Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Eleven hates waiting. She is not good at it. El likes to be doing. All her life, there has always been something to do. First it was practicing. Training. Playing disguised as practicing or training. Saving. And then it was doing homework. Reading. Writing. Always something. Never nothing. Never this much waiting.

But that’s exactly what El is doing now. Waiting. For Max to wake up. Max, who should be dead but is not. Max, who is somewhere in between dead and alive. El knows what it is like to be in between worlds. She wonders, as she looks at Max in her casts and hospital gown, attached to so many wires, if this is what she looked like at the Nina Project. Or in the pizza dough freezer.

What was it she said to Max? I piggybacked from a pizza dough freezer. She should have said something else, but Max asked how are you here? and El had no choice but to tell the truth. El always tells the truth, but she knows when the truth makes no sense it’s hard for people to understand.

El hates waiting because waiting means more room for thinking, and more room for thinking means more bad thoughts than good thoughts. It is her fault Max is like this. Her friends say that if it hadn’t been for her Max would be dead. They say it is that boy Jason’s fault. They say it is good the gate opened under him, that it is what he deserved after everything he did. They say it is Henry’s fault. They say Max knew the risks. El listens and El says they are right because they are right. All these things are true. But what is also true is that El could have should have done more. Should have tried harder. She still doesn’t know exactly what she did to make Max’s heart start again, but whatever it was, it wasn’t enough. Now Max is in between, and El is waiting, and nobody is happy, not really.

Will says Vecna is still here, in Hawkins. El believes him. Mike says they should try to relax while they can. He says that El needs to take a break. Hopper says that too. And Joyce. Everyone says that El should take a break, shouldn’t go chasing Henry, and they are glad that El has waiting to do because it is the only way to keep her from fighting. El can’t take breaks, not anymore. But she has to wait until Max settles on a side, either wakes up or doesn’t.

The door opens. Actually it was already open, three inches to be exact, but now it opens all the way. El doesn’t like closed doors anymore. Closed doors are dangerous. They hardly ever keep out what they’re supposed to. Mostly, they trap people inside of bad places.

“Hey, El,” Lucas says. He looks better than he did yesterday but still bad. Still beat up. El never met Jason and that’s probably for the best. She hates him for what he did to her friends. If he were still alive, she would want to kill him, and El is tired of killing. El has already killed so many people. Too many. Lucas asks, “How’s she doing?”

“The same,” El replies.

Lucas nods. He is carrying a book. It’s a different one than before. He sees El looking and holds it up. The cover is colorful, the title letters blocky and bright, the characters' faces looming over something sinister-looking. “We finished the other one. This one is from a series.”

“How many books?” El has not yet read any book series. She has only been reading for a few years. Her reading level is "below average" according to her teachers. Just like all her other subjects.

“Ten,” Lucas says.

“You picked a series with ten books.” El cannot imagine reading ten books all about the same story. 

“Just in case,” Lucas says. His voice is a little sad. He always sounds a little sad. He crosses the room and sits down next to El. He opens the book and presses down on the pages so it stays open. “You can go home now.”

This is what they do. They take shifts. El and Lucas, Lucas and El. Never overnight, only during visiting hours. The nurses won’t let them stay any other time, because they are friends, not family. El thinks the nurses don't understand that friends are family. El would stay all day, and so would Lucas, but they agreed that they both need to see Max every day, so they split the time. The nurses don’t ask why Max’s parents don’t come, which is good, because El and Lucas don’t want to say it in front of Max. They don’t want to say that the gate opened and took all the trailers, not just Eddie’s. If Max can hear, they don’t want her to know that her home is gone, her mom is gone, everything is gone.

Everything except, hopefully, Max.

“What’s the book about?” El asks. She’s not ready to leave. Hopper will be waiting for her, but sometimes he loses track of time. Yesterday, when El got back to the cabin, Hopper’s door was closed, and she heard him laughing with Joyce. There are a lot of things El still doesn’t understand, but she knows what a closed door and adults laughing means. Adults don’t have to keep the door open three inches.

Lucas blinks a few times. His left eye is still swollen. “Um,” he says. They don’t talk much, Lucas and El. Especially not about books. “It’s about aliens. Other planets and galaxies. Saving the world. You know, science fiction.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you reading that to her?” Their world is confusing enough. El doesn't understand why anyone would want to read about an even bigger, more confusing world. 

Lucas closes the book and stares at the cover. “Why not? It’s the kind of stuff she likes.”

“Is it happy?” El asks.

“Not really.”

El frowns. “Is it scary?”

“Yeah.”

“Are there girls?”

“Huh?”

“The characters. Are any of them girls?”

He shifts in his chair. He wants her to leave. El can tell when someone wants her to leave. “There are some girls.”

“But do they do anything? Do they get to be heroes?” El doesn’t know why she is asking this now. She doesn’t know why she suddenly cares so much about what happens in the books Lucas reads to Max. They have no idea if Max can hear them. But El is thinking about Max’s memory, at the skate park, the boy telling her to go play with dolls, and somehow she just knows that this is important.

“I guess not,” Lucas replies. He looks disappointed. “Should I pick another book?”

“It’s okay,” El says. She’s not lying. It is okay. Max probably does like books about aliens and other planets. But El thinks she might like other books too, books that are happy and not scary and about plain old regular people without superheroes and monsters. Books about girls. “I was just wondering.” She pushes herself out of the chair and stretches her arms over her head. The hospital chairs are uncomfortable, and she is always sore after being here. She smiles at Lucas. “I will leave now.”

“Okay,” Lucas says. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” El says. Lucas is nice. El hates to make him feel bad. He cares about Max a lot. He doesn’t understand everything that has happened, but he is here, and El knows he also feels responsible. If only he could have fought off Jason, he says. If only he had kept him from destroying Max’s tape. If only if only if only. They are the same in that way, El thinks. They both think they could have done more. But Lucas is just a boy, and El is a girl with powers. He did as much as he could. El did not. That’s the truth.

El leaves Max’s room and stops at the hospital front desk. She asks to use the phone, and she calls the cabin. It is home for all of them—El, Hopper, Joyce, Will, Jonathan—at least for now. Hopper answers. El still can’t believe he is alive, he is here. She never gave up hope, but tears still prick at her eyes whenever she hears his gruff voice. She tries not to think too much about what happened to him in Russia, the things they did to him, the things he did to survive. El knows what it is like to do terrible things to survive. "Hello?” he asks.

“It’s me,” El says. “Can I talk to Mom?” She doesn’t know when she started saying ‘Mom’ instead of ‘Joyce,’ but it feels right. Her mother, the one who gave birth to her, she was Mama. That is different. Joyce is Mom. That is what Will and Jonathan call her, and so that is what El calls her.

“Sure, kid,” Hopper says. Hopper is still Hopper, even though he is also her dad. It feels weird to call him anything else.

“El?” Joyce asks. She sounds nervous. She always sounds nervous. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” El says. “I need books. About girls. Do you have any?”

Joyce chuckles. “Why do you need books about girls all of a sudden?”

“For Max.”

“All my books are in Lenora, but we can go to the library. Would you like that?”

The library. El has never been to the Hawkins library, but she is glad it survived the “earthquake”. “Yes,” El says. “I would like that.”

This is what she will do. El will go to the library with Joyce. She will get books. Books about girls. She will read to Max. (She needs to practice reading, anyway.) And then, no matter how long it takes for Max to wake up—and she will wake up, she has to—El will have something to do to pass the time. El hates waiting, so she will not wait. She will read. Maybe, El thinks, books about girls will help them both. El is tired of boys and men telling her what she can and cannot do. Max must be tired of that, too.

El is stronger than Papa. El is stronger than Henry. Max is stronger than them, too. If El can somehow, somehow, get through Max’s darkness enough to tell her that, maybe she will understand, and she will pull herself out of the in-between place. After all, if El has learned anything, it’s that sometimes, you have to save yourself.

Chapter Text

Max Mayfield is not dead. She should be. She should be totally, one hundred percent dead. Out to pasture. Six feet under. Worm food. She felt her bones break. She felt herself stop breathing. And then she felt nothing, saw nothing. She thinks she said something to Lucas. And that was it. She should be bound to one of Vecna’s pillars like the others, like a gruesome Christmas decoration. But she’s not.

Max Mayfield is not alive, either. If she were alive, she’d be at the movies with Lucas, or sitting in class, or skateboarding, or running from some new monster. But she’s not doing any of those things.

Instead, Max is floating somewhere between dead and alive, and to entertain itself, her brain is playing the greatest hits of Max Mayfield’s short life. Just kidding. It’s trapped her in an endless loop of the most boring moments of her life. One moment, she’s eating a bowl of cereal. The next, she’s putting on socks. The next, she’s practicing writing the alphabet. Stuff like that. It’s painfully dull, and Max is hesitant to say it’s better than having Vecna torture her with her worst memories. At least that was interesting.

Every so often, though, a voice breaks through, and that is how Max really knows she’s not dead. Most of the sounds from outside her mind are muffled and indistinguishable, but there are two voices Max can hear almost clearly. They take turns, and Max recognizes both. Lucas and El. Wherever she is, they’re with her, waiting for her to wake up.

If it were Max on the other side, Max in a hospital room (that’s gotta be where they are) with a comatose Lucas or El, she’d be yelling and shaking them and demanding that they wake up. It wouldn’t work, but that’s what she would do. Not Lucas and El. El hardly says anything, but her presence is strong enough that she doesn't have to say anything for Max to know she's there. Lucas tried talking to Max at first, but he ran out of things to say. Then he tried playing “Running Up That Hill,” but that didn’t help at all. Max knows how disappointed he must be, but they couldn’t really think that would work forever, could they?

Now, he reads books to her. He’s got a good voice for it, but honestly, the books he picks are exhausting. There are too many characters and too much plot and even though Max longs for something interesting to do, trapped in her most boring moments, she can’t stand hearing about people fighting for their lives. It’s too much, too soon. Haven’t they all fought enough?

Time passes, because that's what time does, but Max has no clue how much time exactly. She does her silly little tasks in her mind, she listens to Lucas, she feels El in the room. Probably, nurses and doctors come and go with needles and medicine. It's the same thing over and over, and Max starts to think this must be how she'll exist for the rest of her not-death not-life, caught in this loop.

But then, something unexpected happens.

El starts reading, too. Even though everything sounds muffled, as if underwater, Max knows it’s her. She recognizes her stilted, slow way of speaking. El stumbles over words, and she doesn’t give the characters voices like Lucas does, but she reads. After everything that’s happened, El reading to Max shouldn’t be extraordinary…but it is. El isn’t the kind of person to sit still and read a book out loud. None of that matches anything about her that Max has ever known.

If El is reading, she must think Max is going to die.

Max refuses that outcome. Nope. She cannot die.

The stories are different from the ones Lucas reads. They’re quiet. Normal. Sometimes happy, sometimes sad. No aliens, no tentacles, no explosions. Just a family, mostly girls, trying to get by.

In her weird personal purgatory, Max has no real sense of time, but gradually that starts to change. She looks forward to El’s visits more than Lucas’s (she feels bad about that, but she can’t help it). Her boring memories take on an urgent, restless quality. She has to eat her cereal fast so she’s not late to school. She has to get dressed fast so she can get out of the house before Billy gets home. She has to write the alphabet perfectly or she won’t get dessert. Stuff like that. She’s getting closer to breaking out of the loop. She can feel it. And the more El reads, the closer she gets. Everything slows down again when Lucas is there. Slow isn’t bad. Max knows that. Slow can be good and comforting. But it’s weird; El reads slowly, yet that’s when everything speeds up for Max. Max doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to explain why.

And then, one day, Max escapes.

It’s like coming up for air after diving too deep or coming outside into daylight after being in the basement all day. Everything changes all at once: the air, the sounds, the scents, the sensation of her body against scratchy sheets, her limbs in casts, needles in her arm.

Everything changes except one thing.

It is still dark.

If Max were someone else, she would have thought about what her first words would be when she woke up. She would have planned some speech, or at least brainstormed a few options. But Max is just Max, and so instead of saying hey or I’m awake or El are you here?, Max emerges from purgatory with an emphatic, gravelly “What the actual fuck.”

She hears El startle, hears the book fall. The sound reverberates in Max’s bones. Everything hurts. Holy shit, everything hurts so much. Head, arms, legs, chest, ribs. She tries to sit up and manages to lift her body about a centimeter before she collapses back on the bed.

“Max?” El whispers. She sounds terrified. Max can only imagine what she looks like right now. Like a zombie clawing its way out of the grave, probably. Never mind that El’s been looking at her for however long she’s been out. Never mind that El has seen the most hideous monsters the world has to offer. Even if she got used to comatose Max, it’s gotta be weird seeing her move and speak for the first time in a while. Max just hopes she looks better than Vecna, at the very least. “Max, can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” Max says. “Can’t see you, though. Can’t see anything. So that’s not great.” It’s worse than not great, but Max already almost died. No way is she going to start embarrassing herself by telling the whole truth right away. After all, that’s how she invited Vecna in. By admitting the truth.

Still whispering, El says, “You’re alive.” She chokes out something between a laugh and a cry and says again, louder, “You’re alive.”

“Of course I am,” Max replies. “I couldn’t leave you alone with all those boys.”

This time El definitely laughs. Her chair scrapes on the floor and Max feels her move closer, feels El’s hand hover above hers before grasping it. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

“You did save me,” Max says. “Didn’t you?”

“Not enough. You died. I brought you back, but only halfway.”

“Halfway is better than not at all.”

“You shouldn’t have died at all.”

“I’m alive now, okay?”

“Okay,” El says. “How do you feel?”

“Like a monster from another dimension broke all my bones and made my eyes bleed.”

“Bad?”

Max forgets sometimes that El struggles with understanding sarcasm. “Bad,” she agrees. “Very bad. Physically, at least. My mind feels better.” As she says it, she realizes how true it is. She doesn’t feel the same pit of dread inside her that she did before facing Vecna. Maybe it’s drowned out by how much physical pain she’s in, but Max doesn’t think so. “How are you feeling?”

“I…am okay,” El says. “I am…happy you’re alive. I’m sad you can’t see. I’m worried Lucas will be mad that I was here when you woke up and not him. I’m scared you’ll fall asleep and won’t wake up again. But I am okay.”

El is okay. That’s good. That makes Max feel better. “Is he gone?”

“Who?”

“You know. Big bad guy.” She holds her hand up in a claw shape. Max doesn’t want to say his name out loud. Any of his names. She doesn’t want to give him that power.

El hesitates. Max can hear her breathing, deciding what to say. Carefully, El says, “He is gone. But…not forever.”

“So the gates…”

“The dam broke,” El says.

“Huh? What dam?”

“That’s how someone described it to me. A dam. Between worlds. Too much pressure and it bursts. That is what happened. The Upside Down is...leaking through.”

Max feels it in her chest. The same kind of pressure El’s talking about, building up. Rising and rising until she can’t hold it back. “It was all for nothing? Everything we did?” She wants to say more, wants to yell and kick and pull out all the wires she’s connected to, but it hurts too much. Her throat stings, protesting from this much speaking after so long without use. Tears prick at her useless eyes. In a strained whisper, she asks, “Did anyone die?”

“Yes,” El says simply, plainly. Max likes that about El. She doesn’t dance around the truth. She just tells it. “Eddie died. I didn’t know him but Mike and Lucas says he was a good person. And other people too. In Hawkins. The news says at least fifty. Your…” El trails off.

Max's heart almost stops again. “My what? El, who?”

“Friends don’t lie,” El says so quietly that Max thinks she’s probably talking to herself. “Your house. Your mom. I’m…sorry, Max.”

Everything already hurts so much that this is a much softer blow than it should be. Max should want to know more details, but she can’t bring herself to ask. So, she’s an orphan. She’s a blind, broken, homeless orphan, and Vecna isn’t even dead. Cool. Terrific. Just perfect.

“Max?” El is still holding her hand, and now she squeezes it. “Say something, Max.”

Max can’t talk about this. She can't. It will break her. And if anybody’s going to understand that it’s El, who has suffered more than any of them. So, Max speaks, but not about that. Max says, “Can you read to me again?”

El squeezes her hand again. “Yes. I can read.” She lets go and Max hears her stand, pick up her book, and settle in the chair again. She clears her throat.

“El?” Max interrupts.

“Yes?”

It’s stupid, it’s so stupid, but she’s gonna ask anyway. “Will you sit with me?”

“I am sitting with you.”

“No, I mean, with me. Up here.” She pats the bed.

“Oh. Okay. Here.” El places the book in Max’s bandaged hands and the mattress dips and crinkles as El gingerly climbs up to sit beside Max. It’s a tight fit, and Max tries to shift over a little, but that hurts too much. “There is space at the bottom,” El says. “I can sit there.” She hops down, her feet hitting the floor with a thump, and climbs up again at the end of the bed. Max can feel her bump up against the casts on her legs. “Is this okay?”

“Yes,” Max says. She exhales. “Thank you.”

So El reads, and Max listens, and it’s even nicer now that she can hear better. She almost dozes off a few times, but she manages to stay awake. She’s afraid to sleep. And when Lucas eventually gets there, and El immediately snaps the book shut and scrambles out of the bed, Max is a little disappointed. She feels bad about that. Lucas has done so much. Max should be thrilled to see him. Well, not see him. Have him there.

“How is she?” Lucas asks.

“She’s awake,” El tells him.

“What?”

El sounds so happy when she repeats, “She is awake. Alive.”

“Hey,” Max says. She thinks she feels Lucas’s eyes snap towards her.

“Oh my God. How are you—how?!”

“I don’t know, man.” She laughs. It hurts her chest.

“What did you do?” he asks. It’s directed towards El, Max is pretty sure.

“Nothing,” El replies. “I read.”

“I’ve been reading.”

“I know.”

“So you read to her and she just...woke up?”

“I’m right here, guys.” Max manages to lift her hand in a wave. “And I can hear you. I just can’t see anything.”

Lucas’s footsteps are louder than El’s when he runs over to the bed and places a hand on her forehead. “She’s blind. You’re blind, Max.”

“Yeah, dipshit, I know. They’re my eyes.”

“Have you called the nurses?” Lucas asks El. He sounds accusatory. Max doesn’t think that’s necessary. She doesn’t want anybody poking and prodding her.

“No,” El says. “I forgot.”

“We have to tell the doctor. Max, I’m gonna call the doctor. They still might be able to save your eyes. Okay?” But he doesn’t wait for a reply before he walks away, towards where Max assumes the door is.

“They won’t be able to do anything,” Max tells El when she’s certain he’s gone.

“I know,” El says, and even though everything objectively sucks right now, it’s comforting to know that El gets it. El’s not trying to do the impossible.

“He means well,” Max says quickly, before she can go down the dark path of thinking Lucas means to do anything but what’s best for her. “He just wants to help.”

“That’s what Papa said to me,” El says softly.

“Lucas isn’t anything like him,” Max says, suddenly defensive.

“I know.”

“Don’t compare them.”

“I’m not.”

“It sounded like you were going to.”

“No,” El says. She sounds tired all of a sudden. “I am just tired of boys thinking they know better.”

That, Max can’t argue with. “Boys are stupid,” she says, hoping to lighten the mood.

“I should go home.”

Max pretends it doesn’t hurt to know that El has a home and she doesn’t.

As if she’s read Max’s mind, El says, “I’ll talk to Hopper and Joyce. Maybe you can stay with us when you’re better.”

Max Mayfield, charity case, says, “That would be nice.”

“I think so.”

“Thank you, El.”

El’s hand lands on her shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, you will,” Max says. Wryly, she adds, “I won’t see you though.”

“That’s a joke?”

“Yeah, El, it’s a joke.”

“Can I laugh?”

“I’ll feel better if you laugh.”

So El laughs and Max can’t describe how the sound makes her feel, but for a brief, flickering moment, nothing hurts.

And by the time El has left and Lucas returns with a doctor, Max has made a decision. She will be okay. She will walk again, and she will learn how to get by without sight, and she will find a new home, even if it means striking out on her own. She will do whatever it takes. Because Max has been given a second chance—no, not even a second, more like a third or fourth chance—and she’s not gonna waste it. Vecna is still out there, but not for long. Max will make sure of it.

Max Mayfield is alive. She should be dead, but she’s not. Vecna should also be dead, but he’s not.

Max knows which one of them is going to survive.  

Chapter Text

On the day Max wakes up, El leaves the hospital feeling strange. She should be happy, but something is bothering her. Lucas seemed upset that Max woke up for El and not for him. He acted like El had done something wrong. El does not think she has done anything wrong. El does not think she did anything. Maybe that is the problem. El did nothing out of the ordinary, and Max woke up. And then El did not call a doctor because she does not trust doctors, and because Max did not seem to need one. But there are still so many things El does not understand about the world, and maybe one of them is hospitals and doctors for regular people.

So the thing about the doctors is bothering El. That, and the thing with Lucas, how he seems to not want her there, how he seems to not trust her. But the biggest, most confusing, thing is Max herself. What Henry wanted with her. Why El could enter her mind, her memories. Why she saw those memories. Why El was able to stop Henry, was able to bring Max back, but not all the way back. Why Max’s mind was empty when El tried to enter again. Why Max woke up.

This is a lot of ‘why’ questions. El does not like ‘why’ questions, which are worse than ‘how’ questions. How any of this works, how any of this has happened, is impossible for El to understand. Not understanding is frustrating, but El can accept that she will never answer these ‘how’ questions. An answer to a ‘why’ question, on the other hand, is possible. That means El will have to go looking for the answers.  

El thinks about visiting Mike and talking to him about her questions. El has not talked to Mike much since everything happened. He wants her to tell him all about what happened at Nina, but El is not ready to talk. It doesn’t help that Mike has his funny road trip story about coming to find her. While she was reliving and remembering the worst moments of her life, he was in a pizza truck, visiting Suzie, not in any real danger. El should be happy that Mike was not fighting like everyone back in Hawkins, but it bothers her sometimes, how bad things always happen to the rest of them and never to Mike. Mike finally said he loves her. He gave a big speech, and El knows he thinks it was good, but he did it when he was not even sure she could hear. When she was in another world.

He said that finding her was the best day of her life.

El does not know how to tell him that it was a bad day for her. Not because of Mike. That was good. But it was a bad, horrible day, and she does not like that it was his best.

Sometimes El wonders how things might have been different if someone else had found her. Some other group of kids.

Someone like Max.

Instead of going to see Mike, El goes back to the library. She needs to get more books.

***

Max gets out of the hospital on a Wednesday. El knows it is a Wednesday because Hopper only lets her have Eggos on Wednesdays. He says she eats too many and that they are bad for her. Eleven argues that she does lots of things that are bad for her, much worse than Eggos. Like fighting and defeating monsters. Hopper says he wishes she did not have to fight, but she does, and the fighting will be easier if she gets stronger and healthier. Eleven reminds him that he also fights monsters when he should not, when he is not strong. Hopper says this is different because he is an adult. Eleven cannot argue with that, so she counters by telling him that Joyce lets her eat however many waffles she wants. And so they agree on Eggo Wednesdays.

El learns about Max while she is eating her first Eggo. (She always eats two. One with maple syrup, one with ketchup. Hopper says that’s disgusting. El says her teachers always talked about eating a balanced breakfast, and her Eggos are balanced because syrup and ketchup are opposites.) The phone rings and Hopper answers, because he is afraid of phone calls now and he has to check them all. Hopper covers the phone’s talking end—the receiver, that is its name—and says, “It’s about Max.”

El stops chewing and looks up from her waffle. Hopper waves her over. She brings the waffle with her and stands next to him. He holds the phone between them. Joyce is on the other end.

(Joyce, Will, and Jonathan are staying in a hotel. The cabin is too small for the five of them.)

“El’s here too, Joyce.”

“Hi, El, sweetheart. How are you?”

“Fine,” El says through a mouthful of waffle.

“She’s chewing,” Hopper says. “What’s going on?”

“The hospital has to release Max.”

El swallows her food. “Is she better?”

“Well, that’s the thing. She’s about the same. The hospital…well, it’s expensive. And Max can’t pay to stay there.”

El does not understand why people have to pay money to live, but she does not say that. “Why did they call you?” El asks. Max doesn’t know Joyce that well. El did not tell the hospital to call her.

“They didn’t,” Joyce says. “Steve Harrington did.”

Hopper raises an eyebrow. El laughs and almost chokes on her waffle. Steve Harrington calling Joyce is funny. It is the kind of funny that is hard to explain. “Wanna tell us why?” Hopper asks.

Joyce explains what she has pieced together. When Lucas got Max to the hospital, he did not want them to call his parents. He did not want them to worry, or to ask questions he could not answer. The same for Mike’s parents and Dustin’s mom. He thought of Joyce, but since Will moved, Lucas does not know Joyce’s phone number anymore. So he gave the hospital Steve’s number, because Steve is an adult, Lucas knows his phone number, and Steve knows about the Upside Down and Vecna. He knows what happened to Max. But not all adults are created equal, and Steve is just barely an adult, and so when the hospital called him, he called Joyce.

“She can stay with us,” El says.

Hopper gives her a Look. But he says, “She can stay with us,” just like El did. He does not sound as certain. He sounds tired.

El smiles. She likes to get her way.

El wanders back to the table and eats her second waffle while Hopper talks to Joyce. She finishes it and heads for her room, but she doesn’t get very far before Hopper says, “Wait.”

Sometimes El thinks Hopper has powers, too. She stops in her tracks and turns to face him. She does not say anything. She does what she is told. She waits.

“Your friend Max,” Hopper says. “She’s very hurt.”

“Yes.” This is obvious. Hopper knows what happened to Max.

Hopper runs a hand through his hair. His hair is growing back faster than El’s, and El is a little jealous. “It’s going to take a long time for her to get better. She might not get better. It’ll be a miracle if she even walks again.”

It is a miracle that Max is alive. It is a miracle that Hopper is alive. “Okay,” El says. She does not feel like arguing and she does not understand Hopper’s point. She hopes he will get to it.

Hopper leans against the wall and looks at El like she is a wild animal who has wandered into his home. It is not a mean look. Just curious. A what am I going to do with you look. “All I’m trying to say is that Max is going to need a lot of help. A lot of doctors. She can stay with us for a while, but I want to make sure you know that it’s not a forever thing.”

Now El is a little annoyed. She knows it’s not a forever thing. Nothing is forever. But—“She has nowhere else to go. She has no one.” Like me, she thinks. “You let me stay when I had no one.”

“You’re different,” Hopper says. “You can walk around and see.”

“But I still needed lots of help. We help people who need it. Max needs different help than me, that’s all.” El does not like arguing with Hopper. He is her dad, and he has given her so much, but sometimes he is wrong. He is wrong about Max.

Hopper comes over and pats her on the head, letting his hand rest there for a moment before he takes his keys out of his pocket and jingles them. “Come on, kiddo,” he says. “Let’s go get your friend.”

***

It turns out that Hopper is wrong, at least at first. Max is so relieved to be out of the hospital, to smell air that is not sterile, to be free of her needles and tubes and hospital food, that at first, she does not mind how difficult everything is. They return from the hospital, El sitting in the passenger seat, Max bundled into the back seat with her folded wheelchair, and the first thing Hopper says when they get to the cabin is “Shit.”

El follows his gaze. He’s looking at the cabin, at the steps that lead to the front door. He looks back at Max, at the wheelchair.

This is their first problem.

“All right,” Hopper says gruffly. He opens his door and gets out. El climbs out more slowly. She does not like cars. She probably never will. Hopper opens the back door, crouches, and says, “Max, I’m gonna have to carry you,” and Max says—

“Seriously?”

“Sorry, kid.”

While Hopper gets Max out of the car, El pulls the wheelchair out. She stares at it and sees an opportunity to practice using her powers. She is afraid she will lose them again. So El concentrates, allowing the world to dissolve around her until the wheelchair hovers a few inches above the ground. It is steady, and El nudges it forward two inches, three, but then Hopper barks, “No, El,” and it falls back down.

“Why did you make me stop?” El asks, turning to face him. He’s at the door, Max in his arms.

“Carry it,” Hopper says. El understands she will not get an answer to her why question, and she does not push it. Hopper is being very nice, letting Max stay here.

For a few days, it’s fun. That first day, Max sits on the couch while El rearranges the furniture so that it’s easier to move the wheelchair around. El wants to use her powers but Hopper says no, so she has to do it the regular, hard way. Then, when Hopper steps out to go for a walk—this means he is smoking, but he doesn’t like to smoke in front of El—Max gets in the chair and El pushes her around with her mind.

They read books and listen to the radio and play games for Max to practice using her other senses. El collects things around the cabin and the woods for her to listen to, to touch, to smell. They do not talk about anything that has happened. It is as if neither of them existed before these quiet days confined in the cabin, with no visitors because Hopper is paranoid after his time in Russia. Lucas and Joyce call every day, Will says hi whenever Joyce calls, Mike calls once or twice, even Dustin calls. Hopper brings gifts: blankets and socks and books from Joyce, comic books from Mike, tapes and a new tape player from Lucas, a D&D lore book from Dustin. (“You don’t need eyes to play D&D!” Dustin says, and both El and Max are surprised when the book is actually interesting.)

El begins to think they could live like this, with their books and music and games, but one morning, when the air is crisp and the cabin is cold, El and Max are sitting on the couch when Max says, “I hate this.”

Fear, cold and snake-like, slithers down El’s spine. What she hears is that Max hates her, hates living here, hates their time together. But then she looks at Max, and Max has her hands in her lap, eyes closed, and El knows this is not about her. The fear is replaced by guilt that she could possibly think this is about her.

Max continues: “I hate not seeing. I hate not being able to use my legs or arms. I hate sitting and doing nothing and seeing nothing and I just hate it, El.”

El says, “I don’t know what to say.”

And Max laughs. She laughs long and hard, one hand on her stomach and one covering her mouth, and after El gets over her surprise and confusion, she laughs too. She leans against Max and they both laugh, and El doesn’t know why they are laughing, but it’s nice, and El tries not to question nice things.

When they stop laughing, El asks, “What’s so funny?”

“You,” Max says. “I’m telling you how much I totally, completely hate my life right now, and all you can say is that you don’t know what to say.”

El doesn’t get it. “That’s funny?” She wants Max to explain, but at the same time, she worries that will ruin the magic of this moment.

Max turns her head towards El and nods. “Yes,” she says. “It’s very funny. Most people would try to comfort me somehow, tell me it’s gonna be okay, or even say, ‘yeah Max that does suck really bad.’ Not you. It’s like, you know it’s so bad there’s nothing you can say to me to make it better.”

El still doesn’t really get it, so she smiles, but then she remembers that Max can’t see her smile. “What does Lucas say?”

“Lucas?” Max asks. Her eyebrows scrunch up and she presses her lips together.

“When he calls. I try not to listen.” This is true. When Lucas calls, El feels like an intruder, and she usually sits outside or goes to her room or goes for a walk. Sometimes she overhears a bit anyway, but she tries her best not to.

“You don’t have to do that.”

But she does. She has to for the same reason she and Lucas never stayed in the hospital at the same time. There has always been tension between them, El and Lucas, and their shared concern over Max will not change it. Max knows that, El thinks. So El says nothing.

Max sighs. “Lucas tries to make me feel better. He tells me about all the stuff we can do when I’m better, and when I tell him that something hurts, he says he’s sorry and that it sucks and asks if there’s anything that might help. He’s so nice, El. But I don’t want to be nice. I don’t want to think about what might help. I just want to scream and break stuff and cry. I don’t want to sit here and think about what I might be able to do again someday. I want to do something now. I wanna kill Vecna and close the gate and just have everything go back to normal. But then I think, okay Max, what’s normal? Is normal life before Hawkins, when Billy made my life a living hell? Is normal having headaches and nightmares? Is normal baiting Vecna and waiting around for him to kill me? None of that’s normal. I’ve never been normal.”

El doesn’t interrupt, but she thinks: I’ve never been normal, either.

“Lucas was normal before all this shit started,” Max continues. “He thinks he wasn’t normal because he was a weirdo with weirdo friends, but…he was. It’s normal to be a weirdo who plays D&D, you know? And I think that’s what makes me mad. He has some idea of what things could go back to if we ever figure out how to stop Vecna. I don’t, and even if I did? My house is gone. My family’s gone. My sight’s gone. It’s all gone, El.”

“I understand,” El says. She gets angry sometimes, too. When she remembers that her life will never, no matter how hard she tries, look like the life of a regular girl. She tried in Lenora. She tried to go to school and do homework and make friends. It didn’t work. Even when she wore normal clothes and had normal hair and had no superpowers, people could tell there was something wrong with her.

“Oh, shit,” Max says. “I’m sorry, I’m the worst.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You were literally raised in some kind of crazy government prison lab and experimented on and I’m complaining about never being normal. You’re probably thinking ‘oh my god Max shut up’, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“I wasn’t thinking that.”

“You weren’t?”

“No. I will never be normal either, but I didn’t know anything else until I escaped. You saw other people living normal lives. I didn’t. I think I would rather not know.”

Max leans against El and lets her head drop onto El’s shoulder. “You get it,” she says. “You really get it.”

“Mike doesn’t understand, either,” El hears herself say. “His life was normal before Will disappeared. Before Will. He says he’s glad life isn’t normal now, but I don’t think he knows what he is saying.”

Max is quiet, and then she says abruptly, “Do you love him? Mike?”

El is surprised that Max is asking, but maybe she shouldn’t be. They have already broken their unspoken rule to not talk about what has happened. “I don’t know,” El says. “I thought I did, but now I don’t know.” El is not used to this kind of conversation. Joyce tried to ask her questions about Mike when they lived in Lenora, but El never knew how to answer. She had bigger things to worry about, like getting through school. Joyce always smiled and said, Teenagers. But now she thinks about Mike’s letters, and she wants to talk about it. “I sent him lots of letters, and I wrote love, El and he always wrote from Mike.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No.”

“What an idiot.”

“I wrote you a letter about it,” El says. She had forgotten, until now, about the letter she sent to Max. “You didn’t answer.”

“I’m sorry,” Max says. “I remember now. I read it. But things were really bad. I was angry and sad and I didn’t know how to write back without telling you that I was glad Billy was dead and I wished I were dead too. That’s not a good excuse but it’s what happened.”

“It’s okay,” Eleven says.

“It’s not.”

She was sad that Max never answered but she understands now, so El changes the subject. “I answered your question. About Mike. But what about you? Do you love Lucas?”

El expects Max to say she doesn’t want to talk about it, but instead she says, “I wish I did. I think I’m supposed to. It makes sense. We make sense together. I like Lucas a lot. I think, if things were different, that I’d love him. I liked it when we held hands and kissed. But I don’t know if I want to be his girlfriend. Even if I wanted to I don’t know if I could.”

Something flutters in El’s stomach when Max says she liked kissing Lucas. She wants to ask what it felt like, wants to compare kissing experiences, but is not sure how to ask, and then Max says—

“Let’s talk about something else. Please. Not boys.”

“Okay,” El says, a little disappointed but also a little relieved.

“Do you wanna tell me what happened to you? While we were all in Hawkins fighting? How you ended up in my mind? Or even before that, when you were in Lenora?”

“Yes,” El says. “I will tell you. But do you want to break something first?”

“What?”

“You said you wanted to break something. Do you want to do it now?”

“Oh, hell yeah,” Max says with a smile, and El smiles too. Breaking things is not a permanent solution, but El is willing to try anything that will make Max feel better, even if it is temporary.

Chapter Text

Max should have known that a girl who can move stuff with her mind would be exceptionally good at breaking shit, but she’s still impressed by how seriously El takes it. She figured they’d grab one plate, maybe a glass if they really wanted to go wild, break them, and move on. She did not expect El to go into a room in the cabin—which room? Great question! Max sure wishes she knew—and grab a whole box of stuff to break. El takes Max’s wheelchair out on the porch and places the box in her lap. It’s heavy, pressing Max’s casts into her skin.

“Hopper collects things for me,” El says. “To practice moving. He gets them from yard sales and trash cans.”

“Gross.”

El guides Max’s hands over each object. Plates, mugs, cups, bottles, pots, jars. Cassette tapes. “We can break as much as you want.”

Max feels around for one of the tapes and picks it up. “Not these,” she says. “We should keep these.”

“You like country music?” El asks. She sounds confused.

“Ew, no,” Max says, dropping the tape like it burned her hands. “Let’s destroy ‘em.”

She starts with the cassettes, finding the tape inside and pulling until it unspools into loose ribbons in her hands. She passes it to El and listens to the satisfying crunch as El snaps it under her foot.

“Aren’t you supposed to be practicing your powers?” Max asks.

“It’s more fun to break stuff without them,” El says, like she’s had more experience than Max knows with breaking things.

“What else have you broken without them?” Max asks as she picks up a glass. She tries to throw it but her stupid broken arms can’t do that.

El takes the glass and a second later Max hears it shatter against a tree. “A girl’s nose,” El says nonchalantly, the same way a regular person would say they bought eggs and the same way El would say she killed a man with her telekinesis.

“No fucking way,” Max says.

“Yes fucking way,” El confirms.

A crunch, a shatter, the sound of something whooshing through the air, and Max is laughing, because this is the first time she’s heard El say any swear except “bitchin’” and it’s all so stupid, them out here in the woods breaking stuff Hopper found in trash cans, Max blind and incapable of throwing anything, El not using her powers because she wants the satisfaction of smashing things herself.

“Why are you laughing again?” El asks.

Again. She’s right. Max keeps laughing. Is it because everything is actually funny or because it’s less embarrassing to laugh than to cry? “That’s a swear word,” Max says.

“I know.” El sounds indignant. “I know things.”

“Forgive me for not knowing if your guy-who-experiments-on-children dad and your sheriff-other-dad and your lame-ass loser boy friends taught you how to swear.”

Max expects El to scoff and deny that last part, about her friends being losers, but she doesn’t. She says, “They didn’t. Jonathan did.”

“Seriously?”

“Uh huh. To defend myself.”

“So you broke a girl’s nose with swear words?”

“No.”

“El,” Max says, serious now. “Why did you break her nose? Why did Jonathan think you needed to defend yourself?” There’s still a half-full box of very smashable objects on Max’s lap, but this is more important. She has no idea what happened to El while she was gone, and for the first time, she’s realizing that she barely thought about El at all until her sudden reappearance. Wrapped up in her despair, self-pity, and nightmares, she never even bothered to wonder how El was doing.

Some friend she is.

“School was bad,” El begins. She sounds distant, and at first Max thinks she’s walked away, but then a hand brushes her shoulder and Max realizes El is just speaking very, very quietly. Like she doesn’t want anyone else to hear. Like she’s not even sure she wants Max to hear. “I thought it would be okay. I thought I could be normal. Joyce tried so hard. She took me away from Hawkins. She faked a bunch of documents. She bought me clothes and a backpack. She taught me how to make my hair look nice. Will tried to help too. He sat with me at lunch and checked on me in the hallway and showed me how to use a locker. But it did not work. Nothing worked.”

“What do you mean?” Max asks, even though she’s pretty sure she knows.

“People can tell I am weird,” El says. “The other kids could tell I did not grow up like they did. They heard me talk and they made fun of the way I say things, the way I do things, the way I dress. And then they made fun of Will too and I could not do anything about it because I didn’t even have my powers.”

“Assholes.”

“Yes. But…they were…okay, at first. Will says ‘kids are always nice to the new students at first because they want to be like. Just in case the new person fits into their kind of cool.’ So they pretended to be my friends and I thought everything was going to be okay. I was invited to a sleepover birthday party. I didn’t know what to bring. Joyce helped me pack. I was nervous but I thought it would be fun.”

El pauses. Max waits. She feels itchy just thinking about going to some girly-girl sleepover. Sounds like a nightmare.

Unexpectedly, El says, “Do you…want to see?”

“Huh?”

“The memory. Do you want to see it?”

“El, what are you talking about?”

“I went into your mind and saw your memories,” El reminds her. “Maybe…I can show you mine.”

“Would that be easier than talking about it?” Max asks, skeptical but willing to try. El’s never been a big talker. Sure, she’s been talking more with all the reading out loud, but telling somebody else’s story is way different than telling your own.

“Yes.”

