#nancy wheelerxreader

The count gets louder. Sloppier.

When Billy finally pulls away, gasping and triumphant, the house erupts.

“New record!” someone yells.

Billy wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and smirks straight at Steve. “Better luck next time, Harrington.”

Steve forces a laugh, raises his cup in mock salute. “Congrats.”

Across the room, Nancy Wheeler watches it all like she’s underwater.

She’s standing near the staircase, red Solo cup already empty in her hand. Someone presses another into it without asking. She doesn’t refuse.

She drinks.

And drinks again.

The noise dulls at the edges, the sharpness of everything softening just enough to breathe. The images that have been haunting her all day—Barb’s face, the empty chair at the Holland house, the closed blinds in the library—blur into something less defined.

Good.

She doesn’t want clarity tonight.

She wants quiet.

Steve finds her an hour later, cup refilled, laughter too loud, eyes glassy.

“Nance,” he says gently, leaning close so she can hear him. “Hey. Slow down, okay?”

She smiles at him—too quick, too practiced. “I’m fine. We’re being stupid teenagers…remember?”

He doesn’t believe her.

But the music swells again, someone spills beer on the couch, and Billy’s already being hoisted up for another round of applause.

The party roars on.

And Nancy keeps drinking—not to celebrate, not to compete——but to forget.

Just for tonight.

Marlene Mayfield was a haunting vision, the perfect embodiment of Carrie White’s prom night aftermath—ethereal yet laced with horror. Her thrifted pink gown, delicate with rosebud embroidery, had once been the picture of vintage charm. But now, it told a far darker story. Shimmering red bedazzled “blood” spilled in intricate patterns down the fabric, transforming the dress into a grotesque masterpiece. Under the party lights, the blood glittered, an unsettlingly beautiful contradiction that drew every gaze and held it captive between admiration and unease.

Her hair, normally styled into flawless waves, hung in damp, tangled strands around her face, slicked down with a torrent of sticky crimson. The fake blood clung to her skin and shoulders, pooling at the base of her neck like a grotesque necklace. Her pale face, streaked with the same gory red, gave her the ghostly appearance of a porcelain doll drowned in carnage.

But the crown—oh, the crown—was what truly completed the nightmare. A polished pageant tiara perched regally on her head, glinting with an almost mocking innocence. From its apex rose a handmade prop: a tilted bucket frozen mid-pour. Red silk and tulle spilled from its brim, cascading like an endless waterfall of blood. The illusion was so perfect it was as if the bucket had only just been tipped, forever caught in its moment of horror.

Marlene moved through the party like a queen surveying her court, her confidence unshaken by the stares that followed her every step. Whispers rippled in her wake—some gasped, others laughed nervously—but no one could look away. She owned the room, her presence bold, theatrical, and utterly unapologetic.

At the punch bowl, a cluster of students murmured among themselves. One girl, wide-eyed, whispered, “That’s… a lot.”

“Yeah, but she nailed it,” another replied, her tone grudgingly admiring.

Marlene overheard them and smiled, the corner of her lips curving upward in a way that was both playful and sinister. She poured herself a cup of punch, the blood on her hands staining the paper cup in streaks. “You can say it,” she quipped, her voice light but carrying a sharp edge. “It’s art.”

The group fell silent, their discomfort feeding her amusement. With a regal tilt of her head, she raised her cup in a mock toast before melting back into the crowd. Marlene didn’t just wear the tragedy of Carrie White—she commanded it, wielding her costume like a weapon of both beauty and terror.

Eddie Munson leaned against the far wall, surrounded by the usual chaos of his Hellfire Club misfits. He was mid-sentence, recounting some over-the-top campaign twist, when his words caught in his throat. His gaze locked onto her—Marlene Mayfield. The world around him seemed to dissolve, the music, the crowd, the party itself fading into a muted haze. All that remained was her.

“Who’s that?” he murmured, barely audible above the pounding bass.

Gareth followed his line of sight and snorted. “That’s Marlene Mayfield. Valley Girl. Head Cheerleader Wannabe. Out of your league, man.”

Eddie didn’t bother responding. His dark eyes stayed fixed on her, transfixed by the way she moved through the crowd like she owned the room. Marlene’s costume—Carrie White, drenched in shimmering, bedazzled blood—was a spectacle that dared anyone to look away. Her every step carried an effortless confidence, and the murmurs that followed her were more a coronation than criticism.

Sure, Eddie had noticed her before—how could he not? She was the girl everyone noticed, whether on the sidelines at games or laughing with her friends in the hallways. But tonight, she was something else entirely. She wasn’t just Marlene the cheerleader. She was magnetic, a walking work of art steeped in macabre brilliance.

She made her way to the punch bowl, her presence cutting a path through the throng of partygoers. Eddie didn’t think. His feet moved on instinct, weaving through the crowd until he found himself standing a few feet away.

“Let me guess,” he said, his voice carrying just enough volume to rise above the noise. “Carrie White. Post-bucket moment?”

Marlene turned at the sound of his voice, her bright green eyes locking onto his. For a second, she said nothing, just studied him with a curious tilt of her head. Then, her lips curled into a small, knowing smile.

“You’re the first person to get it right,” she said, her tone amused. “Everyone else just keeps asking why I’m covered in glittery blood.”

Eddie felt a grin spread across his face, his usual bravado kicking in. “Amateurs,” he said, crossing his arms in mock disdain. “They don’t understand the masterpiece they’re looking at. Honestly? You’re pulling it off better than Sissy Spacek herself.”

Marlene laughed—a warm, genuine sound that cut through the noise like a melody. Eddie felt it ripple through him, equal parts exhilarating and disarming. He didn’t know much about her, but that laugh was enough to tell him he was already in over his head.

“Thanks,” she said, brushing a damp strand of blood-slicked hair from her face. “And you are?”

“Eddie Munson,” he said, stepping forward with an exaggerated flourish and offering his hand. “Dungeon Master, guitarist, general purveyor of chaos. And you, Carrie White?”

“Marlene Mayfield,” she replied, shaking his hand with a firm grip that belied the delicate gown she wore. “Cheerleader, former pageant queen, and apparently, a walking horror show tonight.”

“The coolest horror show I’ve ever seen,” Eddie quipped, his grin widening.

For a moment, they stood there, the rest of the party fading into background noise. Eddie didn’t care about the beer-soaked jocks or the flashing lights anymore. All he saw was Marlene, her confidence lighting up the room in ways no costume ever could.

The moment between Eddie and Marlene was just starting to settle into a comfortable rhythm when Donna’s unmistakable voice cut through the noise like a firecracker.

Not because the music got quieter.

Because the room changed.

It happened the way it always did when something important entered a space—not all at once, but in ripples. A lull in conversation. A head turning. Someone muttering holy shit under their breath.

Eddie followed the shift instinctively.

And there she was.

Donna Henderson.

For a second, he didn’t recognize her. His brain tried to reconcile the girl he knew—the quiet one, the weird one, the one people whispered about like she was contagious—with what he was seeing now.

Pink. Glittering. Commanding.

She stood at the edge of the living room like she’d been dropped there on purpose, bathed in party lights that caught on every shimmer and fringe. A cropped top flashed silver at the seams, paired with a high-waisted skirt that moved when she did, scattering light like sparks. Draped over her shoulders was a jacket heavy with long pink fringe, strands swaying lazily as if the outfit itself was breathing.

And the hat.

A sparkling pink cowgirl hat sat tilted just-so on her head, feathers flaring from one side like punctuation.

Donna looked unsure of her hands. Of her feet. Of the attention she’d just hijacked without meaning to.

The crowd did not share her hesitation.

“There you are!” Donna slurred, her voice full of exaggerated drama. She was teetering precariously on her heels, her oversized cowgirl hat tilted so far to the side it was a miracle it hadn’t fallen off her poofy head. “Marlene, what the hell are you doing over here? Flirting with… wait, who are you again?”

Eddie arched a brow, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. “Eddie,” he said, gesturing toward himself with a flourish. “Munson. Dungeon Master. Coolest guy in Hawkins. You’ve probably heard of me.”

Donna squinted at him, her drunk brain processing his introduction for a beat too long before she turned back to Marlene. “Whatever. You! Dance floor! Now!”

Marlene laughed, glancing between Eddie and Donna, who was somehow still upright despite leaning at angles that suggested balance was purely theoretical.

“Donna,” Marlene said, trying to hold back her amusement, “I’m in heels and covered in fake blood. Do you really think I’m going to survive another round out there?”

“Excuses,” Donna declared, wobbling forward in a wild, clumsy motion. “I broke my leg, Marlene. My leg. And I’m still killing it on the dance floor. You have no excuse.”

Marlene shook her head, smiling despite herself. “I don’t think you’re killing it, Donna. I think you’re two seconds away from falling and taking half the party with you.”

“That’s quitter talk,” Donna shot back, thrusting the red solo cup in her hand forward in a gesture that was meant to be dramatic but almost caused her to tip over. Marlene instinctively reached out to steady her, her laugh spilling over louder now.

“Okay, okay,” Marlene said, her hands raised in mock surrender. She glanced at Eddie, whose expression was a mix of amusement and reluctant admiration for Donna’s drunken determination. “Duty calls.”

“Wait,” Eddie said, his tone playful as he pointed at Donna. “Are you kidnapping her? Is this a hostage situation? Because I don’t think I can compete with that level of chaos.”

Donna gave him a wide, toothy grin. “Absolutely. I’m her chaotic savior. And you”—she jabbed the cup toward him for emphasis—“can keep sulking against the wall. Or, I dunno, find a better costume next time.”

Eddie barked out a laugh, raising his hands in surrender. “Noted. You win this round, Cowgirl.”

Marlene, still laughing, gave Eddie a small wave before Donna pulled her back toward the thrumming bass of the dance floor.

“Donna,” Marlene said as they wove their way through the crowd, “you do realize you’re probably going to break your other leg at this rate, right?”

Donna, already moving to the beat of the music with an unsteady sway, shot her a grin that could only belong to someone too far gone to care. “Worth it! Halloween only happens once a year, Marlene! Now dance!”

And just like that, Marlene found herself bracing them both in the middle of the chaos—laughing, stumbling, barely upright. It was messy. It was ridiculous.

And somehow, it was perfect.

Joanna Byers strides into the Halloween party like she’s walking onto a battlefield, her presence crackling with energy that makes heads turn. Dressed as Joan of Arc, she’s more than a clever pun on her name—she’s the embodiment of defiance and strength, her costume a perfect blend of historical homage and personal flair.

Her armor is a stunning, handcrafted creation, each piece radiating a fierce individuality. The chest plate, painted a gleaming silver, catches the low light of the room, its jagged edges purposefully designed to look like they’ve endured countless battles. On her shoulders rest mismatched pauldrons of papier-mâché, their surfaces engraved with swirling flame patterns—her Aries nature etched into every stroke. Beneath the armor, a soft white tunic drapes elegantly, its hem just brushing her knees, cinched at the waist with a braided leather belt.

In her hand, she carries a shield that could have stepped out of a medieval epic. Painted with bold strokes of red and gold, it depicts a phoenix rising from flames, its wings stretched wide in triumph. The word Courage arcs across the bottom in Joanna’s distinctive handwriting, a reminder of her own unyielding spirit. Her other hand grips the hilt of a wooden sword, its surface etched with gold-painted designs that shimmer faintly as she gestures. Though blunt-edged, it commands respect—much like the girl wielding it.

Her face tells the rest of the story. Joanna’s hair is swept back, its natural waves lending her the look of someone perpetually prepared for battle. Smudges of charcoal streak her cheeks, giving the impression of soot and dirt from a hard-fought campaign. Her eyes, framed by sharp strokes of dark eyeliner, are piercing, their intensity magnified by the fiery glow of her makeup. Her lips, painted a bold crimson, add a touch of regal defiance—a queen as much as a warrior.

Every detail of her costume feels deliberate. A small locket hangs around her neck, its silver casing concealing a photo of her family, grounding her warrior persona in something deeply personal. A strip of crimson fabric hangs loosely from her waist, trailing behind her like a trophy of past victories, its frayed edges adding an air of authenticity.

As Joanna moves through the crowd, her shield slung casually at her side and her sword resting against her hip, she doesn’t just wear the costume—she becomes Joan of Arc. The costume speaks volumes about her: a girl who has faced the flames and come out stronger, a fighter who refuses to back down.

When someone calls out, “Hey, Joan of Arc!” she answers with a smirk, her lips curling just enough to hint at the pun’s intentionality. Because while the joke might get a laugh, the power in her presence is no joke at all.

 Unbothered by the stares she drew, Marlene tilted her head back dramatically and sipped punch from a solo cup as if it were the finest champagne.

“You’re really leaning into this LA drama queen thing, huh?” Donna teased, a crooked grin lighting up her face.

Marlene spun in place, the hem of her tattered dress fluttering. “Honey,” she said with a wink, “if you’re gonna do Halloween, you commit. Blood, tears, the works.”

Donna threw her head back in laughter, her hat tipping dangerously close to falling off. “Fair point, Carrie,” she quipped. “You’re horrifying. And I mean that in the best way.”

Across the room, Robin Buckley leaned against the refreshments table, quietly enjoying her own brand of mischief. Dressed as a pun incarnate—a Cereal Killer—her shirt was adorned with stabbed mini cereal boxes, each dripping with fake blood. It was, in her opinion, a masterclass in cleverness. Unfortunately, no one else seemed to get it.

That was, until Donna spotted her.

Donna’s eyes went wide, her mouth falling open in theatrical awe. She gasped, wobbling like she’d just unearthed the secret of the universe. “OH MY GOD!” she shouted, loud enough to draw stares. “You’re a… you’re a… A CEREAL KILLER!” She jabbed a crutch toward Robin with wild enthusiasm. “THAT’S… THAT’S BRILLIANT!”

Robin froze mid-sip, startled by the sudden outburst. A grin crept across her face as she set her drink down. “Thank you,” she replied, raising her hands in mock humility. “Finally, someone gets it.”

Donna, however, was just getting started. She turned to Marlene, grabbing her blood-slicked arm for balance and nearly pulling them both down. “Marlene! Do you see this? It’s cereal… with knives! Like, murder cereal!” Her voice climbed with each word as if she were explaining quantum physics.

