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If there was one thing Eleven was certain of when it came to Henry, it was that he never said thank you unless he meant it.
And Eleven knew, all Henry's life, he'd never had a reason to thank anybody before. Until Eleven.
She remembered it now. She may have spent years of her life losing those memories of the Lab, of Henry, she remembered them now. Eleven remembered; when she offered to remove the Soteria for Henry that day — you helped me. I help you — and how Henry looked at her with a soft thank you from his mouth. That was the first time he thanked her.
The second time — and the last, Eleven supposed — he thanked her was when she killed him for good.
"I remember you," Eleven had said, after the battle, when the dust and the debris settled, to the creature Henry had turned into, the monster she'd turned him into. She wasn't going to cry. She couldn't — wouldn't — cry for him, after everything he'd done to her friends. But Henry was a friend. Once. A very long time ago. And Eleven was looking at him dying in her arms, and she wouldn't — couldn't — pushed him away when the floor was hard and Henry's hand, monstrous and claw-like, was holding onto her like he was afraid of dying alone.
Eleven knew, she could walk away at any second and he wouldn't be able to stop her. Henry was... he was dying. She could leave him here to bleed out, it would've been a merciful ending for Henry, after everything he had done, all those deaths. But Eleven cradled him in her lap, and her eyes felt hot from where the tears were gathering up. But she couldn't — wouldn't — cry for him.
The most she could do — what she was doing — was make sure he didn't die alone. For old times' sake, Eleven told herself.
She was the one killing him, but he was her friend, and Eleven knew his pain.
For old times' sake, she would make sure at least Henry didn't die alone. He'd already been alone his entire life.
"I remember now," she said again, and was aware of a single drop of tear rolling down her face, "what you did. Those memories. The Lab."
"I was... trying to save you," Henry said, looking up at her with unfocused eyes.
You tricked me. It wouldn't matter if Eleven saw things differently now, or if she still got the sense that she was being manipulated, lied to (and Eleven had always believed Henry, back when they were friends, she had always trusted him with her life). It wouldn't matter because Henry was dying. They couldn't have this conversation now. So either he died thinking she hated him for tricking her, or he could carry some sort of peace with him to the afterlife.
"I know," Eleven said in the end.
"But you..." Henry reached for her face, touching it lightly with the back of his hand and Eleven let him. "You saved me," he finished.
Eleven wanted to ask how. She knew Henry didn't have enough time to explain it, his voice was horse and weak, barely audible, and that sent a wave of something painful through her chest. She wasn't heartbroken because he was dying, but she was... that hurt in her heart, whatever it was, Eleven couldn't describe it, but it was there; negging, persisting. Henry was dying in her arms.
"Thank you," Henry said before his hand fell from her face. It lied limply and unmoving next to his side. His eyes were on her before the life slowly faded away, until there was nothing left and his lifeless body was staring blankly past Eleven's shoulder into nothingness behind her.
Henry died in her arms that day.
Her friends didn't hold a grudge against her crying for him, and she was somewhat... grateful. At least they understood.
Eleven left his body in the Upside Down. She didn't talk about him again after that day.
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"Do you... wanna talk about it?"
Eleven glanced at Mike. Clearly, his question caught her off guard. "About what?" she asked, though Eleven already knew what Mike was talking about.
Mike shrugged. There was hesitance on his face. It'd been a week since Henry died in Eleven's arms — a week since she killed Henry — and Eleven had been... off, quiet. Even when she smiled, there was sadness behind her eyes, like she tried and failed to conceal it with a laugh.
They won. It was over. She should be celebrating, but she hadn't been the same since.
Thank you...
"You know..." Mike trailed off (Eleven's mind already traveled back to that memory, Henry thanking her for the last time, before she was snapped out of her trance by Mike's breaking the small silence of his pausing for a moment). "Anything... just, if there's something on your mind, you know you can talk to me, right? I'm here."