“All right, let’s try it.” Is she supposed to do something? Click her heels together? Repeat some phrase three times?

The dry leaves on the ground crunch as El sits down in front of Max. “Hold out your hand.”

Max holds out her hand, and El takes it. “Is this gonna work?”

“Shh,” El shushes her, and that’s the last thing Max hears before she’s plunged into a memory.

*

El reaches for the handle to open the car door.

“You can call me any time,” Joyce says. “I’ll come pick you up. Or Jonathan will. Okay? You just call and we’re here.”

“I will be fine,” El says.

“Do you have everything? Toothbrush, toothpaste? Hairbrush?”

“Yes. I have everything.” She nudges the bag at her feet and pats the wrapped box in her lap. A gift for the birthday girl.

“Okay. Have fun. Remember, call if you need to.”

“Okay.”

El gets out of the car and Joyce idles there by the sidewalk. El waves and turns to face the house. It’s big, with a neat front lawn, a pretty garden, lots of windows. The car makes a grumbling noise as Joyce leaves. El approaches the door and almost knocks before she presses the doorbell instead. She waits for about a minute until footsteps approach and the door flies open. A pretty blond girl smiles at El with white teeth.

“Hi, Angela,” El says. “Happy birthday.” She hands her the present.

“Aww, you’re so sweet,” Angela says, tossing the box on a table piled high with gifts as she leads El inside. “Shoes off, Jane.” She points to a shoe rack.

El slips her shoes off and adds them to the collection. They look out of place with the other girls’ shoes. Larger, scuffed, an older style. Angela glances at them briefly and wrinkles her nose.

“Everyone is downstairs,” Angela says. She doesn’t wait for a response before setting off down the long hallway. They pass a large, bright kitchen where a woman in an apron pours chips and popcorn and pretzels into bowls. “Can you bring those down soon, Mom? Everyone’s starving. Where’s the pizza?”

“Of course, dear,” the woman says. She doesn’t acknowledge El. “The pizza will be here soon. The delivery driver won’t be getting a tip from us, that’s for sure.”

“Obviously,” Angela replies. She opens a door to her left and the sound of girls giggling floats up the stairwell. She starts down the stairs, her polka dot socks silent on the carpet, and El lags behind, maybe thinking about another basement, a basement full of real friends.

In the basement, the carpet is plush and white. A big TV on a stand with its shelves packed full of movies faces three couches. There are girls draped over the couches, lounging on the floor, whispering to each other, laughing together.

“Jane’s here,” Angela announces.

“Hi,” El says, lifting one hand in a halfhearted wave.

“Sorry, who is she?” another girl asks.

Angela huffs. “New girl. She moved here from”—here, Angela drops her voice to a whisper—“Hawkins, Indiana.”

Murmurs around the room. They’ve heard of Hawkins, the cursed town. Suddenly, they’re interested.

“Did you see the mall fire?”

“Did you see that kid’s body get pulled out of a lake?”

“Have you seen the lab where all those kids were experimented on?”

The questions continue. El says nothing. She does not tell them that boy is her brother now. She does not tell them she was one of those kids. They have heard of Hawkins, but they have not paid enough attention to recognize the name Will Byers. They have heard of the lab, but they have not heard of her.

“Oh, leave her alone,” Angela says, voice teasing. “I’m sure Jane can tell us ghost stories later, right Jane?”

El nods stiffly, like a puppet.

The pizza arrives, the girls eat, and the sun sets. Girls begin rifling through bags for pajamas and undressing right there, unclasping bras and letting them fall unceremoniously to the floor as they shimmy into their pajamas. El looks away, and when she looks back, they’re all wearing silk tank tops with thin straps and matching shorts. Her cheeks are red. She grabs her own bag and takes it to the bathroom to get changed. If anyone notices, they don’t say anything to her. She returns from the bathroom a few minutes later wearing an oversized Care Bears t-shirt and long flannel pants. The girls are sitting in a circle, and they don’t look at her until she sits down with them, slightly outside of the circle.

“What an interesting outfit, Jane,” someone says.

“Thank you,” El says.

(Max, watching all this, wants to take her away. She wants to pull El to safety. El doesn’t understand sarcasm. She can’t tell they’re already being mean. But Max can only watch, a non-corporeal fly on the wall in a scene that’s already played out.)

Someone pops a video in the VHS player, and someone lays out bottles of brightly colored nail polish, and they talk over the movie as they paint their nails, paint each other’s nails. A girl with dark curly hair grabs El’s hand and says, “We have an emergency over here,” and two other girls descend on El with nail clippers and cuticle scissors and a nail file and a heinous shade of pink polish.

"You have pretty hands,” one says, examining El’s slender fingers. “Why don’t you take care of them?”

“You shouldn’t bite your nails,” another says.

The one painting her nails says, “Much better. Should we do something about her eyebrows?”

More girls join in, and El winces when they pluck her eyebrows, when they ask her why she doesn’t shave her legs, when they tug a fine-tooth comb through her thick hair and coerce it into a braid. Angela disappears and returns with one of her own nightgowns and waits expectantly for El to change in front of everyone. “Haven’t you been to a sleepover before?” somebody asks. “It’s not a big deal. We’re all girls here.”

“But you’re all watching me,” El says.

One girl, the one who said El has pretty hands, says, “Yeah, you’re all being weird.”

Eyes are rolled, but they all turn their attention back to the movie, and someone comments on how attractive the male lead is. El changes into the nightgown and bundles her own clothes back into her bag.

“You sleep with a bra on?” Angela asks. El jumps. She didn’t know Angela was watching. “A sports bra?”

El says, “I share a room with my brother.”

Angela wrinkles her nose again but drops it and loudly announces, “Who wants to play truth or dare?”

The movie keeps playing as they regroup into a circle almost immediately, all Angela’s sheep. They go around asking questions and giving dares. Most of the questions are about boys, dating, kissing, sex. The dares are gross, like drinking a cup of water from the toilet, or trying on someone else’s underwear, or eating cardboard from the pizza box. They seem to have forgotten about El, until it’s Angela’s turn and she says in a singsong voice, “Ja-ane. Truth or dare?”

El says, “Truth,” because of course she does. Telling the truth is El’s whole thing.

(Max, watching, expects Angela to ask if El likes anybody, if she’s had her first kiss. She hopes that’s what Angela asks. She would expect El to say no, and Max wants the satisfaction of seeing this bitch surprised.)

“Is your brother gay?” Angela asks, twirling a lock of hair around her finger.

El blinks. She doesn’t look like herself, with her hair in an elaborate braid, the skin around her eyebrows red from tweezing, her nails painted, wearing a mint green strappy night gown. “What?”

“Oh, you haven’t heard the rumors? About your brother being a, you know.” She drops her voice to a whisper. “Homosexual.”

“I do not know what that means.”

The girls all laugh at El. Angela gives her a pitying look. “Some boys want to kiss boys instead of girls. It’s really gross. Does your brother want to kiss boys, Jane?”

“I don’t know.” El shifts uncomfortably. She’s still not part of the circle.

“Come on, you can tell us. We’re your friends.”

El’s fingers dig into the carpet. “No. You are not my friends.”

“What did you say?” Angela says. The others gasp and she starts to say something else, but the scene wavers like water disturbed by a skipping stone, and dissolves into blackness.

*

“El?” Max calls out. “El, are you here? Where are we?”

Out of the darkness, El materializes. El as she is now, not the El from the memory. “We are in my mind.”

“El, stop messing with me. How can I see you?” Max looks down at her own hands nestled in her lap. Still in casts, still sitting in a wheelchair. Wearing clothes she doesn’t recognize. “How can I see myself?”

“I brought you with me.”

Everything is so bizarre these days that Max decides to let this one go. They’re in El’s mind? Sure, whatever. Stranger things have happened. “Is that her? Angela? Is she the girl whose nose you broke?”

“Yes,” El says.

“Good,” Max says. “If I could use my arms and legs, I’d go break it again. Right now.”

“She got meaner after that,” El says.

Max knows she shouldn’t ask, but she does anyway. “What she said about Will…is it true?”

“I don’t know. I never asked him.”

“Oh.”

“I’m not going to.”

“I didn’t say you should. But you know, El, it’s not bad. Not the way people make it out to be.”

El ignores this and says, “She humiliated me. At the roller rink. In front of Mike. So I broke her nose with a roller skate.”

“No fucking way.”

“Way.”

“That’s badass, El.”

“I got in trouble. And that’s when they came to take me away.”

They stay there, in El’s mind or void or wherever they are, and El tells Max everything. About the bunker in Nevada. About the Nina Project. About how Papa turned Henry into One and Eleven turned One into Vecna. About how she decided to leave and Papa trapped her. About the raid, about Papa’s death. About the boys rescuing her and how she decided to save Max.

“But I didn’t save you,” she says. “Papa was right. I was not ready.”

“Shut up,” Max says. “You did save me. I would have stayed dead if it hadn’t been for you.”

El shakes her head. “I was not strong enough to kill him, so he attacked you. I was there. I should have stopped him before he could hurt you. I should have let you escape.”

“It was my mind, El. No escaping your own mind.”

“But—”

Max interrupts her with a groan. “You know what I think? I think we should stop trying to figure out who could have done what. I’m too tired for it. You went through a lot, El. So did I. I’m the worst at moving on, but maybe that’s what we have to do. Not from everything. Just from everything that already happened, so we can figure out what to do next.”

“We need to know what we did wrong the first time if we are going to defeat him.”

Max shouldn’t argue with that, but she’s going to. That’s what she does. She argues and barters her way through impossible situations. “What if that’s what he wants us to do? I baited him. I knew how to keep him away, and I didn’t do it. I intentionally brought him back to me, and the gates still opened. I thought I was being smart, but I was being stupid.”

El frowns. Max wonders how many times she’s frowned at her but Max didn’t know because of the whole blinded-by-an-underworld-overlord thing. Despite the frown, it’s good to see her. Her hair has already grown out a bit, curling at her neck and behind her ears. She’s wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt. Like the shirt in her memory, it’s oversized. Max isn’t sure if she should read into that or not. The last time they saw each other for real, El was wearing an outfit Max helped her pick out at the mall.

“We have to do something,” El says.

“We? What we? I can’t do anything, El. Look at me.”

“I am.”

“So you can see that I’m useless. I can’t fight anybody. Definitely not Vecna.”

“Not alone, no. But you do not have to. And neither do I.”

“What are you—”

“We need to stop hiding, Max. We need to see the others. We need everyone to tell us what they saw, what happened. Put the pieces together. Like a puzzle.”

Max looks at El for some hint that she’s joking. Sure, Max is tired of being cooped up, but she likes their little bubble. She likes pretending the rest of the world doesn’t exist. She likes that nobody except El and Hopper are seeing her like this, all bruised and broken. Yeah, she wants to fight, yeah, she wants to defeat Vecna, but the past few weeks, as she’s struggled with basic tasks, have taught her that it’s gonna be a while before she’s able to do any of that. She’s not ready for some big group mission. “Hopper will never let you do that.”

“No,” El agrees, “but he might let us go to the library.”

“The library?”

“Trust me.”

Max doesn’t know how to tell El that she has no choice but to trust her. Not because there aren’t other options, but because she trusts El, quite literally, with her life. As tired as she is, as much as she thinks it’s a bad idea to concoct some plan, she will follow El. She owes her that much. “Okay. I trust you.”

Again, everything ripples like disturbed water, and when it clears, they are back in the woods. Max can smell the trees, the dirt, the moss, can hear the birds chirping and a creek babbling nearby, can feel El’s presence next to her, but she can’t see a thing.

“That was all real?” she asks, just to check.

“Yes. It’s not perfect but—”

“It’s good to be able see you,” Max says quietly. “To see something,” she adds quickly. She’s not sure why. It would be good to see a tree, too. Or a house. Or a bowl of cereal. But it’s better to see El, her friend, the only person she will ever see again.

And, well, that’s kind of fucking terrifying, but also weirdly comforting.

The wind shifts, the leaves in the trees rustle, and El says, “There’s a storm coming. We should go inside.”

“Can you make us hot cocoa?” Max asks. “Can scheming wait until later? I’m tired.”

“Yes. Do you want to read?”

“Sure. Nancy Drew? I want to see somebody solve mysteries without getting killed.”

“That sounds nice,” El says. “But tomorrow we start solving our mystery?”

“Deal. Shake on it?” She holds out her hand.

Max hears El spit, which seems out of character, but Max doesn’t think anything of it until their palms touch and El’s is wet.

Max immediately recoils and wipes her hand on her pants. “El! What the hell! That’s disgusting!”

El sounds confused when she says, “I thought that’s how you made deals.”

“Who told you that?”

“The boys.”

“Man, it’s a shame those girls at your school were so bitchy. You really need to be friends with girls.”

“We are friends.”

“Yeah, El. We are. But if you ever do a spit shake again, I’ll break your nose. Got it?”

El laughs. “Got it.”

Chapter Text

“Absolutely not,” is what Hopper says when El asks if she and Max can go to the library. It is the next evening, and they are all eating meatloaf. El thinks it is good, but Max says it is disgusting. She holds her nose when she lifts her fork to her mouth.

“We are tired of staying here,” El replies. “Tell him, Max.”

Through a mouthful of meatloaf, Max says, “This place smells like mold and dead rats.” El thinks that is a little harsh, but it is also more than a little true.

Hopper looks as though he might say something back to Max, but he does not. He moves the food around on his plate and takes a few silent bites. He is careful around Max. He does not want to hurt her feelings. El needs to tell him that Max wants him to fight back. She does not want to be treated as if she is delicate, like a dying houseplant. She is like a wildflower; she will grow back even if someone steps on her. She will grow wherever and however she can.

Hopper clears his plate and wipes his hands on a paper napkin. To El, he says, “You’re not going out. End of story.”

El decides to take advantage of Hopper’s sympathy for Max. “It would be good for Max. She is starting to get sad.”

Hopper looks at Max, at her clouded eyes, her casts, her wheelchair. Her expression is neutral, unreadable. “Major Depression, reporting for duty,” she says drily. El thinks that is probably a joke, but she doesn’t get it.

Hopper chews on his lip. He tips his head back and groans. He tips it forward and sighs. He lifts his head and glares at El. “Tomorrow. Thirty minutes. No less, no more. I go in with you. You speak to no one. Got it?”

“Yes,” El says, as Max says, “Got it, chief.” She salutes Hopper, which makes El giggle.

Hopper shakes his head and then gives El a Look. “El? Can I have a minute?”

“Minutes aren’t something you can have,” El says.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Just one?”

He grits his teeth, biting back frustration. “Jane Hopper, I need to talk to you.”

Hopper only calls her Jane when he means business. She immediately nods and Hopper gestures for the door. El goes first and he follows.

Max calls after them, “Okay, cool, I’ll be here. You know. Can’t really go anywhere else. I’ll just be here, by myself, blind little orphan girl. All good in here!”

Hopper shuts the door while Max is still talking. El thinks that is a bit rude. “We need to talk about school.”

“What about school?”

“You going to it.”

El recoils as if she has stepped on a bed of hot coals. The thought of going to school fills her with dread. “No.”

“You’re 15 years old. There are laws. You have to go to school, whether you want to or not. Powers or not.”

“I’m not going.”

“This isn’t a negotiation, Jane.”

“What about Max?”

“What about her?”

“She can’t stay here alone. And she can’t go to school.”

“Joyce and I are working on that. You don’t need to worry about it. You just need to go to school.”

“But—”

“No buts.”

El’s right hand shoots out, fingers spread wide. The porch light shatters. Glass falls like deadly icicles. “I am not going.”

“You are, and breaking things won’t change that,” Hopper says sternly. He opens the door and lets it slam behind him. El waits, fists balled by her side. Hopper returns two minutes later with his jacket, a broom, and a dustpan. He drops them and they clatter on the old wood of the porch. “Clean it up,” he orders. “I have to go to the station.” His voice softens. “Please just stay here, okay? No trying to taking Max on an adventure. All right?”

“All right.”

Hopper rests his hand on her head and walks down the creaky steps. El crouches and cleans up her mess. The car’s engine sputters and Hopper drives away, leaving a trail of dust behind him. The sheriff’s office let him come back to work, but he is stuck on night shift.

As soon as she finishes cleaning, El goes back inside. Max doesn’t say anything. “Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?”

“El, these walls are real thin. I heard it all.”

El leans against the wall. “He can’t make me go to school.”

“I mean, I think he kinda can.”

El stomps across the room and kicks the corner of the couch. It hurts, a lot, and she hops around on one foot, saying, “I hate school. I will not go. I will run away. We will both run away.”

“I’m in, except for the running part. It’ll have to be a slow roll for me.”

El wants to scream. She is one of the most powerful people in the world, probably, she lives in a town that was nearly torn in half, she is its only hope, and she is still required to go to school. And she can’t leave, because Max can’t leave, and El cannot leave Max. She will not.

So El picks up the phone. Slowly, she punches in some numbers and Max says, “Who are you calling? You aren’t supposed to make phone calls.”

El squeezes the phone more tightly. “Hopper isn’t in charge of me.”

Max laughs. “I’m kidding. I just wanna know who you’re calling.”

“Will.” She dials the last number and holds a finger to her lips before remembering that Max can’t see her. “Don’t say anything.”

“Hello?”

El breathes a sigh of relief. It’s Jonathan. “Hi, JoJo,” she says, using a nickname that Jonathan only pretends to hate. “Is Will there?”

“Hey, El. Yeah, he’s here. Hold on.”

There’s some shuffling and muffled thumps, and then Will says, “El? What’s up? Are you okay?”

“I need you to call everyone. Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Steve, Nancy. That other girl.”

“Robin?”

“Yes. Tell them to meet you at the library tomorrow. At ten. Go in the teen room.”

“Okay, why?”

“We need to talk to you. Me and Max. Hopper won’t let us. We have to be sneaky. Don’t tell Mom.”

“I—I don’t know, El. All this stuff with the gates, and Vecna…I don’t like keeping stuff from Mom and Hopper.”

“Please, Will.”

“Give me the phone,” Max says.

El hands her the phone.

“William Byers, your sister is asking you for a favor. Just a little one. She’s asking you to go to the library, not into the goddamn Upside Down. Did you ask your mom if you could drive a few hundred miles to a bunker in the middle of the desert and nearly get blown up by the military? No? Then you can go to the fucking library without telling her.”

Max holds the phone out to El. She wears a smug expression.

El almost apologizes for Max but decides not to. She is glad that someone is brave enough to say things like that. “Will we see you tomorrow?” she asks Will, trying to use the same business tone as Max.

“Y-yeah. I’ll call everyone.”

More gently, El asks, “How are you feeling?”

“Um. The same. Weird. Like there’s someone looking over my shoulder all the time. Like I’m running out of time.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“We will fix it.”

“Uh, hey. Have you, um, have you talked to Mike?”

“He calls but Hopper doesn’t let me answer.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Why, have you talked to him?”

“N-not really. I guess we’ll see him tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Tomorrow. Bye, Will.”

“Bye, El.”

El hangs up the phone and looks at Max. Her head is tipped to the side, like she’s been listening carefully. “What?” El asks.

“Nothing.”

“Could you hear him?”

“No.”

“Friends don’t lie.”

“Fine, yeah, I heard it. Perks of being blinded by the devil.” She points to her ears. “Great hearing.”

“You look like you have something to say.”

“No, I mean, not really, I’m just. You know. Wondering if you know that your brother’s in love with your boyfriend.”

It feels like a surprise punch in the stomach. “What are you talking about?”

Max starts counting on her fingers. “1. Whenever you talk to him, he always asks about Mike. 2. When he talks about Mike, he sounds all nervous. 3. You said he was upset that Mike never wrote him letters. 4. You said they had a fight about it. Et cetera. You get the point.”

El doesn’t get the point. “That’s because they’re best friends.”

Max lifts her shoulders to her ears and slowly lets them drop. “Yeah, and because Will is totally in love with Mike.”

El thinks about the sleepover at Angela’s house, about Angela asking if Will was gay. She always thought it was a mean rumor. But Max said that it’s not a bad thing, it’s just something people lie about and say is bad because they’re “mean, stupid assholes.” And friends don’t lie, especially not Max, so El believes her about that. But this? This doesn’t make any sense. This changes everything that El knows to be true.

“Look,” Max says, sensing El’s hesitation. “You’ll see them tomorrow. Just watch.”

“What am I looking for?”

“Glances. Eye contact. Looking at lips. Agreeing to stupid plans. That sort of thing. I’d watch for you, but, y’know.” She gestures to her eyes. She does that a lot. Talks about her blindness in a roundabout way. She and El have not talked much about it. El understands that Max needs to make jokes to feel better. But she wonders how long that will work.

“Okay. I will.”

“Cool. Wanna have Eggos?”

“We can’t. It’s Tuesday, and Eggos are breakfast food, and we already had dinner.”

“Yeah, and?”

“Hopper will be mad. He might not let us go tomorrow.”

“What happened to the girl who just broke a light because she has to go to school?”

“He is already mad at me. He will notice if Eggos are missing. He counts them.”

“All right, fine, fair point. Spaghetti-Os?”

“Yes,” El says. “Should I open the can with my mind?”

“Can you do that without making it explode?”

“I can try.”

She does try, and she does fail, and instead of eating Spaghetti-Os, El spends the rest of the night cleaning them up. They get all over the floor, the walls, the counter, even in their hair. It’s easy enough to wash sticky pasta and sauce from her hair, which is still very short, but Max’s is another story.

“I dunno, maybe we should just leave it,” Max says. “Maybe the secret to defeating Vecna is covering yourself in spaghetti. Maybe he’ll see me and be like ‘oh shit, that girl’s crazy, I’m going back to the Upside Down and closing the gates so I never have to see her again.’ Or maybe he’ll think it’s blood and I’m already dead so he doesn’t have to bother with me. Honestly, I think it’s worth a shot.”

El giggles. “You are funny.”

“I know, I’m hilarious.”

“But I don’t think you’re right.”

“Whatever, you’ll wish you’d listened to me the next time we run into him and he attacks us because we aren’t covered in noodles and sauce.”

El pushes Max’s wheelchair towards the bathroom. Max’s hair is long, and El worries it will get caught in the drain if they try the sink. She helps Max out of the chair and onto the floor by the tub. “Can you lean your head back?”

“Yeah,” Max replies, tipping her head back to rest on the edge of the tub. “Be honest with me, El. Do I smell awful?”

“What?”

“I haven’t taken a shower since before the hospital. This is the first time we’re even washing my hair. I stink, right?”

El evades the question. “Hopper offered to give you a sponge bath.”

“And I said no thank you, I’d rather die. C’mon, El. Tell me. I can take it.”

“You smell…not good.”

“Wow, I can’t believe you would say that to me. That’s really insensitive, El.”

El’s face feels warm. “I—I’m sorry—you asked—”

Max cackles. “I’m messing with you.”

“Oh.” El sits back on her heels, a little annoyed. Max does this a lot, and her jokes always go right over El’s head. It’s very frustrating.

“Sorry, sorry. Let’s just wash my hair.”

El turns on the water, but she can’t get Max’s head close enough to the faucet. She bumps her head against the tub and Max winces. “Hold on.” El gets up, leaving Max there while she goes to look for a bucket in the kitchen. She finds one and brings it back. It takes a while, and water gets everywhere, but she manages to rinse all the pasta from Max’s hair. She grabs a bottle of shampoo and squeezes some into her hands, then starts working it through the long strands.

“Am I going to smell like a middle-aged mountain man sheriff?” Max asks.

El reads the bottle. “It says pine scented.”

“So yes.”

“Would you rather smell like tomato sauce?”

“You got me there.”

El turns on the faucet to fill the bucket again. Carefully, she begins rinsing the suds from Max’s hair. “You have pretty hair,” she says.

“Thanks,” Max says, sounding surprised. “I’ve always hated it.”

“Why?”

“It’s so bright. It makes me stand out. It makes old ladies say stuff like ‘my goodness, look at that color’ and ‘you don’t see that very often!’ It’s annoying, that’s all.”

“I wish I had your hair.” El rubs a wet hand over her own head, through the short strands that are just beginning to spring into curls.

“Shit, yeah, I guess I shouldn’t complain. Your hair was long for a while, right? And then they—”

“Shaved it. Yes.”

“That’s awful. Not ‘cause it looks bad or anything. Not that I’d know, since well, you know. It’s just like. That’s a choice you should be able to make for yourself and they took it away from you.”

“Yes.” El has not spent much time thinking about it because it makes her sad and angry, but Max has explained it perfectly. “Exactly. Okay, I think all the shampoo is out. We don’t have conditioner, sorry.”

“It’s fine. It’s gotta be better than it was.”

El wrings the water from Max’s hair and pulls a towel from the rack on the wall. She wraps Max’s hair in it as best she can and helps her up and back into the chair. “Good?”

“Good.”

As El pushes Max out of the bathroom, the front door opens and Hopper enters, saying, “They sent me home early, the bastards…” he trails off. “What’s going on in here? Why does it smell like the inside of a can of Spaghetti-Os? What were you doing in the bathroom?”

“Max wanted to wash her hair,” El says. Friends may not lie, but daughters do.

“Mhm. Sure.” Hopper points to a wall and El flinches when she sees that she missed a spot. “So the sauce on that wall is from…”

“An accident.”

“An accident?”

“Yes.”

“Not you, let me guess, trying to open a can with your mind?”

“Right.”

Max stays quiet. El squeezes her hand. They have to stick together on this stuff.

Hopper shakes his head. “Clean it up, El. And Max?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m asking Joyce to come over and give you that bath.”

“Fair enough,” Max says.

*

El is nervous in the morning. She knows there is a very good chance that the others will not show up, or worse, that Hopper will catch them. It is frustrating that Hopper thinks he can shelter her from what is happening in Hawkins. Everything that has happened here is because of her. Other people have been involved from the start, people like Papa, but El is the one who opened the first gate, who sent Henry into the Upside Down to become its ruler. She has explained that to Hopper, and he still does not understand. He still thinks he can protect her. He still thinks she can be a normal girl who goes to school.

El’s big plan is this: they will go to the library. They will go to the teen room. She will point to the sign that says NO ADULTS ALLOWED. Hopper will sigh in frustration. El will say that teenagers need privacy. Max will say that if he comes in, he’s a creep. El will say they just want to read for a bit. Hopper will crack his neck, which means he is considering it. He will spot the mystery section, which is directly across from the teen room. He will say: fine, go on then, but no more than thirty minutes, you hear me? And he will go browse the mysteries while El and Max slip inside the room to meet their friends.

It happens just like this, except that Max has trouble getting her chair into the room and Hopper catches a glimpse of all their friends inside. He mutters something under his breath, probably a swear word, probably goddamn sneaky kids and goes to read his mysteries anyway, because the librarian is already watching him with a close eye, ready to kick him out at the first sign of an outburst.

The door closes behind them with a click, and they enter the teen room. Unlike the rest of the library, which is furnished in blue and beige, the teen room is full of color. Movie posters and motivational quotes are tacked to two green walls. The other walls are blocked with bookshelves. The table is painted yellow, but the paint peels in places, revealing that it was once brown. The carpet is multicolored, like something from outer space, or maybe a bowling alley. It is overwhelming, and to make things worse, everyone is staring at El and Max. “Hi,” El says. “Thank you for coming.”

It has only been a few weeks, but it feels like much longer. El scans their faces for changes since they last saw each other. Will, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Erica, Steve, Robin, Nancy, Jonathan. Her friends.

“I suppose you’re wondering why we’ve gathered you all here,” Max says, and everyone laughs. Max is good at that. At breaking the tension.

“Er, yeah, actually we are,” Will says. He glances at Mike. El watches, searching for meaning in that glance.

“Obviously,” Dustin says, slapping his hands on the table. “They wanted to have a super important, top-secret, strategic-planning meeting. They know how to save Hawkins and they wanna tell us. Right, guys?”

“Girls,” Max corrects him.

Dustin nods. “Right, girls?”

“Um…yes,” El says. She is not this kind of leader. She does not know how to have a meeting. Really, she wanted to have everyone together so someone else could come up with a brilliant idea. She is better at the explosions part of plans. “About the meeting. But we do not know how to save Hawkins.”

“We were kinda hoping you guys would figure that part out, honestly,” Max adds.

Nancy leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. “Seriously? We failed last time. What makes you think we can come up with another plan, one that will succeed?”

“I dunno, Nance, it’s worth a shot,” Steve says. “Who else will do it? I don’t see the people of Hawkins lining up to go into the Upside Down.”

“Yeah, well, clearly they don’t care! I’m tired of trying to save this town!”

“Okie dokie, seems like we’re getting a little off track here,” Robin says. She sits between Nancy and Steve and reaches out to pat both of their shoulders. “Honestly, I still barely know what happened that night. Can we get a crash course? Go around the table, share our trauma?”

“We were in the van—” Mike starts to say, but Max stops him by holding up a hand.

“We’ve all heard about your adventure. No offense, but Robin wants to hear from the people who actually did something.”

“We’re the ones who rescued El! You know, the one who actually stopped you all from dying?”

Will reaches out like he is going to put his hand on Mike’s shoulder, but his hand drops. El briefly thinks she imagined it. Will scrapes a bit of paint from the table with his fingernail and balls it between his thumb and forefinger.

“Not all of us,” Dustin says quietly. He is still wearing his Hellfire Club t-shirt. No one else is wearing it.

Steve stops elbowing Robin and turns to Dustin. In a gentle voice, he asks, “Do you wanna tell us what happened, Dustin?”

Dustin’s mouth opens and no words come out right away. “Uh, you know. I climbed back up and Eddie went back in to fight the bats and I followed him but I broke my leg and then he was already gone and I chased him and—” his voice cracks and he wipes his eyes, then squeezes them closed. “He said—” Dustin shakes his head and puts a hand over his mouth.

“Somebody else go,” Steve says.

“Why did you make him do that?” Nancy demands.

“We need all the pieces!”

“Well, if anyone cares, it was all that asshole Jason’s fault,” Erica says. “The plan was working ‘til he showed up.”

“Good thing he’s dead now, huh,” Lucas mutters. Max turns her head in the direction of his voice.

Robin jumps back into the conversation. “So, if everyone knows what the van boys were doing, and everyone more or less knows what our plan was, then what we don’t know is…” She looks at El.

“What I was doing,” El says.

Robin frowns and shrugs like she feels bad for making El talk.

“They…took me away,” she begins. She does not know how to tell this story. “They said I would get my powers back.”

“I keep forgetting that Supergirl didn’t have her powers for a hot minute,” Erica says.

“Shut up, Erica.” Lucas flicks the side of her head.

“Okay, look,” Max says. “They put El in a sci fi sensory deprivation chamber and forced her to remember the days leading up to the worst day of her life. The other lab kids were mean to her and tried to kill her. This creepy orderly dude told her she needed to have something to be angry about to fight back. He told her about what Dr. Brenner had done to her mom. El got angry. Stopped trusting the doc. So on and so forth. Tried to help the orderly escape because he had helped her. Instead, he killed all the other kids. She thought she had done it but then she got the last memory. That dude was Henry aka One. She found her powers and sent him into the Upside Down. He became the villain lovingly known as Vecna. End scene.”

“But we already knew that,” Steve says. “Vecna told Nance.”

“He did not tell me, he showed me, but thank you for acknowledging that I was absolutely instrumental in figuring everything out,” Nancy says. “I think I should get more credit for investigating Victor Creel. You all thought it was a dead end.”

The conversation erupts into an argument about who was the most useful, the least useful, who had the best ideas, who had the worst. El covers her ears, overwhelmed. Will looks at her, his eyebrows knitted in concern.

“SHUT. UP!” Max yells, and the room quickly quiets. “Do you know how much trouble El is going to be in for meeting you here? A lot. The least you all can do is stop yelling at each other and be helpful!”

No one speaks for a minute. Will touches his neck. He looks at Mike. Mike is staring at Max. Will looks down at the table, frowning. El feels a twinge of something she cannot identify.

“Okay, so, what do we know?” Max says, in a calmer voice.

“All four gates opened,” Lucas says. “When Max…died.”

“And then came back to life,” Max adds. “I’m literally right here.”

“But Max wasn’t supposed to be the last one,” Dustin adds. “If that matters. She was supposed to be third.”

Nancy looks thoughtful. “That’s an interesting point. The last gate opened in the Creel house. The lake should have been last.”

“I’m not seeing how the location matters,” Steve says.

“The location always matters, Stevie Boy,” Robin says. “No wonder no girls want to date you.”

“Gross,” Dustin says. “Come on people, what do we know?”

“Music helps,” Lucas says. He glances at Max. “Unless the tape gets destroyed.”

“Right. When Henry killed his family, the song saved Victor.” Nancy looks proud to know this.

Steve nods. “So we need to know everyone’s favorite songs, just in case.”

“Mine is ‘Master of Puppets,’” Dustin says quietly.

El is distracted, watching Will watch Mike, but she snaps to attention. “It’s not the songs.”

Max stops drumming her fingers on the table. “What do you mean, it’s not the songs?”

“It’s…it’s the memories,” El says. “The memories the songs make you think of.”

“I feel like I shouldn’t question you,” Erica says skeptically, “but what exactly makes you think that?”

“He—One—he told me. He was telling me all along. He told me to use my worst memories to make me angry, to make me strong enough to use my powers. So…”

Max jumps in. “So good memories would make you strong enough to fight him off.”

“You’re a genius, El!” Mike exclaims. El gives him a small smile, but it doesn’t feel right.

“That’s great,” Nancy says, “But what exactly are we supposed to do with that information? It’s still the songs that help you remember those memories. Right?”

“Has anyone considered,” Robin suggests, “and this might sound crazy, but just like…giving up? Letting Hawkins go? Seems to me like it’s a lost cause if the only thing we have against Vecna is happy little memories.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Nancy says. “All in favor of destroying the town of Hawkins, Indiana?”

“Nancy!” Mike holds his arms out. “This is our home. We’re not just going to blow it up.”

Again, the group bursts into arguments, this time about whether or not they should save Hawkins, how they should destroy it, and where they should live instead.

El feels hopeless, and it only gets worse when someone knocks on the door, and the door opens, and there is Hopper, giving her a Look to end all other Looks.

El stands up. It doesn’t matter what they decide. She is never going to be allowed outside again. Let them destroy Hawkins. It has always been her prison, after all.

*

Hopper is silent the entire drive back. It isn’t until he gets El and Max in the house that he says, “So you really thought that would work, huh?”

He is not screaming, which is somehow scarier than if he were.

“Yes,” El says, at the same time Max says, “Not really.”

“Joyce heard Will calling all your friends and asking them to meet at the library.”

“You knew?” El asks.

“Of course I knew.”

“But you took us.”

Hopper chuckles. “I wanted to see what your big plan was. Not your best work.”

That does explain why he didn’t make them leave as soon as he saw everyone in the room.

El’s face is hot. Max’s is red. It makes her freckles stand out more. “How embarrassing for us,” Max says. “Guess we gotta get better at sneaking around.”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” Hopper says. “You won’t be going anywhere, at least not until Max’s casts come off.”

El dares to ask, “What about school?”

“You lucked out on that one, kid, and you have Nancy Wheeler to thank for that.”

“Nancy?” they ask together, confused and surprised.

“Turns out she’s putting off college for a year. Wants to stick around and ‘figure some things out,’ whatever that means. Point is, she offered to homeschool you. Both of you. So, you got what you wanted, El. You don’t have to go to school. But you don’t get to go anywhere else, either.”

He grins at them, tips his hat, and disappears into his bedroom.

“Damn,” Max says. “He got us good. Could be worse, I guess.”

El decides to accept that she will be stuck in the cabin with Nancy Wheeler, doing school, and changes topics to the thing she is more preoccupied with. “You were right,” El tells Max.

“Thank you. Wait. About what?”

El takes a deep breath. “About Will. He…he loves Mike.”

“So you noticed?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna ask him about it?”

“I don’t know.”

“People can’t control who they love, you know that, El? Our stupid little brains get their wires all crossed and we love the wrong people, or we love people we wish they didn’t. Or we convince ourselves that we love somebody when we don’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I mean, it’s not really something he has any control over. He’s not doing it to hurt you. He can’t help it.”

“Like how I loved Papa even though he was evil?”

“I mean, not really, because Mike is just a dude with bad hair, not a madman experimenting on children, but sure, if that makes sense to you.”

“Mike’s hair is fine.”

“Last time I saw him, dude had a mullet. What do you see in him, exactly?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m assuming you think your boyfriend is attractive.”

“Attractive?”

“Good-looking. Handsome. Cute. Hot.” She fakes a gag on the last word. “Whatever word you wanna choose.”

“Oh,” El says. No one has asked her this before. She pictures Mike and thinks about his features. Nothing stands out. “I am…not sure.”

“You’re not sure if you think your boyfriend is attractive?”

“No.”

“What about like, Steve? Everyone thinks Steve is hot. I mean, not me, but everyone else.”

“Steve? Um. I like his hair.”

“That doesn’t count. Think about his face. What do you feel when you look at Steve Harrington’s face?”

“Nothing, really.”

“Fascinating,” Max says.

El is a little annoyed. “I thought you were going to help me with this Will stuff.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Distracted. One last question. Do you think I’m pretty?”

“Huh?”

Max flips her hair over her shoulder. “Do you think I’m pretty, El?”

“Of course.”

Max flashes her a smile. “Well, that’s a relief. You’re not totally broken. Okay, moving on. What are you gonna do about your brother wanting to smooch your boyfriend?"

"What do you think I should do?”

“I mean, I think it’s pretty obvious. You don’t seem to like Mike all that much. You don’t even think he’s attractive. Seems to me like you should break up with him, for your sake and Will’s. I dunno if Mike likes Will back, and to be honest Mike isn’t good enough for either of you, but if you want to make Will feel better that’s the way to go.”

“Break…up…with Mike?” El has thought about it before, but never for long. Even when she was mad at Mike, she never wanted to break up. She assumed they would stay together forever, maybe not totally in love, but happy enough. Mike understands her and what she has been through. It will be difficult to find anyone else who can accept her past. “I can’t.”

“Oh, come on, El. You barely talk to him. You’re not a real couple.”

“What, like you are Lucas? When was the last time you talked? You barely acknowledged him at the library. It was like he wasn’t even there.”

“We aren’t talking about me and Lucas. C’mon, El. Name one thing you like about Mike.”

El presses her lips together and crosses her arms. Fighting with Max is not something she wants to do. She wants to let this go and keep on pretending they have nothing to worry about. Not boys, not demogorgons, not gates, not Vecna. She wants to read their books and let the real world disappear. “He is nice to me,” she finally says.

“That’s bare minimum shit, El.”

“He has helped me a lot.”

Max drags her hands down her cheeks. “That’s not enough, El. I was there. I was there when you were trying to save me and he was talking to you. All he can talk about is how he doesn’t think he’s good enough for you and how you’re his superhero or whatever!”

“I am a superhero,” El says.

Max groans. “I wish I could see you right now so I could smack you. Okay, fine, whatever, you’re a superhero. But you’re a person too. Mike doesn’t treat you like a person, El. I heard him today. I heard him talking to you in this weird quiet voice like he’s in awe of you. And then when everyone was fighting, what was his solution? Oh, El will fix it. El will take care of it. El will save us! Like he’s completely forgotten the hell everyone else has gone through. You may be a superhero, El, but superheroes need sidekicks and teams. You know what they call a superhero that acts alone?”

El does not dare interrupt her. She has never heard Max speak like this.

“A vigilante, El. Somebody taking matters into their own hands. Thinking they can do everything alone. Do you want to do everything alone? Do you want to end up like Henry?”

“No,” El says quietly.

“Then don’t listen to anybody who calls you a superhero. You need us, all right? You need all of us. Even Mike. But you’ve gotta dump him, and not because of Will. Because I’m listening to you, and I know you can do better. I know you deserve better.”

El feels prickly. She does not know if she wants to hit Max or hug her. She says nothing.

With a sigh, Max says. “Look, I’m just trying to be your lightning rod.”

“My what?”

