Chapter Text
It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon when the phone rings. Nancy puts down her book and stretches like a cat across her couch until she reaches the landline and pulls the cord almost to its entirety to bring the phone up to her ear.
“Hello?”
“Nance?”
Her stomach shrinks. “Yeah.”
“It’s Steve. Everything’s okay.”
It’s a weird way to start a conversation. At least, for most people, probably. But most people haven’t gone to other dimensions together and fought monster on and off for over four years of their lives. Most people aren’t terrified whenever the phone rings that something bad has happened again when they weren’t looking. And Steve being still in Hawkins, it sometimes feels like he stayed to keep an eye on things, their own watchman. So yeah, it’s good that he starts with that.
“Good to know,” she tries to laugh it off. “How are you?”
“Hmm good. I mean, currently drowning a little in a ton of final gradings and seriously reconsidering my life choices, but other than that, pretty good.”
She laughs. She can imagine him, in that house his parents never quite went back to and that he’s slowly been making his own. (Until he can afford his own, he always insists fiercely). The place is so different to what she remembered as a teenager. Empty space has been filled with memory. Children’s drawings on the fridge, pictures of Max’s skateboard competition framed on the walls, right next to the one of Dustin’s science fair first place. But also things of his own: a bunch of plants he’s surprisingly good with (he calls them his roommates which is only a little sad), the second place trophy from his first season as a little ligue coach, an impressive record collection handpicked between Robin and him, an antique kitchen table she helped him pick last time she visited. He’s probably sitting there right now, a mess of papers around him, one pen behind his ear (forgotten), another in his hand (with the cap half chewed).
“I thought they were all A’s,” she teases.
“Well, some of these kids are making it very hard to justify a B, let alone an A,” he sighs.
She considers telling him that he’s going about it backwards, but she suspects he already knows and doesn’t care. He’d rather pull some convoluted excuse than fail a kid.
“I swear, I’m giving up.”
“You say that every year,” she chuckles. “And then go back next September.”
He hums a laugh.
“Yeah, I guess. Can’t help it. Anyway… I’m in the middle of this shit show and already dreaming of freedom and, well, I guess I was wondering… you’ve got plans for the summer?”
“Not really. The Herald’s internship is only for the semester and then reopens next fall, so now I have to wait and see if they call me back, or if they will finally hire me full time, or if I need to get myself some other job or maybe a writing course… who knows. Right now, my plan was to just wait until after summer. And figure it out as I go.”
And isn’t that idea absolutely terrifying. Nancy Wheeler, without a plan, without a path, without the answers… without even the questions to find said answers. She feels like she’s been running her entire life to get to the finish line and now that she’s there, that she’s free, that freedom feels like a free fall. There’s no road.
“You coming home?”
Home. Hawkins. No matter how much time passes. Some roots run too deep.
“Maybe? I mean, I wanna see my parents and Holly. Mike’s got this whole, Northern European backpacking tour of his…”
“Yeah, he mentioned,” Steve says, and it’s still curious to her that he keeps in touch with her brother as well. “Something about the world’s greatest waterfalls or something. Anyway….”
Steve’s voice picks up an octave like it does when he’s nervous and that peeks her attention enough to draw her eyebrows slightly together.
“Anyway, Dustin and I had this plan to make a roadtrip. Like, big roadtrip up North all the way to Montana. See the sights, camp, maybe visit some landmarks or whatever. Lucas and Max are coming too. And we are probably meeting up with Robin and Vicky at some point along the way… So, uh, I was thinking about last year, how you said you wanted to see what’s out there, the real world or whatever, and I know you’ve done your own traveling and stuff. But, well, I thought maybe you’d like to tag along?”
When he finally stops talking he sounds almost out of breath, like he had to get it all out in a single go or he wouldn’t have a chance.
Nancy blinks, trying to process the invitation. It’s… nice. She likes that Steve remembers her comment from over a year ago, that he’s trying to give her what she wanted. Years ago, she might have doubted the apparent innocence behind the offer, but after all these years she’s learned that Steve will really be happy to just be her friend as long as she lets him.
(The door for more is always there. She hasn’t closed it. She hasn’t crossed it, either. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, she berates herself for not having the guts to. She thinks back of every moment their breaths caught, their eyes drawn to each other’s lips, how she’d known it’d only take one of them to be brave enough and cross that line for everything to explode. But it would mean risking so much… she’s not sure she’s ready to lose his friendship if it doesn’t work out, or Jonathan’s if it does, or even Robin’s if she doesn’t like the idea of them dating. She’s ran a million disaster scenarios in her head.)
“Uh, Nance?”
His anxious voice brings her back to reality. This isn’t a proposal to do… anything. Just a trip. With some of the kids.
“That’s… very sweet, Steve,” she starts, and winces because it already sounds like a negative to her own ears. “Won’t, uh, Jennifer mind?”
“Jessica,” he corrects quickly. “And, hum, I don’t think so. We broke it off like three months ago, actually.”
“You didn’t say!” She gasps, playfully appalled, while she files the information somewhere she can’t poke right now.
“There’s only so many of my break ups I can tell you guys about before it starts getting boring,” he laughs. “Or depressing. Anyway, yeah, it wasn’t like a bad break up or anything. We just wanted different things.”
Nancy hums, sympathetically.
“So… you don’t need to decide right now,” Steve offers, always giving her an out. “Just think about it. One last adventure before you settle down or something.”
“I’ll think about it. When are you guys heading out?”
“I’m picking Dustin up as soon as his classes are done. So… before that, I guess? At some point in the next two weeks would be perfect.”
“Great. I’ll, uh, let you know.”
“Of course! No pressure. Take care, Nance.”
“You too, Steve.”
The line goes dead.
Nancy stands up, hangs the phone and looks around. Her apartment is nice, if a little empty. Unlike Steve or Jonathan or even Robin, who have slowly carved spaces of their own in their respective cities, Nancy has had little patience for those little things. She approached searching herself like any project: with a plan, a set of steps, a list of clues to follow, and had given herself an entire year to discover the mystery of herself. Somehow, she still feels like she is in square one. Nothing around her really tells her who Nancy Wheeler truly is.
She goes to the kitchen, pours herself some iced tea, and sighs heavily thinking about the summer. She’s been dreading it.
A year after dropping out of college, with little to show for it except for a mediocre salary that lets her buy groceries while her father helps her pay rent (she only accepted when he swore he’d let her pay him back as soon as she can). Going back home right now feels like having to hand in an incomplete assignment. She isn’t ready for her mother’s questions, her father’s quiet judgement, her sister’s interest in a life that feels a little too vague and aimless to even explain it right now. She has a gut feeling that the moment she steps foot in that house, she’ll revert back to some version of herself (school girl, rebellious teenager, war leader). A version. An old version.
She needs something new. And ironically…
Nancy is dialing the number she knows by heart as soon as her mind is made. It rings only twice before the familiar voice greets her.
“Steve? It’s Nancy. Everything’s okay. I’m in.”