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Robin sees the Mind Flayer fall. As Eleven’s power explodes in a horrific scream years in the making, the original apex predator of this alien reality struggles to retain its will, and loses. Its many legs buckle under its own tremendous weight, it falters and falls, crashing into the mirror image of Hawkins in the Upside Down created so many years ago, when it makes contact with the hard ground, particles that once formed its body dissipate and fade away to darkness.
Around them, vines wither and die. Demogorgons wail in agony and demobats fall from the sky. Robin looks around and sees Nancy Wheeler beside her, a deep cut on her arm, carrying a sawed-off shotgun, recently used to take down the thing that was once Henry Creel. Her clothes have tears all throughout, her hair is messy, and her face is a combination of blood, sweat and tears.
Robin realises there and then that she is in love. It dawns on her that she had been falling in love with Nancy Wheeler for a long while now. This feeling that she just recognised had been building up before then, in long nights spent planning for the final battle, at their march into Vecna’s lair a year earlier, in the forest when Nancy asked her if she was friends, at Pennhurst when she held her hand, in the library…
Perhaps before then. Perhaps after Starcourt? Perhaps even when she stole glances of Nancy at the party she broke up with Steve. Or even when Barb had left her for the shorter girl.
She looks at Nancy Wheeler with such adoration in her eyes that, the world, she realises, must be seeing this . Must be seeing her. For who she is. Yet, she cannot bring herself to care, not tonight, not right now. Except for one person’s opinions, the world is mute to her at this very second. When Nancy turns to her and looks at her eyes, and when Nancy’s eyes change, momentarily, in understanding. Robin freezes, and she fears . Her heart freezes over with the anticipation of rejection.
When Nancy Wheeler smiles at her and offers her hand. The ice melts, and they hold hands for the first time as something other than friends, unnamed as it might be.
***
The days and weeks after the final battle is a flurry of activity and change, Military rolls into Hawkins, likely to arrest or even kill Eleven, a plan that is changed pretty quickly once they see the Upside Down and the body of one Henry Creel with their own eyes. Lieutenant Colonel Sullivan, who was hell-bent on killing El, is soon taken off duty, rumoured to be court-martialled, and the army takes over the cleaning and the cover-up.
Once the gate is closed, this time with an undeniable finality, the teens and even the young adults find themselves swept aside, Hopper keeping them updated every once in a while, but otherwise at an arm's length from the operation.
It is in this liminal period of their lives where the unnatural and the abnormal leaves for the mundane that Robin and Nancy talk out loud about their feelings for the first time in Nancy’s car. Whispers and confessions of their pasts; talks full of musing over Barbara Holland, Tommy Thompson and Steve Harrington. Nancy, Robin learns, likes women and men alike and she confesses her own deep secret in return. They talk about their childhood, of their homes, half-heard conversations of their parents whispering about people like them, of moral codes so ingrained in their childhood minds that they still seem to think as they dictate without realising. They talk of their future, they talk about… them.
“Nance…” Robin says, almost afraid of the answer, “... what are we, exactly?”
By the time Nancy drops Robin in front of her home, they have started calling each other girlfriends, a fact that will keep both of them awake that night.
***
The first one to know is Steve. He isn’t told, not really. He reads Robin’s thoughts, the way she looks at Nancy, the way she talks to Nancy, the way she sometimes daydreams in their job, completely phasing out. He lets her know it is okay with a silly joke, something about “Nancy Wheeler being suiting her”, Robin laughs at that but looks at him attentively, as if to see if it is actually all right, and Steve gets serious but kind, almost gentle “I can’t be happier about it Rob. Nancy and you are good for each other, I have never seen you happier than this, and I am glad you two are together.” This is followed by a healthy amount of hugging.
Their ragtag group of friends will get to learn about the two over the course of months, slowly at first, a slipped word or a particularly observant person, like with Jonathan, Will and Mike and then all at once when Dustin realizes what is going on in front of everyone at a game night.
“All I am saying is you and Steve are perfect, you are always together.” he says, perhaps for the thousandth time, “Just because someone is with a person frequently doesn’t mean they have to date.” Robin retorts absentmindedly and when Dustin says that “Of course it does!” Eleven supplies, “But Robin is mostly with Nancy nowadays.” Robin should deny it or laugh, but instead, she freezes and what would just be a regular argument between Dustin and Robin quickly gains weight.
Dustin blinks in understanding, “Shit…” he says, and Robin clears her throat, her eyes rapidly scanning the room, taking everyone’s reactions in, and she locks eyes with Nancy, and when her girlfriend gives her approval reluctantly, unwilling to lie to their family, Robin slowly nods, and says “I am gay.”
The silence goes on for a short moment before Joyce and Hopper exchange looks and Joyce quickly wraps Robin and Nancy into a hug and Hopper adjusts his hat, murmurs something that sounds suspiciously like involving him being “a cop that goes on patrols all the time means he had seen them in Nancy’s car kissing more than once” that only Nancy hears and makes her face go red of embarrassment.
Looking around the room at faces surprised but not judgemental, Robin realizes that the party is their safe space and breaths a sigh of relief.
***
They are laying together on Nancy’s bed when Robin asks, “Will you tell your parents about yourself Nance?” her girlfriend stays silent for some time at that, and Robin turns her face towards her, Nancy sighs and starts talking, “My parents are really, really traditional Rob.” she makes a gesture, vaguely pointing at the house around them, “They built this life, this house because they were supposed to.” She faces Robin, “Their dream was just the life they were told they were supposed to have, anything that is outside of that dream, they will cut out. And what I am, what we are… That is not supposed to be, not to them.” Robin nods, she understands what it feels like to be a disappointment, out of place.
