CHANGE: STEVE HARRINGTON X OC

Grabbing the dish towel from the side, Jennifer throws the blanket onto the table and kneels, starting to desperately dab at the soaked floor. However, the small scrap of material proves futile against the small flood. 

Reluctantly then reaching for the blanket again, Jennifer winces as she tugs it from the table, pulling with it something that smashes against the floor. The whiskey bottle lies cracked into several pieces, golden brown now leaking into the puddle. She groans, laying the blanket over the floor beside her, dabbing the edges to try and absorb all she can.

After a few more minutes of trying, Jennifer sits back on her heels and huffs defeatedly, shuddering with the chill of the freezing water and thin walls. Looking back to the open fridge, the little butter she had has melted, leaking onto the already-shoddy lettuce below. The milk is almost a decent replacement for it, having started to churn and harden in the glass bottle.

She throws her head back, despairing at her bad luck. Cursed.

Jennifer thinks over what to do now, with a sodden kitchen and spoiled groceries. Perhaps, she could fix the fuses herself. Find a manual somewhere, the library maybe, and teach herself how. It would keep her busy, distracted. What else will she do with herself and this suspension?

But she knows that won’t end well, not trusting herself. Not even to retwist the loose kitchen lightbulb back into place. This curse will fry her.

She looks to the kitchen wall, the phone hanging on the side of it. Maybe she could find the number in the phonebook, call Power and Light to demand ‘Walker’ come back and fix up the mess he left behind two days ago. She is sure he never knocked again, it didn’t wake her if he did.

But that will cost her. Even more with the inconvenience and scale of it. They will take advantage knowing she is desperate.

And in that desperation, Jennifer considers another option. The phone number scrawled onto the notepad by the door, left for her a week ago.

Hopper.

The thought of seeing him again makes her stomach tighten - not fear exactly, but nerves; sharp and unsettled.

But she pushes it down - as she has gotten so good at doing this past week - and supposes, even if he’s too “busy” to come fix it himself - and he probably will be - he can at least give her the cash. Just enough to get someone out here. Just enough to stop everything from slipping another inch out of her control.

He hasn't called to check in. And why should he have? She told him to go away and he did. She should be glad for the quiet, that he is leaving her alone.

Jennifer tells herself over and over as she pushes herself to her feet: It’s practical. It’s not personal.

Reaching for the notepad, her eyes flit over the number; Practical. Personal.

She’s not sure what she is scared of. Him pulling another gun on her? Or ignoring her? She’s not sure what is worse.

Her thumb hovers over the dial, refusing to move. Practical.

Water drips somewhere behind her, snapping her into action. Not personal.

She dials the number, holding the phone tightly to her ear. Jennifer waits for it to ring, bracing herself to hear his gruff voice again.

But nothing.

No dial tone. Not even the soft click of a line pretending to be alive. 

Nothing at all.

She tries dialling again, wondering if perhaps in her agitation she has dialled the number wrong. That maybe his messy handwriting has stumped her, that the suspicious looking seven is actually a four after all.

But the same again; nothing.

She tries jiggling the cord, pressing the receiver harder to her ear like that might help. It doesn’t.

The silence feels deliberate. Irritation flares. She needs his help - is swallowing her pride to ask for it.

The phone stays by her ear, pressing into her cheek as she listens to the nothing. Despite it being dead, Jennifer feels a spark of something hopeful in her belly. That she might hear something. Like Joyce heard Will. Breathing. Benny-

She tugs at the phone cord one more time, catching herself. Deafened by the silence on the other end, she then follows it with her eyes. Then with her hands, tracing it along the wall to where it disappears through the wet floor.

Outside, then.

She pulls on her beaten sneakers, bracing against the chilled wind that sweeps her by as she descends her porch and around the trailer, ducking beneath the window where the cable rang. The ground is damp, wettened and cold, but she crouches, following the line to the base.

She curses. The wire is chewed clean through.

Not frayed by age. Not snapped by weather. Gnawed. 

The plastic casing ragged and split, copper exposed like bone.

Rats.

“Fuck you,” she kicks dirt at the spot as she straightens herself, “Fuck all of you!”

“You alright?”

Jennifer snaps her head to the corner of her trailer, Daniels peering around it with a curious, unimpressed brow raised at her.

She bites her tongue - another fuck you burning the tip of it behind her teeth - and breathes hard through her nose.

“I need your radio,” is all she responds with.

His brows then raise to the brim of his cap, “Excuse me?”

But the girl is already storming past him, sneakers squelching in the frosted, overgrown grass. He catches himself, following quickly behind her as she storms to his cruiser, about to rip open the driver’s door to reach into the console and retrieve it herself when he cuts in front and holds out his hands warningly.

The teenager stops, grinding her heels and scowling up at him.

“Woah, woah! What do you need a radio for?”

“The Chief, I need to talk to him,” she reluctantly admits aloud through gritted teeth, “I need your radio.”

He snorts, short and dismissive, “No.”

“But I just-” Jennifer rolls her eyes, the officer folding his arms, unimpressed by her attitude. He stands there, blocking her way until she huffs and relents to explaining, “My fuses are fried. And my phone cable is all chewed up.”

“And what do you need the Chief for?” another officer speaks up from where he has climbed out the car, leaning against the door and watching the exchange curiously.

“Help,” she shrugs, simply. They both just stare at her, and she wants to roll her eyes again if they weren’t aching so bad, “Cash, a manual, I don’t know.”

“Well, he’s gone.”

“Yeah, sure. But gone where?”

“Out of town,” is his vague response.

It surprises her, finding herself frowning despite herself trying to promise she doesn't care, “Out of- Why?”

Daniels just raises another brow, fixing her another look that tells her she doesn’t need to know. She doubts he knows himself.

“That moustache in the blue jumpsuit messed with my fuse box and now it’s all…” she gestures wildly with her hands, the officers following them with narrow eyes. She drops her hands to her sides and huffs, ”Unless either of you know anything about cables?”

“Like, television?” the other officer asks, dumbly.

Jennifer meant it as sarcasm, a humourless dig at their probable inadequacy. And it seems Daniels takes it that way, as a challenge. He moves past her to peer back around the side of the trailer at the broken cord, but before he approaches it, he turns back over his shoulder to shoot his colleague an expectant look. 

The other balks, his mouth opening and closing, surprised, “What?”

“You comin’?”

“What? Me, why?”

“Isn’t your brother-in-law an electrician?”

“Yeah, fuck does that mean I know anything?”

“Come on,” Daniels waves his hand to beckon him over, heading around the side of the trailer, “Get your ass up here.”

The officer grumbles, closing the cruiser door and jogging over.

Jennifer watches them go, about to disappear around the side of her trailer, when suddenly an idea sparks at her.

She turns quickly on her heel, about to run for it - when the officer, not quite yet around the corner, calls out for her, “Hey! Where you goin’?”

She halts, brain wracking itself for an excuse as to where she was going. It relievedly finds one, calling back as casually as she can muster despite the beating of her heart.

“Munson’s,” she gestures with her head to the trailer across the dirt path, then shrugs, “Maybe Wayne has a tool box. Might be useful.”

She waits, keeping her face still. Unsuspecting.

The officer eventually nods, his wide-brimmed hat disappearing after Daniels around her trailer side.

She waits another moment. Just to be sure. Then takes the opportunity - and runs.

-

People are staring. She can feel it as she walks the street.

Some seem to tut in pity as they pass, others scowl and sidestep around her. One lady even gripped her son’s shoulders tight and swerved to turn back where they had walked from just to avoid her. She is sure most of town has heard of her vicious pounce on Princess Perkins, outraged by the animalistic attack. Surely they aren’t surprised. She’s her mother’s daughter, after all, right?

And she is sure she has given them something to stare at on her own accord, beyond the lineage. Without a jacket in the cold - only wearing the tatty long sleeved tee she slept in since Monday - sneakers sodden, and hair matted around her flushed cheeks. Out of breath from running, however far her legs could take her, wherever they might manage. Just far away from that cold, dark, wet, lonely trailer.

It has been two days. Two days since the fight with Carol. Two days since Hopper closed the door behind himself. Two days since she has heard from anyone.

And the silence, while sober and not sleeping, is suffocating.

Was that not what she wanted? To be left alone? Quiet?

She has taken herself to the west side of town it seems, walking briskly with her head down, focussed on one foot in front of the other. Aimlessly wandering. Trying to breathe. To beat the chill.

Jennifer dares look up from her dragging feet, avoiding the judging eye of an elderly couple sitting on a bench by the corner near the Church, and spots a Big Buy.

Feeling her stomach churn with hunger for something, anything - having forgotten to eat around being unconscious and with the limited contents of her own fridge now wet and wasted, she heads over. But to her mortification, a small crowd has gathered outside.

Jennifer is about to turn on her heel, run again. But her curiosity pulls her closer, lingering at the back of the huddle as people stand by, muttering and gasping. Two workers in red aprons stand by the chaos, shaking their heads with hands on hips, wondering where to start cleaning it up.

The glass door of the front entrance has been smashed through, shattered to the ground outside the store. Some sort of robbery gone wrong, it looks like?

But rather than paying the scene much mind, Jennifer notices instead the side entrance by the road - and supposes, with the workers and shoppers distracted by such a disaster and no sign of the cops just yet, it would be so easy to slip in and help herself to whatever she pleases. So, she does.

Besides, Hopper is out of town. Busy.

He can be mad at her later.

-

Another crushed can falls to the alley floor with a crack once Jennifer finishes the last of it in two gulps, discarding it to the floor and immediately reaching to the now-three six pack for one more. Clicking open the new can tab, Jennifer gags. The smell of the beer inside knocks her backward, bracing herself against the Fair Mart side-alley wall with one hand, the can trembling in the other. The heaviness in her throat worsens as she looks down to the dark liquid that has spilled out of it as she jolted, dripping onto her knuckles.

Taking a shaky breath, Jennifer stands straight despite her knees threatening to buckle and forces the next can to her lips. Downing another gulp, she supposes the unsettling in her stomach as it hits must be her hunger - it can’t be the alcohol, she can barely taste that anymore. And so, she finishes the can, hides the rest behind the discarded trash bags to her left and heads back inside the store.

She has to be more careful this time, a PD car pulled into the lot at the front, two blue uniforms speaking to staff and surveying the scene. But a few minutes later, cheese balls and a pack of fruit wrinkles successfully slipped into her pockets, Jennifer slips out the side to retrieve her also-stolen beers. A disgruntled cashier heading past the third aisle with a broom to start sweeping up the mess glared as she left the store with a hiccup, but did little to stop her if he knew what she had tucked in her jean waistband.

She doubts anyone would be surprised. They expect it of her, surely. Margaret’s daughter.

Damn them. And damn the consequences. What else can they do to her?

There’s nothing left to take away from her. No one there. Social services are going to swoop in and take her away soon too, most likely. What difference is a cell to wherever they would send her?

Jennifer doesn’t hesitate once out of the store to pull the packet from her jeans, tear it open and cram a handful of cheese balls into her mouth. Slipping her beer cans into the small plastic bag she had tucked in her sleeve too, she leaves the alley with the intention of heading home and drowning herself in her goods - hell, Daniels might even get a wrinkle if he has her cables fixed and says pretty please.

Instead, she wanders again, letting her feet drag her wherever they please. Why the rush? There's nothing for her back there.

Cold, wet, quiet.

The bag rustles in her hand, gripping it tight as it bashes by her leg as she looks around for another place to hide, another alley to swig back one more can. Recognising herself to be more central now, stumbling past the library lawn, Jennifer’s drooping gaze passes over the storefronts, waiting for an alley opening to present itself. Reaching the corner of the square, she finds it. By the hardware store. Right between it and the Radioshack.

Her step quickens, almost tripping over herself in anticipation of another buzz- until she spots a familiar grey Ford parked up on the street opposite. Slowing her step with tremendous strain and squinting with the hope her vision unblurs itself a little, Jennifer gasps upon realising who is standing by it.

“Jon!” she accidentally screeches, then coughing down a hiccup that follows, “Jonathan Byers!”

The boy turns after a few more calls for his name, seeing the Hammond girl quickly crossing the road, a plastic bag banging against her leg in her haste to reach him. He winces as she just barely swerves a car that beeps angrily at her for having carelessly stepped out too soon, though she barely pays it any mind and continues quickly towards him. Jennifer waves with her free hand as she reaches the opposite pavement outside the hardware store, now close enough to see he is by the open trunk of his car - a surprised Nancy Wheeler standing beside him.

“Jon- Wheeler?” Jennifer frowns as she comes to a stop by the unusual pair, chest heaving at the exertion of running over to them. She drops the plastic bag, slipping from her loose fingers and clunking as the cans hit the ground. One rolls out of the bag, almost tumbling entirely off the curb into the street. She quickly scrambles to pick it up, unsure if the others have noticed what is in there. As she recollects herself, she sees them sharing an odd look. It unnerves her, all her relief at finding them there dissipating with the shame of exposing herself.

“What’s- you guys doing here?” she says, not hearing herself but seeing the curious quirk of Jon’s brow and self-conscious the words may have slurred.

Jennifer can’t find it in herself to look them in the eye now, her gaze falling onto the open trunk behind them. Before she can wonder what they have been packing in there, her head still spinning too much from the quick movement of reaching down to retrieve her bag, Jonathan turns and slams it shut. He fidgets with his keys in his hand as he shares another odd look with the girl beside him.

She saw a glimpse of a gasoline canister before it closed fully, she is sure. Frowning, she smirks, and concentrates more than before on forming the words correctly, “You guys planning a cookout or something?”

It was meant to be a joke.

But Nancy’s mouth gapes, as if trying to search for something to say, not finding it in the bothered furrowed brow of the Byers boy who eyes his friend swaying on the spot suspiciously. She turns away to look at the other girl with a tight smile instead, stumbling with her own speech despite being sober, “Jennifer, hey. How are you-?”

Jennifer startles as a car suddenly drives by, almost dropping her bag again but grips it tight, interrupting Nancy with a loud honk and shouting, “Hey Nance!”

She can vaguely recognise the boy hanging out of the window with a wide grin as Reed from the High, swallowing to steady herself as he continues to yell to them, “Can’t wait to see your movie!”

As the boy drives off, laughter coming from other jocks inside the car, the three share a confused glance. It seems the other two, especially Nancy herself, are just as confused as she is as to what they meant. 

“What the hell was that?” Jonathan asks, looking back at her.

Nancy slowly shakes her head, “I don’t know.”

Jennifer feels her head start to split, swaying again on her feet. She closes her eyes for a moment, gripping tight to the plastic bag in her hand in a weak attempt to ground herself. Taking a breath and opening her eyes again, she is relieved to see neither of the pair looking her way. Instead, they are walking quickly in the opposite direction.

“Hey!” Jonathan is calling out to the other girl, “Where are you going?”

Jennifer takes another breath, about to follow after him when she reaches for the back door of his car and throws the bag in first. The remaining cans clank as they hit the backseat. Ungracefully slamming the door shut, she follows after them, refusing to let them disappear from her again when she has just found them. Trying to pick up her pace, she trips a little down the curb as they cross over to the next street. She can hear Jonathan calling out to Nancy who is storming ahead ignoring him, intent on wherever she is headed. Jennifer hopes they reach it soon, the heaviness in her chest beginning to bubble.

“Nancy, wait!”

However, that seems to encourage her to quicken her step, Jennifer reaching out to grip onto Jonathan’s sleeve. He glances back at her, worriedly but allowing her to do so, before turning back to hurry over to where Nancy has come to stop. Jennifer barrels into Jonathan as he stops too just behind her, looking up to see they have stopped outside the Hawk cinema.

It is only when Nancy exclaims “Oh God” and Jonathan mutters “Jesus” beside her that Jennifer follows their wide gazes to the lightbox.

‘All the Right Moves’ STARRING NANCY THE SLUT WHEELER

"Fuck," tumbles out of Jennifer's mouth, gaping up at the spoiled signage.

“I can’t believe it,” a Hawk worker mumbles to his colleague beside him as they stare up at the red graffiti on the lightbox.

“I know,” the other sighs, shaking his head, “These kids.”

Nancy looks around, seeing eyes turned towards her. A couple passes by and gawks, older women tut and shake their heads disapprovingly. Jonathan is watching her, worried, not unused to the eyes.

Jennifer, also acclimated to the looks, frowns, looking around for the culprit or offending weapon. Instead, she hears rattling and murmurs of conversation from the alleyway to the side of the cinema. Stepping away from the pair, she moves towards the corner, shoulders slumping as she looks down it to see the usual suspects.

Hagan is holding a can, it hissing as he defaces the brick wall with a wide grin and cigarette between his teeth. Carol stands close by, giggling as he does so, Nicole twirling her hair and chewing on gum beside her. Harrington is there too. Of course. Just standing, hands in pockets, watching his friend create his masterpiece. 

Why would they do this?

Nancy joins her side, gasping as she sees them. As if it is a shock.

“Tommy, you write like a three year old,” Carol teases, Tommy chiding back for her to ‘shut up’.

“I didn’t know you could spell,” Nicole joins in, looking over her shoulder to share her laugh with Harrington. Jennifer can’t see his face, the side of his face turned from her. Perhaps he smirks. But from where she stands down the alley, he just stares ahead. Shoulders straight, unmoved by the ‘humour’.

Nancy storms past her as they chatter and laugh, Jennifer thinking she should reach out and stop her but intrigued by the set of Wheeler’s shoulders and grit of her jaw as she approaches. She watches as Carol notices the girl first, smirk widening into a full blown grin, wickedly. The others turn as she coos, “Aw, hey there, princess!”

“Uh-oh,” Tommy mocks as he lowers the can to watch, “She looks upset.”

Harrington turns now, and even from her distance, Jennifer is unnerved by his expression. There’s no smirk, no amusement. It is cold.

Nancy rears her hand back and slaps the side of his face. It resounds, hitting from the walls beside them and carrying down the alley where Jonathan now joins Jennifer’s side.

The group lets out a howl, Hagan cheering with a lick of his lip as he jumps down from the crate to watch the scene unfold. Jennifer feels herself moving, Jonathan moving quicker.

“Oh no,” he mutters under his breath, overtaking her to get to them.

“What is wrong with you?” she hears Nancy growl over Hagan’s laughter. Harrington glares back at her, cheek tender from the slap but his face otherwise hard. Cold.

“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you?” he spits back at her with dark eyes, barely moved by the hit. Harrington scoffs, lowly muttering, “I can’t believe I was actually worried about you.”

Jennifer’s stomach drops. It makes her nauseous. She bites her lip.

“What are you talking about?” Nancy asks, voice pitching. Jennifer wonders the same, feeling she has missed something since shutting herself away. She slows her step, lingering behind Jonathan who continues to hurry toward them.

“I wouldn’t lie if I were you,” Carol sings, “Wouldn’t wanna be known as the lying slut now, do you?”

Tommy turns, seeing Jonathan step up to them. Jennifer’s gut twists at the cruel way his smile widens as he announces, “Speak of the devil.”

Jonathan halts, shifting where he stands, uncomfortable with their eyes now on him.

Carol then exclaims, dramatically stepping back as Jennifer comes into view from around him. She screeches, her face turning as red as her hair before launching herself at her boyfriend. Tommy reaches an arm out to hold her by the waist, turning her so he stands between them. Jennifer fails to bite back a grin at her distress, genuine fear in Perkins’ eye seeing her for the first time since she attacked her at school. She remembers how good it felt to let go. And it still feels good, she thinks, Carol being afraid of her.

A dark chuckle dies in her throat as she then meets eyes with Harrington beyond them.

His jaw tightened as Byers arrived around the corner, so much so he feared his teeth might crack. But his eyes then moved past to Anderson standing a step behind him.

The girl jitters, eyes flitting wildly between the other teenagers, a frown upturning her lips. She sways, like trying to keep herself steady. Her hand twitches by her side. She shudders when their eyes meet, no worn jacket like she usually tucks herself into despite the cold.

No one has heard from her in days. He heard the whispers around the classrooms, listened in on the mutterings in the halls. Some say she was arrested, thrown into a cell after the incident with Carol. Good, most of those whisperers spat.

But he was sure it wasn’t true. Carol has not stopped whining about the Chief stepping in, shutting down her parents as they called for charges. Screeching her usual gripes how Anderson’s favours have gotten her away with it again. Her mother’s name came up a few times too.

It didn’t sit right. The same as it didn’t in the hall when he held her back. When she stopped pushing, fell against his chest.

It made him think of Nancy. She ran from him too, though with a close-lipped smile and a short kiss on the cheek. How he hadn’t heard from her either, not since he stopped by her house and spoke to her outside the garage. She politely declined his invitation to the movies, willing to sit through that movie again just to spend some time with her - his treat. Said she needed to be home, for her brother who was going through a lot right now. He understood.

But then another day passed, and she wasn’t in class. So he stopped by her place, wondering if she was sick and climbing to her window to check in… He was worried.

Jennifer looks away, unnerved by the way he looks. Really looks. Any amusement she left buzz in her jaw drained, now left hollow. Embarrassed.

She can still feel his eyes chilling her skin. The bricks either side of them swirl, the alley elongating as her head starts to spin. And suddenly the sensation sobers her to how he must see her. Just as she is. Drunk.

Jonathan catches the look too and steps more firmly in front of her, glaring darkly and daring Harrington to look any longer. Steve’s teeth almost squeak as his jaw tightens again, his own face darkening as he meets Byers’ challenging eye.

Nancy looks over her shoulder at Jonathan too, then shakes her head as she figures it out, turning back to Steve, “You came by last night.”

“Ding! Ding! Ding!” Carol taunts, leering around her boyfriend’s protective shoulder, “Does she get a prize?”

Wheeler now seems to understand something, so does Jonathan as she sees his shoulders tense tighter in front of her. Jennifer feels out of it. What is going on?

She tries to piece it all together, but the pieces spin and blur and glow and fade - shadowed by a rippling shame at being there. Being seen like this.

“Look, I don’t know what you think you saw but it wasn’t like that,” Nancy defends, scowling. 

Harrington, whose eyes have stayed burned-cold onto Jonathan, now turns back to glare down at her, “What, you just let him into your room to… study?”

Her room? Why would Jonathan be-?

“Or for another pervy photo session?” Hagan laughs.

Jonathan glances over his shoulder to Jennifer, who lowers her gaze to avoid his. He snaps his head back as Nancy tries to defend them.

She stammers, “We- we weren’t- we were just-”

“You were just what?” Harrington asks, voice even lower now, “Finish that sentence.”

Nancy fails to do so, gaping.

Jennifer wonders why, the cement beneath her starting to boil as the tension rises again.

“Finish the sentence,” Harrington repeats, a threatening challenge underlying each word. He waits, looking down on her with a furrowed brow, creased somewhere between hope and hurt.

Jennifer can’t see Nancy’s face from where she stands steps behind, but her ponytail swings behind her shoulders as she shakes her head, unable to.

Harrington scoffs again - though it sounds closer to a wounded exhale this time - and turns his shoulder to her, “Go to hell, Nancy.”

But Nancy lingers, staring after him as he starts to walk away.

Jonathan steps forward, reaching out to pinch her sleeve in an encouragement to leave, “Come on, Nancy, let’s just leave-”

Jennifer goes to turn too, relieved to get out of that alley, the walls feeling like they were closing in. But suddenly, Harrington speaks up again. She sighs, scuffing her shoe and glancing back to see him turn back. He seems even colder now.

“You know what, Byers? I’m actually kind of impressed,” he calls out, his tone far more biting than it had been moments ago, clearly bothered by the pair’s familiarity. Harrington steps forward, following closely at the heel of Jonathan who still tries to usher Nancy down the alley to where Jennifer is, “I always took you for a queer but I guess you;re just a little screw-up like your father-”

Jennifer goes still. So does Jonathan.

The end of the alley only a step away. So close.

“-Oh, yeah yeah,” Harrington continues, bolstered by the response. He reaches out and shoves the Byers boy’s shoulder, who plants his feet and turns up his nose in offence at the words being spat at his back, “Yeah, that house is full of screw-ups!”

Nancy halts, noticing the darkness clouding Jonathan’s expression, willing him not to listen and to keep moving, “Jonathan, leave it!”

She glances to Jennifer for help when he doesn’t, nervous seeing the same shadow twisting her face too. Her hands have balled at her sides, chest heaving as Harrington continues his onslaught-

“You know, I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised, a bunch of screw-ups in your family,” Harrington huffs mockingly, “I mean, your mom?!”

Jennifer sees the way the words kinks Jonathan’s spine, his shoulders almost rising to his flushed ears.

“Steve, shut up!” Nancy tries.

He doesn’t, instead spews, “I’m not even surprised what happened to your brother-!”

The colour drains from Jonathan’s face entirely. For Jennifer, the alley stops spinning. And her sights are set straight on Harrington behind him. Her feet start to move, hurling herself back towards them, hands curled tight and quaking-

Harrington shoves into Jonathan again before she can get there, seething, “I’m sorry I have to be the one to tell you, but her Byers are a disgrace to the entire-”

Jonathan swings. Hitting him across the face with a solid fist.

Harrington grunts, surprised by the flash of pain, stumbling against the wall.

Jennifer’s feet stop, tripping slightly as she stills beside Nancy who gasps, hand coming to cover her mouth. The others watch on too, varied sick amusement flashing over their expressions. The silence between them and the bricks thick, bated.

Harrington rights himself, shrugging off the surprise to face Byers, who looks back, just as surprised. He shakes out his hand, just as Harrington hurls himself towards him-

He slams his shoulder into Jonathan’s waist, arms coming around him in some sort of sports tackle into a nearby dumpster. Jonathan huffs in pain, but is quick to meet his force, raising his own arms to grip tight to Harrington’s jacket.

Jonathan lunges forward, kicking out with his leg to swipe the other boy’s feet from under him - not planted right. He pushes Harrington swiftly to the ground, the two tumbling together against the gravel.

Hagan cheers, removing his arm from around a grinning Carol to clap wildly, “Kick his ass, man!”

“Stop it!” Nancy hisses desperately.

But neither hear her, it seems. Jonathan swings his leg again to plant it on the other side of Harrington’s waist, pinning him to the ground. His fist swings toward his face, but Steve sees it coming just in time, wriggling away while pushing back against his chest. Still, the punch grazes his cheek. 

Nancy gasps again, “Get off him! Stop!”

Jennifer winces, the walls closing in again as they push and pull and tug and hit-

Jonathan grunts, breath knocked out of him for a second as Harrington elbows his ribs. He takes the second to wriggle himself out from under him, standing on shaking legs and twisting himself to push at Jonathan who still kneels disorientated.

Harrington steps back, taking a breath and shaking out his own fist now. Tommy takes the opportunity to move forward and take a lunge at Jonathan himself, pushing his shoulders - the Byers boy who falls palms-flat against the cement.

Jennifer feels herself move before she realises she is doing it, feet stumbling and shaking hands reaching out to tug at Hagan’s jacket and haul him away from her friend as he starts to tower over him. Hagan turns to her sharply, tongue running along his lower lip and eyes sparking, delighted.

“Stay away from him, bitch!” Carol yells, worriedly biting.

She shoves him again on the arm, a pitiful, weak force with grit teeth, but his smile doesn’t falter. He straightens, barely moved, and stalks a step towards her. Jennifer trips backward, heart pounding as her back hits against the garbage can. A glass bottle rolls out, the dim tin sound of it rolling away swallowed by the sink of her heart as Hagan approaches. Her hands come up to brace for him pushing against her, but they grasp empty air - as he is suddenly pulled backward away from her. Harrington tugs on his jacket, spitting out some blood from his split lip to the ground by his scuffed white sneaker and throwing Hagan out the way. He mutters something she can’t hear over the roar of her veins. The beer and blood buzzing through them.

Hagan glares darkly at his friend, humour gone as the other boy untwists his fist from his jacket and pushes him away back toward his girlfriend, who watches on horrified. Carol latches her claws into his arm, holding him back, both staring at Harrington. Jennifer stares too, his back turned to her as he seems to wave them to go, to leave him to it.

But before anyone can move, Harrington is pushed to the ground again, Jonathan having risen to his feet and pummelling into him. The sound of Harrington's back hitting the ground echoes down the alley, the force of it knocking his head back. His vision blurs for a split second, unable to shake it off as his skull rattles.

Jon charges forward, his face twisted with rage. There is no hesitation in him, no pause to think. But Jennifer takes a breath, and then finds herself moving again. She pushes from the garbage can, moving quick to plant herself in his way, standing over Harrington who writhes pathetically on the floor behind her. And Jonathan halts.

Her arms reach out as if she can physically hold the moment in place. Just to get him to think about it. For a second.

Jonathan’s chest rises and falls rapidly, breath coming out in harsh bursts. His narrow eyes are wild, unfocused, burning with anger that hasn’t burned itself out yet. He isn’t really looking at her, not fully. Like he is staring straight through her. Jennifer is almost convinced for a second she isn’t really there.

She isn’t sure why she is.

But she stands her ground anyway, her heart pounding so hard it hurts. Fear curls in her stomach, locking her knees and lifting her chin, refusing to step aside. 

But Nancy lets out another sob from somewhere down the alley, and Jennifer sees Jonathan hear it too. His jaw twitching, tightening. Eyes clouding once again with hatred. And he comes right at her.

Nancy runs forward with a gasp, reaching out to take Jennifer by the wrist and pulling her aside as Jonathan snarls and leaps onto the beaten boy struggling on the ground. Letting herself be pulled, hands falling weakly to her sides and making it easy for the other girl to tug her a short distance away to the alley wall, Jennifer watches the flurry of fists as Jonathan straddles Harrington, shoulders whirring as he rears his fists.

The others have fallen quiet too, watching astonished and horrified at the display of unleashed fury.

She can barely see Harrington beneath his hunched back and pummelling arms, and is sure she will barely recognise him below the bruises and beatings Jonathan is punishing him with.

It should feel good, after those things he said. All he has done.

But it doesn’t. She feels sick.

“Cops!”

Jennifer hears the shout despite the pounding in her ears and behind her eyes, followed by the whir of a siren.

She’s spinning, blue lights flashing on the brick alley walls as the PD cruiser turns into it. It rolls towards them, whirring, but Jennifer is unable to look away from where Jonathan pummels his fists over and over and over into Harrington’s face - over and over!

Nancy sobs into her shoulder, hands over her face, unable to watch.

“Stop it,” the Wheeler girl weakly mumbles into her palms, lifting her eyes above her fingers to see the PD car come to a stop, blocking the alleyway end.

“Just go, Carol!” Hagan shouts to his already-running girlfriend, Nicole gripping to her arm as they disappear around the corner. He then steps forward, leaning down to try and push Byers off his bleeding friend, “He’s had enough, man! Enough!”

Jonathan pushes him off, barely hearing him over his furious exertion, immediately returning his fists to Harrington’s face once Hagan stumbles back and lets go. The boy below him splutters with each hit.

Hagan shakes off the shove, glare blazing. But he steps back, his ‘friend’ writhing on the ground.

Jennifer watches, eyes wide, as Callaghan steps out the car, rushing over. He reaches for Jon as Hagan had, hands latching onto his jacket - but the boy pushes back again, catching the officer’s nose with his reared elbow.

“Oh!” Callaghan exclaims, falling back against the cement with a hand to his face, “My nose!”

Jonathan, surprised by the new voice howling beside him, hesitates with his next punch, fist hovering by his shoulder as he glances at the officer. Tommy takes his momentary distraction to step forward and reach down, hauling a sagging Harrington to his feet.

“Go! Go!” Hagan chorales, trying to pull the stumbling jock with him away from the scene, an arm wrapped around his shoulders. The other boy splutters with the effort, pushing himself to move his feet despite weak, shaking legs.

Powell moves quickly past the girls to where his colleague rolls about the ground, clutching his face. He seizes a startled Jon by the arms, twisting them behind his back and forcing him to stand.

Nancy moves immediately, pushing from Jennifer’s side with a hard sniff to plead with the officer to ‘let him go’. Callaghan continues to howl as she growls at the other, who slams Jonathan against the hood of the cruiser, ignoring her wailing.

Jennifer, without the other girl to lean on, stumbles back against the chipped brick. She watches, breathing hard, as Jonathan struggles against Powell’s hold, growling as metal cuffs are placed around his wrists.

Suddenly, she feels a pressure around her own, something tugging at the end of her sleeve. Snapping her head to the side, she meets Harrington’s bloodshot eyes.

Queasy from the blood and blooming bruises swelling his face, Jennifer feels him tug at her sleeve, pulling him behind her as he turns to run again. Breathing hard, head spinning, confused; she allows him to pull her from the wall - but catches herself a few steps away.

She rips her arm back, sliding free of his fingers and planting her feet. He is quick to turn over his shoulder, swaying on his own. He looks at her for just a moment - his face too bloody to determine an expression, one eye almost closed shut - until Hagan yells for him to “come on” and comes running back to tug him into a run.

Jennifer watches them go, Callaghan recovered enough from his pain to try and chase them, rushing past her. But he is no match for their athletic prowess, and they disappear around the corner the girls had.

“Hey! Hey! Come back here, you lil’ punks!” he bellows, huffing out of breath. He slows when they are out of sight, hunching over for a moment before turning back and catching her bewildered gaze.

She sways now, wondering if she should run.

Shit, she is in so much shit!

She shifts on her feet, sneakers crunching on the ground. But Callaghan notices the consideration in her eyes as her shoulder starts to twist, and raises a warning hand, “Nuh-uh, little lady! Don’t move!”

Jennifer knows it is too late even before he moves to her. She should have ran.

But not with him.

Before she can think any more on it, Callaghan has reached her in a few long strides, a hand clamping on her shoulder. She sighs, the shoulder slumping under the disappointing weight of it. He pulls her arms in front of her, Jennifer hissing at the familiar coldness encircling her wrists and realising he has cuffed her, “But I- I wasn’t-!"

Looking back over to the cruiser, Nancy stands nearby with her pink face buried in her hands again, Powell still trying to cuff a resistant Jonathan. Once successful, he tugs the teenager to the backseat, pushing him inside much like they had her the week before.

Callaghan raises a patronising finger, scolding, “You shouldn’t be here.”

She rolls her eyes.

Shit.

-

In the back of the car, Jonathan cuffed beside Nancy in the middle, Jennifer watches the town roll by through hooded eyes as they are driven to the station. The vehicle is silent other than the immature whimpers of Callaghan in the shotgun seat as he prods his sore nose.

Jonathan has his head turned down, cuffed arms uncomfortably twisted behind his back. Nancy breathes heavily beside her, Jennifer feeling her trembling where their arms touch in the close proximity of the backseat, wiping a tear with a shaky finger.

Jennifer huffs to herself, trying to ignore it. She is so tired. Too tired for any of this.

Her second ride to the station in one weekend.

The frustration rolls from her stomach into a shudder, a further memory flitting to mind from years ago. Sitting in the back of a PD cruiser like this. Head resting against the window like now. Her mother beside her, yelling as Hopper drove them home.

She decides she prefers this quiet.

The thought of the Chief turns her anger to ash, nervous for his reaction to her being there. Powell was quick to scorn her too as they pulled out of the Hawk alley, saying Daniels put out a call for her. A runaway.

‘As if they don’t have enough going on’ he muttered. It made her feel bad.

The nerves wither into exhaustion as they stop at the red by the library, people on the sidewalk pointing and peering in as they pass.

She doesn’t care. She’s tired.

The town outside starts to blur as they move again. It hurts her head.

So Jennifer closes her eyes, and eventually drifts asleep.

-

An hour or so, maybe, later, Jennifer is sitting in one of the chairs lined against the wall in the PD office. She yawns, head lolling heavily, leant back with her legs spread out in front of her.

She tries to pass the time reading the posters pinned to the wall; the Tornado Shelter Storm Action Plan sending her head into a spin. The ringing of the desk phones, whispers of Flo gossiping down the line, and the clacking of Powell’s typewriter as he writes up a report on whatever the fuck just happened, does little to help the ache.

Jennifer hopes he doesn’t ask for her input, she wouldn’t know what to say if he did. It’s all a bit of a blur.

The smell of strong cigarettes and stale coffee repulses her stomach, pushing against the thickness risen in her throat.

Another memory floated by a short while ago, intruding; she slept in this chair once when her mother was held in the holding room, swept up from a barstool at the Hideaway before Hopper dropped them home in the morning. She is usually better at holding these thoughts off, flashes of a past she thinks she wants to forget but no one ever lets her. Jennifer supposes the drink must be bringing it all back up, eroding her ability to fight them back. Tired.

It was so much easier to settle when she was smaller, the chair now rather uncomfortable. She shifts again, trying to curl up or stretch out, frustrated they woke her from the backseat.

What is she even here waiting for? For Hopper, she assumes.

She asked where the Chief was - the words accidentally slurring and being met with a patronising sizing up - wondering if he came looking for her. It wouldn't have been hard to find her if he had, she supposes. But she was met with the same dismissive excuse; he’s busy.

