Work Text:
11 seconds after the gate closed.
“Where did she go?!” Dr. Kay shrieked. “Where is she?!”
No!
If tears were streaming down his face, Mike didn’t know. It was much too difficult to feel anything but the void she left behind after that goodbye.
She can’t be really gone! She can’t just leave me like this.
He succumbed to the weight of the numbness growing within him.
Why did he have to be the one to lose her every time?
.
.
.
.
Three days after the gate closed.
“She made her choice”, Hopper spat at Dr. Kay. They can interrogate them for another three days and that answer would not change.
“Stop lying!” Dr. Kay pounded the table.
Hopper let out a cruel laugh. Yet somehow, tears freely flowed.
She deserved so much more.
.
.
.
.
One week after the gate closed.
“Where. Is. Eight!” Dr. Kay continued the tirade she began a week ago.
“How many times do I have to tell you that she is dead before you believe me!” Murray Bauman replied.
“Until you tell me the truth.”
“Your minions shot her dead in the lab in Upside down. Maybe you should have told them to be a little light handed with the ammo,” he scowled at her. She left.
“She was a good kid,” he ended in a whisper.
.
.
.
.
Three weeks after the gate closed.
“Let. The kids. Go!” Steve Harrington stared down Dr. Kay in response to the only question he was asked. Where is Eleven?
He did not want to say it aloud. Because that would be accepting it. Steve couldn't.
“I will do as I see fit.” Dr. Kay gritted her teeth.
Steve could only hope that the little ones were safe. He lost one of his nuggets. He didn't want to lose anymore.
.
.
.
.
Five weeks after the gate closed.
The cell was cold. If Will’s connection to Vecna and the Mind flayer had not been cut off, he would have believed that the monster would have liked it. He only hoped the kids were not kept like this.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked Dr. Kay the next time she visited. It was becoming more and more difficult to tell time here in isolation.
She never responded. Only asked the one question - “Where is Eleven, Mr. Byers?”
“Let the kids go,” Will appealed again. “They have been through enough.”
“Where is Eleven?”
“Gone,” his voice broke once more.
.
.
.
.
Seven weeks after the gate closed.
“Dr. Kay. There are no temporospacial signatures of the portal anywhere in Hawkins ma’am.” He looked like a scientist.
“That is impossible,” she scowled. Maybe she didn't understand science.
“His findings make sense, actually,” Mr. Clarke felt compelled to speak. He had been thinking a lot about everything that has transpired. Courtesy of one Erica Sinclair. “We destroyed the Bridge, the wormhole, between Earth and wherever the monster was.”
Abyss, his mind desperately corrected.
“What do you mean?”
“Whatever temporospatial readings you recorded at these ‘gates’ as you call them, these were unstable portals into the wormhole itself that were created to join the Abyss to Earth. Since Henry Creel is dead and the wormhole has collapsed, there is no reason for the disturbances to exist anymore. Hence no readings.”
From the set of her mouth it was evident that Dr. Kay was not happy about this.
“Find the girl. Check every damn bolthole these people have. She will be in one place or another. Take the Hedgehogs with you.”
Scott Clarke had so many questions for that girl. El. But even he could see that they were better left unanswered.
.
.
.
.
Nine weeks after the gate closed.
“It has been over two months. How long are you going to keep us here,” Dustin’s yell reached Lucas as the silhouette of Dr. Kay reached the end of their corridor.
There was no answer to where El was. But Dr. Kay did not like that.
“She doesn’t believe us. What more can we say?!” Lucas said dimly from his own cell. He was not really sure if his voice would have reached Dustin anyway.
“They have kept us close-by atleast,” Robin’s voice came from another direction. “I haven’t seen the others in a while.”
“We have to find a way to get out,” Dustin said again.
“How?” Lucas asked. Then again, Dustin might be the only one who could figure a way out.
.
.
.
.
Eleven weeks after the gate closed.
What is one more punch to the face from a guard for insubordination if it allowed Dustin a trip to the medical bay. At the very least, he was sure they would not kill any of them. They all wanted answers from them, which meant that their lives held value.
