9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Mrs. Wheeler drove Nancy and Mike to the hospital while Steve took Dustin and Jessica. Their mother would have taken them, but Hopper convinced her that Steve could handle it. Besides, she thought that only Jessica's hand was wounded.

It was a little after five when they reached the hospital. They immediately sought out Joyce and Jonathan, who were in Will's room. A nurse told them Chief Hopper had called ahead. Jonathan had already been checked out, but the nurse led Nancy and Jessica to separate rooms to check them out. The wounds on their hands didn't even need stitches. Nancy was free to go. Jessica, on the other hand, had to stay a few extra minutes.

Because Hopper had called it in, she got to a doctor fairly quickly, a man in his mid-to-late thirties with already graying hair. He took the original bandage off so he could see the damage that had been done.

"Chief said some kind of animal got you?"

"Something did," she said vaguely.

"Hm. What did you clean it with?"

"Water. We didn't have anything else."

"Well, fortunately, we do. It's going to sting, a lot, but it will keep these from getting infected. And trust me, left untreated, these will get infected. They're on their way there already."

"So treat them then," she snapped and immediately felt bad for the attitude even though the doctor didn't seem to be offended at all. He probably dealt with bad patients all the time. She'd been awake for over twenty hours and that day had been a roller coaster of emotions. She was done.

The doctor hadn't been lying when he'd told her that it was going to sting when he cleaned her wounds. She had to bite her lip to keep from crying out once or twice.

"You couldn't have picked a worse place to get hurt," the doctor said. "You'll have to take it easy for about a week. Any sudden movement and you could reopen the wounds. Looks like you've already done that once or twice."

"Yeah. Hit a speed bump."

"A'right. I'm gonna prescribe the ointment I used. Apply it twice a day. I'll prescribe a minor pain killer, because you are going to hurt more after sleeping then you do right now. The cuts are inflamed, but the ointment should take care of that in a few days. If it doesn't, you need to come back. Okay? If you start running a fever or get sick while the cuts are still inflamed, you need to come back immediately because it could be a sign that infection has set in."

"Okay."

"Now, the wounds are mostly superficial. They could've been a lot worse, and you don't need stitches. They seem to be closing fine on their own. If you have any scarring at all it will be minor."

Once the doctor put a new bandage around her middle, Jessica was free to go with instructions to make a stop at the hospital pharmacy before leaving. She told him she'd need a written excuse to be out of work for however long she'd need to heal, and the doctor gave her one without hesitation. She found Dustin and Steve outside the room they'd been keeping her in and she felt a sudden need to cry but she was just too tired to let tears come.

"You've got a battle scar," Dustin said and pointed at her belly.

"Steve!"

"What? He was gonna find out anyway. He wanted to know why they kept you so much longer than they did Nancy."

"Oh . . . Right." To Dustin she said, "You've gotta help me keep this from Mom, okay? I wouldn't know what to say if she saw the marks."

Dustin nodded. "Sure."

It wasn't too long after that that a nurse came up to them and pointed at Steve. "Your turn. The Chief said to take a look at your face."

"I'm fine," Steve said.

"Steve," Jessica said. "Go. You might have a concussion or something."

The look Steve gave her then was full of exasperation, but he went anyway. All they did was clean his wounds, which he said hurt worse than the wounds themselves. Jessica knew that all too well.

They found the waiting room closest to Will's room, where Mrs. Wheeler, Nancy, Mike, and Lucas were already seated. Lucas's mom had dropped him off with Mrs. Wheeler because Lucas had a little sister and she didn't want her catching anything from the hospital.

"Anybody hear anything?" Jessica asked, gingerly sitting down in the middle one of three empty chairs.

"Will's still sleeping," Mike said. "Mrs. Byers said something about maybe having to transfer him. It depends on how well he responds to treatment here."

"Hopper said he was gonna be fine."

"Hopper's not a doctor," Lucas, ever the voice of reason, said.

He wasn't wrong.