Why does she even care what he thinks? He’s not her dad, certainly not her uncle. He’s just someone who she’s a liability to. Forced to force himself to care. Jennifer wishes he wouldn’t, then she wouldn’t either.

She had almost relievedly dozed again when Officer Daniels walked in. She sat straighter, worry buzzing in her fingertips it was finally the Chief - but huffing back into a slump as the cop berated “there you are”. He thankfully asked little else as to her whereabouts, Callaghan immediately pulled him aside to whine about his nose, removing his glasses and turning to face the too-bright fluorescent light above them to show off his bruise or bump or whatever isn’t even there. He then took Jonathan’s keys from Powell’s desk after they searched him upon arrival, heading out to collect the Ford.

Through her heavy eyelids, she now watches the two other teenagers sulking at one of the empty desks. Jonathan is still cuffed too, fingers playing with themselves beyond the dull metal, nervously glancing through narrow eyes at every officer that passes by. Nancy sits beside him, having disappeared with Flo a short while ago and returning with presumably ice cubes wrapped in a dish towel. She hesitated before raising it to his forehead, his own hands limited, using it to brush aside his flopping hair to ease the bruise blooming on his temple beneath it.

Jennifer feels her top lip curling as they meet eyes again - the several-th moment in a minute - in confused disgruntlement.

Jonathan Byers and Nancy Wheeler.

Their names don’t even sound right beside one another. What were they doing together?

Harrington said back there he saw them in her room?

Maybe Nancy listened to her. Realised their shared grief. Reached out to support him.

It’s not like Jennifer has been around herself. She has shut herself away, drinking herself to sleep every few hours for the past two days. Neither could reach out to her, so they found each other?

Before she can think any more of it, Flo comes by with a glass of water. Jennifer tucks her legs in as the woman passes her to sit in the chair to her side, extending the glass to her. She nods gratefully, taking it, but her hands are shaking through the metal. She can feel the alcohol trying to burn through her system too quickly, too buzzed from the adrenaline of the alley.

The older woman notices, of course she does. And sighs - not scolding her, but sympathetic. Flo knows her as well as she has let anyone from her very many visits as a girl. She would invite Jennifer behind the reception desk as she filed, listening in as she gossiped on the phone and scribbled stories onto a nearby notepad. Maybe that’s where her curiosity about this town started.

Flo looks from her to the two other teenagers, who are yet again stealing glances as the ice pack drips to the desk.

Jennifer tries to bring the glass to her lips, suddenly realising how dry her lips are, as the woman hums, “Only love makes you that crazy.”

She chokes on the water, it barely touching her tongue. Flo pats her knee, but still keeps her gaze almost fondly on the other two.

Jennifer is about to look too, water dripping down her hand, as the door slams open.

Joyce Byers appears, pushing open the small wooden gate by the door to hurry into the office. Flo stands, Powell looking up from his desk as the woman hurries over to her son. Her eyes widen, noticing the dish towel the Wheeler girl has pressed to his forehead-

“Jonathan?” she screeches, concerned, “Jesus, what- what happened?”

Powell pushes himself from his chair, walking over with hands on his belt, “Ma’am-”

“I’m fine,” Jonathan mumbles, Nancy lowering her hand and eyes.

Hopper is close behind her, the air shifting as he steps into the space. Jennifer tenses, the man glancing her way only for a brief moment before turning to where Joyce’s eyes are now even wider-

“Why is he wearing handcuffs?!”

Jennifer wipes at her watered mouth, the back of her hand wetting as she watches Callaghan step to the desk too, “Well, your boy assaulted a police officer. That’s why-”

“No he didn’t,” she hears herself mumble, unable to stop it, all eyes whipping to her.

Callaghan’s eyes are wide under his lenses, “Wh- Yes! Yes he did!”

Jennifer rolls her eyes as he gestures to his not-swollen nose, “Didn’t even bleed…”

She trails off, feeling Hopper’s eyes on her again, longer this time. Long enough to see her. His gaze is hot, heavy; frustrated. She feels it too, slinking herself down in the seat again, taking a long swig of water to wash down anything else that might tumble out.

Hopper watches her cave in, biting back a disappointed sigh as he hears the slur of her words and drooping of her eyes.

“Take them off!” Joyce demands of the officers, waving a frantic hand to her son at the desk, whose head is buried embarrassedly to his chest.

Callaghan folds his arms, stubbornly, “I’m afraid I cannot do that-”

“Take them off!”

“You heard her,” Hopper says, steadier, “Take ‘em off.”

“Even- even her?” Callaghan gulps, looking over to her with wide eyes. She smirks, waggling her fingers through the metal loops at him.

Hopper groans at her attitude, “Off.”

The officer slowly approaches, pulling out a key attached from his belt loop and leaning over to unlock her. Once the metal clicks open, she continues to smirk up at him, chuckling out a mocking, “Boo.”

She chuckles again as the officer jumps back, taking the cuffs with him and turning quickly to Jonathan instead. Scared of her, just as Carol was.

Jennifer wishes it actually felt good, keeping the smirk in place but gritting her teeth and rubbing her sore wrists.

“Chief,” Powell clears his throat, “I get everyone’s emotional here, but there's something you need to see.”

The Chief nods, following his deputy’s lead out the office and back through the door. Jennifer looks curiously to Jonathan, but he is already swept in sharing a worried, knowing glance with Nancy.

Jennifer reaches over, packing the glass on the nearest desk with some difficulty due to the cuffs and giving into the pry bubbling in her chest. What is it they have found? Does it answer what they were doing without her?

She turns, hauling herself up with the arms of the chair, wanting to kneel on it to look out the window behind her - but the effort dizzies her, and she falls back into it.

Instead, she gives in to watching Joyce fuss over his bruise, asking all the questions she has; what happened? What were they doing? To both their disappointment, neither answer. Heads dropped to the desk. Nancy slowly glances up again, avoiding their eyes but helplessly looking over to the boy beside her, the melting ice in her hand dripping to the carpet.

“Oh, Jonathan…” his mother laments softly, despite her frenzied concern, brushing his hair back with her fingertips to study the bruise.

“I’m really fine, mom,” he tries, leaning slightly into her touch.

Jennifer looks down to his hands where they are folded inside the cuffs. His knuckles are bruised too, the backs of his fingers shaded deep purple as they twist nervously.

She thinks then of how he used them. Punching and hitting and punching over and over and over- beating into Harrington’s face. Jennifer didn’t get to see it for too long, him mostly buried under Jonathan’s tense frame and lost in a blur of fists. She didn’t pay his injuries much mind as they stared at one another either as he tried to pull her away, too surprised by the action to look.

She wishes she had, so she could perhaps try to understand it all.

Something familiar twists in her chest again, knotting in her throat. Something close to guilt.

Jennifer tried to stop it. She did.

For Jonathan’s sake, of course. It wasn’t about Harrington at all. No, of course not.

It was watching someone else do something they will regret. To stop him hurting himself. To not prove himself to be what they all think he is like she has,

She understands, she lashed out at Carol. She was pushed and pushed until she could only give into the instinct to jump. And, yeah, it felt good.

Even getting a few hits to Harrington’s chest herself days ago felt like a release. Weight being lifted.

But despite the brief relief in the moment, it ultimately didn’t make her feel any better. Look at her now. Cuffed. Drunk. Just like her mother. Just like they all expect. She has come to do so too, she supposes.

The weight crashed back down. Hard. Crushing.

Harrington has been asking for it. He makes mess and expects others to clean up for him. Pushes and pushes. Hell, she has thought about smacking him more than she bothers to admit, worried she may one day give in to the impulse.

The things that he said, the names he spat-

But there wasn’t any kind of sick pride in it today, unlike when Carol cried. 

It just felt… Well, it hurt. All of them, hurting.

This knot in her chest isn’t guilt over what happened to Harrington. It is stress and shock and being so tired...

She stepped in for control. Logic. To not let Jonathan regret it.

Jennifer knows regret. Guilt. it pushes and it hurts.

She doesn’t know what string to pull, what thread to follow to untie this knot that almost chokes her-

But, while she didn’t look, there was something. Something in his voice that-

“I can’t believe I was actually worried about you”

She doesn’t know what. The knot tightens.

A vague haze of another memory tries to push through-

But Jennifer is snapped out of it as Hopper comes barging back into the room, followed by his two officers. He slams a cardboard box in his hands to the desk in front of the teenagers, deeply frowning. She startles at the noise, a clanking rattling inside. Like metal.

The Chief steps back, scowling down at the pair. Joyce moves closer, peering inside, Jennifer noticing the way her face distorts confusedly, surprised. She tries to push herself forward to look for herself, relieved when the woman starts to pull items out onto the tabletop so she can see without straining.

But her breath catches in her throat, frowning too as Joyce reveals a string of rope, lighter fluid and a box of Remington bullets. Callaghan steps forward and even pulls out a large clamp of some sort, like she has seen on the shelves of the hunting store; a bear trap - almost catching his finger on the sharp edge, Powell snatching it off him to carefully place back in the box.

“What is all this?” Joyce asks what they are all wondering.

Hopper looks over to Jennifer in the chair, seeing her peering forward, shocked. He assumes she doesn’t know.

So, turning his attention back to the Byers boy, who glares hotly up at him, and Wheeler girl, who is intently studying the bottom button of her jacket, he rumbles, “Why don’t you ask your son? We found it in his car."

“What?” Joyce splutters, dropping the fluid back into the box to turn to her son.

Jonathan sits forward, still glaring, “Why are you going through my car?”

Hopper leans forward, towering over him, “Is that really the question you should be asking right now?”

It quietens the boys, who sits back and sulks.

“I want to see you in my office,” he instructs. 

The Byers kid scoffs, shaking his head slightly, “You won’t believe me.”

Hopper bites back a scoff of his own, his jaw aching from all the gritting it has done this past week, “Why don’t you give me a try?”

Jonathan only looks back at him, Nancy shifting in her seat.

“My office. Now.”

Jennifer’s gaze is still locked curiously on the peculiar items from the box as the teenager stands to follow after the Chief. Rope, fluid, bullets, a trap? What?

She shakes her head, eyes needing to close to collect herself for a moment, sore from staring. As she opens them again, she finds Hopper waiting by the door, looking right at her. Expectant.

But- she doesn’t have anything to do with… whatever this is!

Jennifer groans, finally mustering enough strength to push herself from the chair and, with sore legs, follows him out the door.

The car gurgles, gasping as she twists the key. She curses, it seeming as reluctant to wake as she was, with barely any gas in the tank with her unable to afford it. It finally comes to life after a few encouraging hits at the steering wheel and pleading of the pedals. And she pulls away.

She shouldn’t be driving, not in her state. But the streets are quiet at this time and she has somewhere to be.

Jennifer makes it to the High, as she hoped, before the third period. Parking skewed on the far side of the lot, she speeds to step out, almost forgetting her backpack on the back seat, and rush inside. While relieved she is now on time, with ten minutes or so to spare, Jennifer’s stomach drops as she weaves between the many bodies hanging around the cars, realising it is recess. No chance of sneaking in unnoticed. She can feel others looking her way, mutterings and musings floating through the air as she passes. Jennifer is sure she looks a state. Probably as bad as she feels, lethargy catching up to her as she slows her clumsy step and curses herself for not arriving earlier to secure a closer spot to the doors and avoiding such a parade.

Stepping through into the halls, Jennifer feels eyes turning to her just as immediately, suddenly conscious of how her head pounds and breath rattles and hair feels. She keeps her head down, fixated on her own feet and concentrates on putting one in front of the other and so on until she reaches her locker. However, before she can make it, her shoulder sears as someone pushes into her.

“Hey, watch it!”

She doesn’t look up to see who checked her, worried it was her own imbalance that caused it.

“Rough night, Anderson?” someone teases.

Someone else giggles, another pointedly cackles, their eyes hot on her blazing skin. The sound tears through her, following down the hall as she turns a corner.

Her breathing quickens as she tries to push on, another voice floating by her, quieter without the mocking lilt but all the less excruciating, “Woah, you alright?”

She ignores them too, legs burning as she pushes them on and on until she reaches the end of the hall.

Disorientated, not having paid attention to where she has pushed herself to, just wanting to get away, she finds herself stopping by a wall in her way. Glancing up, Jennifer meets eyes with Will Byers, still posted to the board despite being buried yesterday. She sways on the spot. Her head spins and spins and spins - until she reaches out and tears it down.

He looks up at her, still smiling. It’s cruel.

The paper trembles in her hold, fingers crumpling the edges until she pushes them inward entirely, crushing the poster in her hands. So he can’t look at her anymore.

What good was it anyway? It’s too late now. He’s gone.

It makes her feel sick. A jolting in her stomach, a rising thickness in her throat.

Dropping the balled flyer to the ground and accidentally kicking it as she runs to the bathroom, Jennifer tucks herself in a stall and kneels beside it.

To her chagrin, after minutes of waiting and wishing, nothing comes up. Just deep breaths, taunted by the lingering scent of bourbon on her tongue.

With still a few minutes until the bell is set to ring, Jennifer waits until she hears another pupil finish washing their hands before hauling herself from the dirty floor of the cubicle.

The fluorescent artificial light above has her wincing her way over to the sink. She risks a glance at herself as she washes her hands, the mirror above the basins revealing a sight that explains the staring.

Her eyes are red, the skin around them raw and puffed. Her skin is pale, lighter than grey but darker than right. It feels hot, scorched. Jennifer lifts her wet hands to her cheeks, hoping the water will cool them off - but to little effect. She scrapes her short nails through her greasy hair, trying to wrap it in itself somehow to hold it off her clammy face and neck. But it falls, knotted, wild around her hunched shoulders.

She reminds herself of Hopper from the day before. Flushed and frenzied.

That is what she wanted, wasn’t it? To lose herself like he had, even just for the night. She doesn’t regret it at all, only waking up.

Jennifer grips the edge of the basin, forcing herself to look away, closing her eyes tight.

She doesn’t care. She shouldn’t.

She isn’t the problem. It’s everyone else. 

Everyone else who keeps moving when everything should have stopped still. Everyone else who acts like everything is normal when everything is wrong. So, so wrong.

Maybe she should just head right home again…

“Did you see her? What a mess!” is the first thing she hears as she leaves the bathrooms. Carol’s voice bellows down the hall, Jennifer

Using herself behind the door frame to not be spotted, unsure if she has been waiting to pounce on her. Though, it sounds as if they are walking by, heading to class. 

Still, Jennifer pushes herself further into the wall, hoping they will move past without seeing her around the corner.

“It was the funeral yesterday, right?” she can hear Tommy smize, “Must have hit the bottle hard celebrating! Her and her freaky boyfriend putting the fun in funeral!”

“Clever,” Nicole drawls with a roll of her eyes as they pass the lockers.

Steve chews the inside of his mouth, unhumoured by the pun.

His foot accidentally catches something on the ground, looking down to find a balled piece of paper rolling away from his shoe. Curious, he allows the others to continue strutting ahead as he reaches down, quietly relieved for a little distance between them.

Unfolding it, he recognises the poster, the black text HAVE YOU SEEN ME? having followed him from the paper on his doorstep to the pinboards of the halls and the television screen for the past week.

Steve was watching the news report Sunday morning, listening to the trooper who found the boy’s body in the water, before his mother shut off the set and mumbled something about it being no surprise. That this was bound to happen, Joyce Byers never fit to look after herself let alone two boys. His father agreed, laughing that her husband had been right to run off to the city years ago - or something like that. He, as usual, stayed quiet.

Steve doesn’t know the Byers, not really. He knows enough from rumours to know they are not the same, not the sort of family he would ever bother to get to know. And he knows enough about Jonathan to never want to.

Carol said something about karma as he drove her and Tommy home after her detention. That Byers deserves it after the messed up stuff he has done. Steve only nodded. He doesn’t have siblings, hasn't got a brother. He doesn’t know what that’s like. 

But even after all Jonathan has done to them, and to Nancy especially, it doesn’t seem right. Fair.

He doesn’t know how to feel. Not quite regretful but not so certain in what he did the day before the news. Breaking the camera like that. Byers was in the wrong, for sure. But the way Nancy has avoided him, the way Anderson looked at him… and then finding out his brother is dead that same night?

It has shaken him, truthfully. Swayed him in the very least. He feels… bad. Wrong.

Tommy still seems stuck on the theory he had something to do with his brother’s death, finds it amusing somehow. That Anderson was somehow involved too, even despite the news reporting differently, that it was an accident. “Perhaps they pushed him” he proposed, not letting it go.

Steve just brushes him off, scoffing quietly. Or he laughs along sometimes too, trying to push down that bad feeling.

But there is no humour in it. Not at all.

Not when he thinks about her for just a moment too long. Not when he has seen her in such a state, storming past him in the halls. He called out for her when she passed moments ago, shocked by the sight of her as she almost hit into him around that corner, hearing himself asking if she was alright. She ignored him, kept walking fast with her head down. She didn’t need to answer. He could see she isn’t. Stupid thing to ask…

She lost her uncle. Now, that kid too. And, despite the school seeming to forget, her friend Barbara is still missing.

Does Jennifer Anderson deserve any of that? Is that all karma too?

He doesn’t think so. He’s not sure anyone does.

But truthfully, he doesn’t know her either.

“She’s a liability! Just like her mother was,” Carol shrugs, leaning her head against Tommy’s arm around her shoulder as they strut down the corridor.

Steve drops the paper into a nearby trash can and steps beside them again. He keeps his eyes on the floor, running a hand through his hair as he sighs quietly.

Carol sniffs, indignantly with a smirk, , “No wonder her uncle killed himself.”

The comment doesn’t sit right in his stomach. He opens his mouth, maybe to excuse himself or perhaps tell her to stop, as she continues-

“I would too if burdened looking after such a miserable waste of-”

Carol suddenly exclaims, Steve looking up to see her pulled out from under her boyfriend's arm and slammed to the lockers. Jennifer pushes her against them, hands wrapped tight into Carol’s sweater by her shoulders, face red and seething.

“What the fuck-?!” 

Jennifer cuts her off, pulling her closer by her shoulders then slamming her back against the lockers again, hard. She cries out.

It feels good. It isn’t enough.

So she reaches for Carol’s hair, twisting her fingers around the ginger locks and tugging hard. Carol cries more. Better.

She goes to tug again, gritting her teeth as she starts to pull, but feels two arms wrap around her waist.

Her clawed fingers catch a few hairs as she is pulled back, ripping them from the girl’s scalp. As Carol howls, Jennifer latches her hands onto the arms secured around her, clawing her nails into the fabric of their sweater. Trying to scratch them away, she kicks out her legs behind her too, hearing whoever is behind her hiss as she catches their ankle - but keeps their arms around her tight.

Jennifer stills, seeing Tommy watching with wide eyes a step away, Nicole moving quickly to where a crying Carol is now hunched on the ground with a hand to her sore head.

The haze clears slightly as she recognises the voice of who holds her in her ear, “Easy, Anderson.”

She whips her head over her shoulder, hair flicking wildly in his face as she glowers up at him. Harrington looks down at her, frowning deeply as she tries to wriggle free. Her chest heaves, noting the look in his eye. Not angry or amused - but honestly concerned.

It furies her.

The haze returns, twisting herself to be facing him with a growl and hitting out. She strikes his shoulder, then his chest, then again and again. His hands move from her waist to catch her forearms, stopping them from landing on him. He tries to catch her eye, bending back a little to dodge her strikes, “Hey, hey, stop.”

His voice is quiet still, not carrying any anger she can’t see in his eyes; just concern. Like he might understand.

But he won’t. He can’t. Certainly not him, of all people.

Jennifer feels a molten tear run down her hot cheek, then another until her eyes burn with them. Her chest heaves, choked sobs emitting with every swing she sends his way.

Every hit turns into something new, something more. A confused tempest of everything she has been holding back or washing down. Her offence at Carol’s words, her anger at Hagan’s smirk, her consciousness of eyes on her in the halls, fear for Eleven, frustration with Hopper, regret for Nancy, the boys, upset at Jonathan, grief for Benny, for Will, for Barb - and him!

How he left her alone all those years ago, turned his back, made friends with people who put her down - she needed him! He left her!

She is lonely! So lonely!

She wants him to fight back. Do or say something to keep this fire going.

And yet, as expected, he disappoints her.

Instead, his hold on her hands loosen, not quite relenting or surrendering. But also just that. Not willing to let her go but letting her do it.

Harrington lets her pummel at his chest, clenching his jaw to take the hits as they slow and weaken. Her hands tire as she is overcome with cries. The fire now ashes melting on her tongue, catching in her throat.

She is tired now. Too tired.

And for a moment, as her hand collides with his chest for the last time she has in her, Jennifer finds herself falling into him slightly. And he lets her.

It lasts only a moment; his hands still around her arms as her cheek presses into his shoulder. He feels her shaking against him, wracked with all she has been through. All she has felt. He can only imagine.

But, as soon as he further loosens his hold, dropping his hands and hovering them around her, undecided what to do next - she rips herself away. Keeping her head down, hair sticking to the wetness on her cheeks, she turns on her heel and runs.

He stumbles back.

“Jennifer!” she hears him call out, voice croaking slightly with confusion. It pushes her to run, faster.

Steve only watches as she goes, the bell for class ringing above them and in his ears as she turns out of sight. His jaw eases, hanging slightly open.

Carol cries where she kneels beside him, Nicole with her arm around her. Hagan lets out a short laugh in disbelief, trying to meet his eye to share the sentiment, then realises his place should be beside his girlfriend and joins Nicole by her side.

Steve just stares ahead where she disappeared. A wet stain on the shoulder of his sweater from her tears, seeping through to his skin. He shivers.

-

She drives herself home, pulling away from the High as quickly as she had pulled in. Her head spins as she drives, fingers buzzing as they grip the steering wheel. She shouldn’t be behind it. But she doesn’t care.

Not when her blood is boiling - bubbling with a tired rage. Muted adrenaline.

She has been circling for a while now, unsure how long exactly. Just driving and moving...

Jennifer turns off the main road and the world narrows to the dirt road leading into the trailer park. The tires kick up dust that hangs in the air like smoke around the old Studebaker, clinging to the headlights she doesn’t need on as it is only early afternoon. 

She pulls into her spot too fast, brakes squealing as she screeches to a stop on the grass, just missing the flattened yard it usually belongs atop. The engine idles, rattling beneath her, a mirror of her uneven heartbeat.

Jennifer doesn’t move right away. She stares at the wheel beneath her hands, willing the buzz to stop buzzing.

Breathe, she tells herself. Just breathe through it.

She presses her forehead briefly to the back of her hands on the wheel, static sparking the back of her neck. The vinyl smells hot and old, creaking beneath her palms. She tries to ease them, let go a little - but she can’t. Afraid of letting go. Terrified where she might fall to.

Breathe - she tries to.

After a moment, she straightens, finally dropping her hands to reach for the keys—

But glancing up, peering through the windshield at her looming trailer-

The front door is open.

The buzz billows into nerves, settling in her chest, wrapping around her lungs as a deep breath fails her.

Her first thought is small and automatic: did she do that? Maybe in her rush this morning.

But the certainty comes quickly. Cold and heavy. She didn’t.

Her engine clicks as she turns it off. The sudden silence feels too big. The space between her and the door widens in the quiet.

Jennifer opens her car door slowly, wincing at the soft creak of the worn hinges. The air outside is cool, thick with the smell of dust and wet grass. She steps out, closes the door with exaggerated care, and stands staring at the trailer door.

Her fingers clench around her keys, her palm fisting around the small, sharp metal. Held close to her hip, ready to scratch if needed as she takes a cautionary step toward the porch. Then another. Gravel crunches under her sneakers, loud as gunshots in her ears above her heartbeat. 

On the top step, she stops. A sound drifts out from inside.

Something shifts. A dull knock, like a cabinet door hitting a frame. Then a faint rattle—metal on metal, fast and searching.

Someone’s in there.

Her mouth goes dry. Her pulse pounds so hard she can feel it in her throat.

Jennifer’s grip tightens around the keys, raising them to her chest now; teeth of metal biting into her skin. It’s a stupid weapon, she knows that, but it’s something. It’s all she has against whoever is in her home.

Another noise from inside as she creeps to the doorframe, tucking herself beside it to not be seen as she decides her next move. 

A scrape. A muttered breath - too low to make out words, but undeniably human. Not a bear, nor a monster (she hopes).

Jennifer tries another breath. It fails. Then leans slightly to the side, peering through the open door. The interior is dim, shadows pooling in the corners. She can’t see anyone, but she can feel them, an invisible pressure in the space.

Her heart slams.

“Hello?” she calls out, hating how thin her voice sounds.

The movement stops. So does her heart.

For a split second, she considers running - back to the car, back to the road, anywhere but here. But her feet stay planted. 

Anger flares through the fear, hot and reckless, fed by Carol’s words and the long, grinding weight of being pushed around. The buzz in her fingers returns to the fury she had felt, thrumming through her.

Jennifer raises her hand, keys poised, and nudges the door open another inch with her foot.

“Get out,” she says, louder now, “I’ll call the cops!”

From the darkness, something shifts again.

And it enrages her.

Jennifer pushes the door the rest of the way open, kicking it so it slams against the porch rail with an announcing thud. She almost slips on a newspaper placed on the doormat, catching herself quickly against the doorframe. Her heart hammers so hard it makes her dizzy. But she forces herself a step inside; arm extended, keys thrust out in front of her like a blade. Every nerve still tuned for a fight.

“Hey-!” she starts to scream.

It dies in her throat.

Hopper?

The Chief is standing in front of open kitchen cupboards, his back half-turned to her. His hand lingers on one cabinet door, shoulders tensing as he turns to her.

For a second, neither of them moves.

Hopper turns slowly after a moment, hands lifting a few inches, palms out. His eyes flick to the keys still jutting between her fingers.

“Jesus,” he hisses, but his eyes are not wide, unsurprised seeing her there - as he shouldn't be, this is her place after all, “Jennifer-”

She doesn’t lower her arm, keys glinting in the dull sunlight through the still-open door.

“What are you doing?” her voice comes out rough, scraped raw by fear and fury. 

Her gaze darts past him, taking everything in at once. The drawers under the counter are thrown open. A stack of mail is scattered across the table, envelopes bent, one torn open. The couch cushions have been shifted, one pulled halfway off like someone checked beneath it and couldn’t be bothered to fix it afterward.

Nothing is destroyed. Nothing stolen. But everything is wrong.

The carelessness hits her hardest. The way things have been moved in a hurry and not put back, as if the space doesn’t matter. As if she doesn’t.

A flash of memory tightens her chest: Hopper’s chalet the day before. The way he’d torn through it, pacing frenziedly, tearing open drawers, tugging boxes from closets with the same restless urgency. Things left askew, chairs knocked out of place, the air buzzing with desperation for something.

For half a second, curiosity tries to surface - what is he looking for? What is so important you’d break into her place?

Maybe he realised she took the alcohol from his table. Has come looking for his whisky, needing another fix himself. He’ll be disappointed, half of it already swigged the night before.

But as he turns his back to her once again to continue his investigation without courteous explanation, anger smothers it.

He reaches upward, beginning to twist at the lightbulb that hangs over the kitchen table that hasn’t even worked in months.

“What the hell are you doing?” she repeats, seething as he holds the empty bulb, peering inside it then throwing it onto the nearby couch, sighing almost relievedly.

Her brow furrows, twisting confusedly - frustratedly - as he turns without answer for the drawers, pots and pans clanking as he rummages roughly through them.

“What am I doing?” Hopper grumbles, her barely hearing him from the other side of the room as he pulls out a saucepan and carelessly throws it onto the counter to search beneath it, “What about you?”

He looks over his shoulder at her then, halting his search to fix her with a brief stern scowl, “Flo had a call from the school. Perkins wants to press charges.”

Hopper hears the girl scoff bitterly as he turns back to the drawer.

“For what? Animal abuse?”

But he isn’t amused.

Picking up another pan, he scolds, “I won’t let that happen. But you can’t let that happen again.”

Hopper hears her scoff, an aching sound that riles him. But he beats it down, instead focussing on what he came here to do.

He can’t tell her what he is doing. Not yet. Not until he knows.

He wants to answer her. Tell the girl all he knows about his brief imprisonment at the Hawkins National Laboratory, the fake body of Will Byers in the casket that was buried, the sightings of a ‘Russian’ girl in town with a buzzed head, the woman named Terry Ives and the MK Ultra experiments.

That his place was bugged. They are listening.

And before he found it in his lightshade, they may have heard her there. Know her.

That she was right. All along. About her uncle...

But how can he? How is that fair? To scare her with half-sure truths and impossible happenings.

What if he is wrong? And all this really is just some big, bad trip? It feels more and more like it every day.

The girl is grieving. Angry. Now getting into fights and - well, he pretends he hasn’t noticed the empty bottles kicked under her couch when he lifted it half an hour ago.

It would be cruel.

But this feels cruel too, turning his back on her.

But it is to keep her safe. He’s trying.

He has seen these people now. Seen who they are and what they can do. And, truthfully, he’s shaken.

“School’s suspending you for the week,” he informs her instead, lifting a pile of old magazines tucked into the corner, “And I’m putting the officers back out your door.”

She is quiet behind him. Hopper doesn’t want to look. Perhaps he is paranoid - as he is in his right to be after being drugged and bugged two nights ago - but he would rather her be where he knows he can keep an eye on her, in case those people try anything. And also, to have her out the way while he keeps looking for answers he can one day give her.

Terry Ives. She seems the best place to start.

As his hand brushes the countertop and he starts opening another drawer, Jennifer feels herself start to shake.

She feels a flush of heat crawl up her neck, her blood pressure spiking like an alarm going off in her veins. She feels trapped, patronised, violated-

And she snaps.

Jennifer throws the keys across the coffee table; the sharp, metallic clunk of them hitting the wood ringing out like a slap in the air.

"Get out!" she yells, her voice cracking under the weight of everything.

But he doesn’t even glance her way. Doesn’t even flinch. He's transfixed; hands rifling through the drawers like he’s looking for a golden needle in a haystack, and it’s like she doesn’t even exist in the room. In her own space.

With a growl, Jennifer marches over to the drawer he’s messing with, reaching past his shoulder to slam it shut with all her furious strength. The noise echoes through the trailer, sharp and final.

“Get out!” she roars again, her face flushed with rage.

This time, he stops, yanking his hand back just in time to not be caught by her closing it. He actually looks at her now. Her chest heaves, cheeks red.

For a split second as they stare at one another, there’s a flicker of something in his wide eyes - something close to regret, but it’s not enough. It’s not enough for her to soften, to give him an inch. Not anymore.

He straightens and takes a step toward her, his hand raised in that useless “I’m not a threat” gesture, but she’s had enough. She takes a step back, narrowing her eyes at him, and holds up a hand to keep him at a distance.

“Don’t! Just-” she says, her voice low now and shaking with fury, “Go away!”

The man opens his mouth, like he’s going to say something - maybe something about why he’s here, or what he’s looking for. But she doesn’t give him the chance. She doesn't care anymore.

“I don’t want to hear any- I just want to be left alone,” she snaps, struggling to push the words out. They hang in the air between them, charged. Her chest is heaving now, breaths coming fast, every inch of her tense and rigid.

“Listen, kid,” he still doesn’t get it. 

Jennifer’s hand comes to her scalp, tugging her knotted hair frustratedly, “No-!”

“I just-”

“No!” she hisses, “I don’t care! I don’t! I just want you to go away!”

“Jennifer, I’m only trying to-”

“To scare me?”

They both falter as she spits it out, Hopper almost stumbling back, bracing with a palm pressed against the countertop. Her thoughts catch up to her words, trying to explain through shallow breaths and beaten back cries.

“You- you break into my home, you-” she hiccups, “You pull a gun on me and-”

His face falls completely, finally whitening with regret, “Jennifer, I’m-”

“No! No, stop it!” she screws her eyes shut, not wanting to hear him, “Get- just get out!”

Hopper stands there for a moment longer, looking down at her. She can feel him weighing her words, trying to figure out if he can push past this, if he can convince her to hear him out.

But he doesn’t.

Jennifer looks away, down to the magazines he dropped to the floor, unsure if she is disappointed by that. She holds her breath.

He doesn’t move for a while, eyes darting between her - the way she is shaking, fingers trembling at her sides as she avoids his gaze; almost cowering - and the disarray he has caused in the kitchen. 

And then, finally, the Chief’s broad shoulders drop, defeated. He shakes his head once below his hat, muttering something under his breath that she can’t catch, and turns toward the door.

He doesn’t look back. The door closes behind him with a quiet thud.

_

"That is such bullshit!"

Nancy chuckles darkly as she walks beside Jonathan Byers in the woods by her boyfriend's house, where she saw that thing. They set out, pistol and baseball bat in hand, to hunt down whatever kind of animal it was. to fin Barb and Will. But in an attempt at conversation while they found nothing but more dead leaves and wet branches, Jonathan explained why he took her picture the other night at the party. That she was saying something and that's why he captured the moment.

And she doesn't like what he had to say about what she was saying.

"I am not trying to be someone else!" she faces the Byers boy down, him scuffing his shoe in the leaves as he glares back, meeting her annoyance.

He huffs, twisting his hand around the baseball bat over his shoulder as they come to a stop.

"Just because I'm dating Steve and you don't like him-"

"You know what? Forget it," Jonathan mumbles, moving past her and walking ahead, "I just thought it was a good picture."

"He's actually a good guy," she doesn't relent, following after him, "Yesterday, with the camera, he's not like that at all. He was just being protective."

That has Jonathan slowing his step to whip around and face her, incredulous at whatever she is trying to do. She doesn't honestly know.

It feels like she has fought this battle before, with Jennifer. But she has picked it this time.

"Yeah, that's one word for it," Jonathan rolls his eyes, bat now swinging limp by his side.

Nancy balks, hearing a similar disbelieving and ridiculing tone to his voice as Jennifer a few days before, "Oh, and I guess what you did was okay?"

"No, no I never said that-"

"Because it wasn't!" she bites, unsure where this tightness in her chest has twisted from, "It wasn't okay, Jennifer was really hurt-"

Jonathan's gaze drops guiltily to the floor, hair flopping over his bent brow. Nancy quietens, unsure why she has pushed it.

The boy has tried to apologise for it. Explained himself when she asked him to. He isn't what she thought at all.

Whether for his brother or not, he's helping her. Believes her.

And here she is, bringing up Steve again. Arguing about him. Why?

Maybe because they have been walking for hours and found nothing. Maybe because she is scared for her friend, him for his brother.

Or maybe because he is right. And so is Jennifer too.

Nancy hates that she knows it.

_

The rest of the day stretches out thin and brittle.

Jennifer sits at the small kitchen table in the late afternoon, not yet having righted the couch cushion from the tirade this morning; with a paperback open in front of her, the spine cracked where she’s read it too many times before. Her eyes flit across the page, but nothing sticks. She reads the same paragraph over and over, the words blurring into one long string of letters. Nonsense. Nothing.

She looks around, wondering what else she can do to pass the time, throwing down the book with a huff.

The trailer is too quiet.

Jennifer switched the radio off after hearing the reporter utter the name “Byers” and almost heaving over the sink. She took the batteries out, left it gutted on the counter.

She took the batteries out of her walkie too. The empty compartment now gaping like a warning. No temptation. No excuses.

Switched on, she was close to calling the boys. Trying to stutter through an apology or ending up thrown into their make believe again. She swore to herself to ignore it, remember?

She also thought of calling Nancy, another pathetic apology rising on her tongue, then turning sour when she thought of their squabble.

 Or Jonathan, maybe. Another apology she can’t find the words for.

But once she gives into that, things would start moving in ways she couldn’t control again. A loud chaos of confusion and hurt and guilt.

She wanted quiet. For it to all just go away. This should be good for her.

But in the quiet, there is space to think.

Jennifer wishes she wouldn’t. Thinking…

Flashes of the past week bruising her eyes each time she closes them; the casket, the quarry, the diner.

The gun.

Jennifer never thought she would find herself at the end of one. Certainly not in the hands of Chief Jim Hopper.

It has taken a while for that brief moment before the man caught himself to realise the affect on her, distracted by adrenaline - but now it settles. 

A still, silent coldness like time has slowed and you’re sinking into something.

And she wonders if Benny felt that too. As he saw the same sight before the trigger was pulled. Before he was killed.

Jennifer glances over to the coffee table, to the heap of items she threw onto it when attempting to tidy the mess the Chief made. A coffee-stained coaster, an ash tray unused since her mother was alive, pens and pencils that had scattered to the floor- her eyes catch onto a small tub, an orange lid and worn label.

The chair creaks against the wood as she pushes it back, walking slowly over to reach for it. Holding the cold plastic bottle in her hand, she considers it. 

Hopper’s Temazepam.

