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The memories of that night in the lab are the ones that haunt Mike the most and he longs for the day when they won’t be so fresh anymore. He tries to block it all out – almost losing his best friend, the attack, Bob’s death, dozens of dead bodies – for the sake of staying sane. But he can recall with perfect clarity walking down the empty hallway and having a striking realization that the walls around him were the same that once kept El trapped inside, the ones she’s seen, and touched and known almost her entire life.
He wonders what El’s life was like in the hellhole they call the Hawkins lab and finds himself fixated on this. It’s not plain curiosity, but rather a relentless need to know the story of the girl who never really leaves his mind, because he wants to help her heal. She’s shared with him and the Party some things: about her trip to Chicago, her mother and something so vague about the lab that he can’t even remember what it was. There are a lot of reassuring words, heartfelt hugs and hours spent thinking about her after their conversations long ended too. And really, there is a chance he would’ve let it go by now if it wasn’t for the fact that something was telling him she was ashamed of something.
With no inter-dimensional monsters in sight and adjusting to new life, El is happy, Mike knows this much. She remains rather quiet and a little reserved, at times comfortable with being an observer, but she is happy. El speaks more confidently now, her speech is nearly natural, vocabulary richer and sentences complete. Being around the Party so much, she’s quick to get a good grasp of some of the pop culture references and not reluctant to ask questions if she doesn’t understand something either. Soon, she’s well-accustomed to social interactions without them being particularly awkward or lacking something.
Some days are so normal, without conversations about the Upside Down or any reminders of traumatic events, that if you don’t pay attention or don’t look closely enough, it’s almost too easy to forget she’s escaped from the lab. Reality comes crashing back in when they least expect. It’s in big things, but small things too. It’s in the way she wakes up at night from time to time, all cold and shivering, gasping for air; or in the way she still sleeps with a light on and is not so fond of rainstorms either. Or it’s as simple as a question about a holiday (“What happens on the 4th of July?”) that for a second takes them aback until they can finally satisfy her curiosity.
***
Mike Wheeler gets his answers on one of the rare, chilly and rainy summer days in 1985. He and El are huddled together in a corner of the sofa in the cabin, their eyes glued to the TV as they watch the final scene of “The Karate Kid”. An instant later a bolt of light lights up a sky, they hear a loud crash of thunder and the room is suddenly concealed in darkness.
Mike feels her stiffen at his side, her shoulders twitching with a shiver. He is not sure who moves first, but next thing he knows she is curled up into his side, her hand reaching for his and another one gripping his shirt. Mike is quick to throw his arm around her shoulder and pull her closer.
“Hey, hey, you’re okay,” he hums over and over, refusing to give in to his own panic when he hears her breath coming in short gasps. Thunderstorms and darkness are a terrible combination for her. “I’m right here and you’re safe. I’m right here, El.”
El buries her face in the curve between his collarbone and neck and he’s almost certain she’s not hearing him. In the quiet of the house the only noise is her shallow breathing blending in with the sound of the rainstorm.
“Come on, El, focus on me. Just breathe with me.” He let goes of her hand and cradles her face, finally catching her attention.
Mike strains his eyes into the darkness and as much as he is glad to see her looking at him, he also hopes the darkness conceals the subtle trembling that has overtaken his body. It’s not the first time he’s in a similar situation and it’s almost a pattern by now, because he knows exactly how it always goes – overwhelming fear takes over her senses, he tries to snap her out it and assure her she’s safe, simultaneously putting effort to appear calm on the outside himself. The last thing he needs is El to realize how much it pains him to watch her struggle and worry about him too.
