Thank you for reading!
"Save a Prayer"
Don't ask me why I'll keep my promise melt the ice
- Duran Duran
Joyce knocked softly on the door of Will's room. "Hop. We need … we need to make a plan."
After a moment, he answered, "Yeah. We'll be right out." She could hear him, gruff but tender, asking Mike if he was okay, and Mike's muttered response.
When they came out, Mike pushed past Joyce, making his way toward the others. She looked up at Hopper. "So that's what you've been doing."
He grimaced, his version of an apology. "I meant to tell you. Eventually. And him."
Joyce patted his arm, understanding. Hopper had wanted to keep her for himself, to have something that was his that he wasn't going to lose. He still thought life worked that way, so simple. He'd never had time for the complexities. Maybe someday he would. If they could get out of this situation. "Come on," she said. "Eleven wants to close the gate."
"She what?" His voice cracked in alarm. "She can't! It's too big." A few long strides took him to the table. All the others were crowded around it now. Hopper took Eleven by the arm. "You have no idea what you're talking about."
She held his gaze without flinching. "Yes. I do." She tugged her arm out of his grasp and moved away.
Hopper sighed, addressing the whole group wearily. "You don't understand. It's not like it was before. It's grown. A lot. I mean, that's considering we can get in there," he added, thinking it through as he spoke. "The place is crawling with those dogs."
"Demodogs," Dustin corrected.
Hopper looked down at him. "I'm sorry, what?"
"I said, uh, 'demodogs'. Like, demogorgon and dogs, like, you put 'em together, it sounds pretty badass …"
"How is this important right now?"
"It's not, I'm sorry." Dustin looked away. Hopper felt bad snapping at the kid, but really, who gave a damn what they called the things?
Eleven looked up at him. "I can do it."
"You're not hearing me." What he meant was that he couldn't let her, couldn't lose her. Not this time. Not again.
"I'm hearing you. I can do it." Eleven's voice was firm, sure of herself. She watched him steadily, waiting for him to really look at her, really see her.
Before he could respond—beg her to reconsider, pretend there was another option—Mike broke in. "Even if El can, there's still another problem. If the brain dies, the body dies."
Max frowned at him. "I thought that was the whole point."
"It is, but—if we're really right about this … I mean, if El closes the gate and kills the Mindflayer's army—"
"Will's a part of that army," Lucas said slowly.
"Closing the gate will kill him," Mike finished.
A chill seized Joyce's heart. Not again. No. And all the kids were silent. No answers, no fancy D&D campaign ideas, no—no hope. If someone was going to save Will, it had to be her. If only she wasn't so tired, so … so lost. If only she didn't see those things eating Bob every time she closed her eyes.
But there was no time for her to be tired, or scared, or lost in grief. She was Will's mom, and he needed her now as much as he had when his body was what was lost in the Upside Down. His mind, the real Will, was still in there, slowly being swallowed up by that—that thing. And Joyce had to find him and bring him back. Just like she had before. Slowly she left the table, aware of the others following her as she went into Jonathan's room where Will lay, so pale and still. The window was open, a sharp breeze stirring the curtains. It was very cold in the room.
"'He likes it cold'," she quoted Will, thinking about it. From the first, Will had been resistant to heat. Did that mean something? Could it help?
Behind her, Hopper said, "What?"
"That's what Will kept saying to me. 'He likes it cold.'" She went to the window, pulling it down. No more cold for the thing that held her son. "We keep giving it what it wants!"
Taking Joyce's thought and running with it, Nancy said, "If this is a virus, and Will's the host, then—"
"Then we need to make the host uninhabitable," Jonathan finished.
"So if he likes it cold—"
"We need to burn it out of him," Joyce said. God, she wanted to. Just to see that thing get the hell out of her son.
Mike spoke up, thinking ahead as always. "We have to do it somewhere he doesn't know this time."
"Yeah, somewhere far away," Dustin agreed.
Hopper pushed himself off the wall. "I have a place."
Joyce and Eleven both looked up at him, knowing where he meant. "Your grandfather's cabin?" Joyce asked. "I don't think I'd know how to get there anymore."
"I'll give you directions." He put his hands on her shoulders, looking down at her. "You ready for this? You going to be okay?"
She looked up into his worried face. Good old Hopper, always there for her, always her knight in battered armor. "Yeah. He's my boy, Hop. I can do this."
He squeezed her shoulder, giving her a little smile. "I know you can. We'll wait for your signal on the CB, and then we'll—" He glanced over his shoulder at Eleven and then looked back at Joyce. "We'll close the gate."
"I'm going with you," Jonathan told her, his tone brooking no argument.
"Good. Okay."
Jonathan wrapped Will up in a quilt and Hopper hefted him up onto his shoulder, carrying him out to the car, giving Jonathan directions to the cabin on the way, handing him a walkie-talkie.
They stowed Will in the back seat and Joyce got in behind him. Jonathan repeated the directions back to Hopper. "And it's channel 10, right?"
"It's channel 10," he confirmed. He took Jonathan by the arm. "Listen, you let me know when that thing is out of him." If this worked. If it was that easy.
Joyce looked up to see Nancy coming around the side of the house from the back yard. She didn't miss the way the girl's eyes immediately found Jonathan, and the way Jonathan's eyes were glued to Nancy's face. It was about time, she thought, promising herself that once this was over she would have a long talk with Jonathan, really hear what was going on with him right now.
She was not surprised when Nancy slid into the front seat to come along with them. The three of them could do this, Joyce told herself, lightly stroking the hair off Will's face. They had to.