"Let's go! Let's go!"
"Come on, Mike! Move!"
"There! There!" Lucas points at the rope, right where they left it.
Her first priority is to protect the kids, of course. Steve nods at her and she waves Max forward as he readies under the rope. He lifts the small redhead so she can grasp it. Once she disappears into the hole, they send up Lucas, then Mike, and then Dustin. It was going too smoothly, something was bound to happen.
The shadows of the Demo-dogs cover the walls, making eerie paintings of death. Their growls are far too close, nipping on their heels almost. Steve gets into a stance in front of her, his bat at the ready.
"Filly! Come on!" Dustin screams at the top of his lungs, but Filly doesn't have that option. She faces the music with her machete drawn. The horde gets so close she can see the ooze sloughing off of them.
And they run right past the two teens. Steve moves his legs to dodge the creature, but Filly's long skirt doesn't afford that kind of movement. He reaches out, grabbing her around the waist and holding her close to him. It hits Filly that they must be going to the lab where Eleven is closing the gate. The last of them finally pass, and Steve hurriedly hoists Filly up to climb the rope, though she has to pull her skirt above her knees to use them to climb properly. Steve respectfully looks down and waits until she's safe to start his way up.
She's glad to be in her normal world again. Steve crawls up behind her, sighing in relief. "I'm driving," he says before anyone can say otherwise. They stand and are blinded by the headlights of Billy's Camaro, unusually bright. But it isn't like the harsh lights of the lab. It feels warm, like something kind and good. It's like the sunbeams hitting her skin on a nice summer day.
Then it fades, and the world seems to right itself. The electricity in the air wanes, and Hawkins is as it should be.
He drops everyone off, one by one, and finally makes it to the last stop of the night: the junkyard.
"Thank you, again, Steve." Her beautiful smile makes his heart beat faster. Her eyes look different under the moonlight, like a reflecting pool. He walks her to the door of the bus. "Tonight was... ghastly. I'm glad you were there." She shifts her weight between her feet, settling on one foot and putting the other behind her.
"Hey, you know, it's the job of a man to protect women and children, so..." He scratches the back of his head. "There's nothing to thank me for."
"There is," she insists, stepping closer. His face warms and his heart rate increases twofold. "I appreciate your actions, Steve. You are something else. I think you are my best friend, or maybe something better than that... I'm not sure what there is above that."
Steve clears his throat, not meeting her eyes when he says, "After that, it's, uh, boyfriend." She doesn't move. It feels like they're inching together, even.
"But you have a girlfriend, no?" The scrawny young woman looks confused, black strands falling around inquisitive eyes. This near to her, he can see the tiny flecks of green in her icy irises. Her plump lips quiver but nothing comes out. He's very close, almost touching her, his face a few inches from hers.
Steve has never been this intimate with her before. They have slept together, but he was with Nancy at the time. Steve had never entertained the thought of her letting him this close. "Not anymore." Her long fingers curl into his jacket, inadvertently tugging him closer. Their lips are almost at the point of brushing. Although he didn't think she would be interested in him, he can't say he hasn't thought about this moment. He acted nonchalant about it all with Dustin, but the truth was that it was a false confidence. It was just a bluff. He was horrible with women, though he got lucky with Nancy.
In high school, it had all been about perception. He didn't have to be a charmer, as long as people saw him with enough women and thought he was popular, the rumor would spread itself. His classmates saw what they wanted to see, that was the draw, and that was why girls drooled over him in high school. They don't drool over him anymore.
Filly lives in the real world, none of that childish stuff works with her. She doesn't know him from Tom Krzanowski when it comes to being popular, so she doesn't swoon at the sight of 'King Steve' like the girls in school used to. She had real-world skills, like finding food and shelter. Steve couldn't even get into AP Calculus.
On a street nearby, there's the screech of tires and the honk of a horn, snapping them out of their stupor. Filly drops her hands and Steve copies her. She wraps her arms around herself, rubbing her shoulders for warmth. "Can I see you tomorrow? Just us?" he asks. He's starting to think that maybe dating Filly isn't so hopeless after all. The way she reacts, he thinks she might be developing an interest in him. He likes her and the fact that she might be open to liking him back is enough to give him hope.
"Yes. Of course." The slight frown she had flips, turning into a small smile. "I will see you then. Drive safely, Steve."
Internally, he does a little jig, not that he expected her to say no. Feeling like he had a new lease on life, he gave her a quick hug before leaving. "Always. See you tomorrow, Fil!" He can do something romantic, put them in the mood, and see what kind of things might come to be. The car starts and he can feel the warmth, but it isn't from the heater. This smile won't come off his face all night.