In moments like these, he feels a little older than he is – not a clueless little boy, but a person – a boyfriend now, he reminds himself – who takes action. Mike will never tell her, but one day back in February he found himself in the library, strolling through the rows of bookshelves, his eyes scanning the titles, determined to find something that would help him make sense of what El was going through. He tries not to think about how Hopper of all people showed up in the library on the very same day and saw him pouring over dozens of volumes, old and new, scattered across the desk. The books were full of obscure psychological concepts, references and terminology he couldn’t quite grasp, leaving him frustrated at first. Finally, after days of reading, breaking down puzzling passages and focusing hard on parts that were tripping him up the most, he could say he’d read enough to figure out how to handle the situations or at least how not to make them worse. He may not have superpowers, but he finds comfort in knowing he can still be of some help to her.
“Take a deep breath, like this,” Mike continues to instruct, “And then breathe out. Just like this. Slow breaths. In and out. In and out.” He nods encouragingly as she blows out a lungful of air and follows his instructions.
“It will pass in a moment, El, you know this. You’re safe, in your own house and I’m not going anywhere, do you hear me?”
He waits patiently. Several long minutes go by and gradually, her breathing slows, body stills and he can make out in the darkness that her eyes are now more focused. Relief washes over him and he relaxes a little. The thunder still rumbles in the distance and rain vigorously pounds against the windows.
“It’s probably nothing,” Mike hurries to say. “The power is out because of bad weather. Do you want me to get a flashlight real quick?”
“No!” she exclaims, tugging on his sleeve when she thinks he is about to leave. “Stay.”
“Are you sure?” he asks softly, “We can look for it together if you want. It might be awhile before the electricity is back on. We’ll have to sit in the darkness, then.”
“I don’t mind anymore,” El answers, shaking her head and sounding small. “Just sit with me, please?”
Mike scoots even closer then, giving her hand a gentle squeeze before lacing his fingers with hers. He takes in the downturn twist of her lips, slightly furrowed eyebrows and hunched shoulders. There is no need to ask her what’s wrong or see her in bright light: he’s learned to read her well enough to figure it out.
“It’s going to get better,” Mike says in warm tone. “It is, already,” he adds, remembering how it was before. “Besides, everyone is afraid of something and—”
“But I’m scared of stupid things and it’s… just different,” El interrupts stubbornly.
The power is back then; the pair looks up but neither of them comment on it.
“I know it is. But hey, there is no such thing as stupid fear, though. Even Max is scared of heights and Lucas is afraid of something so small, he will kill me if I tell anyone.”
“What are you scared of?” El asks with interest.
The question surprises him for some reason, but the answer is almost instant.
“Well, uh, the Gate is closed and we’re safe, but it’s, kind of…a lot to take in. I guess, it’s a bit scary to think there could be other dimensions and things we don’t have a clue about.” Don’t be an idiot, just get straight to the point. “And that something could happen to...”
He stumbles for a moment, wanting to say “the Party”, which now includes her too, but changes his mind. Because it’s her who he’s lost and cannot afford to lose again, because it’s her the bad men would be after if any of them are still out there, and simply because he wants her to hear this - she needs to hear this…
“…something could happen to you. I just…I didn’t handle it very well last time. And I can’t do it again. I—…you know how I feel about you.” There is a lot of rambling, but he gets it out. He can’t believe he said this. But then again, he can. It’s always been easy to allow himself be more vulnerable with her than he was with anyone else.
Mike replays the events of that night when El left to close the Gate and what a jittering mess he was until Hopper returned with her in his arms. He had nightmares now and then for the next few weeks before he could fully comprehend that she was indeed here, alive and well. If anyone could understand, it was her. And he hopes she understands how real his fear is.
And she does, when she leans in and presses a kiss against his still-burning cheek, whispering softly, “It’s a good thing I’m not going anywhere, then, Mike.”
It’s exactly what he needs to hear, no matter how many times she’s told him this, but he doesn’t smile this time, too distracted by her shaking voice and equally shaking fingers still intertwined with his.
He wracks his brain for something, anything, that could put her at ease and take her mind off her troubles.
“You know, now that I think about it, the way you reacted when you were out of strawberry ice-cream last week was pretty scary too.”
