, that's enough!"
As Will shrieked, no longer able to form words, Hopper went to his side. "You heard her! That's enough! That's it! We're done!"
The blowtorch was removed, the beeping of the monitors slowing as Will's heartrate began to go back to normal.
"Okay," Owens said calmly.
Will sank back onto the bed in obvious relief.
Hopper looked down at Owens. "I want to talk to you."
"Yeah." Owens got to his feet. "Mom, why don't you come, too." He led them out of the room.
"You want to tell us what the hell that was all about?" Hopper demanded as soon as the door had closed behind them.
"Our best guess right now is it's some kind of … virus. Which is causing this … neurological … disorder. Now, when a typical virus attaches itself to its host, it duplicates. It spreads. Potentially hijacking the host."
Joyce tried to pay attention, to follow what he was saying, but all she could see was Will's pain, and his obvious connection with that thing from the Upside Down. How was she ever going to get that out of him and get her boy back?
"A virus is alive. It has an intelligence," Owens went on. "That's not—it's not unusual. What is so unusual here … this virus … the infected hosts seem to be communicating. It has some sort of hive intelligence. And it's connecting all the hosts. The good news is, a virus can be cured. We're going to continue to run tests, and we're going to see what we find."
'See what we find'? That's all they had for her. "What happens," Joyce asked, pushing the words past the lump in her throat, "when he can't remember anything? When there's nothing else there?" Stepping closer to the doctor, she demanded, "What happens when my boy is gone?"
Owens had no answer for that.
Joyce looked up at Hopper, but he had no answer for that, either. As his arm went around her shoulder, pulling her close, she remembered that he had lost his child forever. She wondered how he was still standing. If Will ... disappeared, she wasn't sure she would still be able to.