Marlene squinted, tilting her head as though truly contemplating the depths of Robin’s genius. “Oh my God,” she whispered reverently, placing a dramatic hand on her chest. “That’s… art. Literal art.”

Robin bit back a laugh. “Well, thank you, Galm Barbie Cowgirl and Carrie White. Glad to know someone here appreciates the finer things.”

Joanna Byers—ever the reluctant voice of reason—materialized out of the crowd. Dressed as Joan of Arc, her phoenix-emblazoned shield slung across her back, she carried the exhausted grace of someone who’d been playing peacekeeper all night.

She swept in with a sigh, catching Donna by the elbow before she could sway too far off balance..

“Okay,” Joanna said, her tone firm but exasperated, “you two need to sit down before you both turn into actual party casualties.”

Donna blinked at her, wide-eyed. “But Joanna! She’s a cereal killer! And I’m a genius for figuring it out!”

“Yes, Donna,” Joanna replied flatly, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she guided the wobbling pair toward an empty corner. “You’re a regular Einstein. And I’m the patron saint of babysitting.”

Robin raised her cup in a mock toast as the trio shuffled away. “If you think this is genius, just wait till next year. I’m bringing out the pun pyramid.”

Donna started giggling uncontrollably again, nearly losing her hat in the process, while Marlene solemnly declared, “We’ll never top this party. Never.”

Joanna rolled her eyes but couldn’t suppress a small smile. The chaos, somehow, was the perfect encapsulation of them all.

Jonathan knows the party is a bad idea the moment he steps inside.

The house is already too loud, too hot, packed wall to wall with bodies moving in reckless patterns. Music blares from blown speakers, the bass thudding hard enough to vibrate his ribs. He hovers near the entryway, camera strap tight in his hands like it might anchor him to something solid.

A girl from his history class—Linda, maybe?—smiles at him from beside the snack table.

“So,” she says, leaning in like this is the most natural thing in the world, “you’re Jonathan Byers, right?”

Jonathan startles. “Yeah. Uh—hi.”

She laughs softly. “You take pictures, right?”

“Oh. Yeah. I mean—sometimes.” He shifts his weight, suddenly hyperaware of his hands. “I’m not—like—right now.”

“That’s cool,” she says. “I just think it’s kind of… mysterious.”

Jonathan flushes, heat crawling up his neck. “Thanks. I guess.”

He’s halfway through a painfully stiff attempt at a smile when raised voices cut through the music.

Jonathan’s head snaps up.

Near the center of the room, Steve Harrington stands with his hands half-raised, frustration written all over his face. Nancy is in front of him, posture rigid, eyes bright with something sharp and dangerous.

“You don’t get to tell me how I’m supposed to feel,” Nancy says, her voice trembling just enough to give her away.

“I’m not trying to—” Steve starts.

Someone bumps into the table beside them.

A cup tips.

Amber liquid arcs through the air and splashes down the front of Nancy’s costume, soaking the fabric, dripping to the floor.

The room reacts all at once—groans, laughter, someone yelling oh shit.

Nancy looks down at herself.

Then she laughs.

It’s brittle. Wrong.

“Perfect,” she says. “Just—perfect.”

Steve reaches for her instinctively. “Nance, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Don’t,” she snaps, pulling away. “Just—don’t.”

She turns and pushes through the crowd, shoulders squared like she’s holding herself together by sheer force.

Steve hesitates only a second before following.

Jonathan watches them disappear down the hallway, stomach twisting.

Donna doesn’t notice.

She’s laughing too loud near the kitchen, fringe swaying with every exaggerated movement, pink glitter catching the light as she spins in place. Someone hands her another drink. She doesn’t ask who.

That’s when Billy Hargrove clocks her.

He’s leaning against the counter near the keg, nursing a beer like he’s bored of it already, eyes half-lidded as he scans the room. He’s seen Donna before—everyone has—but not like this.

Not glowing.

Not smiling.

Not unguarded.

Something predatory flickers behind his grin.

He pushes off the counter and cuts through the crowd with lazy confidence, stopping just close enough to be noticed.

“Well,” Billy says, voice smooth and deliberate, “if this isn’t the most interesting thing in the house tonight.”

Donna turns, squinting for a second before her face brightens. “Oh! You’re—” She snaps her fingers, searching. “The angry older brother guy.”

Billy laughs. “Close enough.”

He looks her over openly—not leering, not rushing it. Like he knows time is on his side.

“Didn’t take you for a cowgirl,” he adds.

Donna lifts her chin, wobbling just slightly. “I didn’t either. But Marlene did. And Marlene is very convincing.”

Billy hums. “Yeah. I can see that.”

Across the room, someone nudges a friend. A couple of guys near the stairs exchange looks. There’s a murmur—quiet, knowing.

Billy doesn’t care.

He steps closer, lowering his voice. “You look like you’re having a good night.”

Donna grins. “Best one in a while.”

“That so?” His smile sharpens just a touch. “Wouldn’t want it to end early.”

Donna sways, laughs, takes another sip.

And somewhere behind Billy’s eyes, a clock is ticking.

Halloween.

Last chance.

He glances toward the stairs—toward the rooms above, toward the quiet places the party hasn’t touched yet—then back to Donna, his smile settling into something practiced.

“C’mon,” he says lightly. “Let’s get you some air.”

Donna hesitates.

The music swells.

And the night, already full of bad decisions, leans closer.

Donna feels like the night is moving around her instead of the other way around.

The music isn’t loud anymore—it’s thick. Heavy bass pressing into her chest, vibrations crawling up her legs through the floorboards. The lights smear when she turns her head too fast, pink and red and gold bleeding into one another like wet paint.

Billy’s voice cuts through it anyway.

Low. Smooth. Anchoring.

He’s closer now. She doesn’t remember him stepping closer, just suddenly being aware of how warm the air feels between them. How tall he is. How everyone else seems… farther away.

“You okay there, cowgirl?” he asks, amusement curling at the edge of his words.

Donna laughs because it feels expected. Because laughing is easier than thinking.

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m—yeah.”

She is, sort of. Her body feels light, loose, like gravity has finally stopped nagging her. The buzzing in her head dulls everything sharp—Barb, the lab, the questions she doesn’t know how to answer. All the things that usually sit too close to the surface.

Billy hands her another drink.

She doesn’t remember asking for it.

“Easy,” she says, but she takes it anyway, fingers brushing his for half a second longer than necessary. Her skin tingles where they touch, and she tells herself it’s just the alcohol.

It’s always just the alcohol.

“You’re different tonight,” Billy says, eyes tracking her face in a way that makes her feel… seen. Not the way people usually see her. Not curious or wary or pitying.

Different feels good.

“Am I?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says. “Like you finally figured out you don’t have to be invisible.”

Donna smiles at that. Big. Unfiltered.

“I’m not invisible,” she says, almost proudly. “I’m very pink.”

Billy chuckles. “Hard to miss.”

The crowd shifts, bodies pressing closer, and suddenly the space feels too tight. Billy notices before she does.

“C’mon,” he says easily. “Let’s get you some air.”

The word air sounds nice. Clean. Necessary.

Donna hesitates—but only for a second. The hesitation dissolves under the warmth in her chest, the way the night feels softer when she doesn’t question it.

“Okay,” she says.

They move through the house together, and the farther they get from the music, the quieter her thoughts become. That should scare her.

It doesn’t.

Her foot catches on the edge of a rug, and she stumbles. Billy’s hand snaps out, gripping her arm, steadying her with ease.

“You good?” he asks.

His fingers stay there.

A flicker—something cold and distant—passes through her chest. A memory of hands pulling her out of somewhere dark. Of being carried. Of not being able to move at all.

She shakes it off.

“Yeah,” she says again. “I’m fine.”

Billy smiles like that’s the answer he wanted.

They stop near the staircase, the noise behind them muffled now, the upstairs dark and quiet by comparison. Donna leans against the banister, suddenly aware of how unsteady she actually feels.

Billy watches her closely.

“You trust me?” he asks, casual. Almost joking.

Donna laughs, because the question feels silly. Because trust feels like a big word for a moment this small.

“Sure,” she says.

The word leaves her mouth too easily.

Somewhere deep inside her—beneath the alcohol, beneath the music, beneath the pink and the glitter—something stirs.

Not fear.

Instinct.

But it’s faint. Drowned out. Blurred at the edges.

She takes the folder. He waits long enough to make sure she’s steady, then leaves.

The second time, it’s a jacket.

“Well,” he says, holding it out sheepishly, “you, uh… left this in my car.”

Donna stares at it.

She knows that jacket. Knows every frayed seam, every place she’s sewn it back together. She hasn’t worn it since November.

She also knows she didn’t leave it in his car.

But she doesn’t call him on it.

“Oh,” she says instead. “Right. Thanks.”

Steve nods, relief flickering across his face like he was worried she’d noticed. “No problem.”

She doesn’t invite him in.

She doesn’t step aside or gesture toward the doorway. She thanks him again and closes the door gently, firmly, like a boundary drawn in pencil but no less real for it.

Steve never pushes.

He never asks how she’s sleeping. Never asks about Chrissy’s yard. Never asks about the fire, the walking, the rumors that seem to follow her like static.

He just… shows up.

Always with a reason.

Always with an exit.

What Donna notices—weeks in, when the pattern becomes impossible to ignore—is where he parks.

At first, the Beemer had been right out front. Easy. Obvious. A statement.

Now, it’s farther down the street.

Still visible if you’re looking for it—but not close enough to feel like surveillance. Not close enough to make it seem like he’s waiting, or watching, or bracing for something to happen.

He gives her space before she has to ask for it.

That matters more than if he’d stayed.

It matters more than any speech or defense or loud declaration of concern. Because Donna has spent months being watched—by neighbors, by teachers, by kids who whisper her name like it’s a diagnosis.

Steve Harrington choosing not to watch her feels like trust.

Inside the car, driving away, Steve keeps his eyes on the road and lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

He wants to do more.

Wants to say the right thing, fix the wrong ones, stand closer than he’s been invited to stand. But he’s learning—slowly, awkwardly—that trust isn’t built by showing up loudly.

It’s built by showing up quietly. By letting someone decide when you’re allowed closer. And for now, that distance is exactly where Donna Henderson needs him to be.

By April, the snow is mostly gone.

What’s left is mud and grit and the soft, unavoidable truth of things continuing whether anyone feels ready or not. School settles into its rhythms again. Bells ring. Homework piles up. Physical therapy becomes a line item on Donna Henderson’s calendar instead of an emergency.

Steve Harrington becomes part of that routine by default.

The first time Nancy can’t drive her, she says it like it’s no big deal—like the words aren’t carefully rehearsed.

“Steve said he could,” Nancy adds quickly, eyes darting between them. “If that’s okay. I mean. If not, that’s cool. Totally cool.”

Donna looks at Steve.

Steve looks at the floor.

“It’s no problem,” he says. “Only if you want.”

She nods. “Okay.”

And just like that, it’s decided.

They don’t talk much in the car at first.

The Beemer hums beneath them, familiar now in a way Donna doesn’t quite trust yet. Steve keeps the radio low, a classic rock station bleeding softly through the speakers. Donna watches the trees blur past the window, counts telephone poles, tracks her own breathing.

Silence isn’t awkward.

It’s careful.

After a few rides, Steve reaches for the dial.

“Nope,” Donna says immediately.

He freezes mid-motion. “What?”

“That one,” she says, pointing. “That song’s terrible.”

Steve squints at the radio. “That’s Tom Petty.”

“Exactly.”

He scoffs, twisting the dial. “You have no taste.”

She snorts before she can stop herself, reaching for the radio dial. “Okay. No,” she says, already twisting the knob. “If we’re doing a soundtrack, we’re doing it right.”

Steve blinks. “Hey—”

The static crackles once, twice—Then a guitar cuts through.

Donna settles back against the seat as Pat Benatar fills the car, sharp and unapologetic, the chorus hitting with just enough bite to feel earned.

Steve glances at her. “Is this… Pat Benatar?”

She arches a brow. “You know who that is?”

“I mean—yeah. My mom plays her sometimes.” He hesitates. “I just didn’t think you were a Benatar person.”

Donna exhales through her nose, almost amused. “I don’t look like one?”

“No,” he says quickly. Then softer, more honest, “I just didn’t know.”

She considers that for a second. Then shrugs. “She doesn’t apologize for being loud,” Donna says. “Or angry. Or complicated.” A beat. “I like that.”

Steve nods slowly, eyes back on the road. He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t joke. Just listens.

The song builds.

Donna watches the windshield instead of him, fingers tapping faintly against her thigh in time with the beat. For the first time since getting into the car, her shoulders ease—just a little.

After a moment, Steve says, almost to himself, “…This is actually really good.”

Donna smiles, small and sideways. “Told you.”

He doesn’t reach to change the station.

And Donna notices—because she notices everything now—that he lets the song finish—is what Steve doesn’t do.

He never asks about Chrissy Cunningham’s yard.

Not once.

He never asks about the blood on her sock, or the mud on her hands, or the way her body moved when it shouldn’t have been able to. He doesn’t bring up the whispers or the rumors or the way people stare like they’re waiting for her to do something wrong.

He lets it stay where it happened.

In the past.

One afternoon, after physical therapy runs longer than expected, Donna sinks into the passenger seat and closes her eyes.

Just for a second.

The car starts moving. The radio hums. Steve drives.

When they pull into her driveway, the engine idles.

Steve glances over.

Donna is asleep.

Not lightly—her breathing is deep, even. Her head tilted toward the window, hair brushing the glass. Her body finally, finally at rest.

Steve doesn’t wake her.

He doesn’t clear his throat or tap the steering wheel or pretend he needs something from the glove compartment.

He waits.

The minutes stretch.

Donna dreams of nothing.

When she wakes, disoriented, the sun has shifted. The car is still running. Steve’s hands rest loose on the wheel, eyes forward like he hasn’t moved at all.

“Oh,” she says, embarrassed. “Sorry.”

Steve shakes his head. “It’s fine.”

“How long was I out?”

He shrugs. “Long enough.”

She nods, strangely moved by that answer. He waits until she’s steady before cutting the engine. Neither of them mentions it. But the waiting stays with Donna.

