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His body hit the floor with a horrifying crack and all she could think was we should have listened, should have listened, SHOULD HAVE LISTENED!
“MIKE!”
An agonizing shriek tore through the air and it took a moment for El to realize it had escaped her own vocal cords.
“Mike! Wake up! WAKE UP! ”
She was by him in seconds attempting to shake him awake while shivering like a leaf herself.
“Open your eyes! PLEASE!” She sobbed. Her face was close to his, her hands on his cheeks as she tried to wake up the boy so dear to her soul. The boy who was unconscious because of her... because of THEM.
Why didn’t we just listen!
She was vaguely aware of their friends around her, their voices joining the fray in panicked frenzy upon seeing Mike unconscious.
His abdomen was drenched in blood, a trail dripping from his mouth. The side of his arm was also burnt, not to mention the countless bruises littering his body from the fight preceding but also from the stunt he pulled just seconds earlier to protect them all from their own foolish decision.
They had a plan. The plan had failed.
Mike knew it would fail.
But no one listened to him. No one ever listened. Talking over him and his worries because 'they knew better'. Their logic won out. They didn’t stop to think that the boy who had been there from the start till the end also knew better. While they were discussing logistics, he was considering the pros and cons.
‘What was the best option for everyone?' he’d wonder?
‘What is the easiest option?’ always won out.
And now he was here. Splayed across the floor, bloodied and limp and barely breathing because of their choices. Because of their refusal to listen, to acknowledge the voice of the one person who listened to everyone else’s.
El could barely breath. Cries escaped her in the form of hard hiccupping sobs. Hopper and Joyce rushed to calm her down, trying to get her to take a breath, but the moment someone came close to her they were promptly shoved away; a mental barrier protecting her and the boy she loved from everyone else.
The corner of her mind which had remained dormant thus far pushed itself to the limit despite its exhaustion.
“Guys?” a nervous voice stuttered, looking towards the ceiling. The rest of the party followed suit. The lights were flaring between two extremes and the room began to tremble and shake. “We need to get out of here the building’s unsteady!”
But the building wasn’t unsteady.
Hopper looked to the heartbroken teenager bawling over the lifeless body of her boyfriend in the middle of the room.
“El!” He tried to speak over the din in the room, begging she’d hear him. But El didn’t hear him. She couldn’t hear anyone over the sound of Mike’s last words and his body hitting the floor and the guttural squelch as the monster hit him instead of her before erupting into flames.
The shaking in the room became more intense. El’s screaming becoming louder as debris started to float around the room, quickly gaining momentum and starting a mini whirlwind.
“Holy Shit ! Take cover!” another voice from the party yelled as the flying objects started to hit each other, losing more and more control from the center.
“Hopper! DO SOMETHING!” It was Joyce.
Hopper only looked sadly at the two teens at the center of the storm. El’s cries begging Mike to wake up were still somehow louder than the whirlwind she had created as a defensive mechanism around her and him. He turned to Joyce, eyes filled with tears as he shook his head. Mike was hurt; almost dead. There was no stopping El from this.
Everyone did their best to duck from the debris floating around the room yelling for El, pleading with her to stop. She couldn’t hear them. Her only focus on Mike and the unbearable cavern that had opened in her chest threatening to swallow her whole, because he wouldn’t wake up! Her wails of anguish only heightened as her shaking and pleas did nothing to draw his response.
It was only when her powers were absolutely exhausted-mere minutes later-did she collapse next to the boy she loved so much, holding on to him for dear life. Her nose and ears were bloodied worse than when she had closed the gate two years ago and her head was pounding. The debris surrounding them fell with loud crashes. The remaining half of the lightbulbs that managed to survive the blowout stabilized. El heard her family and friends yelling for both her and Mike as they rushed to her after the storm subsided.
Goodbye El. Goodbye El. Goodbye El. I love you.
“Mike...,” was the last thing she whispered, before her eyes drifted shut and all was black.
“El! You just got your powers back.” Her hands were held in his. His touch was gentle, safe, like it always was.
“I need to help, Mike,” she replied softly, begging him to understand. “You all need me.”