Hopper showed up a little after sunrise. They still hadn't been able to see Will, but he had woken up, so that was progress.

Jessica had dozed off against Steve's shoulder – he was on one side of her and Dustin was on the other – but woke right up when Hopper came in. Her head felt like it was floating, but she was alert enough. She hadn't even gone to get her medicine yet; she was just foggy from being tired.

"I need to talk to everyone involved," he said. "This isn't an interrogation, Mrs. Wheeler, so you can stay here. We'll talk right out in the hallway."

Once they were out in the hallway, they stood in a circle, Hopper in the center of them.

"Okay, Joyce and Jonathan already know this, but the only reason we were able to get Will back was because we made a deal."

"A deal?"

"We agreed that we would never mention the lab or what they were doing to anyone in exchange for everything we needed to get Will back. We needed the equipment to be able to survive . . . over there. We said we would forget it ever happened – all of it. It never happened. You guys never found Eleven. Will got lost in the woods, and we'll figure the rest out later."

"So . . . our safety for our silence basically?" Nancy asked. "What about Barb? She didn't get to come back, so how do you explain her?"

"I'm sorry, Nancy. She ran away." Hopper did sound sorry. "Her car was found at the airport."

"She's not old enough to buy a plane ticket on her own."

"There are ways, Nancy."

Nancy clenched her jaw shut and tears filled her eyes. Jessica was surprised when Steve didn't go to her side; he stayed with her. She would have mentioned it, but Jonathan came to get them then to let them know that they could go see Will.

Hopper nodded, so Mike, Dustin, and Lucas took off running in the direction of Will's room. Jessica followed more slowly, and when she got there all three of the boys were on top of Will, hugging him.

"Be careful," Joyce exclaimed. "Be careful with him."

"Yeah, take it easy," Jonathan added, but Jessica could tell they were both extremely happy that Will was back and that his friends were there.

"You won't believe what happened while you were gone, man!" Lucas said.

"It was mental."

"You had a funeral."

"Jennifer Hayes was crying, and Troy peed himself."

"What?"

"In front of the whole school."

"Yes!"

Will started coughing and the mood in the room came down quickly. He may have been okay, but he had miles to go before he would be completely healthy. There were dark rings around his eyes and he was pale – his lips even had a blue tint to them.

"You okay?" Mike asked him.

"It got me," Will said after catching his breath. "The demogorgan."

"We know. But it's okay. It's dead – we made a new friend. She stopped it. She saved us, but she's gone now."

"Her name's Eleven," Dustin said.

"Like the number?"

"Well, we call her El, for short."

"She's basically a wizard."

"She has super powers."

"More like a Yoda," Mike said.

"She flipped a van with her mind. And these guys were after us and she squeezed their brains out."

Jessica had to admit that she would have loved to have seen the van flip, but she was glad she'd missed the brain-squeezing thing, especially when she heard Dustin say that blood had poured out of their faces, out of their eyes. Well, she'd wanted to know what had happened that had caused all the blood and now she knew.

"Agents started grabbing us, and –"

Jessica tuned out when she felt a presence behind her. She knew it was Steve and leaned back against him when he was close enough. She was so tired.

"You should be with Nancy. She's upset."

"Well, I'm with you."

He slowly and gently wrapped one arm around her waist and she tensed for a brief second, feeling guilty, before deciding to just go with it.

"Still need to tell Nancy."

"I will. And apologize to Jonathan . . . for everything."

"Hm." She grabbed his arm with her undamaged hand. "You're learning."

Steve did talk to Nancy and Jonathan. Jessica was taking her turn with Will, so it seemed like the perfect time.

"Look, I want to apologize to both of you for everything. What I said to you," he said to Byers. Then to Nancy, "What I did to you and what I let Tommy and Carol do. I'm sorry."

Jonathan took the apology pretty well – he'd accepted it more easily than Steve thought he would have, though that could have been because he was worried about getting back to Will. Steve would take it, even if he had to do more later. For now, it was enough.

Nancy stayed behind when Jonathan left.

