-8-

Meanwhile in Hawkins…

Nancy looked around the living room, seeing that everyone was just as shaken as she was by the encounter with El. "I was not expecting that," she whispered.

"Neither was I," Dustin replied.

"When did she become so violent like that?" Steve asked.

"I don't know what to think; when we first met El, she led us around Hawkins, but I didn't know she had created Vecna," Lucas said.

Max was looking down at the ground. She was torn, her mind awash with all kinds of emotions; anger, betrayal, sadness, guilt…and she didn't know what to think. And she hated herself for that; she knew no matter what El would never intentionally hurt anyone, but the person she had seen had been angry, and hurting…and she knew she had to take some blame for that.

In truth, Max had been angry towards El for some time. A part of her blamed her for Billy's death. Whenever El had sent her a letter, Max had just dismissed it despite the little voice in her head, telling her to get in touch, to say something. But she hadn't. Max had eventually decided to just let El waste her time until she gave up on her little letters, and gave up on her. She knew it was a terrible thing to do to her since she knew El took friendship extremely seriously.

A part of her hoped to continue with the friendship once she had gotten her own act together, but now it looked like that had been a monumental mistake on her part.

The El they'd just met was angry with the world, angry with the bullies who'd gone for her when they had seen an easy target and now it looked like she was done with them all.

"She didn't," Robin interrupted her train of thought and she looked up, curious about what Robin had to say. "Henry Creel was already a monster long before she was born. From the look of it, he had been waiting for years for someone like her to come along and he manipulated her when he could."

Nancy nodded, sending Lucas and Max a displeased look. "Yeah, you only have to see what Creel did to his family and everything around him as a kid to see Vecna created himself long before Brenner came along, never mind those other kids. It also asks so many horrible questions about what happened to the kids who'd been experimented on by Brenner," she said.

Max and Lucas were both shamefaced, realising that Nancy was right.

But it was Eddie who voiced the worst question. "Do you guys think we can trust her, or do you reckon she'll become just as bad?"

-8-

Shaken by the meeting she'd had with the rest of the Party, and horrified by what she had done in a flash of anger, Jane hadn't concentrated on anyone or anything else while she was safe in the void. She was just too busy thinking about what she had done when Max and Lucas had attacked her for her mistakes, and while it just solidified her belief she should just leave and never look back, she hadn't expected that kind of rejection although she knew she should have done.

Max and Lucas had good reason to be bitter about what she'd done, but she had never planned or intended to hurt them.

Jane sighed, and she decided to focus on Joyce, Murray and Hopper rather than Kali. To her surprise, an image of Hopper appeared, though it quickly transformed into one of delight blended with worry; she didn't like the person she might be becoming right now, dark and full of anger, resentment and hurt, and the sight of her stepfather after losing him a year ago had torn her heart to pieces. Joyce, Will and Jonathan had been good to her, but she could never replace Hopper in her heart.

He looked older, his hair was gone, and he looked as if his body was now covered by scars, like he couldn't go every single day without getting into a fight. He was sitting on a stone bench, with ice all around him. He wasn't alone, either. There was a tall man with a moustache and an equally haggard expression looking through corroded bars. Some type of prison.

"You know, what we are to attempt is quite mad. Even by your standards, American," the other man spoke in a Russian accent.

"Yeah?" Jane smirked at the wry, sarcastic humour in Hopper's voice. He hadn't changed that much, then. Good. "You got odds for us this time?"

The other man chuckled and he walked back over to sit next to Hopper. "I think a thousand to one?"

Jane wondered if the two men were discussing escape. It would explain some things, but she couldn't help but feel there was slightly more than that.

Hopper and the other man shared a chuckle. "Even if we somehow kill this beast," Jane gasped, a cold chill running down her spine as she got some truly unpleasant ideas about what they were talking about; she'd only just found Hopper again, and she didn't want him to die, "we still must escape. We fail there, I don't think they will be so kind as to throw us back in a cell. They will shoot us on sight."

"We'd die as monster slayers," Hopper replied in a reasonably cheerful manner. "You'll be a legend. "

"But still a traitor," the other man replied sadly, looking haunted and solemn at the thought, and Jane was left asking herself just what this man had done to be called a traitor. "You forgot traitor."

"Monster slayer trumps traitor."

The other man looked away.

"I bet Mikhail will be proud of his pops, at least," Hopper went on conversationally.

"Mikhail?"

"Mmm."

"No," the other man shook his head, and Jane guessed Mikhail was this man's son. "I can't do nothing right by him anymore, it seems," he said with the same kind of frustration Jane had heard from parents from Joyce and Hopper to Karen Wheeler. "He will say," he went on, his voice taking on a joking tone, "'Papa, I bet that bald American did most of the monster-slaying.'"

He and Hopper shared a brief laugh, and even Jane chuckled a bit.

"He's that age, huh?" Hopper chuckled knowingly.

"Yeah, he is that age," the other man replied with an identical chuckle before he turned to Hopper. "It is the same for you, American?" He asked amicably. "With your new daughter?"

Jane gasped at the mention of her, and she leaned forward, full of wanting for Hopper…but he shook his head, a fond smile on his face.

"The last time I was with El, she wanted just about nothing to do with me," he said sadly, breaking Jane's heart even more, and now more than ever she wished she could go back in time, and fix things. She wished she could shake her younger self, and make her see the kind of pain she was inflicting. She wished she could go back in time and fix things between herself and Mike, Max, Lucas, Dustin, and all the others. Better still she wished she had seen the videos of what happened in the Lab so she would know what one wrong word would mean for the future. "I was just in her way, really."

