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He didn’t expect things to end this way.
He was too high on having her back, on the marvel that was El existing in the same space as him again. When she stepped through that door, it was like he didn’t even know what sadness was anymore. All his despair and grief and anger that had built up inside him like a time bomb, going off at any given moment over the last year - it just disappeared. His heart was exploding, but it wasn’t because of pain anymore. His love was back. His sun had returned, its eclipse finished, and he could finally feel warm again.
He was such a fucking idiot. Could anyone blame him, though? He was just thirteen. He was just in love with the girl from the woods, the girl with superpowers and no concept of what a friend was. The girl who was trying her best. The girl who was gold and sunshine and ethereality all woven together.
Was.
Mike leans over the sink in the Byers’ bathroom, gripping the cold porcelain edges as tightly as possible. He, Lucas, Dustin, Max, and Steve were the first to get back. Drenched in sweat, hands clammy and shaking, exhausted but too shot through with adrenaline and fear to sit still. It was a relief to see that Will was okay. He’s asleep now, in his bedroom with Jonathan. Everyone else is in the living room, staring at the walls or trying to scrub the horrors of the night off their hands.
Everyone but El and Hopper. They should have been back at least half an hour ago.
He squeezes his eyes shut, trying not to think about it. She’s coming back. She always comes back - hasn’t that been proven by now? But God. That look in her eyes as she drove away, the worry on her face, her hands gripping his like a lifeline. You won’t lose me. Mike’s chest seizes up so painfully he almost gasps.
She’s coming back. They’re both coming back, any minute now. She closed the gate, they all know that. The question is whether or not she was able to walk out of there afterwards.
Mike swallows hard and forces himself to look up. The mirror above the sink shows him the same person he’s been seeing for the last three hundred and fifty-three days. Hollow eyes, ringed with purple. Skin pale and sallow. Loneliness, stress, and sleep deprivation have all worn him down to the bone.
He turns on the tap and splashes a handful of cold water onto his face. He checks his watch: 12:09am. Three hundred and fifty-four days.
Please don’t make me wait one more day, he thinks. He remembers how excruciating it was to start counting. It tore him apart, but what else was he supposed to do? He couldn’t just let her go. She needed to know that he was still out there waiting for her, ready to leap to her side if she needed him.
Hey El. It’s - it’s Mike. Wheeler. I just - I think - no, I know - I know you’re still there. I know you’re still alive. So I guess I just want you to know that I’m, y’know, here for you. I’ll be here when you come back. This is day one, and I - I hope you come home soon.
A knock on the bathroom door jars him from his thoughts. He wipes water and tears away from his face, takes a deep breath, and then opens the door.
“You okay?” Lucas asks, his eyes full of concern. A sliver of gratefulness makes its way through Mike’s gray haze. He’s glad he’s had Lucas throughout all this.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” His voice only breaks a little bit.
Lucas nods. “Well, they’re back.”
Mike nearly chokes on his own breath and everything kicks into overdrive. He pushes past Lucas, running to the front door. Hopper’s truck is in the driveway - he hasn’t even cut the engine yet. Mike shoves the door open, makes it two steps down the porch, and then stops. He doesn’t know exactly why he stops. He just does. Something tells him to. It’s like he’s made all his moves and now he has to wait and see what happens next.
It’s going to be fine, he thinks as Hopper climbs out of the truck. She’s right there. She’s going to step out any second. It’s El, for crying out loud. She can do anything.
But the passenger side door doesn’t open. He waits what feels like an infinity, but it still doesn’t open. Instead, as he senses everyone else coming out to stand behind him on the porch, Hopper walks around to the back of the truck. His movements are slow, each step heavier than the last. Mike doesn’t understand.
When he pulls open the back hatch of the truck, pieces start to fall into place, but it’s all delayed. Everything is slowed down by Mike’s denial of all the facts rapidly being presented to him. He doesn’t understand.
When Hopper comes back into view, he’s carrying something. Someone. Mike’s heart stops.
She’s just passed out. Of course she is. Closing the gate would’ve taken all her strength.
The numb feeling starting to spread outwards from his chest is telling him otherwise.
Hopper crosses the yard and comes to a stop in front of the porch. Mike stares at the figure in his arms, limp and unmoving. His eyes go to Hopper’s, and what he finds there is the end of his entire world. It is loss, at a magnitude so powerful and devastating it cannot be fathomed until you experience it yourself.
“I tried,” Hopper whispers, his voice hoarse and barely carrying across the short distance between them. “I really tried. I tried so damn hard.”