Filed away. Quiet. Important.

Because waiting, she’s learning, is its own kind of care.

And Steve Harrington seems to understand that instinctively—whether he knows it yet or not.

By May, the air changes.

Spring settles into Hawkins with the kind of confidence that feels undeserved—sunlight lingering too long, grass growing back over places that should still hurt. School lets up just enough to be dangerous. Expectations soften. Everyone pretends things are fine.

Donna Henderson stops sleeping.

Not all at once. Not dramatically.

Just… less.

She lies in bed listening to the house breathe, waiting for the moment her body decides to betray her again. Waiting for dreams that feel more like directions than memories. Waiting to wake up somewhere she doesn’t recognize.

One afternoon, Steve drives her home from physical therapy and doesn’t turn the radio on at all.

They sit in the quiet for a block longer than necessary.

“I don’t like falling asleep,” Donna says suddenly.

Steve doesn’t look at her. “Yeah?”

“I’m scared I won’t wake up where I started.” She keeps her eyes on the dashboard. “Or that I won’t wake up at all.”

Steve nods once. No questions. No why. No what happened.

Just acceptance.

“You can call me,” he says after a moment. “If it gets bad. Even if it’s stupid late.”

She swallows. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

She nods like she believes him. She doesn’t. But the offer stays.

A few days later, it happens by accident.

They’re in Steve’s kitchen—homework spread out between them because Nancy “forgot” to come over. Donna is fidgeting, restless energy buzzing under her skin. She flips a scrap of paper between her fingers while Steve roots through the fridge.

The paper blackens.

Just the corner.

A faint curl of smoke lifts into the air.

Donna freezes.

Steve turns.

He sees it.

The burn mark. The heat shimmering faintly where it shouldn’t be.

For half a second, her heart stops.

Then Steve does something extraordinary.

He doesn’t react.

He doesn’t ask.

He doesn’t step back.

He walks to the window and opens it, letting the spring air sweep in and carry the smoke away. Then he grabs another piece of paper and hands it to her like nothing happened.

“Window sticks,” he says casually. “Dad never fixes anything.”

Donna stares at him.

“You saw that,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“And you’re not—” Her voice cracks. “You’re not freaked out?”

He shrugs. “You looked freaked out enough for both of us.”

Something in her chest loosens. Just a fraction. They go back to their homework. The burned paper sits in the trash, unremarked.

Donna never calls him.

Not once.

But sometimes, when the fear gets loud and the house feels wrong and sleep feels like a trap, she remembers that he said she could.

By June, summer arrives like it doesn’t know what it’s interrupting.

The air turns warm in that lazy, unearned way—sunlight lingering past dinner, cicadas already rehearsing for August. Lawns get cut. Windows get opened. Hawkins starts behaving like it’s safe again. Like the worst thing anyone has to worry about is boredom.

Donna gets her cast off on a Tuesday.

There’s no ceremony. No applause. Just a quiet appointment room and a nurse who smiles too brightly as she unwraps months of immobilization. When Donna steps outside the physical therapy building, it feels like crossing a threshold she’s been staring at for a long time.

Her walk is careful. Intentional. A little uneven.

No crutches. No white plaster. Just her leg—pale, newly exposed, still learning how to belong to her again.

Steve sees her before she reaches the curb.

He straightens instinctively, like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t—waiting.

“Donna?” The surprise in his voice is real. Unpolished.

She grins, small and a little shy, then lifts her arms out to her sides as if presenting herself. “Surprise. No more crutches. They took my cast off.”

Dustin’s eyebrows shoot up. His gaze flicks from her leg to Steve, then back again. He elbows Steve hard in the ribs. “Well? Say something. This is a medical miracle.”

Steve blinks, then smiles, eyes snapping back to Donna’s leg like it might vanish if he doesn’t keep checking. “That’s—wow. That’s really great.” He hesitates, softening. “How does it feel?”

Donna rocks gently on her heels, testing the ground. “Weird. Like I’m about to tip over any second.” She shrugs. “But I think that’s just my body catching up.”

Dustin clears his throat loudly, suddenly very invested in the nearby gas station. “Okay, I’m gonna go celebrate by getting snacks.” He points between them. “Don’t make it weird.”

Then he’s gone, bounding across the street, two steps at a time, leaving behind a quiet that settles too fast, too thick.

Steve gestures awkwardly toward a row of benches outside the building. “You wanna sit? Or—uh—I can grab you one—”

“I’m good,” Donna says. She doesn’t move right away. Lingers. Then exhales like she’s been holding something back. “I just wanted to… say thanks.”

He frowns. “For what?”

“For being patient,” she says softly. “You didn’t push. You didn’t ask me to be okay before I was. You just… stayed.”

Steve rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed, eyes drifting to the floor. “Guess I’m good at standing around.”

She laughs—quiet, real. It catches them both off guard, like a sound neither of them expected to hear again so easily.

Later, Steve takes her and Dustin for milkshakes. The ridiculous kind with too much whipped cream and neon cherries, the kind that feel almost rebellious just by existing. They sit on the hood of the Beemer, the metal still warm, the engine ticking as it cools. Music drifts faintly from another car, something tinny and summer-wrong.

Donna laughs again—louder this time. Sharper. Unfiltered.

It surprises her.

It surprises Steve.

For a moment, it almost feels like normal.

Almost.

As they head back to the car, a voice cuts across the parking lot.

“Hey! It’s Demented Donna!”

The words hit like a thrown rock.

Donna freezes.

Steve doesn’t turn. Doesn’t square his shoulders. Doesn’t rise into anything loud or heroic.

He just looks at her and asks, quietly, “You wanna leave?”

She nods.

They get into the car. The door shuts. The engine starts.

No spectacle. No defense. No performance. Just an exit.

As the Beemer pulls away, Donna watches the lights blur past the window and realizes something she didn’t know she needed to learn:

He isn’t trying to save her. He’s letting her choose when to go. And somehow, that feels safer than anything else.

July arrives without asking permission.

It’s hot in that way that makes Hawkins feel falsely alive — lawns cut too short, pools uncovered, radios playing with the windows down. Summer pretending nothing ever went wrong.

Steve invites everyone on a Thursday.

He does it casually, like it’s no big thing. A pool day. Nothing fancy. Just people he trusts. Nancy, Joanna, Mike and the boys. And Donna.

He doesn’t call it a party.

He doesn’t say at my house out loud, but the words sit there anyway.

Donna hesitates when he asks.

It’s subtle — just a half-second pause on the line, a breath caught and smoothed over before it can turn into something else.

“Yeah,” she says. “Okay.”

Steve smiles to himself after he hangs up.

Saturday afternoon comes bright and loud.

The pool water glitters. Someone’s left the gate open so the music drifts out into the street. Mike and the boys argue over turns off the diving board like the world hasn’t tried to end twice already. Joanna dangles her feet in the water, flicking droplets at Nancy, who pretends to be annoyed and isn’t.

Steve checks the driveway.

Nothing.

He tells himself it’s early.

Donna’s probably just running late.

He checks again twenty minutes later.

Then again.

By the third time, he stops pretending he’s not waiting.

Nancy notices but doesn’t say anything.

Joanna does — quietly, later, when Steve pretends he’s looking for sunscreen he already found. “You think she’s okay?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Steve says, automatically. “Probably.”

But the word doesn’t land.

He calls Donna once.

No answer.

He doesn’t call again.

Donna stands in her room with her swimsuit folded on the bed.

July sunlight pours through the window, too bright, too warm. The air smells like cut grass and asphalt and something almost hopeful.

Her phone rests in her hand.

Steve’s house.

The thought hits her harder than she expects — not like a memory, not like a thought she can reason with. It lands in her chest, sharp and immediate, like her body has already decided for her.

Her breath goes shallow.

Her room tilts just slightly, like the floor isn’t where it should be.

She closes her eyes and sees it anyway — the hallway, the panic, the cold certainty that no one was coming in time.

Her leg aches. Not pain. Memory.

She tries to move.

Her body refuses.

“I can’t,” she whispers.

Not today.

She sits on the edge of the bed until the moment passes without resolving itself. She doesn’t call. She doesn’t text. She lets the silence stand.

Steve is cleaning up when Donna finally shows.

The sun is lower now, the party thinned out and quieted. Towels are piled by the back door, still damp. The pool cover hangs half-pulled, like someone gave up.

The doorbell rings.

Steve’s heart jumps before he can stop it.

Donna stands on the porch, arms crossed tight, eyes fixed just past him like she doesn’t trust herself to look inside yet.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.”

She doesn’t step forward.

“I didn’t come earlier,” she says carefully. “I thought I could. I just—” She stops. Swallows. “I couldn’t.”

Steve nods once.

“Okay.”

No why.

No disappointed smile.

No pressure to explain the thing she hasn’t figured out how to name yet.

Her shoulders drop just a fraction.

“I didn’t want you to think it was you,” she adds quietly.

“I didn’t,” he says.

That makes her look at him.

They sit on opposite ends of the couch, the space between them intentional, respected. The house is quieter now — not empty, just still.

After a long stretch, Donna asks, barely above a murmur, “Why do you still help me?”

Steve doesn’t answer right away.

“Because you’re here,” he says simply.

Nothing heroic. Nothing heavy.

She nods, throat tight.

“I don’t sleep much either,” he adds, eyes still forward. “Not since we fought that thing at Joanna’s house.”

She doesn’t ask why.

She understands.

They sit there as July hums outside — cicadas starting early, the day slipping into evening — neither of them trying to fix the other, neither pretending this is easier than it is.

Shared silence settles in, gentle and unforced. Not healing. Not resolution.

Just presence.

And for July, that’s enough.

August settles over Hawkins like a held breath.

The heat is heavier now — thick, unmoving, the kind that makes everything feel suspended in place. Cicadas scream from the trees outside, relentless and constant, as if trying to drown out anything else that might surface.

Donna sits at the kitchen table.

Her pencil scrapes softly against paper, the sound too small for the room it’s in. Her notebook lies open in front of her, pages filled with half-sketches and abandoned lines — shapes that never quite become anything. Her leg rests propped on the chair across from her, positioned carefully, deliberately. It works now. Mostly. But she still treats it like something that might betray her if she stops paying attention.

She wears her dad’s sweatshirt again — oversized, sleeves swallowing her hands, the fabric worn thin and soft from years of use. It smells faintly like laundry detergent and something familiar she can’t name.

The house is quiet.

Too quiet.

The back door creaks open.

Donna doesn’t look up.

“Dustin’s upstairs,” she says, voice flat, neutral. Not unkind. Just guarded. “Working on… something loud.”

Steve steps inside, a cardboard box tucked under one arm. The scent of outside comes with him — grass, dirt, summer. He pauses just inside the door, like he’s checking the temperature of the room before committing to it.

“I figured,” he says lightly.

He sets the box down on the counter but doesn’t head upstairs. Instead, he pours himself a cup of coffee, leans back against the counter, and lets the silence stretch.

Donna feels him watching her without looking.

“What’re you working on?” he asks eventually.

“Nothing important,” she says, closing the notebook a little too quickly. The pencil snaps down against the paper with a quiet click. She folds her arms, tucking her hands out of sight.

Steve doesn’t call her on it.

He takes a sip of coffee, grimaces. “Still terrible.”

That gets her attention.

She glances up despite herself. “Then why do you keep drinking it?”

He shrugs. “Feels like something adults do.”

She snorts before she can stop herself. The sound is quick, surprised — gone as soon as it appears.

Steve smiles, like he’s cataloging it for later.

“I took an art class once,” he says casually. “Thought I was gonna be great. Turns out I mostly just drew cars.”

Donna arches a brow. “Let me guess. You quit.”

“Obviously.”

She shakes her head, the corner of her mouth lifting just enough to count.

The quiet shifts — not tense anymore, but alert. Like something fragile has been set down between them.

Steve watches her pencil hover uselessly above the page. “Dustin says you used to dance. With Nancy and Joanna and-”

The pencil stills.

“That was a long time ago,” Donna says, eyes fixed on the paper.

“Still,” Steve says, careful now. “That’s… impressive.”

She exhales sharply. “It doesn’t matter.”

He pulls out the chair across from her but doesn’t sit right away. Waits.

“Why not?” he asks, not pressing — just asking.

Donna’s grip tightens around the pencil. She gestures once toward her leg, sharp and frustrated. “Because loving something doesn’t mean you get to keep it.”

The words hang there, rawer than she intended.

Steve sits slowly, like any sudden movement might spook the moment. “You don’t have to decide that yet.”

Her eyes snap up. “Yes, I do.”

He meets her gaze evenly. “No. You don’t.”

Silence stretches again — longer this time.

She looks away first.

“You really don’t give up,” she mutters.

He shrugs. “I wait.”That lands differently.

She wakes up outside three nights later.

The grass is cool against her palms. Damp. Her skin prickles with it. She blinks up at the sky, stars blurred and unfamiliar, and for one terrible second she doesn’t know where she is.

Her leg tingles — numb, buzzing.

She doesn’t scream.

She breathes.

A shape moves at the edge of her vision.

Steve is sitting a few feet away, knees drawn up, arms resting loosely on them. He doesn’t rush her. Doesn’t say her name. Just… waits.

“How long?” she asks quietly.

“Not long,” he says. “You were close this time.”

She swallows. “I didn’t feel it.”

“I know.”

Her fingers curl into the grass, grounding. “I’m scared.”

“I know.”

She waits for panic. For questions. For him to make it bigger than it is.

He doesn’t.

He just shifts closer when she nods, careful not to touch her leg until sensation returns. When it does, she exhales shakily, relief washing through her.

“Thank you,” she says.

“For what?”

“For not freaking out.”

He smiles faintly. “Doesn’t seem helpful.”

She believes him. That’s the terrifying part. She trusted him with the scariest version of herself. And he stayed. August holds them there — not healed, not fixed — but choosing, again and again, to meet each other where they are.

Quietly.

On purpose.

September arrives gently.

Not like a beginning. More like a settling.

The heat loosens its grip on Hawkins just enough to make breathing feel intentional again. The days are still warm, but the mornings carry a promise of coolness, of change waiting just out of sight. Summer hasn’t ended so much as it’s agreed to step back.