"I know," Eleven said. She gave Mike a smile, but it was still sad. She only smiled a sad smile ever since Henry died. "I am fine."
Friends don't lie. But it wasn't a deliberate lie. Eleven said she was fine because, for some reason, she believed she had to... be fine. She couldn't mourn an enemy.
A part of Eleven felt like she'd be betraying Max and all the lives that were lost by the hand of Henry by mourning him.
But aren't you mourning him by simply being hurt alone?
"I am fine," Eleven said again, louder with a threat of anger in her voice. It startled Mike. "I'm sorry," she added when she realized she'd let her emotions get the best of her, when Mike hadn't said anything that might've been deserving of her outburst, then, "can I be alone right now?" she asked.
Mike mouthed a quick oh. He looked a little lost, a little out of place, and Eleven felt guilt (beside the pain) gnawing at her from inside out. She knew Mike didn't do anything wrong, and she'd been letting her grief out on him — if she allowed herself to grieve at all — it wasn't exactly fair to Mike, but Eleven was... struggling.
Mike nodded after another short moment. "Sure, just... umm, just let me know if you need anything, okay?"
Eleven nodded with a small smile, it was the least she could do. She watched Mike walk out her door and sighed. She didn't miss Henry and she certainly wasn't mourning him. If only Eleven could... convince herself that.
Her mind was at war with itself, the losing battle she fought ever since Henry took his last breath; she couldn't be mourning him. By mourning him, she'd be betraying her friends, everybody who was hurt by Henry.
It frustrated Eleven that Henry had to go and do terrible things. It frustrated her that he died by her own hand and thanked her for freeing him of his suffering in the end. It frustrated Eleven to no end that she wished Henry were here. In the past, Henry was the only person who could make her feel better whenever she was upset about something. She used to find comfort and a safe place in Henry. How did it go so wrong?
Eleven grabbed a pillow from her bed and screamed into it. It didn't make her feel better (not in the same way as how Henry's smile used to calm her down during their shared time at the Lab, whenever she was nervous), but it definitely didn't make things worse than they already were.
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Eleven never believed in ghosts.
If ghosts were real, they must be cold and uncaring. She watched Hopper mourn his dead daughter, felt Max's pain when she lost Billy. If ghosts were real, Eleven resented them for carelessly leaving people who cared about them behind; how Hopper's daughter left him and how Billy left Max. How Henry left her. She figured it was easier to believe what came after death was nothingness than to assume otherwise, because then it'd mean Hopper's daughter never wanted to see him, Billy never wanted to see Max. And Henry never wanted to see her.
It was easier to believe they were just gone, and the ones that were left behind — suffering — were the living.
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When Eleven saw Henry's ghost for the first time, it was the second week after his death.
She felt him first, his presence around her; it was almost like he, in a way, was consuming her. Only that Eleven wasn't threatened by it, as strange as it was.
Henry's presence wasn't an aggressive one, not anymore, at least. Eleven felt warm, almost relaxed, the same feelings that engulfed her when she and Henry were still friends and he used to help comforting her back then.
Eleven got up into sitting crossed legged on her bed. It was thirty minutes past midnight and she was kept awake by the mixture of insomnia and the thoughts of him, before she started feeling him.
Henry looked at her from across the room. He looked pale in the sense that his body became translucent bathing in the moonlight filtering in through the curtains, and he looked lost... lost and sad, though he wasn't Vecna anymore. Henry looked the same as how Eleven remembered him when they were at the Lab. As an orderly.
A friendly orderly.
The wound that killed him wasn't there anymore. Somehow it relieved Eleven. Not that the sight of a gaping wound on the center of Henry's chest from which blood kept flooding out wasn't actively haunting Eleven's nightmare whenever she could force herself to sleep, but Henry seemed more intact. He was dead and was a ghost, yes, but at the very least he looked... like that old friend Eleven lost, minus the paleness of his skin and the sadness in his eyes, even when he was beginning to give her a faint smile.