“No! No!” Mike was adamant. “This is what happened last time! You were pushed to your limits. You don’t need to do it again. It’s unfair for you to have to be treated like a weapon. You’re not a weapon, El. You’re a person.”
El reached up and cupped Mike’s face in her hands. His eyes were dark and misty with pain. He hated this. Every single time it was the same thing.
“Mike.”
He reached up and covered her hand with his own, leaning his cheek into her touch.
“The plan is stupid, El.” He whispered. “It’s not safe. Not for you. Not for the rest of us either. There has to be another way. We just need some more time to figure it out.”
El’s eyes teared up.
“There’s no more time. It’s my job to protect everyone. I’m the only one who can.”
---
They were in the thick of battle and their plan was failing, as he predicted. They were overwhelmed and didn’t have enough manpower. The party regrouped in one place, trying to catch their breath and come up with a new plan.
Mike had been the only one who had seen it coming. The monster was a possessed human acting as a vessel. Unlike Billy, the person inside had been snuffed out long ago. It geared itself to hit once more. This time its target was El. No one else would make it in time. No one else could save her. But he could.
It was a hastily concocted plan. The creatures from the Upside Down hated heat; Hated fire. It was almost suicide with no sure way to determine Mike would come out unscathed. But Mike had a match. He had enough materials from the rubble around them to create a makeshift explosive that would stay aflame once attached to the monster. He only needed a distraction.
“Guys, distract it. Now!” He shouted. His friends, immediately realizing their leader had a plan, readily carried out his instructions, not yet realizing the gravity of what he was about to do.
Mike looked at Hopper. The meaning in his eyes was clear without words. “Hold her back.” Then his hands gripped hers, eyes earnest and full of love, as he whispered his last words to her. Truly, he wasn’t sure if he would make it out alive from this. All he knew was he had to protect her, to repay all the times she had protected him. Because he loved her… and he couldn’t lose her again.
Before El could even process what he had said to her, he kissed her for the last time and was gone. Horrific realization dawned on her features as Mike jumped in front of her, in line of the monster, to protect her. To protect all of them.
The next few moments were a blur. Ho pper and Joyce held her back as Mike was thrown against the wall with a sickening crack. His body crumpled to the floor, thoroughly broken, as the monster went up in flames screeching in pain and defeat. In that moment her scream was deafening to everyone else but the only words she could hear were Mike’s last ones to her.
“It is my job to protect you. I promised. I love you. Goodbye El.”
The first thing El heard was the beeping. She felt her brow furrow. She hadn’t heard that sound in a while.
When she opened her eyes they were met with a stark white ceiling and the strange smell in her nose registered as disinfectant. The fabric of the clothes she was wearing she recognized as a material she hadn’t worn since the night she had escaped the lab. El’s heart froze.
The lab. How had she ended up back here? How did they capture her?
Her limbs felt heavy like she was moving through molasses. Drugs. The bad men had drugged her again. Just like they always used to before running tests on her.
“Mike!” she mumbled, struggling to break free of the heavy weight her body seemed to be drowning in. With fear coursing through her heart she called for the only person she longed for. Who always protected her unflinchiny.
El felt her breathing become heavy despite her attempts to keep herself calm. The air escaped in short gasps and the heart monitor next to her indicated her oncoming panic attack. Before she could lose herself to the panic though, a gentle voice broke through her haze.
“Hey, kid.”
It was Hopper. El breathed a sigh of relief, her eyes finding him in the corner of the room with Joyce. He got up quickly and walked over to her, only now realizing she was awake. El looked around at the people suddenly surrounding her hospital bed. Hopper was there and Joyce was with him. Her eyes were full of tears as she smiled in relief at her baby girl being awake. Will and Jonathan were right behind their mother. Shaky smiles were on their faces as well. El had only been with them for a short while but the Byers were her family too. One face was missing though.
“Mike?” El asked. The only person she wanted to see… why wasn’t he there?
El saw the look Hopper exchanged with Joyce. A silent conversation clearly went on in their gaze. “Kid it’s been three days. How’re you-“
“Mike.” El looked at Hopper firmly, cutting him off.
Hopper went silent for a moment. “He’s not up yet, kid.” He replied finally.