El leans back slightly and looks at him, something akin to a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. His own lips turn up in a smile he can’t help.
“He promised we would always have it in the freezer, like Eggos,” she reminds him with accusation in her tone. Sometime in the beginning of the summer Hopper and El made a deal – strawberry ice-cream would replace Eggos, something you could always find in their freezer, at least during the summer season. Mike loves her little quirks and obsessions and loves to watch her discover new things too, which is something she’s been deprived when she was living in the lab.
They sit in silence for a while. El stares at him for a long, pensive minutes with her big, hazel eyes full of worry and uncertainty, as if contemplating something. She opens her mouth to speak, uncertainty still dancing across her features, and a delivery never comes.
“El, you can tell me anything you want,” Mike tells her gently. “Whatever it is, I… I will understand and we’ll figure it out together, like always. Yeah?”
She nods and briefly glances towards the window, twitching as thunder rings through the cabin before turning attention back to him.
“I never heard thunder in there.”
“No?” Her confession takes Mike off guard and he’s unable to say anything else. He also thinks it was not what she wanted to say initially, but he lets it be.
“My room was different. Had no windows,” she explains.
Mike gulps nervously, gripping El’s hand tighter. He shouldn’t be surprised by what she said, he really shouldn’t, because he figured as much, but the meaning behind the words is too cruel to fall from the lips of someone he cares for so much and his heart drops.
El’s eyes are intense on Mike’s, looking at him expectantly.
“Mike…” she trails off, looking down at their hands.
“El, are you— do you want to tell me about the lab?”
He asks her the question and is not sure he doesn’t regret it, as he anxiously waits to hear a story he knows he won’t remotely like. El’s head snaps up. The silence stretches between them again for what feels like an hour. And soon enough it sends him into a panic.
“Shit. I’m sorry,” he says under his breath. “You don’t have to tell me! I’m just— I’m an idiot, I thought—", he pauses when her hands slip out of his and cover his mouth.
“Mike, no,” she says in a voice that oozes determination that wasn’t there a minute ago. “I want to.”
El folds her hands in her lap and continues with a sigh. “Papa— Brenner,” she corrects herself, furrowing her eyebrows, “He made me… crush things with my mind.” El briefly presses two fingers against her temple. “Small things at first, but then he wanted me to try my powers on... mice, and then a cat too. I didn’t want to do it. He would tell me I was misbehaving. And bad men, they would lock me in the dark cell again and again when I didn’t listen to Pa— Brenner and wouldn’t bring food for a while too. It wasn’t like my room, the cell. It was empty, no bed or anything. And… it was cold and so dark and nobody came for so long.” By the time she finishes the sentence, her voice is shaky.
Mike wants to say a millions things, but instincts tell him to wait and let her continue.
“They threw me into the cell one day, but I had just gotten out of it the day before and I got so angry. I… tried to get away, but they wouldn’t let me. And then I— I killed them when they were trying to shut the door. Brenner let me out and told me he was very proud of me.” El’s eyes glisten with tears and she rubs her eyes with the heels of her hands.
A wave of pain overtakes Mike. He can feel tears gathering in his eyes too, but refuses to let any fall. The pain is sharp, almost physical and pales in comparison with anything else he’s ever experienced before. There is a moment, he decided a while ago, that marked his life and when he’s older and will look back at his life, he believes he’ll say that the day El returned to him divided his life in two parts, because he could finally breath again and happiness flooded his system. But maybe this moment right here, is one of those too. El’s face is twisted, she’s hurting and looking at him like he’s the answer to all her troubles.
He’s never been so aware of another person. He tries hard to tell apart her pain from his, but her pain feels too much like his own and he really can’t tell anymore where her ends and his begins. Mike wonders for a moment if she’s the kind of person to spare him details, to leave some of the most dreadful things that have happened to her just for herself in order to shield him from the harsh realities of her past. His heart clenches at the thought and he can’t fight the tears that finally fall, silently running down his cheeks.