Max holds one finger up, pointing towards the ceiling. “A lightning rod. It’s there to keep the lightning from setting the whole house on fire. This thing with Will…that’s the lightning. Without me, it would destroy you. But with me, you’re protected. I’m redirecting it. I’m telling you to end things with Mike now and avoid a whole lot of pain later.”

“I…I’ll think about it.”

“Promise?”

“Yes,” El says. She has no choice. She will lay awake tonight thinking about it.

“Okay. Hey. Can we do a memory?” Max asks.

“Huh?” El is often taken aback by how quickly Max changes subjects and moves on from arguments.

“You showed me a memory last night. I was thinking we could make it into a nightly thing. Share memories, good ones and bad ones. It’s…it’s kind of the only way I can see anything.”

“That sounds nice,” El says. “Sharing memories, I mean.”

“I’ve got one. It’s short, but it’s good.” Max holds out her hand. “Ready?”

El takes her hand, closes her eyes, and waits. She is not entirely sure how this process works, or if it will always work, and just when she is thinking that it is not going to work this time, she enters Max’s memory.

Max is on a field with a group of other girls. She wears a blue uniform with yellow stripes on the sleeves. The number 9 is printed on her jersey. She is young, about 8 years old, and her expression is intense, focused. A soccer ball flies towards her face and she doesn’t move fast enough. It hits her. She falls. The other girls run to her, their cleats kicking up clumps of dirt, and kneel around her. Max sits up. She is laughing. One of her teeth is missing, and she finds it on the ground, holds it up triumphantly. “That wath my lath baby tooth,” she says, lisping slightly. She throws her arms in the air. “I’m an adult!” The other girls cheer and help Max stand up. Someone puts a flower in her hair. It is yellow, like sunshine and butter.

And then El is back in the cabin, holding Max’s hand, and everything is the same, except for one thing.

“Max,” she whispers.

“What?” Max is smiling, still thinking about her memory.

El lets go of Max’s hand and gently, carefully, reaches out to pluck the yellow flower from behind her ear. She holds as if it is precious and sits back, holding the flower between them.

Entranced by the flower, El says, “You brought something back.”

And if that wasn’t enough, Max whispers, “I know. I can see it.”

Chapter Text

Between the ages of ten and fifteen, Max Mayfield hated flowers. She doesn’t know what caused her hatred. She was perfectly fine with flowers up until she was ten, and then one day she simply wasn’t. For five years, she said they were too girly, too frilly, not something she wanted to be associated with.

And then, one day when she is fifteen, not long after her near-death experience/brief-death-followed-by-resurrection experience, a flower changes Max Mayfield’s life.

“You brought something back,” El says.

Max tells her, “I know. I can see it.”

‘See’ is not exactly the right word. The image of the flower is present in Max’s mind, and that image is connected to the real object in her hands. The image moves when she lifts her hands up higher. What’s missing is everything else. She can’t see her hands. She can’t see the room. She can’t see El. It’s weird, even a little trippy.

Not that Max knows what trippy actually means. She’s never done drugs. Maybe she will someday, just to see what it’s like. When she’s older.

It’s nice to be alive and making plans to try drugs in the non-specific future.

“How?” El asks. “How did you bring it here?” The flower in Max’s mind flutters as El touches it. Max wants to see her. She wants to see the look of awe on her face. El has a way with expressions that Max hasn’t seen on anyone else before. Her emotions are always written so clearly on her face, complete with italic, underline, and bold text.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t trying to.”

“Max,” El says, urgently. “You brought a flower from the past into the present. It should not exist.”

“But it does.” Just like me. I shouldn’t exist either.

“Amazing.” El clasps her hands around Max’s, careful not to crush the flower. “You’re amazing, Max!”

Max does like being calling amazing—it makes her heart do a funny little jump, like a clumsy kid tripping over a jump rope—but she can’t agree. “I didn’t do anything, though,” she protests. “I have literally no idea how this happened. I doubt I could do it again.”

“Can you try?” El is still holding Max’s hands. Max is surprised by how warm they are.

“Yeah, I mean, I guess it can’t hurt.” She says this casually, but the truth is that she’s nervous. If this was a one-time thing, they’ll both be disappointed, but Max has a feeling El will be more disappointed. And Max would hate to extinguish that hope, that little flicker that maybe, maybe, Max has gained something with all that she’s lost. She knows El feels responsible for what happened, even though she had nothing to do with Max chasing Vecna, and despite the fact that she saved Max. She’s the reason Max is alive at all.

And yeah, okay, Max is also nervous because she, too, desperately wants to be more than a blind orphan girl with broken bones. She knows she’s the same person she always was, strong and resilient, but that’s not what other people will see. Other people will see a pitiful girl who can’t do anything on her own, and that—that’s the worst part of all this.

It’s this doubt and fear that leads Max to choose the memory she does. A memory that will remind them that they aren’t just two girls trapped in a cabin. They have been, and could be, so much more.

They’re at Starcourt Mall. Starcourt before everything went wrong. At its best, the mall was a place of dreams. Like a dream, it’s colorful and noisy, but this memory is Max’s, not El’s, so it isn’t overwhelming. To Max, the mall was a place to get away, and that’s why she took El.

Max wears her striped shirt and El looks young and scared in her oversized flannel. She gazes up at the high ceilings and the people on the second floor with a mix of wonder and fear. “So, what should we do first?” Max asks. El looks at her blankly and Max laughs. “You’ve never been shopping before, have you?” El shakes her head. “Well, then I guess we’re just gonna have to try everything.” Max spots something and grabs El’s hand. “Come on.”

Like all memories, there are things missing, and the scenes jump around, highlighting the parts that Max remembers most. El in the Gap, touching every piece of clothing in disbelief, like she had no idea there were so many clothes in the world.

“I look so happy,” El whispers, and Max startles, almost losing the memory. She had forgotten they were really here watching it, like people in a movie theater. They haven’t talked in a memory before.

“We both do,” Max says, watching as Memory-Max grins at Memory-El.

“Do you think they can see us?”

“I don’t think so. Shh. Watch.”

El looks at a mannequin and Max asks, “Do you like that?”

“How do I know what I like?”

Max scrunches up her face. It’s a weird question, but she won’t—can’t—make fun of El. “You just…try things on. Until you find something that feels like you.”

“Like…me?”

“Yeah. Not Hopper. Not Mike. You.”

El smiles and Max helps her pick out armfuls of clothing. The fitting room attendant rolls her eyes at them, but they ignore her and keep on being themselves. El tries on the shirt she saw on the mannequin first, with bright yellow pants and suspenders. She adds a hat and Max adjusts it so it doesn’t cover her eyes. El snaps the suspenders and laughs in surprise as they hit her chest. She bounds back into the fitting room and changes into a matching white shirt and skirt with splashes of color. Max shows her how to put on a belt. While El changes again, Max tries on sunglasses and makes faces at herself in the mirror. She chooses a red pair and El emerges, wearing a colorful patterned romper with a collar and belt. She gives Max a big smile and says:

“I think this feels like me.”

“Then that’s the one.” Max looks at the tag and grimaces before smiling again. “I’ll buy it for you.” She plucks the tag from the outfit and takes it to the counter, where she hands over her cash. Max is still wearing the sunglasses, but the cashier doesn’t say anything, and Max doesn’t pay for them. They leave the store arm in arm, both smiling wide, walking like they own the mall.

Real El points to Memory El. “Is that…who I really am?”

“I dunno, El, is it? Is that who you want to be?”

“I think so.”

“I stole those glasses.”

El gasps. “You did. Stealing is wrong, Max.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not like you’re Miss Perfect.”

“I want to see the rest.”

El and Max, dashing through the mall. El and Max at the photo booth, dressed in ridiculous costumes as a man behind a camera tells them to pose. El learning how to walk in high heels that are too big for her, stumbling and falling on the floor as a group of older girls watch and roll their eyes. Max helping her up and surreptitiously giving those girls the finger as she drags Max away. El and Max at the food court, hiding behind a pillar as El targets those same girls and uses her powers to make an Orange Julius explode. El and Max, running away from the scene of their crime.

Max holds the sunglasses while they run so they won’t fall and break. She looks at El, joyful and mischievous. “See? There’s more to life than stupid boys!”

The memory fades, but the weight of the red sunglasses in Max’s hand does not. Like the flower, she can ‘see’ them, but she doesn’t trust that they’re real. “El? Did I do it?”

“Yes,” El breathes. “You did it.” Her hand brushes Max’s as she takes the glasses, and they move in a motion Max recognizes as El putting them on. “Incredible,” El whispers. “Did you try this time?”

“No,” Max says. “I mean, I guess—I knew I was holding them when I brought us out of the memory. But I wasn’t trying to take them.”

“Max, do you know what this means?”

“No. I have no idea what’s going on.”

“I think that I gave you some of my powers.”

“What? That doesn’t make any sense. Your powers are like, telekinesis shit. I brought two trinkets from memories. That’s completely different, and not nearly as cool. Whatever this is, it’s not—"

“Listen,” El says, and Max shuts her mouth. “I am holding these glasses. And you can see them. You are holding a flower. And you can see it. These things did not exist before. They existed a long time ago. The flower grew in a soccer field, and you picked it. It is here now and it looks as if you just picked it a few minutes ago, not seven years ago. We found those glasses in the mall and you stole them. They were probably in your house when it…when it went away. They are gone forever. But they are not, because they are here, where they should not be. These things should not exist, but they do.”

Again, Max thinks: Just like me.

“Just like you,” El echoes.

Max shivers.

“I used to think I was a monster,” El says. “Because I destroy things and I hurt people.”

“You’re not a monster. That’s just what those people taught you to do.”

“I know that now. I think…I think there is something inside me that can be good. Something that can create instead of destroy. And when I brought you back, I think—”

Max understands now. “You think you gave it to me. At least part of it. Yeah?”

“Yes. I think so. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“You did not ask to have powers.”

“Yeah, well, neither did you. Plus I’d be dead if it weren’t for you. And if this is real, if I really do have powers now?” Max touches the glasses again. “That means I’m not totally broken. I lost my eyes, and the jury’s still out on my legs. If I got something in return, I’d say that’s a win. Okay? You don’t have to apologize for anything, El.”

El sniffles. Once, twice, and now she’s crying. “I was so scared, Max.”

“Of what?”

“I was scared you were going to die. I—I think you are my best friend, and I thought I was going to lose you. So I fought back and I decided to save you, even though I knew I wasn’t strong enough yet. That is why I am sorry.”

“El, how many times am I going to have to remind you that I would have died without you? Yeah, okay, maybe if you’d been ready, you could have saved my vision and fixed my bones and made me like, ridiculously good-looking, but I’ll take alive over dead no matter what.”

El half-sniffles, half-laughs. “I would have saved your eyes and fixed your bones if I could have, but I don’t think I’ll ever be powerful enough to make you prettier than you already are.”

Max had been prepared with another protest, but now she forgets what she was going to say. She’s too surprised to argue. Surprised at El’s words, yes, but more surprised at what she’s thinking.

In Max’s mind, there are a bunch of little Maxes. They work in different departments, writing up different thoughts, tinkering with feelings, cataloguing memories. That sort of thing. Whenever one of them has a thought ready, they roll up the message and put it in a canister to send up a tube to the boss (that’s Real Max). Ever since Billy’s death, Sad Max and Angry Max have sent the most messages. But the Max who just sent a note is a different one, a Max she hasn’t seen in a long time, maybe not since she first kissed Lucas at the Snow Ball.

The note says: Hey dummy! You have a crush on El. xoxo Romantic Max.

Max wants to reject it, wants to throw the note away, but she can’t. She puts it in her imaginary pocket, tucked away to look at later. But she already knows what she’ll conclude; it’s true. She does have a crush on El. She probably has for a while. Watching the memory and seeing both of them so happy—combined with El’s sincerity about how she’s pretty and her best friend and she was scared of losing her—has just finally made it obvious.

And she has no idea what to do about that.

“Max? Did I say something wrong?”

“What? No—I just—sorry. My head hurts. I think I need to lay down.”

“Okay. I understand. We can go to bed.”

“No, you don’t need to come with me, I’m fine.”

“You still need help getting to the room. Let me help you.”

Max wants to say no, she’s fine, but El is right. Her wheelchair is hard to navigate around the cramped cabin, and although Max is trying, she still can’t get her body to adjust to getting around without her eyes. So she gives in, and lets El help her to the room they’ve been sharing. Max spent a few uncomfortable nights on the couch when she first came to stay here, but then Joyce found a mattress and brought it over. El offered to give up her bed and take the mattress on the floor, but Max said no. She said not to take pity on her, but really, she was afraid of falling onto the floor and breaking her bones again.

El helps Max out of the chair, her hands firmly clasped on Max’s forearms, and gently settles her onto the mattress. Max clumsily maneuvers under the blankets. “Thanks,” she says. “I’m fine.”

“You always say that you are fine,” El replies. “But I never believe you.”

Max isn’t sure if she wants to scream or cry. “Just…leave me alone, El? Please?”

El doesn’t say anything. Max hears the door click shut and she counts to three before burying her face in her pillow. She screams first, then sobs. She remembers she can’t kick her feet or punch the pillow, and she cries more, desperately hoping El isn’t listening at the door to make sure she’s okay. That would be very sweet, and it would only make things worse, because Max can’t have a crush on El, or worse, be like…in love with her.

Not because El’s a girl. That’s not the problem. Max knew she liked girls before she knew she liked boys. She had crushes on half her soccer teammates, and most of the girls on the teams they played at away games. She hasn’t told anybody—who the hell would she have told? Billy? Yeah, right—but it isn’t a surprise to her.

The problem is that El is, by her own admission, Max’s best friend. And recently, pretty much her only friend. Well, okay, that’s not really the problem, either. It’s not great, but under different circumstances it wouldn’t matter all that much.

The real problem is that Max is a zombie girl, a girl who was hunted by a monster, a girl who sought out her own death, a girl who died and came back not quite right. Right now, El is trapped with her by circumstance, but someday that will change. El and the others will figure out a way to defeat Vecna, save the world, whatever. They’ll get a chance at normal lives. Even El. But not Max. Max will get left behind, and the only thing she’ll have to amuse her is a collection of souvenirs from old, dusty memories.

But she’s getting ahead of herself.

The more immediate problem is that Max has no idea if El could ever like her back. Sure, the girl doesn’t know if her boyfriend is attractive. Sure, she doesn’t know what she likes about him. Sure, she says Max is pretty and touches her hands a lot. But—Mike really isn’t very remarkable or attractive, at least not to Max, and El has had so few friends that it’s hard to judge any of her social interactions. So maybe none of that means anything.

Then again, El has said more than once that she doesn’t know if Mike is a good kisser, or if she likes kissing him.

Max remembers their conversation in the mall.

How do I know what I like?

You just…try things on. Until you find something that feels like you.

And that gives Max an idea. Is it a good idea? No way. It’s a bad idea. Not baiting-Vecna-to-kill-her level of bad, but bad enough. An idea that could either help her figure out her feelings—maybe she just thinks she has a crush because El saved her, that’s totally possible—or burn their entire friendship to the ground.

Low stakes, really.

When the door opens again a while later, El’s distinctive footsteps, a cross between a shuffle and a stomp, sound on the floor. The closet door opens with a creak, and El’s clothes rustle as she searches for her pajamas. She hangs everything up, even her pajamas, and Max doesn’t know if it’s because she doesn’t know how to fold or she doesn’t want wrinkles or some other quirky El reason. Her clothes hit the floor, and the closet closes, and El’s bed squeaks as she sits down.

“El?” Max says carefully.

“Oh! You are still awake. You scared me.”

“Sorry. Listen, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. When I asked you to leave earlier. I just needed some time alone.”

“I understand.”

“The stuff with my…powers, or whatever…is kind of a lot.” True, but not what Max had really been upset about.

“That makes sense.”

“Anyway, uh, I was thinking about something else, and I had an idea.”

“How to save Hawkins?”

“What? No.”

“Oh. Then what is it?”

“It’s about the conversation we were having earlier. About Mike. And Lucas, sort of, I guess.”

“What about it?”

“First of all, I—I guess I wanted to say I’m sorry? For trying to tell you what to do. I’m just trying to protect you. He’s hurt you before, and…” Max trails off. She’s lost her train of thought. She’s not going in the direction she meant to.

“I know that,” El says, surprising her. “I know you are trying to protect me. I don’t need protecting.”

“Right, yeah, of course. I just—okay, look, I had an idea that might help both of us.”

“What is it?”

“Remember when we were talking about kissing? And you said you didn’t know if you like kissing Mike?”

“Yes.”

“You’re confused about Mike, right, and I’m confused about Lucas. Obviously we’re confused, because we’ve never kissed anybody else. Or dated anybody else. We don’t know what we’re doing. And we shouldn’t judge them because of that. Right?”

“I’m confused.”

“We need more practice, El. Like how you had to practice your powers, and I had to practice skateboarding when I was first learning. You don’t just become good at something the first time you try it. It’s like what I said in the mall, about having to try stuff on to find out what you like. You’re hardly ever going to like the first outfit best.”

“I’m still confused.”

Yeah, that was fair. Max knows that El isn’t good at reading into things, but she was really hoping El would do the job of connecting the dots so she didn’t have to say it out loud. Oh well. “I think we should practice kissing, El. You and me.”

Chapter Text

El has spent most of her life confused. She was confused at the lab. She was confused after the lab. People have confused her with their actions and words for her entire life. She is used to being confused.

But it is possible that she has never been more confused than she is right now, in the moment after Max suggests that they—her and Max—practice kissing each other.

Max is joking. She must be. Max jokes a lot, so it would make sense. Except El has finally learned to recognize Max’s joking voice, and she did not use that voice when she suggested kissing.

“Never mind,” Max says. El can see her face in the moonlight and the corners of her mouth are turned down slightly. “It was a stupid idea.”

“No,” El says, afraid that her friend is upset. “I don’t think it is stupid.” El pauses and thinks through Max’s logic. They have both only kissed one person. Neither of them is sure how they feel about that person. Therefore, they need to kiss other people. They need to get better. They are not allowed to leave the house unless Hopper says so. They do not see anyone else. If they want to kiss someone, they have only each other.

So yes, technically, it makes sense.

But it does not make sense. Does that make sense? No. Nothing makes sense.

“Can girls…kiss girls?” El asks.

Max laughs and pushes herself up into a seated position with her back propped against the wall. “Oh, you’re serious. Yeah, El, girls can kiss girls.”

“I did not know.”

Max adds: “And boys can kiss boys. Remember Mike and Will? I mean, they’re not kissing—yet—but yeah, they could if they both wanted to.”

El considers all this and weighs her next question carefully. “Do you…want to kiss me?”

“Um—it’s not really, it’s not really about wanting to, it’s like I said, it’s about practicing. You know. Because we both need practice.”

El feels faintly disappointed and she does not know why. It would be strange if Max wanted to kiss her. Right? Of course. And stranger still would be if El wanted to kiss her back. Why? Because—just because. That’s what adults say, right? Because I said so. “Okay,” El says. “We can practice.” She slides off her bed and crosses the short distance to Max’s mattress. She kneels on the bed in front of Max and leans forward until her forehead is almost touching Max’s.

“El? What are you doing?”

“Kissing you? For practice?”

“I—I didn’t mean right now.”

“Oh.” El leans back. Even in the low light of the moon, she can see that Max’s face is red. What is that called again? Oh, right. She remembers. “You are blushing.”

“Y-yeah, because you were just about to kiss me.”

“You said you did not want to kiss me for real. There is no reason to blush.”

“Well, I’m blushing anyway. I can’t help it. I guess I’m embarrassed.”

“Why? It was your idea.”

Max tips her head back and groans. “Exactly. I can’t believe I even suggested it.”

“But I said yes.”

“I know, El. I know. I guess I didn’t expect you to, at least not right away. And I really didn’t expect you to come over here and try to kiss me immediately.”

El is not used to being given the opportunity to think about things before she does them. Most of the time, she does not have time to think before she must act. There is never enough time. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry. Okay? We’ll do it, I promise. I just started pulling objects out of my mind today, so I need to process that first before I can do another new thing. Maybe tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” El repeats as she gets up and returns to her own bed. She crawls under the blankets and lays on her back, staring at the glowing plastic stars on her ceiling. She wishes Max could see them. Max. She is going to kiss Max tomorrow. Maybe.

El closes her eyes, but she does not fall asleep. Her heart is beating a little too fast. She is holding tension in her legs, stomach, and arms. She tries to relax by squeezing all her muscles and then letting go. It helps a little but her heartbeat does not slow down, and El realizes: she is nervous. About kissing Max? She must be. There is nothing else to be nervous about except all the obvious things, like the world possibly ending.

It is true that El has not kissed anyone besides Mike, but she was never nervous about kissing him. With Mike, kissing felt…what’s the word? Inevitable. El cannot explain why. Kissing Mike has a predictable quality to it. It feels safe. So safe that it is boring. Maybe that is why El does not know if he is a good kisser. It does not matter if he is or not. All that matters is that kissing Mike is one of the few things in El’s life that is safe and unchanging (except for the first time that Mike put his tongue in her mouth. That was strange. But Mike said it was how kissing works and El figured he must know more than her, so she went along with it, and eventually even that felt safe. Normal.)

So why does the idea of kissing Max make her stomach and heart flutter? El does not know, but she will find out tomorrow. Maybe. She rolls onto her side and looks at Max. She is curled up on the mattress, blanket kicked to her ankles. Her casts are a collage of white and black in the dark, the white peeking out from behind the signatures and illustrations. Her hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail—El’s handiwork—and her eyes are closed, her mouth is slightly open, her eyebrows are relaxed, without the small furrow between them. Her freckles are like the constellation of plastic stars on El’s ceiling, or more accurately like the real stars in the night sky. She is breathing steadily. She is at peace. El paces her own breathing with Max’s and hopes that neither of them will have nightmares.

But they will. One of them always screams.

El is alone in a white space. Not a room. It is too big and there are no walls, so it cannot be a room. She does not know how she knows, but this is a between space. Like the space between words on a page. Is this a space between words? Or is it something worse, something more terrifying, like a space between worlds, a space out of time?

That, El does not know.

El reaches up to touch her head. Her hair is prickly. Freshly shaved. She drops her hand and looks at the inside of her wrist. The number tattooed there is dripping black ink. She holds her arm out and a drop slips to the ground. It disappears. No. It is absorbed.

Someone or something touches El’s shoulder and she turns, her hand shooting out. But there is nothing there. Only the vast whiteness. This happens again and again. Finally, when El feels the touch, she ignores it. She stays put. She stares ahead. She walks forward, instead of turning. Suddenly, she knows that she is searching for something. Or someone?

Another step forward, then another, and although nothing changes around her, El can feel that she is getting somewhere. She feels more at ease. But it is fleeting. She hears a scream in the distance, the opposite direction from where she is headed. She clenches her teeth and keeps walking. She cannot turn back. But then she hears the scream again. This time, she recognizes it.

Max.

El does not hesitate to turn and run.

El wakes up in her dark room, damp with cold sweat, her heart thumping as if she had really been running. “Just a dream,” she whispers to herself. She closes her eyes.

Max screams again.

So it was real.

El looks at Max. She is in the exact same position as when she fell asleep. She is not thrashing. This is how it always is. Max, completely still, screaming in her sleep, buried so deep in her nightmares that she does not wake herself up.

Usually, El leaves her be. The first time it happened, the first night Max stayed here and slept on the couch, El went and sat with her. In the morning, El told her what happened, and Max went blank. She said, ‘I don’t need you to take care of me,’ and didn’t talk to El for the rest of the day.

But this time, El climbs out of bed and gently crawls onto the mattress beside Max. She lays on her side, facing Max, and gently presses her thumb on the spot between Max’s eyebrows. She lifts her other hand and rests it on Max’s cheek. “You are okay,” she whispers. “I am here.”

El does not know when she falls asleep. All she knows is that Max does not scream again, and El’s next conscious moment is in the morning, when yellow light floods the bedroom. Max is still sleeping—Max always sleeps late—so El carefully rolls onto the floor. She lands with a gentle thud, and when she stands up and looks at Max, her eyes are open.

“What was that?”

“Good morning,” El replies.

“Did you fall?”

“No.”

“I heard something fall.”

“I dropped my book.”

“Sounded heavier than a book.”

El does not want Max to know she was in her bed. Because Max told her not to take care of her. Because she does not want to tell Max about the screams. Because—

“I had a nightmare,” Max says.

“I’m…sorry.” El does not know what else to say. They do not usually talk about their nightmares.

“It was a bad one.”

“I know. You screamed,” El admits.

“I did?”

“Yes. You scream in your sleep a lot. Like me.”

“You scream too?”

“You sleep so heavily that you do not hear.”

“Whoops. Sorry, El.”

“It’s okay. This scream was different.”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know. But I—I laid down next to you. I’m sorry. I thought it might help.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“You said not to take care of you. Remember?”

“When was that?”

“The first night you stayed here. You had a nightmare and I sat with you. You got mad.”

“Oh. Right. I’m sorry. I—that was a weird day for me. Leaving the hospital. Coming here. Not being able to see anything. It made the whole ‘being blind’ thing real, you know? Like it wasn’t confined to the hospital. It was real. It is real. It’s my life now.”

Cautiously, El sits down again and rests her head against Max’s leg. “I understand.”

Max pats El’s ear, finding her way to El’s head, and runs her hand through her hair. “You can wake me up if you’re scared, you know. You shouldn’t have to be alone.”

“You should not be alone either.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we’re not alone then, huh? We’ve got each other.”

“Do you want to tell me about your nightmare?”

Max stops running her hand through El’s hair. “I—"

The front door opens, heavy footsteps sound outside the bedroom, and then Hopper’s voice says, “Max? El? You’d better not still be sleeping.” He sounds grumpy. He is always grumpy when he gets home from work. El thinks anyone would be grumpy after working overnight.

“Later,” Max says, sounding relieved. “We’re awake, old man!” she calls.

“Nancy is going to be here in fifteen minutes!”

El immediately scrambles to her feet and finds a hairbrush. Nancy. Homeschool. She almost forgot.

“Shit,” Max says. “You think Wheeler will go easy on us?”

El has no idea what Nancy will be like as a teacher. They do not know each other very well, and El has always been a little afraid of Nancy. A little afraid, a little in awe. To El, Nancy is a perfect, normal teenage girl. Everything El is not. “Maybe,” she says.

They are eating cereal when a sharp knock—ba ba da ba ba—sounds at the door and a moment later the door opens, bringing Nancy Wheeler in like a strong breeze. She is wearing a cardigan over a pink shirt buttoned all the way to her neck, a narrow grey skirt, and shiny black shoes with buckles. El’s teachers in Lenora dressed like this. “Good morning,” she says, pushing her hair out of her face. “Sorry I’m late.”

Hopper tips his coffee cup toward her.

“Good morning,” El says.

“Morning, Nance,” Max says. “Can I call you Nance?”

El laughs into her cereal bowl and Nancy narrows her eyes. “I’d rather you didn’t.” She sets her bag on the table and looks at them. “We can get started whenever you’re ready.”

Hopper yawns and dumps the rest of his coffee into the sink. “All right, well, I’m gonna grab some sleep. Uh, have fun. Study hard.” He gives El a thumbs up and goes into his room.

Nancy opens her bag, but she does not take out any textbooks. She has brought two books of poetry, a math workbook, an introduction to something called braille, and a notebook. She picks up the notebook first. “Okay,” she whispers. “If he comes back out, El is doing math problems and Max is learning braille. Deal?”

“Deal,” Max says immediately, no questions asked. Nancy pushes the braille book toward her.

“Why are we making a deal?” El asks.

“Because I can teach you if you want,” Nancy says impatiently, “but mostly this is a cover for me to see you. So we can decide what to do about…you-know-who.”

“Mike and Will?”

“What? No. What’s going on with Mike and Will?”

“Max said—”

“Nope. Never mind,” Max says quickly. To Nancy, she says, “You’re talking about Vecna, right?”

Nancy frowns. “Yes. Obviously.”

El is not eager to be homeschooled, but she is worried that if they lie about it, Hopper will change his mind and make her go to school. That would be worse. “Hopper will find out.”

“We’ll be careful,” Nancy assures her.

“I do not want to lie, we already lied once—”

“El.” Max sounds stern. “This might be our only chance. We have to defeat him. Our friends need us.”

El returns her attention to Nancy. Her foot bounces under the table. She is nervous. She does not want to make Hopper mad. But Max is right. Their friends need them. El was not here for them last time. She will not risk that again. “What are the poetry books for?”

“Ah, yes. Those.” Nancy pats the books. “I may have…paid Victor Creel another visit.”

“Holy shit, no way,” Max says. Nancy shushes her. “I mean, wow, holy shit, math is great.”

“How?” El asks. “How did you visit?”

“The details don’t matter. Anyway, he told me that he used to read poetry to his family every night, and it was the only thing Henry showed any interest in besides…well. You know. Victor said…he said Henry didn’t just listen to the poems. He absorbed them. Victor couldn’t remember much more than that, so I picked up as many collections as I could that matched the time period. I left a few with Robin and brought the others here. Obviously, I would never trust Steve or Jonathan or any of the boys to—"

“Nancy. Are you seriously suggesting that we can defeat this guy with poetry?” Max raises one eyebrow and her lip curls. “Poetry by a bunch of dead guys?”

“No, of course not,” Nancy scoffs. “But we might find a poem that gives us a clue about his plan, and as we have very little to go on right now, I personally think it’s worth a shot. Besides, it also counts as English class.” She pushes the first poetry book to El. She reads the cover. Collected Poems 1909 – 1962. T.S. Eliot.

“Go on, start reading. I want you to take notes and discuss each poem with me. Ignore any published after 1959.”

“For someone who says we’re not doing school, you sure sound like a teacher,” Max says. “And seriously, what am I supposed to do?” She waves her hands in front of her eyes.

Nancy hesitates. “Learn to read braille.” Her voice goes up at the end of the sentence, as if she is asking a question.

“Seriously? I thought that was just my cover. How am I supposed to learn it?”

“I brought a book.”

“Would you expect a little kid to learn how to read just by giving them a book?”

El feels the room begin to fill with Max’s anger and Nancy’s frustration, and she says, “I will read the poems out loud. That way Max can listen. She might notice something that I do not.”

“Fine,” Max and Nancy say at the same time.

El wonders if maybe she should have just agreed to go to school.

The next two hours pass very slowly. El knows she still does not read as well as she should for her age, but her reading has improved since she started reading to Max. Still, she cannot look at Nancy while she reads. Nancy makes her nervous. Nancy leans close with her eyebrows raised and her lips pressed together in a thin line, her left hand resting on the table like she might snatch the book from El at any moment.

“These poems don’t make any sense,” Max complains.

“Actually—” Nancy begins to say, but El says something first.

“I think they are beautiful.” The way the words lay on the page and sit on her tongue feels right in a way El cannot explain. She does not stumble over the words the way she does when they are in long sentences and paragraphs. “But,” she adds, “I do not know if they are helpful.”

“Let’s take a break from Eliot and try Poe,” Nancy says, taking the book from El’s hands. “He’s a creep, so we’ll probably have better luck anyway.”

“Can I keep it?” El asks, pointing to the first book. “I want to read more.”

“Uh, sure,” Nancy says. She picks up the other book and gives both to El.

El sets the Eliot aside and looks at the new book. Out loud, she reads, “The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. What does it mean by ‘tales’? Tales like a cat?”

Before Nancy can speak, Max says, “No, that’s a different kind of tail. Spelled T-A-I-L.”

“Oh,” El says, feeling stupid. She can tell by the looks on Max and Nancy’s faces that she is too old to make that mistake. But it is not her fault their language is even more confusing on paper than it is to speak.

“Ignore the tales,” Nancy says. “Stick to the poems.”

El nods and opens the book to the first poem. It is called Alone. Chills run down her spine as she reads the opening lines:

From childhood’s hour I have not been

As others were—I have not seen

As others saw—I could not bring

My passions from a common spring—

“This sounds like him,” she says.

“He could have written it,” Nancy replies.

“I dunno,” Max says. “I mean, yeah, sounds like our boy Henry, but we already know he was a lonely, weird kid. Right? Any new info there?”

“Keep reading, El,” Nancy instructs.

El finishes the poem. The last line, Of a demon in my view—, makes her shiver, but aside from that, Max is right. There are no clues here. She reads poem after poem and Nancy shakes her head at each one, until she turns to one titled Dream-Land. El does not understand all the words, but she understands that it is describing a desolate, fiery, horrible place that makes her think of the Upside Down.

“This one,” Nancy says, slapping her hands on the table and standing up. “That’s the one. There’s a clue in there somewhere, I just know it.”

El is not so sure, but she will not disagree with Nancy Wheeler. “Do you want me to read it again?”

“No, no. I need to take this to Robin. She’s better at this sort of thing. Not that you aren’t good, but, well, you don’t know a thing about poetry analysis. Just trust me, okay?”

El does not think they have any choice but to trust her, so she says, “I trust you.”

Max also does not look convinced, but she says, “Yeah, totally.”

Nancy smiles. Her eyes are bright, almost twinkling. She does not look like a girl living in a nightmare. She looks like she was born to do this. “I’ll see you tomorrow, or maybe the day after. Hopefully we’ll be able to start planning.”

Nancy Wheeler leaves the cabin as quickly as she entered, and then they are alone. Hopper is still sleeping. Well, he is quiet in his room. Whether or not he sleeps, El does not know. She is sure that he has nightmares too. Can they be called nightmares if he only sleeps during the day?

Is that the real reason Hopper works at night?

El is still thinking about Hopper when Max says, “Well that was weird.”

“What was weird?”

Max scratches her arm where it sticks out of her cast. “Nancy. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s nice that she’s trying to include us, and it’s better than real school, but how long does she think she’s gonna get away with that? Hopper will find out. And then what? She obviously has no idea what to do with me. ‘Learn to read braille,’” she says, imitating Nancy. “Give me a break. She can’t just throw books at me and expect me to learn an entire writing system on my own.”

“I am sorry, Max,” El says. It is the only thing she can think to say.

“It’s just…ugh, El, it’s so fucking stupid. If Nancy Wheeler doesn’t even know how to fake teach me, how am I ever going to do anything ever again?” She scrunches her face and takes a deep breath. “No, I’m not going to cry. Okay, El? You can’t let me cry over this.”

“We will figure it out,” El says, placing her hand on Max’s shoulder. “I am going to help you. I will not let you get left behind. Do you believe me?”

Max nods and wipes a tear from her cheek. She frowns, angry at the tear and what it represents. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, I believe you, El.”

“Is this a good time for us to practice kissing?”

Max laughs so hard that she begins to cough. She tries to speak and cannot. El gets her a cup of water and pats her back gently until she stops coughing. “S-sorry,” she says. “I just—you get why that was funny, right?”

“No.”

“Um, okay, I’ll try to explain. We were talking about something serious, and then you completely switched topics without any transition, and asked if this was a good time to kiss. It’s like…it’s like when you came into my mind and said the thing about the pizza dough freezer. It’s funny because it’s so different from what’s going on. Does that make sense?”

“Sort of.”

“That’s okay, you don’t have to get it.”

“But I want to.”

“We’ll work on it. Anyway, yeah, sure, okay. We can practice kissing. If that’s something you still want.”

“I would like to try.”

“Okay. We should go to your room.”

“Our room.” El wants Max to feel like this is her home, too, even if just for now.

“Okay, our room. Just in case Hopper does wake up. I don’t really want to explain this to him.”

“We have to leave the door open three inches. That is his rule.”

“Uh, that was his rule for you and Mike. So you wouldn’t kiss. Right?”

“We kissed anyway.”

“Look, Hopper doesn’t think we’re going to kiss, so we don’t need to leave the door open.”

“But we are going to kiss.”

“But he doesn’t know that, and he isn’t going to think that unless he sees it happening, which he definitely will if you leave the door open. Do you want Hopper to know?”

El takes a moment to think. She tries to imagine what Hopper would say if he saw them. Does Hopper know that girls can kiss? What if he does not know, and he gets mad? What if he does know, and he gets mad anyway because El is not supposed to kiss anyone? “I guess not,” she finally says.

“Exactly. Door closed.” Max pushes her wheelchair away from the table and turns it toward the bedroom door. "Am I going the right way?"

"Yes," El says. She stays behind Max just in case, but Max is better at getting around than she thinks. They reach the room and El closes the door behind her softly. “Where?”

“Let’s just sit on my bed,” Max says. El leans down to help her out of the chair as Max tries to lift herself, and they bump heads. They laugh—Max’s laugh sounds different, nervous—and El tucks her hands under Max’s arms.

When they are both sitting, facing each other, El says, “Now what?”

“Now we…kiss, I guess,” Max says. “Is this weird?”

“It is a little weird,” El admits. “I have kissed Mike so many times but now it is like I forget how.”

Max’s face scrunches up. “Don’t think about Mike, please. I don’t want you thinking about Mike’s face when you’re—when you’re kissing me.”

“Don’t worry,” El says. She reaches out to tap Max’s cheek, then her nose. Max really is very pretty. “I will not think about Mike.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Are you going to think about Lucas?”

“No, I—” Max’s tone changes, becomes softer somehow. “I don’t think I could.” Her cheeks are red. El decides not to tell her. “Are we really doing this?”

“Yes,” El says. She puts her hands on either side of Max’s face, cradling her blushing cheeks—they are so warm—the way she saw someone do in a movie once. “I am going to kiss you now,” she says, and then she does.

Max’s lips are not soft. They are dry and cracked. But El does not mind as she presses her own dry lips against them. El knows she promised not to think about Mike, but she wants to do this right—for some reason, it is very important to her that Max thinks she is a good kisser—and so she does something Mike says is good kissing. She sticks her tongue out slightly, and it slips into Max’s mouth when her lips part to take a breath.

Max pulls away. “El!” she exclaims, wiping her mouth.

El crosses her arms, pulling herself into a hug. She has messed up. “Did I do something wrong? I am sorry.”

“You—you can’t just go around sticking your tongue into people’s mouths unannounced.”

“I thought that is how kissing works. Mike said—”

“Of course, ‘Mike said’. I mean—sorry. People do kiss with, uh, with tongue. But usually not right away. And you have to ask.”

“Oh.”

“Like, if we’re practicing, we probably should do that. I just wasn’t expecting it.”

“Can I try again?” El asks. “No tongue.”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah. We can try again.”

El is more careful this time. She clasps her hands behind Max’s neck and when they kiss, she does not move. She freezes like that, lips against lips, tongue safely hidden in her mouth.

And Max laughs against her lips, a small puff of air blowing into El’s face. “El,” she says. “You don’t have to be a statue.”

“I am not sure what else to do.”

“Okay, El, do you wanna kiss with tongue? That’s called ‘making out’ by the way.”

“Yes, please, I would like to make out.”

Max laughs again. “You’re so funny. Go on, then.”

They kiss again and El carefully, slowly, parts Max’s lips with her tongue. Max opens her mouth wider and then they are kissing, really kissing, and it is hard to describe what is happening, but it feels good and it is not boring.

It is not boring at all.

Max pulls back and catches her breath. “Okay, okay, I think that’s probably enough for now.” Her lips are bright red now, redder than her cheeks, and she seems…what’s the word? Flustered.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good, I just—I need a break.”

“I don’t think you need kissing practice, Max,” El tells her. “I think you are already a good kisser.”

“Really? I mean, um, thanks. S-so are you.”

“Thank you.”

“I guess that means we don’t need to—”

El cuts her off. She is not sure why, but she does not want this to be the one and only time they kiss. Her nerves are buzzing, sending little electric shocks through her. Good ones, not at all like the electric shocks she got at the lab. “I think we should still practice.”

Max smiles. It is a small smile, a smile that Max maybe wants to hide. “Yeah?”

“Yes. I think it is a good idea.”

“All right then. It’d be nice if I didn’t have these casts. Easier.”

El picks up Max’s left arm in its cast and examines it. An idea forms in her mind. She is surprised she has not had it before. “Can I…try something?”

“What kind of something?”

El concentrates and closes her eyes. “Max. What if I could fix your bones?”

“Oh, El. You can’t.”

“Why not? I can move things. I can move them back to the right places.”