Donna walks differently now.

It’s subtle. Easy to miss if you’re not paying attention.

Her stride is longer. Less guarded. She doesn’t brace herself before stairs anymore. She doesn’t count her steps under her breath. The tension that once lived permanently in her shoulders has softened, inch by inch, without announcement.

Steve notices.

He doesn’t say anything.

He doesn’t ask how her leg feels or point out the way she no longer favors it when she’s tired. He doesn’t mark the moment with words, because he knows better now. He’s learned that progress doesn’t want witnesses — it wants permission.

So he lets her notice it herself.

She does, eventually.

It happens one afternoon when they’re walking back to the car after dropping Dustin off. Donna reaches the Beemer first without realizing she’s done it. She stops short, keys dangling uselessly in her hand, the realization blooming slowly across her face.

Steve watches from a few steps behind.

She looks down at her legs like they’ve betrayed her by cooperating.

Then she laughs.

Not loud. Not dramatic.

Just… surprised.

He smiles, but keeps his mouth shut.

That’s how this works now.

They’re driving when the moment finally comes.

Windows down. Late summer air pouring in, carrying the smell of cut grass and hot asphalt and something fading. The radio is low — background noise more than music. The sky is streaked with orange and pink, the sun hovering just above the trees like it hasn’t decided whether to leave yet.

Steve has one hand on the wheel, relaxed. Donna’s elbow rests against the open window, fingers slicing lazily through the air.

She’s quiet.

Not withdrawn. Just thinking.

Steve doesn’t rush her.

Finally, she speaks.

“If something happens again…”

He glances at her, but doesn’t interrupt.

“If I wake up somewhere,” she continues. “If I lose time. If it’s bad.” Her jaw tightens, just a fraction. “I want you to know first.”

Steve nods.

No hesitation.

No questions.

“Okay.”

That’s it.

No promises about fixing it. No reassurances he can’t guarantee. Just agreement — solid and real.

Donna exhales, something easing out of her chest that she didn’t realize she’d been holding. She nods once, satisfied. The car keeps moving. The road stretches ahead of them, unremarkable and steady and safe enough for now.

Trust doesn’t arrive like fire.

She does anyway.

The trees thin.

Lights bloom ahead.

Suburban. Clean. Wrong.

She steps out of the woods and into a yard she recognizes.

Chrissy Cunningham’s.

The lawn is perfectly trimmed despite the cold, the porch light glowing warm and welcoming. The house looks like something out of a magazine—safe, untouched by anything real.

Donna walks straight across the grass.

Her bare hands sink into the soil near the edge of the flowerbed, fingers curling into damp earth. She doesn’t know why. She doesn’t question it. Her palms come up dark with mud, nails rimmed black.

She kneels.

Her cast drags through the dirt.

Something sharp presses against her ankle.

She doesn’t feel pain.

She feels… pressure. Resistance. Like the world pushing back.

She pulls her foot free.

The sock beneath the cast is torn.

Blood seeps through slowly, dark against white.

Still, she doesn’t wake.

Inside the house, laughter drifts faintly through the walls.

A sleepover.

Courtney Wilcox sits cross-legged on Chrissy’s bed, nails painted fresh, hair curled just right. Brie and Tanya sprawl nearby, surrounded by magazines and half-empty soda cans. Someone is mid-sentence—something cruel and speculative.

“—I swear, my mom says Donna Henderson is, like, cursed,” Brie says, laughing. “Like bad things just follow her.”

Courtney smirks. “I heard she didn’t survive the woods at all. That whatever came back isn’t really her.”

A knock sounds.

Not at the door.

At the window.

Soft.

Wet.

Three heads turn.

Chrissy frowns. “What was that?”

Another sound.

Scrape.

Courtney moves first, irritation flashing across her face as she hops off the bed and yanks the curtain aside—And freezes.

Donna Henderson stands in the yard.

Barefoot.

Cast streaked with mud.

Hands black with dirt.

One sock soaked red.

Her eyes are open.

Empty.

The porch light casts her in harsh yellow, turning her into something unreal—something staged. Her posture is wrong, too still, like a mannequin placed carefully in the middle of the lawn.

Brie screams.

Chrissy stumbles backward, hitting the edge of her dresser. Tanya’s hands fly to her mouth.

Courtney doesn’t move.

She stares.

This is it, she thinks. This is what everyone’s been whispering about.

Donna tilts her head slightly, like she hears something they don’t.

Then—She blinks.

Once.

Twice.

The world rushes back in all at once.

Donna’s breath catches painfully in her chest. Her heart slams so hard it makes her dizzy. She looks down—No crutches.

Mud caked into her palms.

Blood on her sock.

Her stomach drops.

“Oh,” she whispers.

The word comes out small. Human.

The porch light flickers.

Courtney laughs.

Not loud. Not hysterical.

Vindicated.

“See?” she says softly, turning back to the others. “I told you.”

Donna’s head snaps up.

She takes an unsteady step back—and nearly falls as pain finally crashes into her leg, white-hot and unbearable. She collapses to her knees in the grass, gasping, clutching at her cast as sensation returns all at once.

Too late.

Too real.

Too witnessed.

Lights flick on in neighboring houses.

Doors open.

Voices rise.

By the time Donna is helped to her feet—by strangers, by adults who look at her like she’s a problem that needs managing—the story has already started writing itself.

She doesn’t remember walking here.

But something did.

Something that didn’t need her permission.

As she’s led away, shivering and exposed, she catches Courtney’s eye one last time through the window.

Courtney smiles.

And Donna understands, with sickening clarity:

It doesn’t matter how many people Joanna scares.

Donna Henderson will always be Demented Donna.

And the Upside Down knows exactly where to find her.

Steve Harrington hears the shouting before he sees the lights.

It cuts through the quiet of the street like something breaking—voices raised, porch lights snapping on one by one, the low murmur of adults trying to sound calm while absolutely not being calm. He steps out onto his front porch in socked feet, jacket half-zipped, heart already thudding with a bad kind of familiarity.

That’s when he sees her.

Donna Henderson stands in Chrissy Cunningham’s front yard like a crime scene no one bothered to tape off.

Mud streaks her hands. Her cast is filthy, smeared dark from knee to ankle. One sock is soaked through with blood, the red already turning brown in the cold air. She’s shaking—hard enough that Steve can see it from across the street—and the look on her face is worse than the mess.

It’s empty.

Not blank. Not dazed.

Empty like someone who woke up in the wrong place and can’t remember how the hell they got there.

Steve doesn’t think.

He just moves.

“Hey,” he says, stepping off the curb and crossing the street fast, palms open. “Hey, it’s okay. I’ve got her.”

Mrs. Cunningham looks relieved and suspicious all at once. “Steve, we were just about to call—”

“I live right there,” he says, nodding back toward his house like that explains everything. “I’ll take her. She shouldn’t be standing.”

One of the girls—Brie, maybe—snorts. “Of course you will.”

Steve doesn’t look at her.

He looks at Donna.

Her eyes flick up at the sound of his voice, recognition clicking slowly into place. She swallows, lips parting like she’s about to apologize for existing.

“Steve?” she asks quietly.

“Yeah,” he says, softer now. “I’m here.”

He steps closer, careful not to crowd her. When he offers his arm, she hesitates—then takes it. Her grip is weak but desperate, fingers curling into his sleeve like he’s the only solid thing left.

Someone laughs behind them.

“Guess Demented Donna’s got herself another babysitter.”

Steve stops.

He turns just enough to look back at the girls on the porch, his expression flat and sharp in a way that makes the air shift.

Steve stops.

He doesn’t spin around fast. Doesn’t flare. Just turns slowly, one hand still steadying Donna, expression calm in a way that makes the air tighten.

“She’s hurt,” he says. Calm. Even. Dangerous.

His eyes sweep over the girls on the porch once — not angry, just unimpressed.

“You done embarrassing yourselves,” he adds, voice cool, “or do you wanna keep going?”

No one answers.

Steve nods once, like that’s what he expected, and turns back to Donna.

He guides Donna across the street, slow and steady, shielding her body with his own without making a show of it. She leans heavier with every step, like the adrenaline that kept her upright is finally burning out.

They reach his front porch.

Donna stops.

Freezes.

Her fingers tighten on his sleeve.

“I—” she starts, then falters. Her eyes lock on the front door like it might open on its own and swallow her whole. “I can’t go in there.”

Steve follows her gaze. His house looks the same as it always does—clean, warm, safe in the way expensive things are safe. It suddenly feels too close. Too familiar.

“That’s okay,” he says immediately. “We don’t have to.”

She exhales shakily, relief flickering across her face before fear rushes back in to replace it. “Can you—” She swallows. “Can you just… take me home?”

Steve hesitates.

Not because he doesn’t want to.

Because he’s looking at her hands. The mud. The blood. The way she’s shaking so badly she can barely stand.

And because his Beemer is parked right there.

Pristine. Leather seats. Light interior.

He pictures the mess she’ll leave behind.

Then he looks at Donna again.

Her eyes are glassy. Haunted. Still trying to figure out how she ended up in someone else’s yard without her crutches.

“Yeah,” he says, decision made. “Yeah, of course.”

He opens the passenger door and helps her in, carefully lifting her leg so the cast doesn’t catch. Mud streaks across the seat. Blood dots the floor mat.

Steve doesn’t even flinch.

He closes the door gently, walks around the car, and slides into the driver’s seat.

As he pulls away from the curb, Donna finally speaks again.

“I don’t remember walking,” she says, voice barely there. “I just… woke up.”

Steve’s jaw tightens.

“We’ll figure it out,” he says, even though he has no idea how. “Okay?”

She nods, staring out the window as the streetlights blur past.

The car smells like dirt and cold air and something wrong.

Steve drives anyway.

Because whatever happened to Donna Henderson tonight——it’s already been seen.

And the least he can do is make sure she gets home.

The cabin smells like peanut butter and old wood and something warm that never quite goes away.

It isn’t one thing. It’s layers — bread toasted too long earlier in the day, the faint bitterness of coffee that’s been reheated one time too many, pine needles tracked in on boots and slowly crushed into the floorboards. The smell of safety isn’t clean. It’s lived-in.

Joanna sits cross-legged on the floor, the Sorry! board spread between her and El. The cardboard corners are bent, the colors faded just enough to prove Hopper didn’t buy it new. Red and blue pieces scatter across the board in no particular order, one card lying upside down near the edge like it lost interest halfway through the rules.

Neither of them fixes it.

El squints at the board, her brow furrowing in concentration. The tip of her tongue peeks out slightly, a habit she doesn’t know she has. Her fingers hover over the pieces like they might move if she thinks hard enough.

“You cheated,” she says finally.

Joanna snorts. “I did not.”

“You moved two,” El insists, tapping the space with one careful finger. “It says one.”

Joanna leans forward, squinting dramatically, like she’s never seen numbers before in her life. She cranes her neck, tilts her head, then looks up with a grin that’s all mischief and zero remorse.

“Okay,” she admits. “Yeah. Maybe a little.”

El’s lips twitch.

Not a full smile. Not yet.

“That’s not allowed,” El says, but there’s no heat in it. No accusation. Just fact.

“Then punish me,” Joanna says solemnly, nudging one of El’s pieces forward. “Send me back to start. I deserve it.”

El considers this.

She really considers it — eyes tracking the board, fingers curling slowly around a card, jaw set in a way that feels very serious for a board game with cartoon pawns.

Then she reaches out and moves Joanna’s piece.

All the way back.

Joanna gasps, clutching her chest. “Absolutely ruthless. No mercy. I raised you better than this.”

El watches her flop backward onto the floor like she’s been struck by a sniper shot. For a second, El just stares — like she’s not sure if this is allowed either.

Then she laughs.

It’s quick. Sharp. Surprised. Like the sound slipped out without asking permission first.

Joanna props herself up on her elbows, the laugh settling warm and heavy in her chest. It feels earned. Not borrowed. Not forced.

She reaches behind her, digging into her bag, fingers brushing over notebooks and loose change before finding what she’s looking for. She pulls out a small stack of cassette tapes, bundled together with a rubber band stretched thin from overuse.

Each tape is labeled in her messy handwriting.

EL — SIDE AEL — SIDE BDON’T SKIP TRACK 4

El’s eyes widen immediately.

“For me?” she asks.

Joanna nods, suddenly a little shy about it. “Yeah. I, uh… made some new ones.”

El takes them carefully, like they might disappear if she moves too fast. She turns one over in her hands, thumb brushing the label again and again, grounding herself in the texture.

“What’s on them?” she asks.

“A lot of stuff,” Joanna says. “Some music you liked. Some things I think you might like.” She shrugs. “One of them is just… noise. When your head won’t shut up.”

El looks up at her.

“You thought about that?”

Joanna doesn’t hesitate. “All the time.”

Something soft settles between them.

El scoots closer, shoulder brushing Joanna’s arm, still holding the tapes like they’re fragile. “Hopper says I can listen after dinner.”

Joanna smiles. “Good. Tell me which ones you hate.”

El nods solemnly. “I will.”

The board game sits forgotten between them. Outside, the woods press close. Inside, Joanna reaches over and turns the radio down just a little — instinctive, careful, like she’s learned where El’s comfort lives now.

Steve isn’t here.

Donna isn’t here.

And that’s the point.

Joanna glances at El lining up her pieces again with deliberate care, grounding herself in small rules and bright colors.

This is where she’s supposed to be.

El looks up. “Your turn.”

Joanna smiles, picks up a card—It doesn’t go quiet all at once. It clicks and exhales, wood adjusting to temperature, the stove ticking faintly even though it hasn’t been on in hours. Outside, the trees creak and whisper to one another, a language El doesn’t understand but knows isn’t meant for her.

She sits back on her heels, lining her Sorry! pieces into a neat row beside the board. Red. Blue. Red. Blue. Order matters. It makes the inside of her chest feel less crowded.

Joanna watches her do it without comment.

That’s new.

Most people try to fill the quiet. Joanna used to, too—jokes tumbling over themselves, noise as armor. But lately she’s learned the difference between silence that hurts and silence that holds.

This one holds.

El reaches for another card. She doesn’t look at it right away. “You’re different,” she says instead.

Joanna stiffens only a little. “Different how?”