Eleven gulped. She found herself unable to look away from him, not in the sense that he hypnotized her with an unseen force but in the sense that Eleven was afraid he'd disappear if she were to look the other way for one second or to blink.
Her worst fear suddenly being that Henry would disappear. Gone. And she'd lose him all over again.
"Henry," Eleven said, whispered.
Henry continued looking at her. He didn't look angry that she killed him, so it wasn't his being delirious then, when he thanked her before death claimed him. He still had that sad smile on his face, and while it was full with pain there was the hint of that friendly orderly somewhere inside him. Eleven didn't know how much she missed him until she was looking at him.
"I didn't think you could see me," Henry said. His voice wasn't that of Vecna but of who he used to be, except that it was filled with evidence of fear and pain mingling together. It reminded Eleven of a scared child.
"Why are you... here, Henry?" Are you really here? Please say you're really here. Thousands of questions were running through Eleven's head all at once. Maybe this was only a dream, another of her nightmares in which she saw Henry only for her to lose him again when she next opened her eyes.
Henry shrugged slightly. "I don't know," he said, helplessness clear in his voice.
Why didn't you come sooner? I mourned you. I am mourning you. Eleven wanted to be angry. She'd been angry with it all, how things ended, ever since the moment she lost Henry. But now that Henry was here...
"Are you... hurt?"
He's dead, Eleven.
Henry blinked. He didn't look offended by the question. He certainly wasn't offended when she killed him, even thanked her for it. "I don't know what I'm doing here," he said, after another pause.
"Do you remember what happened?" Eleven was almost too afraid to ask him that. If Henry didn't remember. If he didn't know she was the one killing him...
"You killed me," Henry said. Eleven would expect anger in his voice, but besides that sadness that for some reason, Eleven didn't think was caused by her taking him down for good, there was acceptance in the way those words left his mouth.
"I am sorry,"
"Please, don't say that. You did what you had to do," Henry smiled again, with the same hint of pain. "I know how that felt like... having no other choice."
"Henry —"
"I can still feel your pain," Henry gently cut her off. "I don't want you to be sad because of me. Everything that happened, I brought it on myself." It was the closest thing to a confession Henry would willingly say, an act of admitting that he was in the wrong. But Eleven wasn't looking for a confession right now.
How would it matter if he was dead? And even if he was here now, he wasn't actually here, and Eleven couldn't... she couldn't get him back.
"I have always wanted you to live the life you deserved, Eleven. Even when we were both still prisoners there," Henry went on, although he averted his eyes. "This life that you have right now. Your friends and your family. I could never have these, but I knew... I always knew you deserved this: a happy and peaceful life. Live it. Don't be sad because of me." Henry looked at her again.
Eleven opened her mouth. She wanted to say... so many things, but she realized Henry was fading away, his outline becoming fuzzier and fuzzier until he became a hazy mist on the spot where he was earlier, then that mist, too, was gone. He was gone. Eleven couldn't feel his presence anymore.
Come back, she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. Don't leave me. Don't you dare.
Don't leave me again.
In the end Eleven only slowly blinked several times to rid her eyes of the tears welling there. She wasn't going insane and hallucinating Henry. And she wasn't going to break down because of him.
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Eleven thought about talking to Will about what happened last night.
She had been so certain it wasn't a dream, but now that it was midday and she was completely awake, fully aware of it all, she wasn't so sure anymore.
A dream could appear so real that it confused one with reality.
But I felt him.
If Henry was here... if ghosts were real and Henry's ghost visited her last night. Will used to be able to feel his presence, at least when Henry was alive. Maybe she could talk to Will about it.
Eleven stopped just before she could bring a closed fist to knock on Will's door as she stood in front of Will's room. It was never about trust. Eleven trusted Will, she trusted Mike when he said they could always talk. She trusted her friends and her family, and she knew they wouldn't judge. She also knew they were worried about her. Ever since Henry died...
