Chapter Text
The world was folding in on itself, as it was meant to. It didn’t make things any less terrifying.
The group was missing one — technically two, counting Kali — and everything felt akimbo.
“Where is she?” Hopper asked, his voice strained, angry.
“She’ll come,” Joyce said. She was sure of it.
Eleven was saying goodbye. Goodbye to her sister, goodbye to the lab, goodbye to her future. The wind (was it wind?) roared so loudly, she was wading through it. Like water, like quicksand.
A cough, a squeak, a whimper, something, came from the left. It sounded human. Or it was tricking her into believing it human. Eleven counted down on her fingers of all the people it couldn’t be. Only an enemy would still be there.
Yet, she checked. The song wouldn’t be over yet, the fuse would not be lit yet. Behind a wooden palette crouched a ghost of a ghost. A mix of Jonathan, Joyce, some guy Eleven had never met and a boy who died four years ago.
“Will?”
“There she is,” Lucas said, probably a little too loud. He saw her earlier than the soldiers. Eleven was running, but she was slow.
“Who’s with her?”
“That’s not Kali.”
Mike knew. In a moment of inhuman strength and speed, he broke free and ran straight to the gate of the MAC-Z. All he saw was his future colliding with a bomb. He ran.
“Take him,” El said. “Take him now.”
Confusion followed by rage settled into fear as he understood what she was saying. There was no time to argue with her, though he would. He would forever, if he knew she'd listen. A knowing nod, a smile, a hand on the shoulder. Forgiveness, farewell.
There was no time. So Mike took him.
And then, the world folded in on itself but Mike found his surprisingly intact.
“I have Will,” he said. “I have Will.”
Family only, that’s the policy. Mike won’t leave his side. Dr. Owens' staff tried but no one could extricate the boy from using the railing of the hospital bed as a pillow.
A big red welt runs from his temple to his cheekbone, which is when Jonathan coerces him into a cushioned chair with a thin blanket.
“Mike, at least use the footrest.” A disgruntled sigh and, finally, relenting, as if it was a handicap. There should be no comfort until Will is comfortable.
Stickers, aligned symmetrically across Will’s forehead, temples, neck, and down his chest, are charting vitals. Machines beep rhythmically, impatiently.
Wake UP, hiss. Wake UP, hiss. Wake UP, hiss.
The nurse hangs the third bag of fluid and connects it to Will’s IV pump. It’s clear, if a bit distorted, tinted with potassium.
“Is that just – " Joyce needs to know everything.
“Just fluids, dear,” she said. “The pain pills wouldn’t keep him asleep this long.”
How long? A question with no answer, asked too many times to sound like words anymore. Will was alive but how alive was he?
Wake up, hiss. Wake up, hiss. Wake up, hiss.
Nothing is keeping Will asleep, though he’s been asleep for 18 hours. Exhaustion must be the cause, which seemed fair enough.
It felt like only minutes ago when Mike took him from El, lowered him to the pavement, Will looked up at him. His eyes didn’t focus at first. It was a long wait until he registered the face above him.
“Mi-Mike.” His voice was caked in texture, froggy. Out of practice, out of use. “My mike?”
It was a question. Mike nodded, smiling, crying, sobbing. Will’s hand reached up before dropping, head drooping, in Mike’s arms.
Time wasn’t linear and no sense could be made of anything until Will was in the hospital with Joyce, Jonathan, Mike and Hopper standing sentry. Everyone else went home. Everyone except El.
Forgiveness and farewell, Mike reminded himself. I have Will. I have Will.
When El left, she stood in the center of the universe, multiple dimensions met and dissolved, all of them opened and closed with her. It was like a painting.
The party didn’t need another thing tying them together, already bound inescapably before the sixth of November, 1983, but watching a piece of their heart disappear in front of them would add another.
They were woven together and it created such a striking series of tapestries, La Chasse à la licorne. Beauty and brutality. Forgiveness and farewell.