"That was a crappy thing you did earlier," she said.

"I know, I – there's no excuse."

And there really wasn't. No matter what Nancy had or hadn't done, he never should have allowed Tommy to paint those words anywhere.

"I messed up," he said, "so much with you."

"Yeah. It probably started when you decided to date me when you're actually in love with Jessica."

"What?"

Nancy smiled gently. She wasn't angry with him. She actually seemed pretty understanding.

"I get it," she said. "You've been friends with her almost from the day she moved here."

"But . . . Nancy –"

He wasn't going to deny it, but he guessed he needed to apologize for that too.

"I do care about you."

"I know. But you care about Jessica more, and it's okay. She's a great girl."

"Yeah, she is." He shook his head once, brown hair falling over one of his eyes. "How did you know? About . . ."

She gave him a slightly coy smile. "A girl always knows."

"Oh, really?"

"Mm-hm." Then more seriously, "Yesterday morning you seemed to care more about what Jessica thought than what I did about what you did. And . . . I mean, you went out at one-thirty in the morning looking for her when her mom called you because she hadn't come home. Um . . . you were more worried about her last night than you were about me. You left with her when you could've chosen to stay with me . . . But I think I knew before that. The day you asked us all to come over and she couldn't . . . your face sort of . . . fell when you found out she wasn't coming. You almost begged her to come."

Steve let his eyes drift. He hadn't realized he'd done that. He remembered feeling disappointed, but that was only because he'd wanted to spend time with Jessica outside of school and he hadn't been able to.

"Nancy, I –"

"You need to go back to Jessica. Just . . . it's okay. Really. I'm not mad."

Steve embraced her briefly and apologized again. He hoped she knew everything his apology encompassed. He hadn't realized it at the time, but from the start he'd subtly pressured Nancy to do things she normally wouldn't have. She let him sneak into her room; she drank at the party, had sex with him there.

He'd hinted that she didn't need to study because she already had a close-to-perfect GPA, so what was one bad test score? Though, to be fair, he really had helped her study that night in her room and he hadn't gotten mad when she'd said no when he'd tried to seduce her. He'd been disappointed, sure, but not upset. Nancy had probably noticed, but he couldn't help that.

At the party, though, Nancy had decided to drink only because of his telling her that it was impressive. She hadn't even gotten a little tipsy, but still . . . he was sure it had been her first drink. He hadn't really cared whether she had a beer or not, but given the crowd she'd been hanging around . . . she'd given in.

That was also the night Nancy slept with him, the first time she'd had sex with anyone. Whether or not she'd felt pressured into it or not Steve didn't know, but she'd definitely felt guilty about it the next day. She'd felt like everyone was watching her. What if she'd thought he'd told everyone? He hadn't, but he had done something worse when he'd thought she'd slept with Byers.

He'd been a pretty crappy boyfriend. Jealous and insecure, the last of which he didn't want anyone knowing. He was King Steve. He couldn't be insecure; it wasn't allowed. He wasn't actually supposed to care about anyone, especially not about some girl he'd slept with – and definitely not about a girl he wasn't sleeping with.

But he did. He cared about Nancy, maybe not in the way he should have, not in the way he wanted to, not in the way that meant he could get over Jessica – because, really, she'd never shown any real interest in him – but he did care.

There was a lot of Jessica in Nancy – maybe that was what had drawn him to her, he didn't know. They were both kind, and neither one of them were like the girls he'd only had fun with because neither of them wanted to just have fun. They both cared about others – genuinely cared and didn't care what anyone thought about it. That may have triggered Steve's jealousy, and he'd have to work on that.

"Go back to Jess," Nancy said, touched his arm briefly, and went back to the waiting room.

Jessica was still in Will's room when Steve returned. Jonathan was there as well as Joyce and Hopper, but the boys were waiting out in the hallway.