“There were others times when I killed, too. When I was running away from them after I escaped,” El sniffles and looks anywhere but at him, as if she’s saying something too personal and shameful. “And I didn’t tell you everything about Chicago. Kali, her friends and I went to find this man… He hurt mama and that’s why I wanted to kill him. And I almost… I almost did, but saw a picture. He had two daughters and I couldn’t do it.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt anyone again, Mike. I want to be a good person, like you and Will and the others,” El manages to say before her voice breaks and shoots off the couch, now standing 5 feet from him, her back on him.
It’s the first time Mike remembers her escaping him instead seeking his affection. He thinks her last words are her way of saying “please, don’t think differently of me now that you know everything, because I know what I did was nothing short of a monstrous thing to do” and he wastes no time in rushing to her.
Mike takes both of her hands in his. “El, please, look at me.” She doesn’t, though.
He tries to guess what kind of thoughts occupy her head that she’s averting eyes. He thinks, maybe she’s terrified to lift her eyes and find they’ve changed, that there’s even a hint of horror, revulsion and all the other emotions she doesn’t even know the names of, but never wants to see in his eyes when he looks at her. He’s seen her kill before, almost two years ago now; they were about to be captured and she had no choice. This is different though: she told him about her trip to Chicago, how she nearly killed a man when she was in no real danger and now he knows about the lab too. And while she’s fourteen and is only learning about relationships, maybe she understands that this is something that makes people turn away. Perhaps, she asks herself where is the line when it becomes too much even for Mike Wheeler? Maybe she knows he will understand, he always does, but the fear is still there.
Mike cups El’s face with both hands then, hoping the warmth of his touch is a comfort that will override her thoughts like it usually does. His thumbs are feathering gently along the skin beneath her eyes, catching tears that keep tumbling free. A second later he presses his face into hers so their foreheads touch. And finally their eyes lock and his eyes never leave hers.
Perhaps it should bother him more that she’s killed. And it does, just in a different way. He’s bitter that she has to carry this weight on her shoulders. Everything else is a background noise that he can ignore.
“I wish none of that ever happened to you, El. You’re the strongest person I know and you don’t need to be like me or anyone else, because you’re so, so good, despite all the ugly things that you went through!” he says with emotion, wishing his words weren’t so simple and he could adequately express everything she needs to understand. “Everything you did was a consequence of what bad men did to you. You— you were just a child and if the world was perfect, everyone who’s ever took part in abusing you and other children would spend the rest of their lives in jail. Brenner is the real monster here. And I don’t care about what you’ve told me; it doesn’t change anything. It’s not your fault. I promise you, El. I promise you. Do you believe me?”
El stares at him, wide-eyed, nodding fervently. Mike tangles his arms around her shoulders and waist, pulling her against him and releasing a long sigh. She chooses to believe him and it all that matters, yet there is no sense of real relief for Mike as he swallows hard, trying to force the lump in his throat down. His vision now is completely blurry, eyes burning with hot tears and despite his best efforts, he can’t help a sob that wracks his body.
“Now you’re upset,” El says apologetically, pulling out of his embrace to inspect his face. “I hurt you and you—”
“No!” Mike is quick to wipe his face with a sleeve of his blue shirt. He hates the new tears threatening to form in his eyes – he should be the one soothing her, not the other way around. “I mean, yes. But that’s okay,” he somehow manages a small smile.
“How is this okay?” she questions sharply, not in innocent way, but rather alarmingly, perhaps debating if it was a good idea at all to tell him everything she did.
His brow creases with thought.
“Because I wanted to know. And, you know, this is the kind of thing you share with someone you—,” Mike stops midsentence, his words hanging in the air. His heart skips a bit and he freezes, realizing the “L” word almost slipped his mouth. “—with someone who is important to you,” he says hurriedly.
His eyes widen and he doesn’t know what to do with himself.
He’s been pushing it back for weeks now, always trying not to dwell on it too much.