The last thing Eleven wanted was to validate their friends' worries by telling them she saw a ghost of the man she'd killed last night. Whether or not it was all in her head.
I saw Henry. He wasn't a threat anymore. I think I miss him and I think I wish he and I had another chance to start over. The dialogue in Eleven's mind, she knew what reaction it would earn from her friends if she were to say it aloud. Even in her head, it sounded absurd.
This is Henry. He's hurt so many people. He's hurt Max. It's a good thing that he's dead.
Eleven stepped away from Will's door. She never knocked on it.
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Sleep was out of reach that night.
Eleven told herself she wasn't waiting for Henry, his ghost, to visit her again. Ghosts aren't real. You need to stop thinking about Henry. You need to let him go.
She was frustrated that a part of her hoped he would show up, another part was angry with Henry, his ghost, for keeping her waiting. For leaving her behind.
Henry didn't show up that night. Eleven didn't know at which point she fell asleep. But when she woke up the next morning, Henry was here.
He was here when Eleven opened her eyes, sitting on a chair next to her bed, watching her. For some reason, Eleven wasn't disturbed by it: the thoughts of Henry watching her sleep. She wasn't exactly startled to see him here.
Eleven still lied on her side, facing him. She was certain she'd woken up. This wasn't a dream. It wasn't. Henry... Henry was here.
"I didn't think you'd come," she said. I thought you really left.
Henry shrugged. "I didn't know where else to go," he admitted. "Guess I'm not used to being dead, then."
"How are you feeling?" Eleven propped the bedsheet underneath her elbow, supporting herself to be in a somewhat upright position this way. She didn't think ghosts were still capable of feeling things, but Henry still looked sad, something about the sadness in his eyes that made something in Eleven's chest ache in the way she didn't quite understand. They were enemies, weren't they?
She noticed then, with Henry's silence, water dripping from his clothes; he still wore the clothes he was always clad in when he was an orderly, only that it was all torn apart, barely clinging on to his body now. "Are you cold?" Eleven asked again.
Henry shrugged. He did that a lot lately, another thing Eleven noticed. "I don't mind it. I never did."
Eleven furrowed her brows a little disapprovingly. She would've... wanted to offer to find something warmer, something more comforting for Henry to wear. But how would that even work when what Henry was now was a ghost? An unrested soul unable to cross over.
"Henry," Eleven paused to take a breath, "is there anything I can help?"
Henry chuckled. "Why would you want to help me?"
"Because... we were friends."
Henry was silent for a moment. "I didn't know..."
"You didn't know what?"
"That we were friends. I always thought I never had that... a friend."
"I want to help." It surprised Eleven as much as it did Henry, how easy saying that was. How she was deliberately offering him this.
Henry smiled. It felt wrong; a smile shouldn't look so sad. "You already did help me, Eleven."
"Stop saying that." Eleven was aware of the crack in her voice, the overwhelmingness taking over her. "Stop saying I helped you when all I did was murder you, that's not fair." I want to help. Why won't you let me help?
"Are you angry at me?"
Eleven blinked. She didn't realize she was crying until she felt tears on her face. Henry's question was simple. "Yes..." Eleven said. "I am."
"Why? Because I hurt your friends?"
That was... one of the reasons, but not... not the main reason why Eleven was angry right now. She knew she should hate him just for that alone, for hurting Max, all those people. "I am angry because you made me do this. You made me kill you." She didn't mean to raise her voice. The last thing Eleven wanted was for Jim or Joyce or anybody to hear and thought to check in on her. She didn't know if they could see Henry, but that was something she didn't think she needed to find out.
"You had to stop me. I hardly made you do anything, and yet you... helped me."
"Why do you keep saying that?"
"Saying what?"
"That I helped you."
"Because you did."
"I don't understand."