Steve didn't really know Will, so he stayed outside as well. He didn't know Lucas Sinclair at all, really, and he only knew Mike because of Nancy. They'd never really even said anything to each other. Mike had caught him sneaking into Nancy's room, but Mike had been sneaking out of the house. Dustin, though . . . he knew him, and they had spoken to each other – mostly just the basic "hey" and "what's up?" in passing when Steve had visited Jessica at her house.

It was Dustin and only Dustin, who talked to him, and that was only to say, "Thanks for protecting my sister. Maybe you're not as much of a douche bag as people say you are."

That was it, that was all he said. Steve didn't know if he should take it as an insult or a compliment because it had kind of been both.

After visiting with Will for a few minutes Jessica went out into the hallway where the kids and Steve were.

"Dustin, go say goodbye to Will. Okay? We can come back later, after we sleep."

Dustin didn't complain and did as she said. She leaned against the wall and sighed.

"I still need to go get my car from the Byers' house." She rubbed her hands over her face to wake herself up a little. "I'm so tired."

Steve moved from his spot to lean beside her, shoulder on the wall so he could face her. She turned her head towards him.

"I'll take you home, and you can go get it later. After you sleep, like you said."

That was true. Steve would take her, or her mom would. Jonathan probably wouldn't mind bringing it to her if all else failed.

Dustin came back out and Jessica went to the pharmacy like the doctor had told her to. The pharmacist tried to give her a hard time about the pain pills because she wasn't an adult, and she was just too tired to deal with that, so she mentioned Hopper's name and all was well.

Steve led them to the parking lot and to his car, where Dustin hopped in the backseat and Jessica slid into the front. They'd barely made it to the road before Dustin had fallen asleep.

"Man . . . what a day."

"You're tellin' me."

They were both silent for a few minutes, and Jessica looked back at her brother. His head was propped up against the window, mouth slightly open.

"Try not to hit any bumps," she said. "I don't want him hitting his head."

"And I don't want you reopening your wounds. I'll be careful."

For the first time since arriving at Jonathan's house the night before, Jessica felt like she could breathe, which also meant it was the first time she could actually process everything that had happened.

First and foremost, they had survived against the monster, the demogorgan. No, they hadn't been the ones to kill it, but . . . they'd fought it and walked away alive. Steve had a lot to do with that.

Will was alive and going to be okay. Sure, he needed time to recover completely, but he was back, and the thing that had taken him was gone. Dead. It couldn't take or hurt anyone again.

El was gone, though. She'd sacrificed herself and done what Jessica and the others hadn't been able to do: Kill the demogorgan.

They weren't allowed to talk about any of it to an outsider. People had died, and people had disappeared because of what was going on at Hawkins Lab – the experimentation on people, and the problems that had come from that.

If they wanted to remain safe from the lab people, they had to agree not to say a word about what had happened. They had become part of a government cover-up. Not everybody could say that.

She didn't stop thinking until they were in her driveway. Her house wasn't far from the hospital, but it had taken longer because of Steve's careful driving. Jessica didn't know when, but Steve had grabbed her hand at some point – or maybe she'd grabbed his, she didn't know – and she was squeezing his like someone would squeeze a stress ball. Squeeze, release, squeeze, release, over and over like that. He let her.

"Thanks for bringing us home. I'm sorry you got dragged into all this."

"We're best friends. I'd be offended if I hadn't been dragged into this."

She allowed herself to smile at that, but only for a second. She was so tired she felt she couldn't do anything for more than a second. She didn't know how she was going to make it to the front door. Maybe they could all just sleep in the car.

"Maybe you should stay here," she told Steve. "I don't want you going home alone. We don't actually know that we're safe, and you – you should just stay."

None of them needed to be alone even if the question of safety wasn't an issue. They didn't need to be alone because of what had just happened in case they needed to talk or just needed to be around someone who knew what they were going through.

Will had Joyce and Jonathan; Mike and Nancy had each other; Lucas could talk to Mike on the walkie-talkie; she and Dustin lived together; Steve was the only one who didn't have someone waiting at home.

"I guess I can crash on the couch," Steve said.

"Good."