Sleep would be a quicker way to get it all to stop. To go away.

She doesn’t want to be awake.

But Jennifer shakes her head, throwing the bottle back down with a rattle and pulling herself back to the kitchen table. 

She pours herself a mug-full of whiskey from the stolen bottle as she takes her seat again, throwing her head back and taking a long swig. It burns. She barely feels it.

Beyond her discarded book, she reaches for the newspaper folded nearby. She remembered it sitting on her doorstep when Officer Daniels knocked, (reluctantly) handing her a glazed donut he says the Chief instructed him give to her when he parked up. A strange, meagre peace offering, she presumed. It still sits on the side, untouched. She doesn’t quite have the stomach for the sugar, or his pathetic attempt at an apology.

As she reached down and tucked the edition under her arm, Jennifer realised she missed the second chance Tom Holloway gave her. That, by oversleeping this morning - the Monday she promised she would return to the paper round - she left the position open for someone else to fill. And they did. Easily replacing her with some other student who needs the pocket money. A late delivery today but delivery no less.

Flicking to the back page, unbothered by any of the happenings inside, Jennifer also reaches for a pencil and tries the crossword. Three words are already lightly filled where she attempted to concentrate enough on it an hour ago, but just couldn’t push her brain to cooperate. As she begins to read the fourth clue, there is a knock on her door.

Jennifer’s pencil hovers, listening out in hopes of whoever is on the other side leaving her alone.

She tucks the whiskey bottle under her discarded hoodie, a quick consideration it could be the Chief about to break his way in again-

But there is another knock. 

She huffs, throwing down the pencil and moving over to her window. Glancing through the wooden blinds, a step away as to not be seen, Jennifer unfortunately sees the PD car parked outside where it has sat since last night, both Daniels and the other schmuck sitting in the front seats. Beside the cruiser, a white van is now parked, blue lettering adorning the side doors.

Hawkins Power and Light

She sighs, stepping to the door and ripping it open as the knock comes a third time.

Standing on her porch is a man in a blue boilersuit, a thick-dark moustache lining his straight upper lip. He lowers his fist where it was raised to knock again, his other holding a tool box of some sort. ‘WALKER’ is embroidered in red stitching on his right breast pocket, ‘REPAIRS’ adorning just below.

“Good morning,” he smiles, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

Jennifer looks back, unable to force one of her own as she holds the door only inches wide and peers out at him, blinking back the last of the day’s grey sunlight that beams in the sky.

“Officers said it was alrigh’,” ‘Walker’ juts a thumb over his shoulder to the cop car, Daniels watching the exchange through the window, raising a hand in acknowledgement. Walkers raises his too in return then turns back to her, starting to step to the door. She pulls it tighter to her side, closing it to block his way.

Frowning deeply, she snarls, “Well, it’s my home.”

The repairman halts, shuffling on his feet but nevertheless planting them on her doorstep and looking down at her, somehow surprised by her offence to him trying to enter the trailer uninvited, “Just wanna check up on the fuses after the storm-”

“The storm that happened a week ago?” Jennifer drawls, pointedly frustrated by their lateness, still not opening the door any wider to him.

The man raises a brow at her, his moustache curling slightly at the end where he grimaces, “Mhm.”

Jennifer sighs, looking back over her shoulder at the darkness of her trailer with the blinds still drawn - another of her attempts to shut the world out last night.

She spots the lightbulb still sitting on her couch where Hopper threw it yesterday after unwinding it from the ceiling, too tired to replace it just yet. She wouldn’t know where to start fixing the electrics anyway.

And so, supposing she needs the help, she sighs and moves aside, opening the door to allow the boilersuit-ed man to pass by her.

He hums as he passes, either a nonverbal thank you for her allowing him in or, more likely, disgruntlement at her juvenile attitude. He glances around her living room, Jennifer leaving the door open behind him to allow some light inside, then moves to the blind and rolls them up to better assist his work.

“Where’s your box?”

“Box?” she folds her arms.

“Fuses,” he isn’t looking at her, instead gazing around her small space and making her feel rather self-conscious. But his shoulders shake with a patronising, humourless chuckle.

“Right,” Jennifer nods, too tired to fight today. The buzz stopped not long after Hopper left, “This way, back here.”

She leads him down the hall, his toolbox clattering and boots heavy on the thin wooden floor.

As they walk past Benny’s bedroom, she reaches out and closes the door without a glance inside, hoping he takes the hint that he is not to go in there.

“I don’t really know what to do with…” Jennifer waves a hand in the direction of the small, white box mounted on the hall wall. Her uncle dealt with all that stuff, though she is sure he used to just flick random switches until eventually something sparked to life. Patting himself on the back, praising his own luck that he seemed to eventually run out of. The man hums, moving past her to it, as if he expected so.

Jennifer leans against the bathroom doorframe, watching as he clicks the latch open to study the various wires and sockets tangled inside.

“You live alone?” the man asks her, the question taking her back, arms twisting into each other tighter against her chest.

“Yeah,” she croaks out, watching as he opens up his metal toolbox he has placed on the ground and pulls out a flashlight.

He hums again.

She rolls her eyes, feeling a defensive prickle coat her tongue - but she bites it back, instead huffing again and biting, “Is this gonna cost me?”

The repairman doesn’t turn to face her as he sweeps the flashlight across the wiring. He doesn’t answer her either. Only leans in, and gets to work. She looks around him to watch his hands move, confident and practiced, flipping switches, tugging something loose with a sharp jerk. She hopes to perhaps study what he does, to avoid a lecture she is sure is coming. Or another bill.

But he shifts, blocking her view of the box completely, broad back filling the hallway.

She bites back a sigh, leaving him to it and moving back over to the kitchen. Taking her seat at the table, Jennifer tries again to focus on the crossword while he works.

_

“So we stick together, no matter what!” Dustin points his finger at the two other boys as they stand in the Sinclair family front room.

“Yeah, I agree,” Lucas drawls, “But this is the party. Right here in this room.”

Mike sighs, shaking his head, “El is one of us now.”

“Um, no! She’s not!” Lucas shouts, arms flailing wildly in frustration at his friend’s childish infatuation with that freak, “Not even close and never will be!”

Dustin’s eyes flit awkwardly between his friends, disappointed that his impassioned speech about their recent failed campaign when they decided to wrongly split up hasn’t had the desired effect. So much for being the Bard.

Lucas points to each of his fingers to stress his points, “She’s a liar, a traitor-!”

“She was just trying to keep us safe!” Mike yells now too, matching his fury, “She didn’t mean to hurt you! It was an accident!”

“Alright, accident or not,” Dustin interjects before Lucas can bite back, “admit it, it was a little awesome.”

“Awesome?!” Lucas screeches, still feeling the ache in the back of his skull from where he was thrown through the air across the junkyard into that scrap sheet of metal.

“She threw you in the air with her mind!”

“I could have been killed!”

The other boys just look back at him, seemingly unbothered. His eyes begin to water, hurt.

“If you two want to waste your time looking for a traitor, go ahead! I’m not wasting my time on her anymore, no way!” he glares darkly at them, then moves forward quickly to push past between them with his arms, “I’m going to the gate. I’m gonna find Will.”

They stumble back from the force of it, watching helplessly as he ascends the stairs to his room.

Once inside, the door slammed shut behind him, Lucas flops to his mattress, tucking his head in the crook of his elbow. He lets his eyes water now he is alone, sliding down to his chin where they pool on his sheets.

Hearing the front door shut behind his ‘friends’ after a moment, he pushes himself up, using the adrenaline from the argument and being hurled by superpowers (not awesome at all) to set to work gathering the necessary equipment. Checking items off one by one into his backpack; binoculars, compass, his dad’s Swiss-knife from ‘Nam and, of course, his wrist-rocket - Lucas looks to the walkie sitting on his bedside table.

He curls his lips, unsure, but rounds his bed to reach for it. Leaning against his mattress, he twists to channel 9 and holds down the button, and tries, “Jenny?”

He is met with the same static he has heard all day, him trying to reach her before they set out with Eleven that morning, bunking school after recess to look for Will. Before she led them round and around in circles.

He tries again anyway, “Jenny, do you copy?”

Lucas hopes the other boys aren’t tuned into her channel, listening into his desperate attempts.

But he’s scared - as much as he hates to admit it to himself. Scared about Will, about Eleven. About Jennifer, too.

The static crackles louder and louder with each moment that passes without response, until he can’t bare it any longer. He wipes at another tear streaking down his cheek, catching it before it slides from his chin to the sheets. Then retracts the antenna and shoves the walkie into his backpack.

Lucas sniffs, hard. Eyes drying as he scrunches his nose. Then reaches for his camo bandana, wrapping it delicately around his forehead and tying it tight. Ready for battle.

_

The repairman hums again as he walks by an hour or so later, heading for the door with toolbox in hand.

Jennifer looks up from the crossword, now seven answers in, “You’re all done?”

He sighs, moustache twitching as he continues heading for the door, “Uh not quite.”

“What’s wrong?” she says, standing to catch up to him as he reaches for the door handle.

“We’ll see,” is his answer, opening the door and about to step out without even looking her way until she steps in front of him, forcing his eyes to fall on her.

“See? What is it?”

“Your wires are thick, might be more involved than I thought,” he shrugs, stepping past her and jogging down her porch steps, “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Wait- what?” Jennifer watches him go from her doorway, bewildered by his hurry to reach his van and lack of detail (not that she would understand, but feels she is owed).

Her stomach drops as he pulls away, watching the van kick up dust behind it along the road.

Of course, she thinks bitterly as he turns out of sight; just a scam to wrack up her bill, most likely.

Shutting her door, Jennifer treads to the hall, looking at the fuse box as he left it. Wires poke out the ends of it, a tumble of metal cords left dangling against the wall. 

What was he even doing all that time? Prick…

She flicks the bathroom light switch, groaning when there seems to be no electricity now at all. With the sun setting fast outside, she finds herself almost in complete darkness.

Stumbling back into the living space with a hand trailing the way along the wall, Jennifer’s eyes fall to the coffee table again, lit teasingly by the slither of blooming moonlight through the window. The plastic bottle with the orange lid.

She doesn’t fight herself this time, relieved to find three still rolling around the bottom of the tub as she picks it up again. She pops them onto her tongue, head tilting back desperately as she swallows them dry.

Slugging down to the misaligned couch cushions, sleep eventually - finally - takes her. Plunging her into a thick, heavy nothing. A dark, vast void. Quiet.

_

“It was where they must do experiments or something, and then there was this…” he takes a long drag of his cigarette, exhaling deeply, “this kid’s room.”

“How do you know it was a kid’s room?” Joyce asks from where she sits in the chair beside him at her dining table.

“More like a prison,” Hopper mutters, recalling where he found himself that night.

“So, why would you think it was a kid’s room then?”

He rolls his eyes, having relayed the story to her but surprised the woman is finding it hard to grasp, just as he still is. And he saw it. 

After knowing Jennifer is safe as she can be, he coordinated Daniels and another officer to head to her trailer, then headed straight the Byers place.

He needs to tell someone. He can’t tell the girl, she’s just a kid. And she’s scared of him.

Joyce was the next best to believe him. To be able to help.

He only wishes he had believed her sooner.

Hopper takes another drag,  “Because, I told you, the size of the bed, there was a drawing, there was a stuffed animal-”

Joyce stammers, eyes lighting the brightest he has seen them in a week, “You- you didn’t say there was a drawing-”

“Yeah, I did. A drawing. Of an adult and a child,” he remembers, a thumb pressing between his brows, “It said ‘eleven’ on it-”

“Was it good?”

It is his turn to stammer now, “It- it was a kid’s drawing, Joyce. It was stick figures.”

But Joyce is already moving from her chair, running out the room and leaving him dumbfounded in a cloud of smoke hovering about his head.

She is quick to return, a sheet of paper in her hands. Joyce slams it on the table in front of him; a drawing of a wizard of some sort, and some other fantasy characters. Detailed, good.

He meets her eye, understanding her point before she says it, “It wasn’t Will.”

It is his turn to push from the table now, cigarette still billowing between his fingers as he moves to her couch, where he laid out all his notes and research and newspaper clippings, “Earl… the night Benny died, Earl said he saw some kid with a shaved head with Benny. Now, I pressed him, he said it might be Will, but maybe…”

“Maybe it wasn’t?” Joyce joins his side at the couch, looking over as he hands her a newspaper clipping.

“Look, this woman Terry Ives,” Hopper points to the black and white photograph of the woman he discovered in the library archives the other day, “she claims to have lost her daughter, Jane. She sued Brenner, the government. Now, the claims came to nothing but what if…”

Joyce nods along, hopefully following, as he ponders, “I mean, what if this whole time I’ve been looking for Will, I- I’ve been chasing after some other kid…”

The realisation hangs in the space of the cluttered room, settling between them on the couch.

Joyce’s eyes rake over the articles, heart beating fast, “Well, did Jennifer- maybe she saw this kid, this girl? Talked to her?”

Hopper shakes his head, something hard beating against his skull at the thought of the teenager he left in that trailer this morning.

She's scared of him.

“Have you told her about any of this?” Joyce softens, also thinking of the teenager.

“No, she doesn’t know. And she can’t, not until we do.”

“You think that’s why Benny… why he…?” Joyce puts it together.

Hopper nods, lips tight in a straight line, “Yeah, yeah she was right. All this time, you both were.”

But right about what? He still isn't sure.

Joyce sighs, the sound winding him as he closes his eyes and anticipates what he knows she will say...

“Poor girl.”

He nods, raising his chin to let her lift his collar, then tying it gently as she recalls doing for Luacs before church many Sundays before. Jennifer lets him adjust the knot, stepping back as he pushes it suitably to his neck.

Jonathan clears his throat, as at a loss of what to say as she is.

“Thanks,” he then mumbles.

She nods, “Yeah.”

Jennifer then lowers her head quickly, her feet forcing her forward along the path. His eyes burn sadly onto her face as she keeps her eyes intently on the gravel below her worn sneakers, unable to find a more suitable pair of footwear this morning in her rush to get ready.

She tenses as Jonathan hurries to fall into step beside her, lowering his collar around his now knotted tie. He doesn’t say a word either, seems to struggle too as she seeks something to say.

“I’m so sorry,” is what she finally squeaks out as they near the group all in black, seeing the casket waiting by the open plot.

Jonathan looks away, also to his feet, shoulders slumping as he nods, “Thanks.”

That is all that is said, neither able to look the other in the eye. Jonathan moves to be beside his mother, weaving through others that converse quietly, greeting with handshakes or sadly patting shoulders. Joyce stands by the Pastor and stares at the ground. It doesn’t look like she is here with them at all.

To Jennifer’s surprise and upset, Lonnie Byers is on her other side, shaking hands with Ted Wheeler and kissing Karen on the cheek in greeting.

Jennifer moves herself to be standing at the back of the crowd, lowering her gaze to the pit ready for the casket to be lowered inside. The casket, with a bouquet of orange roses laid upon the top of it, sits waiting. 

Inside that casket, little William Byers. Gone.

It dizzies her, closing her eyes as Pastor Charles calls for attention and begins to recite his prayers.

“Fear not, for I am with you,” she hears him begin to call out, “Be not dismayed, for I am your God.”

Jennifer drowns him out, not finding any comfort in the faith. Most others have bowed their heads, her taking this chance to look around at the gathering.

She searches the crowd of bowed heads for familiar faces; the Sinclairs, Ms Henderson, some other children from the middle school and families from the Church. Jennifer expects to see the Chief there amongst them, surprised not to find him towering over the rest.

He must be busy.

Surely not too busy for this?

Maybe Hopper has found a lead about Barb and is following it through. Perhaps he has hunted the monster in the woods, preoccupied with catching it in a trap. Or fighting the bad men, questioning their involvement in Hawkins and the State-

But, she reminds herself, there are no bad men; no government conspiracies to uncover and call out. No monsters; no bears to hunt and trap. 

Benny was shot. Will drowned. And Barb is still gone.

Scanning the solemn faces of the mourners, Jennifer finds her mind slipping back, as it always does, to her uncle. His funeral, if she can save enough to make it happen. Will they show for him too? Even help her arrange the service if she asks? The diner was a hub in the community, with loyal customers like Christopher and John and Eugene. They would want to help honour him, say goodbye. Even teenagers from the High School would venture out before the class bell for his infamous maple pancakes. Will they also pay their respects? Hopper was his friend - would he be too busy to attend?

“I will strengthen you,” the Pastor continues to recite from the book in his hands, “Yes, I will help you.”

Jennifer bites her lip, forcing back a scoff. He didn’t help her uncle much. Or bring Barb home. Or stop those awful things from happening to Eleven, wherever she was.

He didn’t help Will.

Her sunken heart spikes at the thought of the small boy. Today is about him.

It feels wrong to have a funeral for someone who she hadn’t believed dead. In fact, if she is truthful, she is still undecided on how to feel; whether there is any comfort in him being entirely gone or only lost.

A young blonde girl in front of her sniffles, starting to weep. The sound sits in Jennifer’s chest, tightening her throat.

She looks to the boys, surprised to see Mike smirking amusedly at something Dustin has whispered to him, Lucas covering his own smile with his gloved hand. Sue pats him berating on the shoulder at his inappropriate snickering, all three boys sharing another tickled glance before turning back to the casket. They don’t seem to be grieving, still convinced their friend is alive. They are hopeful that Will is out there somewhere, somehow. Despite her screaming at them to believe the opposing reality, they don’t seem to be coping with it at all. They are still choosing not to, swept in a story she helped to imagine. It makes her feel sick. 

“I will uphold with my righteous hand.”

Swallowing hard, Jennifer then thinks of Eleven, wondering if she still sits on Mike’s couch in that basement. Or whether the boys did the right thing and told Mrs Wheeler about her. Well, is that ‘the right thing’? Benny tried to help her. Look where that got him. 

But how would Jennifer be able to help her instead? She wants to, she has tried. But it feels like the damage is already done. The ‘bad men’ are no threat compared to her disillusionment with conspiracy. Look at what it has done to her.

Looking beyond Mike to his sister standing behind him in a pretty black coat, Jennifer feels terrible. She has yelled at Nancy now too, picked a fight with both Wheelers and pushed herself back. She has tried to reframe their conversation, playing it over and over again in her mind, but struggles to recount all that was said to do so. The whirl of emotions sent her tumbling over the edge and into the bottle last night.

Jennifer could do with a friend, she knows that. And she is sure Nancy could too, with Barb gone. They are both reeling from that loss. But she is tired. Too tired to make that move. It is easier to stay back, leave herself alone.

“In times like these our faith is challenged. How, if He is truly benevolent, could God take from us someone so young, so innocent?”

Trying not to put any thought to that question - not comforted by any answer she has tried to find before - her eyes then move to Joyce. The woman stares vacantly at the casket as it is slowly lowered into the ground. Jennifer wonders if she has now accepted that her son is gone? Or is she still lost in the lights?

Jennifer wishes there was something, anything she could say to bring back the warm, bright spark in her eye she has found such comfort in before, she could do with it. She wishes she could snap her fingers and this would all be over. But she can’t. It doesn’t seem He even has that power or is willing to use it. 

So what would she say? That she believes her? Does she?

If that is not her son in that box, then what poor child could it be? What other family has to suffer through this too?

No matter what way Jennifer attempts to look at it or feel about it - this is all so fucked!

“It would be easy to turn away from God,” the preaching continues, “but we must remember that nothing, not even tragedy, can separate us from His love.”

She feels herself getting angry, a stinging buzzing in her fingertips as they twist in her jacket, widening the frayed hole inside in the left pocket.

None of these others here tried to believe her, or to help when she called. Karen’s casserole didn’t help find answers. There are people here who scoffed and joked and partied-

Jennifer has to squeeze her eyes closed as her fingers squeeze into fists, regret and fury burning in her chest.

Someone could have stopped this! Someone could have done something! None of this should have happened!

As she opens them again, they land on Lonnie Byers, sitting separated from Joyce by Jonathan who stares far ahead much like his mother. His father hadn’t cared to answer any calls, dismissed the investigation and Jonathan’s visit to his home in the city. He never cared for WIll when he was alive, so why bother mourning a son you never wanted?

The man looks up from his lap, meeting her eye. She turns herself away sharply to avoid him, tugging her jacket further around herself as she shudders in the crisp chill breezing by them.

Her gaze finds its way to Karen’s arm looped in Ted’s. Then Claudia’s hand on Dustin’s shoulder. Jon’s reaching for his mother’s, her loosely returning the hold between their seats.

Everyone else has someone else. A hand to hold or shoulder to lean on. Who does she have?

Hopper is too busy for her, Joyce too grieved, Nancy too different, Jon too- well, she supposes it could just be her own fault she is upset with him and distant. He wanted her here, after all. She wants to address it, to put it aside. Talk, like they used to. This hurt, of losing his brother and her uncle, feels enough to move along. But now, standing by his brother’s burial, is not the time.

So where does she fit? Where is the space for her and her grief? Is there anywhere she can put it, to lighten the load a little?

It’s heavy. Too heavy. And too big and too dark and cold and- much. Too much!

She wipes away a cold tear.

The casket finishes its descent, the gathering taking their turns to throw their roses atop it and say their goodbyes.

Jennfier lingers at the back of the procession as most of the crowd passes, offering their condolences to the Byers family. As she slowly nears, taking a yellow rose from the offered pile and gently dropping it into the plot, she notices Jon has already disappeared from the crowd. She can’t blame him, even despite her disappointment that she will have to wait to redeem herself from not being there since the passing. Make up for the time she has spent pushing herself away, for the pitiful condolence she muttered to him earlier. She wishes she could disappear too.

Instead she forces herself to stay, waiting her turn, heart pulling her to Joyce. The woman stands still, staring down at the coffin with void, dark eyes. People move around her, the woman unhearing as they sympathise, unfeeling as they pat her arm.

She wishes Joyce would unfurl her folded arms as Jennfier whispers her name, quiet and quick as to avoid crying it. That she would bring her into her arms in a loose but heartening embrace. Jennifer wants to push her cheek into the shoulder of her black leather jacket, close her eyes to not see the others watching sadly and eagerly over it, and soak in the feeling that brought her comfort mere days ago.

But Joyce stands still, staring.

Jennifer considers speaking, saying more. Her mouth falls open then clamps tightly shut. She tries instead to send a small smile, but feels her lips quiver unconvincingly. She has to look away before the woman’s absent gaze looks right through her, deeming her as invisible as she feels.

About to shove her hands back into the torn jacket pockets to resist the urge to reach out, Jennifer feels herself pulled into another embrace; larger, stronger arms holding her tight to a coated chest.

“Little Jenny Anderson,” she feels the rumble of his voice under her cheek.

Jennifer seizes, her fists clenching by her sides as Lonnie rubs the hand not around her neck along her back in a supposedly soothing motion - up and down once, then up and down again. By the third time, she overcomes her shock to force herself back, pushing against his hold with the little fight she can muster. But the man overpowers her for another moment, keeping her against him until he finally relents - looking down at her, eyes sparking.

She scowls up at him, pulling her jacket - cursing the missing button that keeps it falling open - and holding it tightly wrapped around herself from his looking. Lonnie has always unnerved her, his gaze always having lingered a little too long since she was young. Before he left for Indianapolis, Jennifer was too young to understand why she would shudder feeling him watching. Now she is older, she thinks she understands. And she hates him for it.

“My, you’ve grown,” he smarms, proving her instincts. He looks her over; her modest black skirt reaching to her shins now feeling indecent, scratching at her covered legs. Her tights feel barbed. She fists her jacket tighter.

Lonnie’s eyes have always been dark. His sons have a similar hue, but have warmth to them that makes his unfamiliar. They get that, gratefully, from their mother - or, rather, did. Will’s are closed forever now, now. And Joyce’s are absent of anything other than exhausted pain, too detached to notice the exchange occurring beside her.

There is a familiar gleam to Lonnie’s eye as he leers at her. A twisted asmusedness she recalls from a time she saw him leave her mother’s room early one morning - passing by where she sat on the couch with an arrogant chuckle, still buttoning his shirt. He helped himself to a beer from the counter before closing the front door behind him and driving away. That was two years before he and Joyce split, him escaping to the city with a much younger girlfriend and forgetting the family he eagerly left behind. She doesn’t know if Joyce knew, the woman never held it against her, or her mother it seemed. No one spoke of it if they knew.

But she hates him. For all he has done to all of them. Then running away.

Jennifer wants to scream; the hurt of the service and heat of his eyes bubbling into rage as it so often has lately- but, this isn’t the place. None of this should be about how she is hurting.

This is about Will Byers.

And so, she breathes, turning sharp on her heel and walking away before anyone can turn their eyes to them.

“Jenny!”

She closes her eyes as she steps onto the path, hoping not to be hearing it.

“Jenny! The voice calls again, louder this time.

She ignores it, grip still tight on her jacket around her waist despite her trembling fingers, hauling herself through the headstones.

“Jenny?” Dustin relents, seeing her hurrying her step, not turning back.

They haven’t been able to contact her through their radios since she came by the Wheelers. Him and Lucas have tried, wanting her to come with them to question Mr Clarke about other dimensions and the possibility of travelling to them - to retrieve Will.

Lucas sighs from where he has stepped to his side, watching her go, “Maybe Mike is right.”

Dustin turns to him, eyes wide in surprise at the change of his tone. Lucas twists his mouth, glancing back to where Mike stands with his father who shakes Will’s dad’s hand, “Don’t tell him I said that.”

He then looks back to Jenny, catching only a glimpse of her scurrying away before she disappears behind a row of trees.

“She doesn’t believe us anymore,” Dustin says, dejectedly understanding him.

Lucas nods, shoulders slumped disappointedly, “We’re on our own.”

_

She doesn’t come here enough, only ever visited when her uncle insisted on birthdays and holidays and such. They would lay a bouquet, stand  beside one another and remember, for only a few minutes each time before driving back to the diner and resuming service as usual.

Jennifer brushes some dead leaves fallen atop the headstone bearing both their names.

‘Richard Anderson & Margaret Anderson’

She would like Benny to be beside them, if she can afford it.

Her father isn’t really here, buried in some marked grave in Vietnam she was told. But her mother had insisted on a service and stone anyway, Jennifer was too young to remember it.

She wishes they felt closer - that’s why people come here, right? To feel close to them. But they feel so far away from where she is.

Where are they, even? Where do you go?

Is Benny with them now? Is that where Will is too? Barb?

When will she join them?

Jennifer kneels to the ground, trying to be closer to wherever they could be; the casket lying feet below the soil at least. All she has left is the dirt.

She reaches out a hand, blades of dry grass threading between her fingers as if trying to hold their hands - wanting that nearness. To draw herself in. Let them pull her with them.

Her hand quickly retracts at the dizzyingly dark thought, wiping the soil from her palms onto her skirt. Dirt has embedded under her short nails, she can feel it sunken in.

Pulling a small bottle from her pocket, having been tempted by the cool touch of it throughout the service, and now alone, she is unable to resist.

However, before she can untwist the cap of the vodka she found, she hears a raised voice somewhere along the path nearby.

Looking over and above the headstones between her and the road that runs through, Jennifer ducks seeing Lonnie at the payphone.

Her blood boils, wanting him away. Away from her . Away from her family.

She keeps low, desperate to stay out of his sight and hoping he will leave. After a moment, she realises he is wrapped in a conversation on the phone and won’t be going anywhere quick enough for her liking.

So she makes to move herself, standing but keeping hunched as she waves her way through the rows. Cursing that she needs to pass by him to get to the gate that will lead home, she finds herself overhearing;

“This is Kocher Paralegal? Good, yeah, so-”

Jennifer silently scoffs, sure he is trying to weasel his way out of an unsettled score or another offence charge. Though, her step falters instinctively at hearing, “Right, William Byers. You might have seen it on the news. Yeah, my son-”

She should keep walking, mind her own. But something in his voice on the one side of this conversation has her nerves alight. She stops.

He sounds pleased. Excited, even. On the day, rather mere moments after, burying his own kid.

“You’ve seen it?” Lonnie raises his brows as he holds the phone by his ear, other hand scratching his stubble, “Right, right. So… how much are we talking?”

It only takes her a moment to work it out, knowing him. Jennifer almost stumbles, winded by the revelation.

Compensation.

He is not here for his dead son, or the other struggling with the loss. Or for his ex-wife either. But to profit. For money.

She glares as his eyes light at the figure he is told, then says he will be in touch and thanks them. Lonnie puts down the phone, gleefully patting the top of the receiver. Then, his eyes meet hers.

They stare at one another, uneasy.

The man then looks around, relieved no one else is in sight as all are at the wake she couldn’t face going to, before moving over to her.

Jennifer tries to move herself, to get away. But she is shaking, hot all over. When she does eventually find the strength to turn on her heel, frightened by his advance, the bottle in her hand slips from her trembling fingers. It rolls down the hill for a short while, stopping only as Lonnie quickens his step and puts out his foot to halt it under his shoe. He now blocks her way, bending to pick it up as she tries to move around him. He smirks at the label, then to her.

“You really are your mother’s daughter, eh?”

She pushes past, now without eyes on them and furied by what she has witnessed, with all her might. He stumbles only slightly, chuckling as he lets her pass.

The sound of it rattles her, him seeming unbothered by her now seeing through his swindle. Even if exposed, he has claimed his profit. As much as he chose to forget it, he is the victim’s father and can use that cruel fact as he pleases. The fallout won’t matter to him; he can just run away again, escape to Indianapolis without a care of whatever he leaves behind.

Jennifer feels her sore eye begin to water, not bothering to wipe at them as she quickens into a run.

Lonnie raises the bottle as she hurries away to the cemetery gate, hearing him chide, “Cheers to her!”

_

“You want to go out there?”

“We might not find anything,” Jonathan shrugs, Nancy pursing her lips thoughtfully where they sit together by a headstone. He has marked on a map all the areas of interest; where Will’s bike was found in Mirkwood, their home where Hopper had originally theorised he had run to, Steve’s house where Barbg was last seen. Where Nancy saw that creature. The one he caught in the frame of a photograph he should never have taken.

He tried to apologise to Nancy for it, surprised she came to him after being ignored by the police. She told him about what she saw, that thing; tall, no face, like a human but not. Just like his mother claimed she saw in the wall. And it was there, peeking out the corner of the frame of the photo he took of Barb by the pool that night of the party, lurking behind her.

But she wants to put the hunt first, to put aside his mistake in search for answers.

It seems his mom may not have been dreaming, hallucinating or anything he excused as grief. Maybe this monster is real.

And that Will is alive.

There is no way he can’t take that chance.

“I found something,” Nancy insists supportively, looking again to the red crosses all within a mile of each other. 

She is relieved he actually believes her, or is at least trying to. Nancy is still unsure what to make of the Byers boy, upset lingering over his invasion or privacy. She knows how Steve feels about him, and Jennifer cried her feelings to her the day before. She should be angry or disgusted and avoiding him entirely-

But there is something worse out there. And she needs to save Barb from it, hopefully his brother too.

Nancy had hoped to find Jennifer with him at his place, as she so often is, stopping by the Byers’ to ask his mother where they could be. She wanted to apologise for their fight, clear the air and tell her about what she has found. Jennifer could believe her, or at least would want to for their friend. She was disappointed to hear the girl had not stopped by, Joyce shaking her head before hastily closing the door in her face. It felt wrong to intrude, both there and at the funeral home as he searched for a casket. 

But Jonathan listened. Answered her sentence for her about the creature, as if he knew already. As if he didn’t think she was crazy.

“Should we tell Jennifer?” she looks at Jonathan who is frowning, seeming as unsure as she is about doing so.

Nancy had thought she would want to know, to help. But then she remembers the way she snapped at her. How she has shut herself away since. How she all but ran from her brother’s friends once the service was over today. And everything with her uncle- she isn’t so sure anymore.

Jonathan sees her thinking about it, also putting thought to how he upset her. In the confusion of everything he feels, he is unsure where they stand after his mistake with the photographs. He hasn’t seen her since Saturday, and was surprised to see her here - even though he knew she would. Perhaps not for him after what he did, but his brother and his friends and his mother.

Jennifer tried to reason with his impatience with her, seemed to want to believe Joyce and all she was saying that couldn’t be true. Maybe if they told her, she would believe them too!

But she wants space. Time. And he wants to give that to her, at least. 

He knows how she is struggling with the death of her uncle. She had wanted to open up to him about it and encouraged him to talk too. He has broken that trust.

Jonathan doesn’t know why he did it and, worse, doesn’t know where to start making amends. Would she want him to reach out, invade her privacy and fill her head with monsters? Bring her into all this confusion and desperation and, most awfully, danger?

He can’t do that to her.

“She’s been through enough,” he decides.

Nancy frowns too, picking at her dress, quietly murmuring, “She deserves to know.”

“Yeah,” Jon does agree, but he is resolved now - and anxious to get going after this thing and hopefully to his brother, “And we'll tell her. When this is over.”

Nancy hesitates, relieved the decision is made for her but nervous what they are about to face. She then meets his determined eye and nods, “Let’s get to it.”

Jennifer finds herself heading to the lake, to Hopper’s cabin. She knocks when her feet find their way to his door. There is no answer. So she tries again. Then knocks a third time.

Turning to head back home with a huff after another moment of silence from the other side, Jennifer passes by the front window and stops. Raising a hand to shield her eyes from the low fall sun. She peers through the glare on the glass and squints beyond the grime and the cracks and the blinds.

She eases slightly, seeing him lying on the couch on the far side of the room. His arm hangs off the side, the other fallen across his chest. He looks asleep. But her relief seeing him only lasts a moment, noticing the empty cans and wrappers littered around the space. It reminds her of her own trailer. Unnerved that her knocking did not wake him, she tries again, rapping her knuckle on the glass. He lies still, unmoving.

A flash of panic passes through her nerves, recalling memories of her mother - she used to pass out like this too. A familiar unease settling in her stomach.

Searching for a key under the scuffed doormat or the dead-unwatered plant pot at the bottom of the wooden steps, Jennifer struggles to find a way in to him. She heads around to the side of the cabin, seeing a loosely opened window. Reaching up to pull it open wider, she is relieved when the chipped wood gives way a little more for her to fit through. Looking around, Jennifer eyes the rusted washline she could haul herself up with or the paddle-boat nearby she would never be able to drag close enough to step on. Finding an empty water barrel, a little pool at the bottom of it from last night’s rain, she steps up to the window frame, finding the scaling more difficult in her formal skirt than she had anticipated. Hiking it up to crawl through, Jennifer places her foot on top of the toilet-lid below, struggling to find her footing while balanced on the chipped frame. She winces, swearing she hears the material tear once she brings the other legs inside.

She brushes herself off once she has settled and planted her feet on the tiled floor of his bathroom, a coat of dust now spread onto her jacket. She shakes her head too, feeling some in her hair - then rushes to the front room.

Hopper lies unconscious on the couch, a layer of crushed beer cans and glass bottles surrounding it. There are empty chip packets, buffed cigarette butts and pop tart crumbs scattered across the coffee table nearby. Seems he had a helluva night.

Jennifer kicks the can aside, clattering beneath her step as she leans beside the man. His lack of snoring worries her, but she is settled by the slight rise and fall of his broad chest. He is sweating profusely, the neckline and pits of his white henley dark and soaked through. She sighs; he must have taken something hard to be out this bad. Especially if washed down with whiskey she knocks out the way with her shoe.

Reaching over, she shakes his shoulder, “Chief?”

He doesn’t move, so she jostles him harder.

The man’s eyes finally snap open. Gasping for air.

She stumbles, falling back against the coffee table as he sits up quick - reaching for the handgun she now notices beside her on the wood.

Jennfier startled, shouting in alarm as he turns it to her. Her eyes widen as she looks down the barrel of it, then looking past to see the dark haze of his eyes clear as they land on her, realising who she is.

“Fuck, kid!” he yells back, voice hoarse as he swallows hard. Hopper lowers the gun immediately, but doesn’t drop it, “Fuck, I’m so- I’m so sorry! I’m sorry, alright?!”

She breathes erratically, gripping the edge of the table tight as her eyes follow the gun he throws to the floor. Hopper holds out his hands to her where he sits opposite, a sorry surrender as he blinks away the last of his shock.

“I’m sorry,” the man mumbles once more, watching her catch her breath, eyes wide as they look up to him with fear.

She nods, trying to accept it. But her quickened heartbeat has her mind racing, irritable spitting out, “What the fuck!?”

Hopper frowns, his arms trembling as he raises one hand to rake over his clammy forehead, “What are you doing here?”

Jennifer forces out a final deep breath, rolling her eyes at his confusion. She bitterly huffs, “Had a good night?”

“What?” he huffs back, hand now moving to rub at his eyes.

“Whatever,” she mumbles, exasperated by his obvious rager-induced confusion. She stands on shaky legs to head for the kitchen, “I’ll get you some water.”

