i'll kiss her even

INT. WHEELER HOME ➜ 6 NOVEMBER 2015

The whole town felt as if it had been left out too long in the cold and then brought too close to a fire. Damp at the edges, warped through the middle, and carrying that faint, ugly smell of something beginning to burn. Even the dark looked wrong. It was too thick, too watchful. The roads around the edges of town lay under a skin of old frost and dead leaves, the trees standing bare and close together like a jury. The streetlamps buzzed weakly. Porch lights blinked on and off for no reason. Dogs had been barking for hours in distant neighborhoods and then, all at once, gone silent.

Inside the old house on the outskirts of Hawkins, the silence was worse.

Nancy stood in the front room with a gun in both hands and blood drying tacky along one side of her jaw, and across from her Robin smiled with someone else’s mouth.

Though it wasn't really a smile, Nancy knew, because smiling belonged to Robin. Smiling belonged to quick, crooked amusement and breathless sarcasm and a laugh that came out too loud in libraries and funerals and every place it shouldn’t. This was only an arrangement of teeth. A shape the thing inside her had learned from observation and was now using, badly.

“Nance,” Robin said.

Her voice was almost right.

That was the worst part. The Mind Flayer hadn't taken Robin’s face and made it monstrous. It had taken Robin whole and worn her with terrifying care. Robin’s clothes were still Robin’s. Her hair, always a little wild no matter what she did with it, hung into her eyes. Her cheek was bruised darkening purple from where Nancy had shoved her into a doorframe minutes ago. There was blood on Robin’s sleeve that Nancy knew belonged partly to her own body and partly to Robin and partly to neither of them anymore because the whole room had become a blur of struggle and panic and overturned furniture and terror.

Robin tilted her head, the movement almost birdlike and wrong.

“You know,” she said softly, “you always were the easier one to break. Even when you didn't show it."

Nancy’s grip tightened on the gun so hard her hands began to ache. “Stop talking.”

Robin took one lazy step forward.

"Why? You know it’s me.”

Nancy’s breath caught, sharp and painful. That was deliberate. The thing inside Robin knew exactly where to cut. It knew Robin knew her. It knew Nancy had memorized the tiny roughness in Robin’s voice when she was tired, the slight catch on certain words when she was angry or scared. It knew what would make Nancy hesitate.

From upstairs, somewhere in the old house, came a low groan of stressed wood settling. Wind scraped a branch against the siding. The lamp in the corner flickered once. Then again.

Nancy tried to steady her breathing. She could hear her own pulse inside her skull.

There had been a plan. They’d had one, hours ago, before everything went to hell in the span of seconds the way it always seemed to in Hawkins.

Keep the group split in pairs.

Do not go anywhere alone.

If anyone started acting wrong, if anyone heard a voice from nowhere, if any lights began to pulse in that awful slow rhythm they’d all learned to dread, get out and regroup.

No heroics.

No improvising.

No one leaves until everyone leaves.

Then Vecna had started in with Natalia.

Even now, even here, Nancy could see her daughter as she had looked when she dropped.

One second Natalia had been standing in Joyce and Hopper's cabin, dark hair pulled back, expression set in that stubbornly brave way that always wrecked Nancy because it was like staring at herself at eleven years old. The next second the color had drained from her face. Her eyes had gone glassy and far away, fixed on something none of them could see. She had whispered, so faint Nancy almost hadn’t heard it.

“Mom?”

Then she collapsed.

Everything after that had detonated.

Joyce had gotten Natalia to the couch. Hopper had started barking orders. Jonathan had tried to find the music, any music, while Steve and Robin and Nancy had moved for the truck because they thought they had maybe twenty minutes, maybe less, before whatever Vecna was doing got worse. They were supposed to get supplies, regroup with the others, come back fast.

Instead the road had closed around them like a trap.

Something had struck from the tree line. Not an animal. Not human. A demogorgon, all speed and teeth and wet sound. There had been screaming, braking, Steve swearing, Robin grabbing for the tire iron, Nancy firing once through the windshield because instinct had outrun thought. They’d made it to the house only because it had been the nearest shelter with walls still standing.

Steve hadn't made it inside.

Nancy still didn't know if he was alive.

The memory flashed so hard it nearly folded her to her knees.

Robin saw it happen and the smile widened.

“You can’t save all of them,” she said.

Nancy aimed center mass. “I said stop talking.”

Robin laughed, and the thing inhabiting her made the laugh too flat, too even, like it had studied the sound but not the feeling beneath it.

“You’d shoot me?”

Nancy didn't answer.

Because yes, if she had to. Because no, she didn't know if she could. Because Robin was her wife and standing there inside her own skin like a hostage behind her own eyes. Because if Nancy lowered the gun, Robin would kill her. She'd already nearly done it. Because there was blood on the floor where Robin had smashed her head into the mantel and Nancy still couldn't remember how she’d gotten away from the second chokehold except that she had, barely, and the room had gone black at the edges.

Robin took another step.

Nancy backed one.

The front room had become a battlefield in miniature. A lamp layed shattered beneath the window. The coffee table was on its side. One curtain had been ripped half down, leaving the glass exposed to the dark outside where the trees crowded close. A kitchen chair had broken under somebody’s weight. Mud tracked through the hall in smeared prints. The air smelled of gun oil, old wood, coppery blood, and that faint rotting sweetness that always came with the Upside Down, as if a grave had been opened somewhere nearby.

“Nancy,” Robin said again, and for one terrible instant it sounded like Robin was truly speaking.

Nancy’s eyes stung.

Robin’s mouth softened. “Please.”

Nancy’s hands shook.

That was enough. Robin lunged.

And Nancy fired.

The shot cracked through the room with deafening force. Plaster burst from the wall just behind Robin’s shoulder. Robin twisted at the last second with inhuman speed and the bullet missed flesh by inches. And then Robin was on her.

The gun slammed sideways. Nancy hit the floor hard enough to bite her tongue. Robin drove into her with all her weight, stronger than she should have been, stronger than anything wearing a human body had a right to be. Nancy smelled sweat and blood and cold air in Robin’s hair. Saw the blackness threading beneath the whites of Robin’s eyes, like veins of ink.

Robin’s hand clamped around Nancy’s wrist.

The gun skidded away across the floorboards.

Nancy drove her knee upward and Robin grunted but didn't let go. The next second Robin had Nancy’s forearm pinned over her head and her other hand fisted in the front of Nancy’s jacket, hauling her half off the floor just to slam her back down.

The impact exploded through Nancy’s spine.

Robin leaned close enough that their foreheads nearly touched.

“You should've ran,” she hissed.

Nancy could see the strain under Robin’s skin now. The thing inside her moving wrong beneath the surface. Not visible exactly, but suggested, like watching a shadow swim under thin ice.

Robin’s fingers tightened at Nancy’s throat.

Air vanished from her lungs.

Nancy clawed at Robin’s wrist. Kicked. Twisted. Robin held her effortlessly, eyes huge and black-rimmed and terrible.

The room narrowed.

