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MAY 1986 - MONTH II
The cabin had been in disarray, untouched since they had left Hawkins - a stark reminder of the loss then, contested only by the loss now.
Mike and Nancy had riled together to ask Karen (and Ted, technically, but it wasn't like he had much of a say in the matter) whether the Byers could stay with them until they got their own place sorted, much to Joyce's chagrin. Truthfully, they didn't know when that would be, with the area in lockdown and the military keeping a keen eye on the citizens inhabiting the small town, there wouldn't be much chance to. It did, however, allow Hopper and El some space to themselves away from the military's watchful eye, and with some group effort, the cabin was looking good as new. After repairing holes in the walls and covering broken windows, priority was taken in making El's room look and feel more comfortable and presentable, to be somewhere she could rest after everything she had been through and for everything she was preparing to do moving forward. She cleaned the floors herself and her bed had been set for her; sheets fitted neatly and smelling fresh and coated in a lemon scent, pillows newly puffed up and a small assortment of plush toys gifted from her friends lined up against the wall atop the mattress ready for her to join them.
Instead, El begins her day on the couch.
The lemon scent of her bed sheets had faded and El had resided in the living room with a worn down hoodie, a blindfold beside her, and white noise from the television or radio for roughly two months now, and had made no plans to change these habits. When she wasn't making a treacherous journey to the hospital, navigating her way about town avoiding the military, she was at home with a blindfold over her eyes. On days she makes the trip, El is brought home with a red stain around her nose and her hood is thrown down, no longer needing to conceal her identity, before she throws herself onto the couch and continues her mission: finding Max. Often, Hopper tries to get her to bed, even Joyce tries if she stays late before heading back to the Wheeler's, but their attempts are fruitless and El confines herself to the couch until exhaustion seeps into her bones. When she wakes, she finds the television and radio off and her half touched plate of waffles from supper missing.
Today, El aches. The exhaustion that seeped into her bones the night before had nested there, eyes heavy and fighting a waging war to open. Slowly, with one eye first, she takes stock of her surroundings; part of her still in fight or flight mode after her showdown with Henry. The television and radio were off, her blindfold had been placed on the round table to the righthand side of her and the accompanying lamp had been turned off. With both eyes open now, she achingly pushed herself up. It was suffocatingly quiet. Her dad, she knew was at the junkyard; bright and early every morning, hard at work building her an obstacle course to help with her training. Her mom, she realised, would be at the Wheeler's with her brothers.
She doesn't know what to do with herself. She has to keep searching for Max. She has to prepare to fight Henry - and win. But something aches in her when she tries. The void is more than just nothingness.
"Why isn't it working?" She groans, curled fists pushing against the cushioned seat in anger then tearing through her buzzed hair, steadily growing back, in desperation - the blindfold at her side discarded across the room, but better that than electrics short-circuiting or windows shattering. She can't afford to be found. Not now.
"You need a reset day," says a voice behind her. Joyce, who had entered quietly with paper bags full of food for Hopper and El, watches on almost pitifully. She quickly made herself at home in the kitchen, head peeping up and down from the counter as she caught herself in conversation with El, the clattering of dishes being heard as she started prepping.
"Reset.. day?" El asks, confused.
"You need a day off," Joyce clarifies, finding herself sitting beside El all of a sudden. Before El can interrupt, insisting that she can't, she continues, "you have been doing nothing but trying to find Max. And I know, I know, that you feel like you have to because you're the only one that can do what you do -- but you can only keep doing what you're doing if you take care of yourself."
"But what if I stop and I miss my chance?"
Something in Joyce aches when she asks that. She doesn't really have a response for it; she doesn't know if there is a time limit to finding Max. What she does know that it's been two months already and they had yielded no results.
"If you don't stop, you're just going to hurt yourself. You already are. I should have stepped in more," she says regretfully, placing a hand on El's shoulder and stroking it lovingly with her thumb.
"I didn't really let you," El says apologetically.