El frowns, searching for the right word. “Quieter.”

Joanna lets out a breath that’s almost a laugh. “Yeah. I guess I am.”

“You don’t look at the door anymore,” El adds.

Joanna’s eyes flick, instinctive, to the cabin door. Then back to El. “I didn’t realize I was doing that.”

“You were,” El says simply.

Joanna nods. She believes her.

Before, every sound outside had pulled at her—boots on gravel, engines in the distance, the phantom expectation that someone would knock and ask her to explain herself. Or worse: ask her to leave.

Now, she stays.

Because El is here.

Because El needs someone who will sit still with her and not try to fix the unfixable.

Joanna flips her card. “Three,” she announces. “That feels right.”

El moves her piece accordingly, precise. She pauses, then looks up again. “Hopper says you can’t come every day.”

Joanna’s smile is careful. Measured. “Yeah.”

“He says it’s not safe.”

“It isn’t,” Joanna agrees.

El tilts her head. “But you come anyway.”

Joanna meets her gaze. Doesn’t dodge it. “Twice a week.”

“That’s not a lot,” El says.

“No,” Joanna admits. “It isn’t.”

El’s fingers tighten around the edge of the board. “I don’t like when people decide things for me.”

Joanna’s chest aches at that. “Me neither.”

They sit with that truth between them, heavy and shared.

El looks down at the cassette tapes again, stacked neatly beside her knee. “You made these for me,” she says. Not a question.

“Yes.”

“You didn’t make any for… them.”

Joanna knows who she means without El saying it.

“No,” she says quietly. “I didn’t.”

El nods. This is acceptable.

She hesitates, then asks, “Are you mad at them?”

Joanna considers the question seriously. “I don’t think so. I think I’m… tired.”

“Tired people leave,” El says.

Joanna’s throat tightens. “Sometimes.”

El’s eyes sharpen. “You’re not leaving.”

“No,” Joanna says immediately. Too fast. She slows herself. “No. I’m not.”

El watches her face, searching for cracks. She’s good at that. She’s learned how to tell when adults are lying—when words don’t match what’s happening underneath them.

Joanna passes the test.

El relaxes back onto the floor, stretching her legs out in front of her. “Hopper says normal is important.”

Joanna smiles faintly. “He’s right.”

“I don’t know what normal is,” El admits.

Joanna reaches out and nudges one of the game pieces with her fingertip. “Normal is… this. Boring games. Bad music. Snacks that are always the same.”

El thinks about this. “I like boring.”

“Me too.”

The radio hums softly in the background, barely loud enough to register. Joanna listens automatically, cataloging the sounds the way she’s learned to—how close they are, how intrusive, whether El’s shoulders tense at any of them.

She reaches out and lowers the volume another notch.

El notices.

“You do that,” El says.

Joanna freezes. “Do what?”

“You make things smaller,” El explains. “So they don’t hurt.”

Joanna swallows. “I try.”

El’s gaze drifts, unfocused for a moment. “People used to be loud in my head.”

Joanna doesn’t speak. She knows better.

“Sometimes they still are,” El continues. “When I dream.”

Joanna’s fingers curl against the floor. “Do you want to talk about it?”

El shakes her head. “Not yet.”

“Okay.”

A beat passes.

Then El says, very quietly, “I like when you’re here.”

Joanna’s vision blurs unexpectedly. She blinks it away before El can see. “I like being here.”

Outside, something moves through the trees—a deer, maybe. Or nothing at all. The cabin holds.

Somewhere else in Hawkins, Steve Harrington is scrubbing mud out of his car with hands that don’t know how to stop shaking. Somewhere else, Donna Henderson is staring at her ceiling, afraid to sleep. Somewhere else, secrets are spilling and hardening into stories that won’t be kind.

But here—Here is a board game with missing pieces. Cassette tapes labeled with care. A girl who was once alone learning how to be quiet without disappearing.

El picks up the deck again and hands it to Joanna. “Your turn.”

Joanna takes the cards, heart steady in a way it hasn’t been in days.

This isn’t escape.

It’s alignment.

And for now—It’s enough.

Steve pulls into the Henderson driveway with the headlights off.

He doesn’t know why. Habit, maybe. Or instinct. The house is dark except for the soft glow of the living room window, curtains drawn halfway like someone forgot to finish closing them.

Donna hasn’t said a word the entire ride.

She sits angled toward the passenger door, shoulders hunched, hands clenched in her lap. Mud has dried into dark cracks along her fingers. Her cast rests awkwardly on the floor mat, streaked brown and red, like evidence no one’s bothered to collect yet.

Steve cuts the engine.

The quiet rushes in all at once.

“We’re here,” he says gently.

Donna blinks, like the words have to travel a long way to reach her. She nods once. Then again, like she’s reminding herself how.

The front door opens before Steve can get out.

Claudia Henderson stands on the porch in a sweater she definitely slept in, hair pulled back messily, worry written into every line of her face. She freezes when she sees Donna.

“Oh my god,” she breathes.

Donna crumples at the sound of her voice.

“I don’t remember walking,” she says immediately, words tumbling out. “I swear, I was asleep and then I was just—there, and my leg didn’t hurt and I didn’t—”

“Hey,” Claudia says softly, already moving, already pulling the passenger door open. “It’s okay. You’re home. You’re safe.”

Steve steps back, letting her take over without question.

Claudia helps Donna out carefully, clucking under her breath when she sees the blood on her sock, the mud ground into the cast.

“What happened?” she asks Steve quietly as they guide Donna inside.

Steve shakes his head. “I don’t know. She was… in Chrissy Cunningham’s yard.”

Claudia goes still for half a second.

Then she nods. “Okay. Okay. Thank you for bringing her.”

Donna barely registers the transition from porch to hallway. Her weight sags heavier with every step, adrenaline finally draining away and leaving only pain and shock in its wake.

“I’m gonna get you cleaned up,” Claudia murmurs, steering her toward the bathroom. “Then we’ll talk.”

Donna’s fingers catch on the doorframe.

“Steve,” she says suddenly.

He looks up.

Her eyes are glassy but lucid now. Anchored.

“Thank you.”

Something tightens in his chest. “Anytime.”

Claudia disappears into the bathroom with Donna, the door closing softly behind them.

Steve exhales.

Then—“STEVE!”

Dustin barrels down the stairs like gravity personally offended him, socks sliding on the hardwood. He skids to a stop when he sees Steve in the hallway, eyes wide and frantic.

“Oh thank god,” Dustin blurts. “Okay, so you brought her home, that’s good, that’s really good, because listen—”

“Dustin,” Steve cuts in gently. “Slow down.”

Dustin clamps his mouth shut, inhales sharply, then explodes anyway.

“She had fire powers,” he says.

Steve blinks. “She what.”

“Fire,” Dustin repeats, hands flying. “Like actual flames. Her blanket caught on fire and she just—” He gestures wildly, fingers curling. “—put it out. Without touching it. Like it listened to her.”

Steve stares at him.

“That’s not funny,” he says slowly.

“I’m not joking,” Dustin insists. “The alarm went off, everything was smoking, and then it just—stopped. And then tonight she shows up in Chrissy’s yard again without her crutches and—”

“Hold on,” Steve says sharply. “Again without her crutches?”

“Yes!” Dustin says. “And she didn’t even know how she got there. She was asleep. She sleepwalked.”

The word lands heavy.

Steve leans back against the wall, scrubbing a hand through his hair. He pictures Donna standing in that yard. Barefoot. Still.

“You’re sure?” he asks.

“I swear,” Dustin says. “And she doesn’t want me talking about it. Like—at all. She made me promise. But then this happened and I figured you should know because you were there and also because—” His voice cracks slightly. “—this isn’t normal.”

“No,” Steve agrees quietly. “It’s not.”

The bathroom door opens.

Steam spills into the hallway, carrying the scent of soap and shampoo and something scorched that hasn’t quite washed away. Claudia steps out, closing the door behind her.

“She’s in the shower,” she says softly. “I’m going to check her cast when she’s done.”

Steve nods. “She… she asked me to take her home instead of coming inside my place.”

Claudia looks at him, understanding dawning. “Thank you.”

Steve shifts from foot to foot. “Mrs. Henderson?”

She turns. “Yes, Steven?”

“She’s really scared,” he says, earnest and helpless. “Like… more than she lets on.”

Claudia’s eyes soften. “I know.”

Steve glances toward the bathroom door, listening to the muffled sound of water hitting tile.

“But she’s also not alone,” he says, surprising himself with how certain it sounds.

Claudia meets his gaze.

“No,” she agrees. “She’s not.”

Upstairs, the shower runs.

Down the hall, two boys stand in the quiet, holding pieces of a truth too big to make sense of yet.

“I don’t know what happened,” she says quietly.

“Yes you do,” Dustin blurts. “I mean—not, like, scientifically, but—”

“Dustin.”

Her voice cuts clean through him.

He finally steps into the room.

Carefully. Like she might break. Or explode.

“You put it out,” he says, eyes flicking between her hands and the blackened carpet. “You just—” He lifts his own hands, mimicking her earlier motion, palms out. “Whoosh. Like it listened to you.”

Donna’s stomach flips.

“I panicked,” she says. “That’s all.”

Dustin shakes his head so hard his curls bounce. “No, no, no. Panic doesn’t do that.”

She looks up then, sharp. “Stop.”

He freezes.

For half a second.

Then the words come tumbling out anyway.

“Okay, okay, I know this is gonna sound insane,” he says, backing up a step, hands raised in surrender even as excitement bleeds through his voice, “but this is exactly how it starts. Like—exactly.”

“Starts what?” Donna snaps.

He hesitates. Then blurts, “Jean Grey.”

She stares at him.

“…What?”

“I’ll show you,” Dustin says, already moving. “Just—don’t freak out, okay?”

“I am actively freaking out,” she says.

But he’s already gone.

He’s back thirty seconds later, arms full of X-Men comics, nearly tripping over himself as he spills back into the room and dumps them onto her bed. Pages fan open—bright, loud, wrong against the scorched sheets.

“Okay,” he says, flipping through frantically. “So—telekinesis. That’s this part.” He taps a panel where Jean lifts debris with her mind. “That’s like—what you already do. Moving stuff. Basic, entry-level mutant stuff.”

Donna’s chest tightens.

“Dustin—”

“But this,” he says, flipping again, landing on a page where Jean is wreathed in fire, eyes blazing, power exploding outward, “this is the Phoenix.”

He looks up at her, eyes shining.

“Fire,” he whispers. “She doesn’t just move things. She becomes it.”

Donna doesn’t look at the page.

Cold creeps through her veins, settling deep in her bones.

“That’s not me,” she says immediately.

Dustin falters. “I mean—I’m not saying you’re gonna go cosmic or destroy planets or anything, but—Donna, this is huge.”

“I almost burned my room down.”

“But you didn’t,” he says quickly. “You stopped it.”

“I didn’t try to.”

“That’s the point!” he insists. “It reacted to you. Like it knew.”

Her breathing goes shallow.

She presses her palms into the mattress, grounding herself in the familiar texture. “I don’t want this.”

Dustin blinks. “What?”

“I don’t want to be… this,” she says, gesturing vaguely at the comics, the room, herself. “I don’t want names for it. I don’t want explanations.”

He opens his mouth. Closes it again.

“Donna,” he says more carefully, “this could actually make things make sense.”

“Nothing about this makes sense,” she snaps. “I died. I died, Dustin.”

The word drops between them like a weight.

He swallows. “You didn’t.”

“I stopped breathing,” she says. “I was gone. And now this is happening and you’re talking about comic books like that makes it better.”

He flinches.

“I’m just saying—you’re not alone,” he says. “El—”

“Don’t.”

The word slices through the air, sharp enough to make him stop cold.

“I’m just saying—you’re not alone,” Dustin says, softer now, more careful. “I mean… stuff like this doesn’t just happen to people for no reason.”

He swallows. “I just—I figured Joanna would’ve said something. She always knows things before anyone else.”

Donna’s head snaps up. “Joanna…She doesn’t—she doesn’t talk about stuff like that.”

His shoulders slump. “I’m just trying to help.”

She laughs once. It comes out wrong. Hollow. Like it scraped on the way up.

“Help feels like staring at me like I’m radioactive,” she says. “Help feels like people deciding what I am before I even get a chance to figure it out.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Dustin says quickly, panicked now.

“It is,” Donna says. Her voice doesn’t rise. That’s what makes it worse. “You’re already looking at me like I’m not just Donna anymore. Just like everyone else.”

Silence stretches.

The comics lie open between them—fire frozen mid-explosion on glossy paper.

“I need you to stop,” Donna says. Her voice is steadier now. Sharper. “I need you to not tell anyone. And I need you to not—” She gestures at the comics. “—do this.”

Dustin nods immediately. “Okay. Yeah. I can do that.”

She doesn’t soften.

“I mean it.”

“I won’t say anything,” he promises. “I swear.”

She believes him.

That doesn’t help.

“Can you leave?” she asks.

He hesitates, then gathers the comics into a messy stack. “Yeah. Okay.”

At the doorway, he pauses, glancing back. “You’re still you. Okay?”

Donna doesn’t answer.

The door clicks shut. She sits alone in the quiet, the room still warm with the memory of fire, staring at her hands like they might betray her again.

Somewhere deep inside her, something stirs. Not loud. Not angry. Just awake.

The promise lasts less than twelve hours.

Dustin Henderson barrels down the Wheelers’ basement stairs the next afternoon like he’s late for the end of the world.

His sneakers hit each step too fast, backpack thumping against his spine, breath already halfway gone by the time he reaches the bottom. He doesn’t even pause to take in the familiar sight—the folding table, the graph paper, the dice, the half-assembled campaign map.

“Okay, so,” he says, loud and urgent, “you are not gonna believe this.”

Mike looks up from behind his Dungeon Master screen, unimpressed on instinct alone. “If this is about your compass theory again—”

“It’s not,” Dustin says. “It’s about Donna.”

Lucas straightens immediately.

Will freezes.

Mike groans. “Of course it is.”

Dustin drops his bag, kneels, and starts digging through it like the answer might crawl out if he looks hard enough. “Listen, listen—before you say anything, I promised I wouldn’t over-fantasize about it, which I am not doing, but something happened last night and it was—”

“Dustin,” Lucas cuts in, cautious already, “what kind of something?”