Jessica woke Dustin up as gently as she could, and they made their way into the house. Their mother was in the living room, sitting up on the couch, half-asleep with her head nodding down toward her chest. She'd stayed up to wait for them.

"Hey," Jessica said in way of greeting, too tired to say anything other than that. "Steve's staying over since it's so late. I don't want him crashing on the way home."

"Of course."

Jessica felt sort of bad for telling her mother rather than asking, but she chalked it up to her being tired. She wasn't usually so demanding of people older than herself. She had a healthy enough amount of respect for authority that she didn't try to order adults around.

Dustin had barely said a word to their mom other than "hi" and "good night". No one blamed him. The sun had been up for a good hour or so, and he was exhausted.

Jessica stayed with Steve for a few minutes even after her mom went to bed. Jessica found a blanket and a pillow for Steve to use and let him get set up. He knew where everything was, and even though she was hurt she felt better getting the stuff for him. She didn't question why. She was too tired to care.

"You need anything else?" she asked.

"Nope. Think I'm set."

"Mm. Wish you didn't have to sleep on the couch."

Their guest room had never really been a guest room. It was more a storage space for a lot of junk they probably should've gotten rid of a long time ago.

"I'm okay. If I need anything, I know where it is. I can get it."

"Great. I'm getting up around noon. Do you want me to wake you up?"

He said yes, and she went to her room, changed her clothes, set her alarm, and got in bed. She had no problem going to sleep.

Jessica did come down to wake up Steve at noon, but he heard her coming. He was usually a deep sleeper, but not that day. He kept going over the fight at the Byers' house. He couldn't not see whatever that thing had been.

Last night could have gone a lot worse than it had. One of them could have gotten killed, and now they were all part of this government conspiracy that they were supposed to forget ever happened.

He was surprisingly okay with that. He did want to forget about it. He wished he could, but he'd never been so afraid in his life as he'd been the night before. Nothing else had ever made him have trouble sleeping either, but that monster had.

"You want food?" Jessica asked as she went by him and into the kitchen. "Eggs and toast."

"Sure," he said – more like mumbled – and got up too. He was still in his jeans and sweater, though he'd taken his shoes off before trying to sleep. "Are you sure you should be cooking?"

"I'm okay."

Steve stood in the entrance of the kitchen and watched as she pulled a pan out of a cabinet only to place it on the stove. He noticed the grimace on her face since she'd had to stretch to get into the cabinet. Why hadn't she just asked for help?

Jessica got the eggs out of the fridge, along with a carton of milk, and placed them on the counter by the stove. The salt and pepper shakers she got from the kitchen table, and a bowl from another cabinet.

She had trouble cracking the eggs because of the cut on her hand, but she still didn't ask for help because she was stubborn. And there was no way she was going to be able to stand there and scramble the eggs up without jarring the cuts on her belly, so Steve stepped forward.

"A'right, tough girl. I've got the eggs," he said. "You do the toast, and I'll get the plates down. You don't need to stretch anymore."

She seemed relieved. "Okay. Don't forget to add the milk so the eggs get fluffy."

"Fluffy?"

"Yeah, you know, like your hair."

"My hair is not fluffy. It's perfect."

She shrugged. "It can be fluffy and perfect at the same time. Now hush and make the eggs. Just do the whole dozen. I'm gonna get Mom and Dustin up too."

She made her way to the archway of the kitchen entrance and sent him an almost guilty expression.

"What?"

"My medicine is still in your car. I left it in there when we got here because I didn't know how to explain it to Mom. I'm gonna go get it before I wake her up. I don't know how I react to pain meds, so if I start getting loopy or something . . ."

"Got it."

Steve had gotten four plates down by the time Jessica came back from getting her meds, and she set the table, turned the coffee pot on, and put the milk on the table once Steve was done with it.

She dry-swallowed one of her pills after reading the warning label and said, "I'm gonna go hide this in my room," meaning the pharmacy bag with her cream and pills.