At Hopper’s words El remembered. A vicious pounding started in her head as the last memories before she fell unconscious came rushing back. Mike had sacrificed himself. He was hurt. Badly.
El flung the covers off of herself before anyone had a chance to react. She was halfway to the door before Jonathan caught on to her, grabbing her around the waist from behind as El thrashed and struggled, trying to force him to let her go. Hopper and Joyce rushed to her, trying to calm her down.
“Kid, kid. Calm down okay? You’re still not well! We’ll go-”
“El, honey just rest a little bit then we-“
“I NEED TO SEE HIM!”
El’s shout quietened both adults. She had stopped trying to escape Jonathan’s grasp and he slowly let her go himself, only giving her enough support so she could still stand. Her face was as white as a sheet from the effort she'd exerted and a cold sweat broke out on her forehead as she leaned against him for support. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping her standing. Will looked nervously between his mother, the chief and El.
Hopper sighed. “Ok kid. I’ll take you to him.”
Down the hall, two doors to the left, was the room where Mike was being looked after. The minute El had seen her boyfriend’s burned broken body on the sterile white bed she had broken down into tears.
“Mike!” she cried, holding on to his hand. She sat on the bed next to him, as close as she possibly could. “Please wake up. It’s me, Mike. El. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. Please come back.”
Hopper stood at the door, watching as his daughter crumbled to pieces begging her boyfriend to wake up.
“What’s wrong with him? Why isn’t he awake yet?” El turned to him. Her gaze was pleading, begging Hopper to do something. He was her father, the chief of police. He was supposed to fix things.
“Kid, he’s not doing well.” Hopper said gently “The doctors did the best they could, now it’s his body’s turn to do the healing. They’re uh…” Hopper gulped, not wanting to hurt his daughter anymore but knowing this was necessary information. “They’re not sure yet how well that’s going.”
Hearing that El dissolved in a fresh wave of tears. Jim Hopper had never felt so helpless as his daughter turned back to the pale boy lying on the bed renewing her efforts to get him to wake up. Eventually she fell asleep, holding on tight to Mike’s hand, her head resting above his chest. Hopper gently attempted to lift the exhausted girl, hoping to lay her back in her room so she’d get some rest. The moment El’s hand let go of Mike’s she began hyperventilating in her sleep and Hopper knew it was a losing game. He sighed as he gently lay El in the bed with her boyfriend, watching as her head immediately went back to its previous position, resting right above his heart.
Hopper swallowed the lump in his throat, realizing how important listening to Mike’s heartbeat was right now for the poor girl. He came back with a blanket and draped it over El knowing this was where she was going to get her rest, if any at all.
The next few days were torture for everyone. The party came every day and stayed for a few hours before leaving. They were all in a somber mood as they came by, hugging a near hysterical El when they found out there was nothing new to report. Nancy had turned a ghostly pale, just like El, and was almost always by her brother’s side until Jonathan convinced her to get some sleep. The older teen blamed herself for not protecting her little brother and would frequently burst into tears when the struggle to keep her emotions at bay became too much. Her only solace was watching over little Holly in almost a possessive protective manner. Nancy was afraid something would hurt the little girl and leave her broken just like their brother.
Karen Wheeler wasn’t much different. She had been given a fabricated story of what had happened to Mike, the lab and the Upside Down still unmentionables in front of her. She was in shambles, constantly fussing over her unconscious son, harassing the doctors for information and trying to get them to fix her baby boy until Joyce managed to sit her down with a cup of green tea. She was helpless and knew it would do little to calm the other mother’s hysteria. One mother to another, Joyce Byers understood better than anyone the fear of losing a child. She became Karen’s support, calming the other woman down as best as she could when her anxiety reached peak levels. It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing at all, especially with Ted Wheeler choosing to remain home back in Hawkins to ‘hold down the fort’ as he called it.
Little Holly Wheeler, for the most part, was confused as to why her older brother who would read her bedtime stories and play with her and her stuffed toys was asleep for so long. Of course she knew he was sick but she didn’t quite understand why he hadn’t been awake any of the times she’d come to visit. When she was told there was a chance Mike could hear her, she would sit next to her older brother and babble about her dolls and her colorings and the drawing she had made for him to see and make stories out of when he woke up. He always did that. He made up stories for her based on her most recent colorings and she always loved how he made her drawings come to life and would let her interrupt and help make the story as he told it. Holly hoped Mikey would wake up again soon; her collection of drawings only grew every day.