Her stomach drops as she runs the tap, a frustratingly familiar feeling aching her chest. Having to care for a grown adult who should know better what their limits are.

To be so out of it to pull a gun?

He scared her, really scared her. So she takes the excuse of fetching him water as time to recollect herself, chugging some water from the glass herself before refilling it for him.

As she feels herself cool off, she turns back to him gone from the couch.

Looking around confusedly, Jennifer follows the sounds of hasty movement coming from down the hallway. With a full glass in hand, she worried he may be throwing up, hearing commotion in the bathroom. It would be good for him to get the night before out of his system.  

Though, approaching the doorway, he isn’t hunched over the toilet bowl at all. Instead, he is on his feet, moving about the small space - throwing bottles and towels and his toothbrush to the floor, almost ripping the cupboard above the sink off its hinges in his fervour. She winces at the sound of the items clanging to the tiles below, wondering what he could be searching for. Perhaps aspirin, or more of whatever fix he found last night. It seems, whatever it is, he can’t find it, throwing the last washcloth to his feet before moving quickly past her.

He knocks her shoulder in his haste, some of the water spilling from the glass down her hand. She exclaims, watching him run to his bedroom with a frown. Turning back to the chaos left behind him, Jennifer’s heart drops at the red and blue pills now strewn about, noticing the orange bottle reading ‘Temazepam’ lying on its side nearby. She kneels down, picking the pills up with her free hand and placing them inside before screwing the cap shut and tucking it into her jacket pocket. He’s had enough.

Jennfier passes his room, glancing inside to see it now in similar disarray. At the end of the hall, he has returned to the front room, kneeling by the couch with an arm reached beneath it, still searching.

She lingers in the hallway, watching with anxious confusion as he continues his investigation of the space; lifting each of the cans and bottles, tipping them upside down, uncaring of any leftover liquid pouring to the carpet. He then changes direction, the coffee table creaking as he steps atop it to reach for the ceiling light ahead. He removes the glass cover, throwing it to the floor. She cowers at the sound as it smashes, Hopper too preoccupied with untwisting the bulb to care, discarding it over his shoulder once he has done so.

He then moves to the kitchen space, pots and pans clattering to the floor as he goes, the entire cabin piling into more and more of a disaster. Hopper is panting, pouring with sweat as he moves, eyes jumping from one item to the next - anything he can destroy it seems. The kettle, microwave, cutlery, plates, fridge shelves - all pulled out to the ground.

Jennifer can barely watch anymore. She doesn’t want to. Her mother used to get like this when she tripped sometimes. Aggressive, violent. She wonders if he took something else, something worse than the sleeping pills in her pocket. Though, her gaze follows his chaos, transfixed.

The man then goes to the phone, pulling it apart from its cord. He twists apart the dial and the receiver, throwing the disassembled parts away from him in uncaring desperation.

The frames on the walls are next, knocked down as they shatter and chip. Books bounce to the floor as he reaches for the shelf in the corner. Discarded batteries ripped from his radio roll off the counter.

She panics as she watches him stalk over to the kitchen drawer, pulling out a knife. Jennifer thinks she should shout, to snap him out of whatever this is before he does something stupid. But her throat croaks, cracked dry. He’s scaring her.

Hopper stalks over to the couch again, stabbing the knife into the cushions and slicing through the fabric. He reaches inside, pulling out the foam - searching and searching.

“Chief?” she manages to squeak out. Though, she barely hears herself. So clears her throat and tries again, “Jim!”

His head snaps to her from the couch, a wildness in his eye that has her stepping back, biting her lip.

Hopper eases, seeing her cower.

And, glancing around at the mess he has made, he can see why the girl is so scared.

He drops the knife, relenting, leaning himself with his back against what is left of his couch. Hopper’s hands move back to his head, raking through his hair as he grits his teeth and tries to breathe.

“Are you- What’s going on?” he hears her ask above the pounding in his ears.

Hopper wipes at the sweat pooled on his brow with his sleeve, unsure how to answer even if he wanted to.

It feels like how it looks. How he is sure Jennifer sees it. Like a bad hangover - a really bad one.

But he remembers the lab. Breaking in. The suits finding him. The syringe. Then, nothing. Waking up here.

Turning to look up at the girl, who still lingers in his hall feet away from him as if scared to approach, he sighs. He can’t tell her. Because he doesn’t know what to tell.

He then notices her attire, the black skirt and tights, the smart blouse beneath her jacket. His stomach falls, nauseated at the realisation - or, even more so. He missed the funeral.

“Shit,” he breathes out, closing his eyes and finding no relief in doing so, still spinning.

Jennifer sees his realisation and finds herself disappointed. Frustration grows from her fear; that he was here the whole time. Drinking and drugging himself until he black out. When he should have been there, at the funeral. Or out elsewhere, getting answers. Like he promised.

And with him clearly suffering with whatever is still in his system, he will need time to sleep this off. It could be days! Who knows what he could miss - or rather, as it seems, turn his back to - in that time!

He hasn’t been busy at all. Not really.

She doesn’t know why she came here anyway. To talk or to hide, maybe?

But what else did she really expect to find?

Watching the grown man still catching his breath, groaning as he digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, she supposes the hangover might be punishment enough for her.

Jennifer moves slowly closer, worried he may lash out again if she startles him, like an animal of some kind. Holding out the water, he looks up at her with red-rimmed eyes and blown-black pupils that flit between her, the glass and the mess around them.

He finally reaches out to take it, fingers trembling - but the sound of a vehicle pulling onto the gravel outside has him knocking it from her hold, spillign to the carpet as he reaches out to pull her down with him. She hisses, then bites the inside of her mouth at the stern instructing finger on his lips. Now on her knees, Jennifer watches troubled as he scrambles for his gun nearby.

“Stay down,” he whispers to her, breathing heavily again. He seems scared, genuinely so. And that is terrifying. 

She nods as he moves over to the window, hunched hopefully out of sight of whoever could be out there. She watches, breath caught in her chest, as he glances through the blinds.

Relaxing only slightly as his shoulders ease at whoever the intruder actually is, she sees his finger release from its tight, anticipatory pressure on the trigger.

“Hey, Chief!” Jennifer recognises the voice of Officer Callaghan, followed by knocking on the door, “Hello? Woah!”

Still on her knees behind the coffee table, Jennifer peers over it to watch as Hopper opens the door, gun still raised. The Officer exclaims, stepping back with his hands up until he is pressed against the wooden bannister behind him. Hopper looks around erratically, only lowering the gun when she hears another voice speak up from outside.

“Jesus, Chief,” Powell drawls, concerned, “You alright?”

“What are you doing here?” he asks of them as he did her, then closes the door behind him to stop them seeing the state of the inside that surrounds her.

Jennfier sits back once the door is closed, allowing her heart to slow as she stretches out her legs in front of her. Her head rests back against the arm of the couch as she hears the murmur of their conversation.

“We tried calling, but-”

“Yeah, the phone’s dead,” Hopper excuses.

She drowns them out as her heart stops racing, glancing to the broken phone in the corner. Her eyes then lower to something fallen to the floor below it. Crawling over to take a closer look, careful not to catch herself on the debris of his crashout, Jennifer curiously turns over the now-chipped wooden frame.

Inside it, a stick-figure of a man and a woman and a girl. Two trees stand beside them and their joined hands, a yellow sun circled into the corner. A child’s drawing.

“I think this whole Will Byers thing has everyone on edge” Callaghan’s voice drifts through the window she now couches beneath, catching her attention again.

“You go back to the station,” Hopper pants, “I’ll take care of this, alright?”

It seems the officers are as disbelieving as she is about that, a short silence following his instruction.

“You sure?” Callaghan asks.

Hopper shortly dismisses him, “Yeah, leave it.”

As the door opens again beside her, Jennifer quickly places the frame on top of the table, getting to her feet and backing away. 

But before Hopper makes it back inside and can close the door behind him, Callaghan speaks up again, “Oh and, uh, they found Barbara’s car.”

Jennfier stills.

“What?” Hopper frowns, turning back sharp.

“Barbara Holland’s car,” Powell goes on, shrugging, “Seems she ran away after all.”

He resists the urge to glance at the girl inside despite feeling the heat of her stare.

That can’t be right…

Jennifer’s head spins. She reaches out to support herself against the table, her hand knocking something somehow still upright despite the tirade. Looking down to steady it, the half-full whiskey bottle rattles temptingly against the tabletop. Her fingers stretch out to stop it trembling, then twist themselves around the neck of it and pull it into her pocket before she realises what she has done. She is quick to snap her eyes back to Hopper, relieved he hasn’t noticed in his shock, still looking inquisitively to his officers.

“Staties found it last night at a bus station,” Powell finishes.

Hopper just stares. But Jennifer can see his eyes darkening.

“Funny, right? They keep doing our job for us,” Callaghan chuckles.

“Yeah,” Hopper scoffs, an unamused smirk growing on his lips, “It’s funny.”

He then snaps his eyes over his shoulder at her. Her hand grasps tightly around the bottle in her pocket, worried he has caught her. Instead, he reaches out to take her by the shoulder, pushing her forward and out the door.

The two officers are surprised to see her, but neither have the chance to ask as Hopper bellows at them, “Get her home.”

He has slammed the door shut in their faces before any of them can even open their mouths to argue.

_

Hopper’s nerves are on fire as he closes the door and leans against it, his skin just as hot.

The Staties found Barbara Holland’s car? The Staties that faked Will Byers’ body. That run that lab where he found children's drawings and beds with restraints. That drugged him last night. Brought him back to his cabin, planting him a scene designed to write any of his findings off as drunken disremembering. 

But he knows. He knows!

Jennifer wouldn’t have believed him even if he told the girl all he had found. He could see the disappointment in her eye, the fear of his paranoia. It worsened the pounding of his head, her eyes on him like that.

But he had to know. They wouldn’t just leave him here, that won’t be the end. It can’t be.

Hopper growls, throwing his head back to lean it against the wood, hoping for it to stop spinning and pounding and spinning-

When he spies a bulb above his head. Still intact. Unchecked.

Reaching up and twisting at it with shaky fingers, he gasps lowly finding it. A wire. A microphone attached to the end of it.

A bug.

_

“Can you just drop me here?”

Powell looks at her in the mirror and nods, pulling up to the Forest Hills entrance and swelling the car to a stop.

Callaghan had tried to escort her to the car with a hand on her shoulder as they descended the steps from Hopper's closed door. She had shrugged him off, glaring as she stomped over to the vehicle, slamming the door closed behind herself once she climbed into the back.

The entire drive, she could feel their curiosity, wanting to ask what she was doing there. She wouldn’t have an answer even if they asked. She couldn’t care less what they thought was happening.

All she has been able to think about as Hawkins blurred past was Barb. A runaway? No. No chance. That wasn’t- isn’t her at all. They’ve gotten it wrong! Again!

She hates this. Hates thinking. Hates feeling. She doesn’t want to do any of that anymore.

Stepping out the car, listening to them pull away behind her, Jennifer reaches her hand into her pocket. Feeling the cool glass bottle inside, she glances over her shoulder to check they have driven out of sight before pulling it out and untwisting the cap.

She downs some of it as she weaves her way down the path amongst the trailers to her own, wincing at the bitter taste but pleased with the burn in her throat.

Ascending her porch, reaching for her keys, she picks up a buzzing. She assumes for a moment it is the cicadas, as restless as they are in the cold. But her eyes strain as she reaches her key to the lock; the porchlight thrumming above her head.

It flickers. Then surges. The hum of it growing sharper, like a wire pulled tight.

Jennifer swallows another swig before fumbling to turn the key.

The light flickers again. Another three times, then stops.

She closes the door behind herself, leaning against it for a moment before bringing the bottle to her lips once more. Eventually, she slides down it into a crouch, then sits fully on the carpet as more of the whiskey works its way into her system.

If it is good enough for Hopper to forget, it is good enough for her.

She then remembers her other pocket, the small orange bottle sitting inside. Pulling it out, shaking the pills inside before tipping two or three between her lips, she washes them down with the fiery liquor. She can barely taste it anymore. 

The light outside flickers once more. Then slumped against the door, she finds herself in darkness - and finally, relievedly blacks out.

As the coroner leaves, Hopper moves to the girl and gestures down the hall for her to follow to his office. He almost expects her to run, but she follows his direction, head still down. She feels the stares of his staff as they go, grateful to turn the corner and for the door to close behind them. She has had enough eyes on her today.

Jennifer takes a seat as he does on the opposite side of the desk, the chair creaking slightly as she slumps into it. She stares down to her feet, hair falling into her face but her arms are too heavy to brush it away.

She hears Hopper sigh, watching her closely as he decides on what to say.

“You went to school today?”

The girl doesn’t respond as he assumes so, knowing his deputies were headed there to gather information on Barbara Holland’s last known whereabouts. Following rumours of some small house-party that shouldn’t matter.

“That’s where you were that night?” he continues on despite her silence, “The Harrington’s?”

Jennifer shifts so slightly but stays slumped and as uncooperative as Callaghan accused.

Hopper leans back in his chair, unlinking his hands from where he placed them on the desk so as to not intimidate her, or make her feel this is a continuation of the questioning. He is only concerned, wanting to know how she is coping with it all. The recovery of Will’s body yet another tragedy for this young girl to grieve in only a week, with her friend now missing also.

“I saw them this morning, the Byers,” he tries, learning from his past attempts the way to get through to her seems to be her concern for others. It works, her looking up a little so their eyes meet through her hair, “They’re doing alright.”

She lowers her eyes again, unconvinced. He knows she knows otherwise, likely from her own recent loss. He also wonders if she has seen the state of the Byers house. The letters and lights.

The disbelief in Joyce’s eye has weighed on him since he broke the news to her and her son last night. The way she insisted he was wrong. That it couldn’t be her boy. She had spoken to him moments before the body was found… It was harrowing.

He couldn’t sleep, despite his advice for them to try to. Thinking of the boy’s body being pulled from the water, dripping wet with weeds. The second body in a week.

Hopper hopes they cleaned him up for the viewing at the morgue. That Joyce didn’t have to see him like that. He could barely look himself before the State van drove the boy away from the quarry. The grey skin and vacant eyes reminding him of her.

He had hoped the identification viewing would bring, not quite closure - he doesn’t believe in such a thing after his own experience - but clarity. A chance for the woman to see it, accept it. Get the answer she needs.

But she was adamant. That is not my son.

Her denial should be easy to explain. He denied it too for a long while. But as he warned Jennifer; the longer you deny it, the longer it hurts. 

Truthfully, it never really stops.

“How did he, uh-?” Jennifer then rasps, cutting off his contemplation. She can’t bring herself to say the word, “What happened?”

Hopper breathes deep through his nose as she picks at her sleeves, “Working theory is he crashed his bike, tried to walk home. He fell from a height in the dark.”

Her frown deepens, “But Jonathan said you thought he made it home?”

He doesn’t have an answer for her. He doesn’t have answers for a lot of things.

Hopper called in Gary, hoping to ease his nerves about the State seeming so invested in this case. It didn’t. More questions…

“I must have been wrong,” he mumbles, hand scratching at his beard.

Jennifer looks up then, staring hard, “You could be wrong about my uncle, then.”

He frowns now too, meeting her eyes. She tucks some hair behind her ear, lifting her chin adamantly  - though the croak of her voice undermines her bravado, “He didn’t kill himself. Someone murdered him.”

The Chief sighs, looking away from her before resuming his position of leaning forward, hands on the desk to will her to listen, “Your uncle is dead, Jennifer. He shot himself.”

The dark shadow on the diner table flickers behind her eyes, making them water.

“Will Byers fell into the quarry and drowned,” Hopper adds, stating as clearly as he can - no matter how harsh.

Jennifer lets the hair fall from her ear again as she looks down, breathing deep to keep back her tears.

The words scratched at his throat as he said them. But the reality is harsh. Hopper doesn’t want this girl falling down into the same black hole Joyce is. That he was tempted by too years ago.

“It hurts,” he says, knowing the girl knows it but wanting to say something to help ease her, “I know it. I have been there. Felt it.”

Hopper is reluctant, unsure he wants to talk and unsure she is listening. But he sees her fingers still where they were fiddling in her lap and pushes himself on, “But the only way to make it hurt a little less is to face it. And you can only do that by accepting it.”

“I don’t want to-”

“You have to,” he cuts her off, wincing at the familiar sentiment, “They are gone.”

Jennifer swallows, thick anguish clogged in her chest. She risks a glance at him, seeing both soft understanding but fierce tenacity in his eye.

“But you’re still here,” Hopper finishes, leaning back again and inhaling deeply.

It settles around them. A sombre yet sober realisation of it all.

He watches her think it over, her pout turning into a look of hapless resolve. She has listened, he hopes, at least. Even if she has a long way to understanding.

Then her gaze turns curious as she speaks up, “You lost someone?”

Hopper feels his stomach fall. And though it might help Jennifer, to get her out of herself by speaking about her… he can’t do it.

He is a hypocrite, he supposes.

The Chief shakes his head, “Another time, kid.”

_

Hopper leads her back out to the main desk after a few settling moments of silence.

“Powell,” he calls, the officer dutifully looking up from his desk and heading over, “Take her home.”

He nods, looking to the girl apologetically for the earlier display and reaching behind Flo’s desk for the keys to the cruiser.

Hopper glances at Jennifer, who has tightened herself again, biting her lower lip nervously.

“Take your own car,” he then instructs Powell, who looks at him oddly before donning his hat and reaching into his own jacket pocket instead. He heads for the door, following instruction. 

He noticed the way she ran from his truck to the school the other day, embarrassed to be seen in it.  And he can imagine the unbearably humiliating scene of being cuffed today at the school has shaken her too. Hopper turns to the girl and nods, “I’ll stop by tomorrow. Get some rest.”

It’s empty advice. That’s all he had to offer the Byers too.

She nods and follows Powell out the door.

“Poor girl,” he hears Flo mutter as it swings closed. Hopper sighs, not wanting to pity her.

The television is on by the desks, yet another news report airing of the quarry. He moves closer to it, intrigued by the caption of who is being interviewed; the ranger who found the body in the water.

He turns up the volume, ignoring the grumble of Callaghan behind him trying to listen to a call.

“...let the people know that, uh, the troopers are on duty and you should be safe,” ‘O’Bannon’ speaks into the microphone in the reporter’s hands, “because we think this is just an isolated incident…”

Hopper’s hands come to his hips.

He is a hypocrite. Despite telling Joyce and the girl to do so, he just can’t accept it. He can’t.

Because they are right. Something is off.

_

"You lied to the police!”

“I didn’t lie!”

Jennifer can hear the yelling through the bathroom door. She had rushed upstairs after Mr Wheeler opened the door for her without even a greeting smile before returning to the television - needing a moment to herself before heading down to the basement. Sitting on the closed lid, the two voices started to shout, muffled through the door but clearly Nancy and her mother.

“None of that matters!” she hears the girl screech as she moves closer to listen by the door, “It is all bullshit! It has nothing to do with Barb and she’s missing and something terrible has happened to her and I know it! I know it! And no one is listening to me!”

Her mother is quiet. Jennifer hears Nancy start to cry.

“Just leave me alone!”

Then, the slam of a door.

Jennifer waits, hearing Mrs Wheeler sigh and descend the stairs before slowly cracking open the door. Without anyone on the landing, she starts to move quickly to the staircase before she is spotted, but finds herself slowing as she passes Nancy’s bedroom door.

She can hear her crying on the other side. Before she can stop herself, she is knocking.

“Go away!” is the strangled response.

“It’s me,” Jennifer says, unsure why that would mean anything. But a moment later, just as she considers turning away, the door opens.

Nancy looks at her, eyes sore and puffed.

“You heard all that?” she quietly sniffs, already pink cheeks heated in embarrassment.

“It was hard not to,” Jennifer shrugs, grimacing. Nancy nods, lowering her eyes as she explains, “I’m here for the boys.”

She asked Powell to drop her to the Wheelers instead, not ready to face the quiet of her own home just yet. After Hopper, she knows she needs to speak to the kids. To end all this. 

To face it.

“I can- I can go,” Jennifer shifts when the girl says nothing more, feeling she has overstepped.

Nancy looks up, sniffing harder and shaking her head, “No, no, please. Come in.”

Jennifer moves into the room as she steps aside and widens the door, lingering by the set of drawers as Nancy closes it behind her. The Wheeler girl moves past to her bed, sitting on the blanket as her hands twist in her lap, lip bitten nervously.

“You can sit,” the girl offers, Jennifer shifting slowly to do so. She gently moves some scattered sheets across the blanket out her way, recognising the black and white images of the Harrington house. The ones Jonathan took. Why would she keep these?

Placing them on the pillow, it not being her place to pry and trying not to look at the figures between the ripped edges of the torn pieces - afraid of catching a glimpse of herself that way again - she perches awkwardly on the edge of the mattress.

Neither girl speaks for a little while, Nancy continuing to look at her hands and Jennifer unsure where to look, glancing around. She fixes her eyes on the Tom Cruise poster hanging on the wall by the head of her bed, feigning interest in his crooked smile.

“The police,” Nancy finally croaks out, Jennifer turning away from the smizing actor to look at her instead, “They asked you about Barb?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jennifer frowns, realising the girl missed the show of her in handcuffs after storming out with her mother in tow, “Yeah, they did.”.

Nancy sniffs, “What did you tell them?”

Jennifer sighs, “Not a lot. I left before her, don’t remember much of the night. And that I don’t think she would run away.”

“She wouldn’t!” Nancy shakes her head vigorously, relieved someone agrees.

“Powell said they can’t find her car.”

Nancy thought that was strange too. Frustratingly so. She took it upon herself to skip the final period yesterday, to swing by Steve’s house and spot anything that might help. Start where she last saw her friend. By the pool in his backyard.

The car was there. It was! Parked a little down the road as she instructed, worried about the neighbours seeing. Her discarded cardigan still sitting on the shotgun seat.

But she didn’t find anything else. 

Except for that animal. The one that leapt from behind a tree, that had her tripping over her feet as she ran away.

Nancy only hums, unsure what to make of it. 

But something is wrong. Really wrong.

No one else will listen to her. The cops, her mom, Steve - but maybe Jennifer will.

Jennifer shifts herself on the bed, turning herself to face her, “He also said you… that you saw a bear? Or something?”

“Or something,” she mumbles, meeting her eye, trying to assess whether she will think she is crazy too. After all, a seven-foot man without a face? Nancy knows how it sounds.

“I don’t know,” she decides to shrug, too tired to face someone else looking at her how they all have been. Too desperate to be dismissed again, “It’s probably nothing.”

‘But it could be something?’ Jennifer wants to encourage. To tell her about the monster. The bad men. The girl downstairs. All of it.

Jennifer knows how it all sounds.

Would Nancy believe her?

She doesn’t want to believe it herself anymore. That’s why she came here, to the Wheelers for the boys in the basement. To tell them it is over. To let it go.

The two girls stare at one another, both unknowingly trying to decide when to sit back, where to draw the line. Sizing the other up.

Neither take the step. Scared.

“Have you spoken to her parents at all?” Jennifer distracts them both by asking, “You know, since…”

“Yeah, yeah I called. They said she told them she was staying with me after the vigil,” Nancy sighs, regrettably, mouth turned downward recalling their worry over the phone. Jennifer watches her face fall deeper, breaking her gaze to stare regrettably to the floor. She doesn’t know what to say to soothe her, the girl’s eyes filling with tears, “I told her to say that. To lie.”

And for what? So she could sleep with Harrington? Nancy feels terrible. So stupid.

Jennifer is sure that it can't have been worth it, even before it escalated into all this mess. But she sympathises, regretting her own behaviour that night too.

“I shouldn’t have left her,” a tear slips from Nancy’s eye.

Jennifer swallows back her own, “Neither should I.”

Nancy looks up at her again, big swollen eyes glossy and wide, surprised by her sincere admission. She recognises the glint of a similar guilt in her eye.

She can’t imagine what Jennifer is going through. Losing her uncle so suddenly, her friend’s brother she is close to, and their friend also being missing without answers.

Perhaps Jennifer really could understand her.

Jennifer has always been strong. And she is, Nancy knows it. Able to shoulder almost anything without flinching. Breezing through the halls, ignoring the calls and the laughs and the whispers.

But this is different. All this has to be too much for one person to hold onto.

While the first to step forward and stand up for others, Jennifer has never seemed too proficient at standing up for herself against herself.

She saw it, she thinks, at Steve’s the other night. The other girl was quiet, occupied with drinking and looking up at the sky before disappearing altogether. Nancy didn’t notice her much more than that throughout the night. She was… distracted.

Nancy assumes that is why Jennifer came along too, to be distracted.

Her brother is grieving too, barely having surfaced from his basement in days. Jonathan Byers too, who she - before what he was called out for - felt compelled to show kindness as he tucked into himself, pinning that poster to the wall.

She can’t imagine how it must feel. And she hopes, with Barb, she doesn’t have to.

“How’s Jonathan?”

“Oh, uh,” Jennifer wishes she knew. She should know.

She glances at the photographs she placed on the pillow, feeling Nancy notice the look. Jennifer tries to cover it by moving her eyes to the window above the headrest, but the other girl still watches her closely. Curious.

She supposes Nancy might be the closest she has to someone who can understand why she is so hurt by what he did. Jennifer felt exposed, violated - but the other girl truly was, being captured unclothed.

And so, she embarrassedly admits, “I haven’t seen him. Not yet.”

Nancy’s brow quirks a little, tears slowing in intrigue.

“We haven’t- After Thursday, I- uh-”

Her attempt at honesty shocks them both, Nancy eagerly turning herself with a raised leg onto her mattress to face her, encouragingly. She would appreciate - is eager, in fact - to get out of her own head. And this rare invitation to get into Jennifer’s has her desperate.

Nancy saw Jennifer’s face at the Hawk the day before. Looking at her friend after learning he took those photographs of them. Not practiced indifference, nor her usual scorn; the heated scowls she sends Hagan’s way when he bothers her or Barb. But a cold despair. Hurt.

She slipped, only a little, before glaring at Steve when he called back for her. And Nancy, ever curious, wants to pry. She has wanted to since it happened; wondering as she threw the broken photographs to her bed when she got home that day, where the other girl stood on her friend’s behaviour, unsure how to feel for herself.

Steve had invited her to the Hawk as a kindness, to get her out her head about her missing friend. Carol taunted in the cafeteria it was only his attempt to get handsy in the dark, but he’s not like that… So she went along.

She wishes she hadn’t, and was quick to hurry home once everything crashed on her suddenly at the box office, mumbling out a poor excuse about her mom.

Jennifer can feel Nancy’s eagerness buzzing between them as she tries to find the words to explain herself, surprised she feels the pull to do so.

“He should never have done that,” she breathes out deeply as she speaks it, instantly feeling it relieve a pressure in her head, “I have tried to excuse it but… those pictures…”

Nancy nods slowly, both encouragingly and understanding, tears having dried.

“And- and I know everything that has been going on- he’s been through a lot,” she continues, addicted to the easing in her chest, “With Will and- I should- I should be there. But…”

“You’re upset.”

It sounds so simple when Nancy says it. Too simple for the conflicted storm it has taunted within her the past few days. 

But that’s it. And it feels like a relief for someone to understand. To see her.

Inspired by the release, Jennifer turns her shoulders to parallel the other girl, “It was wrong. For him to do that to you.”

“It was,” Nancy nods again, eyes clearing as she thinks it over herself, “And I should be mad. But with everything going on- I mean, Barb… and his brother…”

“Yeah,” Jennifer nods too, assured by the understanding. Even if they can’t find the words.

The ecstasy of being understood buzzes in her fingertips, on her tongue. She wants to tell Nancy everything, relieve the pressure in her chest. And so she tries to find the words, but is tempted to simply let it tumble out-

“I’m just glad Steve knew what to do.”

The lightness of Jennifer’s chest seizes, tightening so suddenly that it winds her.

“Standing up for us both the way he did.”

Nancy doesn’t notice the other girl’s stillness until she moves, a deep scoff wracking her shoulders. She frowns, looking to Jennifer beside her, now gripping her knees tight and looking back at her incredulously.

“He went too far."

“What-?”

“Harrington,” Jennifer practically growls, “He didn’t have to break the camera.”

Nancy’s jaw slackens, surprised by her sudden heated glare, feeling burned by it, “He- he did that because- he’s protective. To make a point-”

“He did it to show off,” Jennifer’s teeth grinding against each other, “The only thing he cares about protecting is his ego.”

Nancy, too tired and upset and surprised, rises to it, “Well, he didn’t take those pictures-”

“He didn’t need to go waving them around town either, did he?!”

She takes a twisted pride in Nancy’s jaw clamping shut. Unable to bite back. It unfortunately powers her to continue on.

“He’s an asshole, Nancy-!”

“He cares about me!”

“He doesn’t care about anything but himself!”

“You don’t know him like I do!”

Jennifer’s eyebrows raise, “No, suppose I don’t-“

Not anymore…

“-Wouldn’t want to-!”

“You’re not even defending Jonathan right now," Nancy squeaks, "You just can’t let yourself agree with Steve!”

Jennifer scoffs again, darker this time. She stands, recognising that this has taken the wrong turn and heading for the door before it gets worse.

She has been desperate for an outlet for days. A simmering in her stomach that now burns in her throat, too fuelled to be extinguished.

“What is your problem?!” Nancy squeaks as her hand reaches for the door, seething but not wanting to shout and alert her parents downstairs to whatever dispute is currently happening.

Jennifer whips around, unable to stop herself, “Him! You! All of you!”

Nancy’s mouth hangs open, Jennifer still scorching before she can find words to speak back.

“I don’t need Steve Harrington to fight my battles for me.”

Once the words are spat out, she turns and leaves Nancy standing alone and bewildered in her room, hurrying down the stairs.

_

“I don’t know,” Lucas laments, “The stupid radio kept going in and out.”

The three boys are trying to recall what they heard Will say through the Hamshack. Cold, dark, empty…

“‘Like home’,” Mike repeats, remembering hearing it, “Upside down.”

The other boys watch as he flips the game board over, continuing to theorise, “When El showed us where Will was, she flipped the board over, remember?”

“Upside Down,” Dustin mutters as he flips it to demonstrate, all following only a little.

“When El took us to find Will, she took us to his house, right?”

“Yeah and he wasn’t there.”

“But what if he was there? What if we just couldn’t see him?” Mike offers, “What if he was on the other side? In the other world!”

The other two boys share a glance, then look at the board again as Mike demonstrates to further illustrate his figuring out.

“So if this is Hawkins…” he flips the board to the black underside, “then this is where Will is?”

“The Upside Down,” Lucas repeats, almost convinced.

Dustin gasps as he understands the comparison, “We just need to figure out how to get there. Do you think she knows?”

They all turn to Eleven, who looks out from under the long, blonde wig at them. Still not speaking. Drained from efforts earlier today at the AV room.

The door at the top of the stairs opens, all boys tensing, worried it could be the Wheeler adults. That they are caught.

But they relax as Jenny comes through, hammering down toward them. Lucas straightens, relieved to see her after the sight of her in handcuffs earlier that day. But he hesitates greeting her, noticing the thunder on her face. The darkness encircling her eyes that looks over them, then to the flipped board, then the girl in the dress and then close, tired.

“Jenny!” Dustin beams, not catching onto the gloom hovering around her, “Thank goodness, we thought you’d been collared by the law!”

Jennifer stays quiet, opening her eyes to just look back. Blank.

Lucas glances concernedly over to Mike, who seems too occupied with showing El the monster-figure he is holding to notice either.

“Come, quick,” Dustin hurries over to the teenager, taking her forearm in his hand and attempting to tug, “We’ve got to show you something-”

But the girl stands still, shaking off his hand and refusing to follow. Dustin now notices, turning back to look up at her, confused by her vacancy.

“We know where Will is! We were right! The Vale of Shadows-”

Mike rolls his eyes, finally turning away from the girl to look up at them and correct, “The Upside Down-”

“Stop,” Jennifer mumbles, so quiet they aren’t sure she spoke at all. But the air changes, tensely shifting. She repeats herself before any of them can ask her to, “Just- stop it.”

“Stop what?” Dustin asks, so softly, so innocently that it twists at her. She closes her eyes again for a moment, not able to look at him.

Jennifer takes a breath, it does little to quell her fiery chest as she recalls the Chief’s words and looks down at them, “I know it hurts. And I- I am so sorry for letting it.”

The boys look up at her, confused.

“But the only way to stop it hurting is to face the truth.”

Her words settle. The boys understand what she is trying to say without her need to push. She wants to be grateful for that, but Mike suddenly stands, placing the monster figure back to the flipped board and balling his fists, “No, it’s not true.”

She exhales sharply through her nose. 

Mike continues, frowning deeply, “No! No, Will is stuck there! And we need-”.

Her throat is dry, face aching, lowly whispering, “Please…"

Her head pounds.

“-to get to him before-“

And pounds.

“-the monster does-”

And-

“He’s dead, Mike!”

She hisses, hearing her own harshness. 

The boys’ faces fall, Dustin looking away to the carpet under his cap and Lucas to his feet. Mike is trembling, jaw tight as he looks right back at her, refusing even now to back down.

But she needs him to understand - for all of them to understand, even herself - that none of this will help. All the fantasies and theories and distractions from the truth are just pushing it away. She has tried that, with school and drinking and partying and- and it doesn’t work! It still hurts! It won’t stop!

Jennifer doesn’t want them to hurt, not the way she has. She is hurting. Not just her uncle or their friend, but she feels she has lost herself entirely. She doesn’t want to lose them too!

Perhaps, as much as she hates to admit it and has tried not to, Hopper is right. You can’t stop it or change it or go around - you just have to go through it. The first step is admitting to yourself what has happened.

Perhaps, as much as she hates to admit it and has tried not to, Hopper is right. You can’t stop it or change it or go around - you just have to go through it. The first step is admitting to yourself what has happened.

Will is gone. 

And Benny-

“He’s dead,” she repeats, quieter but no less sure.

Mike’s mouth falls open, just slightly, as if trying to form a protest that won’t come. His eyes begin to water. He’s hurting.

And, despite her trying, it feels like her fault.

The stunned silence is thick. Suffocating. She’s close to choking on it.

The words echo, flat and cold. Like saying it out loud has hammered the truth into something solid. Final.

She hadn't meant to be cruel, but it came out too fast, too harsh. Burning with the hot guilt curling in her stomach.

Because what is truly cruel is how she let them deny it. Encouraged them to seek out anything that could delay the truth. But they have reached it now. They have to.

But before she can apologise or stumble through an explanation of herself, Mike has found words, voice thick with betrayal, “If you don’t believe us, then go away. Go away!”

She wants to believe, She really, really wants to. And she tried.

But she can’t.

Jennifer can feel the other kids watching the exchange, waiting to see what she will do. Dustin flits his eyes between her and Mike from under his cap, eyes wide. Lucas takes a step toward her, as if he wants to reach out and hold her to stay. 

Glancing at Eleven, the girl’s dark eyes looking back at her, glistening with some sort of fear - of her? - she turns. And leaves, without another glance back.

As Jennifer reaches the basement side-door that leads to the yard, offering her the quickest escape, she slams it shut behind her. Hands shaking.

She looks at it for a moment, wondering if she should go back inside and apologise. Encourage them to deny it a little longer. Hurt them even more.

But looking at the door - the one she closed herself with her own hand, not her mind - she has to turn away.

_

Nancy stands staring at her door for a moment after Jennifer stormed out.

What just happened?

Maybe Jennifer won’t understand her. Doesn’t want to.

She falls back onto her bed, huffing, mind running over all that was just said. About the police and Jonathan Byers and Steve-

Why were they arguing about Steve in the middle of everything else?

Whatever Jennifer’s reason to be upset, why did she rise to it? She should be thinking about Barb, how to find her friend…

But the cops made fun of her. Her mother berated her. Steve- in an unfortunately damning display of what Jennifer just described- dismissed her concerns.

And now, without Jennifer too - what does she do? Where does she start?

Her hands flops from where it has raked through her hair, hitting against the sheets of her bed. Her fingers brush the sheen surface of one of the photographs littered atop it. Holding it between her fingers, running one along the ripped edge, Nancy feels tears well in her eyes looking over the image she is holding of Barb by the pool. Legs dangling off the dive-board, looking out at the water.

Oh, Barb…

Her gaze drifts to another scrap by her hip, holding it up beside it, realising the pieces align perfectly. This corner shows the patio behind her, the shadow cast over the-

Nancy sits up straighter, bringing the piece closer to her face.

But, that’s not a shadow at all-

Something else is there.

_

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 12TH

“What’s going to happen?” Jennifer turns to face the man the next morning, having unpacked the last of the groceries he has brought and closing the refrigerator behind her.

Hopper lingers by her counter, leaning against it with a huff, “Nothing yet.”

