Chapter Text
No matter how many times it had happened in the past, Nancy hated waking up from nightmares. It was like her body was betraying her as she sat bolt upright in bed, shaking and trying not to wake the rest of her family by screaming aloud. When all she desperately wanted was to be able to calm herself down, her lungs would continue gasping for air, and her heart would race as if she’d just ran a marathon. And worst of all, nothing at all could stop the crying; even if she had to shove a fist in her mouth to keep herself quiet, the tears would continue to flow unceasingly down her face, soaking her pillow until she needed to flip it over to the other side just to get comfortable again.
Some nights, she could weather through the terror by herself. If it was close enough to sunrise that she didn’t even feel like going back to sleep, she’d often just become accustomed to waking up early. She sometimes even enjoyed it: going down to the kitchen, making herself some tea, and reading a book from her childhood to remind herself of simpler times. But then there were nights where the Upside Down was inescapable, and Barb’s voice continued to echo in her head, no matter how hard she tried to empty her mind, and the darkness outside seemed to swallow her whole until she was falling, falling, falling… trapped within the trees once again, but this time, there was no Jonathan to pull her back out of the void.
Jonathan.
Still crying, she turned her gaze to Mike’s walkie-talkie on her bedside table; she’d grown used to having it near her during the night for this very reason, so that she could call Jonathan if she needed to hear his voice (or vise versa). Their brothers had been more than willing to let their older siblings have reign over the devices during the nighttime since both boys knew firsthand how devastating the nightmares could be. But Nancy hated showing weakness, and most nights, she never made it any further than switching to the channel she and her boyfriend shared. He often worked late nights at the Hawk, and because of this, she was loathe to wake him when she knew he needed his sleep.
But on nights like these, when she could barely catch her breath long enough to stop her head from spinning, these were the moments when she needed him. He was the only one who understood her fear, who knew how to help calm her down.
She reached out for the walkie with a shaking hand and pressed the button down. “J-Jonathan…? It’s me,” she stammered, swallowing down the lump in her throat. “Jon, do you copy?” she asked once more. “Jonathan?”
A few seconds passed before she heard him pick up on the other end. “Yeah, I’m here, Nancy,” he replied, his voice still thick with sleep. “What’s going on…? Are you okay?”
She took another shaky breath inward, more tears spilling down her face as she heard the concern in his voice. “I-I think I will be,” she sighed, sniffling and wiping her sleeve across her face. “But… are you able to come over?” she asked, hating how feeble she sounded in that moment. “It’s okay if—if you can’t, I just—“
“I’m coming. I'll be there in ten."
She heard the click signaling that he had turned the device off, and she collapsed back onto her mattress with a loud exhale. He’s on his way, she told herself, trying to coax herself back to a state of calm, but Barb’s screaming face refused to leave her mind’s eye.
Help me, Nancy, her frantic cries called. I thought we were friends!
Nancy choked on another sob. “You are, Barb,” she whispered to herself, gripping her head between her hands. “You’re my best friend.”
I DIED because of you!
That did it… This was the territory Nancy never willingly dared to enter. She couldn’t cope with the devastating knowledge that she could have saved her… had she only known about the danger outside, she could have looked out the window and made sure she got home safely. She could have asked Steve to walk the three of them to her car so that Barb was able to drive home. But no… Barb had been an afterthought that night, and now she was gone; she was never coming home again.
She was so caught up in her guilty thoughts that she nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard a familiar tapping sound from her window. Her hand flew to her mouth to stifle a scream, but she let out a heaving sigh of relief when she saw Jonathan’s silhouette crouched outside on the roof.
Taking a moment to steady herself, she wiped her face on the sleeve of her nightgown and made her way over to unlock her window, pushing it open quietly so that her parents wouldn’t wake up and ground her into the nineties. However, she honestly couldn’t believe her parents would be roused by anything at this point; Mike was the only one who’d ever woken up to one of her nightmares… or at least cared enough to check in on her.