The most broken, however, was El. Every day she’d wake up hoping Mike would too. She’d talk to him, counting down the days like he used to do, asking how he was doing. The doctors came every day and only looked at her sympathetically when they had nothing new to report.
El became a permanent presence in Mike’s room, refusing to leave his side for more than 15 minutes at a time or her own checkups despite numerous attempts from everyone around her. One of the nurses had already complained about El’s constant presence in Mike’s room but Hopper had dealt with it quickly knowing that if El was forcibly removed from Mike’s side in this volatile state the whole hospital was liable to crash down to its foundations. He had felt guilty about complaining to the nurse’s superiors, knowing she was only doing her job. He even passed them the same bribe that the nurse had resolutely refused earlier. He hadn’t wanted to get her in trouble but it was for the best when the nosy nurse was deployed to a different wing of the hospital. He had also readily used his connections to Sam Owens, who had gotten them the facility of the hospital undetected by the government in the first place, to ensure no one else would bother El or the rest of their little party when they went to visit Mike.
Hopper was extremely worried about El. The girls face had become pale and gaunt even more so than when she had been unconscious for three days following the day the monster had been defeated. Trying to coax her to eat was becoming more and more of a difficult task and Hopper’s only solace was that El did sleep, even fitfully, as long as she could hear Mike’s breathing or his heartbeat. Still, it wasn't enough and everyone was concerned they'd have to deal with two unconscious teens instead of one of things didn't get better.
It was on the sixth day that Karen Wheeler came into her son’s room. She gently took El’s hand and pulled her to the little visitor’s couch and table in the corner of the room.
“Come on honey, it’s time to eat. You haven’t had breakfast and neither have I. Steve brought us Chinese food and even picked up some Eggos on the way. He knows you like those.”
El looked at Karen for a few moments before shaking her head. “Not hungry,” was her firm response.
Karen sighed. She took the younger girl’s hand in hers beginning to feel the familiar pinprick of tears behind her eyes. Karen was still unaware of the full story of how Mike and El met but she had known since the previous year-when her son would wake up at 8:30 in the morning during summer vacation to go see his girlfriend-that her son was more than head over heels in love with El. As his mother she was so grateful the feelings were mutual. El hadn’t left Mike’s side since she had woken up and Karen felt an ache in her chest, separate to her own, for El and her son’s young love.
“I know, honey,” Karen whispered, her voice rasping with tears. “I’m not hungry either. But Mike would want us to eat. He’s always been such a sensitive boy, always putting others before himself.” Karen sniffled, looked down and laughed.
“I remember when he was little, he would always make sure everyone else had food on his plate before asking to be fed. If he thought I had given Nancy less peas, he’d demand she be given more. At first I thought it was just because he didn’t like peas,” Karen said with a ghost of a smile.
El giggled at that, her eyes misty too. “Peas are gross,” she agreed, her hands clutching the older woman’s just as hard as Karen was holding on to hers. Karen looked heartened seeing how intently El was listening.
“But then one day I made meatloaf for dinner and that’s Mike’s favorite. Nancy wasn’t feeling well so she finished first. Somehow Mike must have noticed she had eaten lesser than usual. He thought she was still hungry when she started crying because of a stomach ache. So he slid his plate over to her side of the table hoping she’d eat some more.”
“Did she?” El asked, her heart aching with curiosity. She greedily wanted to know more about the boy she loved.
“I did.” Nancy spoke up from from the doorway. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks and she had a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She had been standing there quietly, listening to Karen recount one of her fondest memories. “I didn’t want to but he looked so sad when I wouldn’t eat that I took a few bites anyway. He then offered his meatloaf to Mom too and then Dad. By the time it got back to him the plate only had a few bites left, so we took him out for chicken nuggets and ice cream. He would have shared that too except we all got ice cream. He managed to distract me from the stomachache too."
