20. Two Steps Behind

[A/N: So um, here's some plot development. Let me know what you think. :)]

Chapter 20: Two Steps Behind (by Def Leppard)

"Walk away, if you want to. It's okay, if you need to. You can run but you can never hide from the shadow that's creepin' up beside you..."

. . . . . . . .

Some heat still clung to the SUV's interior when El and Hopper got into the vehicle to head up to Clarksville. Hopper had loaded El's few belongings into the backseat where they now mingled with the shopping bags from her trip with Nancy. El sat quietly in the passenger seat, watching the beaming bright headlights of cars passing by on the opposite side of the road. The trees along the highway were barren and a thick fog had settled over the ground, making it difficult to see too far ahead.

"So um," Hopper began gruffly after ten minutes of silence. "Did you have any uh, questions? About living up in Clarksville?"

El's silence was answer enough and Hopper sighed.

"Look, I get it," He said sympathetically. "You wanna stay with your friends and you don't know Becky or Terry - er, your real mom," He glanced at the girl as she rested her hooded head against the glass window. "But you'll get to know them and you know as well as I do how important it is that the lab not know you're here," Still, she remained quiet and he exhaled, his shoulders sinking as he shifted his focus to the road ahead. Maybe there wasn't anything he could say to make this easier. Or maybe he just didn't have the words. Joyce was so much better at this kind of thing. Truth be told, he was a little uncomfortable himself thinking about seeing Becky face-to-face and knowing she was still waiting for some sort of answer from him about their previous encounter.

"I'll stick around for a little while once we get there," Hopper said after a long pause. "And Becky will show you around - where to sleep, keep your stuff, a grand tour of the house, ya know? The week's gonna fly by," He tried to be reassuring. "Then we'll study some more and you can see your friends next weekend. It'll be fine,"

El glanced at him and offered a half-smile but it was more for her sake than his.

. . . . . . . .

Will and the rest of the guys left Mike's house shortly after El and Hopper. Mike had remained relatively sullen after El's departure but none of them felt the need to comment on it. He'd snap out of it and they were going to see her next weekend so it wasn't like she'd disappeared into another dimension or anything.

Jonathan had come to pick Will up and was asking him about his day with his friends as they made their way home. As they drove down the darkened neighborhood streets, Will desperately tried to keep focused on his responses instead of the creeping nausea that had taken root in his stomach. He clenched his eyes tight, leaning his head back into the headrest as he forced his answers.

"Are you okay?" Jonathan glanced at his brother with a concerned expression, having noticed his strained voice.

"I'm fine," Will said quickly, breathing slowly in order to keep himself steady. Over and over in his head he repeated the wish: please don't disappear, please don't disappear.

After a minute, the feeling subsided and Will breathed a sigh of relief. He had felt fine for a while now so he wasn't expecting another episode, let alone in front of Jonathan.

"What was that?" Jonathan asked as they turned onto the street that would lead them home.

"Oh," Will said, wracking his brain for a clever excuse. "We had a lot of pizza for dinner. I think I overdid it," Not terribly clever but it would do.

Jonathan chuckled, relieved. "That's surprising. You guys are like bottomless pits when it comes to pizza,"

"Yeah," Will forced a laugh, looking out the window and wondering when these episodes would finally stop.

. . . . . . . .

The neighborhood was nearly pitch black when Hopper and El pulled up at the Ives' house sans a dim porch light by the front door. There were trees surrounding the lot and the house seemed to be tucked away in a corner such that El couldn't tell if there were any other houses nearby, especially in the darkness. The feeling of it all gave her an uneasy feeling as she tentatively stepped out and stood by the car. Hopper retrieved her bags from the backseat and led the way up the stone sidewalk to knock on the front door. There was a light on inside that shone through the white curtain that covered the window on the door and El watched as a shadow approached and the door opened, revealing Becky.

Aunt.

Becky was her aunt. What did that even mean? She was part of her 'family' but that was also a new word. Her friends had explained that family is made up of moms and dads, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles and cousins, but still, El wasn't sure what to make of the concept. Mike and Nancy's mom was nice and so was Will's mom, Joyce. Papa hadn't been nice, though. Was he still her family? Was someone still family if they did terrible things to you? 'Friends' made sense. El was developing a solid understanding of what made someone a good friend but 'family' was still confusing. They'd mentioned that she had a mom here, too. El wondered if her mom would be like Joyce or Mrs. Wheeler. Joyce was so warm and comforting and made El feel safe and special. Mrs. Wheeler was friendly and pretty and made delicious pies and meatloaf.

