#noble!nancy

The news came on the day of her seventeenth birthday. Her father told her that as the eldest child of a council member, she had to select a position in one of the council members' offices to begin her apprenticeship. He told her that one day she would take his place. He told her that she only had until her next birthday to do so, or it would be assigned to her.

One year.

That's all the time she had left to be herself. After finishing her apprenticeship, she would be expected to gain a position under a council member to prepare to take her father's place. When she did, she would become him. Nothing more than an apathetic and burnt-out husk of who they once were, doing menial tasks to keep the family comfortable, fading into your role and monotonous routine.

The thought alone had her swallowing bile, burning the back of her throat.

She had done her best to forget about it and just will the whole thing away, and not surprisingly, her dad let her get away with it. Sometimes having an absent father wasn't such a bad thing.

But as the months passed and the day was only months away, he started to get on her case about it. He would ask who she's talked to, if she's meeting someone soon, and who she likes and doesn't from across the dinner table. It was the most he'd ever talked to her, and she would have felt good about that if he had ever talked about anything that wasn't council related. She couldn't tell you the last time he asked how she was, much less the last time he said he loved her. She tried not to think about that. Instead, she just danced around his questions as she hadn't actually talked to many since he set up a few for her last week.

She had no idea how she would pick someone, let alone how to interact with the council in a 'suitable' way, as her father would put it. 

If she was honest, Nancy couldn't stand most diplomats in a general sense, she didn’t want to think about spending most of her time playing nice with them or doing their bidding. Their tendency to fill their meetings with petty bickering and veiled insults, on top of never agreeing on a single topic, led to nothing remotely helpful for their people. 

She couldn't tell you the last time something beneficial had actually come from a council meeting; she could, however, tell you with confidence that it had been years at least. 

The other big reason she had been putting it off was that she found herself much more intrigued by the lives of those around and inside Hawkins. She wanted to know where they should improve and what was or wasn't working so things could be done right for once. She wanted to do something productive with her life. 

She didn't want to end up like her father.

He didn't care about how it felt to struggle or the hardships their people faced daily due to the councils' incompetence. Their collective lack of concern was often translated into poor treatment and antagonistic laws that criminalized and worsened the lives of those who needed their help the most. 

No, she wanted to make a difference. 

When Nancy tried to bring this up to her father, he simply sighed and rubbed his face like he always would when she told him her ideas. She nearly had to get on her knees and beg him to at least let her try. He had seemed to deflate then, almost sinking into his chair. 

She had almost screamed when he grumbled that he would see what he could do but not to get her hopes up. She felt like time was dragging so slowly after that. Every second became a minute, every minute an hour. After that night, whenever she saw her father across the table from her, she'd give him a hopeful and expectant look. He would always ignore it and continue like they had never talked about it in the first place. Instead, he would again ask her about her progress with the council members since he decided to schedule meetings for her when he realized she wasn't. It made her feel childish, but she couldn't help herself. 

She didn't want this, she never asked for it.

After a few nights of going to bed with a pit sinking deeper and deeper in her stomach, she decided it was time to 'suck it up' as her father always said. Nancy started her days by promising herself that she would find a way out of this, tradition be damned. Nancy never broke a promise, and she wouldn't start now.

 So she put on the well-crafted Wheeler mask, went to the meetings her father set up for her, and was as cordial and professional as she could be. That alone already had her feeling like bits and pieces of her were dying off as she faked laughs and pretended to be impressed with their gratuitous shows of wealth. Sure she may have let the facade crack and insinuated they could be improving the community with all the money that went into showing off and living lavishly. But she had smiled while she did it, isn't that what men in power wanted from her anyways? 

This routine continued for a few days until, one night, her father asked about the meeting she had with councilman Sinclair. She told him it went fine and left it at that, which wasn't out of the ordinary. But then she almost choked on her water when he asked if she'd considered councilman Harrington yet.

She hadn't.

Her relationship with Steve had ended rather abruptly when he asked her to come to his room with him at a party to 'check out his spear.' She almost gagged at the thought of the memory alone. It was like the moment he was knighted, it had gone to his head, and his ego had swollen so much he was unbearable to be around. That was even after she told him she couldn't leave her best friend alone when she was already uncomfortable and didn't want to be there in the first place. 

She had ended up leaving with Barb that night.

They had laid in her bed all night, pinkies brushing as they talked about anything and everything. Nancy couldn't help but think about how much happier she felt falling asleep next to her than the thought of sleeping next to Steve made her feel. That night was one of her favorites, even if Nancy hadn't spoken to Steve since.

Barb told her recently that she'd heard that Steve had changed a lot in the last year or so since they broke up. 

"Uh no," she finally says, clearing her throat and avoiding her mother's sympathetic look, "I hadn't considered the Harrington's." 

Her father doesn't comment further, he just hums in thought and continues to eat. An awkward silence falls between them, her father oblivious to how his wife and son look between themselves and Nancy. Mike seems to take pity on her and tells their parents that night that he and the rest of the boys, not including Will, have decided to become squires. She's glad they have that to focus on instead of her history involving the Harrington family. 

The next evening her father had sent a messenger for her, requesting that she meet him in his office.

She headed off to the halls of their council, where he had her brought to him. He sat her down across from him. He rubbed his brow as he leaned forward, heaving out a sigh. Nancy hadn't noticed how much older and tired he had looked until then, the man she saw sitting across her no longer looked like the man in their family portrait hanging behind him. 

"Well, Nance," he started, voice gruff and tired, "tomorrow morning, you are to report to the council's office." 

"But I thought-"

She stops when he raises his hand. 

"Knight-Captain Harrington and two of his Lieutenants are being assigned to your project," he says it like he still doesn't understand what exactly Nancy is trying to do. "Tomorrow, you'll meet with them to go over your contracts. After that, if you're roaming Hawkins, you must have at least one accompanying you."

"You never mentioned a contract," she pointed out, mulling over his words for a moment in her head, her brows furrowing. She clears her throat before continuing, "Does that mean I am to be accompanied even if I'm not working on the," she pauses, realizing that she's also not sure what to call it, "the project?"

 He doesn't respond outright, just sighing again before leaning to the side to open his desk drawer. He pulls out a small stack of papers. They seem official from the little bits of it Nancy can see, with signatures already inked along the bottom. 

"I think you'll find the exact wording on the contract dictates very clearly that one of them must have eyes or ears on you at all times," 

he seems to be stressing that, his eyes watching her so intently as he slides them across to her. When she grabs them, he doesn't move his hand for her to take them. She swallows as she looks back up at him.

She felt like a child again, being intimidated into behaving in front of the other council members or his friends before they came over.

 "I could only get this okayed because Hopper thinks this might make his job a little easier, so no funny business. I feel that if you do anything that makes it even the slightest bit harder for him, then it's all over." 

He leans back in his chair, pulling his glasses from his face to wipe them with a cloth from his desk. 

"Though, as your father, I'd prefer if you took at least two, but you're a grown woman now. You can start making these choices for yourself." 

Nancy nodded, her features barely held in the calm and collected facade drilled into her since childhood to hide the fact that she felt like she was about to explode. She was finally being given a chance to go out and make Hawkins a better place. 

Nancy thanked him politely and dismissed herself, but her father called out to her as she reached the door.

"Yes?" 

"Can you let your mother know it's going to be a late night," she looked back at him as he said this, but his eyes were already trained on a stack of paperwork to his right, "tell her I'll make it up to her next week." 

"I will." 

She went home and relayed his message before going through the motions of family dinner and then her nightly routine. She thought her nerves about the following day would keep her up, but she fell into sleep quickly and dreamed of the changes she could make.