“The doctors already did that. Now I’m waiting for them to heal. You can’t speed that up.”

“Can I please try?”

“Yeah, sure, you can try. But, El…don’t be disappointed if nothing happens, okay?”

El barely listens to Max after she says she can try. Her hand hovers above Max’s leg cast and she closes her eyes. She reaches for the bones, the muscles, the nerves, but what she finds is complicated. She concentrates harder, moving her hand down the cast. There must be something she can do. There must be something obviously out of place, something she can nudge back into place.

But the human body is complicated, and El is smart enough to know that one wrong move could make things even worse.

El opens her eyes and stares at her hands. Her bitten nails, the chafed skin between her knuckles. She has killed with these hands. Is it really so stupid to think that she can use them to heal?

“Any luck?” Max asks.

“No,” El replies. “You were right.”

“Well, it was worth a shot.”

El says nothing.

“You’re disappointed, aren’t you? Even though I told you nothing would happen?”

“I want to be good, Max.”

“Good?”

“I do not want to hurt anyone else. I am tired of hurting and killing. I am—” But El does not want to talk anymore. She does not want to explain, again, how desperately she wishes she could be the superhero Mike sees her as. She told Max she thinks there is good inside her. Power that can create. But if she cannot help Max, if she cannot heal, then maybe there is nothing inside her except darkness and destruction.

“El? Are you okay?”

“I want to read more poems. Will you listen?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course I’ll listen.”

The room is suddenly stifling and El needs to get out. “I left the book out there.”

They leave the bedroom and El tries to focus on how it felt to kiss Max instead of her disappointment at not being able to heal Max’s arms and legs. She thinks about Max’s soft skin and the freckles on her lips. Her stomach flutters again. She cannot identify this feeling.

El picks up the book and sits on the couch this time. Max rolls her chair over and sits beside her as she opens to the page where they left off. “This one is called Burnt Norton. It is long.”

Max takes a dramatic breath. “I’m ready. Hit me with poetry.”

El begins to read:

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.

If all time is eternally present,

All time is unredeemable.

She pauses and looks at Max. Max is leaning forward, interested. “Is it okay? Should I keep going?”

“Yeah,” Max says. She sounds far away even though she is right here. “Keep reading.”

El continues to read the poet’s words and she feels herself transported. She liked the other poems, but this one seems to take up space and become real, like something she can step inside of.

Other echoes

Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?

Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,

Round the corner. Through the first gate,

Into our first world, shall we follow

The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.

El does not notice that Hopper has come out of his room and is watching them until he says, “Eliot, huh?”

El flinches when he speaks. The poem collapses around her. “T.S. Eliot. Nancy gave us the book.”

Hopper nods. “That one’s…burnt something, right? Burnt, uh…”

“Norton,” Max says. “Burnt Norton.”

Snapping his fingers, Hopper says, “That’s the one.”

“You know poetry?” El asks. She cannot hide her surprise. Hopper does not seem like a man who knows poems.

“Some. Eliot for sure. That book have the rest of the quartet?”

“The what?” Max asks.

“Eliot wrote a series of poems, four of ‘em, all quartets. Together they’re called the Four Quartets. Ask Nancy about it.”

“Oh, we will,” Max says slowly, mischievously, like she knows something El does not.

“Good. Well, I’m off.”

“It is not late yet,” El says.

“They need me back at the station. Sorry, kid.” He ruffles her hair and then he is gone.

“He’s hiding something,” Max says, “but more importantly, holy shit, El. Four quartets? Like the four gates? And that poem…all the stuff about time and worlds…am I crazy or are we onto something?”

“Maybe you are onto something,” El says. “I still do not understand.”

Max taps the table insistently as she speaks. “We need to call Nancy. She’s wrong about Poe. It’s these poems. These four poems. One for—for each gate, or something. This is big, El. I can feel it.”

Slowly, El nods. She trusts Max’s instincts, but… “What if we do not call Nancy?”

“What?”

El is not usually the person who comes up with ideas, but she needs to share this one. “I think…we need to read all four. We need to find our clues. Then we tell Nancy. If we tell her now—”

“She’ll brush it off as coincidence. Okay, yeah, you’re right.”

“I am?”

“You are.” Max smiles. “You know, El, if those boys ever let you think for yourself instead of dragging you along on their plans, I bet we wouldn’t even be in this mess now. I bet Hawkins would be some shiny utopia where everybody wants to live instead of this hellscape. You’re smart, El. Has anybody ever told you that?”

Immediately, El says: “No.”

“Well, I’m telling you now. You’re smart. Period, end of sentence. You’re smarter than all those boys combined, okay? Do you believe me?”

“No,” El says again. Her face is warm now. She does not know what to do with compliments, especially from Max.

“I’ll find a way to prove it to you,” Max says. “I promise.”

Chapter Text

In her fifteen years of life (and brief death, and life again), Max Mayfield has known danger. She’s seen it take many forms. Her father’s fist punching through a wall. The rush of pavement as she fell from her skateboard. A gleam in Billy’s eyes before he pressed his foot to the gas pedal. Vecna’s ticking clock. And that’s just the ones she can recall off the top of her head. Max Mayfield knows the world is full of danger. She knows there are a billion ways to hurt and be hurt.

But now, Max has discovered a new kind of danger, one she wants to chase: kissing El.

Kissing El is not dangerous in the usual ways. It’s not life threatening. It won’t cause bodily harm. She won’t have recurring nightmares about it. It’s dangerous because El thinks they’re just practicing, getting ready to kiss some unnamed boys in the future. But Max? After their first kiss, Max knew in her (still broken) bones that it wasn’t just practice. Not for her. For Max, it’s real, and that mismatch is going to cause some major problems.

A sane person would simply stop kissing. A sane person would recognize that it’s a bad idea to kiss somebody you like when they don’t like you back, and they’d stop. Unfortunately, Max is not a sane person, she did not cut off the kissing after the first time, and now she’s like a lobster being dangled over a pot of boiling water.

It’s not entirely Max’s fault. Yeah, she should have never suggested kissing in the first place, and she definitely should have cut it off after the first kiss, but it’s not like she’s the one initiating. Oh, no, that is all El. El is the one who, every day for the past week, at unpredictable times, has said, “Max? Should we practice again?”

Theoretically, Max should be able to say no. But it’s basically impossible to say no to El, so she hasn’t said no, and at this point she doesn’t know how to say no without admitting that she likes El for real. What would she even say? Sorry, I can’t kiss you anymore because it turns out I have a big old crush on you? No. El can never know. But seriously, how was Max supposed to predict that El would turn out to be a major kissing fiend? That was unexpected.

These are the thoughts running through Max’s head as she lies on her mattress, unable to sleep. El is in her own bed, breathing deeply, clearly asleep. If Max could see and walk, she’d hightail it out of here. It’s the only way to save them both. But although Max is accustomed to danger, she’s tired of running from it. Sure, the last time she dared to face her danger, it ended with a bunch of broken bones, a coma, and blindness, but it’s unlikely that kissing El will have the same effect. El will get tired of kissing, some day. She’ll move on to somebody else, somebody better, and Max will be the only one who gets hurt. That’s how this story ends. Max may as well wait it out and enjoy the kissing while she can.

They have bigger problems, anyway. Four big problems, to be exact. No, not the gates. Well, technically yes the gates, but Max is currently more concerned with deciphering the four poems that she thinks are connected to the gates. Nancy’s investigation is at a standstill (because she’s still focused on Poe’s poems) and she’s taking out her frustration on Max and El by making them recite times tables, countries, capital cities, the parts of a cell, the bones of the body. You name it, Nancy wants them to learn it. So far, Max has had the most success with naming bones. It helps that she broke most of them.

When they aren’t kissing, Max and El are busy studying Nancy’s assignments, analyzing poetry, watching movies, reading books, and practicing Max’s powers. They keep the objects she retrieves in their bedroom, hoping that Hopper won’t notice. Max can’t see the room itself, but it’s turning into a museum of sorts, a dark space punctuated with the images of everything she’s conjured so far. Nothing big, just little things: a photograph of her mother, a lock of her own hair from her first haircut, a tattered journal, a movie ticket. Things like that. They’re comforting, if a little creepy. The flower from that first memory still has not wilted. Max doubts it ever will.

As the summer progresses and the weather turns hot and humid, the days take on a familiar rhythm. The cabin, nestled in the woods, stays cool enough that they only have to keep the fans on during the hottest part of the afternoon. Time passes differently for her now than it did when she could see, and Max almost begins to believe that they can stay like this forever. She tells time by temperature, by El’s breath, by the creaks of the cabin, by the scent of the forest. Sounds and smells are much stronger now than they were before. El, vigilant from her childhood trapped in the lab, has a keen sense of hearing, but she doesn’t pick up on the smells that Max does. Max can smell whether or not Hopper has made his coffee too strong. She nudges El seconds before the toaster pops up with an Eggo. She knows which book El is reading from the moment she turns the first page. This also feels like a superpower.

El and Max are in their room kissing when the world decides it’s time for a change. Max hears footsteps a split second before El does and she pulls away, instinctively raising one casted arm to rub at her mouth. She feels El tense beside her. They aren’t expecting anyone; Nancy left not that long ago. “Stay,” El says. “I will check.”

Max stays while El slowly stands up, opens the door, and steps out of the room. The front door squeaks and Max hears El sigh in relief, hears her say, “Mom!”

Max tries not to let it bother her, but she doesn’t have the time to prepare herself, and grief smacks her like an open palm. Even El, the orphaned science-experiment girl, has more family than Max does. Max’s throat burns and tightens. She’s not going to cry. She refuses to cry.

More footsteps, two sets this time, approaching her. Max is glad that she can’t see how El must cling to Joyce. “Max, honey?” Joyce says, gently, like Max is a wounded animal. “You’re getting your casts off today.”

Max bursts into tears.

*

She’s only dimly aware of the drive to the hospital. The road leading away from the cabin is bumpy, but after a right turn it smooths out. Joyce babbles on about something ordinary, like the price of groceries, and El occasionally gets a word in. El’s sitting in the front seat. Max is embarrassed that she wishes El were closer. She feels like a little kid back here. At least El was allowed to come. That was definitely Joyce’s idea, not Hopper’s. Joyce made El put on a wig before they left. Max sort of wants to know what it looks like, but she also hates that El has to hide who she is just to go outside. Honestly, who’s still looking for her? If it’s just Vecna, who cares what she looks like? He’ll find her anyway. But maybe there are new people looking, people who want someone to blame for all the hell Hawkins has been through. El makes a good scapegoat. (El doesn’t understand that word. Nancy and Max have both tried to explain, with absolutely no luck.)

The doctors poke and prod and ask questions, which Max dutifully answers. Yes, her casts are itchy. Yes, she can move her arms. Yes, she can feel it when they tap her leg. No, she won’t take too many of her pain pills. Yes, she’s excited to get these things off.

And so on.

She doesn’t know how long it takes, only that El is holding her left hand, Joyce her right, and a saw buzzes the casts fall away one by one, leaving her feeling naked and shriveled, like an old potato retrieved from a dark cupboard and brought into the light. She’s grateful that she doesn’t have to see her arms and legs. They feel lighter, and if they’re pale and wrinkled, well, Max doesn’t know. El squeezes her hand. It sends a little zing up her arm.

They talk to Joyce about physical therapy and long-term complications but Max doesn’t listen. She practices lifting one arm, then another, tries tapping her toes. It’s harder than it should be but it still feels like a miracle. She should be thinking about walking, running, maybe even skateboarding, but all she can do is think about how she’ll lift a hand to cradle El’s cheek, or maybe cross her legs and pull El into her lap for a kiss. Max swallows and holds El’s hand tighter.

In the car, Joyce asks, “So, Max, what are you going to do first?”

Max’s instinct is to snap at her that this changes nothing, because what good are legs and arms when you can’t see? But she doesn’t snap. She holds herself still, takes a breath, and says, “I want to go for a walk in the woods.”

“It might be a while before you can do that, honey,” Joyce says gently.

She’s right. Max’s legs feel like jello. “Okay, then I want to take a shower.”

Joyce chuckles. “We can make that happen.”

Everyone is quiet for a few minutes, and Max can feel and hear every bump and divot in the road. It reminds her of skateboarding, and she wonders if it really is so ridiculous to think she might be able to skate again.

Joyce says: “You know, once you’re moving around a bit more, you don’t have to stay at the cabin. I talked to the Sinclairs and they said that Erica’s room—”

But before Joyce can finish her sentence, before she can make the insane suggestion that Max moves in with Lucas’ family, before Max even has time to think of a way to say no, El says, “Max stays.”

Max’s limbs tingle, and she doesn’t think it’s from losing the casts. Her heart does a funny little tumble, too, and she wants to kiss El right here, right now, in front of Joyce. El wants her to stay. It’s because they’re friends, best friends, but Max will let herself pretend that it’s more than that.

“Jane, let Max speak for herself.”

“No, it’s—I want to stay,” Max hears herself say. The last time she wanted to stay somewhere, she was a kid being forced to move away from the place she grew up. But even then, she only wanted to stay because it was the only place she knew. Now, she wants to stay because she likes the cabin, likes her quiet life of reading and studying and—duh—kissing El. Sleeping in the same room. Knowing El is there, always there. It’s so perfect, so serene, that it makes her want to give up on this crazy plan of theirs to defeat Vecna. They’ll never win, anyway. Is it really so bad to hide forever, if hiding is the most comfortable Max has ever been?

“Okay, sweetheart, whatever you want,” Joyce says. “But if you get tired of that dusty old cabin, you just let me know, okay?”

“Yeah. Sure.” This is the part where Max would gaze out the car window, but she can’t do that anymore, so instead she leans her head against it and counts the bumps.

When they get back to the cabin, Joyce opens the door and El says, “Give me your hand,” so Max holds out her hand. “Stand,” El says. With some help, Max does, and El helps her walk—walk!—to the door. Her legs feel wobbly and uncertain, like she’s a baby just learning to control her body, but her feet are on the ground, taking steps. It sucks that something so simple is this amazing, but whatever. She’ll take whatever victories she can get.

After a shower that isn’t quite hot enough but still feels incredible, Max goes to bed early. Well, she tries to. Unused to her free limbs, she lays on her back, forgetting that she could try sleeping on her side now. She can’t fall asleep, so when the door opens and El tiptoes into the room, she says, “Don’t worry about waking me up. I’m still awake.”

She hears El startle and gasp.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I am not scared,” El protests. “Why are you still awake?”

“Can’t sleep.”

“Why?”

“I dunno, El, I just can’t.”

“Oh.” El pauses, thinks. “You can sleep in my bed.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think switching beds will help.”

“Not switching. With me. I read a book that said some people sleep better when they have someone with them.”

Max doesn’t ask what book. She’s not sure she wants to know. Fiction or nonfiction? What was the context? Did it say that’s usually for people in romantic relationships? If it did, is El intentionally not saying that part? But Max doesn’t ask those questions either. She says, “Okay.”

El helps her into the bed. Carefully, Max rolls onto her side. It hurts a little, but as she draws her knees up, she recalls the familiar comfort of curling into herself, and it is so much better than sleeping on her back like a corpse. The bed creaks as El moves, and the cold chill on Max’s skin is replaced by the warmth of a blanket that covers her completely, covers them both. They’re under the blanket, as if they’re little girls up past their bedtime. El is facing her, little puffs of warm breath on Max’s face. “Hi,” El says.

“Hi,” Max replies.

“Are you comfortable?”

Max shifts, tucks an arm under her head. They’re very close. It’s not a big bed. The edge of the mattress is maybe half an inch from Max’s spine. But she doesn’t mind. This is the most comfortable she’s been in a long time. “Yeah. Are you?”

“Yes,” El says.

There’s a pause, an empty space, and Max thinks that maybe El will kiss her goodnight, but that’s too much to hope for, isn’t it? They don’t give each other little kisses. When they kiss, it’s all business, planned, not spontaneous. It’s what practice is supposed to be. But Max wouldn’t know. She’s never practiced anything the right way. She either doesn’t do it at all—she never practiced the piano or the violin outside of her very short-lived lessons—or she does it recklessly, lets it take over her entire life. Skateboarding. So many cuts and bruises, missed dinners and missing assignments. Over what? A sport with no teammates, a sport that repeatedly said she didn’t belong? A sport she can’t even do anymore?

El interrupts her thoughts by pressing a single kiss to her forehead. “Good night, Max,” she whispers.

Max just barely manages to say it back. She can feel the ghost of El’s lips on her skin. A kiss on the forehead.

Maybe El isn’t good at practicing either.

*

“Good morning. Do you want to go for a walk?” El says this as soon as Max is conscious. She wonders how long El has been waiting for her to wake up.

Max stretches and nearly falls off the bed. El catches her by the elbow. “A walk? Are we allowed to do that?”

“No,” El says. “Do you care?”

Max laughs. “No. Where are we walking?” She forgets, for a moment, that she isn’t certain her legs remember how to walk.

“The woods. You said yesterday that you want to go for a walk in the woods. We won’t go far.”

“Okay, sure.” El could have told her it was a 10 mile walk and Max still probably would have agreed.

El gets out of bed first and Max slowly turns so that her legs dangle over the sides. “Do they hurt?” El asks, gently touching her knee.

“No,” Max says, surprised to find that she’s telling the truth. “They feel weak, and they’re sore I guess, but they don’t hurt.” She presses her feet to the floor. It’s cold. Socks. She needs socks. “Can I borrow some socks?”

“Yes.”

Max realizes then that she needs more than just socks. She’s still in the hospital gown they sent her home in yesterday. She hasn’t worn anything except these stupid gowns and Hopper’s oversized shirts—the only thing that fit over her casts—since she first came home from the hospital. Fashion has never been all that important to Max, and it matters even less now that she can’t appreciate a good outfit, but she’s suddenly overwhelmed by the idea of actually getting dressed.

“Um, actually, I think I’m going to need to borrow your clothes.”

“Okay.”

As El goes through her clothes, they’re both quiet. They don’t talk about how Max doesn’t have any of her own clothes.

El places a bundle into Max’s arms and says, “I think these will fit. I am going to brush my teeth.” She leaves Max alone in the room, and Max presses her nose to the soft bundle of clothing. It smells musty, like the rest of the cabin, but also of something else, something indescribable and distinctly El.

Max dresses in the jeans, t-shirt, and flannel shirt. They’re soft and comfortable, and Max is embarrassed by how happy she is to feel so normal.

They meet in the kitchen in conspiratorial silence, as if they could possibly wake Hopper. He’s snoring like a hibernating bear. El pours them each a bowl of cereal, milk first. (Once, Max tried to explain that it’s weird to pour the milk first, but El wasn’t having it. She insists that you add cereal to milk, not the other way around, and Max knows better than to argue with El about something so simple. Still, it’s definitely weird.) They eat quietly and El stacks their bowls in the sink. Max’s legs are wobbly and tired just from putting on a pair of pants, but she promised to go on a walk with El, and she’s stubborn enough to try.

After helping Max—to Max’s great dismay—tie her shoes, they go outside. El eases the door shut behind them and Max puts out a hand, stopping her from clomping down the porch steps. Instead, she goes first, a little unbalanced, feeling for the weak spots in the sagging wood. She’s cautious, but El’s hand is on her shoulder anyway, making sure she doesn’t fall. She doesn’t. The porch doesn’t creak, either.

“I know which steps make noise,” El says, her voice just above a whisper.

“When we left yesterday, you came down the steps like a freaking herd of buffalo.”

“I did not.”

“You did,” Max retorts. “I’m gonna call the FBI and tell them I found Bigfoot.”

“Who?” El asks.

“Never mind.” Max makes a mental note to tell El about legends. Not that El will care much, considering how much of her life has been the stuff of legends. She doesn’t like science fiction the way the rest of them do. It’s too real for her. But maybe, Max thinks, all legends are based in at least a little bit of somebody’s truth.

El takes Max’s hand, and they walk into the woods.

It must have rained last night. The ground is soft and yielding under Max’s feet as tiny droplets fall from branches and onto her head. Moisture seeps into her sock through a small hole in her borrowed shoes. Everything smells earthy and damp, reminding Max of a long-ago family trip to the redwoods that she had forgotten about until now. The tree leaves rustle in a slight breeze; bird wings flutter in the moments between.

They move slowly, because slowly is the only way Max can move. She has a sudden, desperate need to run, but every step takes every ounce of her concentration and strength. It’s a miracle that she can walk at all, but Max isn’t content with small miracles. She wants more.

Max trips over a branch—she blames El’s slightly-too-big shoes, not her own baby-deer clumsiness—and El catches her. “Do you want to take a break?”

No, Max thinks. “Okay,” she says.

So they sit. Max presses her palms to the ground to steady herself. They haven’t been walking more than a few minutes, but already she’s out of breath and aching all over. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, but this is how it is.

Max hates that she just has to accept that.

Carefully, she lays down, stretching her legs out, folding her hands on her stomach. She sighs.

El doesn’t say anything. Instead, Max feels her head being lifted, settled onto El’s lap. Feels El’s fingers twining in her hair. Max closes her eyes. She’s tempted to start a conversation about how none of this is fair, but they’ve talked that to death. Her mind wanders for a few minutes, lost in the peacefulness of the moment, and then Max asks:

“Do you want me to call you Jane instead of El?”

El’s hand pauses, and Max immediately misses the feeling of it running through her hair. “Why?”

“I don’t know, because it’s your name?”

“Do you want me to call you Maxine?”

“Gross. No. But that’s not the same.”

“I think it is.”

“But…” Max struggles with how to word this. “I mean, I don’t like to be called Maxine because that sounds like a name for an old lady, or a cat. I’m not a Maxine. I’m a Max. It’s different for you. Jane is the name your mom gave you, right? El is just a shortened version of a number you were assigned.”

“I know,” El says. Her voice turns thoughtful, sounds far away, and she begins playing with Max’s hair again. “Hopper and Joyce call me Jane, and I don’t mind. I think it makes them feel better about me. But I am not Jane. Jane is someone else, someone who did not get to exist. I have been Eleven much longer than I was Jane. Jane is the name my mother gave me, but I did not know my mother, and she did not know me.”

“Oh,” Max says, not really understanding.

“Who called you Max? Instead of Maxine? How did you become Max?”

“Uh, my dad shortened it, I think.” Her memory is hazy. Max thinks and talks about her dad so little that she has nearly forgotten him. Has nearly forgotten that she’s not an orphan, after all, and if he ever bothered to remember her, she might have a family again.

She doesn’t want to think about that.

“Mike called me El. It was the first name that felt like it belonged to me. I was El before I knew that I had been Jane.”

Max’s heart sinks at the mention of Mike. At the reminder that he knew El first, that he was the one to save her, long before Max came into the picture.

“When I was…away…I said your name and Dr. Owens thought I was talking about a boy,” El says. “I forgot that Max is usually a boy’s name because you are the only Max I know. You are Max, and I am El. Not Maxine and Jane. Max and El.”

El hasn’t answered her question in the way Max expected, but when has El ever done anything expected?

“Okay,” Max says. “It was just a question. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. It was a good question.”

“You can ask me a question, if you want.” When she says it, her pulse flutters and speeds up. Maybe it’s because she’s hoping El will ask something truly crazy, something like can I kiss you for real? Not for practice? Or is it weird that I think I might be in love with you?

The answers to those questions, if El were to ask, are: yes, you can kiss me for real, it’s all been real for me. And: no, it’s not weird, I’m in love with you too.

But El doesn’t ask those questions. She asks, “Where do you think you will go when it is all over? When we defeat Vecna?”

It’s not a question Max was expecting or hoping for, but she already agreed to answer it. It’s a perfectly normal question, but it stings. When we defeat Vecna. Not if. When. Just yesterday, Max was thinking that they don’t even need to bother defeating him, that their lives are perfect just as they are in their little bubble.

But that was stupid, wasn’t it? Out here, in the woods, the fresh air, it feels insane to imagine that they could spend their lives cooped up. And it’s unfair to El, who has always lived in a bubble, to even consider giving up on the possibility of a normal life. Of course they can’t stay here forever. Of course they can’t stay together forever.

Max imagines sun and sand, traffic and smog. The allure of Hollywood, the pull of the Pacific Ocean, the mystery of the redwoods. Hot, dry summers and winters with no snow. California is huge, and only a small, ugly part of it was hers, but compared to the flat, unending farmland of Indiana, it was paradise. But El…she lived in California too. She hated it. What will she think if Max says she wants to go back?

And could Max really live in a place where El will never go?

So, Max says, “I don’t know. I’m more focused on the ‘staying alive’ part for now.”

“Oh.”

“Why, do you know where you want to go?”

“New York,” El says, a little dreamily.

“New York? Like New York City?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

But Max knows why. She knows El. El, who gets caught up in the magic of movies, who believes that they are a mirror of real life instead of a perfect dream. In the movies, everybody wants to go to New York City. Go back, go for the first time, stay there, whatever. It’s where all the best things happen. It’s magical. Of course, that’s where El wants to go. For a girl who grew up in a lab, who took shelter in a basement and then a cabin, who briefly escaped to Chicago, who was bullied in California, who was hidden away in Nevada, New York City isn’t just a fantasy. It’s a promise of something better.

“I think it would be nice,” El says.

The first lines of a familiar song run through Max’s head. “El, have you seen the movie Annie?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

Max smiles, remembering a little orphan girl who fights to find happiness in the city. “I just think you’d like it. I’ll ask Nancy to ask Robin and Steve to rent it for us.”

“Okay.”

Max wants to ask more questions, like how El thinks she’ll get to NYC, or how she’ll convince Joyce and Hopper to go there, or if El would want her to come too, but she doesn’t. She sits up and picks a leaf up from the ground, tears it in half and then into little pieces, lets them to the ground like confetti. Then she leans towards El and says, “Want to practice?”

She hates herself for asking. She’s pathetic and selfish and she feels like she’s using El. But is it selfish if you’re the one getting hurt? Maybe not, but it’s definitely pathetic.

Oh well. Pathetic may as well be her middle name at this point.

“Here?”

“You won’t always be kissing in your bedroom. You have to be prepared for other settings.”

“Okay.” El closes the space between them.

It’s so easy. Getting El to kiss her, that is. Max feels like she’s cheating. It should be harder to convince your friend to kiss you, repeatedly, for practice. Shouldn’t it?

Kissing El is also easy. It has been from the beginning, but it’s even easier now that Max is free of her casts. Because kissing, Max now knows, isn’t just about what you do with your mouth. Sure, that’s the main thing, the thing that defines a kiss. Her lips on El’s lips, El’s lips parting to allow Max’s tongue to slip into her mouth. They’ve got that down. But it’s also about tilting your head the right way—for Max and El, to the left is most comfortable—so that you don’t bump noses. It’s about what you do with your hands, and for the first time since they started kissing, Max is able to use hers.

She puts one hand on El’s shoulder, then scoots forward and loops both arms around El’s neck. Their knees are bumping now. El’s hand trails down Max’s arm, and Max’s skin prickles with goosebumps. They haven’t been able to kiss like this before, not with Max wrapped up like a mummy. Max thinks about pulling El forward, into her lap, but that’s too bold, and besides, Max doesn’t think her bones and muscles are strong enough to hold another person.

But apparently, it’s not too bold, because El tugs on her and says in her softest voice, “Come closer,” and the next thing Max knows, she’s sitting in El’s lap. El’s hands are locked around Max’s waist and Max’s brain goes all staticky, like a broken TV.

They kiss for a long time, longer than usual. Max loses herself in it.

Neither of them notices the ground rumbling until they hear a familiar voice calling their names. “Max! El!”

Max nearly falls off El as El scrambles to her feet, barely remembering to catch Max’s hand. Max staggers up, the wind knocked out of her for more than one reason, and that’s when the ground rumbles again, fiercer this time. El starts to drag Max along as she runs towards the voice calling them—Nancy, it’s Nancy—but Max can’t keep up.

El stops abruptly. “Piggyback,” she says.

“Are you kidding?”

“No.”

“You can’t carry me.”

“Gates,” El wheezes, and suddenly the air is acrid with the scent of the gates, of the Upside Down, and Max doesn’t protest as El scoops her onto her back and runs.

It’s not what she should be worried about right now, but all Max can think is:

Did Nancy see us?

Chapter Text

El is running. Not very fast. She would run faster, away from the molten hot gates cracking open in the ground behind her, but Max cannot run, so El carries her. El’s focus narrows to the path in front of her and Max’s weight on her back. This is what El is good at. Running, fighting, saving her friends.

She has lost sight of Nancy, but she knows that Nancy is also good at running and fighting, so she is probably fine. El wants to know why Nancy is here anyway. They did not have a lesson scheduled today. Nancy said she had other things to do.

“Almost there,” El tells Max.

“Put me down.”

“No.”

El is not strong enough to go this far or this fast with another teenage girl on her back, but she has no choice. She will not leave Max behind.

Not very long ago, El and Max were kissing in the woods. Without her casts, Max kisses differently. Stronger, but still gentle. Her arms draped around El’s shoulders, hands clasped, knuckles pressing into El’s spine. The opposite of now. Now, Max’s hands are locked around El’s throat, constricting her breath. She is not trying to hurt El. She is clinging to her so that she will not fall.

El will not let her fall.

Out of breath now, El sees the cabin. Nancy is standing on the porch, waiting. Hopper is not there. El’s heart clenches. Where is Hopper?

The ground is not shaking anymore. El slows down and Max slides off her back, landing softly on her feet. El puts her arm around Max’s waist and supports her while she walks. She sneaks a glance at Max’s face, curious about the emotions she will find there. Max’s face is red, even though she was not running, and she is chewing on her bottom lip. El looks away, back towards Nancy. Nancy’s eyebrows are furrowed and her skirt is torn. She is not wearing shoes. There are holes in her stockings.

“What were you doing out there?” Nancy demands. “You know you aren’t supposed to go out.”

El says, “Max wanted to walk.”

Max says, “What the actual shit just happened?”

Nancy looks between the two of them. El does not know how to read her expression. Nancy says, “Get inside. Let’s talk.”

El and Max follow her inside. El guides Max to sit at the table while Nancy fills the kettle with water and puts it on to boil. She takes a dusty tea bag from a drawer and puts it in a mug. She does not offer to get anything for El and Max. While the water boils, Nancy paces.

“The gates have been the same size for months.” The kettle whistles and Nancy turns off the stove. She pours steaming water into her mug. “Why would they suddenly get bigger?”

“Power surge,” Max says. Her tone is flat. “He’s coming back.”

Nancy freezes and glances at the microwave. (Hopper bought one because Max begged for it. It is the only thing she has asked him for.) The clock numbers blink. “Power surge,” she repeats in a whisper. “The power went out. If the power went out, that means—what does it mean?”

El stares at the blinking clock and, without thinking, says, “Only through time time is conquered.”

Nancy whirls around. “What’s that? What are you talking about?”

“She’s reciting poetry,” Max says, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world.

Raising one eyebrow, Nancy says, “Poetry?”

“T.S. Eliot,” El says. “Burnt Norton.”

Nancy’s eyes narrow. “I thought we weren’t looking at Eliot. I thought we—”

“You aren’t. We are,” Max tells her.

El’s mouth is dry. She needs water, but she cannot move now, not with Nancy staring at them so dangerously. She had forgotten that they were hiding their research from Nancy. “We think Vecna is using Eliot’s poems,” she says. “Not Poe’s.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Nancy demands. “I’ve been having nightmares about Poe. And now there’s an actual nightmare out there, and you’re saying you might have known how to—”

“We don’t know anything,” Max interrupts. “I swear. We have some ideas, but it’s taking us a while to work through the poems, since I can’t see and El is—”

“Not good at reading,” El says.

“No,” Max says sternly. “That’s not it. You’re new to analyzing poetry. And understanding metaphors and shit.”

“Which is exactly why you should have told me. I could have worked through them by now!” Nancy is not quite yelling, but she has raised her voice.

“We weren’t sure if it was anything!” Max matches Nancy’s volume.

Their voices seem suddenly loud in the small space, and El covers her ears. “Stop!” she pleads. Nancy looks at her and Max turns towards her voice. El drops her hands slowly. “Please don’t fight.”

Nancy sighs and leans against the counter. She picks up her mug and fishes out the tea bag. She drops it in the sink. “We’re not fighting. Look, I’m upset. I realized that I left a sweater here, so I came over. You weren’t here. I went out to look for you. Then the ground started rumbling, at the same time you two had gone missing. How was I supposed to know you were—” She shakes her head and sips her tea. “I thought you might be dead. And now you tell me that you’ve been hiding a potentially huge clue from me. I don’t want to fight. I’m scared. I hate it, but I am. Happy?”

“Sorry,” Max says meekly.

“Do you want to hear the poems?” El offers.

“I need to read them myself,” Nancy says. “Where’s the book?”

“In our room,” El says. Our room. Not just her room anymore. She stands. “I can get it for you.”

“I’ll come with you,” Nancy says.

“You do not need to. I will be right back.”

“I’m coming.”

El looks at Max. Max raises her eyebrows and shoulders. El thinks she is saying don’t look at me, I don’t know anything. “Okay.”

Nancy and El go to the bedroom. Nancy shuts the door behind them, and only then does El remember all the objects in the room that Max brought out of memories. She hopes Nancy will not realize there is anything strange about them.

It turns out she does not need to worry about that. “I saw you and Max,” Nancy says. “In the woods.”

“I know. We saw you too.”

“No, El. I saw you.” Her voice drops to a whisper, like she does not want Max to hear, but Max’s hearing is good enough that El is almost certain she will hear anyway. “Kissing.”

“Oh.” Heat rushes to El’s face. She is not sure why. She is not embarrassed to kiss Max. But she does know that it is supposed to be a secret, and Nancy was not supposed to see them. “It’s okay. Max said girls can kiss. We are practicing.”

Nancy blinks twice and opens her mouth. No words come out. She looks like a dead fish El saw at the grocery store once. “Practicing?”

“Yes. For when we have boyfriends again.”

Nancy nods slowly. “I…see.” She clears her throat. “Ah, El, do you—do you like kissing Max?”

“Yes,” El says. She is not sure why they are having this conversation. She just wants to get the book. “She is my friend and she is a good kisser. Better than Mike.” She realizes who she is talking to and claps a hand over her mouth. “Sorry.”

“I don’t want to know anything about Mike’s kissing abilities, good or bad. But El, you do know that most people don’t practice kissing their friends, right?”

El could explain that no one taught her the right way to have friends, but she doesn’t. “Why not? It makes sense.”

“Because…kissing…the way you and Max were kissing…isn’t really for friends. People usually don’t want to do that with their friends. They usually only want to do it with people they’re attracted to. Romantically.”

“It is just practice.”

“Okay, but what do you feel when you practice? How do you feel?”

El thinks about that. About the difference between what she feels and how she feels. Is there a difference? She finally takes the book from the shelf and hands it to Nancy. “I feel good when I kiss Max,” she says. “And safe. And warm. I lose track of time and I could do it forever, I think, or at least until I got hungry.”

Nancy doesn’t say anything. She just looks at El, then at the book, then back at El. She sighs. “Well, if you decide that it isn’t practice, and that it’s real, just know that it’s okay. The way you feel. It’s okay to feel that way about Max.”

Now El is lost. “We should go back to the kitchen. Max is waiting. This is a long time to get a book.”

“We can tell her we were talking about Mike. I don’t think she’ll ask questions about that.”

“But we were not talking about Mike. Why would we lie? Friends don’t lie.”

Nancy sighs again. “El. Sometimes it’s okay to lie. You have to learn that.”

“Max can hear everything,” El tells her. “Even whispers.”

Nancy turns the doorknob. “Now you tell me.”

*

Back in the kitchen, Max waits for them with her head on the table. She lifts her head and props it on the back of her hand. “What were you doing in there, writing your own poetry?”

“El was showing me all your books,” Nancy says. A lie, and not the one they agreed on. “Not as much science fiction as I was expecting.”

Max licks her lips. It is an involuntary gesture, El knows this, but it makes her think about kissing again. About what Nancy said. About whether Max heard everything, or if she somehow blocked out their conversation. “Yeah, well, El doesn’t like it. Right, El?”

“Right,” El says. She is beginning to understand her friends’ fascination with science fiction. Maybe it is because they grew up as regular children, in homes instead of labs, in school practicing math instead of practicing powers. El prefers books about regular people. She thinks that maybe everybody wants what they don’t have.

“Anyway,” Nancy says, “Let’s talk about Eliot.” She sets the book on the table with a thump. “Which poem?”

El takes the book and turns to Burnt Norton. The page is well worn, its corner folded, a wrinkle on the edge where her thumb always holds it open. “There are four poems, we think. The Four Quartets. Like the four gates.”

Nancy nods thoughtfully. “Okay. Go ahead, El, read it.”

“Me? You said you needed to read them yourself.”

“I’m still your teacher,” Nancy says. She raises an eyebrow. “If you’ve been reading this as much as you say, then surely you don’t mind reading it out loud to me.”

“Okay,” El says. She looks at the poem. The words swim in front of her. She has read them countless times, and their meaning is still beyond her grasp. She swallows and begins to read.

When she is the done, the final words—“stretching before and after”—seem to echo in the room.

Nancy Wheeler says, “Hm.”

“That all you’ve got, Nancy Drew?” Max asks.

“I’m thinking.”

El flips back to the first page of the first poem. There are words written in another language, with different letters, at the very beginning. “What does this mean?”

Nancy takes the book and frowns. “They’re epigraphs. They can go at the beginning of a poem or a story. To set the tone. But I don’t even know what language this is,” she says. “I’ll have to ask Robin.” She scans the page, flips a few pages, and hands the book back to El. “I’ll go home and call her, and we’ll make a plan. You two stay here. Seriously, don’t go anywhere.”

“Do you want to take the book?” El asks.

“We can find another copy. Or I’ll come back. You may as well keep that one for yourselves.” She heads for the door. “Stay here. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

After the door closes behind Nancy, Max scratches her head and says, “That was weird.”

“It was?”

“Kinda. I dunno. Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe she’s just annoyed with us for keeping these poems from her.”

El wonders if she should tell Max that Nancy saw them kissing. But if she tells her, then El will have to tell her about her conversation with Nancy. El is too confused to tell Max. “I am going out,” she announces.

“What? Where?”

“I need to see them.”

“See who?”

“Not who. The gates. I need to see.”

“El, don’t. Just wait for Nancy. We’ll figure this out. I’m sorry I made you keep the poems a secret. I thought—never mind. It was a bad idea. Just don’t go out there alone.”

“I am going.” She needs to see what they are up against, and more importantly, she needs to think. Away from Max, away from the cabin. It has been a long time since El was alone, and although she knows she needs her friends, needs Max, she thinks she also needs her own space sometimes.

So she leaves. She takes the book of poetry and she goes outside, alone. Her heart beats fiercely in her chest, but she ignores it as she takes a few steps, then a few more, then even more, until she has walked back into the woods. The air begins to smell like smoke and she sees embers in the distance. She continues walking until she is close enough to see the ragged edge of a gate, and then El sits.

“What do you want?” she asks.

No one answers. Of course, no one answers.

Besides, El knows what Henry wants. He wants everyone to suffer. He wants to create a world of pain because he cannot imagine anything else. And he wants her. What she does not know is why. Does he want her power? To make her suffer? To make her watch her friends suffer?

And is it really a want, or is it a need? Can he survive without El?

El reaches towards the gate. It is hot, hotter than anything she has ever felt, and she yanks her hand away. She tries not to think about the people who were swallowed when it opened. The people who were crushed and broken and killed. Her fault?

No. Not her fault. She has to accept that.

A feather floats down from the sky and El lifts her hand to catch it. It is small and fuzzy. Mostly gray. El looks up, trying to find the bird, but she sees only trees and sky. She is alone. She wonders what would happen if she jumped into the gate. What would she become? Would she twist and burn like Henry, or would she turn into ash? Would he know that she had joined him? Would he end this war on her world?

Her world. Sometimes it does not feel like it belongs to her. Sometimes she feels like she does not belong here. But…she wants this world to be hers. She wants to live without fear, without the constant need to fight. Lenora was supposed to be a safe place, and yet El still had to fight for herself. Against Angela and the other girls who could tell she did not belong.