"I guess there isn't exactly a textbook for dealing with a superpowered daughter overusing their powers," Joyce huffs, and El suddenly meets her gaze. It sits with her, her comment about her abilities, for just a second - festers for just a moment too long. She searches Joyce for - something, she isn't exactly sure what, but she finds it when Joyce holds her gaze and within it El sees the same fierce love that she shares for her other children, and she recognises that her sentiment holds no venom or ulterior motive within it, because suddenly she feels like she is the same age she was when she escaped the lab and Joyce is holding her hand before she prepares to find Will. Everything you're doing for my boy, Joyce had said; in retrospect, El thinks that might have been when they became family.
Joyce cusps her hands. "We're gonna run into a few bumps and scrapes along the way," she says, with what feels like a twinkle in her eye.
El smiles back, glad to have been right.
"But we need to set up a - a routine or something for you. Okay?" Joyce says. “Cause I don't want to- to stop you from looking for Max, but there's got to be limits."
Compromise. Not exactly halfway happy, she doesn't think the happy part is obtainable - not until she finds Max, but a compromise nonetheless. El simply nods, and in recognising her response Joyce tightens her grip for a moment before letting go.
"God," Joyce sighs, "I must sound like your dad, huh?"
She's ordered to take a shower while breakfast is prepared, and while the exhaustion doesn't quite leave her she feels fresher than before. When she sits down at the dining table, she takes note of the hastily boarded window before her. Light doesn't seep through like it used to.
Joyce places a plate in front of her. Eggs, bacon, sausages, and waffles placed delicately to the side, with a nice cup of orange juice to accompany it.
"I cannot eat all this," says El, hesitant to pick up her cutlery. Joyce gives her a gentle smile and digs into her own. "You have to eat more than just the waffles, honey."
"No," El shakes her head, "no - I mean can we afford to eat like this? Hiding - we cannot go out for necessities that often. Hopper said it is dangerous; I have to use the tunnels to go see Max."
Joyce stops chewing and places her fork down, as if the guilt was eating her up instead. Joyce knew about these kinds of sacrifices; keeping multiples jobs and working over holidays, eating only when you needed to so you didn't cut unnecessarily into supplies and not letting your kids suffer the same responsibility, all to keep a roof over their heads and them warm and fed. But she also remembered the look on her children's faces when a bit of saving on the side from those extra hours and lost meals allowed her to indulge in their hobbies - like when she got Will an artist set for Christmas one year that had crayons and pencils and paints, and his face lit up like the lights on the tree and it was the most she had seen him smile since he and Jonathan had set up Castle Byers earlier that year. Seeing her children smile - Jonathan, Will, El - it made all the difficult moments worth it.
But she didn't really know how to tell all of that to El in so few words. It's not like she wants to place all of that on her anyway, but she wants her to know how loved she is. How she doesn't have to worry about these moments of happiness. You are allowed to have them, she thinks. She mourns.
"I'll just -- keep making the trip," she offers, as she always has done. "and besides - the foods already made. You might as well eat it."
El looks at her thoughtfully with a smile, but a knowing look rests behind it telling her to be careful. "I guess you're right," El says, digging into her food, "and it is yummy."
"Mom's are always right," she whispers like it's a secret, "and our food is always good."
El laughs with her mouth full of food, knowing that last part isn't always true from being on the receiving end of Joyce's mashed potatoes. Joyce looks on, her heart no longer aching as she feels her daughter finally - for at least a moment - shake the weight of the world off her shoulders.
When Hopper gets back about half an hour after El is finished eating, the first thing he does is scruff up El's shaven head in affectionate greeting. Then, he greets Joyce in the kitchen and steals not just a bite of her toast from her unfinished plate but a kiss from her too. El pretends not to watch, but knows she is caught when her dad is suddenly behind her, arms leaning over the back of the couch nonchalantly.
"She makes you happy," El says, without looking at him. The television is on, with reruns of a random soap drama that El had taken a liking to during her time in California, but the sound is turned down as her dad sits next to her.
"Yeah," he says, disbelief in his voice, "yeah she does."
