Chapter Text
Day 147
Two weeks ago, Nancy set up target practice for herself. She’s got it tucked far enough behind the radio tower, no curious MPs can spot it without being seriously up their asses.
Steve watches her sometimes, always with these thoughts and memories crashing around inside his head.
It’s a weird feeling that he gets when she raises the gun, squints to find her mark, mouth usually set in a firm line, locked-in and laser focused—she’s so far removed from the girl he knew senior year, the girl he first fell in love with, but he still sees little flashes of that Nancy in the way she smiles as soon as she nails the target, how she’ll meet his eyes after, almost gloating about it, that 3.99 GPA attitude all over again.
With his ears still ringing from the last shot, Nancy seeks out Steve to give him a look: easy, right? it says.
This time, she follows it up with, “Want to give it a try?”
He points at himself exaggeratedly, the me? silently, bewilderingly, being asked. His immediate answer is no, for a whole bunch of reasons that mostly boil down to him not wanting to look like a complete jackass in front of her. Man of many skills that he is, aim-and-shoot has never been a strong point. Hell, he’s got some shitty Duck Hunt high scores to prove it.
He’s the guy who, you know, throws the molotov cocktail. That’s the level of hand-eye coordination he’s working with. Maybe swings a bat on a good day. He doesn’t shoot things.
When Nancy clocks his hesitance, grin growing bigger, he can’t even soak up how nice it is to be smiled at like that because she’s jerking her head at him, gesturing him over. “C’mere.”
Reluctantly, he leaves the designated spectator zone. “Shouldn’t we be rationing these?” he asks with a kick at an empty shotgun shell he passes along the way.
“We’re surrounded by the military and you’re worried we might run out of ammo?”
Yeah, okay, just call him out like that.
He holds out his hand with some put-on exasperation. Nancy gives him another look, all wide-eyed and amused. Instead of passing the gun over, she squares up with the target and shows him how to hold it. As if he hasn’t been paying attention. As if the image of Nancy Wheeler wielding a shotgun like a total badass babe hasn’t shown up in some unavoidable dreams of his.
“Where’d you learn to shoot, anyway?” he asks to spare himself the agony of following that line of thinking. “I can’t imagine ‘Weapons 101' flying as an extracurricular in the Wheeler household.”
She answers, “You’d be correct,” with some dryness. And then she adds, “It was Jonathan,” after a short pause, clipped and matter-of-fact about it. “Four years ago.”
Why is he not surprised. He wonders if it’ll always be like this, that sad gut-kicked feeling always creeping in when they talk, when he’s inevitably reminded she’s got—he’d say a boyfriend, but these days, Jonathan seems more like a drag than anything. A completely fucking useless drag, to be accurate, but he might be biased here.
“So,” she breathes out to move them past the building awkwardness, “all you do is—” After double-checking he’s not in the path of a possible stray bullet, she cocks the gun, lines up her shot, and shoots.
It’s not a bullseye, but it rips through one of the stuffed animals she has stacked on bales of hay.
“Your turn,” she says with a gleam in her eyes and genuine delight in her voice.
Making sure the safety is on, she passes the gun over. He accepts it with some pretty strong eye contact, watching as Nancy’s expression changes from playful to serious, her eyes scanning his, gaze becoming softer the longer they linger—and then she draws herself out of it, almost shaking her head to do so.
Something about how flustered she seems now, cheeks cutely flushed, sends confidence rushing through him.
He holds the gun to his shoulder the way he’s seen her do it a half dozen times before, cooler and more beautiful than anyone he’s ever seen do it in a movie. Lets the weight and shape of it feel comfortable in his hands, squinting to find his aim.
Because his left eye is squeezed shut, he doesn’t notice Nancy move behind him, coming up around the other side, until he feels her hand fold over his own hand he’s got gripping the pump. Gently, she guides it down the fore-end while he swallows, trying not to let the touch distract him. Then she’s reaching across his chest to lift his elbow, making him hold the gun a little higher, and it becomes harder to ignore her being so temptingly close.