Oh God, oh God, oh God. He is only fourteen. He isn’t supposed to think about this, right? It isn’t supposed to be so intense and over-powering and all-consuming. And yet how come it is? Somewhere in the back of his mind he’s well aware that no one just waits for a girl to come back for 353 days.
Still, what does he know, right?
Enough, his brain supplies. Enough to know that whatever there is between his parents it isn’t love, because Ted Wheeler never holds Karen’s hand or makes her laugh or really talks to her; enough to know, that when his classmate Travis Watts calmly gathered his books and proceeded in a similarly calm manner to put them in his school bag, having had witnessed his girlfriend leave the class for the nurse’s office, was nothing but a small middle-school crush.
This though, this is not the same.
“Mike?” El’s voice snaps him out his thoughts.
Mike shakes his head, pushing these thoughts away and deciding to return to them later. There is no rush to tell her anything now. Yes, later, when he has a chance to think this through.
She looks quizzically at him and suddenly he’s afraid she can read everything on his face. His heart is about to burst out of his chest and his thoughts are unbearably loud. How can she not hear them?
“Sorry, I was just saying, I’m glad you told me,” says Mike, trying to recover. “Sometimes I’m gonna worry about you and you can’t change that, but you can always tell me anything you want. I’ll tell you everything, too.” Well, except the love part.
“Mike,” she whispers with a hint of a smile in her voice, as her hand comes up to brush some strands of his unruly jet-black hair off his forehead, fingers sliding down the side of his face, “you’re the best person I know.”
Mike flushes. Something warm, inscrutable and so very familiar spreads through his chest, shifting his worries aside.
“Yeah, well, I guess it helps that you haven’t met many people yet.”
“You're silly,” El says, shaking her head at him.
He’s too busy studying her face to come up with a clever answer or any answer for that matter, really. Her eyes are the most beautiful shade of hazel, framed by eyelashes that are damp with shed tears. Her cheeks are puffy, half of her hair is pulled out of a yellow scrunchie, locks framing her face wildly. And yet somehow she’s the prettiest sight he’s ever seen.
Mike surrenders then and puts a name to a constant craving to be with her. He admits, if only just to himself, that he’s head over heels in love with El Hopper, that she’s both his biggest heartache and even bigger joy, the only thing that ever made sense in the midst of all the craziness that is this post-Upside Down world and he wouldn’t trade it for anything.
The butterflies in his stomach flutter madly and he leans in to press his mouth against hers. Mike hears El’s breath hitch and then she’s kissing him back, her hands moving to the back of his neck. He plants his palms on her face, fingers lacing into her honey-brown hair so he can pull her even closer until there’s no inch of space between them. The two remain lip-locked for a while, their lips brushing and moving, refusing to let it end.
“El,” barely a whisper against her lips, with no purpose but just to say her name. His mind is a tad hazy, but he’s all too aware of warm touch of El’s hands on his chest and softness of her locks against his fingertips. It’s different from all the other kisses they’ve shared before. Or maybe it’s just the mantra chanting in his head (“I love you, I love you, I love you”), the sweetest ache that overwhelms him with sensations. The kiss is “let me take your pain”, “I will always be here” and all the other things that his fourteen-year-old self has no courage to say yet. It’s a little messy, a salty taste on his taste buds from their tears, but he loves it all the same.
***
Later, when the rainstorm has passed and Mike is on the bike heading towards home, he thinks there is a part of him that will always be angry at the Lab for of all the opportunities and experiences El never had; for her being twelve when she first made friends, for her being thirteen when she learned about Christmas, for her being fourteen and still struggling to fight the shadows of the past. That same part will always want a tangible evidence that every single person who’s ever hurt her is punished. But, most importantly, he thinks with determination setting across his face, he won’t rest until he’s replaced her bad memories with ones so bright and stark that the first twelve years of El’s life resemble for her nothing but a bad dream she had many years ago.