Somewhere far away, Nancy thought of Natalia unconscious at Joyce and Hopper’s cabin. Thought of the eleven year-old, slight as a reed, with Nancy’s face and Nancy’s temper and Robin’s quicksilver mouth. Thought of the first time Natalia had reached up sleepily and touched Nancy’s cheek and asked, with total certainty, “Mama, are monsters real or pretend?” and Nancy, who had seen more than any person should ever know existed, had lied and said, “Pretend, baby. Go to sleep.”

She thought of Robin at the kitchen sink two mornings ago, stealing toast and rolling her eyes at Nancy’s lecture about something stupid. Thought of Robin laughing so hard over coffee she’d nearly choked on. Thought of the wedding ring glinting on Robin’s hand, now at Nancy’s throat.

No.

Nancy stopped trying to pry Robin’s fingers loose and instead went for the wound.

Earlier, in the first stage of the fight, Nancy had managed to slash Robin’s side with the broken edge of a ceramic bowl when Robin had driven her into the kitchen. It hadn't gone deep, but it had gone deep enough.

Nancy jammed her thumb hard into the cut now.

Robin screamed.

The sound was Robin’s. Pure Robin. Startled, furious, hurt.

Her grip spasmed open.

Nancy sucked in air like she was drowning and finally surfacing and shoved with both hands. Robin stumbled back a step and Nancy rolled, scrambled, snatched for anything. Her fingers closed around the fireplace poker.

Robin came again before Nancy could fully rise

But still, Nancy swung.

The poker connected with Robin’s shoulder in a brutal metallic thud. Robin reeled sideways into the mantel. Framed photos went over and shattered. One of them, absurdly, was a picture of the old house’s long-dead owners grinning on a fishing trip. Glass sprayed across the floor.

Robin straightened slowly.

Blood ran from a split on her lip now.

“Nancy,” she said, voice layered suddenly, Robin under something vast and cold. “Do you know what she’s dreaming?”

Nancy went still.

The thing inside Robin smiled.

“Your daughter.”

Nancy’s vision tunneled.

"No."

“At the cabin,” it went on pleasantly. “While you're here playing house with a corpse.”

Nancy swung again, but Robin ducked and caught the poker. They struggled over it, faces inches apart, shoes slipping in broken glass.

“You don’t get to say her name,” Nancy spat.

Robin laughed through blood. “I’ve been inside your head. I know every name.”

With a savage twist Robin tore the poker free and hurled it aside. It clanged against the wall. Nancy went for the knife in her boot, but Robin was faster. A fist crashed into Nancy’s ribs. Something gave with a hot white snap that sent pain lancing through her whole side. Nancy made a sound she didn’t recognize as human.

Robin seized her by the back of the neck and marched her three brutal steps before slamming her face-first into the wall.

And the drywall cracked.

Stars burst behind Nancy’s eyes.

Robin pressed her there, one forearm across Nancy’s shoulders, one hand fisting in her hair. Her mouth was by Nancy’s ear now.

“She’s calling for you in there,” Robin whispered. “She knows you won’t get there in time.”

Nancy tried to wrench free and Robin shoved harder. Nancy’s cheek ground against broken plaster. Warm blood ran down from her scalp into her collar.

“Maybe she sees you dead already,” Robin murmured. “Maybe that comforts her.”

Nancy’s whole body went cold.

Then, very clearly, she heard Robin underneath it.

Not aloud. Not with ears. More like memory forced into shape.

"Nance."

Nancy went rigid.

There it was again, thinner this time, buried deep.

"Nance."

Her Robin.

The pressure at Nancy’s back shifted, just for a second. The forearm eased a fraction. Like someone inside a locked room had thrown themselves against the door.

Nancy acted instantly. She stomped backward on Robin’s foot and drove her elbow hard into Robin’s ribs, once, twice, again. Robin snarled and lost control for half a heartbeat. Nancy spun, slammed both hands against Robin’s shoulders, and sent them both crashing sideways through the doorway into the kitchen.

They hit the table and it broke under them with a splintering crack.

For a second neither moved.

Nancy rolled off first, gasping. Every breath sliced her ribs. Her right eye was swelling. One arm had gone half numb. Across from her Robin pushed up on shaking hands, hair hanging in her face.

And then Nancy saw it.

Not with her eyes exactly, but there all the same, Robin was fighting.

Something in Robin’s expression kept stuttering. Not changing fully, not enough to free her, but flickering between that dead, taunting stillness and flashes of terrible effort. Her fingers clawed at the floorboards hard enough to leave crescents. Her jaw was clenched so tightly the muscles stood out. One eye squeezed shut as if against blinding pain.

“Robin,” Nancy said hoarsely.

Robin’s head jerked toward her.

For one second her own voice came through, ragged and distorted. “Don’t—”

Then the blackness surged back.

Robin screamed, not at Nancy this time but at whatever inhabited her, and convulsed so violently she knocked over one of the kitchen chairs without touching it. The overhead light burst from the rapidness of the flickering and glass rained down.

The room plunged into shadow lit only by the weak spill from the front room lamp and the moonless gray beyond the window.

Nancy stared.

The possession was destabilizing.

That had happened before. She'd witnessed it years ago. It was usually only under specific strains. Heat, trauma, emotional interference, enough damage to the body to force the thing controlling it to divert itself. They had learned fragments over the years, half in research and half in blood. The Mind Flayer could dominate, but not perfectly, not always, not if the host fought hard enough and the body’s limits turned against the invader.

Heat.

Nancy’s gaze flicked to the stove.

It was an old gas range. Pilot light long dead. But if the line still worked...

Robin launched herself off the ruined table with a cry that was almost animal-like.

Nancy barely got her arms up before Robin hit her. They crashed into the counter. A drawer flew open and cutlery scattered everywhere.

Robin was faster now but sloppier. The thing inside her was furious, but losing precision.

Good.

Nancy let herself fold under the momentum, grabbed Robin’s jacket, and twisted. They went down together. Robin’s hand closed on Nancy’s throat again. Nancy drove two fingers at Robin’s eyes on reflex and Robin flinched. Nancy grabbed the nearest thing at hand, a heavy cast-iron skillet that had fallen from a hanging hook, and swung it up into Robin’s side.

Robin yelped.

Nancy shoved free and crawled toward the stove on her elbows and knees because standing took too long now. Behind her Robin made a wet choking sound, then a laugh.

“You still think there’s a cure,” she said.

Nancy reached the stove, yanked the nearest knob open, and smelled the hiss of gas instantly.

Robin froze.

There.

Nancy turned slowly, one hand braced on the oven door to hold herself upright. “Get out of her.”

Robin’s head tilted. “Or what?”

Nancy reached into her pocket and found the lighter she kept there because Hawkins had trained her to carry ridiculous things for practical reasons, even though she tried to forget. Her thumb rolled the wheel once. Sparks flashed, but there was no flame yet.

Robin’s expression changed.

“You’ll burn her.”

Nancy’s eyes filled but her hand stayed steady. “I know.”

Robin took one cautious step.

Nancy clicked the lighter again, and this time a thin yellow flame jumped up.

The room changed. Gas hissed softly in the shadows. Robin’s pupils blew wide. The thing inside her knew fire. Knew heat. Feared it in a way that was old.

“Don’t,” Robin said.

And this time it was Robin. Entirely Robin. Cracked open by terror and pain and pleading. “Nancy, please don’t.”

Nancy almost broke.