Nancy walked over to her little brother and stroked his hair forlornly. Where did her baby brother go? When did Mike grow up and take on the responsibility of caring for everyone? He’d always done that but it seemed that, when none of them were looking, he’d started doing that so much more since the supernatural elements had come into play.
“So you see, sweetie?” Karen looked at El pleadingly. “I know you don’t want to eat but he’d be devastated if we didn’t because he was sick. Let’s eat a little bit?”
El finally agreed then. She managed to finish a whole carton of rice and then half an Eggo afterwards too. She would have eaten it in full but thinking about the fact that it was Mike who had introduced her to her favorite frozen food just made her want to cry again. She gave the remaining half to Holly to nibble at while she colored another picture, saving the rest of the box for later.
The next few days were hard but every day El sat by Mike’s bedside and talked to him like he used to talk to her.
“Mike, its Day 7. Everyone visited gain. We’re all waiting for you to wake up. Dustin’s planning a special DnD campaign for you. We want you back. It’s quiet without you. None of us talk a lot anymore. It’s been a week. Please give a sign you’re ok, even in sleeping, any sign is good.”
“Mike, its Day 8, I really miss you. I don’t know how you did it for 353 days without knowing if I was okay. Please wake up soon. It’s getting harder to breath and,” her voice started to tremble even though her eyes had been exhausted of tears long ago, “I don’t know how I’ll manage if you don’t wake up. We promised we wouldn’t lose each other. You don’t break promises, Mike. Friends don’t lie.”
On Day 9 it was when El nearly suffered a heart attack. Mike’s heart monitor had kept up a steady pace since El had been in his room for the past 7 days since she had woken up. It didn’t soothe El as much as laying her head against Mike’s chest and hearing his heartbeat directly but it still kept her from panicking too badly. On Day 9 the steady beeping of the heart monitor faltered. It slowed down and almost stopped El’s own heart with it.
El couldn’t breathe. The monitor’s graph slowed down in time with the beat and El let out a strangled scream, hitting the doctor’s call button while shouting for Mike to hold on and not give up. Hopper had been just outside. Hearing El’s anguish he rushed in with Mike’s doctor following closely. El was inconsolable. She was heaving and trying to breath as Hopper gathered her off the floor while the Doctor tried to make sense of El’s panicked pleas.
“Please save Mike!” El sobbed against Hopper as he held her shaking form tightly. “His heart’s stopping. He’s going to die. PLEASE!”
The Doctor immediately rushed to check Mike’s vitals while Hopper tried unsuccessfully to calm El down. The next fifteen minutes were tense. The stillness of the hospital room was punctuated only by El’s heavy sobs as Mike’s doctor checked his blood pressure and looked over his recent test charts. A while later she sighed in relief and turned to the heartbroken girl with a gentle smile.
“He’s going to be ok, Ms. Hopper,” the Doctor reassured her.
El looked up, her face tear streaked and blotchy, betraying the depth of the toll Mike’s condition was taking on her. “B-but his heart beat…” El whispered. “You said the monitor should be steady and it’s NOT!”
The doctor looked tired as she nodded and smiled. “His heart rate declined sharply because his system burned through the nutrients faster than usual. That’s a good thing Ms. Hopper. It means he’s recovering. His body is healing and using the energy from the food we’re injecting faster. We just need to regulate his food intake for his heart rate to go back to normal. In fact,” the doctor reassured, “I’ve already buzzed the nurse to come in and regulate his diet plan for the next few days.”
El looked relieved but her eyes were still fearful. “He’s getting better? He’s going to be ok? Promise?” she asked.
The doctor looked sadly at the vulnerable look in the girl’s eyes and softened even further. “I promise, Jane,” she said, addressing El by her official name. “Your boyfriend will be ok. He might even wake up soon since his body seems to be making a full recovery.”
That night El couldn’t sleep, afraid if she did, Mike’s heart would have stopped by the time she woke up. However, the once again steady beating of his heart beneath her ear calmed her down enough to slip into periodic dozes and the doctor’s words gave her a sense of hope she had almost lost.
Mike Wheeler woke up with a pounding headache. His limbs were aching and there was an unnaturally heavy weight resting on his chest and against his side. His eyes opened slowly, squinting due to the bright white glare in the room. The smell of disinfectant alerted him to the fact he was in a hospital. He slowly turned to his side, wincing as he did so. His breath caught in his throat as he realized the weight by his side was a sleeping El.