Henry does not want her to go quietly. He wants her to fight, and he wants her to lose.

El closes her hand around the feather. She will fight, but she will not lose.

She just needs a little more time.

But the gates got bigger today, and El knows that time is running out.

She has been wasting her time, hasn’t she? Reading poems and looking for clues that may not exist. Learning with Nancy and Max, as if she could ever hope to catch up on all the schooling she missed. And all the time spent kissing Max, practicing for a future that she may not have.

El is suddenly angry with herself. How could she have been so stupid? How could she have wasted so many days? Maybe some people can wait out the end of the world by reading and kissing, but she knows better. She is not that kind of person. She does not have that kind of life.

What if she and Max had gone just a little further into the woods earlier today? What if Nancy had not come looking for them? They might have died, Max might have died, and it would have been all El’s fault. She has been careless.

And now she is running out of time.

What she does not understand is why she has been so careless. She wants to save the world. She wants to save her friends and her family. She wants to save Max—

But she also wants to kiss Max.

I lose track of time and I could do it forever, I think.

That is what she told Nancy.

And Nancy said it’s okay to feel that way about Max.

What way?

What might have been and what has been / Point to one end, which is always present.

That is what Eliot wrote in Burnt Norton. The poem is about time. About how there is no escaping from time, so you may as well do what you want, because time will pass either way.

El has no idea if that is correct. It is simply the feeling she gets from the poem. It is too complicated for her.

El is on the brink of understanding how everything fits together. Herself, Henry, the poems, the gates, Max.

But she decides, for the moment, to stop looking for the answer to everything. Instead, she closes her eyes, covers her ears, and reaches out for Max.

Max is in the cabin, in their shared room. She is laying in El’s bed, curled up on her side. Her red hair covers her face, but El can tell from the way she is breathing that Max is crying. Why is she crying? El desperately wants to reach out and touch her, to kiss her forehead the way she did last night, to tell her that everything is going to be okay. Even if El does not truly believe that everything will be okay, she thinks Nancy is right. She needs to learn when it is okay to lie.

El uncovers her ears and opens her eyes. She is back in the woods, sitting beneath the trees, staring ahead at the gate, an ugly red gash in the earth. She thinks about how the fourth gate opened when Max died. She thinks about how she somehow brought Max back to life.

She thinks about how she does not know what she would have done with the rest of her life if Max had stayed dead.

Without Max, El would not be El.

And it all seems suddenly, painfully obvious, here in the woods as a breeze rustles through the leaves, making a sound like the trees are laughing. El gasps as an acorn falls and hits her head, and then she laughs too, laughs with her head back, brushing the bark of the tree.

She loves Max.

Right?

She thinks Max is pretty, and she wants to be with her all the time, and she likes kissing her, more than she ever liked kissing Mike, and she does not know what she would do without Max.

But.

But.

Does El really know what love is?

She thought she loved Mike. Maybe she still does. She used to want to spend all her time with Mike, too. She did not know what she would do without him.

And she loves Will, loves Jonathan, loves Joyce, loves Hopper. She does not know what she would do without them, either. They are her family. That is a different kind of love, but it is still love, and how does she know that her love for Max is any different? What if she is just confused?

El picks up the acorn and rolls it around in her palm. Under the right conditions, with the right care, it could become a tree. El looks up at the trees swaying in the wind. How many acorns do they drop? How many become trees? Do their parent trees know what they become?

All her questions make her dizzy. She lets the acorn fall. It will either become a tree, or it will not. She has no control over what happens to the acorn. She needs to focus on what she can control.

She needs to get back to Max.

*

The cabin is quiet when El arrives. She is panting from her second run of the day. She fills a cup with water from the sink and drinks it. Then she goes to her bedroom door and stands there. She does not know what she is going to say, or what she is going to do. All she knows is that Max is in there, and she needs to talk to Max. So El opens the door.

Max is sitting up, legs dangling over the side of the bed, examining something in her hands. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail now, and El looks at her eyelashes, her freckles, the shape of her lips. Are friends supposed to know what their friends’ lips look like? Are they supposed to know that their friends’ lips are dusted with freckles?

“Max,” she says.

“Hey,” Max says, looking up from her hands. “You’re back.”

El does not say anything in reply. She steps into the room and crosses to stand in front of Max. Placing one hand on Max’s knee, El leans down and kisses Max’s lips, lingering for a few seconds before pulling away. Max’s eyebrows shoot up and her lips part in a small, surprised O.

This is the first time El has kissed Max without asking if she wants to practice first.

“Max, I—” El begins to say.

But then, Max opens her clasped palms to show El a butterfly, and the front door of the cabin bursts open. Startled, El jumps back from Max as Robin Buckley tumbles in ahead of Nancy, and the butterfly escapes from Max’s hands.

“Did somebody call for a translator?” Robin asks loudly.

El steps out of the bedroom, closing the door behind her, leaving Max and the butterfly inside. “We did not call for anyone.”

“She’s here to help us with the epigraphs,” Nancy explains. She looks apologetic. “She insisted on coming over right away.”

“We are not doing a very good job of keeping this house secret,” El says, glancing from Nancy to Robin.

“Yeah, well, you and Max aren’t doing a very good job of staying in the house instead of sneaking out to kiss in the woods,” Nancy retorts. She immediately claps a hand over her mouth as Robin breaks into a grin and the bedroom door flies open, bringing both Max and the butterfly out to join the group.

“You did see us!” Max shouts.

“I didn’t,” Robin says, raising her hand. “Congratulations.”

“It’s not—we’re not—”

“We’re just practicing,” El says, even though it now makes her feel hollow. Because Nancy is right. For her, it is real. She almost reaches out to put her hand on Max’s shoulder, but she thinks better of it.

Robin picks up the book of poems from where they left it on the table and flops onto the couch. “Fine, fine, we don’t have to talk about it…now.” She winks at them and opens the book.

Nancy mouths the word sorry at El. El looks away, at Max. Max’s cheeks are bright red. Her head moves and El follows her motions. She is watching the butterfly.

The butterfly.

It is a memory. It must be. But now it is here.

El does not have time to reflect on what this means before Nancy says, “Max? What are you looking at?"

“Rude, Nancy. She can’t see,” Robin says.

“I know that. That’s why I’m asking.”

Max drops her chin and mutters, “Shit.”

El exhales. “The butterfly. She can see it.”

Another secret out.

Robin says, “Holy shit,” at the same time Nancy says, “How is that possible?”

The butterfly does a loop around the room and Max holds out a hand. It settles there, fluttering its wings. “Turns out when El zombiefied me, she gave me some powers. A little prize for breaking all my bones and going blind.”

“Be serious, Max,” Nancy says.

“I am being serious. I can bring stuff out of memories. Usually it’s little stuff. Not alive. Well, except for the first thing, a flower, but that’s alive in a different way. This is the first thing that’s alive alive. Moving. You know.”

“I don’t take shit out of my mind so actually I don’t know,” Robin replies. “That’s cool though. Nice going, Max.”

“How long have you been doing this?” Nancy demands.

“A while,” El says.

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“Didn’t think we needed to,” Max says.

Nancy huffs and crosses her arms. El can tell she is frustrated, but Max is right. There was no reason for them to tell Nancy, or anyone. They agreed they did not want anyone to know unless it became important. El knows that having powers makes people more interested in you, and not always for good reasons. Usually for bad reasons.

Robin snaps her fingers. “Let’s put a pin in Max’s magic tricks for a second.”

“Not a magic trick,” Max grumbles.

Pointing to the book, Robin says, “Okay, so first of all. The name of each poem refers to a place. Burnt Norton, East Coker, Little Gidding, The Dry Salvages. Not sure if that’s significant. Just mentioning it. And then there’s the epigraphs. They’re in Greek. The first one is something about wisdom, but listen to the second one. The way up and the way down are one and the same.”

“And?” Nancy asks impatiently.

“The way up? The way down? One and the same? C’mon, Nance, use that pretty head of yours. Sounds like a pretty direct reference to the Upside Down to me.”

“So?” Max asks.

“So, you and El were right. These poems are clues.”

“And? What’s it supposed to mean? That El has to send Vecna up here, try to reverse what she did when she sent him down there?”

“Oh, Max. Max, Max, Max. It’s not a rule book. We’re trying to understand how he thinks, what his weaknesses are. Why these poems resonated with him. We don’t need to understand what the poet meant by every single word. That’s the thing about poetry. It can kinda mean…whatever you want it to mean. So all we have to do is figure out what it meant to Henry.”

“What about what it means to us?” El asks.

“I mean, yeah, that’s cool too, but I think it’s really more about Henry. What makes him tick, and all that. Oops. No pun intended, Max. Tick. Tock. Vecna’s clock.”

“It was fine before you explained it,” Max says.

“Anyway,” Robin says. “I don’t think we need to do extensive research into the poet. It’s very unlikely that a young Henry would have been all that interested in a British poet’s life. It’s also unlikely that he would have had a complex understanding of poetry. If we can pull out the basic concepts, and put them together, I think that will help.” She whistles three notes and looks at El. “I actually think El is the best person for this.”

“Why?” El and Nancy ask at the same time.

Robin laughs and says to El, “You’re very literal. From what we’ve heard from Victor, Henry was not the kind of kid who worked in metaphors. If these poems did influence him, I think it’s very possible that he took parts of them quite literally.”

“Now I’m confused,” Max says. “First you said that poetry isn’t a rule book. Now you’re saying we have to take it literally. Which is it?”

“Look, I’m spitballing here,” Robin admits. “Haven’t read them myself. Nance here has had me reading The Telltale Heart for weeks. I’m losing my mind.”

“Enough,” Nancy says. “We’re talking in circles. Let’s just—”

Again, the door opens, and this time Hopper comes in. El is flooded with relief to see him home, but her relief is short-lived. Usually, when he gets home from work, he grunts a greeting and drags himself to bed. Not this time. Hopper immediately starts barking orders. “Get your things. One bag each. No more. What the hell are you two doing here?” He holds up a hand as Robin and Nancy begin to speak. “Never mind. You’ll have to go too.”

“Go where?” El asks. Now she is afraid. It has been a strange day, and she does not like how Hopper is acting.

“Somewhere safe,” he says, in a tone that El knows means he will not answer questions. “They’re coming to inspect this gate. They’ll find you.”

El does not ask who ‘they’ are. It does not matter. She takes Max, who is frozen in place, by the arm and drags her to their room. She finds two bags and starts to pack one for herself, one for Max.

“What’s happening?” Max asks. She sounds scared.

“I don’t know.”

“Where do you think we’re going?”

“I said I do not know, Max.”

Max’s voice cracks. “I don’t want to leave.”

El stops shoving books and clothes in their bags. She stands and puts her hands on Max’s shoulders. Max is shaking. “This is what we do. People like us. We always have to leave.” It is not comforting, but it is true. Max likes the truth as much as El does. Even when the truth is hard.

“Will we stay together?”

“I don’t kn—”

Max kisses her. Her lips taste like salt. Tears. She pulls back, rests her forehead on El’s. “I need you. El, I—”

Hopper bangs on the door. “Hurry up!”

El tucks a lock of Max’s hair behind her ear. “We have to go,” she whispers.

Max nods once and El kneels again, quickly zipping both bags before hoisting them onto her shoulders. Hopper opens the door and his face is etched with worry, not anger. This is how El knows they are in danger.

“Where we going?” she dares to ask him, as he ushers the five of them—El, Max, Nancy, and Robin—out of the cabin and into the car. Hopper does not answer, and everyone is quiet as he starts the car and pulls away. El looks back at the cabin, thinking of everything they left behind. She has a bad feeling that she will not see it again.

In the back seat, Robin clutches the book of poetry. Nancy has a bag of food, hastily thrown together while El was packing. Both of them look scared, and El feels bad, feels like she has once again dragged innocent people into her mess of a life. Max, seated between them, stares straight ahead, no emotion on her face.

“We’ll drop these three off with the Wheelers,” Hopper says. El’s heart sinks. “You and I will meet up with Joyce and the boys. We’ll go somewhere else from there.”

El loves Hopper, but in this moment, she hates him. Hates him for making her hide, for separating her from Max. “For how long?” she asks, even though she already knows the answer.

“As long as we need to,” is Hopper’s reply.

Chapter Text

Hopper drops Nancy, Robin, and Max off and barely puts on the brakes before speeding away with El.

Standing there, as the dust from the road settles in a film on her skin, Max is upset and she’s scared. But most of all, she’s pissed.

Max Mayfield, pissed, is not someone you want to go up against. “Asshole!” she screams after the car, as if that will do anything.

Unfortunately, of all the places Hopper could have stranded her, he chose the Wheeler house. So, after Nancy and Robin coax her off the lawn and into the house, the first person who witnesses Max in all her pissed off glory is an unsuspecting Mike Wheeler.

“Oh hey, Nancy, Robin…Max?” he greets them.

“Leave me alone,” Max grumbles, fully intending to storm off before remembering that she doesn’t have the layout of this house memorized and will almost certainly bump into something if she tries storming. A spectacular fall will not help her case. If possible, she’d like to keep her bones intact for the remainder of her (second) life. Instead, she crosses her arms and scowls in what she hopes is Mike’s direction.

“Uh, okay, jeez.”

“Don’t mind her,” Robin says, a little too cheerily considering the circumstances. “Hopper wouldn’t let her go into hiding with El.”

“Why is El hiding?” Mike asks. His voice pitches higher, betraying his concern. Acting like he has any right to be as worried about El as Max does. Max wants to dunk his head in a bucket of cold water.

“Top secret,” Robin says.

“Hopper won’t tell us,” Nancy translates.

“Is she okay?”

“For now, dipshit. Are you even listening?” Max asks. She can’t help it. Mike bugs her. Maybe it’s because he’s annoying. Maybe it’s because he was El’s boyfriend. Maybe it’s a combination of the two. (Max isn’t jealous. No way. She would never be jealous of Michael Wheeler. As if.)

“Okay, that’s enough,” Nancy says. She puts her hand on Max’s shoulder. “He’s allowed to be worried.”

“You’re not my mom,” Max tells her, shrugging off the hand.

“Nancy’s parents aren’t home, and she’s eighteen, so she kind of is,” Robin chimes in.

“Her mom is dead, Robin,” Nancy hisses. “Don’t joke about that.”

“Oh shit. Sorry, Max. We’ll both be your moms. But like, cool moms. You want some snacks?”

“This isn’t your house!” Nancy sounds annoyed, but also a little bit amused. Like she’s talking to a cute puppy that just chewed up a brand new toy. “Older sisters. That’s better, right Max?”

“Can somebody please tell me where there’s a room I can lock myself in?” Max asks. “Maybe with a radio or TV?”

“I’ll take her to the basement,” Mike says.

Max could hug him. It just might be the most useful thing he’s ever said. “Please.”

“Can you climb down stairs?”

She’s annoyed again. Tough luck, Mike. “Of course I can climb down stairs. I’ve still got legs, don’t I?”

“All right. Um, I guess you can just follow me—do you need me to hold your hand, or something?”

“Gross, no way,” Max says. “Start walking. I can follow your footsteps.”

Max follows Mike. It’s easier than she expects it to be, at least until they reach the stairs, and then she learns that having legs doesn’t mean she can use them however she wants. She clings to the railing as she takes the steps slowly, the whole time feeling like she’s about to fall.

“You can put your hand on my shoulder if you need to,” Mike offers.

“Are you trying to kill me? I’m much safer with the railing.”

“Okay, sorry.”

“Whatever.”

“You want me to tell you how many steps are left?”

“No. I’m fine.”

But this is a lie, as it turns out, and Max steps forward instead of down when she thinks she has reached the bottom of the stairs. She falls, briefly airborne, and stumbles into Mike, who lets out a surprised oof.

It’s a shock to them both when Max leans into Mike and lets him support her. The short walk through the house, the brief climb downstairs, and now her fall, have drained her energy and made her legs ache. She longs for El, her steady presence, her gentle comfort. But El isn’t here. Only Mike. A lump forms in Max’s throat, but she refuses to cry.

“You okay?” Mike asks.

Max doesn’t answer.

“Let’s get you to the couch.”

Max nods and lets him lead her there. She’s still leaning on him, and she hates it. He’s so tall, her head is resting on his armpit. At least it doesn’t stink. Mike helps her settle on the couch and she can tell he’s hovering above her awkwardly. “I’m fine,” she says. “You can go now.”

“I feel like I shouldn’t.”

“I think you should.”

“Is she okay? El? Is she, you know, is she—”

“Hopper will take care of her. You don’t have to worry,” Max says, even though she personally is very worried. Mike doesn’t have the right to be worried the same way she is. She’s so wrapped up in her own misery that she forgets how sharing misery is so beneficial, they literally created a word for it.

“I don’t mean right now, um, I mean in general. Like, how has she been doing?”

Max wants to be snarky, to tell him it’s none of his business, but she’s too tired and heartsick for El to deny him this conversation. As much as he’s hurt El, he does care for her in his own way. She can give him an update, at least. “She’s okay. Stressed about, you know, everything. But aside from that, yeah. She’s good.”

“Good. That’s good. I’m glad she has you.”

Max gulps. “Yeah. Me too. I mean, I’m glad I have her.”

Mike starts to say something else, but he stops before he can get a word out. “Um, I guess I’ll leave you alone then. Do you need anything?”

“Nancy mentioned snacks.”

“Yeah, yeah. Of course. I can bring you some snacks.”

He leaves, footsteps thundering up the stairs, and Max slides down on the couch, closing her eyes.

She’s asleep before Mike returns with the snacks.

She dreams.

Max is at school. Her old school, back in California, except it’s a high school now instead of a middle school. She’s in class, English class, and the teacher is writing a haiku on the board when someone passes Max a note. She opens it and reads:

‘I know who likes you.’

She looks around but she can’t figure out who passed her the note. Everyone’s face is blurry. And then she spots El, in the corner of the room, staring intently at the teacher. Max calls her name and El looks over. The teacher doesn’t seem to have heard. Max holds up the note so El can see and mouths ‘You?’

El looks confused. She shakes her head. She looks away.

Max tears the note up and lets the pieces fall.

She’s woken up by the sound of something clattering onto the floor. Immediately, she’s on high alert, sitting up, ready to flee.

“Shit, sorry,” Mike says. “Dropped the remote. Did I wake you up?”

It’s obvious that he did, but Max is too groggy from her nap to make a snappy comeback. “Yeah. It’s fine. Why are you here?”

“I, um. I thought I should keep an eye on you.”

Max rubs her eyes and frowns. “I’m not a baby. You’re not babysitting me.”

“No, yeah, no, I know. I just—you want some pretzels?”

It’s a peace offering, and Max decides to accept. “Sure.”

A chair squeaks as Mike stands up and crosses to Max, settling a bowl on her lap. He quickly retreats, and the chair makes another noise of protest as he sits down. “Were you having a nightmare?” he asks.

Max shoves a handful of pretzels in her mouth and makes a point of chewing loudly, with her mouth open, while she answers. “Nope.”

“Oh. Okay. You were kind of tossing and turning, that’s all.”

“You watching me sleep, Wheeler?”

“What? No, no, of course not! I mean, not intentionally. I was reading, I have a book, I swear—”

Max laughs. She loves riling Mike up. It’s really one of the great pleasures of her sorry life, and she misses getting to do it so often. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I’m teasing. I get it. I mean, I was dead and in a coma. Makes sense that you’re worried I’ll kick it at any moment. Anyway, I did have a dream. Not a nightmare, but also not great.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

Max thinks about the dream, her disappointment when El denied liking her. “I don’t know if I should.”

“What, did you kill somebody in it? Did you kill me?”

“What? No. It’s embarrassing, that’s all.”

“Oh, that kind of dream. Don’t worry, I won’t tell Lucas.”

Max feels her face warm up about a thousand degrees. “Oh my god, no, not that kind of dream, it has nothing to do with Lucas.” And then, before she can stop herself, she adds, “I don’t really—like him like that, not anymore.”

“You don’t?” Mike sounds surprised. “I know you haven’t called him, but I figured that was because Hopper wouldn’t let you.”

Great, he just had to remind her that she had completely ignored Lucas for the past…how long had it been, anyway? When had they all met at the library? Whatever, it had been a while. The point was, she was totally avoiding Lucas. Lucas, the boy who had been by her side when she died, who had taken shifts with El at the hospital. “Yeah, I know, I should talk to him.”

“You like someone else, then.”

Why did Mike have to choose right now to become smart and emotionally observant? “I didn’t say that. Where are you getting that from?”

“You’re blushing so hard you look like a ripe tomato,” Mike says. He munches on a pretzel.

Max can tell he’s smirking. She wishes she could see so she could slap the smirk off his face. Well, blindness doesn’t prevent slapping. She’ll get her moment. “Goddammit, fine, yeah there’s someone I like, but that’s all I’m telling you.”

Silence hangs in the room for about ten seconds before Mike says, “Is it El?”

Max doesn’t answer right away, which is an answer in itself. Finally, she says, “How did you know?”

“Well, I didn’t know, it was a guess. She’s basically the only person you see these days, aside from my sister. But I guess I know now.”

“Asshole. You tricked me.”

“You could have denied it!”

But Max isn’t mad at Mike, not really. She’s embarrassed. She hates talking about her feelings, and it’s infuriating that Mike Wheeler, of all people, is able to read her like an open book. “I don’t want to talk about this with you,” she says. And then, for emphasis, because she’s hurting and she wants him to hurt too, she says, “We aren’t friends.”

The chair creaks again as Mike stands. Max wouldn’t be surprised if Mike cursed her out, called her a bitch and some other choice words. It might actually somehow make her feel better. But unfortunately, Mike doesn’t yell, and what he actually says is far, far worse. “You know, Max, I used to think you were mean to me for fun, that your teasing didn’t really mean anything. But that’s not it, is it? You’re just…mean. I know—I know you’ve been through a lot. I get it. But we all have, and you’re the only one who’s mean. El’s not mean. Will’s not mean. Lucas, Dustin, Steve, Robin, even Nancy. None of them are mean. Just you.”

And then he’s gone, trudging up the stairs, and all Max wants to do is scream. She wants to tear up this whole room, tear the whole house down.

Instead, she cries.

Mean. Mean. Is it true? Is she mean? Of course it’s true. How has she never known before now? Why did Mike Wheeler have to be the one to tell her?

Maybe she wasn’t always like this, wasn’t always mean, but she thinks she knows when it started.

Max wipes away her tears and goes into her memories.

She’s about to meet her new stepfather and his son, her new brother. Max is excited. Nervous. She’s never had a brother before, but she always wanted one. She thinks it would have been nice to have an older brother to show her the ropes, or a younger one to teach. A sister would have been cool, too. Anything except what she has, which is just herself.

A car speeds up to the house, and two people get out. Her stepfather looks meaner than he did in the pictures her mom showed her, and Billy is older than she expected. At 17, he looks more like a man than a boy. Still, Max is optimistic. She approaches her new brother and sticks out her hand. Later, she’ll think that if she hadn’t gone for a handshake, things might have been different.

Max, older Max, watching the memory as if it’s a movie, knows that nothing would have changed.

Billy smiles, but his smile is oily, slippery, unkind. “Well, well, well. S’pose you must be Maxine.”

“Max. You must be Billy.”

“That’s me.” He looks Max up and down and still does not shake her hand. “You know, I was hoping you’d be cuter. Chicks love guys with cute little sisters. Oh well. You’ll have to do.”

Max’s hand is frozen between them. Mechanically, she forces it down. She stares at the ground, at her scuffed shoes, and wishes she had left her hair down today, wishes she didn’t have freckles, wishes she wasn’t so knobby-kneed, rectangular, flat-chested. Some girls her age are starting to look like teenagers, but she stills looks exactly the same as she did when she was 11. She doesn’t know how to answer her new brother. If he was a guy at the skatepark, she would give him the middle finger or say a rude word or ignore him. He would mean nothing to her.

Instead, Max does something that she has never done before now, but will do over and over again after this moment. Max chooses to pretend that what Billy said was not what he meant. Max laughs. As if it was a joke. As if this first insult won’t lead to a million more.

Max returns to the present.

It always comes back to Billy, doesn’t it?

Max hates how much of a hold he still has on her. She wonders, not for the first time, if he would have been better, kinder, if he had survived his attack. Could he have been redeemed?

Or are some people just rotten all the way through?

Is Max?

Max doesn’t want to be mean. She’s tried not to be. Hasn’t she? She remembers another introduction that didn’t go the way she’d hoped. Introducing herself to El, another rejected handshake. Since meeting Billy, Max had never introduced herself that way. She hadn’t planned to ever again. But with El, something felt different. She was wrong, of course. She remembers precisely how awful that rejection felt, and how it made her never want to be kind again.

Until El decided she wanted to be friends after all, and Max forgave her without hesitation.

Max suddenly thinks it’s possible that the only person she has ever been truly kind to is El.

This revelation is not going to make her in-love-with-my-best-and-possibly-only-friend situation any easier.

*

Mike doesn’t return to visit her. Nancy and Robin take turns checking in, making sure she eats and uses the bathroom and brushes her teeth, but mostly Max is alone. She listens to the radio when there’s good music or stories, but she can’t stand weather and traffic updates or the incessant chatter of the hosts. When she tires of the radio, she runs her hands along the spines of the video cassettes on the shelf and chooses one by feel. She fumbles and drops a cassette the first time she uses the VCR, but after that she gets into a groove. Without El to describe the people and places, it’s not as much fun, but it’s something to do.

She has no idea how long she’s been in the Wheeler house when one day in the late afternoon—she knows it’s late afternoon because the house smells like stew, which means Mrs. Wheeler is cooking dinner—someone comes down the stairs and sits next to her on the couch.

“Whatcha watching?” Robin asks. “I mean—listening to?”

“Are you just always here?” It sounds mean. Why does she always have to sound mean?

“Sometimes I go to work. Sometimes Steve’s house. I just don’t really like being in my own house.”

“I get it. Um. I don’t know what I’m watching.”

Max expects Robin to tell her what she’s watching. Girl works at the video store. Seems like something she’d know. But she says the much less logical thing, which is, “What do you think you’re watching?”

“You want me to guess the movie?”

“No, no. I want you to make up a movie based on what you’ve heard. Doesn’t that sound more fun?”

The mean part of Max wants to say no, because the mean part of Max shuts down fun ideas for no reason except to make the other person question themselves. Max fights her inner, meaner self, and says how she really feels: “Yeah, that does sound more fun. I’m in.”

“Sweet. Okay, tell me the basics. What’s the genre?”

“Drama, I think. It’s not loud enough to be action. The music switches back and forth between instrumentals and vocals, but it’s all kind of dark and dramatic.”

“Mhm. Where’s it taking place?”

“Everyone has an American accent, but the kind you only hear in really old movies, maybe a little Southern? Not a city. It’s not noisy, and I’ve heard a couple cars, but mostly horses.”

Robin asks her questions about the characters, their motives, what they look like. Max makes things up based on what she hears. The woman is beautiful, but dresses plainly because she doesn’t want the attention of men. The love interest, a passing cowboy, is the first man who has every intrigued her. Stuff like that. When the movie ends, Robin says, “Wanna do another?”

Max surprises herself by agreeing without hesitation. “Sure.”

“Sweet. Go ahead, pick one.”

“You pick one.”

They play this game for a while, longer than Max can keep track of. They don’t watch entire movies, just long enough that Max can guess the plot, setting, and characters. Even on the ones she’s seen before, it’s fun to imagine what else they could be about. But eventually, she tires of it, and Robin is observant enough to notice without Max having to ask for a break.

“Sorry I kinda crashed your afternoon,” Robin says.

“Huh? No, you didn’t crash it. I…it gets lonely down here.”

“You really haven’t gone upstairs at all, have you?”

“I fell the first time I came downstairs. I’m not doing that again.”

“You could practice. A couple steps at a time. Count them so you don’t misstep.”

“Yeah. I guess I could do that.” She’s not going to do that.

“Speaking of practice…you and El aren’t really practicing kissing, are you?”

Max buries her head in her hands. She had forgotten about Nancy spilling the beans about the kiss she witnessed in front of Robin. “Oh my God, how long have you been planning to ask that?”

“All day,” Robin says. From her tone, Max can tell she’s grinning. “Actually, since you got here. But hey, I’m the one asking questions here. I get why you would lie to Nancy. But you can tell me. Although, Nance isn’t how you think she is—”

“Back up. Yes, we’re really practicing. It wasn’t a lie. But why would we lie to Nancy and not to you?”

“Oh! You don’t know? That I’m a lesbian?”

Max has hardly ever heard that word uttered so casually, without a hint of insult. “No, I didn’t know.”

“Well, surprise! Are you surprised?”

“Do you want me to be surprised?”

“Hm. Good question. On the one hand, if you’re surprised, that means I’m doing a terrible job representing my people. But on the other hand, if you’re not surprised, that means I’m doing a terrible job being in the closet.”

“Let’s just say I’m not not surprised.”

“Double negative. Love it. Anyway, enough about me. We’re supposed to be talking about you. So, practicing. How’d you come up with that, anyway? Was it her idea? Yours? Are you sure it’s—”

“It was my idea. She went along with it. Yes I’m sure it’s practice.” Max pauses. Oh, whatever. She can’t make things any worse. “At least, it’s practice for her. It’s kind of, well, real for me. I want it to be real.”

“Oh, shoot. That’s tough, my little redheaded friend. I feel for you, I really do.”

“That’s it? You don’t have some kind of sage advice for me?”

“I’m a lesbian, not a wizard.” Robin pats her on the shoulder. “You’ll figure it out.”

*

The day after Robin’s visit, Nancy makes her way downstairs. Instead of checking in and leaving again, as she usually does, she sits on the couch next to Max and announces that they’re going to continue Max’s homeschool lessons.

Max is less than thrilled. “Why? That was to get El out of school. I just happened to be there.”

“Because,” Nancy says haughtily, “you cannot spend your days watching movies. It’s not good for you.”

“And studying will be? What am I studying for? We’re all going to get swallowed into the Upside Down sooner or later. I don’t think I’ll need to do math down there.”

“Very funny.”

“I’m serious.”

Nancy tries a different tactic. “Look, I know you’re missing El, and you must be lonely down here. I’m trying to keep you company. This is the only way I know how. Just let me try, please?”

Max remembers that she promised herself not to shut people out so much, so she says, “Okay. We can try.”

“What do you want to learn?”

“I have a choice?”

“If you want to, then yes.”

Max thinks. She has never had a choice in her learning. She has always been told what she has to learn, how she has to learn it, what she has to remember, what will be on the test. Max hates tests. Even if she’s good at a subject or studies a lot, she gets anxious on the day of the test, and a black pit opens in her stomach, threatening to swallow her whole. She never does as well on her tests as she should. Her grades remain average, unless she’s given an essay or a project. Something to work on alone, without everyone scribbling and breathing around her. Max is smart. She knows she is. It’s just so hard to focus on things, even then ones she cares about, when she knows that she’ll do poorly no matter how hard she tries.

So, what does she want to learn? In the absence of tests and peers and teachers, what is most important to her?

“Can I…do you know anything about psychology?”

“Psychology? Yeah, a bit.”

“That’s what I want to learn.”

“There’s some neurobiology involved. Have you taken biology?”

“I was taking it before I, you know, died.”

Nancy, to Max’s surprise, chuckles. Good to know she’s not sensitive to “Right. Okay, so let’s do biology and psychology to start. Sound good?”

“Yeah,” Max says. “It sounds great.”

*

Later the same day, a new visitor joins Max. The youngest Wheeler sibling, Holly, plops down on the couch next to her and says, “Hi.”

“Holly? Um, hey?”

“I don’t know why you’re in my house.”

“You know, kid, neither do I.”

“Nancy said you had a bad accident during the earthquake and it made you blind.”

“Um, yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“I have some questions.”

Max cracks a smile. “Okay, shoot.”

Holly starts out with questions that are simple enough to answer. Can Max see anything at all? What color is blindness? Does she still close her eyes to sleep? Can she cry? How does she know who she’s talking to? How does she get around? Does she know what she looks like? What other people look like? Max answers every question. She’s sure if she had to answer these questions all the time, she’d get annoyed, but it’s refreshing to have someone ask her so bluntly, instead of avoiding the subject, treating Max like broken glass.

“Do you still have dreams?” Holly asks.

“Yes,” Max tells her. “My brain remembers what it was like to see, and it uses things I’ve seen before to make images in dreams.”

“If you had a dream about me, what would I look like?”

“That’s a good question. I’m not sure. You would probably look the same as the last time I saw you. Unless my brain made up something different. It’s the same as if you had a dream about someone you haven’t seen in a while.”

“That makes sense,” Holly says. “Sometimes I have really weird dreams.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Dreams where I’m at home, or at school, but it’s not how those places actually look. They’re darker and there are vines everywhere.”

Max freezes. Holly doesn’t know about the Upside Down. She’s sure of it. “That does sound strange,” she says. “What happens in the dreams? Are they scary?”

“Sometimes I just walk around. Sometimes there are other people there. Usually nothing scary happens. But one time Mike was chasing me, and another time all my classmates had no eyes. Oh, and one time there was this guy, a really creepy guy, and he told me it was time to go. I don’t even know where we were going! Weird, right?”

Max feels like she’s going to throw up. She tries to keep her voice casual. “Yeah, super weird. Have you told anyone else about your dreams?”

“Nope. Just you.”

“Holly. You need to tell Nancy, okay? The dreams you’re having…” Max is trying so hard not to tell Holly everything, not to tell her the truth about how she broke her arms and legs and lost her sight. “They’re not normal,” she concludes.

“Okay, I’ll tell Nancy.” Holly sounds unbothered. “I have another question.”

Max continues chatting with Holly for a while, trying to focus, but she can’t stop thinking about Holly’s dreams. Max hopes they’re are a coincidence, concocted from bits and pieces she’s overheard from her brother’s games or her sister’s conversations, but she has a sinking feeling that something is very, very wrong.

*

One day, Mike returns. Max recognizes his footsteps on the stairs. Her heartbeat immediately speeds up. Her hands feel cold. But she knows she has to talk to Mike, and if he’s ready to talk to her…she has to be ready, too.

“Hey,” she says, before Mike can sit down. “You’re back.”

“Yeah.”

There’s an awkward silence, and then they both say, “I’m sorry.”

“Wait, you’re sorry?” Max asks. “Why are you sorry?”

“I don’t—I don’t think I was being fair to you. You’re not mean. You nearly died—you actually died—trying to save Hawkins and all of us. That’s like…that’s so completely selfless. A mean person wouldn’t, couldn’t do something like that. You’re a little harsh sometimes, but you’re not mean. And I get why. You’re protecting yourself—”

“No, stop. Let me talk.”

Mike stops.

“You weren’t wrong. About me. I am mean. Not because I want to be, or because that’s who I really am. It just…happens. And yeah, I guess it’s partially because I’m protecting myself, but that’s only part of it. I’ve had a shit time at life, but that doesn’t mean I get to make other people feel shitty, too. Even the whole thing about sacrificing myself. It wasn’t selfless. I kind of…wanted to die. I thought I should. I don’t want to, not anymore, but that doesn’t mean I think I’m like, the best person in the world now. I only hate myself a little bit less.” She says it lightly, as if it’s a joke, hoping that Mike won’t press the issue or have her sent straight to a mental institution.

“Oh. Um, okay. Wow. I didn’t expect—I didn’t mean to make you feel bad about yourself.”

Max clenches and unclenches her fists. “I feel bad about myself all the time, Wheeler. Don’t flatter yourself thinking you had anything to do with it. Wait, no, that’s mean. Uh…I accept your apology?”

“I wasn’t done. I wanted to say that I’m sorry I tried to make you talk about El. That I made you admit to liking her. That wasn’t fair.”

Max tucks her hands under her legs and bows her head. She asks, quiet as a mouse, “Do you hate me?”

“Hate you? No—no! I don’t hate you. Why would I hate you?”

“Because of El. Because I like her. She is—was—your girlfriend.”

“Oh. Yeah, well, I was a pretty shitty boyfriend. She…she deserves better. She deserves you.”

“She deserves better than me.”

“You’re not even nice to yourself, are you?”

The question slaps Max across the face, leaving a mark. She decides not to answer it. She can think about that later, during her regularly scheduled wallowing in self-pity time. “It doesn’t matter, anyway,” Max says briskly. “She doesn’t like me like that.”

“How do you know?”

Max shouldn’t talk to Mike about this. It’s bad enough that Nancy knows about the practice kissing and that Robin knows about Max’s feelings for El. Max isn’t the kind of girl who likes to grab a megaphone and tell the world about her crushes. She never even told her mom about her first kiss with Lucas.

But Mike is the only other person who has ever kissed El, has ever been in any sort of romantic relationship with her—not that El and Max are in one, because they aren’t, they can’t be—and so despite Max’s better judgment, she tells him everything. About visiting each other’s memories, about her powers, about reading together, about El washing her hair when she still had her casts on. She tells him about her realization that she liked El, and her stupid plan to kiss her, and how she thought she would get over it after one kiss but that was so far from the truth you needed an airplane to get between the truth and the lie. She tells him about their walk in the woods, about El carrying her on her back, about Hopper making them leave, about kissing El fiercely one last time. Everything spills out, even the details of her dream from the first day here, the stupid dream she swore she wouldn’t describe. It’s easier saying it all since she can’t see Mike’s face, can’t see how he’s reacting. And Mike doesn’t say anything, doesn’t cut her off or interrupt or tell her to shut up, he’s heard enough.

Max concludes with a lame, “So, yeah. That’s what happened.”

“And you really don’t think she likes you back?”

“Did you listen to a word I said?”

“I listened to everything you said. If you think she doesn’t like you, you’re an idiot.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“I’m serious. I dated El for what, almost two years? She was never like that with me.”

Max recalls her conversation with El about her feelings for Mike. How she couldn’t say if she thought he was attractive or if he was a good kisser. Still— “But she loved you.”

“Did she? Or did she just think she was supposed to love me?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m in love with Will,” Mike blurts out.

Now Max is the one who’s surprised. She had her suspicions, of course, but she hardly expected Mike to come right out and admit it. She jumps at the opportunity to shift the focus from herself. “Does he know?”

Mike’s voice turns soft and gooey, like a chocolate chip cookie straight out of the oven. “Not yet. We’ve…been kind of dancing around it. Every time he comes over, I think I’m gonna tell him. He leans on me when we watch movies. We’ve held hands. We even—we kissed, once. But we haven’t talked about it. I know it sounds stupid, but I—”

“Nah, I get it.”

“You do?”

“Mhm.”

“You don’t want to tease me about it?”

“Oh, believe me, I want to tease you, but that would be pretty hypocritical of me, don’t you think? There’s no way I’m telling El how I feel. Although, if I can be honest with you, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. I’ve seen—well, I used to see—how Will looks at you. Boy’s in love.”

“You—really? You think so?” Mike sounds hopeful, so painfully hopeful that Max stands up on her wobbly legs and finds her way over to give him a hug.

She whispers in his ear: “It’s really annoying that you can see your boyfriend’s face and you still don’t know how he feels about you.”

Mike pulls away. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

Max stands up straight and crosses her arms. “Whatever. Lie to yourself all you want. It’s the truth.”

“It’s not—it’s not that I don’t believe you. I know he likes me back. I do. I’m just so scared, you know?”

“Dude, we’re all scared. We’ve gone through some awful shit, horror movie shit. You’ve made it through so much. You think you can’t survive telling your best friend how you feel about him?”

“Yeah, well, what about you? You died and came back to life. But you’re too scared to tell the girl who brought you back from the dead that you like her?”

“Love her,” Max corrects. “I love her.”

Mike sighs and stands up. Max can feel him towering over her. He pulls her into another hug, a proper one this time, not a weird half-standing hug, and holds her there. “We’re both a mess, aren’t we?”

“The biggest mess.”

“Did you mean it? When you said we aren’t friends?”

Tears spring to Max’s eyes. His voice is so quiet, and she wonders briefly how hard it must be for someone who takes up so much space to make himself small. “No,” she says. “I didn’t mean it.”

Mike pats her head, which is both silly and comforting, and lets her go. “Can I finish your movie with you?”