Like she’s picking up on the tension, too, her eyes lift to his face.
He stays focused. Doesn’t drop his squint. Doesn’t let the gravitational pull of Nancy Wheeler work on him, too afraid that if it does, he'll do something embarrassingly stupid like spill his guts. He already sits with the shame of that one.
Pretending to pull the trigger, he breathes out, “Pow,” and then drops the pose, ready to do the real thing. He lets Nancy know by giving her a look. She gets the picture and moves out of the way, almost sheepish about it.
When she’s a safe distance away, he sends out a silent prayer to a hopefully merciful higher power asking to please not let him look too stupid here, exhaling deeply before taking the safety off and cocking it.
Then he aims, curls his finger around the trigger, and shoots.
He nails one of the teddy bears in its little stuffed chest, cotton flying out pretty gruesomely for something so innocent.
He can’t help but feel the stress escape his body, leaving him lighter, as Nancy lets out an impressed laugh, less weight currently around her shoulders than he’s seen her carrying in some time.
“Not half bad,” she tells him, surprised and pleased all in one. He gets that killer smile that undoes him every time. “Now do it again, but hit the one you’re actually aiming for.”
Day 181
“Less obvious,” gets murmured into Steve’s right ear; Robin leans back in her chair to tell him, eyes flaring at him the second he meets them back.
They’re in their reconnaissance-planning basement at the radio station, waiting for Mike and Lucas to show up with the latest on Max, El, and Hopper.
Nancy’s walking around picking up equipment just to slam it down, with Jon a dark and moody shadow at her side. She’s pissed, he’s making it worse, and Steve’s had his eyes glued to the drama like there’s a TV screen in front of him.
When Nancy turns on Jonathan and whisper-yells at him, Steve almost feels sorry for the guy. He can’t even hear it, but it’s got some real venom to it. Jon’s shoulders rise to his ears in a shrug that stays a cower as he avoids eye contact.
“Seriously, now you’re just smiling,” Robin keeps murmuring. “Maniacally, might I add…”
Steve pivots in his chair to face her, his voice just as quiet as he says, “Yeah? I’m sorry, didn’t I have to chaperone your ‘not a date’,” he aggressively finger-quotes, “last night? You wanna talk maniacal, uh, maybe let’s talk about your ‘Kermit, if he was Tammy Thompson’ joke you went back to five—count ‘em, five—painfully depressing times.”
She shrugs, unmoved. “Maybe your humor just isn’t as refined—”
“Yeah,” he scoffs disbelievingly. “Or maybe your impression sucks. And it’s my impression.”
“Well, you’re wrong, and kinda mean, and you’re only saying it because I brought up—” She makes a low sound through her teeth while tilting her head toward Nancy. The only subtle thing about it is that the not-so-happy happy couple is too busy having their own fight to notice
“Can you—not—do that,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I’m so tired of everyone—”
“Calling you out? Telling the truth?” Leaning in closer, practically throwing her shoulder into his, she tells him, “Look, friend-to-friend, maaaaybe you should, I don’t know… finally try and move on?”
Steve rears back immediately, putting space between them, heart thumping hard in his chest and hurt thrumming through his body. Of all the people to make him feel worse than he already does, he doesn’t need it from Robin, who thinks that just because she might actually have a shot with Vickie, it suddenly makes her some kinda enlightened romance guru.
And it makes him feel like shit that the person he’s closest to sees him as a pathetic lovestruck loser. Worse, a lovestruck loser with no shot.
“Hey,” Robin whispers at him, catching the mood change, “you know I didn’t mean it any way other than as your best friend who recently fell to untapped depths of their own wallowing, who’s just trying to look out for you—”
“Do me a favor, then, and don’t,” he says while getting up, dramatic enough it catches the attention of Nancy and Jonathan, who finally break away from their self-centered bickering long enough to stare.