Her face was pale. Dark circles marred her under eyes. Her skin was sallow and Mike could tell she hadn’t been eating or sleeping well either.
She was beautiful.
Mike’s heart hurt realizing he was probably the reason she looked so unhealthy and pale. He didn’t know how long he had been asleep but it clearly had been more than a few days with how weak and exhausted El looked. Even in sleep her face contorted with worry and grief.
Unable to help himself, but not wanting to wake her either when she so evidently needed the sleep, he leaned over, ignoring his body’s screaming protests and kissed her on the forehead lovingly. He hadn’t been expecting El’s eyes to tear up as soon as he did though.
For a moment, Mike was confused, wondering if El had woken up but her heavy breathing indicated she was still fast asleep. Mike’s heart ached tremendously realizing she was crying in her sleep because of him too. He didn’t regret following through with his plan though. He couldn’t. Not when it meant she was safe. He would have been willing to sacrifice his life even but luckily that hadn’t been the case. Mike was relieved he’d gotten to live another day and spend more time with his loved ones. With his mom and Nancy and Holly and his friends. With El.
Mike leaned over and kissed her forehead again as well as her nose and cheek, hoping it would be of some comfort while she slept. El only shuddered and cried some more, squeezing her eyes shut tightly. She was waking up but fighting it, Mike realized.
“El,” he whispered gently. “El, wake up. It’s ok.”
El’s eyes suddenly shot open and her tear blurred vision met his. “Mike,” she whispered brokenly, still in a haze. She didn’t seem to register that she was awake and he was too.
She mumbled incoherently and Mike’s heart broke. She thought she was dreaming. That was why she had fought so hard to stay asleep and started crying when he’d kissed her. Mike’s vision blurred with tears too. He kissed El on her forehead again.
“It’s ok,” he whispered. “I’m awake, El. I’m ok. We’re ok.”
“Mike, you’re real?” El was in disbelief. Upon seeing his shaky smile El let out a broken sob as she hugged him, burying her head into his chest. She cried long and hard, her pent-up fear and anxiety of ten days rushing out now that Mike was alive and awake!
Mike only held her tightly, silent tears streaming down his own face. That was how his mother and Nancy found them five minutes later and the crying session continued until eventually Mike fell back asleep, body already exhausted from the half hour it had been awake.
El’s cries had subsided and she felt a weight had finally been lifted off her chest now that Mike had woken up. A part of her remained anxious for the next day, scared he wouldn’t wake up again; that that half hour had been a dream or the last time Mike would ever be awake before falling into deep slumber for days again. When Mike awoke on Day 12-for longer than half an hour this time-El breathed a sigh of relief knowing for certain he’d be ok.
Now that Mike was awake, El could sleep easier but she still refused to leave Mike’s room. Mike had tried to get her to sleep in her own room. He was seeing her exhausted state and wanted her to get better rest than she was getting cramped up against him on his single bed or the tiny couch in the corner. When El refused, Hopper, who had been a silent witness to the conversation, finally stepped in deciding to follow through with an idea he had thought of when El first started camping out in Mike’s room but had quickly scrapped knowing she wouldn’t agree to it unless she could hear Mike’s heart while he was on the brink of death.
An hour later, a second single hospital bed had been pushed into Mike’s hospital room. Luckily the room was more than spacious enough to accommodate the extra bed. El had lied down on it and promptly fell asleep, her hand still reaching across and holding on to Mike’s. It had been her compromise for finally sleeping in her own bed. She still needed the physical reassurance Mike would be ok and would continue to need it for a long time.
The next few days Mike recovered slowly, staying awake for longer and longer periods of time. During one of those times El finally asked Mike the question that had been weighing on her mind and heart the whole time he had been unconscious.
“Mike… How did you do it? How did you breathe in those 353 days?” El whispered.