By the time she'd woken both her mom and her brother up, the eggs were almost done so she made the toast, enough for everyone to have two pieces. Butter and jelly containers were put on the table on either side of the plate of toast, along with a knife for both.

Steve wasn't used to family meals, and the ones he had been part of with his family had been full of awkward silence – or tense silence, which was worse – and any conversation that did happen had been stilted.

Not so with the Henderson's. That particular morning, they were quiet because they were all tired, but the silence and the vibe was nowhere close to awkward. Ms. Henderson seemed grateful that she hadn't had to make breakfast – or lunch, since it was after noon now. Dustin was still half-asleep even as he spread butter over his toast. Jessica was smiling fondly at her brother.

They were a family. Nothing stilted about them.

"Can we go see Will again today?" Dustin asked once he'd woken up a bit more. "I'm not gonna be able to see him much during the week because of school."

"We can go once I get my car back," Jessica said. "Right, Mom?"

"Sure. As long as you guys finish your homework."

That's when Steve remembered that Jessica had missed the last two days of the school week. Her brother obviously had too.

Steve wondered how exactly everything was going to be covered up. Will – or something people thought had been Will – had been buried. There had been a funeral for him, and they couldn't just say they'd buried a dummy look-alike.

But that really wasn't his problem, and he could let someone else figure it out.

Dustin ended up doing the dishes, which was pretty normal when someone actually cooked a meal. Usually Jessica helped, but she didn't this time because of the bandage on her wounded hand. It got even more in the way when she had to shower, and she just ended up taking the bandages off of her hand and midsection. She would put new ones on after she got out. The whole point of the bandages was to keep the wound clean anyway, and what better way to clean it was there than to take a shower?

The soap and shampoo stung her cuts, but it wasn't as bad as the day before. The wounds mostly just felt tight and stiff. She hadn't reopened them by stretching earlier, though, so she wasn't going to complain.

Once clean, she stepped out of the tub, wrapped herself and her hair in a towel. Her mom kept all her medical stuff in the bathroom cabinet, so she got her gauze from there. She basically ran to her room so she could clean her wounds and rebandage them. She placed everything on her dresser and then slipped some loose, comfortable clothes on. She opened her underwear drawer and pulled out the anti-bacteria cream and placed it with the gauze.

"Bathroom's free!" she yelled to whoever wanted to shower next – probably Dustin because Steve didn't have clothes there.

In fact, once she was done she was going to tell Steve that they could drive to his house first before going to get her car. He probably wanted to shower and change. She'd felt grimy from the day before, and he probably did too.

She caught Dustin before he went into the bathroom and said, "Hey, I'm gonna go with Steve to his house real quick, but I'll come back and get you so we can go visit Will. Bring any homework you have with you, so you have something to do if he's sleeping."

Dustin agreed and went to take his shower.

"Steve!" she called out. "Can you come up here for a minute?"

She heard his quiet footsteps on the stairs and grabbed the cream and gauze. Steve stopped at her doorway and looked at her, an eyebrow raised.

"Yeah?"

"I – I need your help. I can clean the wounds myself, but I won't be able to see to put the bandage back on. And it's gonna be really hard to wrap my hand back up myself."

Steve stepped inside the room and went to her even as she continued rambling.

"Mom doesn't know, so she can't see what happened. And I'm not asking Dustin to do it because he's my brother, and –"

Steve shook his head, amusement all over his face, before he grabbed the hand with the gauze in it.

"You're so cute when you babble."

That more than anything made Jessica stop short. For a few brief seconds she felt like air wasn't getting into her system right, and her face became hot. She wasn't even aware of Steve taking the gauze from her hands and leading her to the bed so she could sit. She only snapped out of it when Steve handed her the tube of anti-bacteria cream.

"You okay?"

"You called me cute," she said, as if he hadn't been there when he'd done it. "You called me cute."

Steve grinned and shrugged. "So? You're standing there in loose clothing and wet hair, trying to think of reason why you shouldn't ask for help while also asking for it. You're cute."

