Archive of Our Own ^beta

The man nodded, barking the command into the radio, and Brenner turned his head away to face the window, staring numbly out into the gloomy November night. 

He'd never had a successful escape from his laboratory since Number Eight, not a major incident since '79 with... Well, he didn't want to think about that right now. Out of all his children, he wouldn't have expected Eleven to be the one to leave him. Worse, it concerned him greatly how this time, he might not be able to cover it up, mostly due to bad timing. There had been a breach in the dimension when Eleven made contact and a boy had been taken around the same time of the lockdown at the lab. He had a feeling it was some-ONE's doing, but without proof, he only speculated. Besides, there was no use thinking about him; he had to focus all his energy into finding his other child. His young, naive, dangerous but actually quite gentle child. 

If she wasn't property of the United States government and he was a just a father, a guardian, he'd plaster papers of her picture in every direction in a fifty-mile radius and hound anyone for clues. Just like the boy who was missing as well, William Byers, and his frantic mother. Brenner and her were nothing alike, but on a deep level he understood that primal instinct to turn a town upside down in search for your child and to destroy anyone who prevented them from being found. The problem was Mrs. Byers and him were naturally at odds. He couldn't get his girl back without getting rid of her boy - permanently. 

He wondered why Will had been chosen and by who. A creature? Or who the creature was controlled by. The Shadow. One/Henry. A chain of command that was murky and fluid. As far as he knew, Will wasn't special like Eleven was. Perhaps it was One seeing a similarity in him, for they did share characteristics. He didn't know much about Will yet, but from profiling he could chalk up they were both serious momma's boys, shy underdogs, artistic, loners, easily influenced... and ultimately weak. The perfect victim.

Leave it to Eleven to get mixed up with types like that. But she had no idea One even existed and that was something he'd keep from her as long as possible. It was too much, and he didn't want her looking for the very man who turned her against her Papa. That would be beyond betrayal. He also did not wish for the Shadow to get a hold of her if the creature failed to take her. He just had to get his daughter back and they'd go back the way they were, her putting her life in his hands and no one else's. Stave off the inevitable secrets of the past for a while longer, yet he knew he had pushed too far. She pushed too far and now they were in this mess. 

Already the local police chief was suspicious due to what happened at Benny's Burgers. Yet Hopper was known to be a drunk like his father before him, and he dealt with his own personal pain of losing a child. He couldn't possibly get too far on the case, at least not with finding the girl. He would prioritize the Byers boy above anyone else's because he had an interest in the mother. That was just how it was with people; no one did anything truly from the heart, there was always a selfish motivation. 

For Brenner, Eleven meant everything, and he couldn't afford to lose her to the world. His greatest fear was her capture by a foreign enemy, though the likelihood of Soviet spies in this small rural town was slim, but nevertheless he knew it was only a matter of time before secrecy broke containment. MKUltra leaked to public knowledge, after all. His project with the children was safe for now thanks to eliminating the threat of Terry Ives squealing to the press, but now the lab being in jeopardy as it was... 

Would Eleven try to find her mother in Bloomington? Could she go that far? Before her coma, she remembered Terry's break in and had, with help from a certain ally, put two and two together. Even before then, she'd asked Brenner about having a "Mama" and he'd lied to her that hers was gone. Terry was "gone", in a sense, but he feared perhaps Eleven could make psychic contact. If there was anyone she'd seek remotely, it would be her own mother who lived with her sister outside of Hawkins in an old farmhouse, far away, but not terribly distant. Just close enough to bother Brenner when he cared once in a blue moon to think about the Ives. 

Why was he even worrying about this? Eleven had severe memory loss and never made mention of yearning for her birth mother. She had barely recognized him as the role of father when she'd awoken from that coma. She couldn't read a clock, do math, know the entire alphabet, read, or spell at first. She even had a bit physical therapy to learn to walk normally again. She still was incapable of meeting some basic benchmarks a child her age should be able to, and her verbal speech was extremely limited. It had been an utter disaster... The last on her mind was her origins. 