“Sure.”

That’s the last they speak of it, but it’s not the last time they speak. Mike starts spending more time with her. He plays tapes and records so she can hear new music—“you can’t listen to Kate Bush on repeat for the rest of your life”—and Max finally relents to let him tell her about DnD lore. She hates to admit that it’s actually pretty interesting.

“Remember when you wanted to be a Zoomer?” Mike asks. “You said you’d only play if you could make up your own class.”

“I’m not much of a Zoomer anymore,” Max says. “More of a stumbler, or a snail.”

“Those aren’t classes,” Mike says. “Besides, you don’t need to make up your own. You’re obviously a Warlock.”

“A what now?”

“Warlock. They have magic, but they get it by making a bargain with an extraplanar entity. Something that exists on another plane. Like a…”

“God?” Max offers.

“Yeah. Sort of. Not necessarily a good one though. That’s you, though, right? You’ve got powers now, but only because you sacrificed yourself to Vecna.”

Max takes a moment to consider this. “Or because El gave me some of hers when she revived me, or something. We aren’t really sure what happened.”

“You lost your sight, and you got powers in return. Sounds like a bargain to me.”

The familiar song lyrics play in Max’s head: If I only could, I’d make a deal with God, and I’d get him to swap our places. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

Mike explains a Warlock’s powers and abilities more, and offers to help Max make her own character, a Warlock Elf named, of course, MadMax. He digs up a blank character sheet and together they work through it, building this alternate version of Max.

“If we ever get the party back together, you should play,” Mike eventually says.

“Me? I can’t even see. This is just for fun.”

“So, we’ll tell you what you roll. It’s a story, Max. You don’t need eyes to play.”

“Okay, nerd. I’ll give it a shot. If we all get through this alive.”

“Do you think El would like it?” Mike asks.

“Yeah. As long as her character can be a girl.” Max smiles, remembering El’s insistence on reading her books about girls when she was in her coma and then in the early stages of her recovery. “I think she’d like it a lot.”

The doorbell rings. “I should get that,” Mike sighs. “Nancy hates getting the door.”

He leaves, and Max allows her mind to drift into a vision of the future, where they are all together once again, all playing Dungeons & Dragons. Since she lost her sight, it’s been nearly impossible to imagine the future, but if she doesn’t need sight to play this game, or to learn like she has with Nancy, or to watch movies like she has with Robin…maybe there are other things she can do without seeing. Sure, the world is set up for people who can see, but that doesn’t mean there’s no place for her. It feels stupid, to have this realization after talking about a nerd game, of all things, but for the first time Max thinks she might not be so irreparably broken after all.

Mike calls down the stairs. “Max, there’s someone here to see you.”

Hopeful that it’s El, Max jumps to her feet so quickly that it makes her head spin. She finds her way to the stairs and calls back, “To see me?”

“Yeah. Is it okay if we come down?”

“I’ll come up,” Max announces. It might be El. If it’s El, she wants to show her that she’s doing okay, that she can climb stairs, that she hasn’t been hiding in the basement the entire time she’s been here.

“Upstairs?”

“That’s what I said.” Max feels around for the railing and grips it tightly when she finds it. She lifts her right foot and sets it on the first step. She drags her left foot to join it. She’s can do this. She’s already doing it. She continues her slow pace, and finds that although going up is easier, she’s still winded by the time she gets to the top. Her heart is pounding. Who is here? Mike wouldn’t have hesitated to bring El downstairs. If it’s not El…who is it?

A gentle voice says, “Hey, MadMax.”

“Oh,” Max breathes. “Hey, Lucas.”

Chapter Text

They drive for a long, long time, and it is dark by the time Hopper slows down and stops the car. They have not spoken since dropping off Max, Nancy, and Robin. Hopper has tried to talk to her, but El does not have anything to say to him, at least, not anything that is nice. El has stared out the window the entire time, but she does not know where they are. She is not bad with directions, but she gets mixed up in cars. They move too fast for her to keep up with where they are going. El thinks, briefly, that she is almost old enough to drive. She wonders if Hopper will teach her, or if he will refuse to because it is not safe.

The car slows down in front of a house, and Hopper turns into the driveway. There is a garage at the end. He gets out of the car and presses some buttons, and the garage door opens. They pull inside. This is unexpected. El thought for sure that Hopper would take them somewhere hidden, another house in the woods or an abandoned building where no one would ever look. But maybe it is easier to hide in plain sight, in a normal neighborhood, among ordinary people. She is mad at Hopper right now, but she still trusts him.

Still, her curiosity gets the better of her. “Whose house is this?”

Hopper looks at her as he turns the key and the car’s engine whirs to a stop. His eyes dart to the side as if he is not sure how to answer, and then he says, “Mine.”

“Yours?” That makes no sense. The cabin is Hopper’s house. Hopper doesn’t have another house.

“I’ll explain later. We need to get inside. Get your stuff.”

El obeys and together they hurry into the house.

While Hopper checks all the locks and the windows, El gazes at the photos on the wall. They printed on shiny paper and displayed in frames. The pictures are of Hopper, a woman, and a little girl.

His family.

Hopper is younger in the pictures. He is smiling. Happy. He is happy. Since El has known him, Hopper has never looked that happy. Even when he smiles, he is always a little bit sad.

El cannot tear her eyes away. The pictures remind her of something she has tried very hard not to think about: that she is only a replacement.

Before El can think too much about the pictures and the house, she hears the sound of another car in the driveway, the garage opening again. She hides behind the couch, terrified that these are the people looking for her, that they have already found her.

The door opens and voices float in. Friendly voices. Joyce, Will, and Jonathan. The terror is replaced with relief and El creeps out from behind the couch. Her brothers walk into the living room and they break into big smiles when they see her. Jonathan sweeps her up in a hug and El begins to cry. Jonathan puts her down, keeping his hands on her shoulders, and says, “Little sis? What’s wrong?”

This only makes El cry more. A warm hand on her back steadies her. Will. “It’s okay,” Will says. “We’re here now.”

“W-what is happening?” El manages to ask. She hiccups.

“We’re not sure,” Will says. “I’m sure Mom and Hopper will tell us soon.”

“Hopper says I have to hide,” El tells them. “I am very tired of hiding. I do not want to hide here.”

“It’s nicer than the cabin, though, isn’t it?” Jonathan asks.

El looks around. Her gaze lands on the pictures again. Yes, this house is nicer than the cabin. Why does Hopper live in the cabin if this is his house, too? Why couldn’t El have been hiding here since the beginning? “It is nice,” El admits. “But Max is not here.”

“Where’s Max?” Will asks.

“At Mike’s house. Hopper would not let her come with us.”

“She’ll be okay there, El,” Will tells her. “I know she and Mike don’t get along all that well, but she’ll be okay. Nothing bad ever happens at Mike’s house.”

“I know she will be okay. But I miss her. We are always together. She needs more help now. She needs me.”

Jonathan and Will look at each other and seem to have a conversation with their eyes. This is something they do often. It is a reminder that they are real brothers and El is only their pretend sister. “I’m sure you’ll see her soon,” Jonathan says, in an attempt to be reassuring. “You know how Hopper and Mom are. They worry about you, so they take extra…precautions.”

“I wish they would not worry so much,” El says, but she immediately knows that it is a lie. To be loved is to have people worry about you. She would not wish to give up the love that anyone has for her.

She wonders if Max is worried about her.

She is worried about Max.

“All right, kids!” Hopper’s voice is loud, commanding. He enters the room, Joyce behind him. “I want all the blinds closed, curtains closed, windows and doors locked. Grab whatever you need up here, and then it’s lights off, head to the basement. Got it?”

El is shivering. It is not cold. “I’ll get some blankets,” Will says, glancing at her. “Might be cold in the basement.”

“I’ll head to the kitchen,” Jonathan says. “Must be some candles and matches in there somewhere.”

“I’ll get the food from the car,” Joyce says.

And then El is alone with Hopper. He takes a step toward her and crouches down. She crosses her arms. “El. I know you’re not happy with me.”

El looks away, refusing to meet his gaze. “I am mad at you.”

“I know. But this is for the best. You have to trust me.”

“I am tired of trusting. I want to know. I deserve to know,” El says. “I am not your pet.”

Hopper looks hurt. Good. El wants him to hurt, to know how she feels right now. “El, you know that’s not—you’re my daughter. I’m only trying to—”

“Protect me,” El finishes for him. “That is what everyone says. No one asks me if I want to be protected. No one tells me what I am being protected from.”

“I’ll explain,” Hopper says. “I promise.” He puts his hand on El’s shoulder, but she shrugs it off. She does not want him to touch him. She does not want him to feel how fragile she is.

“I am going to the basement,” she says.

“I’ll meet you down there.”

El nods once, sharply, and heads towards a door that might lead to the basement.

“Not that one,” Hopper says. “Around the corner.”

El does not thank him. She finds the door and pulls it open, descending into the darkness without turning on the light.

The basement is furnished. There is a couch, an armchair, even a beanbag chair. El plops down on the beanbag. She finds them fascinating. Who thought of filling a sack with a bunch of tiny balls and calling it a chair? It isn’t very comfortable, but she pulls her legs up and wraps her arms around them, trying to make herself as small as possible.

Will arrives next. He is holding an armful of blankets, and he carefully drapes one over El. She clutches it tightly and smiles at him. He smiles back.

Jonathan follows, carrying a box of matches and a picnic basket. He opens the basket and begins taking out jar, lining them up on top of a short bookshelf. Reading the labels, he says, “Okay, guys, we’ve got French vanilla, cinnamon, cranberry, and peppermint. Which one do you want?”

“To…eat?” El asks.

Jonathan laughs. “No, little sis. To smell. They’re scented candles. Really nice ones, actually.”

El tries to imagine a version of Hopper who bought really nice, good-smelling candles. It’s hard to match that imaginary man with the one she knows as her dad. “I did not know candles could have smells,” she admits.

“You wanna sniff them?” Jonathan asks, holding out a candle. El is relieved that he does not tease her. It is amazing how many things she still does not know about.

“Yes, please,” El says. She tosses the blanket aside and pushes herself up from the beanbag chair. Will, sitting in the armchair, watches.

Jonathan opens a candle jar and holds it out for El to sniff. “This one is peppermint.”

El inhales. The smell is sharp, brisk, a little bit like toothpaste but also a little bit not. “Oh,” she says. “That’s nice.”

“Cranberry.”

Sweet, tart.

“Here’s cinnamon.”

Again, El smells the candle. This one smells warm, rich, as if it is already burning.

“And vanilla.”

Warm and sweet. Not warm like the cinnamon, not sweet like the cranberry. Something all its own. El has had vanilla ice cream countless times—it is her favorite flavor—but in this moment all she can think of is sharing ice cream cones with Max at the mall. “That one,” she says. “That one is my favorite.” She’s not sure if it is a good idea to remind herself of Max when they have been separated so recently, when she has not yet had time to fully feel the pain of missing her, but she makes the decision anyway.

“Vanilla it is,” Jonathan says.

They light the candle and settle into their chairs, awaiting Joyce and Hopper. They can hear bits and pieces of their conversation floating downstairs, but Jonathan covers their voices by recounting a story of seeing an old classmate in the grocery store a few days ago.

“We weren’t even friends,” he muses. “She was in a completely different crowd than me. I don’t think we’ve ever spoken before. But all of a sudden it was like we’d been close, and she was asking me all these questions about Will, about where our family disappeared to last year.”

El knows she is supposed to sympathize, but she can’t help thinking it must be nice to have had classmates that remember you. Who knew you long enough to have something to remember, something besides how you broke a girl’s nose when she humiliated you in front of everyone.

Finally, Joyce and Hopper appear. They sit on the couch next to Jonathan. Their faces are hard to read in the candlelight. El can’t tell if they’re angry, worried, upset, or happy. She doubts they are happy.

“We have some news,” Hopper says.

“Oh, no, this is not how you’re telling us you’re getting married,” Jonathan says.

“What?” Joyce asks. She glances at Hopper. He looks as surprised as she does. “No. We’re not—no. This is about something else.”

“It’s about today’s…incident,” Hopper says. “Let’s all get on the same page, first. El, can you tell us what you saw?”

El snaps to attention. What she saw. In the woods. She was not supposed to be in the woods. But she was. Kissing Max. “I…went for a walk. With Max. We stopped in a clearing because she…she needed a break. We heard a loud noise. The ground started to shake. Nancy found us and told us to run. I picked up Max and ran back to the cabin with her.” She omits the part about going back to the gate later.

“I felt it coming before it happened,” Will says. “I could feel…energy. Getting stronger. You know how my neck hurts when it happens. It was like that again. It was a sharp pain this time. Usually it’s dull. Then I felt the ground moving, and I knew it was something with the gates.”

“Also, the power went out,” Jonathan reminds them. “Just like it did before Will disappeared.”

“Yes, we know his power is…wait, what are we calling this guy, again?” Joyce asks.

“Vecna,” Will says, as El says, “One,” and Jonathan says, “Henry.”

Joyce purses her lips. “I don’t like the numbers, and Henry sounds too human for this monster. What did you say, Will? Velma?

“Vecna. He’s a character from D&D.”

“Oh. All right. Well, whatever his name is, we know his powers are connected to electricity. Of course I’ve known that the longest, you must remember the lights—”

Hopper cuts her off before she can once again tell everyone about how she communicated with Will using Christmas lights. Even El knows this story. “We know, Joyce,” he says, patting her hand. “We know. So, we agree there was a power outage, and that the gates became bigger. They’re reporting it as another earthquake, which is good.”

“How are they explaining the gaping holes in the ground?” Jonathan asks. “Eventually someone is going to have to tell people what’s going on.”

“Something something the devil is in our midst,” Hopper says, waving him off. “That’s not what’s the most important.”

“Vecna is getting more powerful,” Will summarizes. “Who knows how soon he’ll be strong enough to start targeting victims again.”

El shakes her head. “I am not sure he needs more victims. The only thing he still wants is—”

“You,” Hopper says. “Right.”

“That is not why we are hiding, is it? There is something else,” El says. “If One was strong enough to find me, he would. No matter where I am.” She gives Hopper a pointed to glance. “We are hiding from someone else.”

Hopper sighs and rubs his head. “You got it, kid. That’s the news.”

El sits up as straight as she can. Who could this new villain be? They cannot possibly be stronger than Vecna, or have as much of a hold on her as Papa did. Whoever they are, she can beat them.

“I have it on good word that Dr. Brenner—your papa—had a failsafe,” Hopper says.

“A fail…safe?” El asks. She does not know this word. She looks to Will.

“It’s a backup plan in case you fail,” Will explains.

El looks back at Hopper. “Papa failed,” she says. “He died. He—he is dead, right?” El knows she saw him die, but she also thought she saw Hopper die. If Papa is alive…

“He’s dead, sweetie,” Joyce says gently. “You’re safe from him.”

“From him, yes,” Hopper adds. “But not exactly safe. Before he died, even before he kidnapped you, he had someone working for him, ready to take over if he failed.”

“Who?” El asks.

“He uses the name Janus.”

El says nothing, because the name means nothing to her.

“Janus,” Will repeats. “Like…the Roman god?”

“A god?” El asks. She cannot deal with another god-like person. She is still confused about what a god is. She certainly does not understand why people worship them.

“Yeah,” Will says. “The god of beginnings and endings, doorways, time…and, uh, gates. In all the art, he has two faces.”

“Two…faces,” El says slowly. She does not understand. It seems like everyone is speaking in riddles.

“We think he’s one of the kids from the lab,” Hopper says. “A test subject. Like you, Jane.”

El shakes her head. Hopper is wrong. “They are all dead. Henry killed them. I saw it happen. I saw my memories.”

“Apparently not,” Hopper says. “At least one of them lived. Brenner could have altered your memories. I think it’s very likely that he did.”

El wraps her arms around herself. “No,” she says. “They are dead. I saw them die.”

Jonathan slides off the couch and moves to sit next to El. He rubs her back. He doesn’t say anything. El wants him to say that Hopper is wrong.

“Jane,” Joyce says carefully. “Do you remember anything about the other kids at the lab? Who was the most powerful? Or maybe who was the oldest?”

“Two,” El says without hesitation.

“Two faces,” Will says again.

“He was very mean to me,” El says in a whisper. “He almost killed me. And One…killed him. Because he hurt me. That is what happened.” Even as she says it, she has trouble believing it. One was kind to her, but only because her powers were strong, and because he wanted her help to escape. Maybe he only tossed Two aside. Maybe he did not hurt him at all.

The only thing El is absolutely certain of is that One asked her to join him, and she refused. She fought him, and she won. She sent him to the Upside Down. He was already powerful, but El gave him the opening to become something monstrous.

El cannot bear to think that there is another person out there who wants her dead just as much as One does.

“He always wanted to be the best,” El says. “He wanted to be Papa’s favorite. He hated me for it. If he is alive…” El closes her eyes. Pressure builds in her chest. Jonathan’s hand is still on her back. It is the only thing keeping her steady.

“He’ll find you, and he’ll kill you,” Hopper says bluntly.

“How do you know all this?” Jonathan asks.

El opens her eyes. She wants to see Hopper when he answers.

Hopper’s eyes dart to the side, towards Joyce. She shakes her head slightly. “I have a source,” Hopper says. “A reliable one.”

“Who?” El asks, although she knows he will not tell her.

“I can’t tell you right now,” Hopper says.

There is no room for argument in his tone, but Jonathan continues to press. “You can’t keep secrets from her forever,” he says. “Secrets haven’t kept her safe.”

El wants to shrink and disappear. She knows Jonathan means well, but she hates when people talk about her like she is invisible. Like she does not have her own thoughts on her own life.

“Fine, protect your source. Great, now I sound like Nancy,” Jonathan says. He shakes his head. “So, this Janus guy,” Jonathan says. “You think he’s working for Brenner? Not Vecna?”

“Right.”

“But the name he chose, if Will’s right about the Roman god stuff—”

“Of course I’m right,” Will scoffs.

“Yeah, no, I’m sure you are, but all that stuff about being the god of beginnings and endings and gates sounds more like Vecna, doesn’t it? If Brenner was supposed to be fighting against Vecna, why would a guy who’s working for him…oh.”

“Brenner never wanted to defeat him,” Hopper says.

“He wanted to control him.” El finishes Hopper’s thought, remembering a collar around her neck.

“Control of Vecna would mean control of the Upside Down,” Will says. “And control of the Upside Down…”

“Endings, beginnings, doorways, and gates,” El says. “Everything.”

Jonathan concludes the conversation with an emphatic, “Oh shit.”

They do not sleep well that first night.

*

Days pass. During the day, they can go upstairs with the curtains closed and all the windows and doors locked. At night, they return to the basement, where El and Will curl up on an air mattress, Hopper sleeps on the floor, Jonathan passes out on the couch, and Joyce sleeps fitfully in the armchair. El tries to pretend they are a normal family, but it is difficult. Hopper does not go to work. Joyce has a job making phone calls. Hopper is worried that someone will trace their number. Joyce snaps back and says someone has to work. They argue a lot, and it usually goes something like this:

Joyce: “What’s your plan, Jim? We can’t keep them here forever.”

Hopper: “I’m working on it.”

Joyce: “Are you? All I see you doing is reading books about World War I and doing crosswords.”

Hopper: “I said I’m working on it.”

Joyce: “This is crazy, Jim. It’s not good for them. I know she’s your kid, but she’s spent a hell of a lot more time with me. I think I know her a little better than you do. And the boys are my kids—”

Hopper: “You don’t understand the situation.”

Joyce: “I understand the situation perfectly well—”

Hopper: “Why can’t you trust me?”

Joyce: “I do trust you. I drove my family all the way to New York when you told me to, without asking any questions. I just think that whatever they did to you in that prison made you paranoid, and that you’re not thinking clearly.”

And so on.

Jonathan locks himself in one of the bedrooms and listens to music. The same strange smell that enveloped him in Lenora sneaks out from under the door. Will says it’s called weed and that Jonathan sneaks out at night to get it. Joyce sleeps so poorly that El is sure she must know about it, but she says nothing. Even more surprising, Hopper does not scold Jonathan.

As for Will, he spends most of his time drawing. El likes to watch him. They do not talk much, and although El loves her brother, she misses Max. Misses her constant company, her voice, her jokes. She asks Hopper for some paper and a pencil, and begins writing letters to Max. She will never send them, and even if she did, Max wouldn’t be able to read them on her own. But it gives her something to do.

Dear Max,

I am in New York. Remember when you asked if I knew where I wanted to go when this was all over? I told you New York. But it is not what I imagined. I am not allowed to go outside. I am stuck inside, just like I was in Hawkins. I am with my family, and I should be happy, but I am not. Do you know why? I have been thinking about it a lot, and I think it is because you are not here. I think that if you were here, I would be happier. No, I know I would be.

Love,

El

Dear Max,

How is Hawkins? Are you stuck inside, too? I wonder what you do all day. It must be weird for you to be at Mike’s house. I know you and him are not very good friends. Is Nancy still teaching you? I wish I could be there to read to you and tell you what is happening in the movies. I miss you.

Love,

El

Dear Max,

I have been thinking about our practice kissing. I am not sure if it is really practice

Dear Max,

I miss our practicing

Dear Max,

Before I left I was going to tell you that I think I love

Dear Max,

What do you feel when you kiss me?

Some of the letters are harder to write than others.

When she isn’t writing, El reads the Four Quartets over and over, hoping that she will find the answers she needs. But no matter how many times she reads them they refuse to make sense.

It takes almost a week for Will to ask, “What are you reading? You look frustrated. And you keep reading the same pages.”

El looks up. She has to blink a few times to see clearly. “Why didn’t you ask sooner?”

“I didn’t want to pry. You don’t have to tell me now, either.”

“Poetry,” El says. “I want to understand it.”

“Nobody can understand poetry,” Will says, putting down the pencil he’s using to sketch. He pushes his hair out of his eyes. It is getting too long, but he refuses to let Joyce near him with her scissors and bowl. “It’s meant to be interpreted, not understood.”

El thinks about that. “Well, I can’t interpret it, either.”

“Why do you need to, exactly?”

“The poems are going to help me defeat One,” El says, as if that is a normal thing to say.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

El explains how Nancy visited Victor Creel and learned that One liked poems when he was a child, and how she and Max narrowed down the options to these four poems. “Robin said the poems are clues, not answers, and that I should try to figure out what they mean to One. She said it doesn’t matter what they mean to me. But then she said maybe I should read them literally, and now I am so confused.”

“Huh,” Will says. “I think…I think you should ignore her.”

“What? Why?”

“Forget about what Robin said, or what Nancy said, or even what Max said. You’re the one who knows—knew—Vecna when he was still, you know, human. You’re the one with a connection to him. I don’t think you can figure out what the poems meant to him without knowing what they mean to you.” He picks up his pencil and presses it into El’s hand. “Here. Show me the parts that stick out. The things that seem important, even if you don’t understand them.”

El stares at the pencil, then at the book. “You want me to write…in the book?”

“It’s not illegal, El. You can’t just read books. You have to engage with them. It’s not a library copy, right?”

“No.”

“Then write. Circle things. Underline them. You can’t find the answer if you don’t even know the question.”

El clutches the pencil and nods. She opens to the first poem and reads it again, this time stopping to mark the lines she likes, or has questions about, or that seem important. When she does not know a word, she asks Will. Some of them are words even he can’t define, and so they find a dictionary.

When El has finished writing on one poem, she moves to the next, until she has written on all four. “I am done,” she tells Will. He has gone back to drawing. “I think.”

“Do you have a favorite?” Will asks.

“I like the first one and the last one the best,” El says.

“What about a favorite line?”

“I am not sure if it is my favorite, but I think this one is important.” She points to In my beginning is my end. “Do you think his beginning was his childhood? Or when I sent him to the Upside Down?”

Will purses his lips thoughtfully and reaches for the book. “Mind if I take a look?”

El nods.

Will scans the pages, flipping them quickly. There is no way he is reading carefully enough. El is beginning to think Will has no idea what he’s talking about when he excitedly sets the book aside and grabs a blank piece of paper. “Oh,” he says. “Oh.”

“What is it?”

Will speaks while he draws. “All the repeated lines. All the stuff about beginnings and endings and up and down being the same, and time past and present. They’re opposites. Or at least, that’s usually how we think of them.” His pencil flies across the page so quickly that El has to look away so she won’t get a headache. “This whole time, all these years, we’ve been talking about the Upside Down like it’s—like this.” He shows El his drawing. On the top, he’s drawn a house—his old house back in Hawkins—and on the bottom, the same house facing the other direction. Next to the top house, he draws a smile. Next to the bottom, he draws a frown. “The literal opposite of Hawkins. Good and evil. Light and dark. Right? It’s even in the name we gave it. Upside down. Opposite of right side up.

“Okay,” El says. Will seems to know what he is talking about. She trusts him to explain.

“But in the poems, all those things aren’t opposites. They’re reflections. We usually think that a beginning can’t be an ending. Up can’t be down. But what the poet is saying is that they’re actually more similar than that. The same thing in a different context. So what if the Upside Down is also a reflection?”

“Of Hawkins?”

“No,” Will says, a slow smile of realization spreading across his face. “A reflection of will.”

“I’m sorry,” El says. “I don’t understand. A reflection of you?”

“No, not me Will. The word ‘will’, like ‘will you do this?’ To will something is to…to wish it into being. ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way.'”

“I am so confused.”

Almost frantic now, Will chews on his pencil. “No, no, just wait. Listen. Did the Upside Down exist before you sent Vecna, er, One, there?”

“I have no idea. I did not mean to do it—”

“Maybe you made it. But I don’t think so. I think it already existed, and you broke the barrier between the two worlds, but I don’t think it just randomly looked like Hawkins already. Maybe it’s…maybe it’s malleable, a place that changes depending on who is ruling it. It’s a place where anything is possible. Vecna figured that out and made it into something else. He didn’t have control during his own life, right? What if he decided to make it look like the place where he grew up, like Hawkins, except this time he made the rules?”

“What does this have to do with reflections and wills?”

“I’m getting there.” Will squints at his drawing, as if it will tell him everything. “The Upside Down, or whatever it is, takes on whatever form the person controlling it asks it to. It’s a reflection of the controller’s will.

“Think about it. Maybe Dr. Brenner knew about it all along. He conducted experiments on kids, including you, kids who can manipulate reality. If what Hopper said the other day is true, and Brenner wanted control of the Upside Down, not just Vecna, he must have known there was something to be controlled. I bet he was planning to use one of you to get access to it, to make it into whatever he wanted.”

El finally thinks she understands. “Because you need powers to control it,” she says. “A regular person like Papa would not be able to do it.”

“Yeah, yeah, probably.”

El recalls something. “Dustin said the Upside Down is frozen on the day you went missing. It is stuck in the past. Why would One want that?”

“Huh. I don’t know. Maybe time works differently there? Or…” Will looks thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe he doesn’t want that. Maybe he’s losing power over it. Has been ever since that day. I don’t know what that would have to do with me, but—oh. The day I went missing. The day you appeared.”

“Yes, that was the same day,” El says flatly. She hates to remember that her appearance had something to do with Will getting lost in the Upside Down.

“What if your powers made his weaker? What if he had to—still has to—work harder to keep his hold over that place? Maybe it got stuck because he couldn’t make time keep up anymore, because he shifted his focus to creating the Demogorgons, and the Mind Flayer? Weapons to fight you?”

All El asked for was help understanding poetry. She thinks Will might have taken this too far.

He continues: “He probably didn’t think you’d ever show up. That’s why nothing weird happened until you did. He’s been fighting to keep his power. You’re getting in the way.”

“If that is true, why didn’t he stop when I lost my powers? Or when we moved away?”

“Good question. Maybe he was trying to lure you back. Or maybe he freaked out and decided he needed to destroy the barrier between worlds so he could take over Hawkins, too. I don’t know. This is all just a guess, anyway.” But as he says it, his eyes are twinkling, and El recognizes something in her brother that she has never seen before: confidence.

Will pushes his drawing away and sets his pencil down. “Do you remember, in the library, when Nancy suggested destroying Hawkins?”

“Yes. Why?” This seems like an abrupt change in subject.

“I think she was on the right track. Well, sort of. We don’t need to destroy Hawkins.”

“We need to save it,” El says. This seems obvious. El knew that long before Will started theorizing about reflections and wills and ways.

“Nope,” Will says, smiling. “We need to save the Upside Down.”

*

Once they have solved the mystery of the poems—well, once Will has solved it, if his explanation can really be considered a solution—El becomes restless. She tries to read other poems in the book, tries to enjoy them, but she can’t. She reads the first few pages of almost every book Hopper owns. She asks Will to teach her how to draw. She finds Hopper’s record collection in the basement and listens to albums, dances and sings along. Anything to distract herself from being stuck here, when time is running out, and she is the only one who can save Hawkins.

There is one room in the house that no one ever enters. A sign that reads Sara hangs crookedly on the door. El is drawn to that door. Every day, she approaches, stares at the sign, sometimes even reaches for the doorknob. But she is afraid of what she will find, and so she does not open it.

Until one day, she does.

Why does she do it? Because she needs to know what it looks like? Needs to know what kind of life Hopper’s other daughter, his first daughter, had? What she saw every day? What she did for fun?

El goes into the room because Sara had a life El could have had, and did not. El goes into the room because sometimes it feels like Sara’s ghost is right behind her, taunting her. Saying Who are you, and why are you in my house?

The first thing El notices is that the walls are painted pale pink. It’s a pretty color. Did Sara ask for it? Did Hopper spend an entire weekend painting it for her? There is a large white bookshelf against one wall. Its bottom shelves are filled with books. The top shelves hold dolls and stuffed animals. There are more stuffed animals on the bed, sitting on top of a pink and purple flowered comforter. The dresser has flower-shaped knobs on its drawers. There are stickers all over one side. The desk is cluttered with pretty notebooks and erasers in fun shapes and pens with feathers on the ends. There is a mirror attached to it. El catches a glimpse of her reflection, and half expects to see Sara staring back at her.

El has to remind herself to breathe.

She thinks of her room in Hopper’s cabin. She has books. She has the objects Max made with her powers. Her walls are white. She has a grey blanket and a red checkered blanket. She has no toys, no dolls, no stuffed animals. Nothing she chose. Nothing chosen for her.

Everyone else she knows, all her friends, they all have or have had rooms with things they liked. Rooms that showed their interests and their personalities.

But El? El has never had a room that was all her own. She had the Rainbow Room. She had Mike’s basement. Hopper’s cabin. She shared a room with Will in Lenora, and she let him decorate it with his drawings. They had no money for anything else. Then it was back to Hopper’s cabin, and he never asked about decorations. El thought it was because Hopper did not care about those things.

Now she knows that is not true. This room is proof.

Sara’s ghost says, Get out of my room.

El rushes out of the room and immediately crashes into Will in the hallway. He must have been looking for her. She pushes past him and heads for the front door.

“El? El!” Will chases after her and catches her by the shoulder. “El, what’s wrong? Where are you going?”

El wrenches away from him. “I am running away.” She’s not sure why she says it. She wouldn’t really run away. Where would she even go? She has no idea how to get back to Hawkins from here. She doesn’t even know where here is, exactly.

“What? Why? Are you okay?”

El wraps her arms around herself. “I am not okay. I am upset, and I do not want to talk about it.”

Will starts to reach for her but thinks better of it and drops his hand. “El, please. Please talk to me. It’s just me.”

“Why do you care about me so much?” El demands. The question explodes out of her like air rushing out of a popped balloon. “Why do any of you? It doesn’t make sense. I am not your sister, or Jonathan’s sister, and Hopper is not my dad, and Joyce is not my mom. I am not part of your family. I have only caused you trouble.”

“El, of course—of course you’re part of our family. Where is this coming from? What happened?”

“Look at this house,” El says, collecting herself enough to explain. “Look at this room.” She heads back to Sara’s room, believing that Will can understand, if only he sees it. Will follows her and closes the door behind him. He leans against it. Trying to make sure she cannot run? 

El spins in a slow circle, taking in the room again. “Look at all the things he gave her,” she whispers. She looks back at Will. Her voice is steadier now. “This house belonged to Hopper’s real family. I was never supposed to be here. He would not still have this house, this room, if he did not want his real family back. I think…I think he would trade me for Sara if he could.”

Will pushes away from the door and comes toward her. “El. Please don’t say things like that. You know that’s not true. You know—”

El’s composure slips through her fingers and she rushes towards Will, stopping short of slamming into him. She clenches her fists, looks him directly in the eyes, and spits, “I do not know anything. How can I? No one tells me anything. All they say is ‘El you have to do this’ or ‘El you can’t do that’ and I am tired of it. Everyone thinks they know what is best for me, but they don’t. Even you tell me what I have to do. You figured out all the stuff about the Upside Down. You say we have to save it. But you don't tell me how. All you know is it has something to do with me and my powers. Something to do with control. You want me to take control? How am I supposed to do that when all I know is being controlled? Being told what to do? You said the Upside Down is a reflection of will. I understand now. I know how that feels. Everyone tells me what to do and I do it. But I am tired. I am tired of hiding, I am tired of waiting. Papa wanted me to wait. Papa said I was not strong enough. I did not listen and that is how I saved Max. What happened to her happened because I was too late. Because Papa would not let me go. I am not going to hide and wait for something worse to happen. Especially not here. I don’t belong here. You all can stay, but I am not going to leave Max alone, waiting for me—”

Will, who has listened patiently, says in an even, quiet voice, “El. What’s this really about? Us? You? Or is it about Max?”

El stops her rant. She had a lot more to say but now it is like the words have evaporated. Now, she is thinking about Max, about the realization she had before Hopper took her away. She backs away from Will and drops down onto the bed, taking slow, ragged breaths to calm herself down. Sara’s ghost is there again, saying, Wow, that was quite the show. I never did things like that. I was always polite. If I had a brother, I would have been way nicer to him. No wonder Dad never bought you toys. You’d probably just destroy them.

El closes her eyes and pictures herself in the woods, kissing Max, and then in the woods alone, sitting under the whispering trees, acorns falling around her.

The bed dips as Will sits beside her. Tentatively, he puts his arm around El’s shoulders. “I know this is really hard,” he says.

“I am upset about the house and the room,” El confesses. “I am angry at how everyone treats me.”

“I’m sorry, El. I didn't mean to make you feel that way. I don't want to control you. I support you, okay? If you want me to talk to Mom and Hopper about leaving—”

“But those aren’t the only reasons.”

Will waits.

“You are right. I’m also upset and angry because I miss Max. Right before Hopper made us leave, we were—I was going to—can I tell you a secret?” El says the last part as a whisper.

“Of course. Yeah. Always.”

“I think that I love Max.”

Will surprises her by saying, “I know you do.”

“How do you know? You have hardly seen me. We have not talked much. You cannot know about this, because that would mean you knew before I did.”

“I think I did,” Will says. “I think I knew…when I saw you in her hospital room. I remember thinking that you and Lucas look at Max the same way, like you’d both throw yourselves into traffic for her. And maybe I should have thought about how that might affect Lucas, knowing that another girl loves the girl he loves, but all I could think was that you really are my sister, because you—you’re just like me.”

“Like…you?”

“Yeah." Will looks away, towards the mirror. "You don’t—you don’t love the kind of people everyone expects you to love.”

El thinks she knows what Will is trying to say, but she is still confused. She wants him to connect the dots for her. Something is still out of reach, like a puzzle piece that has fallen to the floor and hidden under a table. “Who do people expect you to love?” she asks.

Will takes a breath. “Girls,” he says. “Because I’m a boy. I’m supposed to like girls. But I…I don’t. I never have. I never will.”

“You are…gay?” El asks carefully, remembering the word that she has heard used as an insult, that Max said was not a bad word.

“I, um, yeah. I didn’t think you knew that word.”

El doesn’t want to tell Will where she first heard it. But then he says—

“People talked about me, didn’t they. In Lenora? They asked you.”

“Yes,” El tells him. “I did not know what it meant then. I did not tell them anything.”

“I’ve been made fun of a lot,” Will says. “Especially when I was younger. People always made fun of me and said I was gay. For a long time, I was terrified that they were right. I’m still kind of terrified of it. But...it’s who I am. So even if it’s bad, or wrong, I can’t change it. I don’t think I want to.”

“I do not think you could ever be bad,” El tells him. “I think you are the best, maybe.”

“Thanks, El.”

They are quiet. And then El asks, “Am I gay?”

“There’s another word for girls,” Will says. “It’s ‘lesbian.’”

“Lesbian,” El repeats.

“Do you only like girls? You dated Mike for a while…”

“I only like Max,” El says. “I think I like her.”

“You just said you love her.”

“I am still figuring out what love is.”

“Yeah, I get that. Okay, let’s say you do love Max. Why do you love her? What do you love about her?”

“There are a lot of reasons.”

“Tell me.”

“Max is…kind to me. She is funny and she makes me laugh. I think she has the nicest smile I have ever seen. She is very patient with me when I don’t understand things. She understands what it is like to not be normal and she doesn’t think I’m weird. She was the first person who showed me how to have fun and taught me how to figure out what I like. She does not treat me like a superhero. She thinks my powers are fun, not just useful, and she does not think I am a bad person because of the things I have done. Have had to do.”

Will takes El’s hand and holds it tightly in both of his. “Those are all very good reasons to love someone,” he says. “People fall in love for a lot less.”

“Really?”

Will nods. “Yeah. Okay, now, let’s say Max was a boy. How would you feel then?”

El thinks about that. Tries to imagine Max, with the same gentleness and humor, as a boy. If Max had been raised as a boy, would she be the same person El knows now? Or would she be tougher, harder, more like her brother Billy? “I don’t know.”

“What about another girl? Have you ever thought another girl, not Max, was pretty?”

“I think all girls are pretty.”

“What about boys?”

“They are okay.”

“Okay?”

“I do not have a good word to describe boys.”

Will laughs. “Okay. So, girls. If you saw a pretty girl, would you want to kiss her?”

“Right away? Without talking to her?”

“Sure. That’s what a lot of people do.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“I…would not want to. That sounds weird. I cannot imagine kissing anyone except Max. Well, maybe Mike, but only because I have kissed him before. I do not really want to kiss him again. He is not a very good kisser.”

“I’ve kissed Mike,” Will says quietly.

“You have? Max said you wanted to, but I did not know you had done it. I’m sorry I said he was a bad kisser.”

“Max said what?”

“She said, ‘your brother wants to smooch your boyfriend.’”

Will’s cheeks turn pink. “Oh. I didn’t know it was that obvious.”

“She told me how to notice. I noticed. At the library. Do you love him?”

“I do,” Will says, quiet as a mouse.

El smiles at him, but says nothing. She is not sure what she is supposed to say.

“Do you—what do you think?” Will asks. His voice wavers.

“What do you mean?”

“Me and Mike. Do you think it’s…weird? Because he was your boyfriend? Or because, I don’t know, because he’s my best friend? Is it wrong?”

El puts her hand on her brother’s knee and looks him directly in the eyes. “I think that love can be weird, but I do not think it can be wrong,” she says.

Will blinks rapidly and his bottom lip trembles. “Really?” he whispers.

El pulls him into a hug. “Really,” she assures him. El thinks about how she loved her papa, even though he was a very bad man, and about how Max loved her brother, even though he was horrible to her. She thinks about how Joyce and Hopper love each other, even though it is difficult for them to be together, and would probably be easier if they did not love each other. She thinks about all the ways she has seen her friends show love for each other and especially for her, the girl who has made their lives a living hell. She does not know why they continue to love her even as her existence continues to make everything worse. “There are lots of kinds of love,” she says. “And I do not think any of them are wrong.”

“What kind of love do you think you have for Max, then?” Will asks.

“That is what I am trying to figure out,” El says.

“But you do want to kiss her?” Will asks. “You said you couldn’t imagine kissing anyone else.”

El realizes that during this conversation she has left out a crucial detail. “I have kissed her. I have kissed her a lot.”

“You—what?”

“We have been practicing our kissing,” El explains. “For when we have boyfriends. But now I think I do not want a boyfriend. I only want to kiss Max. I want her to be my…girlfriend.” It is a word she has said before. Girlfriend. She has been a girlfriend. But to want one of her own? That gives the word a different meaning. It feels lighter on her tongue, sounds brighter once spoken.