“Steve,” Robin tries but he’s already storming off, aware he’s being a giant baby about it, but the other option is sitting around while Robin makes a face at him, having to endure another round of Nancy and Jonathan making each other miserable while he acts like it isn’t killing him that Nancy prefers that over—something else.
He makes it upstairs before he hears the quickly paced footfall of Robin right behind him, her calling out, “Steve,” more urgently.
So he whirls around. “Pretty shitty, Robin. I already got Henderson, Byers, Nancy—me—there’s enough voices in my head telling me to face the facts, give it up, I don’t need it from you too.” When her eyes get soft with sympathy, the apology on the tip of her tongue, he has to look away. He can’t bear to see the pity there. “I’m trying, okay. I’m not a complete idiot. I know it’s pathetic, I know that—”
Robin comes up close enough to clasp him on the shoulder, giving him a comforting squeeze that cuts him off. “It’s not, though. It’s really, really not, and I shouldn’t have said that. I like that you have all this hope. And, truthfully,” she tells him cryptically, “I don’t think you’re all that wrong for it.”
He’s narrowing his eyes at her, mind turning over that last bit of info, when they hear the hidden door/bookcase creak open and Nancy asking, “Everything okay?”
Steve looks over Robin’s head and catches Nancy clocking his and Robin’s closeness, her friendly but deceptively intimate grasp.
Nancy's expression turn suspicious.
Robin’s hand comes flying off him so quickly, she almost whacks him in the face. He mutters jesus christ under his breath as Robin says, “Very okay! Incredibly, actually, I was just helping Steve with—what was I helping Steve with?” she looks at him to ask, not smooth at all, totally obvious.
He gives her a flat, unimpressed look—she gives back ‘I panicked, what do I do?!’ hands—they’re both saved from answering by Mike and Lucas bursting through the station door with juvenile obliviousness.
They nod and say ‘hey’ and the natural group momentum carries them all back downstairs again, with Robin retreating a little too eagerly and Steve following less hurriedly, more resigned; Nancy and her Nancy Drew case-solvin' eyes stay on him the whole time.
Day 203
“Look, I know what I’m talking about, I can handle it,” Steve argues with his view of the group partially blocked from the blinding light of the projector.
The whole party’s gathered the night before the next Crawl, arguing over their plans, in part because Hopper twisted an ankle on the last run and hasn’t healed enough for either Joyce or Eleven to wanna take a chance.
Hence Steve volunteering himself.
He figured he’d throw a hand up, offer himself on a platter, and get the world’s easiest go-ahead. Instead, he got some pretty immediate “no”s from just about everyone, which is hard to take as anything other than an insult. Even Robin is staring at him like she thinks it’s a bad idea.
They’re in the double digits when it comes to Crawls. It’s not like he hasn’t paid attention, like he doesn’t know what to do. Like he hasn’t proven himself enough already.
“I don’t know,” Joyce says with some concern, eyes perpetually worried, “there’s a lot that can go wrong down there…”
“Yeah, like you getting it in your head you’re some kinda hotshot,” Dustin pipes up with, making Steve roll his eyes.
“I won’t,” he says pointedly, “because I’ll follow the plan. Nance’s plan,” he adds, seeking her out. She’s in the back of the room, arms crossed, frowning and pensive.
When she doesn’t say anything, it gives Jonathan the opening to step forward from the other side of the room, next to Will. “And we should just… trust you to be in charge… why?”
“I’m not—asking to be in charge,” he defends, frustration mounting. With passion, he reminds everyone, “I’ve been down there before. I’ve seen the sonuvabitch, I’ve looked him dead in his weird tentacle’y eyes. I know about the vines, the demobats—I can find him, I know I can.”
“And what about up here?” Mike asks. At Steve’s blank look, he presses, “Who drives the van?”