"Jesus Christ, it's pouring cats and dogs out there," the agent muttered, breaking Brenner from his ruminating. 

The men had started to come up from out of the trees onto the rain slicked road, guns and shock prods swinging uselessly from their belts, mud gracing their boots, and faces soured in defeat. Brenner sniffed, shifting in his seat as a figure came up to his window, her blonde hair dampened flat, and her lips tightly pursed in disgruntlement. Evidently, she wasn't keen on being sent out in bad weather. He frowned at the prospect of letting the rain in to fleck his nice clothes but cranked down the window anyway. 

"Agent Frazier?" 

"Dr. Brenner. Tonight's a wash, but first light tomorrow morning, we're targeting surrounding neighborhoods: Cornwallis, Mulberry, Cherry Oak. Going door to door might be the best approach and I also want to put tabs on the middle school. It's likely she has or will end up there." 

"I understand, but I'm the one leading this investigation so I will determine our next moves. Go home and get rest, I'll call if there's any urgent updates overnight." 

Her face twisted in defiance - she was always trying to usurp him and craved power - but then she nodded crisply, storming off towards another car. He exhaled, closing his eyes briefly before telling the driver to return them to the lab. 

Brenner technically wasn't going home, not yet. 

Hawkins Lab was in the process of being quarantined as the spread was rapidly encroaching, contaminating the lower levels of the building. He should be wearing a hazmat suit by protocol, but it wasn't bad yet in the former children's ward where Eleven's room was. A few spores dotted the air, so he held his breath as he walked through, reaching her door and unlocking it. 

The bed was made as it had been that morning before she crawled out the tunnel, ruining his plans. Her stuffed lion lay on the pillow, unblinking and neutrally innocent, though his imagination made him want to believe it looked sad, the stitching sagging a bit, the dark glass eyes devoid of whimsy. He crossed over to it and picked it up, holding it tentatively in his hands. Just a week ago it had been warm, tucked snugly under her little chin. Now it was just cold and lifeless, like everything else in this place. 

"She should miss you, you know," he told it quietly. 

"She didn't even get a chance to hug and say goodbye."

He was losing it, wasn't he? Talking to a soft toy like it was another person. Embarrassing. 

Brenner's eyes drifted to the pencil drawing above her bed, taped to the wall. She used to draw more, before the coma. She drew her and him holding hands in the Rainbow Room, animals and shapes from picture books, and just random colorful scribbles out of frustrated expression.  

Her only drawing left was of a test day, attempting to terminate a cat which she had failed. He frowned at the way she'd colored Papa's stick figure's hair, brown like it had been when she was a toddler. Did she remember him from then? He wished he could see into her brain and not in the way an MRI could. What memories exactly could be unlocked if she forced herself to examine them?  

Her stick figure looked unhappy and so did his. He felt a single tear drop out at the implication; had she been that miserable with him? Is that why she'd left besides the obvious interdimensional issue? Did she see him as nothing more than an obstacle in her path, an inflictor of pain and suffering, a monster?

Brenner shook his head. He didn't believe in monsters and Eleven only misunderstood his intentions. She was a frightened little child who was still learning what she could do. She never hated him, only feared his authority as she naturally should. He was the closest she would ever have to a parent and being so meant doses of love and discipline. A ying and yang, no positives without the negatives. 

Eleven had to understand that. If she loved her Papa, she would. She'd come crawling back to him, she had to! But what if she didn't? What if her escape was already her final answer? What if she refused to change her mind? She'd already made the defying decision to leave. 

He squeezed the stuffed lion hard in his hands and if it had been a real animal, he would have killed it. 

"She's abandoned us both, Mr. Lion," he whispered, anger trembling through his tone. 

He quickly set it back down on the pillow where it belonged and retreated from the room, walking fast down the hall and back up to more safer quarters, where it was all procedure and no nostalgia, no unwanted fondness, no feeling like grieving when there was no one to grieve... yet. 

