11- A Mother's Love
Summary: El has a nightmare. Joyce comforts her.
Requested by: Boris Yeltsin
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters. If I did, we would have more moments with the whole Party.
White.
That's all she saw.
The walls were white, the ceiling, the floor.
A man came in, sticking out in the white room.
"Hello Eleven," Papa said. "How are we today?"
El didn't respond. She hated these types of days.
It was the type of days where Papa buttered her up, just to make her do more tests than usual.
"Are we ready for testing?" he said casually.
El didn't respond, just got up and headed down the hall.
Sitting down in the chair, she waited quietly while the men hooked wires to her head.
"Ok Eleven," Papa said through the glass. "Let's see what you got."
Eleven focused on the Coke can in front of her.
She couldn't crush it.
She tried for the next 2 hours, failing each time.
"You know," Papa suddenly said, tearing Eleven from her concentration. "Your mother was right; you are a failure."
El's breath hitched.
Her mother thought she was failure.
The word rang in her head.
Failure.
Failure.
Failure.
Fail- El! Wake up!
Eleven shot up in her bed, panting.
She looked around and realized she was in Will's room.
Will was looking at her concern in his eyes.
"Are you ok?" he asked gently.
El nodded.
"Do you need something?"
El thought for a moment.
"Joyce." she whispered.
Will nodded, sliding off the bed and prodding off to find his mom.
While he was doing this, El tried to calm herself down, by remembering the night before.
Hopper was out of town, investigating something, so El had spent the night at the Byers. They had a lot of fun playing board games.
The door opened and light streamed in, Joyce slipping in the door.
"Oh honey." Joyce's voice was motherly, so motherly that El started crying.
"I'm sorry." she cried.
"It's ok, it's ok." Joyce soothed, hugging El.
After a few minutes El looked up at Joyce.
"He said, he s-said that my mother was right, that I was f-failure."
Joyce didn't need to know who 'he' was.
"No" Joyce stated firmly. "He's wrong, your mother would be so proud of you, just as much as I am proud of you."
El was shocked.
"You're proud of me?"
"Of course, I am so proud of you El."
"Why?" El felt small.
"Because you have grown so much since being out of that lab, El. You have grown to be a mature young woman. You are like a daughter to me."
El didn't say anything. She couldn't. She was speechless.
Leaning into Joyce's hug El knew, she knew that this is what Mother's love feels like.
And she loved it.
AN: I hope you liked it, Boris Yeltsin! Requests are open! Forgot to say this is my last two stories, Happy October!