He walks into the little sports bar, one he visits just often enough to remember, throwing the butt of his cigarette right outside the door. Stepping inside, he unzips his mustard yellow puffer jacket and goes to the booth where he finds Dr. Sam Owens sitting. The news is on the TV since it's early afternoon. There are a few people playing pool on the left side of the dining room.
"Chief-o," Owens greets him.
Hopper throws his jacket in the booth before he sits next to it and regards him coolly. "How's the leg?"
"Better. Pretty sure my football career is over." They both give a little chuckle at his joke. Owens slides his plate carrying a stacked tall pastrami-and-swiss with chips in front of Hopper. "Want some? No way I'm going to finish it."
"No, I'm uh... I'm on a diet." Hopper blocks the plate, pushing it right back.
"Well, you're a better man than me." He wipes his hands with a napkin, turning to his bag to rifle through it. He pulls out two envelopes, blank, and passes them over the table. "Hey, got a little something for you. Congratulations, Pops."
Hopper takes them, taking a peek inside them both to confirm. One reads Jane Hopper, daughter of Terry Ives, which is clearly El. Then, the other is printed with only his name and says Phyllis Hopper. "You got both of them. I thought-"
"Sometimes, I impress even myself." Owens picks half of the sandwich up. "Still, I'd let things cool off for a while if I were you."
"How long is a while?" the chief wonders. He sniffs, his nose a bit runny from the cold outside.
"Want to be safe? I give it a year," Owens advises.
"A year?" Hopper's brows raise, wrinkling his forehead. Feeling defeated, he grabs the other half of the sandwich, taking a large bite. He pauses, thinking, then says, "What about one night out?"
"One night?"
"Yeah. How risky would that be?" Hopper takes another bite of the pastrami-and-cheese sandwich.
"It would be fine, as long as they were hidden for the next year. They only get one night." He wipes his shirt, a few crumbs rolling down his belly and onto the floor. "Now, this wild skeleton girl, the one you gave me pictures of. Are you sure you want to know what I found on her?"
"Why would you ask that? Of course, I want to know!" whispers the heavyset man intensely.
His expression is dark, warning him, "You can never unlearn what's in these reports, Jim. You won't look at her the same, I can promise you that."
"Show me anyway." Hopper wipes the mayonnaise from his cheek while meeting Owens' stare. "I want to know."
"Okay. Let's start at the top, her name is..."
"Phyllis Lancaster. Daughter of Saul and Bernadette Lancaster. Born July 17th, 1967." Hopper stuffs a hand in his pocket, extracting a lighter and a pack of Camel cigarettes. "There's no public record of you, but there are private ones."
Filly eyes the chief up and down, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Anything to give away a lie. "I do not understand. How do you know this?" She crosses her arms.
"Owens, the new director of the lab installed after Brenner was fired for malpractice, owed me a hell of a favor." He extracts the thick manila envelope from under his arm, slapping it on the hood of a junked car. She steps carefully closer to it, like it could explode at any moment. She touches it with one finger and flinches back.
"This is..." Perfect. Unreal. Mind-blowing. "What do you want in exchange?"
"It's a gift, kid," he chuckles. He leans against the car, making it shift slightly, and lights up a cigarette. "Everyone should know their parents, and where they come from. Now, I'm not going to bother you about my offer, but please think it over again. On paper, you're my kid and I'll raise you and El together like sisters should be. You know where to find me if you ever change your mind." He waves her goodbye and walks in the opposite direction.
"I will see you tomorrow! For the practice!" Filly calls after him. She was excited to learn more from him. He had decided to show her how to defend herself after she told him what Billy had done. She liked the idea of being able to keep her friends safe.
With Hopper gone, she takes it onto the bus. Sitting down in her 'nest' as the party called it, she took the tall stack of papers out of the envelope, looking at the pictures first. A man and a woman who looked a lot like her in different ways must be her parents. Her eyes are from her mother, and her forehead is clearly her dad's. She closes her eyes, making images of their blurred faces flash before her, but now they are clear. "Saul and... Bernadette. I remember them. They liked classical music. My mama played the suka. My papa was a scientist. They would dance in the living room." There was a picture of the three of them, Filly's pudgy baby face smiling up from between Mr. and Mrs. Lancaster.
Filly lays down, her head near the folder. She stopped reading to throw one of Steve's old jackets over her shoulders. She flips a page and sees her face when she was 12. She looked bleak and empty.
Born 07/17/67, Phyllis M. Lancaster was the seventh trial subject in our series of studies at the Hawkins Laboratory. She offered an important variation in our test subjects in that she was much older than the others when we found her. She was seven at the time of intake. Her progenitors raised her up until this point at which we re-acquired our property by any means necessary.