“Practicing,” Will says, as if he is trying the word on.

“Yes. Why does no one understand? Max did not say it was a strange thing to do. You have to practice things before you can do them for real.”

“Wait, who else knows about this?”

“Nancy. And Robin. Nancy saw us kissing in the woods and she asked me about it. She told me it is okay if the kissing is real. And that is when I started thinking that I maybe love Max as more than my best friend.”

“I’m sorry, El, I’m confused. You and Max have been kissing? For practice? Whose idea was that?”

“Max’s.”

“El. How do you think Max feels about you? Have you thought about that?”

“What do you mean? Max is my best friend.”

“No, I know that, but…do you think that maybe Max likes you back? That maybe she loves you too? Maybe she wants to be your girlfriend?”

“I think she would have said something.”

“She did, El. She asked you to practice kissing her.”

“For boyfriends.”

“No, El. That was definitely a lie. She wanted to kiss you.”

“Why would Max lie? Friends don’t—” El cuts herself off, remembering something Nancy said. That she had to learn when to lie.

“Friends do lie when they’re afraid of what might happen if they tell the truth,” Will tells her. “I’ve lied to Mike. I told him that a painting I made for him was your idea. I told him how I felt by pretending the words were yours. Because I had to say them, but I was afraid he would reject me if he knew the truth.”

“You think Max lied about why she wanted to kiss?”

“Yes, El.”

“You think she wanted to kiss me. For real, not practice.”

“Yes.”

El lets this sink in, and then she lays down on her back and covers her eyes. “I am so stupid,” she says.

Will lays down next to her. “You’re not stupid. This stuff is really hard. Especially for us. Because people think it’s wrong for boys to like boys and girls to like girls. But it’s not, okay? I need to know that you know it’s not a bad thing. It’s good. It might be harder for us, but it’s good.”

El uncovers her eyes and turns her head to look at her brother. “What do I do? When I see her again? What do I say?”

“You tell the truth, El.” He squeezes her hand and stands. “It’s getting late. I’m going to go see if Mom needs any help cooking dinner. Want to come?”

El shakes her head. “I want to be alone,” she says.

“Okay. See you for dinner?”

“Yes. Will?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Will leaves and closes the door behind him. El lays down and lets her head hang off the side of the bed. Outside, the sun is setting, splashing pink and yellow and purple across the sky. She watches it until the colors dissipate and the sky turns to the pale grey of dusk.

Is it true? Does Max want to be her girlfriend? Does Max love her back?

She thinks of all her unfinished letters. She wonders what Max would say if she could read them.

There is a knock at the door, and it opens slightly. “Hey, kid,” Hopper says. “Mind if I come in?”

El does not answer, but she sits up and scoots over on the bed, pats the spot next to her.

Hopper comes in, sits next to her, and waits for her to say something. El wonders how much he heard. If Will told him anything.

Finally, El asks her question. “Do you wish Sara was here instead of me?”

“What?”

“You heard me. If you could trade me for Sara, would you do it?”

“Jane, that’s not a fair question. You’re my daughter. Sara was my daughter. If I had the choice, of course I would choose both of you.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“I can’t answer the question you asked. There is no answer to that question.”

“Find one,” El demands, finally looking at him.

“You know what I think about? If Sara hadn’t died, if I had stayed here, what would have happened to you? And then I think, I’m glad I had to come home, because if I hadn’t, Jane would have been all alone. And then I ask myself what kind of father could possibly be glad that his daughter died so that he could be in the right place at the right time to rescue another girl. But what kind of father wishes he had left that other girl all alone? I turn it over and over in my head all the time. I never stop thinking about it. So you can’t ask me if I would swap you for her. It’s an impossible question, Jane.”

El wants to believe him. She really does. “Then why did you keep the house? Why is her room still decorated like she is going to come home?”

Hopper pulls at a loose thread on his shirt pocket. “I kept the house because it was all I had left. Diane—Sara’s mother—didn’t want it. She to keep it or to sell it, she didn’t care, she didn’t want anything to do with it. I couldn’t stay, but I also couldn’t bear to get rid of anything that Sara had touched, so I never sold it. I’m not saying it was a good idea. It was…the only idea I had. I paid a neighbor to mow the lawn, packed one suitcase, and ran back home, back to my grandpa’s cabin, and that’s where I stayed.”

El doesn’t know what to say. She has wandered into something that is too complicated for her to understand. She is not angry anymore, not like she was when she yelled at Will, but she doesn’t feel any better.

“Jane—”

El stiffens. “I want you to call me El.”

“Why?”

“I’m not Jane. I will never be Jane. Just like I will never be Sara. I want…I want you to stop pretending I am someone that I am not.”

“Okay, El. Listen. I fought for her—for Sara—every day. It wasn’t enough, but it was all I could do. I don’t regret that. What I do regret is running away, thinking that would solve my problems. But…if I hadn’t run, who would have fought for you?” He sighs and rubs his eyes. In this light, Hopper looks old. Old and tired. “Anyway. What happened is what happened. And now…I’m going to fight for you, okay? Every day. I made you run away, and I’m sorry for that. I should have given you a choice. So I’ll give you one: we can stay here, or we can go back. It’s up to you.”

El thinks back to her time at NINA, to Papa’s insistence that she could not leave before she was ready. Dr. Owens gave her the choice to leave, but Papa took it away. Now, Hopper is giving her a choice: stay here, stay safe, or return to Hawkins. She knows he wants her to say she will stay, but she also knows that whatever she chooses, he will support her. Hopper is not Papa. Hopper will let her choose.

She says: “I want to go back. I want to go home.”

“You know what we’re up against. You know how dangerous it is.”

“I know.”

Hopper sighs deeply. “That’s settled, then. We’ll leave tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” El says, relieved. “I’m sorry I came into Sara’s room.”

“It’s okay. I should have shown you. It wasn’t meant to be a secret.”

“It’s a nice room. I…would like to have a nice room.” El picks up one of the stuffed animals on the bed, a giraffe, and strokes it.

Hopper’s eyes widen as he looks around at the toys, the painted walls, the stickers on the dresser. He rubs his hand on the pretty comforter and reaches for the giraffe in El’s arms. “Oh, El,” he says. “I’m so sorry. She was so much younger than you when—I didn’t know you would want things like this.”

“I never had them,” El says.

“Take them with you. As many as you want. Anything in here, it’s yours. She’d be mad at me for leaving all her toys to sit here like this,” Hopper says. He laughs a sad little laugh. “She’d lecture me about how they get lonely, too.”

“Do you think we would have been friends?” El asks.

Hopper smiles. There are tears in his eyes. “I think she would have loved you. She always wanted a sister. But oh man, the two of you together…I wouldn’t have had a moment’s peace.”

When Hopper says this, Sara’s ghost transforms in El’s mind. She is no longer a threat, but a companion. A sister. Hey, she says. Have you seen my favorite blue shirt? I can’t find it anywhere. Wait a second—are you wearing it?!

“What might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present,” El recites. Sara might have lived. El might have never found Hopper. Sara might have lived, and El might have found them both. They might have been sisters, best friends. Any of these things could have happened. But one thing is true in this story and in the others that did not happen. In every possible version of his life, Hopper is a good dad. El hopes he understands what she means.

“I see you’ve been studying your Eliot.” (He understands.)

“Yes,” El says. She takes Hopper’s hand. “I am going to defeat him, okay? I am going to win. I am going to save everyone.”

“I know you are,” Hopper says, pulling her into a hug. “But, God, I wish you didn’t have to.”

*

As promised, they leave in the morning. After El gets into Hopper’s car, and the boys into Joyce’s car, Hopper lingers on the front lawn, gazing at the house. Joyce leans against him.

El rolls down the window and listens.

“I think I’ll sell it,” Hopper says.

“Are you sure? Who knows what’s going to happen in Hawkins. We might need it.”

“I know. But I have to let go eventually. I can’t keep living in that cabin. Not if—you know. If you—”

“We’ll find another place,” Joyce says, saying what he cannot.

“A fresh start.”

El rolls up the window before Hopper can see that she’s been listening.

On the drive back, El asks Hopper, “Who told you about Two?”

Hopper hesitates.

“I need to know,” El insists. “Please tell me.”

“Owens,” Hopper says.

“Dr. Owens? But he…he is dead.”

“People around here have a habit of surviving impossible things,” Hopper says.

A cold dread fills El’s entire body. If Dr. Owens says Two is alive and working on behalf of Papa…it must be true. If he found a way to contact Hopper and warn him, it must be urgent.

“You still want to go back?”

“Yes,” El says, lifting her chin. Her friends are in Hawkins. Max is in Hawkins. She has left them all alone before. She will not do it again.

Chapter Text

“Hey, MadMax.”

“Oh. Hey, Lucas.”

This exchange is followed by a silence so awkward it ought to be in the Guinness Book of World Records.

“I brought you something,” Lucas finally says.

“What? You did?” Max has no idea what Lucas could have possibly brought her. She’s thrown off by the idea of him bringing her anything, by him visiting her at all. What is he doing here?

“Yeah. Here, hold out your hand.” Max does, and Lucas presses something solid into her hand. Max’s grip tightens around it. It’s long, extending from her hand all the way to the ground. It’s smooth to the touch; sturdy enough to lean on.

“Is this…?”

“It’s a cane,” Lucas says, finishing her question. “I didn’t—I don’t know if you need one. But, um, my grandpa died recently—”

“Oh God, Lucas, I’m so sorry.”

“—and when we were cleaning out his house I found it. I thought you might be able to use it. I don’t want to…assume anything. It’s okay if you don’t want it. I can take it back.”

Max flings herself at him, as much as she can fling herself at anyone, and pulls him into a hug. The cane is still in her hand, and she’s careful not to smack him with it. Although, it would be an awfully good weapon. Just not for this. Her eyes burn, her throat feels tight. What the hell is wrong with her, that she’s been avoiding this sweet, kind person who never gave up on her? Who still thinks of her?

Max lets go before she accidentally gives Lucas the wrong idea. She sets the cane down and leans on it. Oh, she’s going to have to break it to him that they’re not getting back together, isn’t here? She hasn’t prepared herself for that conversation. Mike better not have told him anything. They’re friends now, in their own way, but she’ll revoke friendship privileges immediately if she finds out Mike told Lucas about her feelings for El. She’ll feed him to a Demogorgon, and she’ll only feel a little bad.

“Do you want to talk downstairs?” Max asks. May as well rip off the bandaid. Or, if Mike didn’t spill the beans to Lucas, make sure she tells him before Mike starts flapping his lips.

“Yeah, sure,” Lucas says.

“You go first. I’m slow.”

“Do you need—”

“No.” She doesn’t need help. Even if she did, she wouldn’t ask for it. Wouldn’t accept it. The only person Max would accept help from isn’t here.

So Max steadies herself on the cane in her left hand and the banister in her right, and makes it down the stairs without falling. It’s a major accomplishment. She feels her way to the couch and collapses onto it, drained from the short journey. Man, she really needs to move around more. Sitting around is not doing her any favors. Maybe she should take up jazzercise. Karen Wheeler must have some tapes laying around.

Once she’s settled, she says, “I’m really sorry about your grandpa.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“I’ve never heard you mention him. Were you close?”

“Um, yeah.” Lucas’ voice wavers. “I don’t really—I’m not ready to talk about it.”

“I get it.” She wants to take his hand, squeeze it, let him know she’s there for him, but she can’t. She just can’t.

They’re quiet again.

Lucas asks, “What did you want to talk about?”

What Max should do is ease into it. Be gentle. She should tell him how much she appreciates him and his friendship. Or better yet, not say anything at all. Wait until he’s recovered more from losing his grandpa. Tell him it can wait.

Of course, Max isn’t very good at doing what she should do.

With the grace of a newborn elephant, Max says, “Lucas, I can’t date you.”

“What?”

“I said—”

“No, I heard you. I mean, why are you telling me now?”

“I’m sorry, I know it’s bad timing.”

“Timing has nothing to do with it. Did you think…that I thought…we were still together?”

“No, no,” Max says quickly. “But I mean, aren’t you here to get back together?”

“You thought I came over to get back together.”

Max shifts on the couch. The springs creak. “Yeah, I mean, why else would you come over?”

“Wo-ow.” Lucas drags the ‘o’ out.

“Wow what?”

Lucas laughs. It’s not a ha-ha funny laugh, though. It’s kind of a…not mean, but disbelieving, laugh. “A guy can’t come see his friend who’s been in a coma, had all her bones broken, and then disappeared to a cabin in the woods without her thinking he wants to ask her out? Man, what is the world coming to?”

Max bites her tongue. “So you—you’re…not here for that.”

“Bingo.”

“Oh.”

The record set by their earlier awkward silence is broken.

“I’m an idiot,” Max finally says.

“A little bit. Of course I know we’re not getting back together, Max.” Does he sound sad? God, he does, doesn’t he?

“How did you know?”

“First of all, I never heard from you.”

“Okay, well, I was living with Hopper, and you know what he’s like.”

“Would you have called me if he let you?”

“Uh…”

Lucas is kind enough to not wait for an answer. “Second of all, I know you’re in love with El.”

Max doesn’t even bother to argue. She is in love with El, and she can’t do herself or El the disservice of lying about it. Besides, it’s not the fact of it that flusters her. It’s that Lucas knows. “What? How? Did Mike tell you? I’ll kill him.”

Lucas laughs. “Mike didn’t tell me. I’m surprised he knows.”

Max drops her head into her heads and mumbles, “Unfortunately, he guessed.”

“Then it shouldn’t surprise you that I guessed, too.”

No, it shouldn’t, but it does. How obvious is she?

Obviously not obvious enough that El knows.

Oh, God, does El know? Is El pitying her?

No. El wouldn’t know how to play that game. She’s too honest. If she suspected Max loved her, she’d come out and say it.

“Well, this is fucking embarrassing,” Max says. “How did you know?”

“We were both in that hospital room with you,” Lucas says. He sighs. “You woke up when El was there.”

“That doesn’t mean shit,” Max says, mostly to preserve her ego. The truth is, it does mean shit. When she was comatose, Max remembers how even though she recognized both Lucas and El’s voices, it’s was El’s presence she looked forward to most, it was El’s reading that finally brought her back to reality. “I could have woken up when…when Mike was there. Or Will. Or Dustin or Steve or anybody.”

“But you didn’t.”

Max knows she’ll lose this argument. She tries another tactic, although she’s not totally sure why she’s fighting this so much. Lucas is right, after all. “Well, I don’t have to be in love with somebody else to not want to date you.”

Okay, that’s a little harsh. She really needs to work on her tone.

“Maybe not,” Lucas says thoughtfully. “But I’ve known longer than that.”

“Longer? How? I haven’t even known that long.”

“I saw you meet her, Max. I’ve never seen you look at anybody the way you looked at El. Not even me.”

“In my defense, I thought you were stalking me.”

“And in your prosecution, El rejected you immediately.”

Yikes. That’s a real blow.

Max is still, for some reason, determined to fight the allegations. She wrings her hands. “I don’t think—I didn’t—it’s not like I had a crush on her right away. I swear. It’s just…I really never had a lot of friends who were girls. Haven’t had a lot of friends period, but especially not girls. And El…I mean, she didn’t even want to be friends with me at first. We didn’t become friends until she started arguing with Mike and came to me for help. So you can’t say you ‘knew.’ Okay? That’s just not true.”

“Okay, you’re right, I’m sorry. I suspected. Can I say that?”

“I guess.”

“I liked you so much and I could see that you liked her in a different way, and I…was maybe a little jealous.”

“You could tell I liked a girl and you still liked me? You didn’t think I was weird?”

“I’ll always think you’re weird, MadMax,” Lucas says, nudging her foot. “But not for that. Never for that.”

In another world, another life, this is enough for her. Lucas is enough. She can almost see it, that alternate timeline where she ends up with Lucas, where they’re happy together.

But in this world and this life, Max says, “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I should have called, Hopper be damned.”

“I didn’t call either, you know. And you were…you had been…”

“Dead?” Max says, laughing. “Yeah, well, I came back.”

Lucas doesn’t laugh. So weird that no one else thinks her brush with death is hilarious. “Does she know? El?”

“Nah.” Max tugs on her sleeves, pulling them over her thumbs. “It’s, uh…complicated.”

“Complicated like she brought you back to life and then you lived together for three months?”

“Complicated like I told her we should practice kissing each other so we’ve been making out on the regular and as far as I know she still thinks it’s for practice.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.”

“She must know.”

“I dunno, Lucas. This is El we’re talking about. Raised in a lab? Remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“I feel like I’m taking advantage of her.”

“Are you really benefiting, though?”

“No way. I’m like, actively suffering. But that doesn’t make it okay.”

“Then you have to tell her.”

“Ah, if only I had thought of that.”

“You want me to tell her for you?”

“Absolutely not. Why would I want that?”

“Just thought I’d offer.”

“I’ll get around to it. I’m not ready. And besides, she’s not even—”

From upstairs comes the extremely bizarre sound of Mike Wheeler squealing.

The basement door opens so loudly that Max wouldn’t be surprised if Vecna himself had appeared and wrenched it off. “Guys!” Mike calls. “They’re here!”

“Who?” Lucas says, but the tone of Mike’s voice, the joy in it, tells Max exactly who is here. Her heart starts doing gymnastics. All her thoughts evaporate except for one: El is here.

For the second time that day, Max goes upstairs. This time, she doesn’t make it to the front door. She doesn’t have to. As soon as she reaches the landing, El is hugging her, holding her so tight that Max is briefly worried this will be the last thing she experiences before she suffocates.

That wouldn’t be so bad.

Max buries her head in the space between El’s head and shoulder, basically nuzzling her neck, fully aware that Mike and Lucas and God knows who else are watching, but she doesn’t care. El smells like vanilla. She’s warm, solid, real.

“I missed you,” El says.

Max wants to kiss her. She’s never wanted to do anything more in her life. But she doesn’t kiss El. She says, “I missed you too. I missed you so much.”

Lucas says, too loudly, “Well, I should probably get going.”

Max abruptly releases El from the hug.

“No, stay,” Will says. Oh, Will is here. That makes sense. “We should talk. All of us.”

“Yeah, most of us are here already,” Mike agrees. “I’ll call Dustin, ask him to get Steve and Robin.”

“Let me go get Erica, then,” Lucas says.

The boys make their plans, and El twines her fingers with Max’s, tugs on her hand. They descend the steps, and Max doesn’t worry about falling at all.

“I have so much to tell you,” El says when they reach the last step.

Max’s heart jumps off a cliff. “Yeah? I…I have some stuff to tell you, too.”

El pulls Max to the couch, leans in, and whispers, “Will and I figured it out.”

Figured what out? If Max told Mike about the whole kissing situation, El must have told Will. Or Will told her about Mike? Both? Max somehow manages to keep her voice even when she says, “You did?”

“Yes. The poems. We know what they tell us about the Upside Down. Will did most of the work.”

Oh. Right. Of course, the poems. “Nice,” Max says, a little halfheartedly. “So, what’s the big secret?”

“We are going to tell everyone,” El says. “That’s why Will wants everyone here. So we can make a plan.”

“Oh, okay, cool. Um. Maybe we can talk about something else while we wait?”

“What do you want to talk about?” El asks. She sounds surprised. That’s not a good sign.

Max panics and says, “The butterfly.”

“Butterfly?” El repeats.

“The one in the cabin. The one I…made.” She’s tried on a bunch of words for what it is that she can do, and ‘make’ isn’t perfect, but it’s more accurate than the other options.

“Oh! Yes. What about the butterfly?”

Max realizes that she doesn’t actually have anything to say about it. “I feel bad that I left it there. Do you think it…died? I would feel awful if it died.”

“I think it probably found a way outside,” El says. She rubs Max’s knuckles with her thumb. “Have you made anything else since I saw you?”

“No,” Max says. “I waited for you. The butterfly scared me a little.”

“Because it was alive?”

“Yeah.”

“I am back now. We can practice again so you do not feel scared.”

For a brief moment, Max thinks El is referring to a very different kind of practice. This would be the perfect moment to say it. Speaking of practice… But she doesn’t. She says, “Yeah. Okay. Thanks, El.”

“We’re coming downstairs!” Mike announces, and the three of them—Mike, Will, Jonathan—stampede down the stairs like a herd of wild buffalo.

Max blushes at the implication that he assumed they were kissing and needed a warning to collect themselves. Sure enough, when the boys land in the basement, Max can feel Mike’s beady little eyes boring into her, probably glancing back and forth between her and El. Probably scanning for signs that they’ve been up to something. He’d better not give anything away. “Lucas went to get Erica. Dustin, Steve, and Robin are on their way,” Mike says.

“What about Nancy?” Max asks. If El and Will figured out the stupid poems, they definitely need Nancy here.

“Nancy will come down in a minute. She’s in Holly’s room.”

Holly’s room. Oh, shit. Did Holly ever tell Nancy about her dreams, like Max instructed her to? If not, Max will have to, and she’s sure Nancy won’t be happy that Max didn’t tell her right away. Nancy Wheeler’s wrath isn’t something Max needs right now. She can’t decide which would be worse: Nancy Wheeler’s wrath, or a love confession from Mike to El on Max’s behalf.

How is that even a question? It’s the latter for sure. Max can take Nancy. But she’s heard the way Mike does his love confessions—in monologue form, over the top, completely insincere—and she knows he would completely, utterly fuck it up.

The others arrive shortly after. Steve claps Max on the back and congratulates her on ditching the casts. Dustin tells her that Suzie is working on some kind of computer program that will automatically describe images and videos for people with sight impairment. And Max has to dig her fingernails into her palms to avoid crying, because she really can’t believe that her friends, her weirdo group of friends who have seen the horrors of the universe and survived, love her this much.

Everyone starts peppering El, Will, and Jonathan with questions about where they’ve been, and Max listens as they describe Hopper’s secret house in New York. It sounds like white picket fence suburban bliss shit. Max can’t reconcile it with the man she knows as Hopper. Beside her, El is weirdly quiet—she’s often quiet, but this time there’s a sort of strange energy rolling off her shoulders that Max can’t interpret—so Max leans against her. She knows how fragile El’s place in this world is. Seeing Hopper’s old life must have upset her. Later, she’ll ask El about it, ask about what really happened. But not here, not with all these curious ears and eyes.

“Who were you hiding from, anyway?” Dustin asks. Side conversations die down as everyone awaits the answer.

“Hopper found out—” Will begins to say, but Jonathan cuts him off.

“Wait for Nancy,” he instructs.

“Yeah, where is she?” Mike asks of no one in particular. “She said she’d be right down.”

As if on cue, the basement door opens and urgent footsteps thump down the stairs.

“Max Mayfield! Why the hell didn’t you tell me that Vecna is after my sister?” Nancy shouts.

The room explodes into a cacophony of confusion, everyone talking over each other, asking questions, making accusations.

“What’s going on with Holly?

“Who didn’t tell you?”

“How is he back already?”

“He doesn’t need any more sacrifices!”

“Are you sure she isn’t making it up?”

And so on, and so forth.

Max stays quiet.

One voice breaks through the noise: “Would everyone shut up, please, and let someone explain what is going on?”

Max doesn’t think she’s ever heard someone tell a group to shut up as politely as El just did. But it works, somehow. They all shut up like El pinned them against a wall with her telekinesis.

“Holly told Max she was having dreams about a monster,” Nancy says, “and Max didn’t tell me.”

“I told Holly she needed to tell you,” Max says.

“She’s six. She needs reminders to tie her shoes.”

Max does something she doesn’t do lightly, and never does in front of witnesses: apologizes. “I’m sorry, Nancy.”

“You should be.” Nancy’s voice cracks. “She—you know what it’s like. To be haunted by him. You know how awful it is. You—look at you.”

Look at you. “I can’t,” Max says, voice low. “You think I didn’t take her seriously? You think I want—”

But Max doesn’t get to finish her sentence. El grabs her hand and everything goes silent. The air is sucked out of the room. And then there is no room, just a blue-black watery void, with El standing in the middle. Max is looking at her, really looking. She can see her.

“What—where are we?”

“I needed to talk to you alone,” El says, sidestepping the question. “Nancy was upsetting you.”

Max only stares at her. At her fitted t-shirt, her hair that is long enough to curl behind her ears. She's too pretty for this world, or any world.

“Anyway, she is wrong. Holly is not seeing Vecna.”

“How do you know?” Max wants to step towards her, press her palm to El’s palm, kiss her, but she holds back.

El twirls her finger in her short hair. It’s so cute Max could die. “He is not strong enough. He has to focus his energy on the Upside Down. Will can explain.”

“If it’s not Vecna, who is it?”

El’s face scrunches up like she’s just eaten a poisoned lemon. “Hopper told me that there is someone else from the lab who lived. He is working for Papa.”

Now Max is really confused. “The dead guy?”

“Yes. But I do not think he is working alone.”

“El, you have to spell this out for me. I don’t know shit.”

“Before Papa died, he made sure someone was prepared to take over for him. He chose Two. I thought Two was dead, but he is not. There is a lot I do not know. Hopper thinks Papa altered my memories.”

“If he weren’t already dead, I’d kill him. Okay. So, Holly is seeing this other guy? Two?”

El shakes her head. “No. Did I ever tell you about Kali? Eight?”

“Yes,” Max says. El told her that story early on, when Max was still in her casts. They laughed about how Kali gave her the makeover that made El look like a badass.

El is not laughing now. “Do you remember what I said she can do?”

“You said she can…make people see things.”

“Yes.”

“You think she’s working with Two and giving Holly visions.”

“Yes. Maybe. I am not sure. I wanted to tell you first. Before I tell the others. There is a lot to explain, Max, and I need you to trust me and Will. Okay?”

“Of course I trust you,” Max says adamantly. “I will always trust you.”

Max reaches for El, but El steps back. Her expression changes again. Her features relax, except for her eyebrows, which are still knit together. She looks worried, or maybe sad. “Please…don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’ll’ve—”

Someone is shaking her shoulders. Max snaps back to the present and says, “Will you stop? You’re making me motion sick.”

“Let me go,” El says sternly.

“Oh thank god,” Dustin says. “You went into a trance again. Both of you.”

“I needed to talk to Max,” El says, as if that explains things.

Max zones out. What was El trying to say? Like you’ll’ve—what? Like she’ll have what?

She hopes this weird little town hall is over soon so she can ask El.

Matter-of-factly, like she’s a waiter reciting the day’s special menu, and not at all like someone who was just in a trance, El says, “Two is alive. He is working for Papa. He is after me.”

“Shit,” Dustin and Steve say simultaneously. Max wonders when their brains merged. She wonders who got the worse end of that deal.

“What does that have to do with Holly?” Nancy asks.

“Two may be working with Eight. My...sister. She can make people see things. If they are working together, they could give Holly visions that are similar to what Vecna does.” El sounds a hell of a lot more confident about this theory now than she did when she was talking to Max.

“But,” El continues, “It’s okay, because we know what we have to do. Will helped me understand the poems, and—”

Nancy Wheeler explodes. “Oh, would you shut up about the poems! They don’t mean anything!”

Max feels El sit up straighter. She lets go of Max’s hand and says, “But you said—”

“Have you really not figured this out yet? I lied! I never went to see Victor Creel. I said I’d homeschool you, because Joyce asked me, and I couldn’t say no. I had no idea what I was doing, and I wanted to give you some hope that we weren’t totally, utterly screwed. I made it all up! I took the Poe books so you would think you were onto something with Eliot, figuring you’d stay quiet about it if you thought you were going behind my back. I left you with the longer, more complicated poems. To buy myself time. To buy us all time.”

“No,” El says.

But Max believes it.

Of course, Max believes it. If there’s one thing she’s used to, it’s having the rug pulled out from under her to reveal a trap door that’s already open.

“They mean something,” El says. Her voice quivers. Max reaches for her cane, briefly ready to clock Nancy with it, before she thinks better of it.

“They don’t mean anything, El.” This comes from Robin. Her voice is gentler, and somehow that’s worse. She knew too. She was in on it. It was all a lie.

Also, side note, Max is absolutely pissed that she spent so much time reading poetry.

El stands up. Max just knows that her hands are clenched. She sounds desperate when she says, “They mean something! They do. Will figured it out! We know how the Upside Down works, we know what we have to do, we—”

“I don’t care what you think you found in those poems!” Nancy spits. “This is my little sister we’re talking about. I’m not risking her to test out some crazy theory you came up with.”

“And that’s my little sister, and I think you could at least let her finish her sentences,” Jonathan says.

Max’s respect for Jonathan skyrockets. She desperately wishes she had popcorn. Technically, she could pull up a memory with popcorn and just pluck it right out of thin air, but this seems like the wrong time to debut her powers in front of a crowd.

Nancy is quiet.

“Maybe this is a bad time to ask, and maybe I’m supposed to know,” Steve says, “but what exactly are you talking about? What poems?”

Will dives into an explanation that Max mostly misses because she’s too busy trying to decode El’s last words to her in the void.

Like you’ll’ve.

Like you’ll have.

Like you will have.

None of those make any sense.

Don’t look at me like that, El told her.

And then Max realizes something she should have thought of right away: El hardly ever uses contractions. To her, they’re like swear words. Used mostly for emphasis. And double contractions? Those are the worst of the worst. The filthiest, most damning of all swears. El would never use one. Max is sure of it.

Which means El was saying…

Don’t look at me like that.

Like what?

Like you love—

There’s only one other word that could possibly come next, and it’s so terrifying that Max tunes back into the conversation.

“I’m sorry, did you just save that we have to save the Upside Down?” Lucas asks. “Have you lost your minds?”

“More than once,” Will says. He sounds like he’s having the time of his life. “But not this time. I’m not saying we save the Upside Down as-is. We have to get control over it so we can change it from a nightmare into a daydream. Or, you know, something like that.”

“How the hell are we supposed to do that?”

“Like I just said. Vecna is still weak. It’s harder for him to maintain control. If he falters, there will be an opening for someone else to step in and will it into a new form. We’ve done harder things, I think,” Will says. There’s a smile in his voice. “And because of El’s connection with Vecna and the Upside Down, it seems pretty obvious that the person we need to take over is—”

“Me,” El says.

Like you love—me.

“Right,” Will agrees. “Before Two does.”

Max, who knows about one-eighth of what’s going on, says, “No way. I’ll do it.”

What’s she volunteering for? No clue. Saving the Upside Down, apparently. Something about turning nightmares into daydreams. Whatever. All she knows is that she’s definitely not letting El throw herself into danger yet again. Max has already died once. She can do it again. If it’ll save El, she’ll die a thousand times over.

“No offense, Max,” Steve says, “But this sounds like a job for somebody with, you know, powers.”

Typically, Max doesn’t like to make a spectacle of herself, but all this back and forth is making her testy. All she wants to do is get this over with, kiss El, and continue repressing her feelings. Is that so much to ask? Instead of answering, she closes her eyes, seeks out a memory, and reaches for something that will convince them she can do this. Whatever this is.

In hindsight, she overdoes it. But by the time she realizes what a shit idea it was, it’s too late. She’s back in Mike’s basement, surrounded by the stunned silence of her friends, who are surely all staring at the same thing Max is looking at: a scrawny dog with wiry black fur, pointed ears, and an underbite.

“Uh…we all see the dog, right?” Dustin asks.

Everyone murmurs their agreement.

“This is Ollie,” Max says. “He died in 1981.”

“Oh, good, it’s a ghost dog,” Steve says. “That makes it so much better.”

“He’s not a ghost,” Max says indignantly. Ollie whines in agreement. “I took him from a memory where he was still alive.” She offers her hand to Ollie to sniff. “Who’s a good boy? You are!” she tells him.

Ollie licks her hand and then promptly settles himself on her feet, looking around the room like he’s ready to chomp a limb off the next person who calls him a ghost.

Faintly, El says, “Max has powers.”

This is one of those times where it’s really inconvenient that Max can’t see. She really wants to see their faces. Although, it’s not quite the reveal it could be, since Mike, Nancy, and Robin already knew about it.

“So she does,” Dustin says. “Can I ask…how?”

“I think I gave them to her when I brought her back to life,” El says.

“Sweet. I've gotta tell Suzie."

“Is that settled, then?” Max asks, unable to keep the impatience out of her voice. “I’ll save the Upside Down, or whatever, and we’ll give El the day off?”

“It is not settled,” El says.

Lucas says, “I’m with El on this one.” (Traitor.)

Dustin says, “I dunno, the trick with the dog kinda convinced me to go team Max.”

Erica says, “No offense to Max, but the last time she volunteered for a dangerous task, my brother got beat up by an asshole jock—no, Lucas, I will not watch my language—and Max straight up died. I vote El.”

Thoughtfully, Will says, “Max seems to have creative powers, which could be useful in this particular case…” He trails off, lost in thought. Classic Will Byers move.

“I’m still trying to figure out what's going on with the dog,” Steve admits.

“And that’s why you’re the brawn, not the brains, my dearest,” Robin tells him. Max assumes this statement comes with a gentle pat on the head.

Not everyone has weighed in. Max shocks herself and everyone else in the room by saying, “Mike? What do you think?”

“Wha—me? You’re asking me?”

“Yeah, dumbass.”

“Um. I…don’t know. I think, maybe, um. I don’t see why it has to be one or the other. I think we need both of you if this is gonna work. We’re all finally together. We need to work together. I’m tired of losing people because they decide to do things on their own.”

No one says anything. Because holy shit, Mike is right.

Mike.

Is.

Right.

Stranger things have happened, but still, it’s shocking.

Nancy takes the opportunity to jump back in. “Have you all lost your minds? My little sister—our little sister—is being haunted. We don’t have time to fight over who does what. We especially don’t have time for Max and El to argue over which of them gets to sacrifice herself,” Nancy says. “It’s a good theory, Will, honestly impressive, but that doesn’t change the fact that I sent Max and El on a wild goose chase with those poems.”

“You’re saying that like it’s our fault,” Max says.

“I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have done it. But I’m telling you now, before you do something stupid.”

“Nancy,” Jonathan says, half-gently, half-sternly, “do you have a better idea?”

Nancy sighs. Silence hangs heavy in the room until she finally says, “Walk me through it again.”

*

An hour later, they have a loose plan, and the group scatters. Lucas and Erica leave first—they have to be home before dark—followed by Steve, Dustin, and Robin. Nancy and Jonathan go to Nancy’s room. (The fact that they’re still together is news to Max. She was honestly starting to think Nancy had something going on with Robin.) Mike and Will whisper to each other—Max hears them say ‘we should leave them alone’—and then it’s just the two of them. Max and El. Oh yeah, and Ollie.

“He is cute,” El says.

Max laughs. “Oh, he’s definitely not cute. We got him from a shelter for basically free because everyone said he was the ugliest dog they’d ever seen.”

“I think he is very cute,” El reaffirms. Max can’t see her scratch Ollie’s ears, but she can see Ollie’s ears moving, can see his eyes close and his leg shake. “Ollie, right?”

“Yeah. Named him after the only skateboard trick I could do at the time.”

“How did he die?”

“Hit by a car,” Max says. “It was awful. I saw the whole thing. My fault, actually. I thought it’d be fun to skate while I walked him. I hit a bump, let go of his leash and…yeah. Um. I don’t actually want to talk about it.”

El puts her arm around Max. “He is here now. And so am I.”

Max can’t help it. She kisses her. It’s not a sweet kiss. It’s a needy kiss, made desperate when El freezes. When El doesn’t kiss her back.

“Max,” she says softly, pulling back, arm still around Max’s shoulders. “I don’t think we should practice anymore.”

And there it is. The sentence Max has been waiting for, dreading, expecting.

She leans down to pet Ollie, hoping that if she focuses on him, she can avoid crying. She’s not going to cry over this. So, she loves El, and El doesn’t want to kiss her anymore. That’s fine. It’s what she always expected.

At least it's over now, right?

“Sure,” she says. “That’s fine by me.” Ollie whines, as if to say no, it’s not fine by you!

“Max,” El says. “I think—”

Max interrupts her. “Ollie probably needs to go outside. He hasn’t peed in like, five years. C’mon, Ollie, show me the door.” Ollie, who apparently remembers his training, gets up and walks. Max stands, follows him to the door, and opens it, stepping outside with him. Once the door is closed, she lets herself cry. It’s a quiet cry, only violent on the inside.

Now she knows what El meant.

Don’t look at me like that. Like you love me.

It’s bad enough that El wants to stop kissing. It’s worse that it’s because she had already figured out how Max felt about her and was trying to let her down gently. Before Max made a fool of herself.

Don’t look at me like you love me.

It’s for the best, though, right? Better for El to have figured it out than for Max to have cut open her heart and handed it to El, only to have it sewn back in backwards and upside down.

It’s for the best.

Ollie returns and scratches at Max’s pant leg. “All right, I’m getting the door, be patient,” Max tells him. Ollie cocks his head. “Yeah, I was crying. Don’t make it a thing.”

Max is ready to pretend like nothing happened and to seamlessly transition into a conversation about what it was like at Hopper’s secret house, but she doesn’t get the chance. As soon as she and Ollie get back inside, Joyce says, “Oh dear, you weren’t kidding. I guess we’ll have to find a pet-friendly hotel.”

“He’s my seeing eye dog,” Max says.

“Sweetie, that requires a lot of training.”

“Didn’t El tell you?” Max says. “I can see him. He’s literally my seeing eye dog.”

“What?”

“I told Mom how you found Ollie,” El says.

Oh. Whoops. El was trying to cover for her. Well, whatever. The adults ought to know what’s going on.

“I can explain,” Max says. “Wait, hotel?”

“Hopper is afraid to go back to the cabin, so we’re getting hotel rooms. One room for Hopper and the boys, another for us girls. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

No, Joyce, that doesn’t sound fun.

But what can she say except, “Sure, that’s fine by me.”

Chapter Text

El has messed up. She has messed up badly, and she is not sure how to fix it.

She is sitting in the front passenger seat. Max sits in the back with Ollie, and she is talking—but not to El.

“Robin and I played this game where she put on a movie and I had to guess what it was about,” Max says to Joyce. “Music makes a huge difference in the mood of it. Seriously, with just dialogue you probably wouldn’t be able to tell a romance from a mystery or an action movie. It’s the music that clues you in. It’s psychological, I think. Nancy’s been teaching me some psychology. Did you know how many things can go wrong in your brain? Anyway, I was thinking maybe that would be a good job for me, since I can’t see—making movie soundtracks. Not like writing the music, but…”

Max continues talking, babbling away to Joyce as if El is not even there. She is animated,  cheerful, so unlike her usual self, and it makes no sense. She should be—she is?—mad at Nancy, mad at El. Max is always mad at somebody, and this is not how she shows it.

El is bewildered. She looks in the rear view mirror at Max, observing her. Max’s cheeks are slightly pink with the warmth of the sun beaming through the windows and from talking so much. Her hand kneads the space between Ollie’s ears. She sits up straighter than she needs to, leaning forward a bit so Joyce can hear her over the slightly staticky radio. Nothing about her indicates that she is upset or angry; if anything, she looks relaxed. El looks away, feeling sneaky for gazing at a girl who cannot see her looking.

Joyce sees, though. Joyce catches El’s eye and quirks her eyebrow. El does not know what question she is asking, and even if she did, she does not know how she would answer.

They pull up at a hotel advertising a vacancy, and Joyce leaves the car running while she ducks inside to get their room key. Hopper’s car is already here, parked on the other side of the lot. Jonathan took Will in his car and they should be here soon.

But for a minute, it’s just El and Max.

“Max,” El says.

“Yeah?”

“Are you upset?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“El, I’m fine.”

El hates the word ‘fine’. Of all the words she’s ever heard, it seems to be the one people misuse the most. Technically, it means the same thing as ‘okay’, but when people say ‘okay’, they usually mean it. ‘Fine’ is a lying word. ‘Fine’ is a word people use when they want someone to think they are okay, when they really aren’t. And the worst part is, once someone says they are fine, it becomes impossible to finish the conversation. ‘Okay’ is a doorstop. It leaves an opening. ‘Fine’ is a lock.