“Jonathan? Nancy? I’m not the only one with a goddamn driver’s license.”
No one has anything to argue against that.
Steve watches Joyce catch Hopper’s gaze, sees skepticism passed between them, but there’s something underneath it that might be consideration. Will’s watching Jonathan. Robin’s jittering a leg so hard, the table’s shaking.
With the group seemingly swayed more in his favor, he adds, “It’s Lancaster and Ferndale. We’re talking, what—car wash? A bank? I can clear it. Just, trust me.”
“No,” Nancy finally speaks up. Her rejection is a swift kick to both his gut and his ego. It’s gotta be showing on his face but Nancy ignores it, saying more firmly, “We’re not sending in pinch hitters just become someone got benched. We need our top players, in their positions, and if they can’t be, then, no. Crawl’s off.”
He can’t keep the hurt out of his voice. “Nance…”
“We’re not needlessly risking your—” She squeezes her eyes shut, backtracking to say, “risking anyone’s life over this,” less heatedly but still unwavering.
“She’s right,” Hopper says after a tense beat. “It’s not about gettin' it done, it’s about making sure we’re gettin' it done right. Hell, maybe with more prep time, I’d strap you to the convoy myself. But not now. You screw up, we’re all screwed. Sorry. Not taking the chance.”
“But,” Joyce is quick to add, like he needs the pep talk. “Thank you. That’s very brave of you.”
So Steve mutters, “Yeah,” falling back in line, back to the edge of the room, feeling Nancy’s eyes on him, Robin’s. He swipes his hand over his mouth, forcing down the crushing blow of that very public failure.
Day 208
Sometimes Nancy hangs out at the radio station while Steve and Robin are on-air. Mostly because it makes things easier if they need to suddenly assemble into Super Secret Mission mode, but it’s also nice to have a live audience to bounce things off of.
She’s the reason he dropped the ‘belch’ tape. He used it once when Robin was warning Hawkins’ mindless masses about the big metal band-aid that covers the rift, saw Nancy make a face, and wrote an immediate mental note to chuck it from the rotation.
Today, she comes in and catches Steve rifling through an envelope stuffed with a glitter-bomb he accidentally dumped all over himself, and the fourteen inches of space he generously gets to claim as a work desk.
“What’s that?” she asks, setting her bag down. No Jonathan today, small miracles.
“Steve’s got fans,” Robin tells her, the eye-roll implied.
He wouldn’t exactly call it that. Maybe ‘stalker.’ He started getting letters addressed to him, left taped on the radio station doors. Things like papers smudged with lipstick kisses, drawings of hearts. The first couple of times he chalked it up to a prank, but it’s been a week of it and they’re starting to get weird.
“Ah. That’s… nice,” Nancy says at the same time Steve fills in, “Terrifying.”
“No, yeah. That’s what I meant.”
He tries to dust the glitter off him, but all it does is stick harder, somehow spreading to the backs of his hands. “Son-of-a…” he says to himself.
“You ask me, it’s wasted appreciation,” Robin muses. They’re t-minus 15 minutes to going live so she’s sat at her swivel chair, finessing the script she wants him to follow but rarely does. He’s got his own thing going on, okay, he lets the muse take over.
“You do only just… play sound effects,” Nancy agrees. She adds, “No offense, you’re great!” quickly after when he can’t help but be a little offended. “Really great. It’s just. Do you ever even talk? Or?”
“Robin won’t let me,” he admits, making Nancy smile softly.
“For this very reason! You put Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington on public radio and the attention we’re most definitely getting is from horned up housewives and every teenage girl, and some boys, trapped in this dangerously pheromone-filled bubble that is Hawkins. Which brings me back to my point. Whoever this is, it’s not like they’ve got a shot. Steve’s been on a whopping zero dates in—how long again?”
“Hey,” he says, stung, trying not to pay attention to whatever Nancy’s reaction might be. “Can you not attack me for once in your life? It’s getting old.”