She saw a dozen years of marriage in one sickening rush. Robin asleep with one arm flung over her waist. Robin teaching Natalia how to ride a bike, running bent over in the street, yelling contradictory instructions. Robin in the passenger seat singing off-key on purpose to annoy her. Robin kneeling in their kitchen with a ring in her shaking hand because neither of them had ever thought they’d get to live long enough for normal milestones and yet there they were, stealing one anyway.

“Nance,” Robin whispered. Tears stood in her eyes now, real ones. “I’m trying.”

Nancy swallowed hard enough it hurt. “Then help me.”

Robin’s whole body trembled. The thing wearing her fought visibly now, jerks passing through her limbs, her fingers straightening and then curling again. Her mouth pulled into a grin that wasn’t hers. Then into a grimace. Then into nothing.

Nancy took one step toward her. Then another.

Gas filled the kitchen. The smell was overwhelming. Dangerous.

Robin backed into the sink as if retreating from the flame in Nancy’s hand. Or from Nancy herself. Her breathing came fast and ragged.

“Natalia,” Nancy said.

Robin’s face twisted.

“Think about her,” Nancy said. “Think about our daughter.”

Robin squeezed her eyes shut.

Nancy pressed on, voice shaking now, desperate and relentless. “Think about the first day of school when she wouldn’t let go of your coat. Think about her in those yellow rain boots. Think about her asking why the moon follows the car. Think about the time she hid that frog in your purse and you screamed so loud my mom came outside to make sure nobody was dying. Think about her last birthday cake, the terrible one you made that I said tasted fine when it tasted like drywall. Think about Natalia, Robin. Think about me.”

Robin made a sound like something being torn in half.

The blackness in her eyes rippled.

Nancy came close enough to feel the heat of Robin’s body, the cold sweat on her skin, the trembling she was trying to control.

“That’s it,” Nancy whispered, flame between them. “Come back to me. Come back.”

Robin’s eyes snapped open.

For one breathtaking second, they were wholly Robin’s. Blue, dazed, terrified, alive.

Then the thing lashed out in panic.

Robin’s hand shot forward and seized Nancy’s wrist. The flame wavered. They both gasped. Nancy tried to wrench away but Robin, the thing inside Robin, slammed her arm into the wall once, twice. The lighter flew from her fingers and hit the floor, skidding under the broken table.

Gas still hissed, but there was still no flame.

And Robin shoved Nancy backward.

Nancy crashed into the refrigerator, the impact slamming a cry out of her. Robin came in hard, fist driving into Nancy’s damaged ribs. White agony flared. Nancy nearly blacked out standing and Robin's hands caught her shoulders and drove her down to her knees.

“You had one chance,” the thing snarled through Robin’s teeth.

Nancy blinked through tears.

Then she saw the extension cord.

It trailed from the counter, where an old radio had been knocked into the sink. Water ran in a thin steady stream from the bent faucet. The cord’s plastic casing had split when everything went over. Tiny bright threads glimmered through the tear.

An electrical spark.

Gas.

A terrible idea.

But it was the only kind Hawkins ever gave any of them.

Robin followed Nancy’s gaze and understood at the same time.

For the first time, the thing looked afraid.

Nancy moved.

Robin tackled her before she could reach the cord and they went down in the spreading water. Nancy’s hand slapped across the tile, inches from the radio. Robin’s nails raked her arm bloody trying to drag her back. Nancy twisted, got a palm on the radio casing, and shoved it deeper into the sink basin with all the strength she had left.

The exposed wire kissed metal.

And there was a spark.

Then chaos.

The gas ignited in a violent rush that punched the air from the room. Fire rolled across the ceiling in a blue-orange sheet. Heat slammed into them. Robin screamed, a sound layered with something vast and furious and inhuman. Nancy threw an arm over her face as shattered glass burst inward from a window.

The blast wasn't large enough to level the house, but it was enough.

Enough to flood the kitchen with searing heat.

Enough to knock both of them apart.

Enough to force the Mind Flayer to choose between holding Robin and escaping fire.

Robin convulsed on the floor.

Nancy dragged herself backward through broken glass and burning debris, coughing hard enough to retch. Her hair singed at the ends. The curtains had caught, flames crawled up them in greedy bright lines. Smoke thickened fast.

Robin arched so violently her heels almost drummed the tile.

Then black smoke poured out of her mouth.

Not smoke exactly. It was like a writhing tendril of dark matter that tore free from Robin in a furious stream and slammed against the ceiling like a trapped thing seeking cracks. It hissed with a sound like distant screaming. Nancy had seen it before, once, years ago, only never on this scale.

Then Robin collapsed bonelessly.

The shadow whipped toward the broken window and vanished into the night.

Silence hit in its wake like a dropped curtain.

For a heartbeat Nancy couldn't move.

Then the room roared back. Flames snapping, wood popping, smoke alarms shrieking somewhere deeper in the house. Nancy crawled to Robin on shaking hands and knees.

“Robin.”

She got no response.

Nancy grabbed Robin’s face with both hands. Soot blackened her fingers instantly. Robin’s skin was hot, too hot. There was a burn along one side of her neck where the blast had kissed her. Blood ran from her hairline. Her lips were bluish.

“Robin.”

Nancy pressed trembling fingers to Robin’s throat.

There was a pulse. Weak, but there.

Nancy let out a broken sob that barely made sound.

“Hey. Hey, hey, hey, come on. Robin, open your eyes.”

Robin didn't move.

The fire was catching faster now. The cabinets above the stove had gone up. Smoke pressed low and ugly into the room. Nancy coughed until her chest seized. Every instinct screamed that they had seconds, not minutes.

She had to move.

Nancy rose once and nearly dropped with the pain in her side. But she still managed to hook both hands under Robin’s arms and drag.

Robin was taller than Nancy was by enough to matter when dead weight entered the equation. Nancy’s boots slid on wet tile and blood and broken glass. Her damaged ribs shrieked. Her shoulder threatened to tear free at the socket. But she dragged anyway, inch by inch, Robin’s heels bumping over the threshold from kitchen to hall.

Halfway down the hall Robin coughed violently and twisted, waking all at once and in agony.

“Nance?"

Nancy almost collapsed from relief.

Robin tried to push up and failed. Her eyes were unfocused. “Wha... what happened?”

“Fire happened,” Nancy coughed. “I need you to move.”

Robin blinked at her, then at the burning kitchen behind them, then at Nancy’s face again. Understanding came in jagged pieces. Horror followed close behind.

“Oh God,” Robin whispered. “Did I... did I hurt you?"

Nancy laughed once, helplessly, because of course that was the first thing Robin asked. “Yeah."

Robin looked stricken.

“But you’re fixing it by helping me not die in a house fire,” Nancy said. “Can you stand?”

Robin tried. Her whole body shook with the effort. One leg nearly buckled. Nancy hauled her up by the elbow and instantly regretted it when pain tore through her ribs so hard she saw sparks. Robin saw it too.

Nancy knew the exact second Robin properly focused on her injuries.

Robin went white under all the soot.

“Nance."

“It’s fine.”

“It is absolutely not fine.”

“Robin—”

Robin slid an arm around her waist before Nancy could protest, careful even through her own shaking. “Lean on me.”

“You were unconscious ten seconds ago.”

