Chapter Text
Chrissy walked in the room and noticed the immediate change in the atmosphere. Because Eddie was awake. Sitting up in bed, head thrown back and laughing at something Wayne had said before they entered. Chrissy didn’t wait to launch herself toward him and—gently—wrap him in a hug.
“Careful, doll face, don’t want to break any of this. They said I spent weeks getting it all back in working order.
“I missed you,” she whispered into his shoulder.
“Missed you too, Chrissy.”
She pulled away to let Robin and Steve have their turns welcoming their friend back to the land of the living.
“Finally get enough beauty rest, Munson?” Steve joked as Robin pulled back from giving him her own hug.
Eddie’s grin turned wicked and he fixed his stare on Steve and said, “I don’t know, did it work? Am I beautiful, Harrington?”
Steve didn’t miss a beat. He stepped closer to the bed and threw a friendly arm around Chrissy’s shoulders.
“Honestly think you kinda overdid it, man. Nothing Jonathan’s California weed and two a.m. pizza won’t fix though. We’ll have you looking like shit with the rest of us in no time.”
Eddie tossed his head back in another laugh that almost made Chrissy tear up just because it was so alive. So different from what he had looked like yesterday.
“Did you replace me already, Chrissy?”
Chrissy scoffed and hip checked Steve at her side, causing another round of laughter when he yelped.
“No, Steve’s just on loan from Robin. I needed help moving all my worldly possessions.”
Eddie’s face changed from jolly to serious in an instant. But she didn’t want to talk about this right now. Not when she finally had a real reason to be happy and she so desperately needed to be.
“Later, Eddie. Okay?”
He seemed to pick up on her mood and nodded. The conversation went back to safer topics.
Robin and Steve told Eddie all about how the kids visited him all the time. Chrissy told him about how El healed her bones and her eyes. They told him he was a free man, no murder or kidnapping charges, and it was all thanks to the returned Chief Hopper and his willingness to yell at obscure government employees to get things set straight.
“Well, shit. Hopper didn’t get me off the hook just so he could bust me for another random drug charge later, right? I swear he used to get a kick out of doing that.”
They laughed and Steve banished Eddie’s apprehension. “No, man. Hop is good. You’re one of us now and he protects us.”
Eddie nodded and Chrissy worried the grin would spilt some of the scars on his jaw open until he yawned.
It was a sober reminder that Eddie was still hospitalized. He was awake now, and El had already said there was nothing else she could do to help the healing. But he had been in a coma for over a month now. He was gaunt, dark circles stood out on his face, and he was undeniably tired.
Eddie turned the yawn into a chuckle at the shift in the atmosphere. “Yeah. You caught me. I’m about to pass out. Great to see you all, but kindly get out now.”
“We’ll let you rest, Eddie,” Robin said. “As long as you promise to wake up this time, yeah?”
Eddie laughed, but it was weaker this time. “Will do, Robin. Cross my heart and hope to wake and all that.”
Chrissy gave him one last hug then followed Robin out the door, waving to Wayne on the way out.
***
She almost didn’t really notice that after that things were starting to get better.
It wasn’t that she was clicking her heels on sunny morning walks through the picturesque Hawkins neighborhoods. Really there was a phantom ache in her legs and arms and a pulsing behind her eyes on bad days. She couldn’t sleep without a light on and even the sleep she did get was plagued by incessant nightmares that sent her spiraling.
Some days she would be assaulted by random memories of her little brother or father.
She would be pouring coffee and suddenly remember playing hide and seek with Adam when they were both much younger. He had hidden in the cabinet under the sink but then hilariously got stuck and couldn’t get out when she found him there.
Or once she was folding laundry and her brain supplied a memory from when she had been very small, before Adam was even born. She put one of her mother’s dresses on and before her dad left for work she asked him if he would dance with her. He took both her hands and they spun wordlessly in her parents’ bedroom but in Chrissy’s mind they were in a grand ballroom, dancing to music only she could hear. Her father smiled the whole time.
She called her mother nearly every day. Most of time she had to make up an excuse to hang up after about half an hour so she wouldn’t have to hear about how Adam was hiding too well in hide and seek again or her father kept burning dinner. Laura hadn’t remembered they were both supposed to be in Hawkins while she was visiting Charlotte.
So it was still hard.
Chrissy was trying to figure out who she was now and who she wanted to be and most of the time she just wanted to ignore everything and be no one.
But.
She also still had those memories. Those sweet moments that she could cling to. Even when they made her sad.
She had her sweet doting mother back. Her mom who joked with her about boys and wasn’t burdened by grief or hardship.
She didn’t need to give herself a pep talk before meals anymore. She knew it was okay and she could do it.
She had a new family, a group that she loved and loved her back.
She was learning about herself and how to be herself.
So it was getting better. Slowly.
***
They got the news that the school year would be resuming for all remaining students two days after Eddie woke up. In one week, school would be back in session and all students still in Hawkins would have the opportunity to complete their semester over a two-week period.
In that week, Eddie was released from the hospital with pain killers and a pat on the head.
Max had gone through Steve’s—their—house room by room, tearing down wallpaper, moving around furniture, mixing and matching random trinkets and organizing the boys’ D&D manuals on the bookshelves. She even put up one of Will’s paintings in the entryway. It felt like a home now.
Steve had turned his proficiency at cooking into an art and was now the meal master of the house who could turn boxed mac-n-cheese into a gourmet cheesy pasta dish worthy of a magazine spotlight.
Chrissy realized most of the fraction of her clothes she had decided to keep didn’t fit her anymore. She was eating more now. It was a good thing. Robin told her every time she stopped putting food in her mouth halfway through a meal. But that meant nearly all of the clothes she had were too small.
Robin found out and decided that needed to be remedied.
And that was how Chrissy found herself in the car with Robin, Nancy, Max, and El headed to Indianapolis for what the other girls claimed was a very mandatory girls’ day out and shopping trip. Plus Eddie.
“I would like to make my grievances known again that you hooligans forced the invalid into the backseat!”
Max snickered from the passenger seat. “If you knew we were hooligans you should have never expected us to be nice to you.”
Nancy laughed in the driver’s seat and glanced at the mirror. “Sorry, Eddie. I tried.”
Eddie spluttered. “Not very hard!”
Eddie was behind the driver’s seat with Chrissy in the middle and Robin next to her behind Max. El was in the very back seat with her chin propped against the back of the seat between Chrissy and Eddie so she could be part of the conversation.
Chrissy patted his knee apologetically and shared a glance with Robin, who rolled her eyes and stuck out her lip to mock the most whiny person in the car. Who also happened to be the oldest of all of them.
“Sorry, Eddie. But at least now you get to sit next to me,” she said brightly.
He narrowed his eyes at her.
“No comment.”
She gasped in outrage.
“You just sat next to me because you want me to do your hair! I feel used.”
Chrissy laughed and shrugged. It was true. But she really was glad Eddie was coming, and she told him as much.
“You did promise to give me an Eddie Munson makeover.”