“Not an attack,” she defends loftily. “A fact.”
“Well, factually shut up about it.”
Robin holds up her hands in sarcastic placation. “Just saying.”
“I mean.” Nancy’s voice has got some hesitation in it. “Is now really the time to be dating?”
“Exactly,” Steve agrees, hard on the shame-eyes he aims at Robin.
“Sure, but is ‘last night on Earth’ famously not a trope? There’s something about the whole ‘doom-and-gloom’ that revs people’s motors. And these ‘Dear Steve’ love letters more than imply an interest in filling the role.”
Steve has given up clearing off the glitter. He chucks the envelope into the nearest trash can. “I think they’re bogus.”
“And I think it’s Dawn McClay. I saw how she was staring during the last grocery delivery. Like she wanted an off-menu snack.” Then, slyly, “She’s cute. You know, in a preppy, wannabe-Carrie Fisher type way.”
Steve has noticed. Not the cuteness, the overtness. She’s not exactly slick about it, always trying to help Steve load his car while making death-eyes at Robin.
“Or maybe it’s Heidi,” Robin continues breezily. “Maybe she’s holding out for a fourth shot of you standing her up.”
Steve points a defensive finger. “I had valid, rift-opening, dust-crap-falling-from-the-sky reasons for that.”
“Sure, sure.” And then, “Could be Brenda. Man, does she hate Heidi.”
“She really does,” he agrees.
“Anyway!” Nancy cuts through. She’s got a tight smile on her face, almost aggressively so. “Maybe we should go over the burn list again, make sure we didn’t miss anything. You know, focus on the important stuff.”
Robin says, “Yeah, of course,” but she spins Steve’s way right after and mouths you’re welcome at him.
Day 218
Christmas Eve sneaks up on Steve.
Sure, he noticed the decorations popping up around town like they were all being forcefully reminded of how normal things were supposed to be around here, but it’s not like he’s a kid counting down the days to Santa anymore.
And then he gets a card in the mail, delayed by a couple of weeks because the MPs intercept and inspect anything going out or coming in.
Even if they wanted to now, Hawkins being a giant, quarantined bubble means his parents can’t come home. So he gets mail from them periodically, mostly just checks for grocery rations or a to-do list to keep the house from becoming a shit hole.
This time, it’s a Christmas card. Same kinda generic, store bought card they used to send out to the dentist or cousins they never talked to, one from a package of a couple dozen.
Nothing but a signature at the bottom.
Steve sticks it on the fridge under a Big Buy magnet before grabbing the milk. He does an okay job keeping himself fed on more than just frozen meals and Pop-Tarts, but right now, the only energy he’s got is for cereal.
He’s pouring himself some Lucky Charms when the phone rings. Considering the handful of people who ever call, he answers with a distracted, “’Lo,” while sweeping the cereal that didn’t make it into the bowl off the counter and onto the floor.
“Hey!” Robin’s voice comes through brightly. “It suddenly occurred to me that it’s Christmas tomorrow. I’m at Nancy’s, we’re going over boring, maybe-one-day-we’ll-be-let-free college stuff,” she says with enough exaggerated inflection, he immediately knows she’s talking in code. They’re probably talking about wanting to break into the MAC-Z, Nancy’s newest thing to stop her from feeling like they’re dragging their feet here. “And I remembered how our good friend Steve is normally part of the conversation, a vital part even. Wanna come over? I ask with permission from the Wheeler household, of course."
He can imagine it: he’ll show up, immediately get glared at by Jonathan. Mrs. Wheeler will give him that look like she knows he used to sneak into her daughter’s bedroom. Nancy will barely make eye contact with him in an attempt to mediate it all. He’ll feel that heavy, inescapable ache.
“Yeah, pass. Believe it or not, I’ve got things to do.” Like sit in front of the TV and look for the Charlie Brown special.