“And now I’m not," Robin said. "Lean."

The command in Robin’s voice left no room, so Nancy leaned.

Together they staggered toward the front door as smoke filled the hallway behind them. Robin limped badly. Whatever the possession had done to her muscles was taking its toll now that adrenaline alone couldn't hide it. Nancy’s vision blurred in and out. The gun still laid somewhere in the front room, impossible to retrieve safely. The entire house groaned around them.

When they reached the front room, Robin stopped dead.

“Nancy,"

On the floor by the overturned coffee table lay the wedding photo Nancy had knocked off the mantel during the fight. The glass had shattered, but the picture itself remained mostly intact: Nancy in white, Robin in a suit because she had flatly refused lace on principle, both of them laughing at something outside the frame. So young-looking it had embarrassed them both at the time. The ring on Robin’s hand had been sliding crooked because her fingers were too cold. Natalia hadn't existed yet except as a hope too fragile to say aloud.

Nancy followed Robin’s gaze and then looked at Robin.

“Leave it.”

Robin swallowed

“Robin,"

Robin tore her eyes away. “Right.”

They made it to the porch just as the front room windows burst behind them in a shower of sparks. Cold night air hit Nancy’s face like a slap. She nearly went to her knees from the shock of it after the furnace heat inside. Robin half-carried, half-dragged her down the porch steps and away from the house.

The yard was dead grass, mud, and leaf rot. Beyond the tree line the road waited in darkness. No headlights. No help. Just the distant faint glow of Hawkins somewhere miles off and the ugly orange pulse of fire behind them.

Nancy managed three more steps before her legs quit.

Robin got her down as gently as she could.

“Nancy! Nancy, stay with me.”

Nancy blinked up at her. Robin’s face hovered above her, streaked with soot, lip split, hair singed, eyes wild.

She was alive.

Her Robin was alive.

That fact alone felt too enormous to hold.

“You’re bleeding a lot,” Robin said, voice shaking now. “Okay. Okay. No, don’t close your eyes. Don’t do that.”

“I’m thinking,” Nancy murmured.

“You can think at the hospital.”

Robin patted frantically at her own pockets, then Nancy’s, looking for keys, for anything useful, for an answer. Her hands were trembling so hard she almost dropped the truck keys when she found them in Nancy’s jacket.

“The truck,” Robin said. “Okay. We can get to the truck.”

Nancy tried to sit up. The world tilted and nearly threw her off. Robin caught her.

“Easy.”

“Steve,” Nancy croaked.

Robin’s face crumpled for one awful second. “I know.”

“We have to go back—”

“We are not going back into the woods blind and half-dead.”

“Natalia.”

At that, Robin went utterly still.

Everything in her sharpened around that name.

Their eleven year-old was still unconscious at Joyce and Hopper’s cabin with Vecna pressing at the walls of her mind. The whole reason they'd been out here in the first place.

Robin looked from the burning house to Nancy’s barely coherent face to the dark road.

But she made the hard decision.

“We get you to the hospital first,” she said, but there was no conviction in it.

Nancy gave her a stare that would have been murderous if she’d had more strength. “No.”

“Nancy, your ribs are—”

“No.”

“You might have internal bleeding.”

“And Natalia might be dying.”

Robin shut her eyes. Her whole face tightened with pain far deeper than the burns or bruises. Because Nancy was right. Because they both knew exactly what time meant when Vecna had hold of somebody. Because there was no such thing as taking care of one crisis at a time in Hawkins. They only ever chose which person they could bear to fail first.

But Robin also knew the other truth.

"I can't help her," Robin said. "Not if you die."

Nancy gave in then. Maybe because her body was too weak to do anything else, or maybe because she knew, stubbornly, Robin was right. She couldn't help Natalia. Not like this.

Robin got Nancy to her feet with monumental effort. Nancy managed one arm over Robin’s shoulders. Robin’s own side was soaked through now where the earlier cut had reopened, and Nancy realized dimly that Robin was bleeding much more than she had let on.

But Robin wasn't even concerned about that.

november 6th, 1987 — hawkins, in

The world ended quietly.

It wasn’t a thunderclap or a blaring horn or even the sound of the earth splitting open. It was more like a breath being let out after being held too long. One long, unsteady exhale that rippled through Hawkins and the Upside Down and every thin, fragile membrane in between.

The last gate snapped shut with a flash of red-white light that burned itself into Robin’s vision. For a second everything was brightness and noise. Eleven’s scream, Will’s choked sob as he held onto her shoulder, the bone-deep groan of the Mind Flayer coming apart, the echoing, psychic roar of Vecna being ripped out of every dark corner he’d crawled into.

Then it was gone.

Silence fell, too sudden and too complete. The air stank of ozone and ash and something sickly-sweet that Robin never wanted a name for. Lamp posts flickered back to their ordinary yellow, the thunderheads over Hawkins began to thin, and the ground stopped shuddering like it was trying to shake them all off.

The fight was over.

Except her hands were still shaking, and there was still blood on them.

And she realized she was screaming Nancy’s name only when her voice broke.

“NANCY!”

Her throat tore around the word. She was already running, boots slipping on broken pavement and smeared monster sludge, lungs burning in the cold night air. The world around her was a blur of shapes. Collapsed military trucks, twisted rebar, fragments of buildings, Demogorgon corpses dissolving into black smoke. Her mind catalogued them without meaning to. One overturned Humvee, two abandoned rifles, three bodies in camo by the barricade. She stepped over an arm she refused to look at too closely.

None of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was that Nancy had been on the far side of the square, perched in that improvised gun nest, thin shoulders braced behind the big rifle as she rained fire down on both monsters and men. The image was burned into Robin’s brain, Nancy’s hair wild around her face, eyes hard, jaw clenched, brass casings spilling like gold rain around her feet.

The government guys had turned on them when Dr. Kay screamed something about “containment breach” and “no witnesses.” Robin remembered the muzzle flashes ripping through the dark, remembered Nancy’s body jolting as she fired back, remembered seeing Demogorgons spill out of a fresh crack in the street at the exact same time.

Too much. It had all been too much.

“Robin!” Steve’s voice shouted from somewhere behind her, hoarse and panicked. “Robin, wait—!”

She didn’t. Couldn’t. Every second felt like it was punching a hole through her chest.

There, up ahead, past the smoldering wreck of a truck and the crumpled remains of a Demodog, she saw the shattered remains of their nest. Sheets of foam padding, stolen from god-knows-where and wedged around the metal lip of the armored car to absorb recoil, were shredded and stained. The heavy gun lay half-dangling over the side, smoke curling from the barrel. Its strap trailed uselessly, swaying with every faint gust of wind.

And just behind it, half-hidden in the shadows and debris, she saw Nancy.

Robin’s legs almost went out from under her. She stumbled, caught herself on the side of the truck, and hauled her trembling body up the metal step. The whole vehicle creaked under her weight. Something in the engine block ticked as it cooled.

“Nance?” she gasped, the word coming out half-air, half-prayer.

Nancy lay crumpled in the gunner’s well, back against the padded wall, one leg twisted awkwardly under her. Robin’s “BEAM ME UP, THIS PLACE SUCKS!” sweatshirt, the one Robin had made all those dumb jokes about Nancy wearing, was soaked through, the dark cotton almost black where it clung to her stomach and side. Holes pocked the fabric like dark starbursts: bullet entries, too many of them. Claw marks had shredded one sleeve from shoulder to elbow, the edges ragged and shiny with wet.

