Chapter Text
It was just assumed that the two remaining Wheelers would stay with the Byers in their old house, after everything.
They had already bunked together in the same house for a year, and so it was perfectly natural. They reclaimed the old Byers house from the dead military, finding furniture to mix and match for their living space.
Nancy with Jonathan. Mike with Will. Joyce in her own bedroom.
Nancy was folding her socks, rummaging around in Jonathan's own sock drawer for the other side to one missing pair.
Instead, her hand hit something hard, and it clattered.
What? Nancy, curious as ever, fished out the cassette tape from the drawer.
She peaked in the box, squinting to see between the crack. It was...
Nancy scrambled to open it, dread spiking in her.
In there, what had been covered from view - was an engagement ring.
Nancy closed her eyes, and was startled to find tears gathering at the corners of them.
She opened her eyes and bit her lip, feeling utterly duplicitous as she slipped the ring from the box, shuttling it back in the sock drawer strategically.
She pocketed the ring.
Her mother was in a hospital bed, her sister missing, her father utterly useless besides and her brother otherwise preoccupied.
Her boyfriend was planning to propose to her in the middle of the apocalypse.
Nancy slumped in the corner beside the dresser and cried.