"Hey," Becky opened the door and stirred El from her thoughts. "Come on in,"

El paused, waiting for Hopper to go first, then looked around the foyer curiously as the adults talked.

"How's it goin', Jim?" Becky asked, her words seeming heavier than one would find in casual conversation.

"Uh, pretty good," Hopper furrowed his brow, nodding. He coughed. "How 'bout you?"

"I'm good," Becky's smile didn't meet her eyes and El thought it was strange how Hopper and Becky were sort of acting like Jonathan and Nancy had at the mall. "Terry's in bed for the night so we'll do introductions in the morning," Her voice was purposefully hushed but El had no trouble hearing it. She wasn't sure who Terry was but that also wasn't the most pressing thing on her mind.

"Anyway, um," Becky said, a bit louder and with more energy. "So… El, I guess I should show you around, huh? Do you wanna see your room?"

El looked to Hopper for support and the chief nodded.

"Okay," El's voice was quiet, uncertain but cautiously trusting.

The house was dark with a few warm lamps giving just enough light to see where they were going. El followed Becky down a hallway to a staircase near the back of the house. The wooden steps creaked and groaned loudly as they made their way upstairs and all the while, El could feel her nervousness running up and down her arms like spiders on her skin. The hallway at the top of the stairs was dark and Becky flipped a switch that illuminated the small space in a yellowish light.

"This one's yours," Becky said as she led El through the door of a room at the end of the hall. It was quite small, though not as small as the Room Papa had put her in when she misbehaved. There was a small bed with sheets that didn't match and a thick, puffy quilt. A dark brown dresser that had seen better days sat on the opposite side of the room. "I know it's not much but um, we'll spruce it up, you know?" She walked over to a small closet to the left of the door. "And we can put all your new stuff in the closet, or in the dresser if you want? I heard you went shopping today,"

El watched the woman with a probing curiosity. She didn't seem dangerous and she wasn't actually scary. She seemed almost as nervous and unsure of herself as El was.

"So...yeah," Becky cleared her throat. "There's a room next door that we might move you into down the road but it's not ready right now. There's um, a lot of other stuff in it…" She trailed off and El wondered why that room made Becky's eyebrows knit together when she mentioned it.

"Okay, so, I'm gonna go talk to Chief Hopper for a minute," Becky said after a pause. "Did you wanna come downstairs or you could hang out here if you want? Look around?"

El wordlessly fell into step behind Becky as the two left the room and headed back downstairs where Hopper was still standing idly in the foyer, looking around at the pictures on the wall with his hands deep in his pockets. He looked up when he heard them approach.

"How is it?" He asked as he exhaled, his eyebrows lifting with the kind of forced optimism you use with kids when you know you're asking something of them that they're not happy about.

El said nothing, instead venturing into the living room to explore and inspect her new surroundings.

"So how have you been?" Becky asked once El was out of earshot.

"I'm uh, good," Hopper said, his gut telling him that the question was more loaded than it sounded and his first instinct was avoidance. "Did she like her room?"

Becky shrugged. "As much as any kid who's moving in with strangers, I guess?" She sighed. "What if she hates me? Or Terry? What if we screw everything up?"

"You're not gonna screw anything up," Hopper waved the idea off gruffly. "She's safe here, she's not gonna hate you. She just needs some time to acclimate,"

"I guess," Becky said half-heartedly, poking her head around the wall to see El gingerly touching the leaves of a potted plant in the corner of the room. "So we um," She turned back to him. "Should we talk? About…"

Hopper sighed. He didn't want to do this right now but truthfully, he didn't want to do it at all. "Yeaah," He said, drawing his voice out as if that could stall the inevitable. "I uh, I shouldn't have… done that,"

"Right," Becky nodded a little too quickly. "Yeah, I agree,"

"I mean, I don't wanna make things complicated, you know with El, and all this lab stuff I'm working on…" He trailed off. "Does that make sense?"