Surprisingly it wasn't awkward at all when she lifted her shirt up and held it there for Steve to wrap the bandages around her – maybe because he'd already done it the night before, she didn't know, but even after his comment she felt completely comfortable having him do this for her, and he seemed comfortable doing it for her.

On the way to Steve's house, Jessica's mind wandered briefly – it wasn't that long of a drive. She thought about how everything looked so normal. The sun was shining, the sky was blue with little puffs of white clouds here and there. People were out walking, enjoying the day even though it was chilly outside, it being the middle of November and all.

She'd woken up and fixed breakfast as she'd done so many times before, and they'd eaten at the table as a family as they usually did when one of them cooked. Steve wasn't usually there, of course, but he'd been very welcome at their table.

She'd showered, gotten dressed, and was heading over to Steve's house. Tomorrow she'd go to school and get her make-up assignments. She wouldn't have to work because of the doctor's excuse, but she'd just go hang out somewhere during working hours so her mom wouldn't get suspicious.

It felt weird that things weren't weird. She hadn't even had nightmares, though that could have been because she'd been too completely drained to have a nightmare.

"I kind of feel like the sun shouldn't have come up this morning," she admitted. "I mean . . ."

"I know. Everything's different, but we have to act like it's the same."

"Yeah."

The thing was . . . she didn't know if she could pretend like everything was the same. She had been to an alternate dimension, had met a girl with super powers, had come face-to-face with a monster, so of course nothing was the same.

And now she felt like crying.

"Steve?" Her voice was hushed and wet, and he glanced at her even though he was driving. "How do we do that?"

"I dunno," he said. "I guess we're just gonna have to be dumb teenagers."

"I've never been a dumb teenager."

"Well, then . . . keep me from being a dumb teenager."

She grinned a little. "Well, I've got my work cut out for me then."

Steve laughed then, which made her laugh, and it wasn't long after that that they were in his driveway.

Once inside the Harrington house Jessica made herself at home in the living room while Steve went to get cleaned up. Knowing him, he could take forever, especially if he planned on fixing his hair.

She turned the TV on to a news channel to see if word had gotten out about Will yet, and it had. The news reporters were baffled about how exactly there had been a body to bury when, obviously, Will Byers wasn't dead.

They were playing it off as "The Boy Who Came Back to Life", but Hopper had given a statement about how the medical examiner that had done the autopsy hadn't done the lab work properly and the boy that had been dragged from the quarry hadn't really been Will.

The night Will had disappeared, he'd really only gotten lost in the woods and the reason he hadn't been able to respond to anyone that had been looking for him was because he'd lost consciousness. He was sick due to being out in the cold, and he needed time to recover.

Hopper also stated that any reporters caught harassing the Byers' would be taken into custody. The police would probably be kept busy then.

About thirty minutes later, Steve was back downstairs, ready to take Jessica to get her car. He'd cleaned up as much as he could, given that his face was still bruised and busted from his fight with Byers the day before.

Jessica was watching TV, though she was half-asleep on his couch.

"Hey, you gonna be okay to drive?" She hadn't gotten much sleep, and she was on pain medication.

"Yeah." Her eyes widened slightly. "Just got too still for too long, I think."

She stood up and slowly stretched, grimaced because of the movement, before heading to the door.

"I might, um, come back here. I'll drop Dustin off at the hospital and come back."

"Okay. You wanna hang or crash or what?"

"Maybe both."

Once in the car she turned to face Steve. He'd been about to start the car but could feel she was about to say something important, so he waited.

"I still don't like you being home alone. Something could happen, and I wouldn't know because they would cover it up."

"Nothing's gonna happen to me."

He was more worried about her, to be honest, because she'd been more involved than he had. If either of them was a target, it wouldn't be him.

"Anyway, I'll get some movies or something and we can order a pizza later."

"Sounds like a plan."

Jessica's car was right where she left it the night before, in the Byers' driveway.

"Hey, I'm gonna follow you for a bit," Steve said. "Make sure you don't swerve or anything."

