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It’d been almost ten years since she left. He could never forget that. Not when he’d been the one to create the bomb that took her away from him. From them. From her happy ending.
He remembered the weeks that followed the destruction of The Upside Down. They all tried to be subtle about it, they really did. But they forget that Mike isn’t stupid. He isn’t like those mouth breathers back in school. He knew he was on some suicide watch. Nancy would check up on him at least once a day whenever she was home — Holly would stick around him like a fly, always hovering but not enough to bother him. The group would try to avoid talking about her. Like the topic of El would make him explode in agony and pain. He wouldn’t (he would) do that.
It took him a long time to stop the nightmare, the recurring dream of her leaving, of their goodbye in the void, of her final words to him being a goodbye, how her tears seeped into their kiss and how his heart felt like shattering in his ribs. It took him even longer to tell his friends about it — the thought of her not being there makes him sick, almost impossible to even get the words out without his voice cracking or his body shaking.
His apartment glows with moonlight, the curtains doing a shitty job at keeping the light out, but at least his desk looks nice with the light spilling across it, the typewriter sparkling as the keys glare light into his eyes. Hawkins looked beautiful this time of year. The new year was two months away, and the day she’d left was next week, the snow piled across Hawkins, the winds were fierce and unwielding. It reminded Mike of her. Everything did, if you asked his friends. But whenever November came around, it got especially annoying.
Mike placed his cup of tea on the desk, the chair screeching across the wooden floor of his apartment. Glancing at the typewriter, then the frame of El right next to it, he wondered how he could give the story of the Mage and the Storyteller their happy ending — despite him being his own Storyteller not having a happy ending with his own Mage. He pressed down on the keys, the words coming out slowly, each press on the typewriter felt heavy — like it was wrong. He tossed out the paper frustrated, wondering why the hell he couldn’t just write it and get it over with.
“If only she was here.” He wondered, pushing himself off his desk to look out the window, watching the view he’d had since he moved out of parents’ place six years ago. He thought about how his mother told him to visit often, and he did, how Holly gleamed at the revelation that she’d be getting his room, how his dad (bless him for trying his best) told him that he should be exploring the world instead of sticking to little old Hawkins.
And he did. Eventually.
“You should come with us, Mike.” Lucas offered two years back, he’d declined of course.
He never accepted her death, though. He’d refuse to sit idle at any of them saying she was dead (even though they never really did, they were all on the same boat on this after all), saying she’s just gone somewhere. Somewhere far away. Far away from this place, from danger. And from him.
He remembered how he went on a trip across the country three years after moving out, he’d visited all the waterfalls in the country, taking pictures and journaling, writing little love letters to El, saying how she’d love which waterfall and why, promising to take her there in another life.
The thoughts feel heavy on his mind, the wind is soft tonight, as the lightbulb on the street flickers, the light going out for a split second before coming back to life. Mike reminisces about another universe — a universe where she never had powers and they’d grown up together, how they slowly fell in love and lived happily ever after. He never really went a day without thinking about this universe, though it usually comes at a strange time, always around nighttime, when the streets are soft, and the moon glows over the sky. Peacefully creeping into his mind, almost as if someone were putting it there…
This had been the hundredth time she’d seen him in this state, a sad, sulking state. A state she’d seen him in so much she knew what it meant even though she was never physically there to see it. He was thinking about her. About that day. She knew it too well to not notice it. The way his face physically changes to show his heartbreak. She fights with herself to not comfort him, to not hold him in her arms and tell her she’s still here, that she’s alive and near the waterfalls he so desperately wanted to show her.
She watches him walk across the void, knowing he’s off to bed when he sets his cup down, and opens his little notebook. El’s seen him write in it every day ever since she started watching him two years ago. Respecting his privacy, she never looks over and reads what he’s writing, letting her imagination run wild with possibilities.
It isn’t until he’s deep asleep does she think it’s time to stop for the day. Just as she’s about to leave, she sees him thrashing in his bed, sweat dripping down his face, flooding and creating a circle around his pillows. His hair clings onto his skin while his chest heaves. El feels her stomach fall into a pit, he rarely had nightmares nowadays. He’s shaking in his bed while El frantically comforts him, knowing her words are only floating into the abyss, never reaching him. She feels her heart break at the sight of Mike like this. In pain, and alone.