Jonathan carefully shuffled inside and refastened the window lock before turning to face her, his eyes sad and sympathetic as he took in her teary, trembling form. He looked like he was about to say something, but after a moment or two, he simply held his arms out for her instead. She fell into them immediately, allowing herself to break down once again in his embrace. Her sobs became muffled in his chest as he pulled her close to him, his hand moving in small, soothing circles across her shaking back, and the longer he held her, her body seemed to grow heavier and heavier with exhaustion, both physical and emotional. Eventually, she sank down onto her carpeted floor in a pitiful heap, involuntarily pulling him along with her.
“Hey, it’s okay. Come here,” he whispered, pulling her into his arms. “I got you.”
He gently brought her arms up to wrap around his neck as he picked her up and brought them to her bed. Her fingers gripped his shirt tightly as he gently laid her down and climbed in after her, pulling her against him under the covers. She continued to grab at him desperately like a lifeline, hoping that the haunting visions would leave her alone now that he was here beside her. But no matter how close she snuggled herself against his torso or how many gentle reassurances he whispered, she couldn’t stop picturing her friend’s demise at the hands of the Demogorgon. Her thoughts began to spiral once again: how alone Barb must have felt in her last moments, how intense her pain must have been… and she didn’t even realize she was hyperventilating again until Jonathan took her face between his hands.
“Nancy, it’ll be alright. This is just a panic attack; I’ve had them too,” he said softly, wiping the tears from under her eyes. “I know it sucks, but you’ve gotta slow down, okay? Take deep breaths,” he told her, slowly filling and emptying his own lungs as a demonstration.
She felt like it was impossible, like her body would never obey her again, but she saw the care and concern for her in his eyes, and she knew she had to try, at the very least. She gritted her teeth and tried to force all of the air out of her body before taking it in again in a series of erratic gulps. She tried again, each attempt becoming a bit steadier than the last, albeit loud and shaky.
“That’s it, Nance,” he encouraged her. “In and out… in and out…”
She molded herself against him, trying to imitate his own breaths, until she finally felt the world come back into focus around her. She felt so incredibly tired, her anxious episode having robbed every last bit of her energy, but she wanted to do anything but sleep. Frankly, she felt like she couldn’t even close her eyes without risking a recurrence of the horrible memories. So she just curled closer to Jonathan, nuzzling her nose into the space where his shoulder met his neck, and breathed in his familiar scent: woods, freshly-washed clothes, and a vague hint of the cigarettes his mom smoked, that his home smelled like. He carefully rested his chin on her head in response, wrapping his arms around her protectively. “I’ve got you, Nancy,” he whispered. “You’re okay.”
They laid in comfortable silence for a while as he ran his fingers through her hair, gently smoothing through any tangles he met, before he spoke. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Nancy shivered at the thought of rehashing what she had seen, the things she had thought of… but she couldn’t deny that she was bursting inside with the weight of it. She nodded minutely, letting out a long breath she hadn’t even known she was holding. “Yeah, just… give me a minute.”
He nodded in reply. “Take your time. I’m not going anywhere,” he said with a small smile.
She couldn’t help but smile a bit in return. He was so good to her, so understanding… how had she not seen it in him before? She tried not to think about it, knowing that this would just bring up more guilt for her, and she really didn’t need that right now on top of everything else she was feeling.
Finally, once she felt like her thoughts were organized enough, she pulled away so that she could see his face. “I can’t stop seeing her, Jon,” she sighed, another tear leaking from the corner of her eye. “It was her birthday a couple days ago, and I think that’s why it was so bad tonight. But I just still feel so damn responsible for what happened...” Jonathan opened his mouth, undoubtedly to tell her that it wasn’t her fault, but she cut him off. “No, please… just let me get this out,” she insisted shakily. “I treated her like garbage that day, Jonathan. I must’ve made her feel so unimportant in comparison to…” she trailed off, not wanting to bring Steve into this conversation. “…in comparison to what I wanted that night,” she continued, clenching her fists angrily as she recalled Barb’s last words to her.
This isn’t you…
“She was the best friend I could’ve ever asked for, Jonathan,” she whimpered, choking on a sob as she spoke. “And she should be 18 years old now… we should be touring colleges and picking out dresses for senior prom and getting ready to graduate and leave this stupid town,” she rattled off, her lip trembling. “But she’s not… she got stuck with 16 lousy years, and now she’s gone!”