Henry looked at her. He was silent for a breath or two, then he said, "I was... used. My father wasn't wrong when he said there was something at our house, something evil, something bad and hungry. I was caught in its web and it made me do... terrible things. All those deaths."
"What are you saying?"
Henry was about to say something when someone opened the door. "Breakfast's ready," Joyce said.
Eleven turned to look at her, she was aware of the look on her face right now: a deer caught in headlight. Then she whipped her head back to where Henry sat. There was no one on that chair. A part of Eleven wanted to scream, let out the frustration. She wasn't angry at Joyce, but at... at everything that'd led to this, to Henry's becoming Vecna and to his death. She looked at Joyce again and earned an odd, worried look from her adoptive mother. "Honey, is everything alright?"
No. Nothing is.
"I... am fine," Eleven said. What happened to 'friends don't lie' now? "Just... nightmare," she forced a smile, and prayed it was convincing enough.
"If you... want to talk —"
"I know, but I am fine,"
Joyce mouthed a soft alright. From the look on her face, she knew something was going on. At least she knew Eleven wasn't fine. But she... didn't expect her to, not after what happened. Eleven was grateful that Joyce seemed to understand. "The Eggos are gonna get cold soon," Joyce gave Eleven another smile before she gently closed the door behind.
Eleven quickly gazed back to where Henry sat earlier. The spot remained empty.
I was caught in its web and it made me do terrible things. All those deaths.
What are you saying?
What was Henry trying to tell her?
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During breakfast, Eleven guessed she zoned out. She couldn't stop thinking about what Henry said, what he was telling her before they were interrupted.
She guessed she wasn't doing a decent job at trying to cover all these thoughts troubling her.
"Do you know what the thing about bottling things up is?" Jonathan blurted out after everybody finished their meal, when Eleven was about to retreat to her room and hope she'd see Henry again.
"What?"
"The thing about bottling things up is that eventually it'll get too heavy, and eventually it'll eat you alive. El, we all just... want to help."
"I am fine." It started to become easy for Eleven to say that, knowing it was... a lie. It angered her that she was lying to the people who mattered to her the most. But what else could she say? If she were to tell them about Henry...
"It's been a lot," Eleven added, feeling like Jonathan deserved more than a three word sentence when all he'd been doing — all everybody had been doing — was try to reach for her. "But I will manage in the end. I am managing."
Are you? Are you not losing your mind trying to figure out what's going on right now?
Eleven gave Jonathan a smile. "I know you're worried about me and I appreciate that you care, you and Joyce and everybody. If it gets too much, I promise I will talk about it."
"Okay," Jonathan mumbled. He was the opposite of what Henry was in every way, but yet for some reason Jonathan reminded her of Henry; in the sense that he was being her brother, a protective big brother, and he was looking after her the best he could, making sure she was okay.
Henry was making sure she got that freedom when he tried helping her escape that day at the Lab, even willing to let her leave him behind. Because the Lab was a prison.
Henry was making sure she was okay, far away from Papa. He was the first older brother Eleven had.
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Eleven didn't see Henry again for the next three days. She was starting to worry — fear — if she'd never see him again.
Until she saw Henry again.
He stood by the window with his back facing her when Eleven entered her room one night. But Eleven knew who it was the first second she saw him. The wave of relief she could never understand that threatened to scoop her off her feet just by the sight of Henry being here again, even if it was only a ghost.
She couldn't be... happy to see him.
But Eleven also noticed, once she got to take in all the little details, Henry was... more translucent that he was the first time his ghost visited her; Eleven could partly see through his body, that and how disturbingly pale he'd turned. Like he was actively fading away. The pool of water gathered beneath his feet, where he stood; water constantly dripping from him.
Henry slowly turned around to face her. He looked — even as a ghost — more like a corpse than he already was. Something about it didn't sit right with Eleven. It... hurt to see Henry like this.
"I didn't think I'd see you again," Eleven said, gently closing the door behind her.
