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Her leg is on fire, the screaming pain almost enough to drown out the world. She watches with black spots crowding her vision as the bloody hunk of the Mind Flayer scurries away, slapping wetly on the shining tiles.
As her head dips, the next thing she hears is a boot stamping against the floor.
Chest heaving, blood filling her mouth, she looks up at the blurry figure that just crushed the Mind Flayer.
And then she is crying and reaching for him before her brain fully processes who is standing there: “Dad!”
In a blink, Hopper is skidding on his knees through the snowfall of glass and his arms are around her. “El,” he gasps, squeezing her tightly to his chest. “Oh God, El...”
She is sobbing into her dad’s ugly, dirty shirt.
“I got you, baby girl.” He presses a fierce kiss into her hair, muffling his voice as he repeats, “I’ve got you.”
She lets out a pained wail as her universe expands to again include her sliced-open leg.
Hopper fully comprehends the state of his daughter, takes in the blood and the gash and the crude surgical tools. He swears and demands, “What… the hell happened here?”
The voices of the other kids blend into a cacophonous confusion as they all try to explain at once.
“Stop, stop!” shouts Hopper, taking his gun from his shoulder and laying it beside him. He points at Jonathan, who wears blood-stained plastic gloves. “You. Talk.”
As Jonathan recounts the last day, Hopper begins tending his daughter. He sets the red-head to applying pressure to El’s leg and sends Nancy and some girl in a sailor outfit to find sewing and first aid kits at the pharmacy.
Wheeler starts loudly calling her name as El slumps back into him, eyes closed.
Hopper shifts his focus, checking El’s pulse and beneath her eyelids. “She’s just passed out,” he tells Wheeler. “She’s fine, quit yelling.”
The boy glares at him but silences.
“Jim,” says Joyce, opening the retrieved sewing kit on the floor next to him.
“Probably for the best,” he mutters to himself. “We’ve got to stitch this up.”
“We?” says Joyce with half a smile, stroking El’s hair out of her face.
“Dr. Byers has a ring to it,” he says as he threads a needle.
“I think I like Detective Byers best.”
“Somebody clean that for me.” Hopper nods at El’s wound, covered by a bloodied cloth and the pale hands of the red-head. (Max, his brain finally supplies.) He digs his cigarette lighter out of his pocket and holds the flame under the needle as Nancy reveals El’s wound and begins cleaning it carefully.
“Why aren’t we taking her to the hospital?” someone asks, and Hopper snarls, “Does it look like we have that kind of time?”
“And we’ve got to close the gate,” adds Murray.
Hopper shuts out everything but his hands, the needle and thread between his fingers, the yawning hole in his daughter’s leg. He thinks about how she is going to have a long, jagged scar when this is all over, and it makes him sad. His little girl shouldn’t have to carry her battles with her so visibly.
Thankfully, El does not rouse as Hopper pushes the needle through the flaps of skin and pulls them together as best he can. Wheeler holds El steady, just in case. When Hopper ties off and cuts the thread, Joyce spreads antibiotic cream over the stitches and wraps a pristine bandage around El’s leg.
“Why won’t she wake up?” asks Wheeler, looking at Hopper with wide, scared eyes.
“She will, kid. Just give her a minute.”
The mall floor has been transformed into field hospital triage. Hopper doesn’t bother to clean up other than closing the first aid kit and handing it to Joyce. Even if all goes according to plan, they’ll probably need it again. Then Hopper pushes himself wearily to his feet and moves his gun to the closest bench around one of the ridiculous planters in the middle of the mall. He returns to his daughter, sprawled across the stained tiles, and gently lifts her into his arms. He grunts, his tired body protesting but not resisting. Once he is standing, El’s weight against his chest is comforting in a way that washes over his exhausted bones, and he holds her closer. He sits on the bench next to his gun, propping El against him as she begins to stir.
She looks around wildly, her eyes cutting to the bandage on her leg.
“Hey, shhhh,” he whispers to her. “You’re okay, I’m here.”
“Dad.” Her face screws up as if she is about to cry, but she holds herself together, presses deeper into the safety beneath his arm. She looks up and sees the blood-encrusted cut in his forehead. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, kiddo.” He smiles at her as his heart clenches. “I’m fine now. I’m back with my girl.”