Eleven was strong. She wouldn't be killed or taken by One and the Shadow. Brenner would find her and carry her home like a good Papa would do. He'd bubble wrap her up from society if he could, keeping her locked away indefinitely. She didn't need anyone else, not her mother, not strangers, not anyone. Just him. 

Right? 

He promptly left the complex, feeling hot tears slipping down his cheeks as he got in his own car and drove home to his neighborhood, parking sideways on the street. He dashed across the road to avoid most of the downpour, his cap-toe shoes splashing in puddles of dark water. 

His house was empty and devoid of welcome as always, but the loneliness felt potent tonight. He supposed he should be relishing in it after being around bustling activity all day or having to share space with coworkers he'd rather keep at a distance, dealing with noxious but vaguely compelling Connie Frazier and her annoying ambitions, but he didn't. 

He was close to losing all he'd ever worked for and Eleven was just outside his grasp. How the hell was he supposed to relax and go to bed with a hot mug of herbal tea, listening to the thunder on a night like this? 

Eleven never liked loud claps of thunder, though as muffled as it was through thick hospital walls. He recalled once there was a tornado warning less than five miles east of town and the thunder that came from the storm seemed to shake the building. The building went on lockdown and for several highly stressful minutes, she'd gone missing. A guard finally found her in a janitorial closet, curled in a fetal position with her hands pressed against the sides of her head over her ears. She had whimpered like a hurt animal when Brenner had scooped her up to get her out of there and to another wing. Thankfully the storm's energy had fizzled out, and the tornado skipped Hawkins to touch down elsewhere, but for an hour he struggled to get her to calm down, finally administering a light sedative.

Tonight, he had no way to soothe her when she cried over something as natural as a weather phenomenon. The storm wasn't as bad as yesterday's with the widespread power outages, but still. She was out there, somewhere, probably barely coping, and he was all alone.

As much as he tried, Brenner couldn't stop the flood of tears leaking like a busted gutter down his lined face, and he retreated to the bathroom, sinking down to the floor by the bathtub, letting an undignified, strangled sob choke out. 

He never cried. Not when his father finally died, not when he feared Henry had been lost for good, not when creeping thoughts of mortality reminded him that he himself was going to die someday and be forgotten. 

Martin Brenner wasn't afraid of death, at least not like most people were. He didn't subscribe to religion, so there was no fear over being sent to Hell. Even the process of decay didn't phase him, it was just part of the natural cycle. He had no real family, no huge estate, and not much sentimentality attached to material belongings. 

He was afraid, intensely so apparently, of losing his only remaining child - if he admitted, his favorite - to that yawning endless sea of black abyss where she'd never swim back to him. Worse, potentially losing her for nothing. There was not much worse than lost potential and dying without a cause, in vain. And after she ran away, rejecting his care... He grabbed tissues from the box and blew his nose, struggling to contain the broken dam. The problem with crying though, was once you started it was difficult to quell it. Years and years of suppressed emotion dredged up in one night, lashing at him as hard as the rain outside. He sobbed like a broken man, hunched over on the floor and clutching fistfuls of his hair in agony. 

His reputation tarnished, possibly beyond repair the longer this breach went on. His only living possession, lost. Everything, not just his lab, in jeopardy. It felt like the world was ending, but the storm continued outside, and his neighbors sleep soundly, unaware of the fear and pain. His pain, rare and raw and consuming his sanity. Why wasn't he stronger? Why couldn't he be more invincible? Why did this event get under his skin when very little else did? Why did it have to be Eleven?

Brenner was glad he lived alone. How would he explain or handle this with a wife, with other children? 

It was his fault he'd become so attached to Eleven out of all his subjects, save for One. His colleagues never cried over their work, why should he? 

Wiping the last of the tears (for now) from his eyes, Brenner shakily stood up and threw out the soggy tissues, refusing to glance at his reflection in the mirror to add to his shame. He washed his hands vigorously and went to the kitchen to cook himself something to eat to cure his low blood sugar, but his appetite was sparse. 

The thunder had rolled off in the distance and a gentle rainfall continued throughout the night as he slept restlessly, tossing and turning. He checked his watch face a hundred times and mentally tried to bandage the gaping hole inside his chest with affirmations. 

Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow will work out.

You'll find her. You'll fix this mess and everything will be okay again. Not like it was, but you'll have her with you. 

It was enough to make him decide to not show any more emotion - for a while. He had to be strong for her even when she didn't deserve it. 

The daylight hours when Brenner wasn't out in the field with his team trying to locate the girl or suited up checking on the Gate and sending men in, were spent sitting in the surveillance room, surrounded by suffocating cigarette smoke and many, many hours of tape recordings. 

He listened to Joyce Byers screaming at her ex-husband, Chief Hopper calling his ex-wife to pitifully check in, Mrs. Wheeler whining to friends about her lack of love life, and several unimportant citizens of all types with equally meaningless problems to him. He wondered if this was similar to what one heard, but also saw, when remote viewing. Brenner didn't have an ounce of extrasensory abilities, but this was the closest he could come to that. He had to listen between the verbal lines for clues and to get a psych profile on potential subjects, to trace anything back to his goal.

Luckily, it was a small town and Eleven wouldn't go far, not like her sister Eight had. No, she wasn't that resourceful or that intelligent, but she had three tween boys in her corner, recklessly protecting her. However, they couldn't hide her forever and were no match against the federal government. He didn't want to have to kill any of them, but if they refused to hand over his subject, he might not have a choice. 

Already he had Benny Hammond's death under his belt, courtesy of Connie's doing, and a created corpse of Will Byers with an inside job coroner. He didn't need more messy bullet holes through heads... and not to kids. But he'd already lost too many children from the '79 massacre, so what were a few more? No, he had to avoid it as much as possible; if those boys were killed by his team, he might not be able to cover it up. One boy's "death" was enough, but three more? Even if an accident was staged, it was too risky. He didn't exactly have the best standing in this town already, and not with the government either if he was being honest. They only kept giving him chances because he kept giving big promises and had one remaining very valuable asset. Or at least he did, until she fled. 

Panic seized his chest. In all his career he never felt this close to cracking under pressure... Eleven was going to be put under control, it was going to be okay. 

But what if it wasn't? What if it was too late? She'd already slipped too easily under his fingers at the diner and now the woods. She was good at hiding. He knew that. She did it as a toddler, hiding in nooks and crannies of the lab she wasn't supposed to be in. She hid under her cot, in broom closets, in the boiler room with One, and in her mind. Especially there. She hid from spies and his own questioning. He didn't even know where she checked out to, but blood would be streaming down her nose, and he'd have to shake her out of whatever trance she decided to throw herself in to avoid him. 

Brenner gritted his teeth like an angry rabid dog. Eleven had been avoiding him all her life, only to be coaxed out occasionally with candy, affection, rewards... and then threats when none of that worked. Why wouldn't she love him? 

He was tired of games. 

When he got the tipoff that she was with the boys in the Maple Street neighborhood, he and his agents took to the DOE vans and went at once. They arrived just as the kids were fleeing up from the basement of the Wheeler house with their bikes. 

Eleven froze, staring at Brenner from her perch on the moppy black haired boy's bike, her shorn stubbly brown hair lit by the late afternoon sun and her pale skin looking peaky and more unnatural without being familiar fluorescents. 

It was disconcerting to see her for the first time out in the wild like this. For a split second, he thought she was going to call out to him and get off that bike. Instead, when she didn't and one of the boys yelled "go, go, go!" and they sped off down the sidewalk with her in tow, cold rigid determination overtook Brenner.

If those stupid boys and her wanted to play this silly cat and mouse game, he'd gladly oblige. 

Lurching into one of the vans, the driver sped off, trailing behind another van leading the chase. The boys on their bikes were fast, cutting through backyards and crossing multiple streets, but the bare trees provided little cover. They were easy to spot and as they became cornered in the intersection of Elm and Cherry Roads, one of the vans powered ahead to stop them in the middle of the street.

