Work Text:
El woke, drug-groggy and limb-stiff. Memory clawed at her innards as she felt the almost forgotten sensation of air on her shaved scalp. “No, no, no.” Her eyes danced around the room. “Mike! Mike!”
“I’m sorry, Eleven.” An oily voice [no, no, no] dripped into her ears. “But you needed to know how important you are. How powerful. How special.” A metal headset dropped onto her head. “The dimension you and your friends call the Upside-Down, it’s only the beginning.” [Miiiiiiiiike!] “There is so much more, Eleven, and you are the key to it all.”
El shuddered as her eyes opened and more than opened. Reality fractured and dozens of possibilities flickered past: Her mother alive and well, a world underwater, she a boy and Mike a girl. Her mind settled on one for more than an instant--
Her--not-her, standing above everything, eyes bloodshot and angry. Beside her a stranger that could only have been Mike. His face leaner and framed by scraggly sideburns and mustache. “Finish him, El,” he called.
She looked down to see Brenner, crawling away on his hands and knees, lab coat torn and bloody. “Eleven, please!” His fingers clutched at the tile floor. “I wanted to help you! Train you!”
“He’s only ever held you back, El,” not-Mike whispered into not-her ear. “Held you down.”
With her powers, not-she lifted a piece of lab equipment over her head. [Eleven, please!] “Goodbye, papa!”
--her sight flashed back to the right-now. Woozy, bleary, but Mike’s face hung over hers. “El? El, we got you!”
“Mike?” She squinted, light bright behind him like a halo. “Real?”
“Yeah, real.” He pulled her close. “I got you.”