He can’t assure that, not truly knowing the answers to what is going to happen to her and the trailer she is living in without a guardian. There hasn’t been time to talk to the authorities since everything has happened. There was a missed call from child services the other day, Flo unrelenting in bothering him about calling back since. But he hasn’t had time.

The girl looks at him, worried. He isn’t able to look back.

“I have it handled,” he tries to satisfy, but sees her nod quietly from the corner of his eye and turn back to placing the bread in the cupboard.

Clearly, she is just as unconvinced as he is by that statement.

She busies about the kitchen some more as he takes a seat on the couch. Jennifer glances over as he sits down, hoping he doesn’t notice the empty cans she kicked under there in a hurry as he knocked on the door ten minutes ago. Finishing unpacking, she then moves to join him, sitting on the armchair to the side of the coffee table - bracing for the inevitable question of how she is doing.

“Sorry again, for yesterday,” he offers instead, “They shouldn’t’ve cuffed you.”

Jennifer nods, looking downward sadly. Her fingers trace her wrists, remembering the cool metal that weighed on them.

Hopper was furious to hear the officers had done so in the halls, in front of all her peers. He is starting to feel he knows her now, a little at least, and can only imagine how humiliating that must have been for the young teenager. Especially with the whispers and mocks of her mother’s reputation.

Powell redeemed himself with an apology and getting her home safe. But Callaghan has not stopped pouting about phone duty as punishment.

Jennifer wonders if he knows what herself and Nancy told them about that night. She is sure Callaghan was eager to show the Chief his notes. Will he ridicule her for it too? Your uncle kills himself and you go partying? She shudders, recalling.

“They, uh, did tell me something,” he says, unsure how to approach it. She looks up, intrigued by his hesitant tone, “They said you saw something in the woods. A bear?”

“Callaghan assured me there wasn’t one,” she spits, bitterly, “I must’ve been drunk.”

Hopper raises a brow, them both remembering how he knew so the next day from the state of her.

They also both seem to remember his harsh comment about her mother too. A tense weight closing in on them as he clears his throat.

“Is that what you ran from?” he presses anyway, as if he might believe her.

Jennifer sits straighter at that thought. She considers then telling him everything she hasn’t. About Eleven and the bad men and the monster and all of it.

But she swore to forget. That is why she drank herself to sleep again last night.

“I don’t know,” she feigns, “I was drunk.”

He hums.

She wishes she could use that to excuse all her behaviour of the past week. Pushing people away, losing them. 

Loneliness. It followed her to sleep last night.

And, despite her will to forget, she dreamt of all the rest too. Swirling around in her drunken haze as she closed her eyes. Being chased by a monster, Barb caught in vines, Will drowning in the water, Eleven slamming the door, Benny with the gun- 

“Perhaps you could swing by the Byers. Check in,” Hopper suggests, “I’d appreciate that.”

“You can’t?” she wonders, “Why?"

“I’m… busy,” he sees her deflate a little at the vague phrase, feeling dismissed. But he can’t tell the truth.

He can’t tell her that he is going to stake out the State Trooper O’Bannon and do some digging into his supposed finding of Will’s body.

Hopper was up all night thinking it over. He recalled Frank Sattler still having a few occupational quarries around Roane, including theirs on the outskirts of the town. Why would the State be so interested in an incident occurring on Sattler-owned property?

Someone must have told the trooper to be out there. There has to be more to this.

He hopes to find him at the Hideout. Besides, he could do with a drink himself.

How can he tell her that truth? That he is a hypocrite and can’t follow his own suggestion; to accept it.

Jennifer nods after a moment, unsure if she is really agreeing to go. She could do with the walk to the other side of town and has been thinking of Jonathan since her conversation with Nancy. His brother is gone, actually gone. She said she would be there for him.

But she’s upset, as Nancy had said before she pushed her away too.

It’s all so confused. So complicated.

“Anything else you need before I go?”

She looks up to the Chief, who returns his hat to his head and pushes from the couch.

Jennifer considers telling him, coming clean about everything. But she doesn’t know what there is to say. And she would rather forget.

So she does, and closes the door behind him.

_

“Well, if he is there, we need to get to him,” Lucas declares, eyes lighting up, “We should tell Jenny-!”

Dustin nods slowly, fingers flicking the antenna of his walkie. Eleven, sitting amidst the blanket fort, watches them with her dark, wide eyes.

Mike sighs, closing his eyes. Despairingly.

Lucas whips his head to him with a frown, “What?”

“Enough about Jenny! Jenny, Jenny, Jenny!” Mike hisses, flailing his arms out from where they had been folded tight across his chest, “She has made it perfectly clear she doesn’t believe us!”

“She might!”

“She hasn’t! We tried! And she yelled at us for it!”

Lucas falls quiet, finding himself unable to argue. He continues packing his wrist rocket into his backpack, pulling out the bandana he tucked into it.

“We need to get to Will,” Mike lowers his voice, determined, “Jenny can’t stop us. We are on our own.”

The boys look between themselves, then to El on the couch, ready to form a plan.

_

Jennifer stands in the hallway, the door to Benny’s room half-open like a wound she can’t quite look at. She presses her palm against the frame, stabilising.

Just the wardrobe, she tells herself. Only the clothes. That’s all for now.

Stepping inside, the air is still - too still, as if the room has been holding its breath since the last time she dared enter days ago. She steps toward the wardrobe, each footfall feels like it might crack the floor. A familiar smell drifts out as she opens the closet doors: detergent, a hint of his cologne, lingerings of cooking oil. She wants to find comfort in it - but the sight of his shirts hanging lifeless from the rail makes her throat close.

Jennifer reaches for one, meaning only to slide it off the hanger, but her fingers tremble and it is knocked to the floor. It crumples. And so does she.

She stumbles out of the room, tripping over the sheet she kicked off the other morning, still dangling from the corner.  The door slams behind her as she pulls it pointedly shut.

A short while later, Jennifer is sitting cross-legged on the carpet and hunched over her coffee table, having gathered markers from her drawer and notebook from her school bag.

Studebaker for SALE!

She draws each digit of the phone number slowly, dragging the pen as if every stroke requires permission. The black letters out of shape, her hands shaking with hesitance in her loose grip.

The Byers went to the Xerox place to print copies. She can’t afford to do the same, and spends the next hour drawing out the same lines until her notebook is full, raggedly ripping out the pages.

Jennifer looks down at the drawn advertisement, the frayed edges trembling. She needs the money. Whatever she can sell to keep herself going. She can’t rely on Hopper’s handouts forever. He’s busy.

Packing the pile into her bag, she sets out downtown.

_

Steve is driving his burgundy Beamer through town, having dropped Carol off for her detention with Mundy. He didn’t believe her story the first time he heard it, or the fourth, or seventh. But he took her up on her offering herself a ride from him anyway.

Any excuse to get out of that house.

He doesn’t necessarily know where he is driving to, just aimlessly rolling around town to delay the journey back. He has lapped the library maybe three times now. But returning home is inevitable. He will have to face it sometime.

Steve has been avoiding his parents since the school called them at work yesterday. An easier feat than probably assumed with the size of their home and a car to escape in. 

They failed to show up, the office dismissing him after the cops left. He expected as much - and he expects a damn good talking to when his father eventually catches him in the hallway. Or, more likely, they won’t talk to him at all. Continue to act like he doesn’t exist.

Not much of a punishment. He rather prefers it that way.

No, that’s not what has been on his mind since…

As Steve passes Melvalds in the square, she’s there. Pinning paper to a post on the street corner by the library. He double takes, unable to see the writing, or her face, but recognising the jacket she has been tucking herself into lately. A bulky, tattered thing that clearly belonged to someone else long before.

He has been wondering what happened to her, after she was cuffed and pushed into the cruiser. But more than that, Steve has recalled the look on her face as the officers cornered her. Eyes wide, darting from one peer to the next as they crowded around, wincing as they jeered. Embarrassed. Afraid.

Two things he never thought Jennifer Anderson could be. 

Steve only knows her now through hard glares. Planted feet and raised eyebrows.

But yesterday she seemed so… Not that.

Hagan laughed. So did the rest of the school. But he couldn’t.

Not even a side-smile or half-huff he pushes out often when he isn’t necessarily amused, but knows Tommy or Carol or whoever is watching for his reaction, smiling proudly themselves when he gives them what they want.

His curiosity has him slowing the car, easing it to cruise by the corner she stands on, shuffling the pile in her hands.

Though, as she starts to turn, a flash of how she looked at him the day before, before she was called in by the cops, sears between his eyes. And how she looked at him at the Hawk, in the halls, his house-

He pushes the pedal harder. Driving quickly away before she spots him from the side of the road.

Steve would rather face the fate of whatever lies waiting at home for him than be on the receiving end of another look like that.

_

“Of course,” Tom Holloway nods, understandingly, “You’ve needed time.”

Jennifer sits in the chair opposite his desk, having decided to ask for her job back. Tom has assured she never lost it, that he understands why she has not shown for a shift in over a week. And that he is happy for her to come back when she feels ready.

“When would you like to-?”

“Right away,” she suddenly cuts in, sitting forward in the seat, “if possible.”

Tom raises his brow, surprised by her eagerness. His mouth twitches, plastering on a small smile, “Let’s lessen the load to start with. Twice a week, whatever days work for you.”

Jennifer bites back a huff, gripping the sleeves of her jacket, “Sure. Monday?”

“Great, that works,” Tom nods again, "Anything else I can do for you? Anything at all?”

He looks at her the way others have been, as if they want her to need them. Pitying.

She shakes her head, standing from the chair as he rises and walks her to the door.

“See you tomorrow,” he smiles, sending her on her way.

Once outside the Post, a small wave sent to Gillian behind the front desk who smiles sadly at her as they all do, Jennifer breathes.

She had set about pinning her posters around town, passing by the Post and suddenly stopping in. Jennifer needs to be out of that suffocating trailer, but also needs the money to stay in it. Resuming her paper rounds seems like a good place to start.

Gillian was surprised to see her, almost spilling Mr Holloway’s coffee over his diary on her desk when she approached it. Tom hadn’t expected her either, agreeing to push back his planned meeting to speak with her for ten minutes or so.

The offices were bustling, writers and printers barely glancing up from their desks at her as they typed and talked on phones. Must be a busy time with everything that has happened, the state-wide interest in the Byers case.

She hopes, bitterly, that at least they got a good story out of it all.

He asked if they had her permission to run a piece about him, Benny. She daren’t point out that apparently, according to Ted Wheeler the other night, they already have. About the diner, at least, without her consent.

She just shrugged, he took that as a yes.

But what could they write? What is there to say? How good of a man he was, what a shame it is?

Did anyone really know him as well as they claim to, if they don’t question how he died?

Would he really do that to his niece?

She hopes they don’t quote her for it, worried what will bubble out of her if they ask.

Deciding to grab herself some chips with the cash Hopper hastily threw her way before heading out the door earlier, Jennifer notices people gathering on the sidewalk opposite the town hall. They are watching something, a woman leaning over to whisper commentary to her husband as they turn to watch a commotion on the other side of the street.

“Just go home, Jonathan!” Jennifer hears a familiar voice screech. Her step slows, looking beyond the crowd to see Joyce shaking off her son’s hand from her arm. She gasps, almost ducking behind a nearby car out of sight, not ready to see either of them.

Peering over the vehicle, she watches as Jonathan frowns, facing his mother down.

“No, this is not an okay time for you to shut down!” he seethes.

Joyce recoils, shaking her head, “Shut down? What-?”

“We have to deal with this, Mom!” Jonathan says through grit teeth, waving a hand around desperately for her to listen, “We have to deal with the funeral!”

The woman’s face falls, her breath catching in her chest as she tumbles back as if wounded, “The funeral?”

Jennifer’s heart seizes. The sound of them arguing muffles as she tries to walk away, suddenly angry at every eye turned towards them. She moves past the couple she saw whispering between themselves with a dark glare, them not noticing her look, still enthralled by the display of the mother and son arguing.

“I am going to bring him home!” Jennifer hears Joyce shouting over her shoulder, forcing herself to keep walking away. Seems she is refusing to believe the news that her son is dead.

Jonathan yells now, deeply angered, “Yeah? Well, while you’re talking to the lights, the rest of us are having a funeral for Will!”

There is an anger and pain straining his voice she hasn’t heard before. It almost has her turning back around to run to him.

“I’m not letting him sit in that freezer another day!”

Jennifer almost trips, catching herself quickly to turn the corner and get away.

_

She finds herself wandering to the quarry, not wanting to head home right away. Jennifer expected State Police tape to float around the gate, still knotted to the wire fence. But there is none to duck under. As she walks further and further along the path that leads around it - a familiar route home she has walked many times to avoid the woods when it is late and Benny had the car - she notes that there is barely any sign there was an investigation here at all.

Not vehicles lining the route, no officer telling her to stay away - no railing or barriers to stop another poor child tumbling to a similar fate.

Once at the height of it, before the road she knows winds down to the bottom of the hill, Jennifer stops by the edge. Her feet then bring her another step closer, then another, morbidly curious to look down at the pool of water below. Her breath catches, nerves alight with fear as a rock tumbles from under her footing, rolling off the edge and down below. It takes a moment before breaking the surface, the dark water rippling as if barely touched.

A flash of nausea hits her. Will falling. Hitting the water.

She breathes heavily through her nose and then, slowly and cautiously, bends down to pick up another rock by her foot. She turns it in her hand a few times over, trying to distract herself from the image flashing through her mind.

He must have been so scared.

Her hand fists around the rock, feeling the serrated edge of it slice a little into her palm. Yet, she holds it even tighter. Teeth gritted.

Then, she pulls her arm back and launches it with a coarse shout, counting the seconds as it plummets.

She strains to hear the impact over her heart pounding in her ears. A small ripple in the water despite the storm inside of her.

_

“It’s made of soft wood with a crepe interior,” the funeral parlour worker describes the casket in front of him.

Jonathan is barely paying attention. 

He can’t quite believe how small it is. The casket. It makes him think of how small his brother was. He feels sick.

“Now, I don’t know what your budget is,” the man continues, Jon silently following him as he is led to the next option on the other side of the white room, “but over here we have copper and bronze…”

His voice dissipates, his insensitive attempt to upsell interrupted as Jonathan braves a glance upward, seeing Nancy Wheeler tucked into the doorway. Her hand grips her satchel strap, twisting nervously just as she does her lips.

Jonathan, otherwise numb, feels his brow furrow, confused as to her appearance. Then his cold cheeks heat a little, remembering the last time he saw her. Knelt on the sidewalk, scattered tears of photographs floating in the space between them.

Jennifer hasn’t called or stopped by. He doesn’t blame her. Not at all.

But he knew, even with his brother finally found, he would have to face it sometime.

He just didn’t expect to be facing the Wheeler girl first.

He asks the salesman to give them a minute, the man nodding and heading out the room, giving the girl a curious glance as he passes her by.

She steps into the room once he has gone, still hovering unsure by the door. Jonathan moves slowly to meet her there, hands tucking deep into his jean pockets.

They try to avoid each other’s eyes for a moment, then meet simultaneously.

“Hey,” he tries, weakly.

“Hey,” she counters. Nancy glances around them, feeling as though she shouldn’t be there. Intruding on something so intimately terrible.

But the photographs she has taped back together weigh heavy in her bag. She fists the strap tight, straightening her shoulders.

“Can we talk?”

Blinking back the tightness behind her eyes and dragged deeper into the cushions, her thoughts then drift to the other boys. To Mike and Dustin and Lucas.

It snaps her out of her haze. Throwing down the empty bottle to the table and dizzying herself as she stands, Jennifer grabs her keys from the counter.

_

“He’s upstairs,” Sue says softly, worry etching her brow. Jennifer worried she should have just called as she pulled up outside the Sinclair home. But the woman assured they are relieved to see her, her son not having spoken to herself or her husband since sneaking out last night. Hopper found him and Dustin by the quarry, ducked behind a fire engine. They saw the body extracted from the water.

All so much worse than she imagined.

He won’t be going to school today, his mother told her, Jennifer then remembering she should be heading there herself. It’s only Friday. But she can’t face it, not again. Surely Hopper will understand and won’t be mad at her.

Jennifer’s heart spikes as she ascends the stairs to his room.

A spit-swear? That’s all she thought to do? Why didn’t she do more to stop them from seeing such dreadful thing as their best friend’s body?

Because she didn’t want to. She wanted to know too. Was swept up in the fantasy that he was still out there. Even so far as to almost believe he could be trapped in some other world chased by a monster, learning all this from a girl with superpowers-

She will save her frustrations for later - at the situation, at herself. Right now she wants to be there for them. For Lucas.

What if he doesn't forgive her for this?

Knocking gently, she hears a mumbled response to “go away” from inside.

She almost does. But plants herself, clearing her throat, “Lucas, it’s me.”

Jennifer is ready to turn herself back, the unsure part of her swaying on her feet, until she hears the door slowly click open. Lucas looks up at her, eyes red and wet. His lower lip trembles before he launches himself at her, arms coming to wrap tightly around her middle, face pressed into her stomach. She holds him back, cradling his head and shoulder, biting her own lip to stop it wavering.

She holds him like that for a moment, letting him cry, her nerves shaking every time his shoulders shudder with a sob. He leans back, arms around her loosening slightly as she moves them into his room, guiding towards the bed and sitting down. He is quick to sit by her side, head resting against her arm as it encouragingly returns around his shoulders.

“Will- he- he’s-” Lucas stammers, unable to get his words out around his sobs.

She nods, resting her cheek atop his head, “I know.”

Another moment passes, his sobs quieting a little.

Jennifer sighs, not wanting to ask but needing to know, “You went out there? Again?”

Lucas sits up now, looking away from her and wiping his face. His shoulders slump even more, as if expecting a berating from her, quietly admitting, “We were looking for him.”

She forces her voice to even, not wanting to push him away, “You, Mike and Dustin?”

“And Eleven,” he spits hotly, teeth gritting at the name.

“What happened?”

“She said she knew where he was… in the Upside Down,” Lucas hiccups, breathing hard to steady his cries as he grows angry, “Well, she didn’t say it but- but Mike insisted she knew and- and so we followed her!”

Jennifer chews on the inside of her mouth as he frowns, darkly, “But she just led us in a circle, round and around and then- then-!”

He starts to cry again. The boy flops himself backwards on the bed, curling into his pillow facing away from her.

Jennifer looks upward, trying to keep her own tears back at his distress. The Upside Down. She wants to scoff at the thought of it, how she nearly believed too. But bites it back for his sake.

“She lied! Will’s gone!” she hears Lucas shout, muffled into his elbow.

She could leave him be, give him space to process it. Head to Dustin’s or even the Wheelers to check in. She wonders where Eleven is now. Or, maybe, she should just head home. Drink this ache away.

But as she tentatively reaches a hand out to his shoulder and Lucas doesn’t push her away, she knows she is where she needs to be. And will stay as long as he needs.

Being here for him is how she rights this. Make up for her mistake.

She leans herself back beside him, legs hanging off the side of his small bed as she stares up at the ceiling, and tries to breathe. In and out. In- Will’s gone- and out. In and- it’s my fault- out.

Perhaps twenty minutes pass until the radio crackles on his bedside table.

Mike’s voice creaks out, “Lucas, do you copy?”

The boy beside her groans.

“Lucas, come on, I know you’re there!”

Jennifer sits up, looking between the walkie and Lucas, it not seeming like he wants to respond. Jennifer can’t blame him.

“This is serious,” Mike’s voice screeches through it.

“Ignore it,” Lucas instructs her, as she nudges his arm.

She tries to, but Mike persists, “I’m not gonna stop until you answer… Lucas. Lucas!”

The boy beside her sits up with a growl as the other repeats his name over and over and over until he finally reaches for the walkie and wipes at his tears with a sharp sniff, “Go away, Mike! I’m not in the mood, alright? Over and out.”

“No, not ‘out’!” Mike insists as Lucas is about to shrink the antenna, “I’m not messing about, okay? This is about Will. Over.”

Jennifer sighs again, especially seeing Lucas intrigued and listening as he presses the transmit button to respond curiously, “What about Will?”

“Just get here, stat!” Mike screeches again, “Over and out!”

Lucas looks to her as the line goes dead, unsure. Jennifer shrugs, leaving the decision to him. He thinks for a moment, then nods.

_

“What are you doing here?” Mike scowls as he opens the door, seeing her standing beside Lucas. The other boy doesn’t answer, a scowl of his own.

“Where’s your mom?” Jennifer asks, admittedly relieved not to have run into her while dashing from the drive to the door.

Mike rolls his eyes, standing aside to let them pass as he answers, “She said she’s going to check in on the Hollands. Get me a few things to feel better. Dad’s at work.”

Jennifer’s heart lurches at the mention of her still-missing friend. It seems Hawkins has become so distracted by Will’s death, they haven’t yet managed to organise a search party. She has barely heard anyone mention Barb’s name at all, the conversation turned only to the Byers.

Her heart then twists at the certainly-not-sad ease Mike speaks with, his instead eagerness evident as he pushes them to the basement door. She glances back at Lucas following behind her as Mike begins to descend through it. The difference in the boy’s expressions is shocking.

Lucas is looking to the carpet, hesitating to follow with a nervous shuffle in place at the top of the stairs. She gestures with her arm for him to go first, him huffing as he passes.

As Jennifer follows, she is surprised to see Eleven sitting on the couch as the last time she was here, still wearing Mike’s laundry. The girl fiddles with his walkie, Dustin already there and sitting cross-legged on the carpet in front of her. He watches her intensely, though turns as they reach the bottom. He frowns seeing Jennifer, then locks eyes with Mike who shrugs frustratedly, then he turns back with a small, unsure wave.

Lucas, whose eyes have widened looking up from his feet and to the girl on the couch, manoeuvres himself to stand so-slightly behind Jennifer.

“What’s this about Wheeler?” she asks with a sigh, feeling Lucas’ apprehension buzzing behind her and trying not to feel it herself. Eleven looks up at hearing her voice, startled slightly but relievedly easing at seeing the older girl there. Someone familiar. Jennifer tries to send her a small smile in greeting, despite her antsiness at the confusion she has caused, then turns back sternly to Mike.

“It’s about Will,” he offers, plainly. As if it is simple.

“Yeah, you said. But what about him?”

“About his funeral?” Lucas asks from behind her.

“What? No!” Mike frowns, looking between them, “Screw the funeral!”

Lucas hisses and Jennifer sighs again, quietly berating, “Mike-”

He cuts her off, continuing his fervour, “Just- just listen!”

Jennifer bites her tongue to do so, trying to avoid an easy argument. But she only hears the static of the walkie in Eleven’s hands. She is about to demand an elaboration, finding herself short-tempered today, when then, amongst the broken frequencies - a crackled cry.

“There!” Mike points to the radio excitedly, “You hear it?”

“What?” Dustin leans closer to listen more.

The sound continues to crackle. Whimpering, it sounds like. Fading in and out.

“We keep losing signal,” Mike huffs, as Eleven twists at the channel lever, “but you heard it, right?”

“Yeah,” Lucas speaks up, sounding unsure, “I heard a baby.”

Mike’s face twists, “What?”

“It’s just tapped into another signal. The Squawk or a baby monitor or something,” Jennifer agrees with him, just as unsure what Mike is suggesting, “The Blackburns next door, maybe?”

“Uh, did that sound like a baby to you?” Mike scoffs.

Dustin looks around, meeting eyes with Lucas who has moved to her side now and shrugging.

Mike huffs, catching the look between them and throwing his arms out irritably, “That was Will!”

There is silence beside the static. Jennifer closes her eyes for a despairing beat, unsure how to approach this.

He is taking this hard. They all must be.

She folds her arms, teeth sucking her lower lip in consideration of her next words, not wanting a fight, “Mike…”

He feels her disbelief, screeching quickly to stop her, “No, you don’t understand! He spoke last night! With words!”

“What did he say?” Dustin asks, curious despite his own disbelief. Jennifer wants to glare at him for encouraging it, but her heart starts to pound.

“He didn’t, he was singing,” Mike rattles, “That weird song he loves.”

Jennifer knows it, that song from The Clash that Jonathan was quick to turn off in the car.

“El heard him!”

She picks up on the nickname. He's growing fond.

“Oh, well, if the weirdo heard him, then I guess-”

“Lucas,” she quietly berates, not disagreeing with his sentiment but the venom in which he spat it at the girl looking nervously between them. She can’t handle another argument with them, not now. It’s not what any of them need with everything that has happened.

“Are you sure you’re on the right channel?” Dustin asks over her.

“I don’t think it’s about that,” Mike ponders, encouraged by his friend’s curiosity and gratefully not rising to the other’s ridicule, “I think somehow she’s channelling him.”

All look to El, her turning back to the radio to fiddle with the receiver again.

Dustin’s eyes widen, excitably, “Like… Professor X?”

“Yeah!”

“Are you actually believing this crap?” Lucas turns his spite to Dustin now, narrowing his eyes.

“I don’t know,” Dustin shrinks under his glare, “I mean… she did close that door.”

Ah, yes. The super-powers. Jennifer stays quiet, though feels a familiar irritation under her skin at the fabrication.

It had to have been the drink, or the stress, or her mind playing tricks on her after days of too little sleep and too much fear. She shakes her head a little, trying to dispel the memory.

Maybe it was desperation - wanting to believe something impossible can explain all the awfulness swallowing her. Something to stop her life tearing apart entirely. Her mind unravelling under the weight of everything.

“And… Do you remember when Will fell off his bike and broke his finger?” Dustin also raises.

Jennifer does. The boys were racing down Maple, she was timing them with her watch from where she sat on a fallen log. This was a year or so before she got her license, so sat with him as the boys cycled to the Byers’ for help. She wrapped the twisted finger best she could in her scarf while they waited, trying to distract him with stories until Joyce eventually appeared to pick him up in the car and take him to Hawkins Memorial.

She felt terrible, responsible. Jennifer was barely able to look the woman in the eye for weeks after. Not until Joyce caught her scampering away from their porch after delivering the Post one morning, returning her scarf and thanking her for her help.

Will never blamed her either. He was only concerned with when he would be able to draw again, and was able to pick up a crayon within two months.

But she remembers how he cried. And cried! No matter how she tried to distract him from it. An awful, whimpering that struck her nerves. A sound just like-

“He sounded a lot like that!” Dustin finishes her thought.

“Did you guys not see what I saw?” Lucas spits, stepping from around her before she can think more on it. His voice cracks, remembering the night before at the quarry, “They pulled Will’s body out of the water. He’s dead!”

The room stills again, all of them lost in the bluntness of the truth…

Except for one. Unwilling to believe.

Mike shakes his head, frustratedly cursing - Jennifer doesn’t have the stomach to scold him for it.

Instead, she sits herself on the staircase. Legs shaking, trying to avoid the eyes of the girl looking over at her from the couch.

“Well,” Dustin stammers, trying to rationalise it all, “Maybe it’s his ghost. Maybe he- he’s haunting us!”

“It’s not his ghost,” Mike insists, disappointedly.

“How do you know that?” Lucas drawls, with a disbelieving huff.

“I just do!”

Jennifer brings her hand to her head, dizzied by their bickering.

She would be a hypocrite to tell them what to do about grieving, as if she knows. How can she help them to process this and face up to it, when she also has so much to face up to?

“Then what was in the water?”

“I don’t know!”

Lucas hums, point supposedly proven. But Mike refuses to relent.

“All I know is Will is alive. Will is alive!”

Lucas quietens now, disturbed. He looks over his shoulder helplessly to Jenny, who has her eyes closed, pinched tight shut with her hands in her hair.

“He’s out there somewhere!” Mike continues, stubborn. He then simply states, “All we have to do is find him.”

“No.”

The other boys turn to her too, Jennifer’s eyes now open and glaring back. Hands fallen to her knees.

“But-!”

“No.”

Mike stands still, jaw slack as she cuts him off, glare deepening.

“You’re not going back out there.”

He doesn’t interrupt this time, unnerved by the grave expression. She takes a deep breath and tries.

“I understand this is a lot. It has all been a lot,” she starts, trying to soften but sickened by the echo of Hopper’s words to her last week in her trailer, “But you need to stop. Give yourselves time to-”

“We don’t have time-”

“Michael-!”

The radio buzzes to life.

A familiar tune begins to crackle through the static. A small, familiar voice haunting the lyrics-

You’ve got to let me know-

Their heads snap to the walkie in Eleven’s lap.

Should I stay or should I go?

The boys step closer to the couch, drawn in. Jennifer slowly rises from the step in disbelief, hand gripping tight to the bannister to stabilise herself.

The singing goes as quickly as it came. But she heard it. Clear despite the crackling it cut through.

She hopes she has dreamed it. It would be easier if she dreamed it.

But seeing the slack on the boys’ faces too, she considers the impossible possibility…

Will?

“I heard it,” Dustin gasps, finally answering Mike’s question from minutes ago. Lucas, despite his earlier adamance, nods slowly too.

El looks up and back at her, face straight. Dark eyes, not scared, but sure. Willing her to believe it.

Jennifer has to look away, her stomach twisting with suspicion, but catches Mike’s eye instead. He looks back with a stubbornly raised brow, challenging her to continue skepticizing.

She can’t admit it. Not to him or herself.

But she definitely can’t deny it either.

“Do it again!” Dustin pleads with El. The girl shakes her head.

“It won’t work like that,” Mike explains for her, turning from Jennifer. He casually disregards her outburst from moments ago, knowing she now has the proof - just needs the push to believe it, “We need to get El to a stronger radio.”

Dustin’s eyes grow twice the size, excitably, “Mr Clarke’s Heathkit ham shack!”

“Yeah!” Mike grins, just as eager.

“The Heathkit’s at school. There’s no way we’re gonna get the weirdo in there without noticing,” Lucas, shaking off his nerves, rolls his eyes. He gestures to her, sitting in the sweats on the couch with her buzzed hair and big eyes, “I mean, look at her.”

They all do.

She blinks back.

Jennifer’s head whirls as they meet eyes again. Everything she tried to deny floods back with sharp flashes; the static, the singing, the body at the quarry, the tattoo on her arm - it can't be possible. It just can’t.

A dream. Desperation. Drink.

And yet…

The door did close.

She hears Lucas calling after her as she turns for the stairs, not looking back at him as she runs away.

_

Jennifer finds herself upstairs, having run to the bathroom, scared of her cursing stomach. After a few minutes waiting, a now-familiar ache in her neck as she hangs over the toilet and wills herself to be sick. To be rid of this unease. But nothing is coming, she surrenders to it. 

Washing her hands and taking a breath, she wonders what she is going to say when she goes back downstairs to the kids.

Does she tell them she doesn’t believe them? That they need to stop believing it themselves?

Would she be lying if she did so?

She just doesn’t know.

Slowly approaching the landing, Jennifer sits herself on the top stair. Just to have a moment. To decide whether she even wants to go back down there to that impossible basement. Her elbows dig into her knees as her hands come to wipe at her face, still slightly damp and cool from the faucett. 

Eleven’s small face flashes into her mind. Those dark, wide eyes. So much behind them, unable to be said.

Super-powers, Dustin said.

And perhaps he was right. She wasn’t drunk. She wasn’t seeing things. Eleven really did close that door with her mind. And if she can do that… what else is possible?

Maybe Joyce really has been talking to her son through the lights. He’s not gone, just lost. 

She wanted to believe it before, so why shouldn’t she?

It shouldn’t be possible, none of it. Yet, if there is a chance that it is, should they not take it?

If Will isn’t dead, then perhaps the rest is also a lie. Maybe, just maybe, Benny too?

And if there is even the slightest chance of getting her uncle back, she has to take it. Right?

The answers she has been searching for could really be here, sitting with that girl in the basement. More so than she thought before. Not just for Benny, but Will. Barb too, even!

Jennifer’s eyes drift to the second door to the left. Nancy’s bedroom.

Jennifer stands from the stair, walking over and slowly peels the door open. She isn’t expecting Nancy to be in there, the girl likely at school. The room is empty as she slowly peels open the door. She shuffles inside, looking around at the pinks and frills. The soft pastel walls, floral blankets, vanity lined with perfumes and neatly organised makeup.

Glancing beyond the mirror, taunting polaroids of Nancy and Barb smiling together are taped to the frame. Teen magazine clippings pinned to the board above it, schoolbooks and colour-coded notes piled below.

Jennifer looks past the desk to the wardrobe. 

And she has an idea.

_

“Where’s Gary?” Hopper asks at the coroner’s office, sitting in one of the reception chairs.

“Well, I thought you knew,” the receptionist says over the desk, “Those men from the state, they sent Gary home last night.”

“So who did the autopsy?”

“Someone from state,” the lady shrugs.

Hopper hums, unnerved.

Before he can think of it any longer, Jonathan Byers comes rushing out of the hall. He runs a hand through his hair, quickly ridding himself of his thick jacket and throwing it to the back of the chair before falling into it. The Byers boy, now sitting a seat away from him, huffs deeply, chest rising and falling rapidly as he tries to handle the sight he just saw.

His little brother’s body.

The Chief is unsure what to say, if he even should speak at all. He sits looking at the carpet, unmoving to not disturb the boy from his attempt at calming down. When he has settled more slightly, sinking back into the uncomfortable chair, Hopper turns to glance at him.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, wincing as Jonathan does, clearly not having noticed the man in the room witnessing his distress.

Jonathan then frowns, confused. Hopper goes on to explain, “For taking Jennifer the other day.”

The boy shifts, shrugging and folding his hands in his lap, “Uh, yeah. No problem.”

“I appreciate you looking out for her,” Hopper nods.

“She’d do the same for me,” Jonathan shrugs again, then corrects himself, “Does.”

Hopper nods, relieved and sure of it.

“Have you talked to her yet?” 

Jonathan shakes his head, “She’s got enough going on.”

He worries though, thinking of the weekend. He upset her with the photographs and hadn’t yet found the way to apologise before… well, before.

“I’m sure she just wants to give you guys space,” Hopper offers, seeing the disappointed twist of the boy’s lips.

“Yeah, I know,” he nods, eyes to the floor.

Hopper thinks he should call the girl, check in. He hasn’t been able to stop by since yesterday. He is sure she has her questions about it all, and he hopes he can give her some answers. About Will now, at least. Everything has been so… There has been a lot going on. He’s been busy.

“How’s your mom doing?” he then asks, unsure if he should but, after practice with the Hammond girl, finding it easier to get people out of their heads by asking them about others rather than themselves.

Jonathan sits forward, hands still twisting nervously. He sighs, deeply, “I don’t know.”

“How long has this stuff been going on? With the lights and, uh…” he hesitates saying any of it, not wanting to hear how it sounds, “Will and the thing in the wall?”

“Since the first phone call, I guess,” Jonathan answers, shaking his head. It is clear he doesn’t quite believe his mother, even if he wants to. Hopper is disappointed that he feels he immediately has to defend his mother to him, “You know, she’s had anxiety problems… in the past.”

Hopper nods, wishing the kid didn’t have that instinct to do so. He doesn't need to, not with him.

“She’ll be okay. We’ll be okay,” he assures, more to himself it seems, “My mom, she’s tough.”

Another thing he doesn’t need to say, Hopper already knows, “Yeah, she is.”

_

“I’ll drive you to the school, you get her to the Hamshack,” Jennifer instructs the three boys who listen intently as they wait outside the bathroom.

They nod, Mike the most eager. He had glared as she came back down to the basement, standing quickly from the floor ready for another fight.

Though, as she looked between them and then to El, holding up a pink dress and shoes for her to wear, his face split into a relieved grin.

Jennifer had spent a few minutes rifling through Nancy’s wardrobe, trying to find something small enough for the girl. She eventually found an old tatty thing she is sure Nancy won’t remember owning, most of her clothes noticeably replaced with lace-bowed and frill-cuffed things she thinks will impress Harrington. Though, Jennifer is sure of the irony that he is more concerned with what is underneath her clothes than anything else. Ass.

Lucas, who had shaken his head at her but seems to be participating in the plan anyway, obviously curious, remembered the old dress up kit from when they used to join in campaigns, and found a suitable blonde wig. Jennifer combed through it as Mike led Eleven to the window in the hall, using the outside light to attempt some makeup he found in his mother’s room. She chuckled to herself watching him fumble with the brushes, lightly dabbing rouge onto the girl’s cheeks, whose own blush at his closeness overpowered it anyway.

Handing it all to El, and keeping the bathroom door open by close to three inches so as not to scare her, they now wait in the hall for her to finish changing.

“What are you going to do?” Dustin asks her as they wait.

“Find Nancy.”

“Wait- what?” Mike splutters.

“She can help,” Jennifer shrugs, assured of her plan.

“How?!”

Before she can explain herself, the bathroom door opens - revealing Eleven in her blonde wig and pink dress.

They all stare, Jennifer amused by Mike’s wide eyes and slack jaw.

“Wow,” Dustin smiles, “She looks-”

“Pretty.”

