Chapter Text
In a small house in the outskirts of Los Angeles, Max is making the daily call to her mother today. The phone is placed in a location that makes it so that every time she looks up, she sees the adoption certificate hanging on her wall, next to her high school diplomas. She still feels like she's about to laugh every time she sees it.
Maxine E. Mayfield, adopted by Karen Childress and Theodore Wheeler, her name after the adoption will become Maxine E. Wheeler.
She rolled her eyes and put the phone to her ear. She knew that if she didn't answer this call before going skating, Karen might kill her, or maybe Holly would never go to sleep, or Mike would call her until she went crazy.
"Mom?" Max said into the phone, before realizing what she'd said, "Shit, I meant to say Karen, I mean… You know, I don't think it matters.”
"It doesn't matter, honey," Karen said—you could hear someone, or rather Karen, struggling with someone else in the background—"I just wanted to ask how Lucas, you, and Will are doing. Are you eating well? How's college going? Mike's coming over next week to visit!"
“I know, I know, Mom, “Max sighed, she did it again, shit, and added with more sarcasm than necessary; “You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to that day.”
The only one who was really looking forward to the day was Will, probably, although Max doesn't deny that she does like Mike, she's not counting down the days until he comes to visit, nor until he's going to move in with them—a month and five days, Will had told her while making her coffee—not like Will. Lucas is excited, but not even he reaches that level.
Max hears a clicking sound on the call, and momentarily forgets that he's only calling her…mother. Her breath catches, her gaze shifting from the adoption certificate to one of the photos on the phone table. The photos from the day at the mall, the day she tried to show El that there was more to life than her stupid boyfriend or any other guy, that she could choose for herself.
She doesn't make a sound, she stops fiddling with the phone cord, she thinks she's even stopped breathing. If she stays still enough, maybe she can hear her, maybe she's still alive and will tell her where she is, maybe, just maybe, Mike's theory is right and she's finally living in peace and—
Max? Maaaaax! Max, for God's sake! Max, stop ignoring me, you idiot. Max? Are you okay? MAX!
Max jumped and put her free hand over her eyes as she felt her heart racing. Inhale, Her therapist's voice echoed in her head, exhale, she told her again while following the instructions, or rather, trying to ignore Mike even as he insisted her to answer him in his ear, and It's normal to have episodes when you hear, see, or pass by places where your trauma occurred. Her therapist’s voice reminded her. When her heart finally felt normal again, Max inhaled, mentally preparing herself to talk to Mike.
“Hello to you too, Wheeler.” Max began, Don't blame her, it's just a habit to call him that. “I thought if I stayed quiet long enough you would hang up.”
"Shut up, idiot. Are you okay?" Mike began. Max could almost see him scowl like when he does when he was worried but didn't want others to think he cared. "It seemed like...you left for a moment and—"
“I'm fine, I'm fine," She said, moving her hand to pinch the bridge of her nose while blocking out the rest of Mike's worried rambling, "Will you shut up? You're giving me a headache. Just tell me what you want me to tell Will."
"Hey, I care about you, and this is how you treat me?" Mike said, clicking his lips. Max sighed in exasperation. "Alright, Alright! Tell Will I miss him, and that I have a surprise for him when I get there. But really, I was just worried about you. I try to be a good—”
"Don't finish that sentence if you want to live to see Will when you come to visit us." Max interrupted him, in the dry tone that always made Mike think she was capable of murdering him. He swallowed and replied;
“Well, Well, Just because you've finished physical therapy doesn't mean you can murder me—”
“Do you want to check it?”
"No, thank you very much! Goodbye." She hung up before Max could say goodbye too, sighing as she put the phone back on the base.
Max walks towards the door, grabs the skateboard Lucas gave her when she finished physical therapy, with a smile so big it probably made his face hurt for hours. Maxine, I swear if you skate without a helmet and break something again, I won't come to visit you in the hospital.A voice that sounded a lot like Lucas's told her mentally, so she huffed and grabbed the damn helmet from the coat rack.
"Max!" Will shouted from the kitchen, peeking in. Max tried to focus only on his face and not think about how he trying to grow his hair out was making him look like...her. Try not to see her smile when she turns to look at him and he's smiling, she swallows hard. "Can you buy some Skittles on the way? And some…?"
"Eggos. Yes." Max said, avoiding eye contact. She grabbed her keys and unlocked the door. "Tell Sinclair to shower when he gets back from practice, and if he doesn't, he can forget about sleeping in our bed tonight."