They share a look after that, a sad smile creeping onto both their faces. And then they envelope each other, El finds herself wrapped in Hopper's arms and Hopper rests his chin on her head and they feel everything together - shock at being alive, the pure joy that comes with it but the innate sadness that sits with them at all they have lost.
"What about you, kid? You happy?" He doesn't really know why he asks, he sees the tiredness behind her eyes.
"I am tired of running," she says simply, unfolding herself from Hopper's embrace as she wipes a few stray tears, now sitting cross-legged, "I miss my friends. I miss Max. I... cannot find her still. I have been searching."
"You need to start taking it easy," he huffs.
"I know," El stops him, body contorting to point towards her mother, "me and Joyce have been talking about it."
"She does know that's my job right?" He jokes, "I'm not a dead man anymore, I can tell you off again."
El smiles and a tearful laugh escapes her, but then they're back to sitting in silence. Her chest becomes a cocoon for the weight of the words she said before. I am tired of running. Part of her knows she will never stop, even if they win. She will always have something to run from, be it the military or, if they see their wrongs and let her exist freely, the sins of her past. It was herself who ripped the inhibitor from Henry's skin, it was her who sent him away, and it was her who opened the gate. It wasn’t her fault, she knows she is not the monster- but it was her hand; she won't let herself forget that.
Her dad places a comforting hand on her knee, and she's back with him.
"You want to go the hospital then? See Max?" He asks, with a sigh, expecting her to get to her feet without hesitation.
It's a risk, Hopper notes, they had already made the journey this week once already and missing persons posters for El had started going out. There were only so many times you could sneak said missing person into a hospital. But he knew she needed Max.
"No," she says, to his surprise, "it is okay. I think - as much as I want to see her - I think there is no use me being there if I do not search. Not when it is a risk. And I won't be searching today, I need to take it easy." She chances a look at Joyce, who isn't intentionally overhearing, but smiles proudly her way.
"Okay...." He trails off, not sure what to do. "So what do you want to do?"
His eyes follow her as she makes her way to a makeshift sensory deprivation tank that had been fitted recently to assist El with her search from Max from the comfort and safety of their home. Bags of salt sat at its side and a white door haphazardly attached to the top leaned against the walls of the cabin. Hopper furrows his eyebrows, dumbfounded - didn't she just talk about resting?
Her eyes bore into the water, agitation in her gait. She wants so badly to get in and continue her search, but she knows she will be of no use right now. Instead, she grabs the door and with purpose, shuts away the temptation. El finds her way back to the couch, grabbing the remote from Hopper's side and turning the sound up on the show she was watching earlier - drowning out the guilt.
"Do you wanna turn that down?" Hopper asks, "Or off? You're gonna deafen me and for what? Some shitty Search for Tomorrow knock-off?"
"This is not bad," El challenges and Hopper lifts his hands in the air in mock defeat as she continues, "and it is my day off. I am choosing the programme."
Joyce doesn't say a word to Hopper after he wakes up with drool on his chest and El curled into his side, with a blanket draped over them both, but as soon as he sees her in the armchair to his left, she just shares a knowing grin. The television is still on in case either of them woke up and the same soap is continuing its marathon of reruns, but the sound has been turned down to lull them to sleep. Hopper huffs and tries to shake himself free from his position on the couch, lightly repositioning El to have her laying down placing a cushion beneath her head and the blanket up to her shoulders. He stretches as soon as he stands, joints cracking and a grunt leaving his mouth.
"Not a word," he says pointedly.
"You're a fan," she responds cheekily.
Hopper makes his way over to her and she stands with him; he leans down and she stands on her tiptoes and they offer each other a gentle kiss before making their way over to the small dining table in the kitchen area. "You tell El that and we're over," he says, hand resting comfortably on her back. He lets go when he takes a seat, Joyce decides not to join him, instead making a coffee for them both.
"You can tell her yourself," Joyce teases, "you missed a bunch of episodes from dozing off. You're gonna have to catch up."
At the mention, Hopper yawns and Joyce finally sits beside him. Their coffee is forgotten on one side of the table while her hands focus on finding his and squeezing them tight. A reminder, she thinks, that he is here.