"Okay." It made sense because her house came first, and he could just go by when she pulled into her driveway.

Her driving was fine, though, and she didn't feel any different mentally from the pain pill she'd taken.

Jessica was planning on just picking Dustin up and leaving, but Hopper's truck was in her driveway. She waved Steve on by when he stopped and asked if she wanted him to stay.

"It's just Hopper, so it's probably nothing."

She couldn't help thinking, though, what now? It probably was nothing, but that didn't stop dread from filling her stomach as she got closer to her front door. Her breakfast threatened to come back up, and that was the last thing she needed, the stress of vomiting.

Her mom and Dustin were both in the living room talking to Hopper when she went inside. Everyone looked her way so she froze where she was, screen door still open before banging shut behind her, making her flinch.

Neither her mother nor her brother seemed upset at all, so maybe nothing was wrong as she'd told Steve.

"Hey," she said. "What's going on?"

"Remember how you asked last night if you were in trouble?" Hopper asked. "I said no, and you're not in trouble with me. I didn't think about it because of everything that was happening then, but I thought about it today, that you might be in trouble with your mom."

"Okay . . ."

"I told her about the fire at the Byers' house and how you were late because you were helping Jonathan. The phone was kind of destroyed, so you couldn't call."

"Right," she said. "The fire. I-" She looked at her mom. "I didn't call because of the phone, and there was a fire. I didn't mention it because of all the excitement with finding Will, and apparently my brain isn't functioning properly today."

"Understandable." Hopper turned back to her mom. "Ms. Henderson, I'm sorry for any misunderstandings. As for Dustin and his friends, they're not in any trouble either. I let them in the school last night so they could do an experiment. We had the school's permission. There was a . . . some chemical thing, and I can't explain it because science has never been my subject, but that's why there was such a fuss. The building is safe now, and school will resume tomorrow. There was a wall that was damaged, and that part of the building will be closed, but everything else will remain the same."

"Man!" Dustin exclaimed.

Jessica grinned at her brother's reaction because she knew he actually liked school – only because of science class – but if the school hadn't been cleaned he could have spent more time with Will.

Speaking of . . . "Did you need anything?" she asked Hopper. "Dustin and I were going to go see Will."

"Nope. I've pretty much covered everything."

"Great." She sent him a genuine smile. "Thank you."

He hadn't had to think of them at all or the trouble they may or may not have been in, and he hadn't had to care enough to come get them out of it if they had been.

"No problem, kid."

On the way to the hospital Jessica told Dustin that she'd probably come in for a minute but that she was going back to Steve's.

"Why?"

"Because Steve's alone and I'm not completely sure we're actually safe from these lab guys. Everyone else has someone to go to home to. He doesn't."

"Hm, and you kind of like the guy."

"Well, he is my best friend," she said, intentionally being clueless.

"Jess, you've been in love with that douche bag for almost two years. And you still are or you wouldn't have put up with him. You don't hang around other people who act like he does."

That was true. She'd never willingly hung out with Tommy or Carol. They'd just sort of become a package deal when hanging with Steve. And she'd always called them out on their crap. If it weren't for Steve, though, she probably wouldn't have even known who they were, and they definitely wouldn't have known who she was.

"Look, you can't say anything to him. He and Nancy just broke up, and I don't want that . . . influencing anything."

Dustin scoffed. "Like I'm really gonna talk to that loser."

She felt a giggle bubble up her chest and burst out of her mouth. It hurt her stomach, but it was worth it to feel the joy that laughing could bring.

Dustin didn't really know Steve despite the fact that she'd been friends with him almost since the time they'd moved to Hawkins. But Steve could be a douche bag and a loser. Maybe he'd do better now, though, since he'd seemed to have learned his lesson.

Okay, so this is probably my favorite chapter so far! This is where things kind of veer off from canon. I'm filling in the spaces between seasons one and two. I know for sure I'm at least getting through the second season. I'm not sure about Season Three because . . . well, it's not out yet. But I think ending at Season Two is a good goal for a stopping point at the moment.