Her head lolled to the side, hair stuck to her forehead with sweat and dust and a little smear of blood from a cut at her hairline. Her eyes were half-open, unfocused, staring at nothing.

For a heartbeat everything stopped. No sound. No breath. Just the image of Nancy, small and still and impossibly breakable, burned into Robin’s skull.

Then the world snapped back.

“Nancy!” Robin dropped to her knees so fast they banged painfully against the metal floor. “Hey—hey, Nance, hey, no naps on the job, come on.”

Her hands found Nancy automatically, trying to be gentle and failing, because nothing felt gentle enough. She pressed two shaking fingers to Nancy’s throat and nearly sobbed when she found a pulse there, faint and fluttering, but there.

“Okay,” Robin whispered, as if she could convince the universe by sheer force of will. “Okay. You’re alive. You’re alive, this is good, this is—this is step one.”

Her brain, still wired for battle, started triaging. Bleeding? Yes, lots of it. Consciousness? No, or barely. Breathing? Shallow, fast. Skin? Too cold, even through the damp fabric. She needed to stop the bleeding, keep Nancy warm, keep her awake if she could—

“Robin?!” Steve’s voice was closer now, scrambling up the side of the truck. “Where are—oh my God.”

He froze at the top of the step, one hand gripping the door frame, his eyes going wide and horrified when he saw Nancy.

For a moment, Robin felt a hot, irrational stab of anger. Some wild part of her wanted to tell him to get out, that he didn’t get to look at Nancy like that, not when he’d been on the other side of the square, not when he hadn’t seen her stand there and refuse to flinch while the world tried to kill her.

Instead she choked out, “Help me,” and the anger folded in on itself, because Steve was already moving, already dropping down beside them with an expression Robin had never seen before, openly terrified.

“What do we—” he started, voice cracking.

“Pressure.” The word tore itself out of Robin’s mouth on instinct. “We need—just—help me get this off.”

She grabbed the hem of Nancy’s sweatshirt, fingers slipping on the blood-soaked fabric. Steve reached in, his hands almost as shaky as hers, and together they peeled the garment up enough to see the damage beneath.

Robin had thought nothing could be worse than not knowing. She was wrong.

Nancy’s undershirt, once pale, was completely red, plastered to her skin. The wounds themselves were mercifully hidden by the cloth, but Robin could see where the bullets had gone in: dark, wet circles clustered along Nancy’s side and lower ribs. Some looked clean, others messy, like they’d been deflected by bone. The Demogorgon claws had left ugly slashes across her upper arm and shoulder, swelling and shining.

Robin swallowed hard against the nausea rising in her throat. Don’t think about it. Don’t picture what’s underneath. Do the next thing.

“Okay,” she said again, because if she kept saying it maybe it would be true. “Okay, okay. We need bandages. Something to—”

Steve was already yanking off his over-shirt, then his long-sleeve, leaving him in just his undershirt against the chill night. “Here,” he said, voice too loud, too breathless. “Use this.”

He shoved the balled-up fabric at her. Robin pressed it hard against the worst of the bleeding at Nancy’s side. Nancy jerked with a faint, helpless sound, her face tightening.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” Robin whispered, her heart cracking wide open. “I’m sorry, Nance, I have to.”

She leaned over, putting as much of her weight as she dared into the makeshift dressing, trying to keep her hands from slipping. Warmth seeped between her fingers. It felt like time passing.

“Nancy,” she said, sharper. “Hey. Open your eyes. I know you can hear me, so don’t even pretend you can’t. I can tell when you’re lying.”

For one terrible moment nothing happened.

Then Nancy’s lashes fluttered, like they were made of lead. Slowly, with obvious effort, her gaze dragged up toward the sound of Robin’s voice.

Her eyes were glassy and a little out of focus, but there was a flash of recognition there that knocked the breath out of Robin’s chest.

“Ro…bin?” Nancy’s voice was a broken thing, a scratch of sound more than a word. Her lips were pale, with a smear of blood at one corner.

“Yeah.” Robin forced a smile that she hoped looked more reassuring than it felt. “Yeah, it’s me. Who else would be yelling at you right now?”

Nancy blinked, a sluggish, slow blink. Her brows pulled together, like she was trying to understand a joke that didn’t quite land. “Did… we…”

“Win?” Robin finished for her, then glanced over her shoulder.

Across the square, Eleven stood with her shoulders slumped, knees buckling as Kali and Will held her up on either side. Where the last gate had been, a hole in reality itself, a red-rimmed wound vomiting storm clouds and monsters, there was now only a charred, cracked circle in the concrete, steaming faintly. The air no longer vibrated with that horrid psychic pressure. The sky above it was bruised purple, but whole.

Lucas was helping Dustin down from a pile of rubble. Max, pale but upright, leaned heavily against a broken wall. Farther off, Hopper and Joyce moved among the fallen, checking for survivors, faces grim. Military vehicles sat abandoned where their drivers had fled or fallen. No Demogorgons stirred.

The world still looked broken, but it was not breaking anymore.

“Yeah,” Robin said, turning back to Nancy. “We won. The gates are gone. Vecna’s gone. The Mind Flayer, all of it—it’s over.”

Something in Nancy’s expression loosened. A tiny, tired smile ghosted across her mouth. “Told you,” she breathed.

Robin blinked. “Told me what?”

“That… that we’d… figure it out.” Nancy’s eyes slipped half-closed again. “We always… do.”

Panic flared in Robin’s chest. She shook Nancy’s shoulder with her free hand, careful not to jostle her too much. “Hey, hey, no drifting off yet. You can’t just drop a victory line and then peace out, that’s not how this works.”

Nancy made a soft sound that might’ve been a laugh, or maybe a cough. She winced, the movement sending a fresh surge of warmth under Robin’s fingers.

“Steve,” Robin snapped.

“Yeah.” Steve was at her side, his face pinched. He had one hand braced on the edge of the well, the other hovering uselessly, as if he wanted to help but didn’t know where to put it. Blood streaked his cheek. Robin couldn’t tell if it was his or someone else’s.

“We need an ambulance or a—an army medic or, I don’t know, a miracle worker.” She swallowed. “Find someone. Now.”

“Right.” He scrambled upright, almost slipping on a smear of inky black monster blood. “Hang on, Nance, I’ll—”

His voice cracked again. He looked at Nancy for a fraction of a second longer, something raw flashing across his face, then he turned and jumped down from the truck, sprinting into the chaos.

Robin was alone with Nancy again. The sudden quiet around them felt unreal. The battle was still visible in the distance—people moving, shouting, the occasional crack of something collapsing—but inside the little ring of metal and foam padding it was like they were in their own world.

“Okay,” Robin murmured, more to herself than anything. “Okay, Buckley, you can do this. You survived Russian torture and Scoops Ahoy, you can handle this.”

She shifted, sliding one leg under Nancy’s shoulders to prop her up a little higher. With her free hand she brushed damp hair away from Nancy’s forehead. Her fingers left faint red streaks across pale skin.