"Okay, anything else?" Will asked. Max heard him lean against the doorframe.
“If you touch my spare skateboard to paint it without my permission, Byers, consider yourself a dead man.”
“I wasn't planning to do it.”
"Yeah, and Lucas isn't a stalker," Max said, and closed the door, hearing Will's giggles.
She put on her helmet as she dropped the skateboard to the ground, and started skating, like every night, like when she needed to disconnect, when she tried to stop thinking about dead people.
Remember when, days after they defeated Henry and she died. They told her, after she insisted on seeing her mother, that the earthquake that caused her temporary death destroyed the van they lived in, and that her mother died there. To ease the bitterness in her mouth when she remembers it, she tries to mask the memory by recalling how Karen Wheeler hugged her so tightly she probably broke her bones again, promising to adopt her and care for her as she had cared for Holly in Henry's mind, how Holly and Mike helped her prepare the guest room so she could stay there. How her bedroom window faced Lucas's and he would write her messages through the window every night.
She shakes her head when her mind tries to bring Billy back to her, promising herself that even though it's difficult and, to be honest, almost impossible, she's going to try to forget the negativity that comes with remembering him.
She couldn't help but think about her, though.
Can you blame her?
She remembers how useless she felt when she saw her standing there. As if she were accepting death, even though he could see how scared that she was there, she remembers that she didn't feel like she was there, she saw it from a third perspective, screaming to herself to try, she wanted to fucking move, to shout her name, to do something instead of just standing there uselessly, but she couldn't do anything, because by the time she regained the slightest awareness of her body, she was already gone, there was no way she could have saved her, if she hadn't been so useless, perhaps she would be by her side at this moment.
Thoughts like that make her feel like a hypocrite when she repeatedly tells Mike that it wasn't his fault, that she probably had a reason, that she wouldn’t want them to be sad and wanted them to move on, that she probably wanted them to understand why she decided that and that she wanted them to accept her decision.
Every time she said it, she heard a voice in her head, so loud it made her head hurt, saying over and over that she was a hypocrite, that she knew very well how much she blamed herself, that if only she had spoken to her that day, if only she had noticed something more, if only she could have moved.
“Shit, shit—”
She murmured as the skateboard slipped from her feet and she saw the world turn upside down until she fell to the ground, her skateboard going forward. She quickly checked if she had scraped her knee and got up to try to reach the skateboard. Then she saw it being lifted from the ground in a familiar way. She stopped approaching. The person had the skateboard against their chest. Max felt her breath catch. The person who had grabbed the skateboard approached her.
Brown hair, long past her shoulders, somewhat strange clothes that she vaguely remembers buying that day at the mall, at least some of them, hazel eyes for which she would say yes to anything that, somehow, after all, they still look innocent, and—
“Hi.” She said, with that voice Max had feared she'd forgotten, that warmth that made her feel a bonfire in her chest, the voice rasping, somewhat hoarse, probably from disuse, she mentally assumed. A voice in her head, which had stopped sounding like Billy and started to take on Mike's voice, called her an idiot and told her to reply.
“Hi.” She replied, taking her skateboard from the girl's arms.
After that, the more logical part of her head reminded her that about ten minutes ago, she had been remembering the death of this girl in front of her, who, it seemed, saw the realization on her face, because she smiled mischievously.
"Wait, wait, you…" Max sighed, "you're dead. Great, I'm hallucinating. How wonderful, I've become completely and utterly insane.”
"I'm not dead," she replied, looking down. "Do I look dead?"
"You don't look dead, but I saw you die," Max added, her brain was getting really, really good at this, "I saw you explode. Literally."
“Maybe you saw wrong.”
“Maybe I saw…?” Max frowned, the dead-not-actually-dead-perhaps woman laughed, “I didn't see wrong, I saw you explode, we all saw you explode."
"If I were dead," she said, getting so close that Max could feel her breath on her face, "could I do this?"
Before Max could answer, she felt Jane's arms wrap around her. She let go of her skateboard so fast she heard it fall to the side. Jane wrapped her arms around her, squeezing so tight it probably left marks on her back. She felt Jane's shoulders tremble. Soon after, she noticed that Jane was crying too.
"Idiot," Max said, between sobs that could have been mistaken for laughter, "You're such an Idiot.”
“Max, Max, I can't breathe,” Jane said, giggling, “Max!”
“We had a funeral for you, over a year ago, I went to your grave two weeks ago," Max said, loosening her grip as she watched Jane slip away and end up within her reach, "I just—"
“You just want to know why I did it?”