“Mike, it’s okay—“ She cries, her tears involuntarily flow down her cheeks, they’ve lost the softness they once had, a barely visible hollowness replacing it. Her hand reaches out, just a mere inch away from touching his until she remembers she can’t let him — any of them — know she’s still alive. That she’s still with them. Her hand retracts from him, the haunting feeling of knowing that she could have him back if she wanted to, but her heart weighs the consequences, the what if scenarios flood her head and she can only swallow in the urge to help him and just cry for him.
“El… please.” She hears him whisper. He’s dreaming about that day again.
“Please don’t leave me.” He begs, the same tone he did when they were in the void, when his hands held her with every bit of desperation his body could handle.
El feels her heart burn, she breathes in a sob, “Oh, Mike.” She cries, her hand covering her mouth.
“I’m right here, Mike.” She whispers, unknowing that her hand had cupped his face, wiping the tears on his face with her fingers until she processes the warmth of him on her hands.
“Oh, Mike.” She sighs, taking his hand in hers, placing it on her cheek, the warmth of his body makes it all feel so real — as if she really was there, back in Hawkins next to him.
“It’s okay, Mike. I’m right here.” Her reassurances make his eyes blink open, he doesn’t look at anything else when he sees her.
“El?” He asks, doubt and confusion is laced into his voice, the sweat glows across his forehead where the dimness of his hair contrasts with the paleness of his face.
“I’m right here. I’m here, Mike.” She cries, her head nodding while her hand sticks to his, their fingers intertwining for the first time since that fateful day.
It takes Mike less than a second of realization before his hands wrap around her. He isnt sure if he’s either truly lost it, dead and is in heaven, or if his theory was true and she was really here. He doesn’t know if she was really here, but nonetheless, he embraced her as tightly as he possibly could without hurting her.
“Did I finally die? Am I in heaven?” He asks. She’s thinner than before, her body feels smaller than he remembers (and he barely did).
“No, Mike. You’re still–” She laughs, her hands burying themselves in his hair, the hair she loved running her fingers through. Oh, how she missed it. “You’re still alive, Mike. You just had a nightmare.”
“I—“ He looks at her. Really looks at her. “I dreamt about you, El. About the—“
“About the day I left. I know, Mike.” She smiles, but not a happy smile, a sad smile, she felt miserable knowing that he’d dream about her this way.
He gets off the bed, his hands never leaving her, too terrified to let go in case she’d leave again. Like she was going to disappear into thin air the same way she did that day.
“But how— I saw—“ He sniffles, his breath is shaky, unsure and his tears left a trail down his face, “We saw you, Jesus, I can never forget that.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Mike.” Her hands cup his face, his sweet face, his eyes dont leave her, not for a single second. He knows where he is, he doesn’t need an introduction to the void that holds the memory of their goodbye.
El sighs, fixing his hair while she explains, “I just couldn’t stay there. Not in Hawkins, not in that country. I couldn’t risk it. If they knew I was—“
“If they knew you were still alive…” He continues for her, his suspicions proving to be true as she tells her story.
“They’d start looking for me again. They’d go after you, after everyone in Hawkins.” Shaking her head, she looks away pained at the thought of the military hurting any of them. “So I left.”
Mike doesn’t look to shocked at the news, it took El a bit off guard to see him oddly calm at the revelation of her survival. Almost like he knew, or had a hint that she was still alive.
“I know, El. I knew you were still alive.” He admits, his forehead pressing against hers, he lets out a sigh of relief, “Oh, thank god you’re still alive.” He sighs, pressing a kiss on her forehead.
“Mike…” She smiles at the affection she so dearly missed, “How’d you know?”
“I just— it didn’t add up, y’know? And I just felt you. Like I just knew you had to have been alive.” He explained, he sounded full of shit, he knew that much about himself, he didn’t expect her to believe him but he just felt like he had to tell her.
El laughs. She laughs amidst her tears, the admission flutters her heart. She believed him in a way. Sure, he sounded insane, but she’s been through stranger things.