Nancy blinked up at her, pupils blown wide. “You’re… you’re hurt,” she whispered.

Robin blinked, momentarily wrong-footed. Hurt? Of course she was hurt. Her ribs felt like they’d been used as a punching bag, her left shoulder throbbed from where a Demodog had grazed her, and there was a ringing in her ears she was pretty sure wasn’t just from the explosions. But compared to the mess in front of her, it barely registered.

“Oh, this?” she said, glancing down at herself. Her once-blue jacket was shredded, streaked with grime and blood and something gooey she didn’t want to think about. Bruises were already blooming dark along her arms. There was a shallow slice on her palm from where she’d grabbed a broken piece of metal defending herself. “Nah. I’m—uh—” She faltered, then forced some cheer into her voice. “I’m fine. Very cool, very heroic, zero damage, ten out of ten, would fight cosmic evil again.”

Nancy gave her a look that was so purely Nancy Wheeler, exasperated fondness mixed with a journalist’s skepticism, that Robin almost laughed.

“Liar,” Nancy breathed.

Robin’s throat tightened. “Yeah, well. Takes one to know one.”

Nancy’s gaze drifted, skimming past Robin’s shoulder, toward the sky. Her breaths were coming shallower now, each one a hitch. Robin could feel the tremors running through her body where they touched.

Desperate to keep her anchored, Robin kept talking. Anything, everything.

“Do you remember,” she started, words tumbling over themselves, “that stupid day at the station when you caught me air-drumming with the headphones on and I almost died of embarrassment? And then you just, just smiled that weird little smile, like you were trying not to show you were amused, and asked what I was listening to.”

Nancy’s eyes flicked back to hers, just a little.

“You pretended you knew the band, by the way,” Robin added softly. “You totally didn’t. I checked. There are no Clash tapes in your car.”

Nancy’s mouth twitched. “Investigating… me now?” she whispered.

“Always,” Robin said, and her laugh came out shaky. “You’re a mystery, Nance. Walking, talking, gun-carrying crossword puzzle.”

Nancy’s lashes fluttered again. “That sounds… exhausting.”

“It is,” Robin said. “But, you know. Worth it.”

She meant it as a joke, but the words landed heavy in the air between them. Nancy’s gaze searched her face, slow and intent, like she was trying to memorize it.

Another wave of dizziness hit her. Robin saw it in the way Nancy’s focus wavered. Her head slumped a little to the side, toward Robin’s chest.

“Nope,” Robin said quickly, panic flaring again. “Hey, hey, eyes on me, Nance. You can’t clock out yet, I haven’t even told you my cool post-apocalyptic band name ideas.”

“Nnh,” Nancy murmured, somewhere between a protest and a hum.

“Right?” Robin barreled on. “I mean, after this, there’s no way Hawkins isn’t going to become some kind of weird metal capital. Eddie would’ve been thrilled. I was thinking ‘Gate Crashers’? Or, uh, ‘Demobandgorgon’—no, that one’s terrible, forget it—”

“Robin.” Nancy’s voice was barely audible, but there was a thread of insistence in it that cut through Robin’s babble.

“Yeah?” Robin leaned closer.

Nancy’s fingers twitched against Robin’s thigh. It took her a second to realize Nancy was trying to reach for her. Carefully, Robin caught her hand, avoiding the worst of the claw slashes, and laced their fingers together. Nancy’s grip was weak but deliberate.

“I—” Nancy’s breath hitched, and she coughed, shuddering, as pain speared through her. Robin instinctively tightened the pressure on the wound, murmuring apologies.

“Hey, don’t talk,” Robin said. “Save your strength, or whatever the first aid manual says. You can yell at me later for not knowing medical stuff.”

Nancy shook her head fractionally. “…have to,” she whispered.

Her eyes were clearer now, as if some last reserve of focus had been called up. They were huge and dark in her pale face, reflecting the distant orange glow of fires.

“Have to tell… you,” she said.

Robin’s heart stuttered. “Tell me what?”

“That I’m… glad,” Nancy said slowly, each word dragged out of her. “It was you. With me. Here.”

Robin felt something crack open inside her chest. “Nance,” she said, and suddenly her own voice didn’t feel steady at all.

Nancy squeezed her fingers, a faint, trembling pressure. “You’re… brave,” she whispered. “Braver than… you think.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Robin said automatically, because Nancy Wheeler complimenting her bravery was several levels above her current reality-handling capacity. “My legs are literally shaking right now.

“Still… here,” Nancy said. “Didn’t run.”

A humorless little laugh escaped Robin. “Trust me, I thought about it.”

“Didn’t,” Nancy repeated, stubborn even half-conscious. “Stayed. Fought. Saved… everyone.”

“Pretty sure that was mostly El,” Robin said, but her chest flush-ached with something that felt suspiciously like hope.

“Can’t do… everything alone,” Nancy murmured. “She needs you. They all do.”

Her gaze softened. “I… do.”

Robin forgot how to breathe for a second.

There it was again. That terrible, bright feeling that had been growing in her since Starcourt mall, since that bathroom stall and the ruined candy-striped uniform and the worst night of her life. It had only gotten louder with every late-night strategy session, every shared look over a chalkboard full of monster diagrams, every moment Nancy had stood beside her, steady and fierce, like she believed Robin could do all the impossible things they kept asking of her.

“Nancy…” Robin started, but her voice broke on the name.

She wanted to say so many things. That she’d spent months trying not to look at the line of Nancy’s jaw when she was concentrating. That her heart did stupid somersaults every time Nancy refilled her coffee without being asked. That when Nancy had grabbed her hand earlier, right before they charged into hell, Robin had thought, If I die now, at least it’s while holding yours.

But Nancy was bleeding out in her arms, and Robin couldn’t force any of it past the lump in her throat.

Instead she squeezed Nancy’s hand and leaned down until their foreheads almost touched.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, voice low but fierce. “Okay? They’re gonna have to drag me away from you.”

Nancy’s breath shivered out, warm against Robin’s cheek. “Promise?” she whispered.

“Cross my heart, hope to—” Robin cut herself off before she advanced the thought. “Just… promise, yeah.”

Something eased in Nancy at that. The tension in her shoulders slackened a fraction. She let her head rest more fully against Robin’s chest, eyes falling closed, lashes feathering dark crescent moons on her cheeks.

For a second Robin let her, because it felt so right. Nancy Wheeler, the girl who had carried the weight of everyone else’s fear for years, finally letting herself lean on someone. Robin wrapped her arm around her, careful of the worst injuries, and held on.

Then Nancy’s breathing hitched, stuttered.

“Nance.” Robin’s voice sharpened. “No, hey, no. Stay with me.”

Nancy didn’t respond. Her chest rose, fell, then paused too long before the next inhalation. The hand in Robin’s slackened.

Pure, cold terror lanced through Robin’s body. “NANCY!”

Before she could completely spiral, a new presence brushed the edge of her awareness, a soft pressure, like hands pressed gently against the outside of her skull.

Robin flinched, looking up sharply.

Eleven stood at the edge of the truck, her face smeared with dirt and blood, nose still crusted from earlier. She swayed on her feet, one hand gripping the side of the vehicle for balance. Kali hovered just behind her, a steadying shadow, and Will stood further back, his expression drawn and haunted.