Dustin finally looks up, eyes blazing.

“Fire.”

The word lands heavy.

Will’s fingers curl into the edge of his chair.

Lucas blinks. “Fire like… matches?”

“No,” Dustin says. “Fire like fire fire.”

Mike scoffs. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“She put it out with her hands,” Dustin says. “Didn’t touch it. Didn’t grab anything. It just—moved. Like it listened.”

Silence.

The basement hums softly—furnace clicking, pipes ticking—everything normal and wrong at the same time.

Will swallows. “Like… telekinesis?”

Dustin points at him like he just solved a riddle. “Yes! Exactly! Except hotter.”

Lucas shifts in his seat, arms crossing. “Okay, or she panicked and knocked something over and you’re exaggerating.”

“I am not exaggerating,” Dustin says. “I saw it. The blanket was on fire and then it wasn’t. It bent. Toward her hands.”

Mike leans back, frowning. “Even if that’s true—which I’m not saying it is—how does that help us?”

Dustin stares at him.

“How does that help us?” he repeats, incredulous. “Mike. My Sister. Donna Henderson has fire powers!”

“So?” Mike snaps. “Fire doesn’t find people. Fire doesn’t open portals. Fire doesn’t bring El back.”

The name hangs there.

Will’s chest tightens.

Dustin’s mouth falls open. “Do you even hear yourself right now?”

Mike’s jaw clenches. “I’m serious.”

“So am I,” Dustin fires back. “We spent all last fall running from monsters and government guys and Demogorgons, and now someone we know can literally control fire and you’re like, ‘meh’?”

Lucas shakes his head. “Dustin, slow down. You promised her you wouldn’t do this?”

“I’m not doing this,” Dustin insists. “I’m just—informing.”

“Informing us of what?” Mike asks. “That Donna’s life is even more messed up now?”

That hits harder than any shout.

Dustin hesitates.

Will speaks quietly. “Did she… want you to tell us?”

The question cuts clean.

Dustin looks away.

“…She said not to,” he admits.

Lucas exhales sharply. “Then why are we talking about it?”

“Because,” Dustin says, voice tight, “this doesn’t happen to normal people. And nothing like this happens without a reason.”

Will’s eyes flicker, something dark and curious passing through them. “What if it’s connected?”

Mike scoffs again, but there’s a crack in it now. “Connected to what?”

Will doesn’t answer right away.

To the woods.

To November.

To the feeling that never really left.

Lucas rubs his face. “I don’t like this.”

“I love this,” Dustin says. “I mean—not love, but—you know what I mean. This is big.”

Mike shakes his head. “It’s dangerous.”

“So is everything,” Dustin shoots back. “And we’re already in it.”

The dice sit untouched on the table.

The campaign forgotten.

Somewhere across town, Donna Henderson is trying very hard to pretend nothing changed.

And in the basement, four boys realize—slowly, uneasily—that it already has.

The Wheeler house looks the same.

That’s the problem.

Same porch light casting its dull yellow halo onto the snow-mottled lawn. Same hedges trimmed into polite shapes. Same windows glowing warm and domestic, like nothing inside them has ever broken past repair.

Joanna pauses at the bottom of the driveway, hands shoved deep into her coat pockets, breath fogging faintly in the cold.

She tells herself she’s here for Mike.

That’s what she said in her head when she left the house. When she cut across the street instead of turning toward Donna’s. When she didn’t knock on Lucas’s door or head for the park or do any of the thousand other things she could’ve done to avoid this.

Mike Wheeler.

Because he’s been quiet. Because he’s been hollowed out in a way that feels too familiar. Because she knows exactly why—and exactly nothing she’s allowed to say.

The secret sits in her chest like a live wire.

El is alive.

The words press against her ribs every time she thinks his name.

Joanna exhales slowly, steeling herself, and walks up the driveway.

The front door is unlocked, as it almost always is.

She steps inside.

Warmth hits her first. The smell of dinner lingering faintly—something tomato-based, something normal. The sound of the TV murmuring somewhere upstairs. Shoes kicked haphazardly near the door.

And then—Noise.

Not from upstairs.

From below.

The basement.

Joanna freezes halfway into the foyer.

It’s Dustin’s voice that reaches her first—loud, fast, vibrating with a pitch she recognizes immediately.

Not excitement.

Not exactly.

Panic wrapped in enthusiasm.

“—I’m telling you, it wasn’t just like, fire fire,” Dustin is saying, words tumbling over each other. “It moved. Like it listened to her. Like it knew when to stop.”

Joanna’s stomach drops.

Her fingers curl involuntarily inside her sleeves.

She doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe.

Another voice—Lucas, sharper, cautious.

“Dustin, slow down. You’re saying she just—what? Shot flames out of her hands?”

“No! I mean—yes? But not like a flamethrower, okay? It was more like—like control. Like Pyro.”

Mike’s voice cuts in, flat and brittle. “This is stupid.”

Joanna closes her eyes.

Of course it’s happening now.

Of course the universe would do this to her.

“She almost burned her room down,” Dustin insists. “And then she didn’t. She stopped it. You should’ve seen it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Mike says. “How is that supposed to help us find El?”

The name lands like a blow.

Joanna flinches.

Dustin scoffs. “Dude, do you even hear yourself? Donna has fire powers.”

There it is.

The secret detonating—just not her secret.

Her chest tightens, breath catching painfully as she leans back against the wall, the cool paint grounding her.

This is wrong.

Not because Dustin is talking.

Not because Donna has power.

But because Mike is downstairs, hearing this—hearing hope attach itself to someone else while the person he’s been grieving still exists, still breathes, still waits.

And Joanna can’t say a word.

She presses her palm flat against the wall, steadying herself as another wave of voices rises—Dustin rambling, Lucas pushing back, Will quiet but listening, Mike shutting down piece by piece.

This is not a room she can walk into.

If she goes downstairs—If she looks at Mike—She will tell him.

Or she will break.

Or worse: she will say nothing and watch him bleed anyway.

Her throat tightens.

I can’t, she thinks. I can’t do this.

The house creaks softly, settling around her.

And then—“Jo?”

Joanna startles.

Nancy stands at the top of the stairs, one hand resting lightly on the banister, sweater sleeves pulled down over her wrists. Her hair is loose, falling around her face in a way that looks effortless but isn’t. There are dark circles under her eyes she hasn’t bothered to hide.

She looks surprised to see Joanna.

Not unwelcome.

Just… unprepared.

“Oh,” Nancy says softly. “Hey.”

Joanna swallows. “Hey.”

For a second, neither of them moves.

The basement noise carries upward again—Dustin mid-rant, something about Phoenix Force and mutations.

Nancy’s eyes flick briefly toward the basement door.

Then back to Joanna.

Something shifts in her expression. Not suspicion. Recognition.

“Are you—” Nancy starts, then stops. “Did you want to see Mike?”

Joanna’s mouth opens.

Nothing comes out.

Her chest aches.

Nancy watches her closely now, head tilting just slightly, like she’s aligning puzzle pieces she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

“…He’s downstairs,” Nancy adds, unnecessarily.

“I know,” Joanna says.

The words come out rougher than she means them to.

Another beat of silence.

Nancy steps aside, making space at the top of the stairs—but not gesturing down.

Up.

“My parents aren’t home,” she says instead. “If you want… you can come up for a minute.”

Joanna hesitates.

Downstairs, Dustin’s voice spikes again. Mike snaps something back. The sound of dice clattering too hard against a table.

The secret in Joanna’s chest pulses.

She looks at Nancy.

Really looks at her.

Nancy Wheeler: still standing, still functioning, still pretending the ground under her feet hasn’t cracked open. Nancy who lost Barb and never got her back. Nancy who doesn’t know the truth but feels its weight anyway.

Joanna nods once.

“Yeah,” she says quietly. “Okay.”

They climb the stairs together.

Each step feels heavier than the last.

Nancy’s room hasn’t changed much since November.

Posters still line the walls, meticulously straightened. Her desk is neat in a way that feels intentional, almost defensive. The bed is made too tightly, corners sharp.

Everything screams control.

Nancy closes the door behind them, muffling the basement noise to a distant hum.

For a moment, they just stand there—two girls in a room full of history neither of them knows how to name anymore.

Joanna exhales slowly.

“I’m sorry,” she says, suddenly. The words fall out before she can stop them.

Nancy blinks. “For…?”

Joanna shakes her head, running a hand through her hair. “I don’t know. Everything. Showing up unannounced. Disappearing. Being weird.”

Nancy gives a small, tired smile. “You’re allowed to be weird.”

Joanna huffs softly. “I’ve been abusing that privilege.”

Nancy gestures toward the bed. “Sit.”

Joanna does, perching on the edge like she’s unsure how much space she’s allowed to take.

Nancy sits across from her, folding her legs beneath her, hands clasped loosely in her lap.

The silence stretches.

Not hostile.

Just heavy.

Downstairs, Dustin laughs too loudly at something that isn’t funny.

Joanna winces.

“I was going to check on Mike,” she admits. “But I—” She stops, jaw tightening. “I don’t think I’m what he needs right now.”

Nancy studies her face. “Why?”

Joanna looks down at her hands. “Because I don’t know how to lie to him anymore.”

Nancy’s breath catches almost imperceptibly.

She doesn’t press.

Instead, she says quietly, “You don’t hate me, do you?”

The question lands sideways.

Joanna looks up sharply. “What? No.”

Nancy’s laugh is brittle. “Okay. That’s good. Because sometimes it feels like you do.”

Joanna’s chest tightens.

This is worse.

This is so much worse than yelling.

“No,” she says again, firmer this time. “I don’t hate you.”

Nancy nods, absorbing that, eyes fixed on the comforter between them.

“Good,” she murmurs. “Because I don’t think I could handle that right now.”

Joanna leans forward slightly, elbows on her knees.

“Nancy,” she says, voice low. “I came here because I…I need to get something off my chest.”

Nancy looks up.

Something in her expression softens.

“Then you’re in the right place,” she says.

Downstairs, the boys’ voices rise again—Dustin animated, Lucas cautious, Mike silent.

Two floors up, the house holds another kind of reckoning.

And Joanna Byers sits on Nancy Wheeler’s bed, carrying a truth that could shatter everything—choosing, for now, to lay down something else instead.

Her anger.

Her fear.

Her apology.

Nancy doesn’t realize she’s shaking until Joanna notices.

It’s subtle—just a tremor in her fingers as she twists them together in her lap, nails pressing crescent moons into her own skin. Her posture is perfect, spine straight, shoulders squared, like if she holds herself together tightly enough nothing will leak out.

Joanna recognizes the pose immediately.

It’s the same one she’s been wearing for months.

“I’m just…” Joanna starts, then stops. The words knot in her throat, heavy and uncooperative. She exhales, scrubbing a hand over her face. “I’m going through a lot right now.”

Nancy lets out a quiet breath. Not relief. Permission.

“I know,” she says.

Joanna shakes her head. “No, I mean—” She laughs weakly. “I guess I thought I was handling it. Or that I should be able to. These feelings—” She gestures vaguely between them, then pulls her hand back like it burned. “—they were something I could control.”

Nancy’s eyes flicker. She doesn’t look away.

“But I can’t,” Joanna continues, voice tightening. “I can’t control Barb dying. Or Donna healing in ways that don’t make sense. Or El disappearing.” The name catches, sharp and dangerous. She swallows. “And I think instead of dealing with that, I… put it on you.”

Nancy’s lips part slightly.

Joanna presses on, the dam already cracked. “I guess part of me hoped you were going through the same thing. Because then I’d know what to do. You always know what to do.”

Silence.

It stretches long enough that Joanna’s chest starts to ache.

Then Nancy laughs.

It’s small. Hollow. Wrong.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Jo,” she says quietly. “That’s where I’m wrong.”

Joanna’s breath stills.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Nancy continues. Her voice is steady—too steady—but her hands have started shaking in earnest now. “I don’t even know where to begin. I wake up every day and pretend I’m fine because if I stop pretending, I don’t think I’ll be able to start again.”

Her breath stutters.

“I’m clinging to my relationship with Steve because it’s the only sense of normalcy I can control anymore,” Nancy says, words tumbling faster now. “Because everything else—everything important—fell apart and I didn’t stop it.”

Joanna leans forward instinctively.

“Nancy—”

“What the hell are our lives right now?” Nancy cuts in, eyes bright and glassy. “Will almost died. Donna almost died. You’re angry at me. Barb’s—”

Her voice breaks.

She stops breathing.

It’s sudden. Violent. One second she’s speaking, the next she’s gasping like the air has vanished from the room. Her hands fly to her chest, fingers clawing uselessly at fabric as panic floods in, fast and merciless.

Joanna is on her feet instantly.

“Hey,” she says softly, moving closer. “Hey, hey—look at me.”

Nancy shakes her head, eyes squeezed shut, breath coming in sharp, shallow bursts.

“I can’t—I can’t—” she tries to say, but the words dissolve.

Joanna kneels in front of her, grounding herself before she touches her—slow, deliberate, careful.

“Okay,” Joanna murmurs. “Okay. You’re here. You’re safe. Just breathe with me.”

She takes Nancy’s hands gently, anchoring them.

“In through your nose,” Joanna says, demonstrating. “Slow. Like this.”

Nancy’s chest heaves.

“Out through your mouth,” Joanna continues, steady as stone. “You don’t have to fix anything. Just breathe.”

It takes a moment.

Then another.

Nancy’s breaths start to lengthen, uneven but no longer frantic. Her shoulders slump as the panic loosens its grip, exhaustion rushing in to replace it.

She sags forward.

Joanna catches her without hesitation.

Nancy’s forehead presses into Joanna’s shoulder, a quiet, broken sound slipping from her throat as she finally lets herself cry.

Joanna holds her.

Firm. Certain. No hesitation.

“I’m so sorry,” Joanna says, voice low and raw against Nancy’s hair. “I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t realize. I’m sorry I sprung this on you and put my anger on you. I didn’t mean to make you feel like you were failing.”

Nancy’s fingers clutch at the back of Joanna’s jacket.