Max has locked herself away, and for the first time since she woke up, she has left El outside, wishing she had a key.

“Okay,” El says, hoping that Max will understand that this is an invitation, an opening. “If you want to talk—” El stops talking as she sees Joyce hurrying back to the car. “We can talk,” she finishes.

Max makes a funny hm noise in her throat, and that is the end of the conversation. Joyce opens the door and pulls around to the other side of the parking lot, next to Hopper’s car. The adults get bags out of the trunks while Max gets out of the car with Ollie and her cane. There is a rope tied around Ollie’s neck, the closest thing Joyce could find for a leash. Max stands with some difficulty, and El resists the urge to put a steadying hand on her shoulder.

“Do you need help?”

“No.”

It hurts more than it should, or maybe it hurts the perfect amount.

Wordlessly, El follows Joyce to the side entrance, leaving Max to make her own way.

*

El has never stayed in a hotel before, so she is not sure what to expect, but it quickly becomes clear that this is not a fancy vacation. The hallways smell musty, heavy with old cigarette smoke. The walls may have been white once, but now they are yellowish, and there are spidery cracks in the ceiling that remind El of Vecna’s gates. Hopper stops at a door and Joyce takes a few steps to the neighboring one. She fits the key in the doorknob and the door swings open with a creak. Hopper’s door opens more quietly, and he disappears inside.

El steps into the room and observes Joyce as she opens drawers and looks under beds, searching for some unknown danger. Finally, she flops backwards onto one of the beds and closes her eyes. El eyes the second bed and puts together the pieces as the uncoordinated footsteps of a girl with a cane and a resurrected dog enter the room behind her.

“Two beds,” El says.

“Oh, you girls don’t mind sharing, do you?” Joyce asks. She is all stretched out now, arms wide and legs long. El wonders when Joyce was last allowed to take up space. “I didn’t think you’d want to share with this old lady.”

“It’s fine,” El says, using the word she despises, because, well—it is fine. It would be better if Max was not so clearly upset with El, if El had not just ruined their entire relationship, but they will manage. El will hug her side of the bed and leave Max to hers. The last time they shared a bed, El kissed Max’s forehead and had did not understand what she meant by it. This time, she will not kiss Max at all, and she will have to deal with the roaring absence of what she has lost.

It will be fine.

Joyce orders a pizza and they eat it as the sun sets. When it arrives, she says, “Girls night!” and opens the box right on her bed. El picks out two slices—a super cheesy one for herself, one with bits of burnt cheese and dough bubbles for Max—as Joyce turns on the TV and finds an old movie for them to watch.

The movie, a romance, is one El has seen before. The last time she watched it, her eyes were glued to the television as she took mental notes. She remembers practicing the lines in the mirror, testing out how they felt in her mouth. She had planned to say them to Mike, or maybe she had said them. Sometimes her relationship with Mike felt like something out of a movie, something she had watched happen instead of participating in.

Now, El’s mouth is dry, and the pizza is not helping.

El has not figured out what love is, but as she watches the characters in the movie declare their love for one another, she gets the sense that they have no idea what love really is, either. El feels like she has been lied to. She feels like everyone has been lying to her this whole time, and she—

She just wants to talk to Max.

“Isn’t it romantic?” Joyce sighs, as the couple in the movie kiss passionately in the rain.

“Not really,” Max says, surprising El. “He’s an asshole. I mean, a dick—no, sorry—”

Joyce laughs, but she looks hurt, and not because of Max’s language. “Why do you say that?”

“He loves the idea of her,” Max says. “That’s all.”

“The idea of her?” Joyce repeats, like she is the teenager and Max is the adult.

“Yeah. He loves the idea of what she could be. He’s made up this fantasy person and that’s who he’s in love with. Did you know—it’s a lot easier to be in love with an idea of a person than a real person? Someone who bleeds and cries and sweats and—she’s not a doll.”

“Max, is there something you want to talk about? Is Lucas—”

Max laughs harshly. “I’m not talking about Lucas. Lucas is the best. Besides, we’re not dating anymore. Ship, sailed.” She claps her hands together and makes them swim in a motion that is probably supposed to represent a boat, but looks more like a struggling fish. “I’m just saying, this guy is a jerk, even if he doesn’t mean to be.”

“Max is talking about me,” El says, surprising everyone, most of all herself.

“No I’m not,” Max says, defensively. She takes an aggressive bite of cold pizza.

“Me and Mike,” El continues. “You think Mike was in love with the idea of me.”

“Was?” Joyce asks. Her head has been swiveling back and forth between the two girls, but now her gaze settles on El, a mix of pity and confusion and—something else. “Jane, did you and Mike break up?”

“Mike was never in love with me at all,” El says, ignoring Joyce’s question. “Because ‘in love’ and ‘love’ are not the same thing. Maybe Mike loved the idea of me. Maybe he still loves me. But he is not in love with me. And I am not in love with him. I never was.”

After saying something like this, El thinks there should be silence, but the movie is still going, and the room makes its own noises. Silence is impossible. But there is something heavy between the three of them, the two young women and the one older, as they all think about love, in love, ideas of love.

What El wants to say is that she knows all this because she is in love with Max. Not the idea of her; Max, fully realized.

El does not say that.

El says, “It is still a good movie.”

El wonders what Hopper, Jonathan, and Will are doing in their room.

*

After the movie, Max takes a shower, leaving El alone with Joyce. They sit on the edge of Joyce’s bed, the empty pizza box between them.

“I’m sorry about you and Mike,” Joyce says, reaching over to rub El’s back. “When did that happen?”

El struggles to remember the exact timeline. Did she and Mike ever officially break up, or did they just drift apart after Max’s battle with Vecna? El gives up and says, “A while ago.” That is as close as the truth as she can get.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” El says. “I am not upset about that.”

“So you are upset about something.”

El glances at Ollie, asleep on the chair in the corner.

“Is it something to do with Max? You were so excited to see her, but you weren’t very chatty in the car.”

“I messed up,” El says. She examines her fingernails to avoid meeting Joyce’s eyes.

“What did you mess up?”

El listens to the sound of the shower running. “I…I am not sure.”

Joyce moves her hand to El’s cheek and gently turns her head. “Jane—”

“Can you call me El? I like El better.”

“Okay, El, you know you can tell me anything, right?” Joyce’s eyes are soft. Her hair is frizzy, but it is still so pretty, and El’s head feels suddenly light, as if her hair has only just been cut.

El does know, but she still hesitates. She’s not a baby—she doesn’t need her mom to fix her problems for her. “We will figure it out,” she says. “Everything is so weird and confusing.”

Joyce laughs in a soft, tired way. “You’re right about that.”

The shower stops running.

“Can I ask you a question?” Joyce says. “It’s about Mike. And—well, Will, too.”

“Okay.”

“Are they—” Joyce purses her lips and closes her eyes, as if she has to cut through a dense forest to find her question. She opens her eyes and finishes with: “—still friends? I was worried…they wouldn’t be, after so long apart.”

“Yes,” El says, relieved. “I think they will always be…friends.”

If Joyce notices her hesitation before the word ‘friends’, she doesn’t say so. She smiles. “Good. That’s good. I hope you and Max will always be friends, too.”

El could tell her right now, she could tell her everything, but she decides not to. There will be a better time, a time when El is less confused. “Me too.”

Max emerges from the bathroom in sweatpants and a t-shirt that could easily fit two of her. “Water’s hot,” she says, as she wraps a towel around her head.

“You go ahead, El,” Joyce says. “I took a shower this morning.”

So El goes to take a shower, keenly aware that she is leaving Max and Joyce alone. If earlier, in the car, was any indication, they will have plenty to talk about. Non-El things, hopefully.

The bathroom is foggy and damp from Max’s shower. El swipes her hand across the mirror and stares at herself for a full minute before she remembers to turn the water on. What is she looking for in the mirror? A good question, a question El has no answer for. She steps into the shower and lets the hot water fall over her shoulders. El hates baths—they remind her too much of sensory deprivation tanks—but she loves showers. At the lab, she was permitted to take them every other day, but the water was always cold, and the soap left a sticky residue on her skin. Time was limited, and it was not until after her escape that she learned showers were supposed to be relaxing. She remembers the first time Mike showed her to the bathroom and explained how to turn on the water before hurrying out the door, blushing because El had started tugging on her shirt, taking it off. That was when she still did not understand privacy. She had marveled at all the bottles, unsure of which to use, and turned the water on. She got in while the water was still cold, and yelped when it turned scalding hot. She scrubbed herself quickly with fruity smelly soap, wincing as the water burned her skin, and got out of there as quickly as possible. She remembers getting dressed and finding Mike waiting outside, looking nervous. “That was fast,” he had said, and El says, “Fast?” and Mike had said, “Yeah. Don’t you like long showers?” and El had said, “Waste of water,” parroting Brenner.

After that, though, El had tried longer showers, and found that she liked them. They were relaxing. Now, as she stands under the water, she allows her mind to wander.

She expects to think about Max, about her reaction when El said they should stop practicing, but her mind takes her elsewhere, back to the other humiliating part of the day: Nancy’s lie.

Her feelings about it are complicated. She is a little impressed. El would not have been able to come up with an idea like that. She is a little sympathetic. She understands that Nancy must have felt desperate, like she had no other choice. Mostly, though, she is disappointed. In Nancy, but also in herself. El keeps believing people, even when they make it very clear they do not believe in her, at least, not in any part of her that lacks superpowers. El is too trusting. Time and time again, people keep letting her down. They treat her like a child until they need her, and then they treat her like a superhero.

All El wants is for someone to treat her the same way always.

She thought she had that in Max, but now she is not so sure.

And that brings her back around to the big question: why is Max upset with her, and why does she refuse to admit it? El said they should stop practicing, and that upset Max. El meant to say they should stop practicing because El can’t pretend anymore, not when her feelings are so big, but Max would not let her keep talking. There are only two options that make sense. One is that Max figured out how El feels, and is mad about it. She is mad that El was pretending to practice when she had real romantic feelings. If that is true, El wishes she would just come out and say it, so they can have a conversation and El can apologize. The other option, the less likely but more hopeful one, is that Max does return El’s feelings, and thought El was saying they should stop kissing because she doesn’t want to anymore. If that is true, then all El has to do is explain, like she wanted to in the first place.

Maybe El would be more likely to believe that option was possible if Nancy had not made El feel so stupid for believing in the poems. It is not the same situation, not at all, but sometimes unrelated situations get mixed up and baked together, like a very strange cake.

Showers usually make El feel better, but this one has only made her feel worse. She turns off the water and towels off quickly, ignoring her reflection in the mirror while she gets dressed.

El can manage if Max does not share her feelings. She will be thrilled if Max shares them. But what she absolutely cannot do is lose Max’s friendship. For one thing, they have unfinished business, fights left to fight. But more importantly, losing Max would destroy El. She very nearly lost her before, to something much more serious than a misunderstanding.

El will not lose her again.

*

Later, El lies awake. The room is dark, but not quiet; the fan whirs, the faucet drips, the ceiling creaks. Ollie is snoring. Joyce is not, but sometimes she sighs heavily in her sleep, or abruptly turns over.

None of that is why El is still awake.

“Max,” El whispers, propping herself up on her elbow. She is on the right side of the bed, as far from Max as she can get. Max did not complain when they went to bed, only said a quick, indifferent good night and rolled over, away from El.

Max doesn’t respond. She is asleep, her hair fanned out on her pillow, bright even in the darkness.

El sighs. She is not tired at all. But maybe, with Max asleep, she can practice saying some things she has trouble finding the words for. “I missed you when I lived in California. Have I told you that? I missed you more than I missed Mike. Maybe even more than I missed Hopper, and I thought he was dead.”

Max’s chest rises and falls, rises and falls.

Lightly brushing her hand against Max’s cheek, El says, “I know this time was shorter, but I think I missed you more. I missed you so much it hurt, Max.”

El watches Max a little longer, just long enough that it starts to feel sneaky, like something she is not allowed to do, and then she sighs again. She lays on her back with her hands clasped on her stomach. To the ceiling, she says, “I tried to write you letters, but they all came out wrong. Sometimes I feel like I will never understand how words work. Sometimes I get angry because no one taught me about words. I am still trying to understand how a single word can have more than one meaning.”

Even quieter now. “You are asleep, you are not listening. What I am trying to say, Max, is that I—I think you are the most beautiful girl in the world. And I—”

Max stirs. Her eyes stay closed. “El? Are you trying to talk to me?” she mumbles, voice heavy with sleep.

“No,” El says. “Go back to sleep.”

Sometimes, El misses being a kid, when she lived by the rule of ‘friends don’t lie.’

Everything was so much easier back then.

She closes her eyes and eventually falls into a dreamless, black sleep.

*

El does not feel better in the morning, not even when Joyce says they can get breakfast for free. But she puts on a clean shirt and follows Joyce to the lobby anyway, because her stomach rumbles, and breakfast has hardly ever hurt anybody, except maybe Benny.

Max is still asleep, so they leave her in the room, and El is selfishly grateful.

In the lobby, they find Hopper and the boys already eating at one of the small tables. Joyce gets a cup of coffee and walks over to join them, but El lingers at the breakfast bar, taking in all her options. There are tubes of cereal, a bowl of dull apples and bruised bananas, a plastic case with bread and bagels, a half-empty box of donuts. It is the most exciting breakfast El has ever seen. She has gone out to breakfast and ordered food, but this is the first time she has seen it all laid out together. And all for free! She takes one of everything and piles it onto a paper plate that sags in the middle with the effort of holding El’s hoard. Feeling just a little bit better, El carefully takes her plate and joins her family at the small table. All their knees and elbows are bumping together, but they make room for her anyway.

“Hungry?” Jonathan asks.

“Yes,” El says. “This is great. I love hotels.”

Everyone laughs, and El smiles. It is very nice to be out all together. They must look like a real family.

“What’s the plan for today, Chief?” Joyce says.

Hopper slurps his coffee and shrugs. “Lay low, don’t die. Same as usual.”

Will takes a break from nibbling on a piece of toast to ask, “Any news about Two?”

“We tracked Janus to Chicago,” Hopper says.

El freezes mid-bagel bite. With some effort, she chews and swallows. “That is where I met Kali,” she says.

“Yeah, kiddo. I know. Seems likely that they’re working together. I’m sorry, I know she was your…I know you liked her.”

El knows what family is now, which means she knows Kali was never her sister. If anything, she is satisfied that she was right about Kali working with Two. “What should we do?”

“You shouldn’t do anything. At least not yet. We don’t know enough.” Hopper rubs his head. “I’ll go—”

“Oh, no,” Joyce interrupts. “Uh uh. What happened to laying low and not dying? You’re not going anywhere. Especially not by yourself.”

“I’ll go,” Jonathan says. Joyce and Hopper stare at him, but Will and El look at each other. They know what Hopper and Joyce do not: this is part of a bigger plan. “I’m an adult now. You can’t make me stay.”

“You don’t even know where I’m going.”

“Chicago, probably.”

The conversation fades into the background as El focuses on her food and reviews their plan.

Step 1: Find Janus and Kali. Find out what exactly Brenner told them to do. Find out what they know about One and the Upside Down. Prevent them from coming to Hawkins.

Step 2: Investigate the gates. Find out if they are all the same or if each one is different. Find out which ones, if any, can be safely crossed.

Step 3: Hone Max’s powers. Discover her limits (safely).

Step 4: Enter the Upside Down.

Step 5: Save it.

An easy five-step process. Easy in theory, at least. In practice, well, that is what they will find out soon enough.

“All right, you win,” Hopper is saying to Jonathan when El focuses again.

As Joyce and Hopper exchange a look, Jonathan gives El and Will a grim smile.

It is beginning.

*

When they get back to the room, Max is awake. “I brought you breakfast,” El says, handing her a plate.

“What is it?”

“Donut, bagel, banana,” El says.

“Together?” Max’s nose wrinkles.

“No. Separate.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Someone knocks on the door. Joyce opens it. Will is outside. “Hey, Mom, do you want to go for a walk?” Will asks.

“Oh! Sure, just let me put on my shoes.”

“Can you guys take Ollie with you?” Max says, gesturing towards the dog, who is digging at the thin carpet like there is a bone buried in it. “He’s restless.”

Joyce looks wary, but Will says, “No problem, I’ve got him.” He comes into the room and crouches in front of Ollie to let the dog sniff his hand. As he ties the makeshift leash and coaxes Ollie to stand, he looks at El, inclines his head towards Max, and mouths Talk to her.

El nods, and Will gives her a thumbs up. After the door clicks shut behind Joyce and Will, El counts to fifteen and then says, “Max.”

“El?” she replies through a mouthful of donut. She is sitting at the little table in their room, steadily working her way through breakfast.

El stands at a safe, respectful distance, feet firmly planted on the ground. “We need to talk.”

Max swallows. “About?”

“Why you are mad.”

“I told you, I’m not—”

“Please,” El says. “Please don’t lie.”

“I mean it. I’m not…mad. Not at you.”

“Who are you mad at? Nancy?”

Max shrugs. “Eh. No.”

“But she lied about the poems!”

“And ironically helped you and Will figure out everything. I still think you’re right, you know. Everyone does. Probably even Nancy, a little bit.” She holds up her thumb and forefinger in a pinching gesture.

“She was so mean to you.” Nancy’s look at you echoes in El’s mind.

Again, Max shrugs. El wants to shake her. “I deserved it.”

“Max—”

“No, I’m serious. I should have told her about Holly right away. Like…it was rude of her to tell me to look at myself. That was in super bad taste. But she didn’t mean it literally. She meant that I, of all people, should know how serious this is. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t tell her. What, did I think Holly would be mad I tattled? No. Sometimes, I think I—I don’t know. Try to pretend none of it’s real.”

“If you aren’t mad at Nancy, then who?”

“Oh. Thought that was obvious. I’m mad at me, El. I usually am. My own worst enemy, and all of that. I hate myself, but what else is new?”

A cloud obscures the sun, leaching the already dim room of its remaining color.

El is fifteen years old when she learns that it is possible for a person to hate themselves. She is fifteen years old when she learns that her best friend, the girl she loves, hates herself. “Max,” El manages to say. “What are you talking about?” She misunderstands. She must.

Max takes another bite of food as if this is not a huge revelation. “Oh. When I was at the Wheelers, Mike told me that I’m a huge bitch. Not his words. I’m paraphrasing. Anyway, I thought about it, and I was like oh yeah, he’s totally right. I’m mean. And I guess I already knew that, but here’s what I figured out: I’m mean because if I’m mean, no one will like me. And that’s what I deserve. Also, I don’t like me, so why should anybody else? Being mean is kind of a…um…” She snaps her fingers. “A workaround. Saves me the time and trouble of waiting for somebody to figure out some other reason to hate me. That’s where I messed up with you, right? I should have been mean. If I’d been mean to you, we wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be in this totally shitty situation where you have to reject me now, after all this time, instead of when you should have, which was…forever ago. I mean, you did reject me, but then you came back, and you wanted to be my friend, and I shouldn’t have let you.”

“Max, I promise I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“‘Don’t look at me like you love me.’ That’s what you were going to say to me, right?”

Max’s words hit like a poorly aimed baseball. “How did you—”

“Yeah, I thought so. It’s okay, El. Really. It’s all my fault. I’m the one who suggested kissing, I’m the one who went and fell in love with you. It’s not your fault.”

El has the sudden and strange sensation of falling.

“You…what? You fell in love with me?” Even though El had entertained the possibility of Max returning her feelings, this is unexpected. Wonderful, but unexpected.

Now Max looks confused. “Yeah, didn’t you figure that out? Isn’t that what you were trying to say? Isn’t that why you want to stop practicing?”

“No,” El says. She feels a mixture of relief and nervousness as the floor comes back up to meet her. Finally, she unglues her feet from the floor and crosses to the chair where Max is sitting. El sits on the floor in front of Max and reaches up to grab her hands. “Max…I don’t want to practice anymore because I want to kiss you for real.”

Max curls her fingers around El’s. “Oh. Oh my god. You…for real?”

“Yes. I thought you understood that. I thought that’s why you were mad.”

Max’s cheeks are so red. “No! No—I thought you were letting me down.”

“No.”

“Then why…why were you going to tell me not to look like I love you?”

“Because,” El says, trying to find the right words, “when you looked at me that way, it made me hope…and I did not think you could love me. Not the way I love you.”

“El—”

“You still can’t.” El closes her eyes, willing herself not to cry. “Not if you…hate…yourself.”

“That’s not true. El, please, listen—I’m not going to do anything, I’m not going to hurt myself—”

El opens her eyes. She wishes Max could see her, and thinks about taking her into the void, but she knows just as well as Max does that this conversation needs to happen in reality. “I will break in half from loving someone who hates herself. Everything is so sad, all the time, and all I want is to be allowed to be a little bit happy sometimes. You make me happy, Max. If you love me, and I love you, and you hate you…I am not very good at math, but that does not add up.”

Max lets out a long sigh. She holds El’s hands even tighter, nails digging into El’s skin. “It’s just—my whole life has sucked, El. A flaming shit show. The common factor is me. There’s something wrong with me. Why wouldn’t I hate myself?”

“Because I don’t.” El is not mad. She only wants to help Max understand. “I don’t hate myself, Max. My whole life has also been a…flaming shit show…and even though I am sad sometimes I do not hate myself. Not even a little.”

Max’s grip loosens and she pulls her hands away. “Well, that’s nice for you. You didn’t know until a couple years ago that you could have had a normal life. I’ve been watching normal people forever, seeing what I can’t have. You’re lucky—no, shit, I know you’re not lucky, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, El.” Her voice catches like she is about to cry. “I’m so goddamn sorry.”

El, who saw more horror before she was ten years old than more adults see in a lifetime, says, “It’s okay.”

“It’s really not,” Max says. She squeezes her eyes closed and drops her voice to nearly a whisper. “This is what I’m talking about. What kind of person says something like that? I’m the worst.” Her voice hitches again.

“You are not,” El says emphatically, “the worst.”

Abruptly, Max opens her eyes. They shimmer with tears. “Don’t you ever feel haunted, El?”

“Haunted?”

Max tips her head back and takes a deep breath. When she lifts her head, she says, “Yeah. By the ghosts of all the people you’ve seen die. Or haven’t seen. All the empty spaces where there should be people. Or old versions of yourself. Those memories we’ve gone into, sometimes I wonder, who’s really the ghost here? Them, or us?”

El does not answer right away. While she thinks, she takes Max’s wrist and tugs until Max slides off the chair to join her on the floor. Finally, El says, “I think…I think that everyone has ghosts. I do not think it is bad to be haunted. I think it is more about what we do despite having all our ghosts with us all the time, reminding of us of what could have been.”

Max lets out a sound that is halfway between a laugh and a cry. “I swear, El, sometimes you sound like a wise old woman instead of another kid.”

“I freaked out at Hopper’s house,” El admits. “I asked him if he would trade me for Sara if he could.”

“Shit.”

El turns so that she and Max are sitting shoulder to shoulder and leans against Max. She is crying now, and tears slide from her face onto Max’s shirt. Max takes her hand. She wills her voice to stay steady, not to wobble. “He said it was an impossible question. At first I didn’t know what he meant. But then I figured it out. It would be like asking Mike if he wishes he had not found me when Will went missing. Or asking you if you wish you had a better life in California, so that you would have never moved, and never met any of us. I think he meant that we can wish the past was different without wanting to change the present. And I decided that I would not change anything that happened to me, because all of it has brought me here, and I would not give up what I have now for something I could have had. I would not give up you.”

“El.”

“Neither of us should be alive,” El continues. “That is a fact. But here we are, anyway.”

“Here we are,” Max echoes. “You’ve been reading way too much poetry.”

El will not let Max joke her way out of this conversation.  She asks, “Do you regret living, Max?”

“No.”

“Neither do I.”

They sit without speaking for what feels like a long time, both of them crying now, not loud, just quiet.

“I love you, Max,” El finally says. “Ghosts and all. But if you hate yourself—”

“Yeah. I get it. I’ll try. Okay? If you can manage to love me,” she says, mouth wrenching into a smile, “I can give a shot.” She rests her hand on El’s cheek, then cups her jaw. “Now can we please kiss? This has been super depressing and not at all how I wanted this to go down, so a kiss would really work wonders on my half-dead soul.”

El wants nothing more than to kiss her, but first she asks, “Are you going to say it back?”

“Say what—oh. Sorry. I love you, El.”

El kisses her.

It is not the first time El has kissed Max for real, but it is the first time they both know it is real, and it is wonderful and sad and funny all at the same time.

When the kiss is over, El rests her forehead against Max’s and says, “We never really needed the practice, did we?”

“No,” Max laughs. She is the most beautiful girl in the world always, but especially when she laughs. “I was looking for an excuse to kiss you. It was a stupid idea.”

“Not stupid,” El tells her. She holds Max’s face in her hand and kisses her nose. “Not stupid at all.”

Chapter Text

Max is still giddy with relief and high on her truly fantastic luck—El loves her! She loves her!—when Will and Joyce return from their walk a while later. They were gone longer than Max expected them to be, and it's clear why when Joyce says something to El with a tearfully proud voice. Will sounds less on edge, less like a boiling tea kettle, when he says to Max:

"Your ghost dog really does not like Hawkins."

The ghost dog in question jumps up on the bed and curls up beside Max. He sighs and snuggles against her, apparently happy to be back inside. "What'd he do?"

"He had his hackles raised pretty much the whole time, and he just seemed really scared of everything."

"Well, Hawkins isn't exactly Oz. And it's definitely not California, which is the only place he's ever known. Plus, he's probably pretty confused in general about why he's here."

"Okay, okay," Will says, like he's talking to a horse that's ready to kick. "I just thought it was interesting. Dogs are pretty good at sensing good and bad energy."

Max is saved from the rest of this doomed conversation by Hopper and Jonathan, who have come to say goodbye.

"I'll call back here as soon as we're in Chicago," Hopper promises. "I'm sure you're all going to listen to me when I tell you to stay here."

"I still don't like this," Joyce says, pointedly making no promises to stay put.

"We'll be fine, Mom," Jonathan says. "It's Chicago, not Russia."

Joyce doesn't have a good comeback for that. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"It's hard to know what that does and doesn't include, but note taken," Jonathan replies.

The various family members exchange hugs and goodbyes while Max sits there awkwardly, keenly feeling her outsider status. But then, unexpectedly, Jonathan pulls her into a hug, and even Hopper claps a hand on her shoulder and tells her to be careful. She nods and turns away to sniffle, wiping a few embarrassing tears away while she's at it. What can she say? Her conversation with El has made her sappy.

After the men depart, Will offers, "You should get some rest, Mom." It's a fairly good attempt at wriggling free of Joyce, but she's not having it.

"Uh uh. You're not getting rid of me that easily. Let me guess: you kids have all cooked up some grand plan to save Hawkins. Something big and very, very stupid?"

El says, unhelpfully, "It is probably a little stupid, but not very very stupid."

"Thank you, El," Joyce says, sounding mostly genuine. Max braces herself for a speech about how they can't keep putting themselves in danger, but Joyce surprises her. She takes a deep, audible breath and says, "How can I help?"

If she could still see, Max would look at Will, who would look at El, who would look back at Max. They would talk with their eyes and come to a decision. As things are, El and Will probably exchange a glance. Perhaps a nod, perhaps not. Maybe Will even opens his mouth to say something, but it's Max who says, "All right, you wanna know everything? We'll tell you everything."

Why does she do it? Maybe she's tired. Maybe she's still riding the high of her first real kiss with El. Maybe she's relieved that an adult is finally, finally stepping in. Maybe she doesn't want to let Will or El make the decision for her. Probably, it's all of those things and a few more besides.

And so: they tell her everything, and they make a plan.

El and Joyce will venture out to assess the gates. It's not really safe for El to be out, but they all agree she's the only one who really has the ability to determine whether they're safe to cross or not. How exactly she'll do that is beyond Max, but at least Joyce will be there to supervise. El feels pretty confident that the gates will be passable, unless their nature has changed drastically. And if the gates can't be crossed? Well, then they're all fucked, and they'll have an end-of-the-world party.

El and Max manage to sneak a kiss before El leaves. "Be safe," Max instructs El.

"You too."

"I'm serious. Don't push yourself. Get the hell out of there if things get dicey. I can't—I can't lose you, all right?"

El places her hand on Max's cheek. "I will be safe. I promise."

After saying goodbye, Will and Max retreat to the girls' room. Their job is to practice Max's powers, whatever that means. Max doesn't think she's ever been alone with Will before now. They sit in silence for what feels like forever. When Max can't take it anymore, she says, "So."

"So?"

Max hesitates. "I, uh. I guess I don't know what I was gonna say."

"It's okay. I know this is weird. Hey, here's an idea. Ask me anything. Seriously—whatever question you ask, I'll answer it."

There are a lot of things she could ask him. She asks the most obvious first, to get it out of the way. "Do you know about me and El?"

"Uh, can you be more specific?"

"If you have to ask that, then you don't know."

"No, I just don't know what El has told you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Be more specific and I'll tell you."

"What? You said I could ask you anything."

"I'm not going to betray El if she hasn't already told you how she feels—no, wait, pretend I didn't—"

Max can't help it; she laughs. "Stop squirming, Byers. She told me. We're all good now—no more pretending."

"Okay, okay, good! That's—that's great. Good for you. Um—"

"Now you ask me a question. Actually, I'll give you a freebie. I already know about you and Mike. What I need to know, anyway. So, good for you, too."

She can practically hear the blush flooding Will's face when he sputters, "I wasn't going to—there's nothing to—how did you—never mind. Okay. Thanks, I guess. Still my turn?"

"Yeah."

"Have you had any visions recently? From, you know, from him?"

"No," Max replies, discovering her own surprise as she says it. "Huh. I guess I haven't. Have you?"

"Yeah."

"Oh. Are they—"

"Bad? Yeah. Max, can I tell you something I haven't told anybody? Not even Mike?"

"Uh, sure?"

"I don't think we're getting out of this alive."

Max has been through too much to deal with this last-minute defeatism. She tries not to sound too mean when she replies, "Okay? So? What do you wanna do, give up? Lay down and die? Go to the funeral home and pick out your casket?"

"No, jeez, I just—"

"Just what, dude? I get it, you've been fighting this battle a lot longer than I have. It all started with you, right? Seriously, I get it. But it's not fair to yourself or to anyone else to operate under the assumption that we have no chance. We've done the impossible before."

Will doesn't say anything, and in the silence Max realizes her misstep. Will knows all this already. Of course he does. Why else would he have decided to confide in her?

She sighs the long-suffering sigh of someone who is tired of cleaning up their own shit. "But I guess you already know that, huh?"

"Yeah."

"And you thought you could tell me because I'm our resident pessimist?"

"I thought you might understand."

Here Max is again, at the intersection of Huge and Fuck Up. She's always jumping to conclusions and hitting rock bottom on the way down. "I do, Will. Sorry." She doesn't say, I don't know why I'm always looking for a reason to be angry at someone.

"It's all right."

"It's not. Here, let me try again: Yeah, there's like, an eighty-five percent chance we all die."

"Thanks."

"But," Max continues, and this time it's not just her gut instinct, the one that wants to shut down any idea that isn't hers, talking. "Our friends, and your family, are out there trying to make those odds better, so maybe we should help them out." She presses her fingers to her temples and says, "Wanna take a peek inside my brain?"

"I don't know what that means and I'm a little scared to ask."

For a while now, Max has wondered if her telepathic connection with El is only possible because of El's powers, or if she could share memories with someone else. She hasn't tried because, well, there isn't really anyone else she wants inside her brain. What was she going to do, invite Mike in? No thanks. But Will, who has his own supernatural spookiness, is probably the best person to test her theory on. "I can share my memories with El," Max explains. "We watch them together."

"And that's where you're bringing things from, right? The memories? Like Ollie?"

As if on cue, Ollie lets out a loud, snuffling snore. Max jumps a little. She had forgotten he was there. She scratches his ears and says, "Yeah. I've never tried showing them to anyone besides El."

"So what do we do? Close our eyes and concentrate?"

"I don't know. With me and El, it's so easy, it just kinda happens. But yeah, okay, close your eyes. Maybe try not to think about anything."

"Done. See you in there, I guess?"

Max inhales deeply and tugs at a memory she feels comfortable sharing with Will. To make things easier, she chooses one she and El have visited often: their day at the mall. Not at all sure of what she's doing, she casts out for Will's mind and is surprised when she feels her consciousness hook onto his. They transport from the quiet, mildewy motel room to Starcourt Mall. Max has been here enough times that the sudden burst of color doesn't make her feel nauseous anymore, but it's still overwhelming.

"Whoa," Will and Max say together. Will looks astounded, but he's gazing around the mall. Max is taken aback by Will himself—how much older he looks since they last saw each other. When was that? Before Lenora? She tries to reconcile this Will, this almost-adult man, with the scrawny kid she remembers. She never thought much of Will before, but now she thinks to herself, Good for Mike, and hopes that whatever magic she's using won't share this thought with Will.

"Can you see me?" Will asks.

"Yep. I can see everything in here."

"Is that weird?"

Weird is one word for it. Devastating is another. Max will never see anything new again. She says, "Yeah, it's weird."

"Look, there you are," Will says, pointing as young El and Max saunter by arm-in-arm. He grins when young Max stops to reach out and adjust the hat young El's wearing. "You had a crush on her all the way back then."

Grateful to be distracted from her grief, Max shoves his shoulder. "Did not."

"Did too. You just didn't know it. Trust me, I'm kind of an expert on this."

Max doesn't question him. Instead, she takes off, following her younger self. Will follows.

He asks, "There must be limits to the memory world, right? We can't go anywhere that you didn't go when you were really here."

"Good question. Probably not. Let's see what happens." She stops and Will bumps into her, briefly losing his balance. Max spins slowly in place, taking in her surroundings. Most of the stores have a fuzzy quality to them; some are California chains that never existed in Hawkins. One just says SHOES. "Huh. I guess my brain is filling in the gaps with what it assumes would go here."

Will points to the shoe store. "That place didn't sell shoes. It was a toy store. I remember going there as a kid."

The SHOES sign melts and reforms into a toy store logo. Max gasps.

"Yeah, that's the one," Will says. He turns to Max and looks at her curiously. "How'd you know?"

"I didn't. I didn't do that."

Max must really look astonished, because an uncharacteristically mischievous smile sparks on Will's face. "Let's keep exploring."

They move along, loosely following the path set by young El and Max, who are none the wiser. Will suggests taking a left turn and the memory threatens to dissolve, their surroundings breaking up into fractals. Will speaks it back into existence, patching Max's memory with his own. There are a few sections of the mall that neither of them remember, and these areas serve as their world's borders, black voids on cliffs' edges.

"This is crazy," Max declares when they sit down in the food court, watching young Max attempting to toss fries into El's mouth.

The corner of Will's mouth quirks up. "Yeah, you have terrible aim."

"Shut up. You know what I'm talking about. Did you know you could do this?"

"Did I know I could go into someone else's mind and manipulate their memories? No, weirdly, that's never come up."

"You and Mike aren't rooting around in each other's brains? What kind of couple are you?"

They smirk at each other, not quite comfortable enough to laugh. Will asks, "Have you made any progress with El's understanding of sarcasm?"

"None at all. She's a lost cause."

"Just like the rest of us."

They fall into almost companionable silence and the moment passes. Will clears his throat. Max wonders if he's going to ask if they can leave. There's no real reason for them to stay here. As if reading her mind, Will says, "I have some questions for you. Do you want to go back or do you want to keep talking here?"

He's offering her what she's too ashamed to ask for: more time to see. She thinks for a moment, memorizing his new face, then shakes her head. "Let's go. It's not real, anyway."

She severs the connection before he has a chance to reply. They return to the motel room and Max fiddles with a loose thread on the scratchy blanket beneath her. "How much time passed?" she asks.

"Two minutes," Will says. He sounds both awed and concerned. "It felt like a lot longer."

"What did you want to ask me?"

"Right. So, your powers. The things you've…created…you brought them out of memories?"

Ollie snuffles softly in reply. Max strokes his fur and the rhythm of it soothes her. "Right."

"Have you tried making something without a memory?"

Max bites her tongue—literally—to keep from snapping at him. It's just a question. A question. A valid question. And the fact that she doesn't like the answer, that she knows where he's going with this, doesn't make him her enemy. "No."

"Do you think you could?"

"No."

"So—"

She can't help it. "Will, don't cross-examine me. You can just say it."

"All right. Okay. Our plan hinges on you saving the Upside Down. The Upside Down is frozen on the day when I disappeared. Which was—"

"Before I got to Hawkins."

"You never knew this town before One got his hands on it. The real Hawkins."

Max grits her teeth. She has always been, and always will be, an outsider in this town. She can't be its savior. But unfortunately for her, that's what she has to be. "Well, Byers, I showed you mine. Time for you to show me yours."

"My memories?"

"Yes. Duh. Get your mind out of the gutter, Will."

And so they spend what could be minutes or hours traveling through Will Byers' memories of Hawkins. Hawkins is just a city, and not an especially remarkable one, but filtered through Will's eyes it transforms into something extraordinary. His Hawkins is a love letter to childhood and, of course, to Mike Wheeler, who appears in almost every memory. He's on the swings, he's in the woods, he's on a bike—he's everywhere, always at Will's side. Hawkins itself doesn't look all that different, but Will has explored much more of it, and his memories have a glow to them that Max's lack. Max collects artifacts as they travel, stuffing her metaphysical pockets with them in hopes that she can take things from Will's memories as well as her own. She doesn't know how this is going to help. She's enjoying it anyway.

By the time El and Joyce return, smelling like sweat and soot, Max has transformed their hotel room into a version of Will's bedroom, which she has never seen. There wasn't any way to move the furniture, and despite her best efforts she can't change what she can't see, but she's added posters, blankets, books, photos. It's strange to be surrounded by pieces of someone else's life, especially as she still can't see the room or the people in it. Will is reading a comic book he lost long ago, and Max herself is curled up on the bed, crying like a baby.

"What happened?" Joyce asks of the room in general, sounding bewildered, but El's hands are on Max in moments, one gripping her shoulders, the thumb of the other moving to brush away tears.

"Max, what's wrong?"

The thing is, Max doesn't know why she's crying. It's a little bit of everything, probably. It's that she was just thinking about how she'd never see anything new again and yet Will showed her a dizzying number of new things. It's that she has one happy memory in Hawkins she can revisit while Will has hundreds. It's that Will has a best friend he's known—and loved—for as long as he can remember, along with other close friends who made a difficult life bearable. Max had, what, a few months with El and the boys before everything went to shit? It's that she and Will have both lost their childhood homes. It's that there is no normal to go back to. There's no 'real Hawkins' to recover, no town to save, not in this world or in any other.

Because this is the real Hawkins: people who judge others for their interests, their clothes, the color of their skin, for who they love. Families living comfortably while their neighbors barely scrape by. A lab that stole children from their mothers and made them into monsters. Henry was one of this town's victims. Why not let him have his revenge and drag this town into hell?

Because, Max supposes, that for all its faults, Hawkins is still home. And the real Hawkins is also a police chief who shielded an orphan from the men who wanted to hurt her; a mother who never stopped looking for her son, even when he was found dead; a group of boys who met two weird girls and thought they could use a friend.

Save the Upside Down; save Hawkins. How do you save a place that's rotten to its core?

With love? That sounds so dumb.

How do you save a girl who hates herself?

If you love me, and I love you, and you hate you…I am not very good at math, but that does not add up.

Maybe there's something missing from that equation. Solve for n or x or y. Transform the numbers by adding in an unknown variable.

It has been a minute or two, and still Max has not answered El's question. Why is she crying? El strokes Max's hair, fingernails gently scratching her scalp. Max can't save the Upside Down. She couldn't even make this dusty motel room into Will's old bedroom. But she did make it more familiar.

She can't turn back time or remove the rot. She can only add beautiful things and hope that by pouring love in, she can tip the scale in the favor of goodness.

"Did you find a gate we can," she hiccups, "go through?"

"Yes," El says cautiously. "All of them."

"All of them?" Will confirms.

"Yes."

"Take me," Max says, wiping her tears with her sleeve. "Now."