And then she was crying again, not panicked like before, but raw and sorrowful like when the wound was fresh in her heart. She could tell by the expression on his face that Jonathan’s heart was breaking for her as he pulled her head back to his chest. “I know it hurts, Nancy,” he told her sadly. “Just let it out.”
The tears continued to flow until she was certain there couldn't be a single drop of moisture left for her tear ducts to shed. But eventually, just as always, she was able to control the sobs that racked her body, but the melancholy remained within her. It felt like a stone growing in the pit of her stomach, weighing heavier and heavier by the minute, almost like it could break through her at any moment. And although having Jonathan there with her definitely did something to lighten the load, she knew it was something that would never go away entirely. But she found herself drawn out of these thoughts when she felt her boyfriend gently lifting her face up to his.
“I know how much you miss her, Nancy… and I know how easy it can be to blame yourself for something horrible like this. Trust me, I know,” he said. At her puzzled expression, he took her hand in his own and began to elaborate. “The night Will went missing, I was supposed to be there for him when he came home from your house. But I wasn’t… I took a late shift for a friend, and… when we woke up the next morning, he was gone,” he explained, nervously worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. Nancy’s eyes widened a bit; he had never confided this in her before.
“I blamed myself for ages after that, even though Mom and Hopper and everyone told me it wasn’t my fault. Even after Will came back, I still felt horrible,” he told her. “I didn’t start feeling better about it until Will found out, and he told me that the monster would’ve just taken both of us if I had been home. There was nothing we could’ve done.”
He sighed, running a nervous hand through his hair. “What I’m trying to say is… sometimes bad things just happen. And it really sucks when they happen to good people,” he said. “But this was because of the people at the Lab, and no one else. And if not Barbara, the Demogorgon might’ve taken someone else; Barb was just the one who was bleeding. And maybe if the timing had been different, it could have been you or me or Steve or someone else who had been around that night,” he explained. “And I know if it was me, I wouldn’t want anyone else to feel responsible for the terrible things that monster did.”
She let the weight of his words sink in for a minute or two before she sighed with resignation, lacking the strength to argue with him. “I loved her so much… I still do.”
“She loved you too, Nance. And if there’s something that comes after all this, then she still does,” he assured her. “She’d only want the best for you.”
She nodded her head, knowing deep in her heart that his words were true. “God, I just really want to do right by her… do something that would make her proud, you know?”
Jonathan smiled. “Well, you took down Hawkins Lab, that’s definitely something,” he reminded her. “And judging by the stack of acceptance letters on your desk, you’re definitely heading towards some great things.”
“Excuse me, I believe WE took down the lab,” she countered, poking him in the ribs. “Don’t sell yourself short, Byers.”
His smile only grew as he saw her returning to her normal, sassy self. “My apologies,” he chuckled, leaning slightly forward so he could press a kiss to her forehead. “It was your idea though.”
She let loose a small laugh of her own before she became quiet again, absentmindedly playing with a loose thread on his shirt, and he was more than content just to bask in the moment of restored calm. His arms instinctively readjusted their hold on her as she snuggled closer, tucking her head under his chin as she let out a near-silent yawn. “Thank you, Jonathan… for everything,” she whispered. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” he replied, lightly trailing his fingers along the exposed skin of her arm. “Do you think you can fall back asleep?”
She sighed, pressing her lips together into a line. “I can try,” she settled, slowly letting her eyelids flutter closed.
He nodded in understanding and continued drawing soft patterns in her skin in an attempt to relax her, and he suddenly found himself recalling how she’d done the same for him the night that El had closed the Gate. Remembering back to that night, he found himself quietly humming the same song she’d used to lull him into unconsciousness. And even though he didn’t particularly treasure the sound of his own voice, he took David Byrne’s lyrics down an octave and began to quietly sing to her just as she’d done for him:
“Home is where I want to be
But I guess I'm already there
I come home - she lifted up her wings
I guess that this must be the place
I can't tell one from another
Did I find you, or you find me?
There was a time before we were born
If someone asks, this is where I'll be”
“This is where I’ll be…” he whispered one last time as she dozed off, and as he let himself fall asleep as well, he knew that no truer words could ever be spoken. By her side, loving her… This is where he would always be.