“Move,” Eleven said hoarsely.

Robin almost did it without thinking, the authority in that single syllable bypassing her brain. Then instinct kicked in, and she shook her head, tightening her hold around Nancy.

“She needs pressure on the—”

“I know,” Eleven cut in, eyes dark and intense. “I help. Not healing,” she added, like she could hear the hope and fear warring in Robin’s chest. “But… slowing. Holding things together. Until help.”

Kali nodded, stepping forward, her own gaze unreadable. “She’s right,” she said. “We can’t fix bullets. But we can keep your girl from slipping away while these idiots find a doctor.”

Your girl. The phrase hit Robin somewhere under her ribcage, sharp and startling, but there wasn’t time to unpack it.

“Okay,” she said, voice shaking. “Okay, whatever you’re gonna do, do it now.”

Eleven climbed carefully into the gunner’s well, knees nearly buckling at the slight jostle. She settled in opposite Robin, so that Nancy’s limp form lay between them.

“Hold her,” Eleven instructed quietly.

Robin shot her a look that said, ‘Are you kidding?’, but she adjusted her grip anyway, cradling Nancy’s head against her shoulder, one arm braced across her ribs, the other still pressing the bloody wad of shirt into her side.

Eleven closed her eyes.

The air changed. Robin felt it immediately. The faint vibration, like being too close to a speaker turned up high, the hair on her arms lifting with static. Somewhere in the distance, loose stones rattled.

A thin line of blood slid from Eleven’s nose. She ignored it.

Robin watched, helpless, as Eleven’s face tightened with strain. A tiny, almost imperceptible breeze stirred Nancy’s hair, though the air around them was still. The pressure of Nancy’s heartbeat under Robin’s fingers steadied, just a little.

“Is it working?” Robin asked, afraid to speak above a whisper.

Eleven didn’t answer. Her brow furrowed deeper. Nancy’s body jerked once, a small, involuntary shiver, and then stilled again. Her breathing, which had been ragged and uneven, evened out into slower, more stable pulls.

Relief hit Robin so hard her eyes stung. “Okay,” she breathed. “Okay.”

But the strain was clearly costing Eleven. Her shoulders hunched, and sweat beaded at her temples. Kali reached out, placing her hand on Eleven’s back, her own eyes sliding closed.

“You don’t have to do it alone, sister,” she murmured.

The psychic pressure in the air doubled, then smoothed out, like two hands gripping the same rope. Robin didn’t know what, exactly, they were doing. Knitting torn blood vessels, slowing the flow, maybe just holding Nancy’s body in stasis, but she could feel the difference. The warm wetness under her hands lessened its frantic seep.

For a few long minutes, the world narrowed to the four of them. Robin and Nancy locked together on the cold metal floor, Eleven and Kali opposite them, palms hovering a few inches above Nancy’s injuries, faces tight with concentration.

Sirens wailed faintly in the distance, drawing closer. Voices shouted orders. Someone fired a gun, far off, but whether at monsters or men, Robin didn’t know.

Time stretched, elastic and strange.

At some point Steve reappeared, panting, sweat-slick and wide-eyed, with Hopper on his heels. Behind them, two shell-shocked National Guard medics rushed, lugging a battered medical kit.

“This one!” Steve shouted, waving them over. “She’s been hit multiple times, and—”

He stopped dead when he saw Eleven and Kali, the air around them shimmering faintly. Hopper pulled up beside him, eyes narrowing.

“How bad?” he asked Robin bluntly, voice rough but steady.

Robin swallowed. “Bad,” she said. “She’s—there’s bullets, and claws, and I’m pretty sure she’s not supposed to be losing this much blood, but they’re doing something—” She gestured vaguely at Eleven and Kali.

The older man glanced at them, then back at Nancy. Something in his face softened, the lines around his eyes deepening.

“Kid,” he said to Eleven, “we got medics now. You can stand down.”

Eleven’s jaw clenched. “Not yet,” she said through gritted teeth. “They must be ready.”

The medics hesitated at the edge of the truck, visibly unnerved by the psychic scene. Hopper snapped them out of it with a barked, “You heard her. Get your stuff ready. When she lets go, you go in.”

They nodded, scrambling to lay out gauze, IV lines, tourniquets, whatever they could fit in the cramped space. One of them, a woman with tired eyes and a hastily bandaged arm, met Robin’s gaze briefly.

“Keep that pressure,” she said quietly. “You’re doing good, kid.”

Robin almost laughed at the idea of anyone calling anything about this good, but she kept pressing.

Finally, Eleven’s shoulders slumped. Her eyes fluttered open, dull with exhaustion. “Now,” she whispered.

She and Kali withdrew in the same moment. The invisible pressure dissolved. Robin felt the sudden release like going from underwater to air.

Nancy’s body sagged fully into her arms, and for a heart-stopping second Robin feared that was it, that whatever psychic glue they’d used had come undone and everything would spill out.

But Nancy’s chest kept moving, slow but steady. Her pulse, when Robin checked again, was weak but still there.

The medics surged forward, hands practiced and brisk. “Okay, we got her,” the woman said, swiftly replacing Robin’s blood-soaked shirt wad with real bandages, pressing down hard. Her partner worked at Nancy’s arm, wrapping the claw wounds, then moving to start an IV.

Robin forced herself to let go, inch by inch. Every part of her screamed against it. Her arms felt suddenly useless, empty.

One of the medics glanced up. “You can stay with her if you want,” he said. “We’re loading her onto the truck. But we need room to work.”

Robin nodded, throat too tight to speak, and shifted back, keeping one hand on Nancy’s ankle instead, just to maintain contact. Steve slid into the spot Robin had vacated, helping support Nancy’s other side as they maneuvered a stretcher into the cramped well.

Eleven slumped against Kali, eyes unfocused, clearly spent. Kali wrapped an arm around her shoulders, murmuring something low and musical in her ear. Will hovered nearby, gnawing his lip, his eyes flickering between Nancy and the smoking remains of the gate.

Robin watched as they strapped Nancy onto the stretcher, securing bandages, hooking up fluids. The medics exchanged quick, tense phrases. Blood loss, possible internal, get her to the hospital, stat.

Hospital. A normal word in this nightmare. The idea of fluorescent lights and antiseptic smelled weirdly comforting.

Steve climbed out of the truck first, then reached up to help guide the stretcher down as the medics followed. Robin scrambled after them, boots hitting the ground with a jolt that shot up her aching legs.

As they carried Nancy toward the hastily re-purposed military transport they were using as an ambulance, Robin hugged herself tightly, suddenly aware of every bruise, every cut. The adrenaline that had been holding her upright started to ebb, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion.

She almost didn’t notice when someone fell into step beside her.

“You did good,” Hopper said quietly.

Robin snorted, a harsh, humorless sound. “If I’d done good, she wouldn’t be—” Her voice broke. She bit the rest off.

Hopper didn’t argue. He just walked alongside her, his presence solid, until they reached the truck. The medics slid Nancy inside, hooking up equipment with the efficient chaos of people who’d done this a thousand times and still hated every second of it.

“Only one of you can ride with her,” one medic said, glancing between Robin and Steve.

Robin opened her mouth, but Steve spoke first.