There was a strange, almost explosion type noise and the driver of the van Brenner was riding in and the others around them all braked suddenly. Brenner squinted, bracing for impact as the van skidded, but something else took his attention more than hitting a mailbox. 

The leading van opposite them, supposed to stop the children, was flipped in the air. 

For a few seconds it was against gravity, and then it went free falling down hard to the street. It landed with a glass shattering and metal warping CRASH to the road, effectively killing the two men inside.

The kids rode off as Brenner shoved his door open and hopped out onto the street, staring at the wreckage before him. Thankfully Connie Frazier was away on her own mission of fishing for information from the school science teacher in another neighborhood across town today. As much as she annoyed him, she was a good agent, and he'd have hated to lose her to this. 

Men were disposable, like soldiers. His own father had taught him that. 

Brenner tucked his black overcoat around himself, fighting the autumnal chill, and watched the children ride off in the distance, quietly impressed with Eleven and her blatant display of power. It made him all the more confident and desperate to get her back under his wing. He needn't have worried so much about the state of her survival if this was any indicator. But she had absolutely no right to be with those ragtag boys. He especially didn't appreciate how attached the Wheeler boy was to her and the way she had clung needily to the back of his jacket.

As soon as Connie was available, Brenner made it a priority to shortly investigate his residence, anticipating evidence of Eleven's hideout there. 

Sure enough, Micheal Wheeler's basement proved a hot spot. A clearly worn Benny's Burgers yellow T-shirt was laying in the laundry basket, and he found Eleven's dirty cream-colored underwear crumpled up under discarded sheets of half-done math homework in a trashcan. He swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing as he handed it off to an agent who, with gloved hands, carefully tucked it in a plastic Ziploc bag. 

It disgusted Brenner to think Eleven had changed clothes in this very space. She had been naked here and who knows if she had done so in front of the boy. Eleven had no concept of privacy due to everyday life in the lab, or the hospital as he preferred, and she might as well be like a two-year-old, stripping her undergarments without a care in the world. A boy wouldn't understand and worse, he might take advantage. He worried about how she might take to clothing in general; she was so used to gowns and being helped with dressing. Hopefully, whatever underwear she had replaced her own with was not the boy's and rather perhaps his older sister's. Hopefully she was given the decency to wear undergarments at all.

Brenner turned around, staring at messy lair that reeked of greasy pizza and other unique smells only a preteen boy could produce. He had to rescue Eleven from this. 

Michael's parents weren't impressive, but they were at least for the most part cooperative. The mother seemed more stressed about the situation than the father and he watched with mild amusement as Connie tried and failed to appeal to her common senses. Brenner knew his agent well enough that all she had to do was give him a single look and it was his cue to take over. 

He sat down heavily across from the Wheelers with a sigh, appraising the both of them before focusing on the housewife. He'd always been adept with manipulating and charming the opposite sex, and she deemed ripe for it. Mothers in particular always seemed to gravitate towards him despite their fear and he knew, confident, this one was in the bag. 

"I understand how upsetting this is."

You have no idea how much this means to me. Would you have an emotional breakdown in your bathroom over your lackluster son if he went missing? I don't think so, it wouldn't be worth it if you did.

"We can't tell you much, but what I can say is that your son, Michael, is in great danger."

His neck could be snapped in an instant if she gets tired of him and hopefully she will. 

"We want to help him. We will help him. I give you my word."

And that's all it is, words. 

"But in order for us to do that..." He smiled, getting to his favorite part of a conversation like this. That delicious point of leverage, delivered with firm softness veiled in threat if disobedience. Like getting a child to do something hard in exchange for a reward. 

"I need you to trust me. Can you do that? Will you trust me?"

It's so simple. Can't you see you really don't have a choice in the matter? Let's make this easy so I can find who I actually care about. 

She nodded, her eyes red and watering. It was always a good sign when they were close to breaking down in front of you. It meant you had them in the palm of your hand and they'd do anything you'd say. 

"Good." He paused, lofting his next words slightly more businesslike. 

"Now... Do you have any idea where your son might have gone?" 

She swallowed, sniffling and dabbing her face while her husband just sat uselessly next to her.