“It’s just—” Joanna swallows. “This is a part of who I am. And I’m scared. And I guess part of me thought if you were going through it with me, I wouldn’t be as scared.”

Nancy sniffles, pulling back just enough to look at her.

Her eyes are red. Honest.

“I am going through it with you,” she says softly.

Joanna nods, accepting that.

“I’m just not in it with you.”

The words don’t hurt the way Joanna thought they would.

They land clean. True.

Joanna lets out a shaky laugh, brushing a thumb under Nancy’s eye. “That’s enough for me.”

Nancy exhales, tension easing from her shoulders for the first time all night.

They sit there like that for a moment—close, steadying, breathing the same air.

Downstairs, someone laughs. Dice clatter. Life goes on.

Nancy leans back against the bed, wiping her face with the heel of her hand. “Great,” she says, voice rough but wry. “Now what the hell are we gonna do about Donna?”

Joanna smiles faintly.

For the first time in days, it isn’t forced.

“Yeah,” she says. “That’s… that’s the question, isn’t it?”

The house creaks around them, secrets stacked on secrets, truths waiting their turn.

Not accusing. Not angry.

Alert.

Joyce doesn’t turn around. “You hungry? I made enough for an army. Again.”

Joanna nods, lowering herself into her usual chair like she’s careful not to make noise. “Yeah. Smells good.”

She rests her elbows on the worn wood of the table, folds her hands together like she’s anchoring herself to something solid. Will looks up at her then, really looks.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Joanna says too fast.

She catches it, smooths it. “Just tired.”

Joyce finally turns, spoon still in her hand, eyebrows knitting together as she studies her daughter’s face. The shadows under her eyes. The way she’s holding herself.

“Tired from what?” Joyce asks gently.

Joanna opens her mouth—Crunch.

Gravel shifts outside.

The sound cuts clean through the room, carried easily through thin walls and open air. Tires rolling slow. A car pulling in with purpose. A heavy door opening, then closing.

Familiar weight.

Hopper.

Joanna’s jaw tightens, just barely. She doesn’t look toward the window. Doesn’t flinch.

“I was with Donna,” she says instead, easy, practiced. “We hung out for a bit.”

The lie settles into the space between them.

Joyce hums softly, accepting it without question. “Oh, good. I’m glad she’s not alone so much.”

Will nods, satisfied, and returns to his paper.

Jonathan doesn’t move.

He knows the rhythm of Joanna’s voice. Knows when she’s answering and when she’s redirecting. Knows when something’s being tucked away carefully, set aside for later.

He says nothing.

The front door rattles faintly as Hopper’s presence passes by the house, his shadow sliding briefly across the window.

Joanna keeps her eyes on the table.

Joyce turns back to the stove. “Dinner’ll be ready in five.”

“Okay,” Joanna says.

Jonathan watches her for another second longer—then looks away, choosing silence. Choosing time.

Outside, the engine cuts.

Inside, the house exhales.

And Joanna Byers sits at the table, suspended between the lie she told, the truth she didn’t, and the man in the driveway who knows exactly where she’s been. 

The Beemer hums beneath them as Steve pulls away from the curb, headlights slicing a clean line through the dark. The engine’s purr is steady, reassuring—too steady for how unsettled everything feels. The radio murmurs something bright and forgettable, a song that belongs to a world where things make sense. Neither of them reaches to turn it off.

Nancy sits rigid in the passenger seat, hands folded tightly in her lap, fingers laced like she’s afraid of what they might do if she lets them move. The dashboard light washes her face in soft blue, hollowing her cheeks, sharpening the shadows under her eyes. She looks exhausted in a way sleep won’t touch.

Steve glances at her once.

Then again.

“So,” he says finally, clearing his throat. “About Donna.”

Nancy’s jaw tightens, the muscle jumping beneath her skin.

“What about her?”

Steve’s hands tighten around the steering wheel. Not enough to hurt—but enough to ground him. “I just—I keep thinking maybe we should… I don’t know. Do something. Check in more. Make sure she’s okay.”

“She’s fine,” Nancy says, too fast.

The word lands brittle.

Steve frowns. “She almost died, Nance.”

“I know that,” she snaps, heat flaring before she reins it in. Her voice flattens, defensive, controlled. “I just don’t think she wants our help.”

He glances at her again, really looking now. “Why wouldn’t she?”

Nancy exhales, the sound thin and tired, like it’s been stuck behind her ribs for weeks. “Because everything I do lately feels wrong. Every time I open my mouth, I make it worse. And I think she knows that.”

Steve shakes his head, frustration creeping into his voice. “That’s not fair.”

“It feels fair,” Nancy says quietly.

They drive in silence after that. The road stretches out ahead of them, streetlights flashing by in uneven intervals. Snowbanks blur past the windows—gray, half-melted, ugly. Everything looks used up.

“You’re still going to those dinners,” Steve says eventually. Not accusing. Just stating it.

Nancy stiffens, shoulders squaring. “Yes.”

“Every week.”

“Yes.”

He exhales through his nose, the breath rough. “Nance… I don’t get that. I really don’t. You know they can’t fix what happened to Barb. But Donna’s still here. We can still help her.”

That’s when Nancy turns to him.

Her eyes are sharp now, bright with something close to anger—or maybe fear. “You don’t care about Donna.”

Steve flinches. “What?”

“You care because she almost died at your house,” Nancy says. “Because it happened on your watch. That’s guilt, Steve. Not concern.”

“That’s not—”

“And if you really cared,” she continues, voice rising despite herself, words tumbling faster now, “you wouldn’t have taken me upstairs that night. You wouldn’t have left her alone. That’s why she and I fought. You know that.”

Steve’s grip tightens hard around the wheel.

“Don’t put that on me,” he says, sharper than he means to be. “You know we wouldn’t have done anything if you weren’t ready.”

Nancy’s breath catches, the sound small and involuntary.

“Well,” she says, her voice cracking just enough to give her away, “I wasn’t.”

The words hang between them, heavy and irreversible.

Steve slows the car, pulling up to the curb in front of her house. The tires crunch softly against the snow. The engine idles, waiting.

Nancy doesn’t hesitate. She reaches for the door handle immediately.

“Nancy—” Steve starts.

She cuts him off, already opening the door. “I can’t do this right now.”

Cold air rushes in as she steps out, slamming the door harder than necessary. Snow crunches beneath her boots as she stalks toward the house, shoulders tight, head down. She doesn’t look back.

Steve stays where he is, hands still on the wheel, engine humming beneath him.

He watches her disappear inside.

He doesn’t turn the car off right away.

Because he doesn’t know how to reach her anymore.

And she doesn’t know how to stay.

They’re still moving forward.

Just not together.

The knock comes just as Joyce is clearing plates. 

It’s not urgent. Not loud. Just authoritative enough to cut through the clatter of dishes and low conversation. “I’ve got it,” Joyce says, already reaching for the door.

Joanna’s shoulders tense before she can stop them. She knows that knock. Joyce opens the door to find Hopper standing on the porch, hat in hand, posture neutral but unmistakably official. Sheriff mode. Polite. Contained.

“Evening, Joyce,” he says. “Sorry to interrupt dinner.”

Joyce smiles tiredly. “It’s fine, Hop. Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Hopper replies easily. “I just need to grab a quick statement from Joanna. School incident today. Won’t take long.” 

The words hit Joanna like a flashbang. Statement. School. Incident.

Jonathan’s eyes snap to her. Joanna doesn’t look at him. 

Joyce glances back over her shoulder. “Jo?”

Joanna is already pushing back her chair. “Yeah,” she says, too quickly. “That’s fine.”

She stands, grabbing her jacket off the chair back, shrugging it on with a little more force than necessary. She doesn’t argue. Doesn’t ask questions. Move first, process later.

Jonathan watches her closely as she passes. Their eyes meet for half a second—long enough for him to register the tension, the calculation already firing behind her stare.

Joyce doesn’t notice.

“Don’t be long,” she calls as Joanna steps outside.

Hopper turns immediately, walking toward the yard instead of the porch steps. Joanna follows without being asked, boots crunching against the gravel as they move past the edge of the house lights.

They stop where the yard gives way to trees. 

Where voices don’t carry.

Hopper doesn’t waste time.

“You rearranged Courtney Wilcox’s understanding of personal space today,” he says.

Joanna lets out a sharp, humorless laugh. “Wow. That’s one way to put it.”

“You’re suspended for a week.”

She crosses her arms. “Already aware.”

“You scared half the hallway.”

“Good.”

Hopper studies her for a long beat. “You don’t scare easy,” he says. “You don’t act without reason.”

Joanna lifts her chin. “You bring me out here to lecture me, or—”

“I know you were at my cabin today.”

There it is.

The air shifts.

“And I know what you saw.”

Joanna’s jaw tightens. Not in fear. In irritation.

“So?” she says.

“So I could arrest you. Trespassing private property.”

Joanna stops a few feet away. Doesn’t pretend she doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  “You didn’t put up any signs.”

“No,” Hopper agrees. “I didn’t. You taught El what a skunk is?”

Joanna shrugs, "She should learn more about the real world."

Joanna studies him in silence. Up close, he looks more tired than intimidating—but the weight of him is still there. Gun at his hip. Badge on his chest. Authority stitched into every line of his posture.

“Oh please, don't play this off as you trying to help her, you were high,” he says.

“Was, and you know I always only wanted to help her!” Joanna corrects.

His jaw tightens. “You could’ve gotten hurt.”

“I didn’t.”

“That’s not the point.”

Joanna exhales through her nose. “Then what is?”

Hopper steps closer—not crowding her, not threatening. Just enough to make the boundary clear.

“You don’t go near that place again,” he says.

Joanna meets his gaze. Doesn’t blink. “You don’t get to decide that.”

Something sharp flickers behind his eyes.

“You wanna push this?” he asks.

She tilts her head. “You wanna try and stop me?”

The space between them tightens.

“You tell anyone,” Hopper says quietly, “and this whole thing detonates. You know that.”

Joanna nods once. “I do.”

“And if I shut you out completely,” he continues, “if I bar you from that cabin—you don’t just walk away.”

“No,” Joanna agrees softly. “I don’t.”

They stand there, the truth of it hanging between them like exposed wire.

“You let me leave,” Joanna says. “You didn’t call the cops. You didn’t call my mom. And you didn’t drag me back inside in handcuffs.”

“Because you didn’t say anything,” Hopper replies.

“Yet,” she says.

A beat.

Then another.

Finally, Hopper exhales. It sounds like surrender—but it isn’t.

“This isn’t about you,” he says. “It’s about her.”

Joanna’s expression shifts at that. Not defensive. Focused.

“I know.”

“She needs normal,” Hopper says. “She needs something that doesn’t feel like hiding.”

“She needs people,” Joanna counters.

“She needs you,” he says.

That lands harder than anything else.

“Two times a week,” Hopper continues. “You come by. Just you.”

Joanna blinks. “That’s it?”

“No Party,” he adds immediately. “No kids. No Mike. No Dustin. No Lucas. No Will.”

She stiffens. “And Donna?”

Hopper shakes his head once. “No Donna.”

Joanna swallows, jaw tightening—but she doesn’t argue.

“And you don’t tell anyone where she is,” Hopper finishes. “Or who she is. Or why.”

Joanna considers him carefully now. Not reacting—calculating.

“And if I break the rules?” she asks.

“Then you don’t come back,” Hopper says. “Ever.”

The woods are quiet around them. Watching.

Finally, Joanna nods. “Twice a week,” she says. “Just me.”

Hopper studies her like he’s finally seeing the full shape of her.

“You’re not reckless,” he says slowly.

She huffs. “Congratulations.”

“You’re strategic,” he continues.

The word settles heavy between them.

Hopper turns back toward the house. “Don’t make me regret this.”

Joanna’s voice stops him. “You won’t.”

He pauses. Just long enough to admit something he doesn’t want to. That’s what scares him. Then he walks away, boots crunching against gravel, the yard swallowing him whole.

Joanna stays where she is for a moment longer, breath fogging in the cold.

Two visits a week.

Not permission.

A truce.

Donna dreams of her room the way it used to be.

Not the way it looks now—half rearranged to make space for crutches, the faint chemical bite of antiseptic clinging stubbornly to the air—but the way it was before November carved everything hollow.

Posters straightened. Corners squared. Music playing low from the stereo, something familiar and unimportant. The window cracked just enough to let in cold night air and the distant, comforting hum of Hawkins settling down.

Barb is there.

She sits cross-legged on the carpet, back against Donna’s bed, a milk crate of records spread open in front of her. She flips through them with care, methodical as always, narrating her decisions like the room itself is listening.

“This one scratches,” Barb says, holding the vinyl up to the light. “And this one—oh my god, Donna, this one skips so bad it’s basically unlistenable.”

Donna laughs.

The sound catches her off guard. It feels rusty in her chest, like a muscle she hasn’t stretched in weeks. But it’s real. Warm.

“You’re dramatic,” Donna says, leaning back against her dresser, arms crossed. Her leg doesn’t ache here. Nothing does.

Barb looks up and smiles.

It’s the soft smile. The familiar one. The kind that means safety without ever having to say it.

“Someone has to be,” Barb replies. “You’re terrible at it.”

They sit like that for a moment, wrapped in quiet. Normal. Easy.

Then the room… shifts. Not all at once. Not violently.

Just enough to make Donna’s stomach tighten.

The walls seem to stretch upward, the ceiling pulling farther away. The air thickens, heavy and damp, like breathing through wet cloth. The music warps—slowing, dragging—until it melts into a low, distorted hum and then disappears entirely.

Donna frowns. “Barb?”

Barb doesn’t answer.

Donna turns.

It’s still her room.

But it isn’t.

The colors are wrong—washed out, sickly, as if something has drained them. The posters sag against the walls, ink bleeding downward like it’s melting. Dark vines snake through cracks in the ceiling, pulsing faintly, alive in a way they should not be.

Barb is standing now.

Her back is to Donna.

“Barb?” Donna says again, quieter this time.

Slowly, Barb turns.

She isn’t whole.

Her glasses are gone. One arm is missing entirely, torn away at the shoulder. Blood runs in dark, sticky trails down her sweater, soaking into the carpet beneath her bare feet. Her skin is too pale. Her eyes too open. Too still.