He really wished El was here, though. She would have saved their butts like always. But then again, if she was here, there was no telling what Dr. Kay's goals were with her.
“What the hell is this Dustin!” Vicky chided as she cleaned him up.
Time to get this show on the road. Dustin eyed Max sitting in the back. She narrowed her eyes.
He knew that she would understand why he was here. His eyes darted to the guard and his radio and then back to Max with a raised brow. Vicky passively observed the interaction.
Two nods.
Vicky sent the guard off to get more gauze. Max’s wheelchair hit him right on time to slip away his radio. They had a couple of minutes, maximum. Dustin had one chance to get this right.
“Suzie, do you copy?”
“Dusty-bun?”
Hope.
.
.
.
.
Thirteen weeks after the gate closed.
“How the hell did this ‘journalist’ find out we have them here?” Dr. Kay seethed. “Who did you tell!”
Another round of interrogations. Nancy was becoming more and more frustrated by the day. “I didn’t tell anyone. You have had me bound here!” she grunted for the last time.
"Not good enough."
Nancy knew. Otherwise she would have known what El was going to do.
.
.
.
.
Fifteen weeks after the gate closed.
“There is no way you can keep us locked in here anymore,” Jonathan said. “You cannot hide from the people anymore Dr. Kay.”
Dr. Kay seethed in fury as she interrogated him once more. “You are the only one with the means to leak the information! Tell me, where is Eleven?”
“And how would he even have done that with the dozen guards you keep posted on us daily?” Joyce spoke finally. Kay just glared.
“God knows you are responsible for taking my Jane away from me, and then you stashed my boy in one of your isolation cells. Now you think Jonathan has leaked what’s going in here to the press? You are grasping at straws.”
“Let. Us. Go,” Jonathan repeated. “Let us go before the people swarm this base.”
Joyce almost wished they would.
.
.
.
.
Seventeen weeks after the gate closed.
“Thirteen!?” The bearded asshole who opened the door moments ago, shouted at Dr. Kay as soon as he took one look at them.
It was more than embarrassing to be jailed with ten year olds for seventeen weeks, but something about this man’s tone told Erica this might be the last of it.
“You have held thirteen kids in the base for more than four months. Do you have any idea what this will do to the Governer?”
“General Mattias-” the old bitch began, but she was interrupted.
“Get them to their families. Now,” the general gritted his teeth.
“But the girl-”
“What reason do you have to believe she is alive? Every single person you interrogated has confirmed she is dead.”
“No. The boy knows,” Dr. Kay stood her ground, “I can test-
“You cannot narco-test a sixteen year old like the adults,” he said. There was a tone of finality in his voice. “Release them. Now.” He left.
Erica crossed her arms and walked up to the door. "About damn time."
.
.
.
.
Eighteen weeks after the gate closed.
Military trucks kicked off too much dirt into the air as they drove away.
El isn’t here.
The mayor already seemed to have his hands full with the repairs that Hawkins needed.
El isn’t here.
School. Classes. Exams. Graduation.
El isn’t here.
Mike decided he would wait.
.
.
.
.
A decade or so after the gate closed.
The storyteller kept up his work. He was good at it. He was content. The mage was his audience's favorite. Her adventures were now immortalised in his books. She was always with him, as she promised. Their names were spoken in tandem.
Once in a while, he took a reprieve. A solo-trip, backpacking somewhere in the world, in search of a new waterfall every time.
A knock on his cabin door. Mike answered.
Warm brown eyes met his, and everything seemed all too familiar suddenly. She was soaked to the bone in the downpour. His heart almost stopped beating.
“Hi, I seem to have gotten lost in the woods,” she said.
“I hope you didn’t run into any trouble,” he replied.
“Not anymore,” she said as she made her way in.
“I never asked for your name,” he stood by.
“El.” His heart skipped another beat. “Short for Eleanor.”
“I’m Mike. Short for Michael.”
She smiled.
~