"I couldn't leave without saying goodbye," Henry said. It made fear roll uneasily in Eleven's stomach. I couldn't leave without saying goodbye.
"Are you here to say goodbye?" Don't go. Don't go. A part of Eleven wanted to beg just that. She knew it would be selfish of her, if by leaving, it meant Henry got to... rest. At last. But Eleven had lost Henry one too many times, no matter what had become of them. Henry was her best friend.
"I don't know," Henry said. "Do you want me to go?"
No. Never. "I was thinking about what you said the last time," Eleven said instead, "about that thing that made you do terrible things."
"Does it matter?"
"It does."
Henry looked at her for a while and sighed. "Are you worried that it will come back and hurt other people again? It died when I died. You and your friends don't have to worry about it coming back to hurt anybody else."
"That's not what I mean," Eleven said. "You said it controlled you,"
Henry was silent again for a short moment. "Sort of," he said. "I was aware of what I did when I did it, Eleven. But it was... a voice in my head, telling me to do things. It didn't control my body in the sense that I became possessed, and yet I couldn't ignore its voice."
"Back in the Upside Down, you thanked me before you died, because I freed you from your suffering. But was there another reason? What were you thanking me for, really?" Eleven slowly crossed the space between them until she was close enough. If she were to reach out a hand, either she touched him, or her hand fell through his body. Somehow Eleven was too afraid to find out what the case would be.
"Honestly? I thanked you because you freed me from its clutch. Ever since I set foot in my house when we first moved to Hawkins, that thing already latched itself on me. Like a disease. A virus that needed its host to grow. It fed off of me for as long as I could remember. My death was my escape."
"So it is dead."
"You killed it. Thus I am free. Truly free."
But what if... Eleven's mind started processing things, what Henry told her. Why Henry wasn't appearing as an Upside Down creature — Vecna — anymore. Why his ghost transformed back to who he used to be when he died a nonhuman creature.
It died when I died. You and your friends don't have to worry about it.
Eleven killed Henry that day. But what if... what if she didn't exactly kill him?
Are you cold? she had asked him that the last time they met.
I don't mind it. I never did. It wasn't a denial, Henry's answer.
But ghosts weren't supposed to be cold. Eleven didn't know much about ghosts, but she'd think they weren't supposed to still be able to feel anything at all, if their physical bodies were dead.
Henry was soaked in water...
"I need you to answer me this," Eleven said. "Are you cold? Yes or no."
Henry looked at Eleven for a moment, like he didn't understand why it suddenly seemed so important to her now. But then he sighed again, and admitted, "yes," he said. "It is... cold here, where I am. It is freezing cold."
"Are you hurt?" Eleven asked next.
"What?"
"Are you feeling any pain right now?"
It... wasn't something Henry would admit, Eleven knew that, but if what they had was still there, Henry never had to pretend to be strong around her. Henry was silent, like he wasn't sure how to answer this. But then he wordlessly nodded once, twice, like he was confessing a crime, only that he was furthering the act of displaying his own weakness in front of Eleven.
But he never had to pretend to be strong around her. It used to be the two of them against everybody else at Hawkins Lab.
And right now... right now Henry was in pain, physical pain.
"You're dying," Eleven said without knowing she'd said it aloud, not until she heard her own voice breaking through the silence surrounding them.
"I am already dead," Henry said, a wry chuckle leaving his mouth.
"No, but you are dying."
"I don't understand —"
"Where are you right now?"
"What?"
"Your body, where... where is it right now?" Eleven knew she'd left his body in the Upside Down, right where she killed him. But he was soaking wet.
"What are you doing, Eleven?"
What she was doing, exactly. Funny, because Eleven wasn't really sure herself. But one thing she was certain of: Henry... she didn't kill Henry that day, she killed that thing that attached itself onto him like a parasite. It was dead, but Henry...
Henry was running out of time. But she could still save him. She just had to act now.