"There's... There, um, he might've taken her to the school if not to his friend Will's hideout. It-It's in the woods, off of, well, the kids call it Mirkwood, but there's a fort there. It's on the way to the Byers house." 

"Can you think of any other off-the-beaten path locations?"

She bit her lip, hesitant, but he gave one of his charismatic "trusting" smiles. She fell for it, hook line and sinker. 

"Mike was yelling on his walkie to Lucas earlier something about the old junkyard?"

"Thank you, Mrs. Wheeler." He stood to his feet and brushed past her, briefly laying a hand on her right shoulder. He thought he felt her shudder under his touch - not an uncommon reaction from women in his presence. 

He nodded and moved towards the front door with the agents carrying out packaged boxes for evidence. 

"Now hang on, when you find our son, do we get some kind of reward for this, the capture of this Russian girl?" Mr. Wheeler called, getting up and following him. 

Brenner eyed him with a steely look. 

"She's not Russian and no. But we appreciate your cooperation and trust, and thank you for being an upstanding citizen. Your son will be home soon, I promise."

Mr. Wheeler seemed pathetically satisfied with this canned answer, giving a unironic salute. 

"Alrighty, yes, sir." 

You would have made a stupid good soldier.

The team was let to leave the house, which Brenner was only so glad to do so. Dealing with Mrs. Wheeler brought back unpleasant memories of Mrs. Creel, a time in his life he'd rather forget. Eleven was lucky in a way, she wasn't haunted by the past, at least not yet. Someday he'd show her what happened and how she came to be, but not for a while. 

Connie fell into step beside him outside on the lawn as they went to the cars, speaking briskly.  

"I told you everything points to that middle school since I talked to Scott Clarke."

"I don't want to go there just yet." 

She huffed and he cocked his head, catching her arm as she tried to pull the car door open. 

"Connie." He almost never called her by her first name aloud. She was usually that only in his head.

"What?" she snapped, but there was a dim flicker of softness in her slate blue eyes. Almost as if she knew there could've been a spark between them, if he wasn't so focused on Eleven (who was only an asset to Connie) and her on work. 

He would have considered her, if the circumstances were different. He nearly respected her and she wasn't afraid of him like most everyone else was. And it wasn't often he found attractiveness in someone closer to his age. 

"We'll end this and then you can go back to DC and wherever they send you next."

She rolled her eyes, but he did get a strained smile out of her. 

"Maybe I'll stick around, who knows?"

"I wouldn't mind that."

He ducked inside the car, taking the passenger side as she was driving. 

Inside the confined car together, a bit of awkward tension hung in the air. She glanced at him as she started the ignition and then sighed. 

"Alright, maybe this backwater town is growing on me. Like mold."

He snorted, watching the Wheeler's home in the rearview as they drove off down the street. 

"I still don't see why you voluntarily spent all these years living here. I know Indianapolis is a drive, but it has more going for it and you can blend in better."

"I prefer to remain as close as possible to my work no matter where it is," he replied quietly and she said no more after that as they reached the lab. 

It was opportunistic that the two adults complicit in hiding Eleven came to him first. Joyce Byers and Chief Jim Hopper, trespassing onto government property and consequently being seized by his men for interrogation. 

He took his time deliberately removing his coat in front of Mrs. Byers, trying her patience. He relished in watching her squirm as she was handcuffed to the metal chair, and the lack of control he had felt this week was now all on her. It was very satisfying. 

"You took my boy," she seethed. 

"I want to help him; I just need your help."

"You left him in that place to die! We had a goddamn funeral! I know who you are. I know what you've done. I know how you ruined that Ives woman. And now you dare want MY help? Go to hell." 

He shouldn't be surprised she dug up dirt on his reputation, given that Chief Hopper obviously helped her in that department. He didn't appreciate the reminder, though. He hadn't thought of Terry Ives in years and now here it was again, for the second time in the past few days. 

Do I have a Mama? Eleven's small voice rang in his head, and he cursed the day her mother decided to break in, destroying his protections. 