What is this? It's bullshit. Filly was no one's property. They were her parents, nothing less. This language made her sick.
10/10/75 Monthly Report
She has incredible talent, in fact maybe too much. The child is like a loose cannon, with no control over what she can see. She has the most gifted power of sight that we have ever seen. X-Ray, thermal imaging, infrared, the possibilities are endless. The problem she runs into is not being able to train any one of them because of the overload she experiences. She also exhibits sensitivity to the force Eleven uses when they are in nearby rooms. There should be more research done into how their powers might interact. Tomorrow, we will be installing Soteria in the subject and will monitor future changes. The hope is that Soteria will diminish her powers to the point where she will have more control over which one is active. Those powers will be difficult for her to use and therefore will be ineffective unless she trains in them and learns to bring them on.
Soteria... Filly turns the word over in her head. She hasn't heard of it, but it's clearly a device used to suppress her powers. To what end and how much, she doesn't know. She flips the page, deeper into her file from the lab.
04/13/76 Test #134
Seven has made remarkable progress in the past few exercises, but we want to push her boundaries more and see where she stops making that progress. Today, we have Eight in the room next door, connected via a one-way mirror. Eight can see Seven but not the other way around. Eight will be instructed what she should make Seven see, and it will get progressively more haunting until we reach the breaking point. Today, we will be showing her mostly the death of her loved ones, including her parents and the subject she seems close to, Eleven. If this doesn't work, we introduce gore.
1976... She can't remember being 9 years old at the Lab. She can't remember being 7 or 8 or 10 years old either. She had never thought about it, but she was missing at least 4 years of her memory. What happened to her?
There's more to read, but Filly is already exhausted by the amount of information she gained. There will be time for her to decipher the entire folder, but for now, she sleeps. She had a lot to think about from what she found so far. Hopefully, she can make sense of it all.
Steve parks in the afterschool pick-up lane, but it's late at night. "Alright, buddy, here we are." He turns to the younger male, leaning an arm on the steering wheel. "So, remember, once you get in there..."
Dustin gives him a resolute nod from the passenger's seat. "Pretend like I don't care."
"You don't care."
"I don't care," Dustin repeats.
"There you go. You're learning, my friend. You're learning." The older teen nods back at his young protege. Dustin leans forward, moving the rearview mirror to check his hair.
"Hey," Steve says, adjusting it back. He gives his smaller friend a concerned look. "Come on. You look great, okay? You look... You look great. Okay? Now you're going to go in there..."
"Yeah," Dustin says, hyping himself up.
"Look like a million bucks."
Dustin nods. "Yeah."
"And you're going to slay 'em dead."
"Like a lion." Dustin rolls his tongue behind his teeth, making a purring sound.
Steve grimaces. "Don't do that, okay?"
"Why not?" Dustin mumbles, looking down at his lap. "Filly thought it was cool."
"What works with other girls doesn't work with Filly and vice versa, okay?" His hand goes to grip the steering wheel, tight. "She's a bad representative for other women. She's... special."
"Is that why it's taking you so long to ask her out?" Dustin deadpans.
Steve has to do a double take at the curly-haired boy. "Hey! Whoa, man." Steve shakes his head roughly, astonished. "Me and Fil are not like that. You don't know what you're talking about here."
Dustin scoffs, folding his arms across his chest. "Yeah, I do. You obviously like her."
"I do not," the dark-haired teen protests, trying to save his dignity. "I do not!"
"Keep telling yourself that."
Steve sighs, running a hand over his face. Anything more and he'd just be convincing Dustin the opposite of what he was saying. He sits back in the chair, takes a deep breath, and says "Good luck." He holds his hand out, which Dustin shakes, and gets out of the car.
"What are they doing at this "Snow Ball" anyway?" Filly asks, picking at the fraying edge of her long woolen coat. "What could they possibly be doing for three full hours?"
"Well, they dress up in nice clothes." Steve shifts so he faces Filly on the hood of his car while she lays flat, eyes focused on the night sky. "They eat finger food, talk, take pictures, and dance. It's a party!"
"I've never been to one," the long-haired teen confesses. She sits up and wraps her arms around her legs. She tucks a long strand of hair behind her ears. "I don't know the first thing about parties."
"We could have our own," he suggests.
"No!" she responds, scooting away jokingly. She covers her adorable giggle with her hand. "Sorry. I don't know what it means to dance."
"You don't- Hold on." Steve cuts himself off by jumping from the hood, getting inside, and starting it, playing the radio at full blast with the windows open. "Now we have to dance!"