"Of course," Becky shook her head, her expression meant to convey a nonchalant attitude but it felt a little forced. "Totally understand,"

"Right," Hopper said with a cough. "But you - you're great," He quickly added and the corner of Becky's lips quirked up in a half smirk as her gaze fell to the floor. She looked over at El who was surveying a bookcase, delicately running her fingers over the spines of the old books which she was sure were covered with dust at this point.

"Okay well, I should get going," Hopper said, scrunching his face slightly as if the awkwardness of the situation was physically painful.

"Sure," Becky nodded, thinly veiling her disappointment. "Hey El?"

The girl turned around at the mention of her name and walked over to the adults.

"I'm gonna take off," Hopper said, crouching down to meet her at eye-level. "I'll be back to pick you up next weekend. Be good for Becky, okay?"

El glanced up at the woman. Her arms were crossed and she looked uncomfortable but she wore a tight smile as she looked down at them. El nodded to the chief and he ruffled her short hair as he stood back up.

"Let me know if you need anything, alright?" Hopper said more quietly to Becky and she nodded, watching as Hopper walked toward the door.

Suddenly, El piped up, "'Weekend'?"

"Yeah," Hopper replied definitively. "Friday," El's vacant, confused look gave him pause. "That's five days from now,"

"Five days," El repeated slowly, soaking in the information.

"Yup," Hopper said with a nod. He glanced between El and Becky. "Have a good night," He tipped his hat and stepped out onto the porch as Becky and El watched him from behind the screen door.

. . . . . . . .

El's bed squeaked when she moved and the springs bounced at the slightest adjustment of position. Still, the mattress was soft and the quilt was warm but she just couldn't fall asleep. Everything felt different. The air smelled different - older and colder. The empty room, while in itself not such a bad thing, reminded her of her bedroom in the lab in its simplicity and lack of design. The only thing that helped was the pale yellow color of the walls but with the lights off, that was gone. Moonlight creeped in through the window, casting a faint glow over the footboard at the edge of her bed. She could just barely make out the outline of her shopping bags in the corner. She made up stories in her mind, imagining the scenes playing out on the blank wall in front of her as she would often do in the lab when she was left alone for hours but that failed to keep her interest after a while.

Her hair had long since dried but her pillow still smelled of the rose and chamomile shampoo she'd used during her shower that night. Becky had told her she could pick out her own shampoo the next time they went shopping so she could choose her own scents but to be honest, El really liked Becky's and wanted to keep using it. She hadn't even known what shampoo was up until that point. In the lab, she was only given a bar of soap to wash everything and she hadn't known what to do with the myriad bottles in the Wheeler house so she'd stuck to the same familiar bathing routine. Hopper only had a 2 in 1 shampoo and body wash combo that had a strong smell that tickled El's nose. When Becky was helping El get ready for her shower that night, she'd explained what everything was.

"You can use anything you want in here," Becky had said. "We can go to the store sometime this week and get some stuff of your own,"

El had stared blankly at the items in the shower, noting the bar of soap as the only familiar item. There was a poofy pink ball hanging from the tub's faucet that she recognized from the Wheeler house but she'd never learned what they were. Bottles of varying shapes, sizes, and colors were lined up along the tub's edge, though not nearly as many as she'd seen at the Wheeler's.

"This one's shampoo," Becky pointed to a pink bottle in the corner. "And the white one's conditioner. You probably won't need much since your hair's…" She paused when El's face fell and she looked down.

"It doesn't matter," Becky shook her head. "Anyway, um…" She tapped her fingers against her hip as she got her thoughts back on track. "This is body wash, it's like soap," She explained, gesturing to a larger bottle in the corner closest to them. "Or you can use the bar of soap if you want," Becky turned around, patting a thick green towel with accompanying wash cloth. "You've got your towel and your wash cloth," She handed the small cloth square to El. "Night clothes are on the sink… I think you're good. Anything else?"

El looked at the tub, then back at Becky, shaking her head.

"Okay, well I'll give you some privacy," There was that word again. "The middle knob turns the shower head on, left is hot, right is cold," She walked toward the door. "I'll be downstairs," She said, pulling the door but El caught it with cat-like reflexes just before it closed.

"Open," El said quietly, her breath and anxiety caught in her throat.