She doesn’t bother to call him out on his obvious bullshit. “Are you sure? Because there’s something about you… at home, all alone, no presents, no family, that makes my heart hurt a little.”
He rubs a hand across his eyes. “Thank you. I needed the reminder.” Jesus.
“I didn’t mean—“ He hears Robin’s voice get muffled like she’s cupping a hand over the receiver, and then she comes back to say, “One sec.”
It’s Nancy that comes on right after. “Steve?”
He stands ramrod straight, self-conscious for no reason. “Nancy.”
“Hey. You sure you don’t want to come over? Mom’s got this mega-pot of hot chocolate on the stove like she’s expecting an actual army. I’ve still got Risky Business. Could be fun…”
‘Fun’ is about the last word he’d use to describe it. But there is a warmth happening inside his chest that he didn’t feel two minutes ago.
“And be reminded just how much I suck compared to Tom Cruise?” he smooths his refusal over with a teasing, self-deprecating jab. He drops the tone to say, “Maybe some other time.”
“Sure,” she says, and he can hear the phony brightness over the line. “Well, Merry Christmas.”
“Thanks, Nance. You too.”
There’s a brief pause, and then the dial tone.
Day 233
Maybe he oughta get sick more often. Because it’s his shitty head cold that has Nancy sitting shotgun while they track Hopper in the UD.
Something about his congestion and overall grogginess caused Nancy to doubt he was sound enough to handle things on his own tonight and they couldn’t afford to skip another Crawl. He can’t even take offense to that because it’s the first time in a long time they’ve been paired up together. For the mission, obviously.
Dustin’s there too, in the back, working his wheel and manning the headphones, but considering the prickly mood he’s been in lately, the silence he’s sullenly giving is pretty appreciated.
It gives Steve time to overthink things. Like how natural it feels to be doing this with Nancy at his side. She keeps calling out sharply-given instructions at Dustin like he isn’t some kid genius who’s done this a dozen times solo before. Because Nancy’s more formidable and scary than even Dustin’s attitude these days, he shuts up and listens. It’s awesome.
Right now, they’re parked across the high school, the telemetry tag’s signal coming through steady and strong. On the two-way, Joyce checks in with Hopper and they get his crackled response back that he’s made it in.
Nancy’s face is full of concern as she scans the building. Up here, it looks empty and quiet, but Hop’s just an interdimension away in nearly the exact same spot.
“So,” Steve says when the minutes tick by and the only thing going on is the muffled sound of Dustin keeping the antenna rotated in the right direction. “Thanks for tagging along. I mean—germs, I know, obviously you think I’m—not incapable, but like—and, honestly, I feel fine—so we would’ve been—”
“Hush the chatter up there,” Dustin interrupts.
Steve glares at him through the rearview mirror. Dustin just smirks back at him, making Steve blow out a sigh that turns into a throat itch that threatens to become a cough.
“It’s fine,” Nancy says after a beat, and when he looks over, she’s smiling at him. The small kind of smile that he catches more in her eyes than her mouth. “Besides, fresh air feels nice. The basement was getting a little… confined.” He’s 99% sure that’s a dig at Jonathan, the way it comes out sounding so snarky and bitter. Realizing that he’s realizing that, she blows out a self-conscious, breathy laugh, eyes darting away. With some forced cheer, she says, “Coulda been more prepared for the cold, though.”
Mind still stuck three seconds in the past, it takes him a moment to catch up and hear her. And then another to put out the feelies and gauge that, now that’s she’s mentioned it, the van’s heater kinda sucks.
“Hey,” he starts, automatically rocking forward to tug an arm out of his jacket sleeve, “here,” and he gets the other arm free after only a short battle of it getting caught on his sweater underneath.
“No, Steve, really,” Nancy immediately puts up a defense, but he’s already shrugged the thing off, has it held over the console as an offering.
When her stare only stays unsure, he gives his arm a little shake, jostling the jacket. “Seriously. I’m all fever’ed up, remember? You’re doing me a favor.”