"She isn't the only one," Joyce says softly, but pointedly, "you're running yourself ragged. You need to rest too."
"I gotta get this course ready for her," he reminds her.
"The course isn't going anywhere."
"She wants to kill Vecna, she's gonna have to train. She has to focus," he says, and it's all he says out loud. She has to focus elsewhere, goes unsaid. "She needs the course to do that."
On the second day, El wakes in her bed.
Years prior, when it was just her and Hopper in the cabin and she was hiding from the government then, El had dozed off to sleep in the crook of Hopper's arm. It was a moment of vulnerability, and Hopper had taken that opportunity to lift her and take her to bed to be more comfortable. El had woken almost immediately, lashing out - furniture thrown across the floor, electrics short circuiting, windows being replaced and Hopper standing in stray pieces of glass more than once. She had not wanted to be taken somewhere when she wasn't awake and aware of where she was being taken. The door to her room had been slammed shut, their throats were both hoarse from yelling, and Hopper ended the night with his head in his hands.
Last night, she had awoke to quiet mumblings between Joyce and Hopper. They hadn't moved her, and they hadn't turned the television off. Without a word, she turned it off, and tucked herself in quietly.
El thought she wouldn't mind it as much now, not if it was Hopper.
The room is empty now, barren of anything that makes it her. It feels like starting from scratch. She thinks about painting with Will and adding flowers to her wall and putting up a drawing he's made for her or framing pictures of butterflies and Ralph Macchio. She thinks about adding a mirror and painting it pink and putting a yellow throw over her bed and a blue rug on the floor and cat ornaments on the tables and a red radio so she can listen to Madonna at the highest volume. She thinks about how hardly any of these things go together but she wants to at least try - to at least figure out what she likes, what works and what doesn't, by herself.
A knock at the door startles her out of her train of thought.
"So," Joyce starts, sitting beside El once more, gesturing at an unfilled schedule with a pen, "what do you want to do?"
"I am not sure what I want," El says, and she sits with that for just a moment because she can feel there is more to it than she is prepared to unpack. "I want to find Max. I want to find Vecna. I have to save her and I have to kill him."
That is all she knows right now. She mourns the summer when Max and her suddenly became friends, and she stayed over at a friends house and tried on new clothes and lied to her dad because that's what teenage girls do. She mourns what could have been if she and Max had knew each other before then, if her childhood wasn't lost and Max lived in Hawkins. But, she supposes, that's what that summer was - that lost part of her, Max helped her find it; losing Max feels like losing it all over again, and that is why she has to find her.
She wonders for a fleeting moment, if after all this, when she has Max back, they can keep being teenagers together. If Max can show her how to skate and how to play Dig Dug and beat all the boys' high scores so their names are next to each others. If she can show her the drawing of them she did when Will was teaching her in California. Until she remembers it's lost. And she mourns all over again.
She just wants to be a kid, she realises, that is all she wants.
"Maybe every second Monday I go see Max," she decides, "I cannot go all of the time, but maybe if I am closer it will work."
She doesn't mention how it didn't work the first time she sat in the hospital bed and held Max's hand, and she certainly doesn't mention every attempt after that. She doesn't mention holding Lucas tight or having to look into his hopeful eyes after holding her hand once more only to shake her head or how the hope in his eyes dimmed each time she did.
"Do you mean every other Monday, like every two weeks or the second Monday of every month?" Joyce asks.
"Every other Monday," El clarifies, before moving swiftly on, "and then every other day I can use the tub to look or train once the course is finished. I can do days of rest in between to recharge. Like a battery."
Joyce pauses her writing, a sorrowful look being sent El's way. A battery, she thinks to herself, all sad and wistful. She does not want her daughter to think of herself as just an object, a means to end this war, when she should be out riding a bike and getting dirty when it skirts in the mud or reading one of the comics her friends showed her and acting out the poses of all her favourite superheroes. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't really know what to say - because El knows her powers better than anyone, she notes thoughtfully, so she bites her lip and continues with writing down the schedule, El at the helm.
SEPTEMBER 1986 - MONTH VI
The day ends with the slam of a door and begins again with more yelling.