Mike looked stricken. El’s eyes betrayed how guilty and sad she felt, finally having been in his position. Not knowing whether he’d wake up or not had been the greatest anguish she’d suffered and she needed to know how Mike had gone through 353 days without knowing if she was even alive or not. Mike knew he couldn’t lie to El, despite his heart wishing he could save her the pain of knowing how he’d felt back then. It wouldn’t be fair to her and it wouldn’t be fair to him and the pain he’d suffered either if he lied. And besides, Friend’s didn’t lie, even if it hurt.
Mike opened his mouth and closed it a few times, trying to figure out exactly what to say.
“It wasn’t easy,” he answered slowly. “Every day it just got worse and worse. And breathing… I could only focus on one breath at a time especially in the first few weeks. I felt like I’d die, especially when it seemed everyone was giving up but I could still feel you.”
Mike gulped.
“I thought I was going crazy. That I’d finally cracked, you know? I knew I couldn’t stop believing you were alive and it scared me how much I needed you. A part of me always whispered that you were dead, that I was just deluding myself into thinking you were not. It was terrifying, knowing I couldn’t move on at all even with that possibility. It’s why I couldn’t be away from you for too long after I found you. Every night, I used to wake up, thinking you were alive and waiting in the basement until I realized you were gone. When you came back, I’d wake up knowing you were alive, but still afraid it was a dream.”
Mike’s eyes filled with tears, glossing over as a few slipped free. El felt a few tears of her own dripping down her cheeks, mirroring the one’s on Mike’s.
“I was so angry at Hopper when I found out he’d been hiding you. Because how dare he, you know? It felt like his fault. Every second that it became harder to breath, every moment I questioned my sanity, it felt like his fault. Because I was drowning, every day for 353 days, and he had seen it but he did nothing! Nothing! It hurt so badly. You had to leave to close the gate afterwards and… It felt like I couldn’t breathe again but this time it was so much worse. I had just got you back and you were going back there. Every moment until you came back from the gate felt like torture. And this time…this time I was afraid you wouldn’t make it. That the Upside Down wouldn’t let you escape a second time and I’d have to live through those 353 days for the rest of my life.”
“Mike…” El looked guilt stricken. “I’m sorry I didn’t break the rules earlier.”
“No!” Mike said firmly. “It was NOT your fault El! You can’t be guilty. As much as I hated it… Hopper did it to keep you safe. And… I’d rather not be able to breathe easy for a million years than put you in danger.”
Seeing the sincerity in his eyes and words El collapsed into herself and started sobbing again as Mike gathered her in his arms and gently rocked her while she cried her heart out.
“Please don’t hurt yourself for me again,” she wanted to say. “I’m not as strong as you. I won’t survive it.” But she couldn’t. She knew her Mike. He would do it a million times over just to keep her safe.
Unbeknownst to them, Hopper had been listening on the other side of the door, feeling guilty for doubting the young boy who had already sacrificed so much of his heart and soul for the girl in his arms.
‘Never again,’ Hopper vowed to himself, feeling helpless to keep that promise. This would be the last time any of them had suffered at the hands of Martin Brenner and his experiments with other realms.
Mike Wheeler was discharged officially ten days after he had woken up. He still got tired easily and needed someone’s help to walk long distances so he wouldn’t pull on his stitches or aggravate his burns, but his wounds were healing and the spark that had died in everyone’s eyes seeing him half dead on the hospital bed was alive once more.
Everyone was ecstatic the day Mike was finally allowed home. His mother made him his favorite dishes and the party stayed over as long as they could, even allowed to sleepover in the basement. El sat next to Mike, looking after him as much as Karen was doting on him. Holly snuggled into his other side, one by one showing him her drawings she had made specially to welcome him home. She had already shown him the ones she’d drawn in the hospital when he had woken up and had made a tonne more since knowing Mike would be happy to see them. Nancy hovered at the sidelines as her brother and his friends convened in the basement, her protective instinct too strong to allow her to sit still for too long. Finally, Karen had grabbed her eldest’s hand, seeing how fidgety she was being and got her to help with dinner. Jonathan and Steve brought over cartons of ice cream and Hopper and Joyce showed up as well.
Mike Wheeler wore his heart on his sleeve, felt deeply, and protected fiercely. He was the heart and soul of their group. Finally, for the first time, it was now his turn to be protected after having protected everyone else for so long.