The two talk, catching up in the void about how Max and Lucas got married a while ago, and moved the hell away from Hawkins but frequently visited, how Will moved to Chicago and met a guy, how Steve is still in Hawkins, teaching at the high school, how Nance and Johnathan got back together after she moved to New York, or how his books have been a successful franchise for children and young adults.
“Nancy and Johnathan broke up?” She asked, she recalled how Johnathan would ask her to ship his letters to Nancy whenever she would send hers off to Mike. She was certain those two would’ve gotten married and had a happily ever after.
Whatever that meant, anyway.
“Apparently they broke up the day it happened.”
“Wow, both Wheeler siblings single at the same time.” She jokes, but the joke doesn’t hit well with Mike.
“El…”
She looks at him, they’re sitting crisscross across each other, holding hands, “Yes?”
“I love you.”
She doesn’t speak, he’s said it as much as he could allow himself to say it during their short time together, it’s odd hearing him say it to her after almost a decade apart. El didn’t think he’d ever say it ever again. Not after what happened.
“I— I promised myself that if I ever got the chance to tell you that I loved — love you again, I’d take the chance and force the universe to pry it away from me.” He sniffles, the waterworks slowly creeping into his eyes, “El, I love you. I’ve loved you since the day we met in the rain, up until that horrible horrible day in the void, up until my dying breath. I don’t think I could ever love someone the way I love you.” He confesses, it’s a punch to the gut but he feels like he’s light as a feather, the guilt of never telling her how much he really did love her finally leaving him.
“Mike… oh, Mike.” She cries, wiping her tears before pushing herself to him. They cry together and the soft sobs muffle into their clothing, the knowing comfort that they’re both finally together again keeps them sane.
Minutes — or maybe hours, pass by since then, El dreads the fact that it’s time for him to go back, taking up too much time — and this much time — in the void exhausts her. She knows the consequences and embraces it with the fact that she finally got to touch him again.
“I have to go now.” She whispers, and Mike looks up at her almost devastated.
“What? No— it’s only been—“
“Mike. It’s been almost 3 hours. I can’t— I’m not like Superman.”
“But I just got you back, how will I know you’ll be back? What if you don’t come back? Will I ever see you again? What if—“
“Mike.” She firmly says, she gives him a reassuring smile, “Calm down, we’ll see each other soon. I promise we’ll figure it out.”
“But you can’t come to Hawkins.” The soft realization dawns on him, “El, you can’t step foot here. They might see you, and then they’ll hurt you, and I’ll actually lose you again.”
“Mike, I know. That’s why I said we’ll figure it out, okay?”
“Where are you, right now? Physically, I mean.” He asks, it doesn’t take El long to figure out why he asked. In fact, she got it the minute the question left his mouth.
“Mike.”
“No, El. I’ll go to you, okay? I’ve got the money, hell, I’ve got enough money to go back and forth for a month.” He admits, hoping the revelation would be enough for her to tell him where she is. He wonders if she’s seen any waterfalls, if he’s seen the waterfalls he’s visited or if she’s been to any countries he’d dreamt of taking her to. Mike remembers wanting to take her to Disneyland back when they were still kids, hoping the most magical place on earth would take her mind off of the fact that she was basically a fugitive.
It takes a minute before she gives in, her head lowering in defeat but there’s a small smile across her lips. “Took me a while to figure out where I was. But, I’m in Iceland.”
“Waterfalls?”
“Yep. Háifoss. There’s a town maybe ten, fifteen, minutes away from the waterfalls. It’s beautiful, Mike. Really.” She seems like she’s drifted off to reminisce about the view to tell Mike, “I’ve dreamt about showing them to you. About showing all of the waterfalls in Iceland to you.”
“Then, I guess I’ll be seeing you soon.” He grins, a smile he hadn’t felt on his face in years. “I love you, El. So much.”
“I love you, too, Mike.” She kisses him softly, their first kiss in almost ten years. It’s tender and it’s delicate, almost like they were both made of fog. He immediately melts into her touch, his hands on her neck and back while her fingers run through his hair one last time before pulling away.
“I’ll see you soon, Mike.”