"You do not think I can find Max," El says furiously, "then what is the point in any of this?"
"That's exactly my point!" He says, his voice raising into a yell as he continues.
Joyce was lucky to have missed last night's shouting match and was fortunate enough to miss round two this morning, spending her day at the Wheeler's. The cabin was empty, but tension was thick. Hopper was sat on the couch with a coffee in one hand and his nose pinched between the fingers of his other, an apoplectic El stood behind him.
"Don't you think she is worth saving?"
"That's not what I'm saying," he says defensively, turning to look at her, sharing eye contact to get his point across, "I think she can be found. Saved. Whatever. I just don't think this," he says, grabbing El's worn down blindfold and gesturing between that and the makeshift deprivation tank with a curled fist, "is the right way."
"Why not?" El asks, the rage leaving her, tiredness and sadness enveloping her query instead.
"Because it's been six months kid," he says with a sigh, and he stands up and closes the gap between them.
"Maybe I am just looking in all the wrong places," she says, as if she is to blame, and Hopper places a comforting hand on her back and brings her close.
"Maybe," he says, but not because he blames her, "maybe we just need to get closer to Vecna to get to Max. Maybe we just need to end this once and for all to get her back."
She leans into him and he presses his chin against her head. She contemplates it, because that's all she has left right now, and mentally starts preparing for training.
Training doesn't go well and nobody is safe from her wrath.
Every session she intends to shave seconds off her time. Today, she got her worst time yet. And to make matters worse, she's hiding a limp from a poorly timed jump that Hopper definitely saw. Hopper will never let her accompany him in a crawl at this rate and it makes her furious - because how else is she meant to get close to Vecna? How is she meant to end this and find Max if she cannot reach the one thing keeping them apart?
They argue again about everything and nothing and Joyce is the one who takes El back to the cabin to let things cool between them, meeting with Will at the entrance who looks at his sister sadly when his wave is ignored and she storms past him and into her room, arm gesturing wildly for just a second as the door slams shut.
Will makes his way over fifteen minutes later with a treat in hand. "You're a good kid," Joyce says with a sad wink and Will smiles softly her way before turning his attention to El's room, knocking on the door. It opens without a word, and El is sat on her bed.
"I made you the waffles you like," he says, "that triple decker extravaganza."
The smile is brought back to El's face and she motions for Will to sit next to her, so he does. "You remembered," she says fondly, wiping tears from her face.
"Of course I did," he says. "I mean, I might have got things wrong, i-it's been a while but-"
"It's perfect," El butts in, taking a bite.
They bump into each other affectionately and silence envelopes them before the air turns sour. El doesn't know why but the atmosphere has shifted. She puts the plate to one side and looks towards her brother with caution, who avoids her gaze. His eyebrows furrow - he's holding something back.
"Will?" She asks. "Is there something you want to tell me?"
"I don't -" Will starts, shakily, and El leans toward him in anticipation, "I don't feel him anymore."
"Will," is all she says, taking one hand with both of hers and placing it close to her chest. It grounds him, his breathing slows and his gaze meets hers and he nods, swallowing his fear. Their fingers intertwine, and El puts on a brave face for her brother, locked behind a false smile.
"The crawl was just to tri-angulate where Vecna might be," she ruminates, "now we will just use it to figure out if he is still alive."
"I think he is," Will states, letting go to fidget. El raises her eyebrows, waiting for him to continue. "It's not -- it's not like the feeling I always get, it's not a sensation but... something is telling me he's still alive."
"I think so too," El confesses, because he has to be.
"I don't think he would just lay down and die, he has to be hiding."
It's unfair, El thinks, how Will literally talks about the sensation of his tormentor and abductor having vanished and yet he remains on edge about his presence.
El wonders if it will always be like this; if they are left to look over their shoulder until the day they die, wondering if they can breathe without the horrors of another dimension suffocating them. She wonders if her and Will are marked for death and if they will share a tombstone. She wonders if Will could teach her more painting techniques and if they could discover more music with Jonathan and watch cartoons and sneak around while their parents try to be subtle about kissing. She wonders if they could be happy. If they could be kids.