The other two boys share a look, smiles splitting their faces at Mike’s compliment.

“Good,” Mike catches himself, hearing their sniggers behind him, shrugging in an attempt at cool, “Pretty good.”

Eleven brushes past him, moving to the mirror by the stairs. Jennifer goes with her, standing just behind and watching as her eyes gaze over herself. Jennifer tries to resist but finds herself doing the same, taking in her tired eyes, knotted hair and baggy, tattered sweatshirt. She wishes she had pretty dresses.

“Pretty,” Eleven repeats, “Good.”

Jennifer nods, smiling kindly at her as she meets her eye in the reflection, “Pretty good.”

She then turns to the boys, chest puffing, “This could actually work.”

_

“Meet you back out here in an hour,” Jennifer instructs as she shuts the driver’s door behind her and the kids climb out, “Remember, don’t draw attention.”

They nod, running away towards the middle school. Mike lingers and gestures with his head for El to follow. The girl in the blonde wig turns nervously to her. Jennifer nods encouragingly, watching as she runs off beside Mike across the yard. She takes a breath and heads for the High herself, desperate to find Nancy.

Over the drive, Jennifer has thought back and forth over telling the Wheeler girl everything that is going on. But her resolve came considering that if there is a chance for Will, perhaps there is for Barb too. Nancy will want to know, want to help. And Jennifer is unsure she can carry all this alone.

Hurrying through the halls, the bell having sounded for third period, Jennifer finds her Geography classroom that she would usually share with Nancy on Friday mornings. Relieved to see her removing her bag from her shoulder and taking out her books on her preferred desk in the third row by the window, Jennifer manoeuvres quickly around other students and the desks to get to her.

“Nancy-”

“Oh, Jennifer, hey,” she greets, a smile not quite reaching her eyes.

“I need to tell you-” Jennifer breathes out as she reaches her desk, but Mr Hooley walks in and bellows for them to get settled for the class. She sighs, muttering, “Lunchtime. We need to talk.”

“Oh, uh, sure,” Nancy stammers, frowning curiously at Jennifer as she passes her to sit in her own usual desk behind her. She hasn’t seen her all day, not before first period Chemistry by their lockers or in the halls. It wasn’t surprising, the news about Will having spread around town from the television and talk. Just as with Jonathan Byers and her brother, Nancy had expected her to take the day off at least.

It would give time for her to plan what she would say to Jennifer the next time she saw her, Nancy had hoped. After yesterday evening, with Steve and the incident at the Hawk. That must be what she wants to talk to her about.

Nancy has yet to speak to Steve about it, even. Unsure how she feels about the display. He was defending her, sure. Jonathan was wrong to take those photos. She feels violated and embarrassed and, yet, she just doesn’t know.

As Mr Hooley begins to read from where they left off in the textbook, Nancy struggling to read along as her mind wanders to whatever the girl seems so eager to discuss with her, one of the school’s office administrator’s knocks on the door. Mr Hooley pauses at the interruption, as does the entire class, whose eyes turn to her as her name is called, “If you’ll come with me, please.”

Nancy stares back for a moment, confused, before beginning to gather her books and belongings to follow. The woman’s eyes travel behind her to Jennifer at the back desk, “Oh, you’re here? You too, then, Jennifer.”

She hears the girl behind her shift back in the chair, realising now she doesn’t have her book or even bag with her to pack up. The girls share a look as they walk out the room, eyes following them until the door closes.

_

Jennifer is sitting on a bench in the hallway just outside the canteen ten minutes later. She wonders why they have been called out of class, watching as the time ticks by on the clock above the hall door. Nancy beside her fiddles with the small watch on her wrist, also nervous as to why.

This could be her chance to tell her, tell Nancy all she wants to. But the office administrator that called them out stands nearby, also waiting for whomever they are waiting for.

Someone begins to walk toward them, Jennifer sitting up in her chair - but deflating as she sees Officers Powell and Callaghan strutting their way.

Nancy looks to her at her responding huff, then sees the officers herself as they move to stand in front of where they sit. Callaghan looks down at them, a small almost excited smirk on his face.

“Miss Wheeler, you’re up first,” he states, jerking his thumb in the direction of the canteen.

“What is this even about?” Jennifer frowns.

Nancy sits forward, “Is this about Barb-?”

“Your mother’s waiting, c’mon,” Callaghan exaggeratedly waves her along, tapping an expectant foot on the hall floor. Nancy straightens, surprised her mother has been called.

“Shouldn’t I have someone with me? A guardian or something?” Jennifer challenges as Nancy walks away with Powell, sending one last nervous look over her shoulder before she goes.

Callaghan chuckles, “Not like you have one of those, is it, little lady?”

Her jaw hangs open, offended at his apparent amusement.

“Take a seat,” Jennifer hears the office administrator instruct someone, who sits beside her on the bench, But her focus remains on Callaghan and his indecency, unwilling to react in any way that could amuse him further.

Keeping her face void, gripping tight to the edge of the bench, she bites back, “Well, where’s Hopper?”

Jennifer supposes he is the closest thing to a guardian she has now. She has barely seen him. Not that she expected anything else, he likely has much more important things to do, places to be and people to see than her.

“Busy,” is the blunt response.

She leans back against the wall, disappointedly rolling her eyes.

Callaghan points a warning finger at her attitude, flicking his gaze between her and the other stranger beside her, “Don’t go anywhere.”

He saunters away and slams the canteen doors behind him.

Now glancing at whoever has been called to wait alongside her, Jennifer’s stomach drops to see Steve Harrington staring back at her.

She immediately shifts herself over, putting as much space between them as possible before she feels herself toppling over the opposite edge. Jennifer fixedly looks back at the clock, trying to ignore him staring at the side of her face, burning her cheek.

It is the first time she has seen him since Saturday. She had hoped it would be longer, giving her time to prepare herself. From hitting him or something. Or spitting some words that would sting just as much. Jennifer quickly wracks her brain for anything to say, trying to think of what he might throw her way to quickly counter it. She falls short.

Though, by the tense silence that has settled between them, it seems he is just as unsure what to say to her.

That, or he has forgotten about the incident entirely as he instead asks, “What, uh… What is this about?”

Jennifer tries to ignore him still, but feels his eyes burn harder on the side of her face. She breathes heavily, wanting him to stop. She doesn’t turn as she answers, shortly, “Barb, I think.”

She wonders if he will ask who that even is, unsurprised if he has forgotten.

Instead, he nods in the corner of her eye and finally turns away. He then takes sudden interest in the lace of his sneaker, ankle crossed over his knee.

Steve didn’t know why he was pulled from class. He was woken by a nudge on the arm from the student next to him in History, all eyes watching as he followed the administrator out of Click’s class. The office said they were trying to get in contact with his parents, calling their offices - to which he bit back a bitter “good luck with that” - and that the police department were here to talk with him.

He was relieved not to see Hopper in the hall, the Chief always having intimidated him. His gruff tone is a shuddering memory of long ago; when he was caught trying to sneak peanut Boppers in his pockets when he was twelve, his mother dragged him to the station to get a good talking to and scare him from ever doing so again. Though, his nerves did spike when he was told to sit beside her; Anderson.

Steve hasn’t seen her since the Hawk. He is surprised to see her here today, thinking she would be at home or with Byers.

He saw it on the news during breakfast, about his brother. Seems the whole town is shaken by it. Even Tommy and Carol have spared their usual jokes so far. Steve is quietly relieved by that, finding himself surprisingly moved himself - perhaps unnerved that his mother actually kissed him on the cheek goodbye this morning as he left for school.

He wonders if he should say something to her, but decides against it.

Steve does watch her though, out of the corner of his eye. The way she fidgets with her fingers, tugging at the hems of her sleeves. Her eyes flit from the floor to the clock on the wall, as if hoping it will have moved more in the time she has looked away and back again. She sighs, rugged.

“Somewhere better to be?” he quips with what he thought would be an easy smirk, wincing as he hears himself.

Jennifer stills, refusing to turn to him. She won’t give him the satisfaction of a glare. To fuel his mockery.

She does, actually, have somewhere else she should be. Four preteens could be waiting for her in the parking lot. One of them is using her magic mind powers to contact their friend everyone thinks is dead but is actually hiding from a monster in a parallel dimension.

She doesn’t tell Harrington that. Or anything at all, choosing to continue ignoring him.

It proves harder than she hopes as she hears him exhale, sitting forward. His knee has started to bounce, she can feel it rattling the bench. He runs a hand through his hair. Harrington does that when he is stressed, always has. Even before he took so much pride in it.

Jennifer can barely stand it, his nerves taunting her own. She is about to hiss at him to stop, the jolting of the bench doing the same to her already sick stomach - when he stops himself.

She turns, regrettably, at his stillness. He stares ahead at the lockers. A hand has caught in his hair, then glides down his face as he sits forward.

“Shit,” he mutters.

“What?” Jennifer accidentally asks, unnerved by his sudden seriousness.

“This is bad,” he mumbles behind his hand now covering his mouth, not quite even realising she has spoken to him, “This is really bad.”

Jennifer bites her tongue from asking again, watching him sit straight and breathe out. She flattens her face as he looks at her, twisting his upper body in desperate sincerity.

“When you, uh,” he swallows, seeing her looking back confusedly curious, “When you talk to the cops, don’t mention the beers, OK?”

Steve watches her face fall as he adds, “Or the whisky.”

His own face falls as she scoffs, a frustratingly familiar sneer darkening her features. She tries to push further away from him on the bench. Unable to recoil any further in disgust without slipping off, she pushes herself to stand. He watches her feebly.

“I- I know you took it and I’m not mad, alright? Dad barely noticed but don’t-”

Jennifer shakes her head, then quickly pushes from the bench to head down the hall, needing to get away from him.

“Where are you going?” Harrington calls, mouth opening wide in surprise by her reaction to whatever he said wrong, “The cops said not to go anywhere-!”

“I don’t care!” he falters as she whips back around to yell at him, “I don’t care about the cops! Or the beers! Or any of it! I don’t give a fuck!”

Steve stutters, trying not to wilt under her fury. But he finds himself pushing back into the wall as she stalks a few steps closer again, gesturing wildly with her hands as she continues to burst, “My uncle is dead! Killed! A boy is missing and your girlfriend’s best friend just disappeared from your own back yard! And you- you-!”

She chokes, feeling herself ache as if about to cry. It rumbles in her chest as she staggers back a little. She refuses to. Not in front of him. Jennifer will never cry in front of Steve Harrington.

Harrington just stares back at her, confused by the inconsistencies of her outpour but too disturbed by it to call her out. It sickens him that she is looking at him like that again. Like she did at the Hawk. And all the times they cross paths in the halls. Not just anger like the girls that wanted more of him than he could give. Or envy like those wanting what they think he has. But in some way different. Wanting something from him he can’t work out.

And it frustrates him. Not knowing why she hates him the way he sees she does.

He leans forward, own muddled irritation rising to meet hers, “You don’t get it, alright? My dad’s a grade-A asshole.”

“Right,” she seethes, though quietly now, “There’s where you get it from.”

His mouth now closes, a firm straight line. To both her relief and irritation, he has nothing to say back.

Red hot haze clearing with the focus of keeping it back, she sees something close to guilt gleam in his eye. She doubts it, though. And it grows too slowly for her liking, not standing around long enough to catch it or figure it out.

Jennifer moves as if to walk away again, to leave him in the hall behind her - when the canteen doors suddenly slam open at the other end of the corridor.

Nancy comes storming towards them, her bag almost dragging along the floor in her hurry. Karen in tow, tucking her handbag under her shoulder as she scurries to keep up with her daughter’s pace. The two hurry past with barely a glance at either of them, Harrington sliding back on the bench and lowering his eyes to avoid the quick, inquisitive look Mrs Wheeler sends his way. As they pass Jennifer, who stands still by the lockers, she catches a glimpse of Nancy’s wet, red eyes through the hair fallen into her face.

“Anderson,” Powell calls from the canteen doorway. Both she and Harrington turn from the door closing behind the Wheelers to the officer, who raises an unimpressed brow at her standing, recognising her defiance of instruction and attempting to leave, “You’re up.”

She sighs, sending one more wistful glance back to the swinging door leading to the parking lot they disappeared through and wishing she could do the same, before shuffling her feet over to him.

Jennifer can feel Harrington stare up at her as she passes. She lifts her head to risk meeting his eye, unwilling to know if he is looking at her pleadingly or perturbed.

Powell closes the door behind them, Jennifer taking the offered seat opposite himself and Callaghan at one of the dining tables. They only sit and look at her for a while.

She rolls her eyes impatiently, leaning her folded arms onto the table, “So…?”

“So,” Powell drawls, unamused by her mocking prompt. He mirrors her, joining his hands and resting them out in front of him on the table, “You were friends with Barbara Holland? Were you close?”

“We are friends, yeah,” she corrects, disliking his use of past tense. Her eyes flicker to Callaghan who is scribbling something onto his notepad, pulling it closer to himself when he catches her looking. She frowns, unsure what he could possibly have to write down yet. Some worthless intimidation techniques from the academy, she is sure.

Powell continues, “And you attended the party at the Harrington residence on Thursday night, yes?”

She sighs, regrettably, “I did.”

“Nancy Wheeler says Barbara drove you there.”

Jennifer frowns slightly, unsure if that is a question. She tries to recall the night, disappointed to find it still floating in a drunken haze, “She did, parked her car on the corner of South Drive and Harper Lane. It’s probably still there, have you-”

“There’s no car.”

Her stomach drops, “What?”

“No car has been recovered,” Powell repeats, a slight lilt to his voice that suggests he thinks they are being untruthful.

Jennifer shakes her head, growing uncertain of her recollection of the night, “But, that’s not-”

“Ms Wheeler says her and Barbara had an argument,” Powell moves on, “Did you witness the altercation?”

“Barb cut her finger, but they didn’t argue much about that.”

“This would’ve been later in the evening. After Nancy and the others fell in the pool,” Powell prompts.

She doesn’t remember that, “I must have left by then.”

“Why did you leave?”

Jennifer hesitates, not wanting to share the truth.

“Because of the boy?” she looks up to Callaghan, who answers before she can think of a life, his chest puffed as if he has cracked the case, “You were jealous.”

“What?” Jennifer scoffs, genuinely lost at the assumption.

“Of Nancy and the Harrington kid,” he looks at his notes then back to her, “Steve.”

She feels like the air has been sucked from the room, winded by such a wild accusation. Her mouth hangs open, shocked.

They look at her, waiting for confirmation of the claim.

“No- no,” she stammers, feeling her face heat, “No!”

Callaghan hums, clearly disbelieving, frustratingly turning to scribble on his pad. It seems he has mistaken her infuriated flush as an immature blush and gotten the wrong idea.

“No, that’s not…” she continues to try to insist, though is sure the more she hears herself the less convinced they are. She bites her tongue, “That has nothing to do with Barb-”

“Did she like him too?” Jen stutters, outraged as Callaghan continues theorising, “Perhaps she ran too. Saw Nancy go to his room and-”

“No, she’s not like that,” she breathes, shaking. Her arms untangle, palms pressed to the table willing them to listen, “That’s not what would have happened-”

“How did you get home?”

“Uh,” Jennifer drops her arms as embarrassment overpowers her anger. Her fingers return to twisting in the hems of her sleeves, “I walked.”

The officers eye her curiously, noting the twitch of her eye as she understates her journey home that night. Callaghan has stopped his scribbling to look disbelievingly at her. 

“Our colleague Officer Daniels says you ran,” he smirks slightly, Jen baulking at the thought they likely laughed at her expense, “What were you running from?”

“My troubles,” she bites, glaring at the younger officer and his apparent amusement. She hears Powell hum, sending a disapproving look to his colleague beside him, Callaghan’s face falling as he catches it. He turns back to his notepad.

Jennifer’s own scowl drops, recalling Hopper asking the same question of her the following morning. She couldn’t answer him, and didn't want to. It would sound insane, untrue.

But her friend is missing.

And these cops already think so little of her. A poor, guardian-less child. The daughter of ‘Margarita Margaret’ no less - as Callaghan enjoyed taunting last week.

This bickering won’t help Barb. Or Will.

With Hopper busy, these two may be the best chance she has at getting help.

And so, she tries to explain herself, as best she can without telling them, well, anything, “I don’t know what it was.”

The officers wait for her to continue, “I heard something. In the woods.”

“Like an animal?”

“I don’t know-”

“A bear,” Callaghan interrupts, answering before she can try to describe it, “Nancy Wheeler says she saw the same by the back of the Harrington house the next morning.”

“Nancy saw a bear?” Jennifer sits up, curious.

“Well, she said either that or some guy in a mask or something-”

Powell glares at his colleague, shutting him up.

Jennifer wishes she could remember what she saw. She only remembers the dark. 

But the sound of it. The growl…

“Then- then you should go to the yard and-”

“We did,” Callaghan grimaces, shaking his head at her, “There’s nothing there. No sign of a bear.”

Jennifer barely hears him as she thinks back to what Mike said El told him. That Will was hiding. A monster.

Could that have been what Nancy saw? What she had heard? What chased her home?

The Demogorgon.

“Were you drinking?” Callaghan then questions.

Jennifer shudders, distracted from her thinking of what could be out there. Of piecing it all together.

She looks up, seeing them both staring expectantly for an answer. She hesitates, knowing the truth will undermine anything she has to say.

Then, somehow amongst all other thoughts running through her head, she disappointedly thinks of Harrington in the hall. His warning about his dad. The way he sincerely pleaded.

But she doesn’t care, answering only for herself, “No.”

Callaghan’s eyebrows raise over the frames of his glasses, smirking again, unconvinced, “C’mon-”

“Is there anything you would like to share with us that could be helpful in finding Ms Holland?” Powell relievedly cuts off whatever cruel remark he had planned. Jennifer sinks in the seat, looking embarrassedly to her hands in her lap. Her fingers are trembling, discouraged by their bullshit theories and lack of evidence. The insinuation that she hasn’t offered anything useful.

There is more she could say. More she would want to if they were willing to listen. Actually listen to her.

But they won’t. They aren’t.

How would she say it anyway?

Before she can consider it, Callaghan pipes up again, pressing the pen down to his paper and looking right at her, “I do have a question.”

She waits for him to ask it.

His face wrinkles, something close to disgust, “Your uncle just killed himself and you go to a party?”

Powell opens his mouth to cut in again, lifting a hand to stop him from crossing further over the line - but the girl is already standing, pushing herself from the table so forcefully it shakes their seats.

“We’re done here,” she spits before turning away, venom straining every syllable.

“You don’t get to decide that, little lady,” Callaghan patronises. Powell sighs.

Jennifer whips back to them before she reaches the door, cheeks hot and glare hotter, “Yes! I do! You are interviewing a minor without a guardian present. This is voluntary. I am not under arrest. I have every right to walk out that door.”

The two men only stare back, bewildered by her fierceness. She breathes hard, chest heaving.

“We are done,” her voice lowers, a clear statement before heading out the doors.

Steve has been sitting and waiting, his parents yet to show - unsurprisingly. Glancing at the clock, he has been ticking down the twenty minutes since Anderson was taken in. He has spent the time rehearsing his answers over and over in his head to best keep clear of the alcohol - and his dad’s fury. Though, he is sure if the calls have managed to get through to his office, his dad will be mad enough at his valuable time being wasted. Steve might be better off getting arrested, he might be in less trouble there.

He startles at the sound of the doors slamming open again, this time Jennifer hurrying down the halls.

She avoids him as she passes, swerving as he sits forward and keeping her dark eye trained on the doors on the other end. The two officers are not far behind her, shouting her name as she quickens her step to get away from them.

Her hand reaches for the door as they catch up to her, Jennifer struggling to keep control of her breathing as Powell’s hand clamps onto her shoulder. She shrugs him off, only to feel Callaghan close in behind her, grasping her arms in his hands and twisting. She exclaims, loudly.

The noise of the struggle calls the attention of students and staff in nearby classrooms and offices. They stand from their desks, peering out the doors to watch as she yells at them to “let go!”

Steve stands, shocked by their force and her distress, quietly murmuring “woah, hey” but not with enough force to be heard.

“Get off me!” Jennifer struggles, seething through grit teeth. She tries to wriggle out of his tight hold, but stills when feeling a cool metal latching around her wrists.

“If you won’t talk here,” Callaghan snides from behind her as he secures the handcuffs, “we can talk at the station.”

Jennifer’s throat dries, looking beyond Powell - who seems to watch the exchange with an air of regret - to the crowd gathering in the hall. The attention on her. The laughs and leers.

Perkins, of course, has her hands over her mouth as she cackles at the sight, turning to taunt with the girls around her. Hagan is howling, harder than usual as he calls for more of his classmates to leave their desks and watch. Other students whisper, one waving a cruel goodbye to her as they start to tug at her wrists.

Beyond them, still by the bench further down the hall, is Harrington. He is standing now, hand on his hip and other in his hair. They lock eyes as she is pulled away to the doors. She sees something; in the set of his jaw and twist of his mouth. Something from a long time ago. A no-longer familiar concern.

Her nerves simmer at the sight of it, limbs falling limp as Callaghan pushes at her shoulder to move away. She doesn’t resist, fight now gone, and relieved to turn her back to it.

Steve drops his other hand to his hip as Hagan runs over to him, grinning wildly as other students jeer her exit, “Boy, wish you hadn’t broken the freak’s camera now, huh? What a picture!”

He stays quiet.

_

“It’s like home, but it’s so dark,” Will’s voice cries through the static, “It’s so dark and empty and it’s so cold!”

The three boys listen intently, as scared as he sounds. Dustin shares a worried glance with Lucas who then turns to Mike. He is watching El, her eyes closed and concentrating. A trickle of blood has seeped from her nose.

“Mom! Mom!” Will screeches, “Mom, please!”

Then, a growl. A rattling, curdling growl shakes the Heathkit.

The boys cower at the echo of it, then jump back alarmed as the set begins to spark. The fuse blows, small flames erupting from the back of the machine.

Will is gone.

El’s eyes snap open, pulled back in the seat by Mike. Dustin acts quickly, running to the extinguisher and ripping it from the wall. They cover their faces as the foam sprays, the fire alarm now drilling above them.

“We’ve got to go,” Lucas says, heart pumping fast at all they just heard.

Mike leans down to the girl in the chair, “El, you OK? Can you move?”

El shivers, swaying in her seat. The blood now gushes from her nose, pooling on her upper lip and running over her teeth. Her eyes flutter, closing.

“Help her up,” Mike shouts, Lucas joining him in taking her under the arms and from the chair - straightening the wig on her head that almost topples off and exposes her.

However, as they reach the edge of the lot, they see the cop car. And Jennifer being sat in the back of it, handcuffed.

They pull her from the room, Dustin closing the door behind them to hide their mess before running down the halls. El’s feet drag as they haul her, kicking open the school doors and rushing to the High parking lot.

“Get to the car!” Mike instructs, willing them faster forward across the yard.

Mike, with El’s arm tight around his neck and leaning heavily into his side, sighs, “Shit.”

next chapter

She startles, eyes snapping open, surprised to see Jonathan standing by her. He shuffles, awkwardly flexing his grip on the strap of his backpack as she looks him over, still frowning, “Jon? You’re here?”

“Uh, yeah,” he mumbles, shrugging slightly.

Jennifer pushes herself from the wall as he ducks his head, “I tried looking for you today at recess.”

“Yeah, I was, uh, in the darkroom.”

He doesn’t give her much more than that, but sees his camera strapped around his neck, dangling against his chest. She nods, understanding why he would want to hide away, having the perfect spot to do so.

She scuffs her battered sneaker against the cement, letting her hair fall around her face as she looks down to it, “So, you heard?”

“About Barbara?” he nods, chest puffing with a deep, bothered inhale, “Yeah, I heard.”

Jonathan lets it settle between them, waiting for her response to it. But Jennifer doesn’t say any more. Just keeps her gaze trained on her shoes, hands finding the pockets of her jacket and curling into them.

“That’s why I’m- well, the Chief asked me to drive you back,” he says, Jennifer glancing up slightly - still not quite meeting his eye but her lip twisting surprised.

Jonathan looks past her shoulder, prompting, to the lot where his car is parked. She follows his gaze, then turns back to nod.

“Uh, yeah,” Jennifer shakes off her surprise, quietly complying, “It is getting dark pretty quick.”

_

She wonders why Hopper asked him to do this, having apparently pulled Jon to one side after the assembly to propose the favour. But she finds herself relieved regardless; to be putting the school behind them, to not be walking the hour home in the cold, to not pass by the woods alone. It might not be monsters like the boys suggest, but something about the trees unnerve her after last night as she watches them blur past. That noise. 

Jennifer is also grateful to not be paraded around in his truck like this morning, fuelling any more rumours than she already has been burdened with. Maybe Hopper noticed her hurry to get away from him this morning and knows that is why. He seems to notice things about her. Frustratingly.

With a glance to the boy behind the wheel beside her, Jennifer also considers the Chief may have suggested this as much for Jon’s benefit too. He looks just as tired, as out of it, as she feels. Dark, hollow eyes fixed on the winding road ahead as downtown begins to roll in.

The car is silent, no radio playing this time. She wonders if Jonathan leaves it shut off on purpose, fearing the risk of hearing that The Clash song again; the one that makes him think of his brother. Or that they will hear the breaking bulletins about Barb or Benny or his brother or any other bullshit that will unsettle them both.

“How are you?” she asks, cutting through the heavy space, unable to sit in it any longer.

He just shrugs. Jennifer is unsure what else she expected. That dreaded, useless question tumbling out of her before she could stop it.

“And you?” he returns after a moment.

She shrugs too.

That’s that for another while, until they pull into Bradley’s Big Buy parking lot. She asked him if they could swing by so she could pick up ‘a few groceries’. Not that she has any care to eat. Or cash.

He obliged, nodding quietly, neither needing or wanting to rush back to empty homes.

As they park up, Jonathan shutting the engine off, she expects him to move. To reach for the door and step out with her.

Instead, he sits, hands fallen from the wheel to his lap. She sits with him and waits.

Jonathan takes a breath, his voice cracking as he creaks out, “I don’t know how I am.”

Jennifer is unsure how to respond to that, not wanting to push when it has taken him the ride over here to ease into admitting it. She is grateful he feels he can be honest with her, at least. That’s quite something.

“It’s like grief but,” he struggles for the right words, fingers fiddling with themselves in his lap, “it’s like, I can’t grieve. Not yet.”

She nods, understanding. Despite wanting to agree, it’s different for her. Benny is gone, there’s no chance of him coming back. She can grieve. Well, she is trying to.

But there is still a chance for Will. For Barb.

“Let’s hope you don’t have to,” she tries, just as quiet.

“Hoping,” he sighs, somewhat a scoff, and Jennifer fears she has said the wrong thing. But he only frowns, shaking his head a little,“I don’t want to keep hoping. I want to know.”

Jennifer can only nod again, also wanting this all to be over. The not knowing. The questions without answers.

She has her own. About her uncle. How he was killed. Why. Eleven, the bad people. What they want with her.

Now Barb, too.

Jennifer thinks about what the boys told her earlier today. That she knows Will, pointed him out in a photograph. It could be coincidence, her pointing to the only face she didn’t know. But Mike seemed sure.

And- and this analogy, of the ‘Upside Down’. Monsters. It can’t be possible. It shouldn’t be.

But neither should closing doors with minds.

Jennifer considers for a moment telling him. Explaining to Jonathan all she knows about the girl and what she may know about his brother. 

“They found his bike,” his voice cuts off her thinking, pulling her back from her screaming mind to the silence of the car, “The PD, by the side of the road.”

Her stomach drops, recalling her asking days ago. The faith that wherever his bike is, he will be. Just another hurtful hope.

She sees Jon's face, pale. Void.

And Jennfier knows she can’t tell him. Not yet. Not until she knows.

It would be cruel. To confuse him just as she is when he already has enough to question, to think of. To give him hope, no matter how far-fetched. He doesn’t want it. She doesn't either, truthfully.

“You know I am here. You have me,” she offers what should be obvious, unsure if that is really any consolation. She honestly doesn’t quite feel here at all. But relievedly, Jonathan nods his head and looks at her, like he really does know it. She continues, emboldened, “And your mom-“

A fleeting feeling of envy at having someone to lean on when she has no one dissipates as he drops his head again, a stronger sigh this time. Frustrated, even. An irritable shake of his head.

“She’s not- she’s not coping,” he huffs, still pressing his fingers against one another by his thigh, “At all.”

“Still waiting by the phone?”

“I woke up and found her in Will’s room this morning. Surrounded herself with lamps and things,” his head still shakes, disbelievingly, an anger rising in his throat and thickening his words, “Says she can hear him, that he is trying to talk to her. Through the lights. She can feel him?”

Jennifer doesn’t know what to make of it. The thought that she wishes she could hear Benny, feel him too, flashes across her mind. But she switches that off seeing her friend in such distress over the state of his mother. It must be hard, trying to look out for her on top of everything else. Losing her, in a way, as well as his brother.

It was similar with her own mom. Gone before she actually was.

“We all have to… deal with it in our own way,” Jennifer says, thinking of her own struggle. The drinking. Wanting to feel something, something other than numb. That’s why they are sitting outside this Big Buy, so she can slip some into her backpack. But thoughts of bottled spirits or canned beers are gone as she concentrates on the other boy. Twistedly thankful for the distraction, to be outside of herself and with him.

She finds relief in the alcohol, Joyce must be finding it in the lights.

“People do funny things when they’re grieving, I guess,” Jonathan says bitterly, raking a hand along his jaw.

“He’s not gone. Just lost,” she tries to assure, uncertain but unsettled by the way he seems set, “People are looking, they’ll find him.”

Jonathan only nods, once.

They sit in silence for another moment, both their minds running and running and running-

“Wanna catch a movie?”

She turns to him, “What?”

“Still a few hours before curfew, we could head to the Hawk,” Jonathan shrugs, looking back over at her, “I just- just to switch off, for a little while.”

“Yeah,” Jennifer wants nothing more, “Yeah, sounds good.”

_

“I really do appreciate this, Jon,” she says as the credits roll and they leave the screen. They decided on two tickets for The Right Stuff, enjoying getting lost in space for three entire hours.

“Yeah,” he nods with a small smile, the closest to his old self she has seen all week, “Me too.”

“I’ll be out in five,” she gestures her head to the sign for the bathroom.

“Right, yeah. I’ll get the car started.”

Jennifer hands him the last of her popcorn in the box, not wanting to waste it, and jogs off. Jonathan heads out, picking out a kernel to chew on.

Once finished in the bathroom and washing her hands, Jennifer almost risks a glance in the mirror for the first time in days. Yet, the concern of what she might see and the probability of it ruining her mood stops her from lifting her head. She can’t meet her own eyes.

She doesn’t feel happy, not quite . It would be wrong to. But this is the closest to ‘normal’ she has felt since that call from Joyce almost a week ago.

It felt good. Losing herself in space as the movie ran. Head lost in the stars. Jennifer couldn’t quite tell you any specifics of what happened, struggling to concentrate on any actual dialogue or character dynamic or plot points, but she wasn’t thinking. It was quiet.

And with Jonathan next to her, who may be the closest she has to someone who truly understands. Someone who wants to show up for her. Knows the comfort of silence when they can’t find the words, rather than struggling to fill it with meaningless nothings.

There is still so much floating around them both; questions unanswered and anxieties unleashed. But they have each other. And that’s something. Something good.

Leaving the Hawk and turning the corner to the street where he parked, Jennifer falters seeing a gathering around Jonathan’s grey Ford. As she nears, she slows her steps, recognising the unmistakable whines of Perkins and Hagan’s howling laughter. They lean against the side of his car, arms folded across their chests and smirks plastered. Harrington is inevitably there too, a few steps ahead - facing up to Jonathan who shifts awkwardly on the sidewalk. The jock stalks another step closer until they are almost butting heads.

Jonathan's slumped shoulders and uncomfortably clenched fists are enough to have her quickening her pace to reach them, her contentment falling to contempt with every step closer. Jennifer deflates, wishing she could have clung to it just a little longer. She should’ve known Harrington would be lurking around corners to ruin it.

“What’s going on?” she hears Jon ask, gaze shifting erratically between the other teenagers cooking his way to his vehicle.

Jennifer now notices Nicole standing by Harrington’s side, the second-meanest redhead girl at Hawkins High. Jennifer recalls a time years ago her mother had tied her braid with red ribbon, Nicole finding great entertainment in pulling at them where she sat behind her in Mathematics. Jennifer didn’t let her mother style her hair again after that. It seems she has weasled her way into this group somehow.

“Nicole here was, uh, telling us about your work,” she hears Harrington say, the second-rate redhead sticking her nose in the air, proud at his mentioning of her.

“We’ve heard great things,” Perkins pipes up, under the arm of Tommy who adds a sharp, “Yeah, sounds cool!”

“And we’d just love to take a look, you know, as,” Harrington exaggeratedly searches for the phrase, “connoisseurs of art.”

Jennifer reaches them, immediately and instinctively stepping to Jonathan’s side, all eyes turning to her. Harrington's eyes flit to her as soon as she comes close, frowning for a moment before turning back to the Byers boy as if entirely unbothered - though she is sure he is thrilled to now have an audience. Carol mutters an “of course” with a roll of her eyes. Hagan practically cheers at her arrival, as expected, gleeful she gets to participate in whatever is about to go down.

She ignores all of them, focussed instead on her friend’s distress, “Jonathan?”

His eyes snap to hers, wide, before snapping back to Harrington.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he breathes heavily, suddenly moving as if to get around them to his car. Tommy drops his arm from around Carol and pushes himself from the Ford, barging his own shoulder into Jonathan’s to push him back. The popcorn he still had in his hand tumbles to the floor,

“Stop it!” Jennifer exclaims as Jon stumbles back. She reaches out to pull at Tommy’s jacket, who only turns to her with his typical sickening smile. Carol behind him wraps her hand around the back door handle and opens it, reaching across the backseat to pull out Jonathan’s grey backpack. Jonathan moves again to reach for it, but Tommy rips from Jennifer’s hold on his sleeve to block his way. Carol passes the backpack to her boyfriend, face twisted cruelly as Hagan holds it out to Jonathan - who desperately falls for it - then snatches it backward out of reach.

“Please, give me my bag back!” Jon tries to appeal, Carol tutting at him as Hagan cackles, throwing it into Harrington’s arms.

He catches it coolly, and just as coolly says, “Man, he is totally trembling. He must really have something to hide.”

Harrington meets Jennifer’s glare briefly as he turns with the backpack to rest it on the backside of the car. Something in his eye unnerves her; genuine anger. She can see it in the straight set of his brow, the slight curl of his upper lip. Usually there is a hint of amusement in his torment, but there is no telling of humour now. Steve Harrington is angry. It's unfamiliar. That scares her.

As Harrington digs into the backpack, Jennifer shifts herself to look at her friend. Harrington is right, Jonathan is trembling. She tries to catch his eye, to silently question what they could be looking for. But he doesn’t look her way, instead fixated on the bag and whatever is about to be found in it. By his shifting weight and shake of his fists, she knows he knows what Harrington is looking for.

“Here we go,” Harrington announces as he turns back to them, keeping his voice trainedly casual. But his face contorts as he looks at the sheets he has pulled out, straight brow deepening and lip curling in disgust, “Oh, man…”

“Lemme see,” Hagan impatiently demands, snatching some to look over himself. Jennifer can only watch, concernedly curious, as his face twists too - though, unlike Harrington, he maintains his humoured smirk, chuckling darkly.

Carol comes over, taking the sheets from her boyfriend as he looks up to Jonathan and drawls, “Dude!”

Jennifer feels Jon sink beside her, stumbling back but hitting the brick side of the movie theatre after only a step.

For even Hagan to be disturbed… This isn’t good, whatever it is. She is unsure she even wants to find out.

“This isn’t creepy at all,” Carol gags sarcastically, flicking through the pile with a studious scowl.

“I was looking for my brother,” Jon quietly tries to defend from where he now leans against the wall behind her, but Harrington cuts him off, quickly.

“No,” he shakes his head, angry again. Jennifer is more intimidated by him now than she has ever been as he pushes himself from the car to stand his ground against the Byers boy, “No, this is called stalking.”

“What’s going on?” Jennifer hears herself ask, despite her conflicting longing for ignorance. Curiosity has twisted into anxiety, swirling in her chest. She aims the question over her shoulder, turning it to Jonathan and speaking low. She wants to give him a chance to explain himself, to give her something to defend.

But he refuses to look at her, eyes fixed to the cement.

Harrington makes the move instead, holding out the pile to her and the answer she looks for.

Jennifer hesitates, looking between his darkened face and the offering in his hand, wondering what the connection could be.

She takes it, snatching them with frightened force, feeling Harrington watching closely as she turns the sheets around. Photographs.

Harrington’s back yard. The party.