Jane's mind flashed to the whole mess with her relationship with Mike, who had broken off things as they'd gotten good because of Hopper's overprotectiveness and his drive to be there, but she had been annoyed with him, Dustin, Will, and just about every male within a few hundred feet of herself.

But while she had been annoyed with him, Jane had never had any malice towards Hopper. She couldn't; he'd been all she'd had as a father figure while Joyce was the mother figure she needed.

"I think back to the way I was with my dad at that age. I was the same way," Hopper went on with a fond smile as he remembered his own father. "The exact same way."

Jane listened with a soft, sad smile. It was rare for Hopper to speak about his family, and she could see the pain in his eyes as he remembered the gulf of a lifetime between those days and now.

Hopper stood up. "It must be hardwired into us to reject our fathers," he went on, "So we can grow and move on. Become something of our own. I hope that's what she's doing. Coming into her own. But still-."

The other man understood, and his expression was one of knowing sympathy. "You worry. To worry for our sons and daughters, that is natural, isn't it?"

"Yeah. But nothing about what El has had to deal with is natural," Hopper said.

Jane had to agree with him there; after being kidnapped as a child, it seemed as if she was destined for a lifetime of weirdness. She was shaken out of her thoughts when she heard a rumble passing through the void; she was paying Hopper and this man's conversation so much concentration that it filtered through. She concentrated more on their surroundings, and more clearer images coalesced before her. She could see Hopper looking down into a crude but reinforced circular pit that reminded her of what she'd learnt of the Roman stadiums and the football stadiums of today. The noises were coming from a large reinforced door.

More and more she was convinced she knew what was on the other side.

Demogorgons.

They must have been captured by the Russians during their Upside Down experiments, but what exactly were they were doing with them? Jane realised she was not going to like the answer.

"That beast," Hopper said darkly, "that monster in there, is a part of something that wants to hurt El. To kill her."

Jane bit her tongue, anger blossoming in her again as she got final confirmation of what was on the other side of that door. While she was stuck here, her stepfather and likely her stepmother were in mortal danger. Her…friends in Hawkins (she still wished she knew where they stood with each other after their rejection of her) were in mortal danger, and she was stuck out in the middle of a desert with a man who believed he had all the answers to life's problems.

It was infuriating knowing she had to relearn her old skills while everyone she cared about was in danger.

And then it occurred to her.

What if instead of just lashing out at the world, she did the world some real good? What if she could save Billy, use the Upside Down to somehow bring him back just before his death? What if she could attack the Demogorgon in Russia, open a path for Joyce and Hopper when they needed to, and bring them to the lab she was in now? Actually, why not do the same with the others? It would be better if they were all here, and they could make a new plan.

The other man stood up. "I don't understand," he said plainly.

Jane lifted a brow, her heart pumping with the kind of anticipation one got whenever they'd hit on a good idea, and she wondered how Hopper would explain this.

"To be honest, neither do I," Hopper admitted, and Jane was starting to think she should bring him here, to her. "All I know is that thing…that should shouldn't be here. It shouldn't be alive. Because it is, it means it still isn't over," Hopper replied to the other man's confusion. "I thought I was put here to pay for what I've done."

Jane started, wondering what the hell he meant by that.

"But I might've been put here for some other reason," Hopper went on, further confusing his companion but worrying her; she did not like the way he was speaking. "Maybe I…maybe I can still help El. Even if it's the last thing I do."

Jane's heart broke. It sounded like he was going to commit suicide.

"You almost sound religious, American," the other man said.

Jane scoffed. Hopper didn't believe in God; after all he'd seen and gone through, who could blame him? She herself wasn't religious, but she knew if there was a Hell, it was the Upside Down. It certainly fit description-wise.

"Religious? I don't know about that," Hopper scoffed himself. "But maybe I should give that prayer thing a try, 'cause if we wanna get out of here, get back to El and Mikhail, you and me…we're gonna need a miracle."

And you'll get one, Daddy, definitely!"

Jane was about to bring them both into the void, but then they were taken down into the courtyard thing and made to kneel (she hated their need to demonstrate their dominance), and soon two familiar faces were brought in; Murray and Joyce. Jane watched as Hopper, displaying his usual ingenuity, took a scrap of cloth he'd hidden earlier wrapped it around the spear he was carrying, and poured a bottle of what looked like vodka over it, to the surprise of the Russians watching although Joyce and Murray looked on expectantly. But the Russians, seeing something was wrong, dragged them all back to their cells before they could fight the creature.

Jane decided now was a good time to act. Closing her eyes, she focused on the rest of the Party, now including Joyce, and Murray, and Hopper and that Russian man. She also looked for Mike, and she saw him with Will, Jonathan and Argyle. They were looking for her, she realised, and she bit her lip, wondering if she'd misjudged them before she decided to think about that later. She extended her mind to the Demogorgons and anything else in the Upside Down in that place, and she found them quickly and instantly; everything from the Upside Down felt…cold, sinister, primal…but there was a sense of being covered in slime. She had no problem finding the piece of the Mind Flayer and the remains of other Demogorgons, and she pushed her newly returned powers through, and tore the Demogorgons to pieces, surprising the Russians before the Mind Flayer suddenly caught fire and burnt away in a blazing inferno that destroyed every trace of it.

But she wasn't finished.

Focusing her mind on the Upside Down, Jane created a small gap in each location they were in, and she prepared to pull them through towards her, and she realised she could do much more. She found Kali and her gang, and she also did something she never did.

She looked back into the past, back to Hawkins, back to Billy, a second before he died.

And then…she pulled.