"I will have to tell Hopper about you not feeling Vecna anymore," El says, her thoughts on her discussion with Hopper the other day about Max, "and everyone."
"I-I know," Will nods, calming himself down, "I just needed to tell you."
And El smiles, genuinely this time, because that one sentence means everything to her. It is not just trust - it is understanding. It haunts them, she thinks, but it binds them. She cusps his hands with her own and locks their finger together once more, and Will nods in knowing. It has always bound them.
With a nod she gets up to leave, before Will notices a slight limp in her walk.
"El," he starts, "your leg?"
"I am fine," she says, hastily, before sighing. She doesn't know why she is lying to him. "I twisted it a little," she confesses, "during training today. I timed my jump wrong."
"Okay well, I hope you're not planning on training on it tomorrow."
El doesn't say anything and Will looks at her pointedly, eyebrows furrowing in concern. "El," he starts.
"No," she says, even though she had, her physical training taking over her schedule, "I won't. I will rest."
Will makes her stand by that and they spend the remainder of the day on the couch together, and while El wishes she were training so she would be one step closer to finding Max part of her doesn't regret this afternoon with her brother - they sit and watch Strawberry Shortcake and Super Friends and some of El's favourite soaps with her resting her cheek against his shoulder. She thinks she doesn't regret it because she wishes it could be like this forever.
They're deep into the show's fourth season and Will lets himself up to refill the snack bowl when El listens thoughtfully into what the characters are saying.
"She doesn't need to do this for me," one character says, pleading, "or for her dad, or for anyone. She needs to do it for her."
She thinks of Max, again. She thinks about the silence she sits in with Mike. She thinks about training sessions with her dad and compares them to quiet nights in front of the television with him instead.
Not Hopper, not Mike. You.
She thinks about what she wants.
MARCH 1987 - MONTH XII
The door is open three inches.
"I'm suffocating in there," Mike complains, flopping onto the bed with a soft thud against the mattress and his head in his hands, having snuck out from an overcrowded house.
"Wasn't that your idea?" El asks, matter-of-factly.
"Well, yeah, and they're - I mean Will and Mrs Byers, they're great!" He says enthusiastically, no longer hiding his face and a lopsided grin is plastered on it. "But then you have my mom and dad - and dad is always complaining that nothing gets done and then he goes out and plays golf or watches tv. And then Nancy and Jonathan are always sneaking around and-"
Mike stops, smiling.
"Sorry," he says, no more wild gestures.
"What about Holly?" El asks. He sits up and scrunches his nose, attention on her.
"Honestly, Holly is the least of my worries right now, she just has her head in this book all the time."
And then it's silence, again.
"Mike," El starts, "I think we need to talk."
His smile falters.
"We're talking right now," he says, even though they weren't. Even though, truthfully, they hadn't been for a long time. "What are you on about?"
"I mean actually talk," El says, reaching for him but not meeting his gaze, "I have been thinking for a while."
Mike looks at El sadly as she avoids his gaze. He fixes his posture so he's facing her properly and fits his hands beneath hers - and his heart sinks.
El thinks about how she spent her days in the cabin for her safety watching soap dramas; the all consuming love between the characters and the angst of their separations, how she felt the ghost of Mike's kiss and latched onto it because that and a hand to hold was all she knew. How she needed someone when she was lost in the woods and that act of love was someone seeing her.
"I think we needed each other," El says, holding his hand.
She thinks about how it consumed them afterwards. How they kissed like they would never see each other again and shut the entire world out because of it.
"But I want to be your friend first."
Mike aches. He looks at her with furrowed brows. "But we're friends," he insists, shifting uncomfortably.
"You do not really know me, Mike," El says, but it lacks venom towards him. Instead, it is about her. "I do not really know myself, I... need to discover that. But I would like you to be there when I do."
And just like that it is over, but they begin again. El cusps his face and Mike smiles sadly, words left unsaid.