“Her,” he said, nodding toward Robin without hesitation. His eyes were bright with unshed tears, but there was no doubt there. “She—Nancy needs her.”

Robin stared at him, stunned. Steve gave her a small, wobbly smile.

“I’ll be right behind you,” he added. “Just… make sure she gives you hell for how you talk in your sleep, okay?”

Despite everything, a wet laugh bubbled up in Robin’s chest. “I do not talk in my sleep,” she muttered.

“Sure you don’t,” Steve said, rolling his eyes with familiar fondness.

Hopper clapped her gently on the shoulder. “Go,” he said. “We’ll clean up the mess. You make sure Wheeler wakes up to write about it.”

Robin nodded, throat too tight for words, and hauled herself into the back of the truck.

Inside, the world shrank again. The medics worked around her, adjusting IV bags, checking vitals. Nancy lay strapped to the stretcher, pale as the sheets beneath the smears of blood. Oxygen tubing looped beneath her nose. Her lashes trembled faintly with each breath.

Robin settled on the narrow bench beside her, fingers immediately finding Nancy’s hand. It was cold, but not icy. Not gone.

The truck’s doors slammed shut. The engine roared to life, and they lurched forward, siren wailing into the night.

For a long time, Robin just watched Nancy breathe.

Every small rise and fall of her chest was a miracle, a tiny rebellion against everything that had tried to kill them. In the flashes of passing streetlights through the small rear window, Robin saw glimmers of the girl underneath the blood and bruises. The determined set of her jaw, the faint freckles across the bridge of her nose, the stubborn line of her eyebrows.

“Hey,” Robin whispered eventually, leaning in close so Nancy could hear her even if she was six miles under. “Just so you know, if you pull some dramatic ‘I died to save the world’ crap, I’m going to be really, really mad at you.”

Nancy didn’t respond, but her fingers twitched minutely in Robin’s.

“I mean it,” Robin continued, the words tumbling out in a rush, kept low so the medics wouldn’t listen too closely. “You don’t get to leave me alone with all these idiots. Steve will try to grow his hair even bigger to compensate for emotional damage. Dustin will name a D&D monster after you and it’ll be, like, horrifyingly accurate and I’ll have to pretend I’m not crying every time he mentions it. Max will pretend she’s fine and then go break something. And I—”

Her voice cracked. She squeezed Nancy’s hand, hard.

“And I don’t know what I’ll do,” she admitted, barely audible over the siren. “Because you’re—”

She broke off, staring down at their joined hands. The blood on her fingers had dried in rusty smears; her nails were broken, jagged. Nancy’s nails, in contrast, were short and neat, little half-moons.

“You’re my person,” Robin whispered, the confession slipping out into the dim humming space. “Okay? There, I said it. You’re my person and I’m completely, stupidly in love with you, and if you wanted to call that a phase or a mistake or whatever I’d probably let you, as long as you were still here to argue with me about it.”

Her cheeks burned, even though Nancy was unconscious. The words hung between them, too big to take back.

One of the medics shot her a quick glance, something quietly compassionate in their eyes, then looked away again, focusing on their instruments.

Robin cleared her throat, trying to claw her way back to something like composure.

“So, uh,” she said, forcing a lighter note into her voice. “You have to wake up. Because I am not doing this Hallmark confession thing twice. Once is my limit. After that we’re back to sarcasm and overly detailed monster research, got it?”

Nancy’s eyelids fluttered.

It was tiny, barely more than a tremor, but Robin saw it. She leaned in immediately.

“Nance?” she breathed.

For a second, Nancy seemed lost between the here and somewhere else. Her gaze drifted, then snagged on Robin’s face. Her lips parted, dry and cracked.

“Robin,” she whispered, like it was an answer to a question Robin hadn’t asked.

Relief surged through Robin, so intense it was almost painful. “I’m here,” she said quickly. “I’m right here.”

Nancy’s eyes slipped half-closed, then opened again, as if she was fighting her own body’s insistence on sleep.

“Did we… actually… win?” she asked, voice barely more than breath.

Robin let out a shaky laugh. “Yeah,” she said. “We did. You did. You were—you were incredible, Nance. Seriously. Remind me never to get on your bad side while you have access to heavy artillery.”

A ghost of a smile tugged at Nancy’s mouth. “I’ll… try.”

For a moment, Robin just basked in that tiny expression, that scrap of normalcy in the ruins of everything.

Then Nancy’s gaze sharpened, focusing on Robin’s face with surprising clarity. “You said…” she started slowly. “In the truck. Before. You said…”

Robin’s blood ran cold. Oh God. Had Nancy heard? All of it?

“I said a lot of things,” Robin blurted, heart hammering. “You know, panic babble, classic me. I probably said the alphabet backwards at some point, or recited the Scoops Ahoy opening jingle—”

“Robin.” Nancy’s voice, even weak, carried that familiar steel.

Robin shut up.

“You said… I’m your person,” Nancy whispered.

The world seemed to tilt. Robin’s mouth went dry.

“I—uh,” she stammered. “That might have been… creative license? Fever dream? You sure you didn’t imagine that? There was a lot going on—”

Nancy’s fingers tightened around hers with more strength than before.

“Robin,” she repeated.

Robin swallowed. Wiping suddenly sweaty palms on her shredded jeans was not an option; her hand was firmly trapped in Nancy’s.

“Yeah,” she admitted, staring down at their joined hands. “Yeah, I said that.”

There was a long pause. The truck bumped over something. The suspension creaked. The siren wailed, then dopplered as they took a turn.

Robin braced herself for… she didn’t know what. Awkwardness. Rejection. Nancy gently explaining that she didn’t feel that way, that she appreciated Robin, really, but—

“You’re mine too,” Nancy said softly.

Robin’s head snapped up so fast her neck twinged.

“What?” she croaked.

Nancy’s smile was small but real now, eyes shining in the dim light. “My person,” she murmured. “You’re… mine too.”

Tears stung at the back of Robin’s eyes, hot and sudden. She blinked them away furiously. “Is this—are you sure you’re not concussed?” she tried, hearing the wobble in her own voice. “Because that sounds like a concussion-level bad decision.”

Nancy’s thumb brushed clumsily over the back of Robin’s hand. “Pretty… sure,” she said. “Been… trying to tell you. Just… apocalypse got in the way.”

A wet laugh burst out of Robin, half-sobbing. “Yeah, that tends to happen around here.”

Nancy coughed weakly, wincing, but the smile lingered. Her eyes drifted, heavy with pain and medication and exhaustion.

“Stay?” she whispered.

Robin squeezed her hand, leaning closer until their heads almost touched again. The ambulance rocked around them, a little metal bubble hurtling through the dark toward something like safety.

“Hey,” she said softly. “I already told you. You’re stuck with me, Nance.”

Nancy’s eyes finally slipped closed, but her hand stayed tight in Robin’s.

Outside, the siren wailed. The town they’d saved blurred past in streaks of light and shadow, battered but still standing.

Inside, amid the antiseptic smell and the quiet beeping of monitors, Robin Buckley held on to Nancy Wheeler like she was the axis the world now turned on.

And for the first time since the gates to the Upside Down had opened, the future, bloody and uncertain and full of hospitals and questions and healing, felt like something they might actually get to have.