Becky's eyebrows lifted. "Uh, okay then," She shrugged, adjusting the door so it was cracked slightly. "There you go,"

El had watched through the crack as Becky disappeared downstairs, listening for the squeaks and groans of the stairs before sighing and turning to the shower.

Her mind wide-awake and her legs restless, El tossed the quilt off of her and poked her head out of the room. The hall light was off again but this time, she could see light peeking out from under the door of one of the rooms down the hall. Becky hadn't mentioned that room to her before bed and El wondered what or who was in there. Maybe Terry? Or her mom? Who was Terry? Were they nice? Would they like her? El noticed as she got closer that the door wasn't completely shut - it was cracked the slightest bit. Was Terry afraid of closed spaces, too? Maybe she would understand El. The thought propelled El forward, her curiosity and hope getting the best of her as she tentatively put her ear up to the door. She could hear the faint sound of voices and El wondered if there were more people in the room. Bells and other celebratory sounds echoed against the wooden floor and El's curiosity piqued - what was going on in there?

Her breathing was still and her adrenaline was pumping as she cautiously pushed the door open the tiniest bit, allowing her to see into the room. There was a bed against the same wall as the door and on the other side of the room, a TV was on with people dressed in bright colors, smiling broadly as a gigantic wheel spun round and round. El could see the outline of someone's legs under the covers and the back of a head with brown hair tied up in a bun. Was this Terry? Or her 'mom'? El squinted at the woman who had yet to notice her, intrigued by her lack of movement. Feeling brave, El pushed the door open a bit more to get a better look but the door creaked loudly and the woman's head slowly turned, her gaze vacant and half-lidded as she and El's eyes met.

Suddenly, El felt a pressure in her head unlike anything she'd felt before. Not that it was more powerful or painful, but it was strange and unfamiliar. Without warning, a barrage of images flashed across El's eyes. Bright, white walls and a woman, this woman, screaming in agony as doctors and nurses surrounded her. A baby crying as a man in a lab coat whisked the child away, the woman yelling desperately after them. The white hair and cold expression of the man looked eerily familiar and the realization was like a blow to the head. She remembered the middle school, the loud screeches of the Demogorgon as her friends shouted around her. The feeling of the cold lab table and the tears that dripped down the side of her face. She remembered the Upside Down and the yellow pods that glowed brightly in the dark, dank landscape. She could hear the muffled voices of men approaching from the distance, looking for her. Each image overwhelmed her more than the last and all the while, this woman on the bed stared at her. The pain in her head intensified and the pressure felt like her head was being squeezed in a vice until she couldn't take it anymore - the sensations, the memories, the images were all too much and El began to scream, clutching her head in her hands.

I knew you'd come back to me.

There was a warm female voice in her head that only frightened her more. This was unlike anything she'd ever experienced thus far. She could travel across dimensions in her mind, listen to other people in other parts of the world without their knowledge but it was always under her control. She was the one doing it. How was this happening? Was she doing something? Was Terry?

"Hey! What's going on?!" Becky burst through the door to find El crouched on the floor, covering her ears as her screams melted into cries. "Shit," Her own adrenaline racing, she crouched down to El and gently put a hand on her back. "It's okay, you're safe, El," She said, rubbing the girl's back when her touch went unrejected. El's shoulders heaved as her sobs gradually slowed and Becky made shushing sounds that reminded her of running water.

"I guess you guys met already," Becky said, her voice tired as she looked at her sister. Terry's eyes and face were still expressionless. "I was gonna introduce you in the morning but um, I guess," She paused to look at the clock on Terry's nightstand. "4 am is fine, too,"

El had quieted, her eyelashes blinking away her tears as she stared at the floor, taking comfort in Becky's hand on her back.

"They found her, Terry," Becky said to her sister who only stared at the small girl on the floor. "This is Jane,"

Realizing it was much too late and everyone was much too tired to have a decent conversation about everything, Becky escorted El back to bed.

"I'll make breakfast in the morning and we can talk about everything, okay?" Becky said as she tucked El in. "What do you like?"

Despite her lingering feelings of fear and confusion, El answered hopefully, "Eggos?"

"Hmm," Becky pondered. "I'll doubt we have any, but I know I've got a waffle iron,"

El stared at the edge of the quilt in front of her and Becky patted her knee over the blanket. "Try and get some sleep, okay?"