"I am saving you," Eleven said, looking him in the eyes.
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The conversation with her friends and family didn't go smoothy, but Eleven never expected it to be an easy talk.
And she wasn't asking for permission from any of them. Henry was running out of time, and Eleven's telling them about Henry, about what she was doing, was only so that she wasn't doing anything behind their backs.
She wasn't betraying them by deciding to try to save Henry. She was doing what had to be done; the right thing.
"And you believe him?" Mike was concerned, but so was everybody.
"I do," Eleven said.
Henry was, to everybody else, a liar and a manipulator. But to Eleven...
He could be lying, sure, and she knew why her friends thought it was a lie, the whole Being Used as a Puppet thing. But Eleven believed him.
Even if he lied... Eleven had defeated him before, she could do it again if it came down to it.
(Only that Eleven was sure it wasn't a lie, and thus it'd mean all this time Henry was a victim, too, and he was punished for it.)
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She meant to return to the Upside Down for Henry's rescue by herself, alone, knowing how risky the mission was.
Jonathan and Hopper insisted on coming with her. That was the only way they'd agree for her to be here. And Eleven wanted to tell them no, only that she knew it'd lead to another argument, and time was of the essence; Henry couldn't afford another second wasted.
The Upside Down was as cold and deadly as the last time Eleven was here. Perhaps even colder.
If Henry was alive — he was, Eleven couldn't be wrong about this — he was out here somewhere, wounded and freezing.
"How do we even find him when an entire realm is the limit? Isn't it like finding a needle in a haystack?" Jonathan said, but he and Hopper followed Eleven wherever she led.
Eleven tried concentrating. In the past, she and Henry were connected, bound together by an invisible cord. That cord, Eleven believed, was still here, always guiding her back to him. She only had to concentrate and follow its lead.
"This way," Eleven said without any further explanation. She could feel Henry again, and it awoken something dangerous inside her; hope.
He was so close. She wasn't going to lose him again. She would... she would find him and she would bring him home. Where home was, home... it was with her. She wasn't... she wasn't letting him go again, her lost brother. She would save him this time. This time, she would really save him.
Eleven fastened her pace until she was almost running. Henry, she got him. She found him now.
Covered in dark, slithering vines, Henry was human again, only that he was paler, thinner, clearly having lost a lot of weight. Surrounded him was water. It explained why water was dripping from his clothes when he appeared in her vision. Henry was sleeping — he must be sleeping, unconscious; he couldn't be dead — with another slithering vine, a tendril of sorts that was alive and moving, attaching to Henry's mouth, seemingly running deeply down his throat, his trachea, into his lungs. Maybe it was feeding off him, or maybe it was helping him breathe, keeping him alive.
Eleven was told this was also how they found Will.
She froze, for a moment it seemed she was the one not knowing how to breathe. Henry was here. He was... Henry again, not Vecna. Eleven froze until it was Hopper and Jonathan who rushed towards Henry and helped remove all those vines from him, pulling it off his mouth and tossing it to the side.
"He's alive," Hopper said, looking back at Eleven while still holding Henry, a hand on the side of his neck, feeling his pulse. "He's alive, kiddo. You were right."
Eleven joined them by Henry's side when she wasn't so overwhelmed, when she could breathe again. She knelt next to him, easing Henry's hand into her own, holding it there. His hand was severely cold. "Henry," Eleven said next, feeling the hand slowly moving in her palm, squeezing hers before Henry slowly opened his eyes.
He blinked several times, seeming confused, before his eyes landed on her. A sob broke out of Eleven's mouth, but she didn't care that she was crying. That Hopper and Jonathan were here.
"Hi," she said, cupping Henry's face with her free hand.
"Eleven? What —"
"It's okay," Eleven said, "you're going to be okay." She glanced at Hopper, then at Jonathan, then back at Henry again.
"We are taking you home," the words never felt so right as it left her mouth. "Let's go home, Henry."