Donna’s breath leaves her in a sharp, broken gasp.

“No,” she whispers. “No—no, no, no.”

She squeezes her eyes shut, like she can refuse this. Like not looking will undo it.

“I can’t,” Donna says, voice cracking. “I can’t—”

A hand settles on her shoulder.

Cold.

Firm.

Undeniably real.

“Open your eyes.”

Barb’s voice is different now. Stripped of warmth. Of softness.

Donna shakes her head. “Please don’t—”

“Donna.”

The grip tightens, fingers pressing into muscle and bone.

“Open your eyes.”

Her heart is pounding so hard it hurts. The air feels hot now. Wrong. Like something is building behind her ribs.

“DONNA,” Barb snaps, her voice splitting, echoing, layered with something deeper, heavier. “OPEN YOUR EYES.”

Donna screams——and bolts upright in bed.

Heat slams into her.

The smell hits first—thick, choking smoke that burns her throat. Her blanket is on fire.

Actual fire.

Flames crawl across the fabric, bright and hungry, licking toward her chest. The fire alarm shrieks overhead, sharp and relentless, shredding her thoughts.

“Oh my god—oh my god—” Donna flings the blanket away and scrambles backward, panic detonating through her veins. Her mind blanks except for one word.

Fire.

She throws her hands up instinctively, shielding her face——and the flames move.

They don’t spread.

They don’t jump.

They recoil.

The fire bends inward, folding back on itself, pulling away from her palms like it’s being pushed by an invisible force. The flames gutter, then collapse entirely, snuffing out in a rush of heat and smoke that leaves the room scorched—but standing.

Silence crashes down.

The alarm cuts out.

Donna stares at her hands.

They’re shaking. Smudged with soot. Ordinary.

Her brain refuses to connect what just happened. All she knows is that the fire is gone—and she’s still breathing.

A sound behind her.

Donna looks up.

Dustin Henderson stands frozen in the doorway, a fire extinguisher clutched to his chest like a shield. His mouth hangs open. His eyes are wide, flicking from the blackened blanket to the scorched walls—and finally to Donna.

“Dude,” he breathes, voice barely there. “That was… insane.”

Donna swallows. Her fingers curl slowly into fists. She doesn’t answer.

She didn’t know where she was, but she remembered where she had been. The moment the Demogorgon’s claws raked through her, the wet heat of her own blood spilling out, her body going numb as Hopper’s voice shouted through the haze.

She remembered dying.

Now she was breathing again—but the machine was doing it for her. Why couldn’t she breathe on her own?

She tried to scream again, but the sound was a gagged rattle.

Footsteps thundered in from the hallway. The door burst open. Nurses swept in, followed by Dustin, who hovered near the foot of the bed, his face pale and drawn, guilt tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“She’s freaking out,” he said. “Can’t you—can’t you take the thing out of her throat or something?!”

“She’s intubated,” one of the nurses snapped gently, already checking her vitals. “Her lungs need help right now. She’s panicking—restrain her arms before she hurts herself—"

Hands pressed her down. A needle pinched. The world dulled again, edges fading under the weight of sedation, but Donna’s eyes stayed locked on Dustin’s.

She was awake—but still trapped. Still bleeding inside, even if the wounds were closed.

Dustin stood there, helpless, as they worked. His sister—his hero—looked at him like a frightened stranger.

And all he could do was whisper, “I’m right here, Donna. I’m right here.”

The steady rhythm of the heart monitor had become erratic.

“Get him out,” the nurse said, voice sharp but restrained. “She’s relapsing into distress.”

Dustin stood frozen at the foot of Donna’s bed, eyes wide with panic. “No—no, she just woke up. You can’t—”

“Now.”

The ventilator hissed harder, Donna’s chest rising in shallow, rigid motions. Her eyes—wild only moments ago—were rolling back as sedation reclaimed her, dragging her down beneath a wave of pain and panic she couldn’t escape. Her fingers twitched once near the IV line, then went still.

A technician reached for the gurney brakes.

“We need to move her to isolation—close monitoring, full neurological evaluation,” the head nurse barked as the staff began swarming. “She’s stable for now, but that doesn't mean safe.”

Dustin was shaking. “But she just woke up…”

“I said out, kid!”

A hand landed on his shoulder—firm, but not unkind. Hopper.

“Come on, Henderson,” Hopper muttered. “Let them work.”

Dustin didn’t argue. Couldn’t. He let himself be led out of the room, his breath coming in shallow, broken bursts. Behind him, they wheeled Donna away, and the door to the trauma unit hissed shut with a soft click that sounded more like a coffin lid than a door.

Hopper didn’t say anything as they walked.

Not until they hit the hallway junction, where the fluorescent light flickered with a low, broken hum.

Dustin sank onto the cold floor outside the observation wing. He wrapped his arms around his knees and stared straight ahead, eyes unfocused.

“She looked right at me,” he said softly, like he was confessing a sin. “She knew me.”

Hopper sat down beside him, back against the opposite wall. “Yeah,” he said. “She knew.”

“But she was scared.”

Hopper didn’t respond right away. He just nodded once, slowly, the kind of movement that acknowledged too many things at once—truth, pain, helplessness.

“She came back,” Dustin whispered. “She died, and she came back. That’s supposed to mean something, right? Like—it’s supposed to be a miracle or whatever. But it just feels… wrong. Like she left something there.”

Hopper exhaled through his nose, the sound tight.

“You don’t walk out of Hell without dragging some of it with you,” he said quietly, his echoing steps leading them down the dimly lit hallway. “C’mon.”

The waiting room smelled like antiseptic and disappointment.

They’d commandeered a corner lounge in the Hawkins Lab facility—plastic chairs, dim yellow overhead lighting, an old TV with no signal crackling in the background. The whole place looked like it hadn’t been updated since the '60s, and felt even older than that. Sterile. Functional. Soulless.

Joanna sat in the furthest chair from the center of the room, arms folded tightly, her jaw clenched so hard it made her temples ache. She hadn’t moved in over an hour. She hadn’t spoken in longer.

Across from her, Mike sat with his back hunched, fingers digging into the edges of his chair. His eyes were bloodshot, knees bouncing. Lucas paced slowly near the vending machine, his fists opening and closing, like he wanted to punch something but couldn’t find a good enough excuse. Dustin… Dustin was falling apart.

He stood near the observation glass, hands pressed to it like it might give him answers. His voice was low, shaky. “She was awake. She was awake. I saw her eyes. I heard her.”

Joanna looked up at that.

Not with warmth. Not with comfort. But with a flicker of recognition. Something raw and silent in her stare that said: I know what it feels like to lose someone while they’re still breathing.

Dustin turned, eyes glassy. His gaze swept the room, looking for someone, anyone—her—to tell him it was going to be okay.

Joanna didn’t move.

Her arms stayed crossed. Her shoulders didn’t budge. She didn’t speak.

It was Nancy who stepped in, quietly. She crossed the room with that particular Wheeler grace—controlled, unsure, full of soft-footed guilt—and placed a hand on Dustin’s back.

He leaned into her instinctively, sobbing without sound.

Joanna’s eyes dropped back to the floor.

Of course it was Nancy. Of course.

Steve leaned forward, elbows on his knees, watching Joanna carefully from across the room. He’d seen the way she hadn’t looked at Nancy since they got back. He saw the way she avoided everyone’s hands. The way she hadn’t checked on Will or even hugged her mother when they were reunited.

She was there.

But her eyes were stuck somewhere else—like she’d left something behind and was terrified to go back for it.

Jonathan sat beside her, just close enough to feel like he was trying to reach her but not close enough to actually do it.

"You don’t have to do this alone,” he said, voice low, barely audible.

Joanna didn’t look at him.

“I’m not alone,” she said flatly.

But the words sounded like a lie. Even to her. Hopper watched from the far end of the hall. He leaned against the frame of the door, arms crossed, eyes flicking from face to face—Dustin trembling in Nancy’s arms, Mike chewing his lip raw, Lucas pacing, Jonathan defeated, Joanna stone-faced.

The kids were broken. The teens weren’t much better.

And somewhere behind three layers of restricted doors and two guards with rifles, Donna lay sedated and still. Her vitals were steady. Her blood pressure was holding. The surgeons said she made it through the worst.

But Hopper had seen enough to know “the worst” wasn’t always a thing you could cut out with a scalpel.

Sometimes the worst stayed.

He watched Joanna the longest. The way she sat perfectly still. The way her sword-calloused fingers dug into the sides of her own arms like she was trying to hold herself in one piece.

She reminded him of someone else.

Of himself—after Sarah. Sitting in rooms just like this, trying not to punch walls, trying not to cry, trying to keep it all locked so tight he didn’t leak rage or heartbreak all over the floor.

He turned before anyone noticed him watching. The silence was oppressive. No one dared raise their voice. The air inside Hawkins Lab felt more like a morgue than a sanctuary. Every clock tick was a hammer against their nerves. Every footstep in the hallway made them flinch.

And then—A whisper.

At first, no one noticed it. A faint, tremulous sound from the observation room just down the hall. Barely audible through the glass.

But Joyce did.

She jolted upright from her half-doze in the chair by the door. Her eyes locked onto the room beyond the glass like a siren had gone off inside her. Her breath hitched.

“Will?” she whispered.

Inside the room, her youngest son—pale, trembling, sunken-eyed—had shifted on the bed. His lips moved again, cracked and dry.

“Jo…anna…”

The name scraped from his throat like it didn’t belong to the world anymore. Like he was unsure it still existed.

Joyce was already moving, hands fumbling with the door handle.

“He’s awake!” she shouted, half-sobbing. “He’s awake—he’s talking—Jonathan!”

The whole room exploded into motion. Jonathan bolted upright, nearly knocking Steve over, and sprinted toward the room without a word. Nancy froze, Dustin backed away from the glass, Lucas stood wide-eyed and silent. Mike whispered Eleven’s name like he thought maybe she’d come back just because someone else had.

But Joanna—Joanna didn’t move right away.

Not until she heard her name again.

Not until that rasping, fragile voice repeated it like a prayer from someone who’d seen Hell and was still walking barefoot through the ashes.

She stood slowly. She didn’t rush. 

When she stepped into the observation room, the door clicked shut behind her, sealing out the noise.

Will was propped against the pillows, eyes heavy-lidded, haunted.

Joyce had one hand wrapped tightly around his, her thumb stroking his knuckles like she was trying to anchor herself to his pulse. Jonathan hovered near the end of the bed, too afraid to come closer, like one wrong move would shatter his brother all over again.

Will’s gaze shifted to Joanna.

And something broke in his expression—not fear, not relief—recognition.

“I saw you,” he whispered, voice rough as gravel. “In the dark. You were screaming-”

Joanna crossed to him, past her mother, past her twin, and lowered herself to the side of the bed.

She didn’t flinch.

She didn’t tell him it was over. She didn’t say “you’re safe now.” She didn’t feed him the lies everyone else was probably dying to offer.

She just looked at him, her hand coming to rest gently over his trembling one.

“I know,” she said softly. “I was. You were too.”

Will swallowed hard, his chin quivering. “I thought I was gonna die there. I thought—Donna…”

Joanna’s voice cracked just slightly. “She made it back.”

Will’s lower lip trembled, and a tear slipped down his cheek. “I didn’t want to leave her,” he whispered. “She was so cold.”

Joanna leaned forward, resting her forehead gently against his. “You didn’t leave her,” she said. “She left you alive.”

That was the truth.

And Will cried—not loud, not wild—but the quiet, broken kind of sobbing that echoed from deep inside the soul. Joyce pulled Jonathan in close, their family a tight knot of pain and relief.

Joanna stayed there with Will, eyes closed, letting him grieve. Letting him exist. Not as a victim. Not as a miracle. Not as a child who was supposed to be okay.

But as a survivor. Someone who would never be the same again—and deserved to not be okay.

And in that moment, even if no one else knew how to see it, Joanna did. She always had.

Awareness seeped into Donna like a slow, viscous tide, dragging her upward from black oblivion.

But the light at the surface wasn’t warm. It was sterile. Buzzing. White.

And with it came the memories.

They didn't return gently. They slammed into her.

First came the image of Barb—her face twisted in terror, her screams shrill and pleading, cut off by the wet, bone-shattering crunch of the Demogorgon’s jaws. The sound lived in Donna’s head now, replaying like a needle scratching a broken record. No matter how many times she’d reached for Barb in that split second, she had always been too slow.

Always too slow.

Then came Will.

His voice trembling in the dark. His fingers gripping hers like a lifeline. The way he whispered, “Don’t let go.”

She hadn’t.

And still, she had lost him—if only for a moment. And that moment had felt like forever. A lifetime where she’d been nothing but fear and failure in a hoodie.

Then—Her own death.

That memory was the sharpest. Not the pain. Pain, she'd expected. It was the quiet she remembered.

The cold realization that she’d bled too much. That her body was giving up. Not with rage. Not with desperation. But with silence.

It hadn’t even scared her.

That’s what stayed with her now—strapped to a hospital bed, throat still raw from the tube, stomach bound tight with gauze and stitches, arms heavy, bones cracked and fused. Her leg pulsed with phantom agony, but it barely registered above the absence she felt.

She was back in the real world. But her mind hadn’t followed.

Her eyes drifted to the ceiling—white tiles, a hairline crack in the corner. The kind of detail she could fall into and never crawl back out of.

She reached for the blanket draped over her torso. Her hand shook.  Not with pain. With nothing. She gripped the fabric tightly, fingers curling into it like it might anchor her. Like it might tell her she still existed. Still mattered. Still was.

But the harder she held on, the more her grip felt like a lie.

The girl before she got stuck in the Upside Down wasn’t here anymore.

That Donna—sharp, fast, loud with fire and fury—was just a memory floating somewhere inside her skull. What was left felt… grey. Faded.

Like the Upside Down had reached inside her and hollowed something out.

Her throat tightened. Not to cry. She didn’t have the energy to cry.

Just to breathe.

But even that felt borrowed.

She turned her head slowly toward the monitor. The machine beeped with mechanical loyalty. Steady. Unconcerned. It had no idea who she was, or what she had lost.

She let out a shaky breath, eyes blank as her gaze returned to the ceiling.

Barb.

Will.

The blood. The bone. The void.