El nodded without looking up and listened for the sound of the door creaking open and almost closed as Becky went back to her own room.

Tossing onto her side, El looked out the window. She could see the leafless trees outside waving their branches in the wind and tried to focus on that movement rather than the whirlwind of images that had run through her head. She remembered destroying the Demogorgon and she remembered the Upside Down and… something bad was coming? But what? She remembered the government men in their hazmat suits looking for her in the Upside Down as she expertly outran and hid from them, concealing by the darkness. Their cautious, slow movements only made it easier to evade them. But a feeling in the pit of her stomach made her think there was more to it. Why couldn't she remember everything?

As she tried to make sense of everything - the crying baby and the distraught woman, the hauntingly familiar concrete walls and the face of her Papa - she shut her eyes tightly, trying to force other, more pleasant thoughts into her head. It was hard, though, because while part of her wanted to escape what frightened her, the other part was deeply curious. She wanted to understand. Who were the people in those images she didn't recognize? And who was the voice that spoke to her in her mind?

. . . . . . . .

There was a substitute in English class so everyone was more rowdy than usual. Mike sat with his elbow on his desk, propping his head up in his hand as he stared out the window. It'd been raining all morning and the sky was heavy with clouds. The dead and dying grass seemed to glow green against the muted grey landscape. Mike retraced the previous day in his mind, savoring every moment he'd spent with El and trying to etch her face into his memory. Of course he knew that she was supposed to come back to Hawkins the following weekend but even when she was in the hospital, he'd been able to go up and see her almost every day. Waiting this long to see her again made him nervous. What if something happened? What if the lab men found her up there and took her? He'd never even know she was missing again…

They'd just finished reading 'The Outsiders' and now the substitute was playing the movie on a TV at the front of the classroom. Their teacher, Mrs. Briscoe, had left worksheets for them to complete in conjunction with the movie but most of the students weren't paying attention or were only half-engaged in the assignment. Dustin and Lucas were chatting to Mike's right, half-heartedly doing their work along with a handful of other students in the class. Will was on his left, quietly paying attention to the movie and answering all of the relevant questions on the worksheet and Mike had turned the worksheet over, making a list of all of the fun things they could do once El came back the following weekend. English class was cool in that it was the only class in which all four of them were together.

Some of the students at the front watched the movie with interest but Mike, Dustin, and Lucas were in the middle of the classroom, surrounded by students talking or wandering around them. The substitute had little control and was obviously unfamiliar with handling such a large class, if he had any teaching experience at all. By the middle of the class, he'd sequestered himself in the corner at Mrs. Briscoe's desk, doing paperwork of some sort and paying little attention to the class' antics.

"Look at these losers being all good for the substitute," Troy's mocking tone behind them brought an instant deadpan to each boy's face. The bully smacked the back of each boy's head as he went down the line. James chortled next to him, watching with crossed arms and a defiant expression.

"Get lost, Troy," Lucas turned in his chair, glaring at their tormentor.

"Oh," Troy drew his face downward, feigning sadness. "You want me to get lost?" He turned to James with a laugh. "He wants us to get lost," Will had yet to face the bullies, choosing instead to ignore them in the hope that they'd go away. "Maybe you could get lost, Fairy" Troy whacked Will in the back of the head again, this time eliciting a grunt from the small boy. "You were pretty good at it before. Practice makes perfect, you know,"

"Back off, Troy," Mike stood up from his seat, shooting daggers with his eyes.

"Or what?" Troy dared, shoving Mike in the chest.

"Mike, don't," Dustin grabbed at his friend's sleeve but Mike yanked his arm away.

"Just back off," Mike insisted, forcing himself to sound more intimidating, though it did little to help his case. "Don't you have anything better to do?"

"I've got all the time in the world," Troy shot back, his dark eyes glaring intently.

"That's actually kind of sad," Dustin snickered to Lucas.

"Shut up, Toothless," James kicked Dustin's chair hard and his grin abruptly faded.

"You know, I was thinking," Troy turned to James. "Will and his family would probably fit in with the Greasers if they weren't such wimpy fags. They're already trailer trash losers," James sniggered and Will ducked his head, focusing intensely on the worksheet in front of him but everyone could tell he heard what Troy said.

"Leave him alone!" Mike said forcefully, his brows deeply furrowed.