He narrowed his eyes at Mrs. Byers, who clearly thought she was in the right. He almost respected her tenacity to get this far, to care that much for her boy, but she was in his way. What in the name of God did this poor, working class single mother know about right and wrong? She was a tiny bit cog in the machine and the only reason she was sitting in this interrogation room in his lab, bound to a chair, was because her son happened to be missing in time with an interdimensional breakthrough that his own child was the cause of. 

He wanted to tell her she was nothing special. That she would die in this town like the rest of them and that her boy was nothing but a pawn in a bigger game. That she would never expose the government and end up just like Terry Ives if she pushed any further. He wanted to yell all that in her smug, defiant face and watch her crumble beneath him. His fists clenched on the table, fighting every nerve in his body to do something very uncalled for. Something only a bomb of unchecked rage would allow. 

But he wasn't a monster. He would be polite and cool, and calm. Always calm, like a lake. He wasn't an ocean. 

A very tense silent minute dragged by. 

There was nothing he could say to this woman, so he abruptly stood up and left, focusing on the man who might be more willing to negotiate. He was a cop, after all. He knew sometimes there were hard decisions to be made and he knew what it was like to take orders from superiors. 

Jim Hopper, fresh off from another round of tasering and drugging that Connie was only too eager to order, was sitting motionless when Brenner let himself in. 

He offered out a pack of cigarettes as an olive branch of sorts and went to stand behind the man, cutting straight to the chase. Men weren't as easily manipulated and playable as women, so he wasn't wasting any breath here. 

"Where's the girl?" 

"You mean your little science experiment? Yeah, I know where she is. But you gotta give me your word that nobody's gonna find out about this."

Brenner slid his pockets in his hands, listening attentively. It was possible Hopper would give him a false lead, but somehow, he felt like he wouldn't. He wanted to find the boy as much as Mrs. Byers did. 

"She's at the school. Leave the boys that are with her alone and you can get her back. Let me and Joyce go, tell us where to get to Will, and we'll keep quiet. That's the deal."

"Good enough," Brenner decided.

Once he and Byers were released and shown downstairs to the entrance into the other realm, he met Connie and a team of agents outside. She struggled to keep up with his gait, complaining about his direction.

"I'm telling you, we shouldn't have let them go. It's a mistake."

"It's done. You got what you wanted, no more interference," he told her. 

"And the boy?" 

"They'll never find him. He might as well be dead."

Brenner strode forward, feeling what felt like hope spark in his chest. For the first time this week, he was approaching a conclusion to this goose chase and every step closer led to Eleven. It would be just bad luck if anything thwarted their reunion now. 

He didn't know how to show her love that she would accept, but hopefully she would come to her senses and understand he was the only one who could understand her. She was nothing but a shiny new toy to those boys and they wouldn't know what to do with her. 

He'd tell her she was sick because in a way she truly was for wanting freedom from him, and sooner or later she might over-exert herself. He was NOT going to go to ground zero again with her abilities and mental faculties; he was running out of time and so was the world. Eleven was sick to think she could live without her Papa. 

He'd fix her disease of rejecting her father. He would fix this.

She'd be in a clean bed in a sterilized room with her comforting stuffed lion again, she'd eat a decent healthy meal (he'd even let her have some ice cream as a treat), she'd get over eight hours sleep, upmost medical care of course, and she'd grow into compliant happiness enough to accept him back into her life. He'd caress her head and cheeks as long as needed, boop her nose, hold her hand, carry her when she couldn't walk, give her as many potted flowers she liked, read her nursery rhymes, and tell her just how much of a good girl she was. 

They would continue their work together and the world would be the right side up again. He'd be whole again, not this dented half of a shell he'd been the past week; he'd feel like himself again. All this had been was a mere interruption, a distraction... 

As headlights flashed across the paw print logo of Hawkins Middle School, he never felt more driven in his life to acquire someone into his care. Not even Henry. Nothing could go wrong now. 

Eleven would be the daughter to his Papa once more. 

He'd make certain of it.