Mike isn’t seeing, isn’t feeling. Completely out-of-body, he takes the few steps needed to reach Hopper and the girl he cradles. Mike outstretches his arms and Hopper wordlessly gives her to him. But everything is far too heavy right now - her body, his soul - and so he goes to his knees, gently resting her on the ground, her head in the crook of his arm.
“El?” he says, brushing a few stray hairs away from her face. Her beautiful, beautiful face. There’s dried blood under her nose and running from her ears. Smudged black makeup all over her closed eyes. Lips pink and chapped, slightly red where they’ve cracked.
He wishes he had gotten to see her smile more. Those smiles were laced with magic. They lit up his entire life. She was the sun, and it was his privilege to orbit around her.
“El.” He gently shakes her arm. “Come on, El. It’s over now. You can wake up. It’s safe to wake up now.”
He hears somebody stifle a sob behind him. Why are they crying?
“Hey, El…” Mike runs his thumb over her cheekbone. God, what he’d give to see her bright eyes right now. “El, you promised me, remember? You said I wouldn’t lose you. El -“ His breath hitches. “Please, El? I just - I just got you back. Please wake up. You promised me, you promised me…”
He can’t feel a thing except the chill of her wrist beneath his hand. His chest has been mercilessly torn open, his heart fallen into a bottomless chasm. His sun has burned out so there is no longer any need to spin on, he supposes.
He rests his forehead against hers. El. The girl with unbounded bravery; the girl who lost everything she had and then gave away everything else because that’s just who she was. Gone, now.
Mike lifts his head and the pain begins to kick in, shredding through him so sharply he can’t breathe. He looks up at Hopper, whose eyes are red in the glow of the truck’s headlights. Mike swallows, shakily getting to his feet. He’s nauseous as all hell, brimming with hatred and anger at the sight of Hopper.
“You said you’d keep her safe,” he says quietly. Hopper stares at him, the excruciating ache of loss burning behind his eyes. Mike doesn’t care.
“I know,” he says, voice hoarse and empty.
“She trusted you to keep her safe,” Mike hisses.
“I tried -“
“It was your job to make sure she - she -“
“Kid -“
He snaps. “It was your fucking job!” He throws himself at Hopper, his incomprehensible pain turning itself into acid words on his tongue. He balls up his fists and hits Hopper everywhere he can reach, wanting - needing - someone else to understand just how far he’s falling, how shattered his entire world is now. He won’t recover from this, he already knows it, but he doesn’t want to go through it alone.
Hopper doesn’t try to defend himself; he just takes it and takes it until Mike wears himself out. He steps back, breathing hard.
“I hate you,” he spits. Hopper just looks at him emptily.
“You don’t hate me more than I hate me right now, kid.” He takes a shaky breath, opening and closing his fists. “Can we just - can we focus on -“
“No, we can’t! We - she -“ Mike gasps, verging on hyperventilation. He can’t do this. His momentum is fading and any second now he’s going to collapse into the black hole that’s rapidly growing inside himself. “El - she - she -“
“Mike,” a tear-wracked voice calls from behind him. It’s Nancy. “Mike.”
He squeezes his eyes shut. He can’t do this. He physically can’t acknowledge the reality of this.
He opens his eyes and looks at Hopper.
“I’m sorry,” Hopper says. “I…”
Turn around, Mike, a voice in his head says. Her voice. It’s time to say goodbye. Time to let me go.
It is enough to move him. He turns around, and the sight of her still there on the frost-covered ground sends him crashing to his knees for the second time. The tears finally start coming.
“I wish I had told you,” he cries, lacing her cold hand tightly through his. “I should have told you. I’m sorry, El, I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, I’m sorry you didn’t have more time - I’m so - I’m so sorry.”
He presses his forehead into her chest, sobs wracking his chest. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I love you. I should have told you. I love you. I love you.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he registers Hopper’s heavy hand coming to rest on his shoulder, and when he speaks, it’s to El, his voice thick with emotion.
“You did so good, kid. So damn good. And I’m so, so proud of you.” He takes a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, El.”
Mike can hear the others sniffling on the porch. He can’t move, but why should he? El is right here. He goes where she goes. He never told her that, but he’s always known it. I should’ve told you that, too.
But now she is really, truly gone. She burned her own soul away to save him and everyone else. What could Mike have ever done to make himself deserving of her? What could any of them have done? She was so bright, so beautiful. What she and Mike had was unconditional, and now it’s just ashes.
Mike, she says to him. Mike.
He delicately kisses her forehead, holding her hand so tight it hurts. “El,” he whispers. She’s drifted away like embers from the remnants of a fire.
His El. As his world collapses around him, all he can think about is that he would give anything, anything, just to see her smile one more time. One more smile, one more day.
El.