“Your boyfriend’s been a busy boy,” she hears Hagan chortle through the pounding in her ears as she slowly sifts through the collection.

Carol and Tommy making out by the pool. Steve and Nancy talking in the loungers. Her and Barb-

“Hey! Steve?” the group turns at the sound of Nancy Wheeler skipping over towards them from around the corner, “I thought we were meeting inside the foyer. You said 4.30! I was waiting…”

She trails off, smile falling as she approaches and takes in the group gathered. She reads the set of Steve’s brow, Nicole looking away quickly, the smirk on Carol’s lips, Hagan wrapping his arm around her hips and Jonathan Byers staring at her with wide eyed where he stands backed against the wall.

A step in front of him, Jennifer stands in the centre of the sidewalk, not looking up from whatever is in her hands to acknowledge her being there, the girl’s quiet and empty expressions twists at her. She had meant to call, needing someone to talk to about Barb. But then Steve called to take her to the movies, and the distraction sounded better than facing it.

“What’s going on?” the question comes again, from her this time.

“Here she is, the starring lady!” Tommy grins menacingly.

“What?” Nancy tenses, trying to laugh along with him at whatever joke she has walked into.

“This creep was spying on us the other night,” Carol spits glaring at Byers who quickly drops his gaze even further to the floor when Nancy follows her accusation.

Nancy frowns, looking at Steve who has turned back to watch Jennifer with the pile of photographs. She moves to the girl, looking over her shoulder to see the image of them by his pool Jennifer has halted on.

The photograph features all six teens, though Jennifer’s eyes lock onto the far right ride, squinting to see clearer. Barb is looking over at her from her camper chair. Even despite the poor, grainy quality of the print, her concern is clear. And it is no wonder why.

Jennifer looks at herself; head hanging back, grip tight on a can as she has brought it to her lips. The pile of crushed cans beside her documenting her progress, her descent into disorder.

To be caught in that state… to be held in a moment so devastating as drinking herself numb? A printed capture so damaging for anyone to see?

Exposing her. Without consent. By a friend?

Her eyes start to ache, widening with the water pooling behind them.

Harrington has been watching Nancy glance down at the image, a fire in his chest at the freak's intrusion. He shifts his sight to Jennifer beside her, who has not moved in moments. He catches the way her eyes are glossing over as she stares down at it in her hands. She looks pained. As painful as at the party.

The girl then looks up, taking a breath and looking back to Byers. He can’t quite see her face when it is turned to the other boy, searching for some kind of explanation or apology. She is hurt. And her upset at him could be enough. Almost enough for him to back off. To run cold.

But Carol then speaks up, holding out a particular photograph, “He was probably saving this one for later.”

He knows what it is without needing to see again, and the fire reignites inside his chest.

Nancy steps around Jennifer, curiously taking the extended photograph. Her face pales immediately at the violation.

“See,” Steve steps forward, clicking his tongue, spurred on by the upset of the two girls, “you can tell he knows it was wrong.”

They all look to Byers, Jennifer holding her stare at him as she breathes back tears. Facing him by the wall, her back is turned to the others, who she refuses to let see her struggle with this.

Though, with the image he took flashing through her mind, she fears they already have.

“But that’s the thing about perverts,” Harrington continues on, seething. He takes the photos from Jennifer, slipping easily from her loose hold, “It’s hardwired into them. They just can’t help themselves.”

He begins to rip the prints apart, revelling in the way Byers winces at the sound. Spurred on by Tommy laughing behind him and no objection of Jennifer like he would have expected, nor Nancy or the other girls, Harrington flicks the pieces into the air, “So, we’ll just have to take away his toy.”

“No, please-!” Byers pleads, pushing from the wall as the ripped photographs fall to the floor at his feet. Tommy is quick to run over to him, lifting his arms eager to push him back as Steve dives into the backpack once more.

“Steve,” Nancy whispers sadly, though does little else to step in.

It takes a moment for Jennifer to catch up, mind slowed by her humiliation and the betrayal of it. But snapping out of it, she reaches for Hagan again, hands latching onto his arms that push Jon into the brick. With little effect, she then pulls at his jacket, making him stumble a little and loosen his hold on the Byers boy. Tommy then turns to her; a wild, dangerous glint in his eye that has her letting go and stepping back.

“Woah, woah, hey. Tommy,” Harrington then calms, looking between him and the girl as he steps in the way. His friend stops stalking towards her, easing as he meets his eye, “It’s okay.”

Jennifer cautiously watches Hagan from around Harrington's shoulder, moving a step to the side so as to not need him between them. Tommy chuckles, licking his lip at her and backing off, returning to Carol's side. She then turns her careful stare to Harrington who sharply looks at Jon cowering against the wall.

All watch eagerly, seeing the offending camera now in Harrington's grip.

He steps forward, and Jennifer, still buzzing with ferocity, places herself between him and Jonathan. Harrington glances down at her blocking his way with a scowl, a short look of surprise crossing his face as she bites, “You’ve made your point. Now back off.”

He stares at her for a short while, her chest heaving as she tries to figure out his next move. It disappoints her that she can’t read him.

Harrington nods, just once. Then lifts his eyes beyond her to Jonathan.

He holds out the camera by her side and gently offers, “Here you go, man.”

Just as Jennifer lets herself breathe in relief and Jon steps closer to take it - he lets go.

Jennifer closes her eyes, hearing it shatter to the sidewalk.

There is a small gasp from behind Steve. He doesn’t let the moment settle for long before turning on his heel.

“Come on,” Steve orders, not bothered to see Byers’ reaction or wanting to face Anderson’s sure wrath. He is not feeling as proud of the sound of Hagan instantly laughing at the harshness of the move as he assumed he would either, “Movie is about to start.”

Nicole follows quickly behind him, Carol exaggeratedly stepping over the broken pieces to do the same. Tommy winks at her as Jennifer opens her eyes, digging his heel to crack some more of the lens beneath his sneaker before running after them.

Nancy lingers, not looking up from the torn photographs drifting down the street, caught in the bitter breeze. She quickly reaches down to collect any pieces she can, pressing them privately to her chest.

Jennifer is still glaring after the others as Jon drops to his knees, desperately gathering any parts of the camera that seem still intact.

“Nancy!” Harrington yells from the corner, having turned back at realising she was not following, “Hey Nance! C’mon!”

She does, scurrying away with a look to Jonathan, then Jennifer - the photograph scraps held to her chest.

As she reaches Harrington, he continues to look up the street, then shockingly calls out, “Anderson, you coming?”

She only glares.

He huffs, putting his arm around Nancy, who is tucking the scraps into her bag, and disappears around the corner.

Jennifer finally feels she can breathe when they are out of sight, twisting to look down to the shredded pictures and shattered camera parts and scattered popcorn kernels.

Jonathan is amongst it all, on his knees scrambling to salvage what he can. Jennifer slowly kneels nearby, doing as Nancy did and sweeping up the remnants of his mistake.

Amongst the pieces, she sees herself again, stomach falling at the sight. The image is ripped but still intact enough to taunt her. Humiliate her.

Herself, sitting in the camper, drinking to lose herself. Barb, sitting beside her, now lost.

She holds the piece in her fingers, feeling Jonathan turn to look at her. Waiting for a reaction.

Jennifer gives him all she can for now, feeling numb, voice dry, “This was wrong.”

“I know.”

She knows it. Can hear the shame in his voice and looks up to see it all over his face too.

Jennifer decides she is too tired to argue anymore. He has been punished enough. Harrington saw to that.

“We all do silly things when we grieve, right?” she repeats his words from earlier, hoping he recalls.

It falls flat. Neither is convinced.

__

“So I told Mr Mundy,” Carol recounts at full volume despite the packed cinema, “The solution of ten plus Y equals… blow me.”

Tommy howls, Carol cackling in their seats at the back of the screen.

“Bull,” Steve calls her out, voice lower, aware of the stares thrown their way from other patrons trying to watch the film, “If you said that you’d be in detention right now.”

“Saturday. 4 o’clock,” Carol groans, still smirking proudly at herself.

“I bet Mr Mundy’s still a virgin,” Tommy speculates, mockingly.

Carol sighs, as if it is sad, “Oh, so a virgin!”

“Maybe you should blow him, Carol,” her own boyfriend taunts, “Help your grades a bit.”

She smacks him on the chest, then pulls at his collar. The two begin to obnoxiously make out.

Steve rolls his eyes, sipping his Slurpee and turning back to the screen.

Nancy blew him off, announcing as he paid for their tickets that she remembered making plans with her mom that evening. She all but ran out the door. He is sure that was a lie, her not providing much detail - or any - of whatever could be a better use of her Thursday night.

He knows she is worried about her friend. That Holland girl, Barbara.

But he worries he freaked her out. That’s what Tommy said as he and Carol mocked him for going “psycho on the psycho”.

But Byers deserved it. Deserved worse, even.

Lurking in his backyard, taking pictures of Nancy undressing like that. He hates to think what the freak planned to do with them.

Not to mention the trouble they could’ve gotten into for the beers, a not exactly subtle display from Anderson and her captured binge.

His mind drifts entirely from whatever this movie is Hagan picked out, thinking of Anderson then. How she stood between him and Byers. Looked at him as if he was in the wrong.

But he also recalls the way she looked at Byers too. The photos. She was hurt. She knew who to blame.

And yet she still looked at him like she did, like she always does. Not envious like other boys in the halls, or jilted like some of the girls he has been with. A different type of dislike. Hatred.

He doesn’t know why he called out for her. He doesn’t know if he really expected her to follow.

But how can she still side with Byers when she knows he is in the wrong? How can she consider him the villain knowing he is right?

He thinks it must be less to do with her favour of Byers and more with her hatred of him.

But why?

He takes another sip of his Slurpee.

Steve just can’t work Jennifer Anderson out. And he can’t figure out why he wants to.

_

Jennifer lets Jonathan drive her back to his place, neither speaking the entire ride.

Jon is quick to get out of the car once they pull into the drive, fumbling in his pocket for the keys. Jennifer follows slowly behind, stepping into the home behind him. She stops as he does, coming to a sharp halt and taking in the sight that greets them.

Lamps and bulbs litter the living room, adorning every countertop and carpet edge. Old strings of Christmas lights are pinned to the walls and ceiling, hanging from the doorways and stretching to the floor. And yet, it is dark. The lights are off, only placed. Only a few candles light the room as dusk settles outside the open window. The end of a lit cigarette glows where Joyce sits on the couch, clutching her knee tight. 

It seems she has barely noticed their arrival, eyes flitting from bulb to bulb. As if desperate for them to light, to flicker at the very least.

Jonathan groans, embarrassedly, pushing through the room and down the hall. Jennifer winces at the sound of his door slamming shut behind him.

She could follow after him, maybe even should. But there is a heaviness in her stomach after what just went down at the Hawk. What he did, with those photographs. Jennifer doesn’t know how she feels about it all yet, things getting confused with how she feels about everything else going on. But she knows she has every right to be mad if she settles to be.

They need space.

Jennifer is unsure why she let him drive her back here, instead of home to her trailer. Even more unsure now she is left alone with his mother and all the mess.

Stepping a little further into the room, she clears her throat, “Mrs Byers?”

The woman’s wide eyes land on her, startled even with her quiet tone. Joyce catches herself, softening and tightening her grip on her cigarette that nearly slipped through her fingers.

“Oh, hey,” she stammers, glancing at the chaos around herself and then back the girl as if caught out, “Hey, sweetie.”

Jennifer is unsure what to say or do next, uncertain if it is impolite to look around again herself and acknowledge it all. 

Joyce frowns, “Where- Is Jonathan with you?”

“He’s in his room,” she tries not to worry the woman, who puts out her cigarette in the tray on the table beside her with an embarrassed hum, and keeps her face hopefully straight, “How are you?”

There she goes again, cursing herself inwardly at the dire question. How can she feel so stifled by others asking it of her when that is all she seems to find herself falling to?

Joyce looks around to the room again, as if that answers it. Jennifer supposes it does.

Having tried not to look, she now can’t help herself. Her eyes follow the woman’s, drawn to the lights. Then to the wall behind the couch - the alphabet brushed onto it in thick, black paint. Lights pinned above each letter.

“Come, sit,” Joyce invites, shifting over to make space for her. Jennifer, feeling herself start to sway as the confusion and upset of the day start to swirl around her, steps over cables to join her.

The two women sit in silence, neither moving for a while until Joyce remembers to ask in return, “How are you doing?”

Jennifer, despite her sickness at hearing it and asking it, tries her best to give her answer. She can sense the woman is at as much of a loss how to deal with all this as she is.

She has always felt comfortable around Joyce Byers. She has a kindness to her that others have proven a rarity. Has always treated Jennifer as if a daughter of her own, especially when her own mother would forget so.

Joyce would listen to her about Benny, her fear of living without him. The doubts she has about the way he died. Joyce would listen to her about Eleven, her not knowing what to do. The questions she has about where she has come from and what she is capable of. She would listen about the alcohol and ‘the bad men’ and Barb and Harrington’s house and Jonathan’s photographs and, well, all of what she is holding in.

She wants to tell her, to open herself up. She will understand, try to at least.

But Jennifer only nods.

She can feel Joyce look at her, really look at her.

And then... she begins to cry.

The woman is quick to respond to the first tear slipping down her cheek, instantly moving herself closer to wrap an arm around her. As the second falls, Joyce has pulled her into her chest, a hand coming to cradle her head. As more come, her fingers begin to card through her hair in a steady rhythm, one Jennifer tries to match her heavy breathing to.

Joyce gratefully doesn’t speak or try to make her do so. They just sit together, in the dark, and let her let it out.

Jennifer has missed this sort of affection, losing it from her own mother even years before her death. It made grieving more difficult when she did pass, feeling as though she was already taken from her long before. The thought of her makes Jennifer cry harder.

It could have only been moments or maybe hours before Jennifer feels her tears begin to dry and breathing slow. She sits up from the embrace, neck aching a little as Joyce lowers her arm. She instead reaches to place her hand over Jennifer’s curled on her lap.

“Hungry?” Joyce asks, gently squeezing her fingers. Jennifer hiccups, swallowing her last sob. There is a spark returned to Joyce’s wet eyes as she looks at her encouragingly. As if looking after the teenager has helped her out of her own head for a little while.

“Karen came by with a casserole,” she explains, watching as Jennifer’s curious frown splits into a small smile. Joyce begins to beam too, both amused by Mrs Wheeler’s typical trademark.

Joyce stands with another squeeze of her hands and heads to the kitchen. Jennfier eagerly follows, her twisting stomach now eased a little and purring at its emptiness. She manoeuvres herself around the cables and bulbs, skirting from the rusty nails hammered haplessly into the walls.

They eat at the table in a more eased quiet, the sound of their forks scraping against the plates.

Jennfier tries not to look up from the casserole, the lights hanging above burning her temptation to ask about them. She is enjoying this simplicity. As with the movie earlier, her mind is quiet besides what is in front of her. The beef and the pastry and the mixed vegetables in gravy-

But as Joyce stands, asking if she would like a second-helping, her eyes flicker to the bulbs ahead. She follows them as the woman turns her back, glancing over her shoulder down the hall to Jonathan’s bedroom door.

She sighs, standing to accept the second plate and taking it with her to the door.

Jennifer knocks, hearing the faith sound of music playing on the other side of it. It takes a moment for it to open, her now able to recognise the Talking Heads behind him as Jonathan looks back at her, then to the plate. His dark eyes then move beyond her, to his mother in the kitchen. Jennifer turns too, seeing her returned to screwing a loose bulb back into place by the stove, standing on a chair with a hammer in hand.

By the time she turns back, Jon has pushed past her again and through the house. The front door slams behind him.

_

The cold hit her the moment she stepped out - sharp, bracing, almost a relief after the thick, suffocating air inside the house.

Jennifer pulls her jacket tighter around herself as she walks, shoes crunching lightly on the frost-dusted concrete of the roads home. 

She is unsure when she knew she had to leave.

Maybe the moment Jonathan’s taillights vanished and she longed to follow. Or when she saw Joyce hunched over the fairy lights again, whispering to them with trembling hope.

The lights. God, the lights.

They blinked behind her eyes even now, red-blue-yellow-green in frantic pulses. They had taken over the whole living room, bleeding their sickly glow into the hallway, into the kitchen, into her thoughts. She understands why Joyce clung to them - understands the motherly desperation, that something has to make sense. 

But Jennifer isn’t ready for any more impossibilities. Hope seems to be one.

She needs reality. Solid. Cold. Simple. Something she can breathe, walk on.

Jonathan had left earlier, jaw tight, eyes shadowed, the walls pressing in on him just as much as they then did her. He’d needed to get out. So, she did too.

Jennifer left Joyce in the dining room, standing on another chair to tuck another lamp atop the cabinet. She snuck out, closing the door quietly behind her and taking off, her step quick and desperate for distance.

She thought about waiting for Jon to come home, whenever that would be. She considered calling Hopper, asking for a lift. But can’t bear to face him, the conversation they could have, when she just wants things to be quiet.

The streets are just that, vehicles parked on drives and home lights on behind curtains in respect of the curfew she is definitely breaking. Jennifer doesn’t know what time it is. Just that it is dark. And cold. And quiet.

She wishes her mind could be the same; not thinking of everything. Everything and now the added weight of whatever happened back at the Hawk. With Jonathan and Harrington and that camera. The photograph.

Jennifer can’t shake the chill of what she saw. What he saw, and captured for others to see too. 

Trapped in a frame for anyone to scrutinise. Frozen in place for everyone to examine.

Slumped. Drunk. Vulnerable. Exposed under a light she never chose to stand under.

Is that how they see her? Living up to what they think they know of her?

Her skin prickles. The quiet hurt at her friend for his intrusion turns to hot embarrassment. Shame.

As much as she tries not to live up to it, even change her name; are they right about her? Had Hopper been fair to call her out on it? Is she her mother?

And, more heartachingly, what is so wrong with that?

God, this is all so confused!

Jennfier tries to focus on one foot in front of the other. Or to singular her thoughts at least.

Each one ends in a question. Unanswered.

She thinks of Barb. Of the last time she saw her the previous night. How the girl tried to help, to open her up in her own time. And how she is gone too. Somewhere out there. Like Will. Lost. Where is she?

Her thoughts turn to Nancy next. How worried she had been about their friend. How upset she was at the cinema, seeing the photographs. Does she know anything to help find Barb?

And, then, surprisingly, she thinks of Harrington. The sound of the camera smashing. And how she felt nothing when it did. How Jonathan violated Nancy taking those pictures from the treeline. Was Harrington right to make such a stand; against Jonathan and for Nancy?

Then her mind thinks of why Jonathan said he was out there at all. ‘Looking for his brother’ he said. 

And did he find anything out there? She assumes not. No bike, no hope. No barely-clothed children with buzzcuts running from bad people with guns.

Eleven. Where has she come from? Who are the people after her? Why do they need her? Did they kill her uncle? Which of them pulled that trigger?

The Chief. Should she tell him all she knows? Will he have a better chance of getting the answers from the girl? Will he help her?

As she turns onto another street, Jennifer thinks then of what the boys warned. Of them telling, being turned away from it. Locked down - like Alcatraz. 

She is already on thin ice with Hopper after her escapade the night before. The alcohol. And after seeing that photograph this evening, she can understand his worry. The state of her…

But if he locks her up, what can she do? What hope is there of getting the answers she needs for things to be quiet?

Jennifer feels herself coming to a stop, having been so lost in her onslaught of thoughts she is worried she may have lost her way, not knowing where her feet have taken her as they determinedly strode the streets. Looking up, she is close to gasping.

The diner.

The sign above the door isn’t lit like usual. The lights inside off, dark. Police tape still wrapped tight around the railing outside. A loose strip flutters in the cold breeze.

That doesn’t stop her. She follows her feet, ducking beneath it and reaching out for the doorknob. It is stiff, not having been opened in days, when it is usually always ajar in the welcoming wish patrons will wander through. She nudges it with her shoulder, wincing as it creaks, cracking open.

Jennifer takes a breath, steps inside.

The air is stale. Cold. Not warm and filled with the scent of sizzling meat. 

It feels smaller. Heavier. A stillness to it she never knew.

She goes to reach for the lights- but her fingers hesitate, hovering over the switch. She doesn’t know what she is looking for here. She doesn’t want to see, not really.

It is quiet in the dark. The jukebox in the corner is off, silent. Not humming a tune as it usually does. The metal fan in the corner that usually clanks with each turn stands still.

Taking another slow step to the counter, Jennifer reaches to retrieve a napkin fallen to the floor, balling it in her fist. Her hand tightens around it as she makes her way to the kitchen doors, gently swinging them open and peering inside.

It all seems like it was the last time she was here. Before everything changed, only days ago. The plates piled neatly to the side of the sink, cutlery bunched into their pots, pans dangling above the stove. She can smell the garbage in the can liner, the top tied in a knot. Not yet taken out back. He didn’t have the chance to.

Jennifer opens the refrigerator; chunks of defrosted meat turning sour at the top, sauces stacked on the middle shelf, bottled beers and sodas lined in the door. She should throw it all out.

But something stops her. A faint spark in her stomach. Defiance. That dreaded hope, even.

Of what? She isn’t so sure. He can’t come back. She knows that.

But she also doesn’t know anything at all, lately. And clearing out makes it seem real. Fact.

That he is gone. That her uncle won’t be returning to this kitchen, the diner.

Jennifer supposes that is reason enough to leave it be. It’s not theirs anymore.

She slams the fridge door shut, turning as her eyes catch onto the countertop. An opened tub of - now melted - vanilla ice cream. The label on the side curled from condensation. A spoon placed inside, having likely been scooping at it days before.

Eleven?

Benny gave her food and the tee. He helped her. She is sure of it.

And now, she understands why she brought herself here.

Jennifer heads back out to the diner front, looking over the booths and tables, trying to spot any other evidence of the girl being here before. Anything that might reveal what happened that night with Eleven being so short on words.

Who else was here?

The room seems to be in order. No mess, no struggle. Neat.

Her gaze drags slowly to the spot where they found him. She tried to avoid it at first, forcing herself to look over the tables and chairs and counters and windows - but her eyes kept pulling back, drawn like a wound draws a hand even when touching it hurts. 

She feels her stomach twist before she even fully looks at the table in the centre, scouring through the darkness with a reluctant frown. That table seems darker than the rest, like the light from the orange-hued streetlamp outside dares touch it. As if the shadows have soaked in deeper there. The air heavier, like it remembers.

Jennifer remembers now too; the back of him slumped over the table. Hopper holding her back. Powell shutting the door, quickly closing him off to her.

A wave of nausea hits her so suddenly she has to brace herself on a nearby booth. A sharp, sick pressure builds behind her eyes. She blinks fast, trying to clear the image, but it only grows sharper.

A faint metallic tang hits her nose as her fingers curl into the cracked seat back. Her chest tightens and stomach pulls. She can barely breathe. 

Memories of him flashed—his laugh, his gentle teasing, the way he’d always made sure she left with something warm to eat even when she insisted she wasn’t hungry.

And now… this was what was left. Darkness. Silence. Nothing.

Jennifer squeezes her eyes shut. But the image is worse behind her lids, so she opens them again, forcing herself to look - turning away feels like betraying him.

But she has to, stumbling backward until her back hits against the bar. She hisses, the sour taste rising in her throat. Burning.

She quickly scrambles to round it, to hunch over the sink.

The first heave hits her so suddenly she doesn’t even manage to brace herself. Bitter, half-digested casserole burns up her throat, splattering into the metal basin with a sickening slap. The smell hits her immediately - warm, sour, sickening - and another wave tears through her. Jennifer gags until her ribs hurt, until tears blur her vision, until her knees shake so badly she has to steady herself with an elbow against the faucet.

Jennifer pauses, panting. She presses her forehead to the cool metal of the sink's side, shutting her eyes and waiting for that familiar loosening in her chest - the numbness that crept in after drinking in the days before. That strange, hollow calm where her thoughts stopped clawing at her and everything felt distant, muffled. Quiet.

But nothing came. Not even the faintest flicker of relief.

The image of him doesn’t stop burning either, forcing her eyes open.

Her stomach cramps again, her whole body shaking as she chokes up another pathetic string of bile and spit. She spits the hopefully last of it out, wiping her mouth with the back of her trembling hand.

She waits for her heart to stop racing, her breath to shallow. The diner feels too tight, too far, too cold and too hot all at once.

The taste refuses to leave as she spits again. Her hands brace on either side of the sink, head hanging, strands of hair sticking to her damp cheeks. She’s crying again, her vision pulsing with leftover nausea.

She wants so badly to feel something else. To feel more. To feel less. To feel!

Something flickers across the metal counter. A quick pulse of colour, almost too faint to notice.

But Jennifer notices it again. Another flash.

She freezes, biting her lip and forcing a rough swallow. Jennifer worries she may be about to pass out, concerned by her relief to not be conscious for a while. But it doesn’t come.

Just another flash of blue. Then the sound of sirens. Cops.

Jennifer gives into instinct, crouching, leaning her head against the sink to balance herself.

Hopper.

He heart hammers as the cars wail, muted by the diner wall but sharp enough to make her flinch.

He must have come looking for her. Called in the cruisers to drag her back home, tighten the restrictive curfew. Lock her away. Officers at her door.

But the sirens - of which there sounds to be many - pass by. The screeching quietening.

The flashing blue strobes cross the kitchen one last time, then sweep away, streaking across the front windows and vanishing as the vehicles speed down the road.

Jennifer stays crouched for a long moment, breath jagged in the darkness. She wipes her watering eyes with the back of her sleeve, trying to steady the tremble in her hands. The silence that follows the sirens feels too big, but at least it is hers, and doesn’t come with handcuffs or judgements or questions she isn’t ready to answer.

Where are they going?

The only thing that lies past Forest Hills is the quarry…

The curiosity lingers a moment longer, gnawing at her nerves, but exhaustion hits her just as hard. Her legs feel too hollow to follow; shaky, barely strong enough to keep her upright. But she forces herself up, pulling and pushing against the cold tiles and metal sink to get to her feet.

She tries to swallow again, the sour burn coating her tongue making her gag again. God, she just wants the taste out of her mouth. The image out of her head. The shaking to stop. Wants something - anything - to dull the sharp edges cutting into her from the inside.

Jennifer looks to the refrigerator, remembering what is inside. She shouldn't. But it’ll have to do.

Hopper looks down at the girl, who gurgles. Then gags.

He quickly moves to the kitchen, pulling an empty fruit bowl from the counter and placing it on her knees. Kneeling in front of her and holding it in place on her lap, she continues to heave. Pale and shivering. Yet, nothing ever comes, likely due to an empty stomach. She wipes away a stray tear from the strain, swallowing hard, then grips onto the bowl to hold it and ground herself.

They stay like that for a moment, Hopper watching the girl closely as she remains hunched over. Her eyes close, frowning sharply with her lips screwed shut. More tears fall, clinking into the plastic bowl.

Jennifer doesn’t know what to tell him. She doesn’t know what happened. Was it someone out in the woods? Some sort of animal, like a bear? The alcohol…?

All else is dark, fogged. She only remembers the sound of it. A rattling roar amongst the trees. And then she was running.

No wonder her legs burn, arms quivering. Her head feels like it might split.

She wants to be sick, to get it all out. The ache and the fear and the embarrassment of all of it. But relief never comes. She cries, frustrated.

Jennifer keeps her eyes tightly closed, not wanting to see however the man is looking at her. Pity, anger, disappointment - she can’t bear any more of any of it. The night before proved too much, the attention on her. It had her running away long before the woods.

It all comes back to her in a surge of fluster; Barb, Nancy and Harrington, Hagan and Perkins, Mr and Mrs Wheeler, the Party, Will, Benny, Eleven-

She should tell him. Tell Hopper about the girl as she had wanted to the day before in the basement before that girl closed the door with her mind!

That happened, right? Perhaps she was just drunk after all. That yesterday was just one big alcohol-infused nightmare.

But the way her limbs scream at her from running- she knows it was real.

That girl, with the buzzed hair and Benny's Burgers tee, has answers. She can barely speak them, whether out of fear and unknowing how to, Jennifer is unsure. But Hopper promised her answers, and he will know how to get them.

Just as she swallows again, readying herself to try and explain, Hopper speaks again.

“You’ve been drinking.”

It isn’t a question. It is a judgement. And she can hear the disappointment, a sigh around the words. It wrings her stomach.

Opening her eyes, her concerns are correct, seeing that same disappointment echoed on his features.

It thrashes within her.

“So?” she bites back, frown matching his own.

“So,” Hopper huffs an unamused laugh, repeating mockingly with a shake of his head, “You wanna end up like your mother?”

A beat.

Then, “What the fuck?”

Jennifer throws the bowl to the side, it clattering to the ground. She stands, swaying on her feet before launching herself away from him and to the hall. She is running away, again.

Hopper mutters a curse beneath his beard, pushing himself up from his knees to follow after her. She hears his heavy footsteps behind her, quickening her step to get away from him, her vision blurring at the movement. 

She doesn’t turn back, shouting over her shoulder as she hurries to her bedroom door, trying not to fall over as her legs wobble, “Why would you-?”

But she is breathless from the effort, unable to finish her cry. 

Reaching the end of the hall, the girl steps through her doorway and desperately tries to slam it shut. But he hurries his own step, stretching out a hand to push back against it and hold it open. She struggles against his strength, managing to close the door slightly with her entire weight against it - though it stops against his stuck out boot.

She groans, limbs screaming agonisingly at her exertion, “Go away!”

“No, kid, that's not how I-”

“How else could you mean it?” she growls back at him, still struggling against the door as he holds it from closing in his face. She just wants him to go away. To leave her alone!

Her head hurts, her stomach hurts - she hurts!

Hopper lets her struggle as he handles his regret, the girl eventually tiring and giving up her force against the door. She gives it one last push, exhaling shakily as her arms fall limp to her sides, swinging helplessly.

“Listen,” he says, softly, wanting her to hear him out.

He wants her to know he is concerned, more than he is angry. That seeing her passed out on the couch reminded him of the times he drove Margaret home after yet another call from the Hideaway that she had passed out on one of the stools again. How he would carry her to the trailer door, the young girl waking in need to open the door for him, to carry her mother to the couch. The girl pouring a glass of water and leaving it by her mother’s side as he would close the door behind him without a word and drive away. And how he doesn’t want that for her.

He wants to tell her about his own grief. How he struggled, after Sarah. That he understands, turning to drink. But it makes it all so much worse. He lost everything else because of it. And how he doesn’t want that for her.

And yet, as he looks at the young girl swaying where she stands gazing up at him with wet, red-rimmed eyes, giving him a chance- he can’t.

He just can’t.

So, he turns to his next default. Latching onto the way she narrows her eyes at him disappointedly, it easier to rise to. That anger at himself bubbling in his chest turning outward.

Jennifer scrutinises him as he stands there in her doorway, her wet cheeks tensing in something close to a snarl. Her face burns hot despite the rest of her feeling so numb.

He just looks at her, then snarls himself, voice stern, “If you can go partying, you can go to school.”

Her narrow eyes now widen, leaking fiercely at his harsh demeanour.

“Be ready in fifteen.”

This time, he lets her slam the door in his face.

_

“I tried calling your aunt,” Hopper says to her, eyes on the road, as she sits in the shotgun seat of his truck. They have been driving in silence until now, Jennifer not even glancing his way since showering and gathering her books.

She tenses, keeping her head turned out to the window. He clears his throat a little before continuing, “Couldn’t get through.”

Jennifer deflates, though isn’t surprised. They have probably moved states again without telling her. Forgot she exists, purposely. The rest of the family dropped her as her mother became more of a problem.

Hopper had hoped to get in contact with someone, anyone else who could take her in. Look after her a little, just while he figures things out.

He has already checked at the bank and they think there should be enough from the diner and Benny’s savings to keep the trailer for another two or three years, and with her turning 16 soon she won’t be needing a guardian.

But he has seen it, her struggling. And he doesn’t know what to do.

He can’t care for her and be out there, searching for the truth.

“We should, uh, think about the funeral soon,” he glances her way again, “Folks are talking about it.”

Hopper watches her shoulders seize again, a small fog on the window where she lets out a breath.

He doubts she has even considered it. There has been a lot on her mind - a lot to drink away.

And now, she probably worries for where to start? How to afford it? It seems so much for someone so young.

Hopper thinks of his own words, what he has told people the last few days, to “give her time”.

“I can talk to the cemetery, figure out some options,” he tries to be helpful, but her face stays turned away from him.

He tries to think of anything else to say, an assurance or an apology for his earlier comment; but Jennifer is out of the truck almost before Hopper had finished shifting into park by the school lot. She ducks her head, tugging her backpack up like a shield and hurries across the sidewalk. The rumble of the police engine feeling unbearably loud, practically announcing her arrival to the whole school, eyes inevitably turning to her. 

Hopper sighs, scratching at his beard as he watches her go.

His radio crackles to life, Callaghan’s voice creaking through for him to respond to the call. He picks up the receiver, and in a curt way only the Chief can get away with, “What?”

Inside, the halls felt like they were closing in on her, elongating as she walked to her locker. It seemed like a lifetime before she finally reached it. Jennifer could feel people looking at her as she passed, like some kind of commodity. Some opened their mouths to speak before deciding against it and hurrying along, others whispered to the people around them. Some even turned on their heels entirely to avoid her. Amongst it all, she keeps her head down.

In classes, she sits at the back to avoid eyes on her, then scurries to her next to claim a similar spot. Mrs Kelley caught her mid-scurry, offering her counselling services with a small, sickening smile. Jennifer only agreed with a nod to get her to go away.

She won’t attend. What good is talking about how she is feeling? How will that find Will or keep Eleven safe or punish whoever killed Benny-?

At lunch, Jennifer passes right by the canteen, eyes inevitably catching Will’s small smile peeking out between the posters. Her heart lurches, slowing her step as her mind wanders.

Without Jonathan to sit with at lunch or Barb sitting beside her in class, and, worst of all, without her uncle… she feels alone. Terribly alone.

Is she truly as alone as she feels? As meaningless to anyone? Would anyone notice if she went missing?

Would anyone care if it was her on that poster?

“Hey, Jennifer,” a small voice calls to her from behind, breaking her out of that spiralling thought with immediate contradiction. She turns from the pin board, seeing Nancy approaching from the canteen doors.

“Hi,” she dully returns, without the energy to falsify a smile.

“How-?” Nancy catches herself, stopping from asking that dreaded question of how she is doing, her face twisting curiously instead, “Have you seen Barb?”

She had hoped to see the girl in second period like usual, offering a pen Jennifer probably forgot. But her desk was empty.

Jennifer wants to apologise. For leaving her there last night, with all of them. For her outburst.

“Uh, no,” she frowns, “Why?”

“She wasn’t in Statistics?”

“No,” Jennifer answers again as Nancy avoids explaining why she is looking for her, instead folding her arms. Her nerves spike at the other girl’s evident concern.

“Barb didn’t take you home last night?”

Jennifer shakes her head, then presses, “She didn’t drive you back either?”

Nancy’s cheeks begin to redden, her also shaking her head. Her wide eyes glance around the halls, trying to catch her friend in the crowds, “Just haven’t seen her since. Thought she might be mad.”

“Why would she be mad?”

“I… told her to leave.”

Jennifer then notices her blush, quickly assuming she stayed the night. Gross.

She tries not to think about it. About her and Harrington. She feels sick enough as it is.

“Well, have you called her at home? Maybe she’s sick,” she knows how she feels, it gets worse the longer this conversation goes on.

Nancy continues to avoid her eye, bashfully, “No, I- I did and her mom she- she didn't know."

“I don't know then,” Jennifer doesn't mean to sound harsh. But her head hurts. And if Nancy really did leave Barb to herself at that house while her and Harrington... that is none of her business.

She cringes considering it.

Jennifer would have left to head home herself if her friend chose that boy over her. Barb is better than her for even considering staying. Though, despite her kindness, she is sure the girl must have just headed home. Called in today from catching a cold from the chill of the backyard or something. Has a headache from the stress of trying - and failing - to knock some sense into Wheeler.

Her chest seizes aching, her nerves easing as her mind catches up that there is probable reason behind her absence today. Nancy’s nerves must mostly come from guilt of leaving her there, choosing that asshole over her best friend.

Jennifer can assume that didn’t end well. That once the night was over, Nancy has come to sense about Harrington’s intentions. He got what he wanted. She gave it to him. And she wouldn’t be surprised if that was the end of it all. A brief relief washes over her, that perhaps she could have her friend again, head turned back from the King.

Though, Nancy gestures with her head inside the canteen, “Want to join us?”

Following her gesture, Jennifer is surprised to see her bag in an empty seat beside Steve Harrington - who is watching the exchange from the far off table. Perkins and Hagan are whispering in each other’s ears opposite him, insufferable as ever.