"What's going on back there?" The substitute finally noticed the commotion.

"Make me," Troy growled, stepping closer to Mike and taking up an uncomfortable amount of his personal space. "You can't," He said after a beat. "Without your freakazoid dyke of a girlfriend around, you're the same old frog-faced pussy," Troy shoved Mike hard in the chest, forcing him to step back and almost trip over the leg of his chair.

Dustin noticed the rage brewing in Mike's eyes and stood up just as Mike was about to shove Troy back. "Mike!" He grabbed his friend's arms from behind, holding him in place which was relatively easy given their size difference. "C'mon, Mike. He's not worth it,"

"Sub's coming," Lucas muttered discreetly and turned back around to face his desk. As Troy and James walked back to their side of the classroom, Dustin gently forced Mike to sit back down but his angry scowl remained.

. . . . . . . .

The rain had let up by afternoon and El had taken her school books out to the front porch. The air was still heavy with moisture and the sky was overcast but the weather had warmed considerably, a strange but welcome contrast to the previous night's cold.

Becky had made breakfast that morning as promised after getting Terry out of bed and helping her downstairs. There were no Eggos in the house but El had watched in fascination as Becky had retrieved a plastic bottle from the cabinet, filled it with water, and then began to vigorously shake it.

Noticing El staring, Becky asked, "You wanna do it while I prep the iron?" El nodded and Becky handed her the bottle, double-checking that the cap was screwed on tight. "Shake it up real good, okay?"

El read some of the words on the bottle but only recognized a few, the most important being 'waffles'. As she shook the bottle as hard as she could, she wondered how this was going to work and if they would taste as good as Eggos.

Much to El's delight, these waffles were bigger and fluffier than the Eggos, so much so that she couldn't pick one up easily without it tearing. Becky had showed her how to cut it with a fork and knife and how you can add syrup and butter to make the waffles sweeter but in the end, El had opted to using her hands even as sticky brown syrup dripped down her forearms.

Terry sat in front of the TV in the living room from the moment she got up, only looking away when Becky had helped her eat breakfast. Her movements were minimal - she changed the channel once in a while, she gestured to things, but for the most part, El never saw her move. It would've been easy to forget she was around if not for the nervous feeling El got when she was nearby after last night. Becky had talked to her for a little bit about when they would go shopping and what her time up here would be like. She was off work today but Tuesday through Friday, she'd be working until mid-afternoon. A day nurse named Rose would be here in the mornings and afternoons to tend to Terry but El didn't have to worry about her and was free to do pretty much anything she wanted. The only rules were to stay in sight of the house and don't go anywhere without letting Becky or Rose know where she was going.

El hadn't mentioned the strange visions she'd had last night in Terry's room and Becky seemed to be stalling on having that big conversation she'd been talking about until she came outside and sat down on a porch chair next to El.

"So I guess you probably figured out that Terry is your mom," Becky said to El whose eyes were fixed on the book in her lap. When she didn't say anything, Becky continued. "Okay, so I'm gonna be completely honest with you. I've never raised a kid. I take care of Ter - um, your mom but I don't actually know what I'm doing, okay? So gimme some credit here if I don't say or do something right,"

El looked up at that and gave a gentle nod. Encouraged, Becky went on. "So," She said, exhaling. "I don't really know where to start. I mean, I could tell you about how your mom ended up like she is now or I could tell you how we didn't even know you existed until a month ago..."

El looked toward the house and Becky took a guess. "Your mom did some experiments back when she was in school… um… they gave her some weird shit, uh…" She paused, unsure as to how she wanted to handle language around El but dismissed the thought. "Anyway, the stuff they gave her affected her mind. They put her in these isolation tanks -"

"The bath?" El finally spoke, catching Becky off-guard.

"Um, sure," Becky said. "You know about them?"

El nodded and Becky could feel her heart grow heavy. She knew the lab had conducted experiments on this girl but she wasn't aware of all of the details.

"Yeah well, the stuff they gave her got stronger and stronger and eventually it just messed her up," Becky shrugged, digging a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of her flannel shirt. "She doesn't really talk or do much but she's still in there," Becky tapped her own temple, a cigarette dangling between her fingers.