“Not much different than mine then…” she supplies, “They were different once when they were younger.” She looks sad at that, almost as if she wanted to have met with them in their youth, two lovers travelling the country willing to see the world in a different light, willing to see her in a different light.
They watch the ceiling for the rest of the night, holding hands in an effort to calm each other, an assurance that they are here for each other, whatever lies behind that door, beyond the confines of the beds which they share, here, in this room, it can’t touch them, not tonight.
That is why they keep the relationship a secret from both of their respective parents, the thing with secrets, however, is the fact they tend to get out, especially when you need to actively hide them. As Nancy’s departure for Emmerson approaches, their sleepovers increase in number, mostly at the Wheeler home.
***
Nancy Wheeler’s mother considers herself to be many things, among which is a good host to her guests, it was this quality of hers that makes her go ask her daughter and her friend if they wanted anything when Robin is over for one of her “sleepovers”. What made her lunge into her eldest child’s room unannounced was perhaps a suspicion that was brewing now for months. Her unannounced presence is so unexpected, that the couple finds themselves caught in midst of kissing.
The room goes cold, and Robin finds herself expelled from the house, kicked out by a screaming Karen Wheeler. She waits, listening to the argument exploding inside from the street, she can’t hear all of it, but she gets a general idea. Nancy pleads with her mother and father for understanding, her arguments hitting against a brick wall, too thick and too convinced to listen. Hurtful words are thrown at her, and Robin wishes she can get in and help her, that she can hold her girlfriend’s hand, that she can tell her it will be okay.
When she hears the unmistakable sound of a slap, she barges into the Wheeler family home, catching Ted and Karen Wheeler off guard, looking at her, bewildered, and Nancy, her Nancy holding one of her cheeks, looking at her dad with the most hurtful look in her eyes, her fears confirmed in a single act of hatred. Robin quickly crosses the room, and holds her hand, before looking at Ted Wheeler with fire in her eyes, “You don’t deserve Nance.” she tells him, “You don’t deserve her either.” she reiterates to Karen, standing in front of her girlfriend in a protective stance. Nancy murmurs something about getting her stuff, and within minutes they are leaving under the watchful eyes of the neighbours, Karen and Ted only now realising the implications of what just happened. They had just lost their daughter, and they have only themselves to blame.
They will spend the night at Steve’s, who is glad to give them some semblance of comfort. Robin knows that the news about their relationship will spread, possibly making it to the Buckley household within twenty-four hours, and she knows how her parents will react, perhaps more terrifying is the possibility of the town learning, which is not impossible, given the number of neighbours that watched them storm off from the Wheeler’s house. People had already been throwing suspicious glances at them around the town due to their involvement with Eddie and the Hellfire club, they will be pariahs now.
Hawkins, the monster of her teenage years, is still here, Robin realizes in the darkness of their sanctuary at Steve’s home, sharing a bed. Still ever so eager to devour her wholesale, to burn and destroy what little she had managed to build over the last couple of years. Despite every sacrifice, every act of defiance she and their ragtag group have put against the very forces of evil that seeped through the soil of this town from the Upside Down, despite the fact they have saved it for years and years, if Hawkins knew everything, would it be enough for them to accept them as who they really are?
Robin realizes she knows the answer and hates it. Hates the way she is feeling the need to justify her existence, that she is desiring nothing more than basic respect and not even getting it, that Nancy’s family does not offer a modicum of basic toleration to their daughter’s real self, that hers won’t, either.
Beside her, Nancy shifts, and Robin realizes her girlfriend has fallen into an uneasy sleep. She lets out a breath, full of frustration and anger. There and then, Robin decides one thing, they will get out. She will get herself and Nancy out and build a life out there, somewhere. Away from the prying eyes of Hawkins, Indiana.
The very next day, they go to the Byers’s, making a stop at Buckley’s first, where Robin picks up her clothes as well as a few prized possessions and leaves a note for her family
Richard & Melissa,
I loved you from the day I was born. And I was told that I am different ever since then too, for so many things, small and big. What you’ll likely hear soon is one of the bigger ones that make me different, perhaps to you, it will be bigger than what happened with the government, perhaps you will feel sorry for me, perhaps you will hate me for it.
I don’t care. I have learnt to love myself and I am not sorry for who I am. Maybe one day, you’ll accept me for who I am, and maybe one day I’ll call you mom and dad again.
Goodbye.
Your Daughter,
Robin
When Robin leaves her house, she leaves it knowing that it is not her house anymore.
Joyce is the only one at home when they got there, immediately taking them in and listening to the last night’s events. “There is nothing wrong with either of you.” she says, “You are brave.” she insists, “Not just for what you have done in the Upside Down, but for choosing to be yourselves over and over again, for choosing each other.” she looks at Nancy, “What Ted did has no excuse, sweetheart.” Nancy shifts uncomfortably, and Robin squeezes her hand, she knows it will take a long time for some scars to heal, if ever, but she is ready to be beside her for it all.
She convinces them to let her lend them some money, “Not enough…” she says with a frown, “But should cover the first month’s rent, at least.” ignoring their protests and sharing a last cup of tea with the couple, an act of kindness to seal the part of their lives in Hawkins, who is now losing two brave women who helped protect it for so long, and it only has itself to blame.
Joyce promises she will bring Mike to visit Nancy covertly, she bids them goodbye and kisses both of them. Waiting outside her house until Nancy’s car disappears.
As they speed down the highway, the town shrinks on the horizon until it becomes a dot, and after a while, not even a hint of their old home remains. The road stretching to the horizon is open and beautiful, with trees covering its sides and despite everything they have to endure and is yet to endure, Robin Buckley feels content with Nancy Wheeler beside her at the wheel with a determined look in her eyes. She knows in her heart that they will make it, however long it may take.