Her cheeks heat immediately, embarrassed she let herself crack the way she did last night. She never wants to let them see her slip. But the opportunity to not feel for a few hours was there and she just couldn’t help herself. She’s not sure it was worth it.

She wonders what they are whispering, usually not caring for any of their comments. But now, after the haze of the night before, Jennifer worries they have seen her. Have material to mock her with for weeks.

Jennifer instinctually glares as she meets Steve’s eye instead beyond the couple, him seemingly watching the two girls with concern. His brow is furrowed and mouth set in an uncharacteristically straight line. Likely, he is worried that she is talking some sense to Nancy about him, as Barb tried to do. Or something.

It surprises her. Genuinely. That his and Nancy’s fling has made it beyond the night. No other girl he has slept with has kept her seat and their table.

Nancy nods, correctly taking her silence as dismissal, and mumbling a “see you in Chem, then”. As she walks back to the table, Jennifer is surprised to find his eyes still on her. Looking at her with that furrowed brow and straight mouth. Concern.

She hates it.

He only turns away when Nancy re-joins his side, throwing a performative arm around the back of her seat for all to see his claim. She really must be stroking his ego more than any other of his flings has.

Jennifer finds herself staring now, unable to look away through the doors as Tommy and Carol begin to mock the couple, hearing their fake moans drawing the attention of the entire canteen. Her stomach twists as Nancy drops her head embarrassedly, and Steve just sits there. Smirking. Proud of his conquest.

She would usually feel fire enough to go over herself, say something. Defend Nancy, unlike Harrington seems capable or willing to do.

But her stomach continues to twist, excruciatingly to the point of dizzying her. The fire in her stomach distinguished by nausea.

She feels sick again.

_

Coming out of the girls bathrooms, Jennifer wipes the back of her damp, washed hand against her bottom lip once more, paranoid of spittle. Nothing came up, there was nothing in her to force out. But she still feels so sick as she wanders the hall with nowhere to go.

Kneeling by the toilet, she couldn’t help but grip the lid tight thinking of the night before. While she was having one of the worst nights of her life, it seems Nancy got what she wanted. So did Steve. Life goes on for everyone else.

How is that fair? Where did she go wrong-?

A hand clamping down on her shoulder shakes her out of it-

“Woah, easy,” Eddie Munson steps back, raising the offending hand in the air in a mock surrender as she whips around to face him.

She relaxes a little, realising it is only him, though she struggles to catch her breath. He is watching her, usual easiness slipping for concern as he takes in her frenzied state. Eddie catches himself quickly though, returning his smile as he sees her shift consciously, untucking her hair from behind her ear to cover her face more.

He has heard about Benny, it has been a shock across the park, the whole town really. The diner was such a staple of Kerley County. Cheap eats and good meats for the folks pushed out to the edge of town. Eddie once had a birthday party there, albeit it was only himself and Jennifer sitting by the counter-bar, dipping fries in their milkshakes. Her and her uncle sang to him though, and let him pick songs on the jukebox, so he remembers it as a party. The older man always made him feel welcome, keeping an eye on him while Wayne worked at the garage until he was old enough to stay behind in the trailer on his own. He would always send him away with leftovers, a handful of fries or cheeseburger wrapped in a napkin. He was a good man. It’s sad.

He has seen the cops parked up outside her home opposite his. Him and Wayne have wondered whether they should check in, see how she is doing. Though, the Chief had asked them to give her space when he came knocking to inform them of what happened and ask if they had a number for anyone she could contact. They didn’t.

Eddie, despite considering her close to a friend, barely knows his neighbour anymore. The girl used to be more tender, brighter. She used to laugh a lot, he remembers. Knocking on his trailer door to play in the grass in-between, tugging at the tufts of hair when he botched his buzzcut and laughing at his expense, swapping stories about trolls and witches and other fantastical imaginations.

That seemed to be knocked out of her once he left for High school and she approached Middle school graduation. Darkened by the realities of growing up in Hawkins, of all places, he supposes. And with everything with her mother. 

He doesn’t recall meeting Mrs Anderson, necessarily, not ever being invited inside their home. He used to think it was his fault, that Jennifer was as embarrassed of being friends with him as the other kids were. That she was trying to hide her friendship with him from her mother. As he got older, he started to think it could be the other way. Eddie only ever got glimpses of her when the curtains pulled back late in the day, or he would be woken by slurred singing outside late at night. Even after she died, Jennifer had pulled herself so far away from him despite only living next door that they didn’t ever talk about it. They weren’t friends that way, not anymore.

And now, she keeps to herself, as much as she can for the most part. On the occasions they have walked home together, she mostly lets him talk, rambling about his upcoming campaign ideas or new guitar riff he has mastered or the van he is saving up for. Whenever she would talk about herself, it was never about herself at all, not really. About Benny and the diner, how Kaminsky seems to have it out for her in Chemistry, or those kids she babysits. Jennifer doesn’t like to share herself.

He can’t blame her. Not when the town has already decided how it feels about her. He knows how that feels.

And yet, he has always admired her. The way she keeps her head up, staring right back as people scrutinise her in the halls and streets. 

They wait for her to stumble, willing for her to do something for them to condemn. But she keeps on walking. Set ahead.

While he overcompensates with noise and flourish, Jennifer has a quiet steadiness to her that seems difficult to sway.

That is, she usually does. Right now, standing in front of him with her shoulders slumped and head almost buried into her chest, she seems a shell of herself. With reason, everything that has happened to her.

But he can feel the eyes on them. And while Eddie is used to that, knows she is too, it feels different. Like they expect her to break. Want her to, even.

Hawkins is a small town with small people with even smaller minds. Eddie Munson and Jennifer Hammond are so much more than they could ever imagine.

He wants to put his fist through this lousy town. Just as he does Harrington’s face as he looks beyond her to where he is sitting, staring, Perkins and Hagan leering at his side.

Eddie turns back, seeing her glance up at him , curiously as to why he has approached her.

He switches on a wide smile, aware of all the eyes turned to her and wanting to get her away, “Wanna get some fresh air?”

_

Eddie lights himself a cigarette as they reach the bench in the woods he showed her last year that she occasionally escapes to.

She wafts the smoke out her face, taking a seat, “Thought you promised me fresh air, Munson?”

He chuckles around the cigarette, relieved by her returned humour, even if she hasn’t yet unwound entirely. The further they walked from the school building, the more he felt her ease. Her shoulders reset, and he heard her take a deep breath as they passed over the field. Sitting on the bench, secluded by the trees, she tucks her hair back behind her ear and pulls at her sweater sleeves to fend off the chill of Fall.

Eddie extends the cigarette to her in offering. She declines with a small shake of her head and rests her elbows on the chipped table in front of her. He returns it to his lips as he begins to kick at dead leaves on the ground around them.

“Thank you,” Jennifer mumbles, chewing her lip, “For, uh, getting me out of there.”

He stops his assault on the ground, glancing over.

“And out of my head,” she adds.

Eddie blows out smoke, pointedly away from her after her previous dig, shrugging off her unnecessary gratitude, “I know a bad hangover when I see one.”

He regrets teasing it once she shifts, dropping her gaze to pick at a scratch on the wooden table.

It doesn’t feel like a hangover, Jennifer thinks. It feels so much worse than that.

She is not sure if a greasy meal or any amount of fresh air can cure this ache she has. Not just in her head or stomach, but deep inside herself. Like her soul is sick.

Eddie watches her fade again, palling as her nail scrapes harder against the wood. Her eyes glazed over, adrift in thought.

He moves over, throwing his cigarette to the ground and hearing it hiss against the wet leaves. Swinging his legs over the bench, he settles opposite her and tries to catch her eye.

“I might have something,” he offers, his low voice breaking her out, nail stopping its assault on the wood, “Has the same punch without the edge.”

It takes a moment for her to realise what he is suggesting, seeing his fingers rap on the top of his tin lunch box, then she shakes her head. Her hands fall from the table to her lap, curling into the ends of her sleeves.

He nods, not pushing, hand coming to rest under his chin. They sit in silence for another moment, Eddie trying not to stare as he condemns others for doing, but keeping an eye on her in his peripheral as he looks up at the trees. He wants to help her.

So, he tries something else, “Those kids you sit on…”

Jennifer looks up from the table, curious.

“They still campaigning? The, uh, Caves of Thracia-?, ”

“Caverns of Thracia,” the girl sits a little straighter as she corrects him, unsure why he asks, “Yeah?”

Eddie grins, relieved he has remembered from when she was telling him of the story the kids had been playing weeks ago as they walked back to Forest Hills, “Well, where we left off, it was a - what was it? Thessalhydra?”

Jennifer feels herself thawing, losing herself in telling Eddie all about the ten hour campaign last week. The bubbling, luminescent algae in the wishing well, and the strange smell emitting from the trees. How Lucas, Sundar the Bold, used his javelin to cut one of said trees in half, waking an ancient spirit or something. And then how Dustin’s dwarf bard lulled it back to sleep with a sonnet. The party suggested splitting up, only for Dustin to remind them of the ‘Bloodstone Pass’ incident the year before where they did so, only to become overpowered by a pack of trolls. She admits to zoning out about then, turning back to her paper until Mike introduced their new monster, the demogorgon-

“Will rolled this time, but he- he…”

She suddenly goes quiet, catching herself. Eddie watches as the light in her eyes fades at mention of the boy’s name.

“The Demogorgon got him,” she finishes, barely above a whisper caught in the rustling of the trees in the fall breeze around them.

Her hands that had peeked out from her sleeves to extravagate her retelling retreat once again into her sleeves. The fond smile on her face melts into misery, thinking of the small boy still lost.

Eddie tries quickly to catch her before she falls too far, leaning forward and speaking with elated disbelief, “And this all comes from Wheeler’s little bro?”

She nods, though her gaze has dropped.

Her thoughts, now on the boys, turn to Eleven. She should radio, drop by. Head over to the middle school and-

“I’ll have to recruit them for my new club when they join High school,” Eddie continues, folding his arms across his chest, leather jacket creaking as he does so - not giving her a chance to follow her thought.

She huffs, something he thinks close to humour, “I should warn you, those boys are trouble.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that, sweetheart,” he croons, a flirtatious pursing of his lips as he takes the challenge, “I can handle ‘em.”

Jennifer just hums, admittedly amused by his default, “Wouldn’t you have graduated by the time they are in High school?”

“See, this is why I like you, Hammond,” Eddie unfurls his arms to lean himself forward on the table, metal rings clinking against the wood, “Always the optimist.”

He smiles again as she scoffs, pleased to see the hint of one on her own face as she rolls her eyes. It doesn’t seem like she could be one recently.

But she is grateful for his distraction. Eddie Munson is not so much of a freak like everyone belittles him for being - or, at least, try to. He doesn’t care to let them.

Hawkins isn’t kind to people like them, people who don’t live behind a white picket fence. No matter what they give, it will never be enough. No matter what is taken from them, it can never be too much.

She then realises that perhaps Eddie may be the closest she has to someone who could understand.

And so, she leads, shifting unsure, “Do you ever feel cursed?”

It worries her when he doesn’t seem to entertain the idea. The way his face falls spikes in her chest and she wishes he would smile again, distract her with fantasy and legend and anything other than reality.

He leans back, hands still splayed out on the table as he studies her.

Noticing her disappointment at his stunned silence, he perks himself up for a show, rattling his fingers one by one in a rhythm against the wood before holding them out to his sides in display.

“If shocking good looks and outrageous guitar skills are a curse, then yeah! Totally and utterly!”

Jennifer tries to smile. Really, she does. Even just to show him she is thankful at him trying.

She can’t bring herself to it.

_

“What are you-?” Jennifer stutters as the small hands tug at her sleeve, leading her around the back of the middle school science building. She had walked over after leaving Eddie at the bench in the trees, excusing herself with needing to check in on them before lunch soon ends. She couldn’t get the thought of them and that girl out of her mind when sitting in a thick silence once their conversation ran out, Eddie unsure how to keep fueling a dead engine. And, knowing Munson, he won’t surrender. Will bother her until she cracks. And she is so close to cracking…

Finding the boys on a bench, they were quick to holler her over when Lucas’s eyes spotted her walking their way. Dustin gasped, throwing down his packed sandwich to tug at her sleeve and lead her around the corner with the boys following quick-suit. Her apology for not checking in this morning fizzles on her tongue as she feels them buzzing around her.

“What is going on?” she asks, nervously, as he releases her, the boys panting as they glance around them and the wall to make sure the coast is clear to speak.

“She knew who he was,” Mike stammers out.

“What? Who?” Jennifer frowns, “Eleven?”

“Shhh!” Dustin cries, finger sternly raised to his toothless mouth. Lucas continues to glance nervously around them.

“She knew Will!” Mike explains, though Jennifer continues to twist her face confusedly.

“What do you mean?”

Mike sighs, as if frustrated with her not getting it yet despite not giving her any real explanation. He flails his hands as he goes on, “She pointed him out in a picture of us. That one of us at the science fair last year when we only got third. Mr Clarke said that was totally politically but-”

“Mike!” Lucas hisses, scornfully, at his distracted ramble.

The Wheeler boy shakes his head, continuing, “She knows him!”

Jennifer’s mouth hangs open, feeling that familiar dizzying sensation starting again, “Wh- Well, how? Did she see him that night, on the road? Before you guys found her-?”

“No, no,” Mike shakes his head more fiercely now, “I don’t know, exactly.”

“Did she tell you anything? Like, actually speak to you?”

“No,” he repeats, less sure of himself now as she gazes down at him, a hand coming to rub her sore forehead, “Not exactly.”

Jennifer huffs, disappointedly, closing her eyes. Mike is desperate for her to listen, appealing, “But I know it! I could tell!”

The older teenager doesn’t speak, dropping her hand and leaning herself against the brick wall. Dizzied.

She turns to him, a brow raised in tired disbelief. His stomach falls.

“Think about it!” he cries, seeming to forget how they had told her to be quiet in his desperation, “Is it really a coincidence we found her on Mirkwood, the same place where Will disappeared?”

“It is weird,” Dustin agrees, trying to appeal to her too.

“And she said bad people are after her! Maybe these bad people are the same ones that took Will!”

Jennnifer is grateful for the wall, putting her full weight against it. Her head is spinning. She can taste the alcohol, thick on her tongue again. It burns.

“I think she knows what happened to him,” Mike keeps his eyes on her, wide and pleading for her to listen.

“Then why won’t she tell us?” Lucas turns to him from where he has been keeping ‘lookout’ peering around the wall, seemingly not so convinced.

“She did!”

“What?” Jennifer then speaks up, trying to push herself from the wall in her eagerness for them to explain. She struggles, planting her feet. The three boys look between themselves before Mike steps forward, lowering his voice again.

“The Upside Down,” he whispers, as if speaking those words will put them in danger.

“The- what?” she repeats, folding her arms insistently.

“He’s hiding there, in the Upside Down.”

“The Upside Down?”

“A different dimension, a plane out of phase. Like the Vale of Shadows, a shadow dimension that’s like a reflection of our own world,” Dustin offers as if reading from a textbook.

“Like from- from one of your games?” Jennifer squeaks, incredulous.

Dustin shushes her again at her spiked volume, peeking over his shoulder in fear.

She rolls her eyes at him, at all of them. But she entertains it, seeing the sincerity of their fear and wanting to understand, even just to reassure, “Well, what is he hiding from? The bad men?”

Mike shakes his head, breathing deep before revealing, “A monster.”

“A- a monster?” Jennifer says, her jaw slackening at all of this.

“The Demogorgon,” Dustin inhales sharply.

“Boys…” she exhales, clipped under her breath as her eyes shut again and she moves back to the wall, her shoulder falling into it.

“It’s true!” Mike starts to shout, frowning deep seeing her disbelief, “He’s there! In the Upside-!”

“The Upside Down?” she repeats, shaking her head slowly.

“Why don’t you believe us?” Mike questions, fuming.

“I don’t-” Jennifer hesitates, wishing she could. It would be easier to fall into the fantasy than face the truth, whatever that may be, “I don’t know what to think.”

She thinks this is their overactive imaginations she was just gushing to Eddie about. A desperate latching onto whatever they can lose themselves in to distract from their grief. She understands that, but knows too differently.

“That freak did close a door with her mind,” Lucas then speaks up, gaze dropped to his feet as if conflicted about believing it. Jennifer supposes he is right - somehow he is. She had hoped it was just the alcohol, a beer-induced trick of the mind.

But the girl did do that. She does have super-powers.

And if she can see that and believe it, what else is possible?

It is a stretch to consider it the truth - a monster in another dimension? - but perhaps there is some truth to it.

A creature. An animal in the woods. A bear, perhaps. Or a-

The growl.

She shudders remembering the other night. The woods. Running home. 

It couldn’t have been a monster - a demogorgon, as they call it. But something was out there.

“Well, if there is something out there, promise me you won’t go looking for it,” Jennifer instructs, pointing a finger out to them. The thought of them going out there in the dark with whatever that thing is thumping her heart with fear.

She needs time to figure this all out.

A bear or creature of some sort could make sense to explain Will’s disappearance that night. That seems plausible. Possible.

But what kind of animal? And where are the remains? How would they go about trapping it?

And Eleven? Where has she come from? Who are these bad men coming after her? How does she have superpowers?

And what does this mean for Benny…?

The three boys hesitate, Dustin and Lucas turning to Mike, then following his lead as he slowly nods sheepishly. She doesn’t believe them, knowing too well.

Jennifer huffs, regretting doing so before she does; spitting on her palm and holding it out between them.

“Swear it.”

The other two boys turn to Mike again, the designated leader, waiting for his next move. They all watch in anticipation as he twists his lip, staring up at her with his mind running. 

But then, he spits on his palm and reaches out, shaking her hand in promise.

Jennifer relaxes slightly, despite the grossness of the action, wiping it on her jeans as she turns away to head back to the High at the bell…

…oblivious to his crossed fingers behind his back.

_

Jennifer stares at the same sentence in her history textbook, the words blurring into each other until they stopped meaning anything at all. Her pencil hovers mid-air, forgotten. 

She tries to focus on anything other than everything - the sounds of chairs scraping, whispers sneaking between rows, the faint hum of the old fluorescent lights overhead.

Monsters.

She snaps back until the intercom crackles.

“Attention students. All classes are to report to the school hall immediately.”

The room stirs, mutterings of confusion and relief to get out of the class. Mrs Click claps her hands once, guiding everyone to pack up quickly. Jennifer blinks hard, pulling herself up as her classmates begin filing out the door.

In the hallway, the stream of bodies moves in one slow, shuffling direction. Jennifer looks down the other end of the hall, to the doors. She considers leaving.

But she follows, led to the hall amongst the crowd, keeping her head down. Reaching the hall, Jennifer rises to her toes, scanning the crowd. Searching instinctively for Jon’s jacket (who she is unsure has even shown at all) or Eddie’s mess of hair (who she is certain has used the opportunity to bunk early), her heart falls spotting Principal Higgins at the podium, the Tiger emblem bearing its teeth on the front.. 

Hopper and Powell standing behind him.

The air turns. Thickens. Heavy.

As other students pack into the rows of benches, she hangs back, tucking herself into a corner by the bleachers. She looks to the crowd again, everyone chattering curiously as to why this assembly has been called. Jennifer looks for any other familiar face, Nancy maybe. But even Wheeler seems to have skipped, not spotting her beside the back of Harrington’s head of hair on the opposite side of the hall. She worries he will turn his eyes on her again, feel her looking somehow, and hurriedly looks away. There is no one else for her to look for, with her other friend absent today.

She wonders why the Chief is here. Is it news about Will? Have they found him?

Why would anyone here care? They have shown they don’t.

The murmurs quieten only when Chief Hopper steps to the podium after the Principal announces him, hands on his hips. She can barely see his face through the students lined in front of her, and hidden under his brimmed hat.

He takes a long look at the room before speaking. She sees his shoulders seize even from her distance, him sighing. Tired.

“Alright,” his gruff voice echoes sharply off the walls, Jennifer leaning back against the brick wall behind her, bracing, “We’re looking for any information regarding the whereabouts of Barbara Holland. If any of you have seen or heard anything - anything at all - you need to come forward to us.”

A ripple of unease passes through the hall. Some whisper, others gasp. Jennifer swallows, grateful for the wall.

Hopper continues, “Until further notice, there’s an enforced curfew in place. I want everyone home before dark. Six this evening and each until they are found. No exceptions.”

A low murmur rose again, some exclaiming outraged, plans foiled. The Principal lifts a hand, the room going still again besides a few disappointed shakes of heads.

“This is for your safety. Go straight home after school. And if you know something… now’s the time to come forward.”

Jennifer’s stomach twists, choking on the thick air.

Cursed.

“Calm down, Barb,” Nancy says as she glides the gloss over her lips, “You promised that you’d go!”

The ginger girl huffs again, unsure, as Nancy insists, “You’re coming!”

Barb glances at the girl on the backseat once again, still staring out the window.

Nancy follows her eye, not allowing her silence to unnerve her, as she turns back to Barb and assures with a plastered grin, “We are going to have a great time!”

“He just wants to get into your pants,” Barb drawls.

The girls in the front hear a short scoff from the backseat, the first they have heard from her since setting off. Nancy tries to ignore them both, a nervous chuckle, “No, he doesn’t!”

It doesn’t sound to Jennifer that bothers Nancy so much.

“Nance, seriously?”

“Tommy H and Carol are gonna be there,” Nancy shrugs, as if that counteracts anything.

Jennifer’s stomach twists hearing their names. If she hadn’t been questioning her being there the entire ride, she certainly frets now.

“Tommy and Carol have been having sex since, like, seventh grade,” Barb laughs, teasingly, “It’ll probably just be, like, a big orgy.”

She looks back to Jennifer, expecting the girl to laugh along with her. She doesn’t. Lost to them again.

Perhaps, this is too much. Too soon.

She should ask Barb to drop her home. The cops at her door are probably wondering where she is.

“Gross,” Nancy splutters.

“I’m serious!”

“Barb, let’s just go. Even for a little while! Have a drink, have fun!”

Jennifer shifts; a drink.

She opens the car door and steps out without any more thought, the other girls sharing a surprised look at her eagerness. Nancy grins to Barb, stepping out quickly to join her. Barb sighs, then does the same.

_

Jennifer can hear music playing from the back yard as the three of them approach the house. It crosses her mind, clouds her thoughts; the last time she stepped onto this yard the other morning. Harrington, their host, and his less-than-sympathetic inconsideration for the missing kid. She doubts he and his friends, the other guests of this gathering, have spared any more sympathy hearing about her uncle. 

The thought has her anxiously shuffling her feet. Slowing her pace as her determination weans with every step, she falls a few steps behind Barb, with Nancy eagerly leading the way to the front door.

She could turn back. Should.

But turn back to what?

Looking at Nancy walking ahead of her, the pretty striped jumper she wears, the new lace bra beneath, Jennifer can feel her own cold clothes scratching against her skin. She isn’t dressed for the occasion either. Even Barb, not usually so bothered about her appearance, has brushed her hair at least.

She wasn’t even invited - doesn’t want to be! She rears to turn around, to go back home and sleep (if it will be kind and come to her). Jennifer knows the route home, rather well.

But, as Nancy ascends the front step and rings the bell - adjusting the way her hair falls over her shoulders - Jennifer reminds herself why she is there. Because it is better than being anywhere else. At her trailer, alone; where her mind will run and, despite hoping, force her from sleeping. At the Wheelers, with the boys and that girl; her mind running with questions without answers. Where else can she go?

This feeling will follow her everywhere. This ache.

But here, with the promise of a drink to quieten her thoughts and ease her mind - that sounds like the best option for her right now. Even with such an incorrigible company.

Just for a drink. No fun necessary.

Besides, she is sure she can remember where Mr Harrington stores his extensive and expensive collection of liquors.

In, drink and out.

Barb turns back to glance nervously at her as she joins Nancy on the front step, admittedly surprised to see her still behind them. She had almost hoped the girl would speak up against this, turn away and give Barb an excuse to do so too. Instead, Jennifer is looking to her feet, planted on the cement with an impatient twist of her mouth as they wait for the door to open.

Nancy looks to Barb as she turns back to stare at the door through her misting spectacles, her friend’s reluctance seeping into her own nerves. She finds her determined excitement diminishing with every moment that has passed since they left her house. Jennifer’s quiet has been unnerving enough the entire ride here, giving Nancy space to overthink her own being here. Nancy then looks over her shoulder to her too, seeing the girl smiling up at the big house, taking it in with some sort of grievance. 

Jennifer has never liked Steve, that has been clear with every dark glare and dull scoff she has sent his way when he passes in the hallways. It confused her for a while, especially as she grew to admire him herself, having thought they were friends. She has vague memories of their names uttered together in her mother’s gossip whenever the book club would come by in their kitchen when she was younger. Though, she must be mistaken. Jennifer Hammond loathes Steve Harrington.

And so, her reluctance at being here could be understood. Except, it seems she is in favour of it, having had every opportunity to refuse the invitation and head home. Especially with all she has on, this is the last place Nancy expected her to want to be. And yet, here she is.

Barb, however, who shifts her weight anxiously over and over beside her, has gotten in her head with her qualms. About this party and, well, her entire relationship (or whatever you would call this) with Steve.

She is only being a good friend, Nancy knows this. But those concerns are unnecessary. Steve likes her. And she likes him. Whatever happens next is going to happen. She wants it to.

“Barb, chill,” she pleads, now finding herself nervous for whatever the night has in store beyond the red door.

Her friend catches herself, trying to shrug with feigned indifference, "I'm chill.”

Nancy grimaces, disbelievingly, once again turning her attention to her hair, brushing some strands from her face to tuck delicately behind her ears.

The double doors swing open then, Steve smiling easily as he holds them wide.

“Hello, ladies,” he croons, barely glancing Barb’s way before looking Nancy over, who blushes, unable to cool her smile.

His eyes then move to the figure behind them both, widening slightly as his smile slips, “Anderson?”

The girl doesn’t acknowledge him at all, not even looking at him as she begins to move, brushing past her friends without a word.

“I didn’t, uh…” he stutters, stumbling slightly as she storms past him, scowl stuck in place, “Are you-?”

But she has gone beyond him, into his home and turned down the hall before he can find words to recover his surprise. He leans against the open door, his other hand he had retracted quickly to his side to avoid her hitting into it in her hurry coming to rest hopefully-casually on his hip. Steve rights himself quickly, grin returning to his face as he turns back to Nancy. Her own surprise at Jennifer’s cold, disregarded greeting of their host falls as soon as her eyes meet his. Her coy smile reappears, pink tinging her cheeks.

“Well, come on in,” Steve welcomes, with a short laugh to cover his startlement from the other girl, gesturing with his arm for them to pass by. Barb makes her way in first, wiping her feet on the doormat politely before looking around to try and find Jennifer. He pecks Nancy on the cheek as she steps inside too, revelling in the way she giggles.

“Leave your jackets wherever,” he offers, closing the door behind them and leading the way further into the house. His eyes flit down the hall where Jennifer disappeared, unable to see her and unsure where she has gone. But he keeps himself unbothered, switching up the role of host, “I’ll just grab us some drinks. What’s your poison?”

“Oh, uh,” Nancy thinks, shrugging off her coat and folding it neatly over the back of the couch, “Whatever you’ve got!”

She then looks to Barb who panics briefly, murmuring, “I’ll just take a water.”

He watches Nancy send her a disheartened look before smiling sweetly back at him. Steve nods, amused, “Alright, well, I’ve got beers in the fridge. Tommy and Carol are already outside.”

Nancy nods, glowing as he sends her a wink, before leading Barb - who keeps her coat on - to the back door he gestured to. He watches them go for a moment, smug at the way their eyes drift around his space, taking in the furniture and furnishings and features as so many others compliment his parents on, then heads to the kitchen.

As he nears, he hears the closing of cupboards and clinking of glass around the corner. As he slowly turns into the room, he finds Jennifer searching his shelves, having easily found his parents’ liquor cabinet and helping herself to it. He watches from the doorway as she pulls out a bottle of whiskey, barely reading the label before beginning to twist the lid.

“Woah, hey, hey, wait,” he hisses, quickly moving over to her. It is clear he has startled her, Jennifer whipping herself around and pressing herself against the counter at his fast advance, the bottle in her hands almost slipping to the floor. He slows, holding out his hands beside his hips in a small surrender.

“Uh,” he stammers, looking at the bottle in her hand and then her face, put off by the way she is glowering at him again, “That’s… that’s my dad’s.”

They both still for a moment.

He’ll be mad.

The insinuation lingers between them, and he is relieved it doesn’t take long for her to understand without him needing to speak it. She pushes herself upright from the counter as he holds out a hand to take it back. She places it back on the countertop, instead. 

He breathes small, relievedly, his outstretched hands coming to rest on his hips. But his relief does not last long, put off by the way she is watching him intensely. Anticipating his next move, trying to figure him out.

Steve shifts awkwardly, unsure himself. So he switches to hosting, moving to the fridge as he asks again, of her this time, “What’s your poison? Other than Whisky!”

He opens the refrigerator, reaching inside as she does not answer him. He pulls out a can, turning back to her - disturbed by the way she is leaning against the counter again. Shoulders slumped.

The girl isn’t scowling anymore. In fact, she isn’t doing anything at all. Just staring at the gleaming tiles on his floor.

He clears his throat, and she seems to snap back from wherever she was lost. Jennifer straightens herself, folding her arms consciously - defensively - across her chest. She won’t look at him, eyes flitting across the floor, the whisky on the counter, out the window where she can see the shadows of people gathered by the pool.

Steve doesn’t know what to say. 

She wasn't at school today. He quickly found out why. Last he saw of her yesterday, she ran off with Byers, he assumed they were looking for his brother.

He knows what has happened. He heard it from Carol yesterday morning as he picked his friends up for school. She had a call from Stacey who found out from her uncle who works at the PD. Some say an overdose of some kind of pill, others said they found a noose. Or a gun, maybe that was it. Her uncle killed himself. 

So somehow, asking her if she is “okay” seems redundant. She will probably only scowl at him again.

But what is she doing here? At his house? And what can he say?

“We have beer,” he offers instead, lifting the can in his hand above the door for her to see. She raises her eyes to him then, her gaze landing ardently on it.

Jennifer comes around the island in the middle of the room, cautiously approaching his offering as he leans it over the refrigerator door to her. She takes it, immediately cracking it open and taking a large gulp. Steve only watches as she tips her head back, wincing at the taste of it as she swallows, yet barely breathing before raising it to her lips again.

He wonders if he should have offered it, whether he should tell her to take it easy. But he knows she would not take it well. They are not friends. She doesn’t like him. At all. She has made that clear from all the glares and guffs whenever he glimpses her way in the halls.

It is hard to know what to say, do. So he does the easy thing and smiles.

He pulls the rest of the pack from the refrigerator shelf and places it on the island. Jennifer looks at it, greedily, head still tipped back with the one in her hand. He walks past her to the cupboards, pulling out a glass and turning to the sink. Pouring a glass of water, he turns back to her crushing the can in her hand. She is about to throw it carelessly on the counter when she sees him watching, so waits for him to instruct her.

“Oh, um, just throw it in the sink,” he shrugs. She does so. Before she can reach for the pack to crack open another, Steve holds out the water to her. She stares at it, brow twisting almost offendedly. He shakes his head at her misunderstanding before it blows into her typical frustration with him, “No, no it’s not- For Barbara. Barb.”

Jennifer relaxes, only slightly, easing her suspicious eyeing of him and the glass. She takes it from him as he grabs a bag of ice from his freezer, that he steadies on his shoulder, and the pack of beers in his other hand.

“Alright,” he beams, gesturing with his head for her to follow with an amused gleam in his eye, “Let’s get this party started!"

_

Jennifer follows after him, leading to the living room that opens out to the patio. The music is louder here, pounding through the sliding doors. She notices Nancy’s jacket perched on the back of a couch and wonders if she should leave her own.

But as she glances to the hall they passed, spotting the staircase that leads to the many rooms above, she remembers.

Jennifer took to the Harrington’s staircase as most children do tree branches. Once a week, sitting sideways on the third step, a book open in her lap - she can’t recall which exactly. She used to read so much back then, having the time to.

Lulled by the faint sound of her mother humming as she dusted the long walnut banister. The house quiet besides the soft swish of her cloth.

But then, she also remembers once, a thump. Her mother stopped humming, both curious as to the noise. Then, shouting. From another room.

Followed by the slamming of a door, even the pristine white walls seemed to flinch.

Her mother then meeting her concerned eye, nodding to her. Knowing. Encouraging.

Jennifer closing her book, pushing from the step to go to it-

The memory fades, the music from outside flooding back.

Harrington slings the beer case to his shoulder, using his other hand to slide the glass open. He looks back at her before stepping out, waiting.

She shudders. And leaves her jacket on.

_

Barb’s head rattles, the water in her hands doing little to ease it from the speaker blasting nearby.

She has spent the last hour just watching. Observing. Feeling very much on the outside, though relievedly so. 

Tommy and Carol are making out by the patio door, just as she predicted, a not surprising sight but a nauseating one all the same. Steve and Nancy are murmuring between themselves, knees pressed up against each other as they sit on a lounger by the pool. Nancy throws her head back, twirling a curl of hair around her finger at something he has whispered to her. It is sickening.

Barb shifts in her seat, turning to the girl in the camper chair beside her to share in her despair at the display. But the aggrieved glare she has come to expect to see at Harrington for even breathing isn’t there. She didn’t even scoff as Tommy called out her name gleefully with a growing grin at seeing her follow behind Harrington as they stepped onto the patio together. Or as Carol screeched dramatically outraged before sinking her claws deep into her boyfriend’s arm to tear his attention back to her.

Instead, Jennifer has kept her head down and expression blank. Sinking into the corner with her beer until Harrington found these two old campers in his basement when searching for the cooler. He clearly had not expected the extra guest, nor perhaps considered Barb herself coming as she sits in one too.

She now just stares ahead, nails scraping against the side of the can in her grasp in a repetitive trance. Barb’s eyes drift to the pile of crushed cans beside her chair, noting it has peaked significantly since she last looked her way not too long ago.

Jennifer is watching the heat rise from the lit pool, watching it steam and dissipate in the cool air. She feels her face warming with every sip she takes, and leans forward to remove her jacket - struggling to untuck her arm from the sleeve - throwing it unceremoniously to the ground by her feet before once again turning to her beer.

The interaction in the kitchen plays on her mind.  She could feel Steve watching her as she drank from the can. She shouldn’t have cared.

The correct etiquette for these things would be to bring your own. The etiquette would also be to not barge your way in uninvited without even a ‘hello’ to your host and then raid their kitchen for alcohol. She doesn’t care.

She knew what she wanted and she knew where to get it.

Besides, the Harringtons can afford to replenish whatever she pours.

She is tired of this beer already. It sits flat on her tongue, the thrill gone. 

She could have poured herself that whisky. Should have. 

Though, as the however-boring beer slides down her throat and hits her empty stomach, that sensation reappears. That ‘better-than-nothing’ feeling. She craves it. And so, the beer will do.

Jennifer lifts the current can to her lips again as Carol shrieks, her laugh piercing through even the blasting music, as Tommy tucks his face into her neck in their usual overbearingly public way. As if they have something to prove to everyone else.

Steve and Nancy have turned at the sound too, the Wheeler girl blushing at the display and trying not to turn back to meet his gaze. Instead, he rolls his eyes at the couple, before finding them drifting over to the girl in the camper seat, on the far side of his pool. He just watches, as she swallows down another sip. His attention then just as quickly taken again by Nancy coyly scolding him for likely flunking his pop quiz in Click’s class this afternoon.

She felt him looking. It doesn’t help her scalding face. Jennifer drinks again to cool it.

Harrington is probably thinking; what is she doing here? She wonders the same.

The buzz is settling, silencing her mind. Just like she wanted. She could stop drinking now.

But why should she? Who is there to stop her? There’s no one! She has no one!

And so, she tips her head back and finishes the can, crushing it before throwing it to her feet. The pile grows.

Harrington reaches for another can from the cooler, pulling a small pen-knife from his pocket to pierce it. He moves it to his mouth, catching the contents and downing it in one. Crushing the can against his chest and throwing it to the ground, he throws himself onto the sun lounger, leaning back and resting the knife on the ground beside it.

Nancy grins, leaning toward him from her seat on the lounger beside his, having watched the whole display with her bottom lip between her teeth,  “Is that supposed to impress me?”

Steve pulls a cigarette from behind his ear to his lips, lighting it in one swift movement. He shrugs, smoothly, smirking around the smoke, “You’re not?”

The Wheeler girl turns away, giggling into her shoulder.

Barb scoffs again, instinctively turning to Jennifer - who stares out at the trees towering over the fence.

Jennifer has taken a sip every time she has heard Nancy giggle across the patio, then several more to wash it down. If she wasn't already desperately trying to be, she would be past drunk by now.