Her face says she doesn’t believe him, but, reluctantly, she takes it from him. The second it’s passed over, he feels something unfurl inside him.
She puts it on quickly, perfunctorily, swallowed up in it immediately. Her fingers barely poke out of the sleeve as she clasps her hands in her lap.
“Thanks,” she says after, a little awkward about it.
He can’t help but smile, looking out the driver’s side window to tame it down some. “Anytime.”
In the distance, they can hear the dulled sound of faraway traffic. Steve keeps an eye out for police cars and the unmarked vans the MPs patrol the town in.
Eventually Nancy asks Dustin, “Anything?”
“Would’a said,” he shoots back.
Steve whips his head around at the tone. “Hey.” He gives him a look that tells him to play nice or else. Dustin flips him off.
With another sigh, Steve turns back around and settles into his seat more comfortably, his legs starting to get those ‘been sitting for too long’ tinglies that usually kick in around the 20-minute mark of these stake-outs.
“How are—things?” Nancy asks, with the smallest tilt of her head toward the back of the van and the widening of her eyes.
Steve catches her drift.
When they first got back from the Upside Down, when this whole thing started, Dustin came back grieving Eddie. Kid was pretty understandably messed up about it for a while. And about a month after that he stopped being sad and started getting pissed, and they’ve been stuck with Dustin being angry at the world ever since.
It’s not like Steve hasn’t tried to pull him out of it. They’ve got their whole bond or whatever. But he can’t get through to him, and the more he’s tried to be there, the harder Dustin takes it out on him. Kind of an all-around shitty situation because it’s not like they have the luxury of properly mourning anything they’ve gone through. Even Lucas shoulders the weight of Max being all comatose mostly alone.
“Loads of fun,” he snarks back.
“Yeah,” she agrees, getting it. “I think we’re all feeling that way.” He looks over when he hears the exhaustion in her voice.
This is about more than just tonight.
“We’re gonna find him, Nance. He’s gonna pay.”
“I know, it’s just. How long, you know? How much more of this,” she bites out with a sweeping look out the front windshield, “are we supposed to deal with? Until it’s so normal we stop questioning it?”
In the distance, they can see the glow of the MAC-Z. It almost lights up the sky from it. They can hear the thrum of military vehicles. It feels eerie, like they’re in a shell of a town.
“Remember Mr. Neal, junior year?” When Nancy gives him a look like she’s questioning if a wellness check is necessary, he tells her, “Go with me here. I was failing his class. You, of course, were practically the school valedictorian. Mr. Neal pulled me aside one day and goes, ‘you wanna fail, keep doing what you’re doing. You wanna actually make something of your life—’ and he brought me to you.”
She’s smiling softly at him. “Pre-calc. And you got a B- that year.”
“Because of you.”
“Steve,” she immediately puts up a protest.
“There’s something about you. I knew it back then, I knew it the first time we met. I just believe in you. Crazy as it sounds. Like you're, I don't know, the North Star. Like a fixed point always leading us in the right direction. So I guess I’m just saying—”
“Shit shit shit—sorry,” Dustin says, genuinely apologetic, “shit! Signal’s moving.”
That’s all Steve needs to hear.
Moment over, he turns the key, gets the engine kicked back to life. “I need a direction here,” he says tensely, fingers tapping the steering wheel.
“I know, I know—go left. Seems like Hop’s on foot but he’s moving fast. You’re gonna wanna pace it. Check in with Joyce?”
When Steve doesn’t immediately hear the feedback from the two-way, he looks over at Nancy. Their eyes meet, and for just a second, something impossibly hopeful passes between them—and then Nancy snaps to it.
“Hop’s on the move,” she says into the walkie talkie, all business. “Do we have confirmation of his next location?”
Steve peels out onto Dewberry and heads toward Cornwallis with some renewed faith.