They awkwardly divert the conversation after that; Mike asks what she does like. She tells him about what her and Will had been doing when he visited, how she liked the Strawberry Shortcake cartoon he showed her and how she had taken a liking to sketching and Will was teaching her techniques, how she found a love for crafting in Lenora which helped her find a way to remember those she missed and how she wanted to make one for Max but all her time was spent searching for her. She named the soaps she always watched with Hopper, the songs she listened to on occasion with Jonathan. Mike wonders if he could show her a movie he likes - see if she likes it too - as friends, he says.
As friends, she nods, and she smiles.
"Maybe one day once we have sorted everything out," she says, "we can come back to this. Or not. But I want to learn about me, and about you, and Will, and Lucas, and Dustin. And Max - and I have to find her."
They hug when he has to leave and El whispers into his neck.
"I like being your friend either way," she says.
The cabin was suffocatingly quiet again.
It wasn't devoid of noise - the television was on and the radio was blasting tunes and the sizzling of food could be heard on one side of the room. But it was quiet. Joyce was preparing a hearty meal for them ready for Hopper's crawl tonight and El had just showered to get ready to go to training to prove she could go with him.
Hopper was already there. On crawl days, she knew he didn't want to face El.
"I don't want my hair like yours," El says abruptly. Joyce's head jerks back, distracted from her current task of setting the table. El sits in front of the television, eyes on the screen but doing anything but watching as she plays with her soaked hair from her freshly taken shower. Joyce follows her gaze and see it's some old soap drama reruns and frowns. El's favourite. She places the plates and mugs she is holding on the counter she stands before and turns the radio sitting in the corner down. Wiping her hands down on her apron, she makes her way over to where El is sat cross-legged on the couch and she gives her an odd look, feigning hurt from what could be misunderstood as an insult.
"Are my haircuts really that bad?" She says with a smile, and El laughs. "You're in luck that I've no plans to open a hair salon anytime soon. Hair By Joyce," she jokingly ponders, "could you imagine? Maybe I should workshop the name.."
El's smile widens, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. She looks down at where her hands rest against her feet, contemplating. They sit in silence for a moment before Joyce reaches for a stray strand and tucks it behind El's ears. Her hair is longer -- it doesn't quite reach the length it did in California, barely reaching her shoulders now, but she let it grow out after their return to Hawkins and the bangs had recently returned after a quiet night with Joyce sat on the couch with El on the floor between her legs and a brush in one hand and scissors to her side. El hadn't said much then.
"I just do not feel like me," she says, sparing a look between the television and Joyce, "because I look like you. And then I try to be someone I am not, like in Lenora."
"Do you want it shaved again, honey?" Joyce queries hesitantly, feeling like she knows the answer. El shakes her head quickly and Joyce shares her grimace.
"No," she stands her ground, "because then I feel like I am what the lab wants me to be."
Joyce nods but doesn't say anything more as numerous emotions befall El's face. It's hard to tell what she's thinking, but she knows El has more to say.
"It is like... my name," she begins slowly. "I am El. I do not want to be Eleven, because that is what they assigned me. But I do not think I can be Jane. That life does not belong to me anymore." It was taken from me. "So I will be somewhere in the middle."
"Meet it halfway," Joyce says softly.
"Halfway," she says with a nod, now confident in her choice, "like halfway happy."
"And if I do not like it," she continues thoughtfully, thinking of her adventures with Max in the mall - knowing she is learning these things because of her, and it gives her the courage to keep fighting and reinvigorates her need to find her, "then I will change it up. To see what I do like. Maybe I will shave it myself and put shapes in it like -- like a star. Or put pink streaks in my hair."
"I think your dad would lose his mind," Joyce retorts but El, comforted in the fact they would not take this choice from her, tearfully laughs in response. Joyce thumbs through her hair gently. "we'll figure something out, okay?" she states, and it feels like a promise.
"Okay," El says with a smile, "and maybe one day I can figure something out. Maybe I can be Jane again. Maybe I can take it back. But today I am El, and I am happy with that."
Joyce pulls her close and kisses her forehead and El holds her tight. This is the start, she thinks, to figuring things out.