El nodded, processing this information. She wondered if Terry had had a Papa, if she had been doing these experiments as a little girl, too. She imagined the woman inside watching TV going into an isolation tank like Papa had put her in back at the lab. The idea seemed strange and yet it made sense.

Becky went back inside after a little while and El spent much of the afternoon out on the porch looking through the books Hopper got her from the library. When she wasn't doing anything, all she could think about was how she missed her friends and so she opted for a distraction. She'd spread everything out on a plastic table on the porch and was trying to recite the sounds associated with different letters when she combined two or more together. She was practicing the 'ch' and 'sh' words when a yellow school bus drove past and pulled up in front of another house on the other side of the woods. She didn't pay it much mind until an hour later when she heard the sound of girls laughing nearby. Setting her book down, El stood up from her chair and stretched her legs before stepping down off the porch and peering around the side of the house. In the light of day, she could see the other neighboring houses. Most were on the other side of the woods but there were two other houses nestled back behind them, just like hers. They also had long driveways that went past the woods and up to the main road and between each house was a splattering of trees. El crept past the saplings, peering around a thicker tree at the girls two houses down. Despite her cover, one of the girls, a redhead, noticed her.

"Hey!" She called out and El's eyes widened. "Hey, who are you?"

El immediately ducked behind the tree, panting.

"Did you just move in?" A different voice called out and El shut her eyes tight. She hoped they'd give up when they realized she was hidden or gone. She wasn't too far from the house so if she had to, she could run back inside. She was pretty fast.

"Hey," The first voice was closer and El peered around the trunk to see three girls standing at the edge of the patch of trees, watching her curiously.

El immediately jumped to standing and started backing away. She didn't know what to expect from these girls. She was in an unfamiliar area and she desperately wished Mike was here to explain things to her. She ran through all of her options. She could use her powers to push the girls away but she didn't want to hurt anyone and she didn't want anyone to know she had powers. She could run back to the house - she was pretty confident she would be faster than these girls. Still, their faces looked kind and she wondered if they were actually nice.

"I like your hair," The redhead said with a smile and El unconsciously reached for her head.

"Do you like punk?" One of the other girls, a brunette with tan skin, asked. El wasn't sure what that meant so she shrugged, her eyes still watching them intently.

"I'm Gabby," The redhead introduced herself and El noticed she had brown spots on her face like Mike. "That's Trish and that's Emma," She gestured to another girl with straight dirty blonde hair that fell almost to her butt. "What's your name?"

El looked from girl to girl, assessing the situation before finally deciding to take a chance. "El,"

. . . . . . . .

Four cups of coffee weren't enough to keep Hopper sharp at 3 am as he trudged through the Upside Down with another group of scientists. Kevin and Linda were on this run as well as several others he didn't know by name. As they made their way through the decaying landscape, Hopper couldn't help but wonder how he, of all people, had ended up in this position. He was anything but a scientist and yet he was out collecting samples for some big experiment that he didn't know all the details about. The irony would've been enough to make him chuckle if he wasn't so exhausted.

The scientists spoke in hushed voices whenever they passed a yellow pod, collecting samples of the structure and making notes on pads of paper they'd brought with them, their writing clunky due to the large gloves on their hands.

Hopper contemplated how he was ever going to get out of this debt to the lab. As long as they didn't have El, he was stuck doing their dirty work. He wasn't about to give her up so the idea of disentangling himself from the lab was a bit more complicated.

Inside the lab, researchers sat in the control room, communicating with the ones who'd ventured through the portal. Many of them had bags under their eyes as the minutes and hours ticked on.

The door to the control room opened and a commanding figure entered, peering through the glass and staring in awe at the pulsing membranes of the portal.

"That's the director," An older, seasoned researcher leaned over and whispered to the younger man beside him. He couldn't have been more than 21, fresh out of school.

"Do you have any news for me?" The director inquired, stepping between two researchers and putting a set of headphones over his ears, listening to the communication from the agents in the Upside Down.

"Nothing yet, sir," The young scientist replied, his voice wavering with nervousness. "Just collecting additional samples for testing,"

"Wonderful," The director said pleasantly, setting the headphones back down on the control table. "Keep me informed of your findings,"

"The older researcher nodded in a show of respect. "We will, Dr. Brenner,"

. . . . . . . .

"Whatever you do, I'll be two steps behind you. Wherever you go, and I'll be there to remind you..."