"I just want to know why you were so stupid to think that was the only solution. I don't give a damn about scientists, the government, anyone." She saw Jane smile at her again. "I know you're not stupid, but…I wouldn't have minded having to hide you for months, even one or two more years because of the government, I would have minded having you with me, that’s what that would’ve mattered.”
"I think I just needed..." Jane glances around, "...some time. But honestly, being alone sucks."
“Tell me about it.” Max snorted, making an awkward movement as if to hug her again, “Uh, can we…hug back?”
Jane barely let her answer, returning the hug immediately, before Max could explain why she wanted that hug so badly, before she could even think about it, almost as if she could read her mind, Jane says;
"I thought... I was about to forget what your hugs smelled like," Max felt her bury her face in her shoulder, "I'm sorry for... not doing anything when you came back. You were with Lucas, and Kali told me about the plan, and... I thought I didn't deserve it."
“You didn’t deserve...What?”
“To welcome you properly,” Jane seemed to be trying not to cry, “Why would I if I was going to die anyway?”
“Jane Hopper,” Max said, trying to make her voice sound as serious as possible, “if you say anything like that about yourself again, I swear to God, I'll kill you with my bare hands.”
"Okay," Jane said with a sigh, "I won't do it again, that's a promise."
"A promise, fine." Max smiled. "We should go home."
“Go home." She said, like home was something she didn't quite imagine now.
“Lucas, Will and I live near here, it's close to our university and all that,” Max murmured, “Mike is here like every couple of weeks, he and Will—”
"Him and Will?" Jane tilted her head.
“It's a long story. The short version is that they're dating now, oh, and the Wheelers adopted me.”
“The Wheelers what?”
“I know how it sounds, but I swear I get along better with Mike!”
"What?" Jane sounded incredulous, as if she didn't believe it was true. "You and Mike?"
“Oh come on, don't put it like that,” Max snorted, "we're capable of having a conversation without arguing.”
“Oh really?”
"I appreciate the faith you have in me," Max said, rolling her eyes.
The walk home was almost silent, Max almost forgot to buy the Skittles and—Eggos! Jane had said when she saw her grab the box, Are you buying them for me, or have you finally realized they're better than any other breakfast? Max nudged her with her elbow as she chuckled softly. You could hear a little of the town's chaos at dusk and little else, that was until Max thought more about the situation as she stood at the door.
"Shit," she muttered, "this only complicates things more."
“What? Jane asked, tilting her head.
"You can't just…” Max said, and stopped walking too, "appear there, Lucas and Will…they…”
"They think I'm dead," Jane said, with a kind of mix of resignation and sadness that Max hated having caused.
“They think you’re dead.” Max put her hands to her head, a habit she’d undoubtedly picked up from Lucas. Then, the idea of the year struck her. Because, well, she hadn’t had many good ideas this year, so compared to the others, this was probably the best. She had the idea of teaching a Wheeler to skate, and apparently, bad balance ran in the family. “I know what to do.”
"What are we going to do?" Jane asked as Max opened the door. "Max?"
"Talk lower," Max whispered, and leaned out the door, shouting, "Will? Lucas?"Where are you two?!”
"Lucas still hasn't come back!" Jane heard Will shout from upstairs. "I'm in my room calling for Mike! Why?"
Max put the shopping bags on the table, thinking of a quick excuse, “...’Cause I'm, I'm changing my clothes! ‘Cause, y’know, I sweat a lot while skatin’.”
“Are you naked there?” Max could Will blush with embarrassment, she glanced sideways at Jane, whose mouth was open in the shape of an O, then Will did what the not-so-shy Will of now does, “So, you're going to wait for Lucas like that, huh?”
"Is there a problem, Byers?" she replies. "Aren't you on a call with...Your boyfriend, anyways?”
“My boyfriend says you threatened him! Again!”
Max sees Jane out of the corner of her eye, point to the adoption certificate and articulate “Max Wheeler? What?”, she replies"I'll explain everything in a second."in the fastest murmur she's ever uttered. Jane reaches out to touch one of the framed photos on the telephone table, and picks it up. Max grimaces as she watches one of the mugs Holly made in her pottery class almost fall but manage to land on the edge from the table.
"Tell Wheeler that if he calls me that again, I'm going to kill him for real!" Max replies and sighs as she watches Jane approach the shopping bag and take out the box of Eggos.
“Yeah, yeah, lemme call him in peace,” Will said, laughing.
Max shook her head and ran her hand over her face, then murmured, "Jane?"
“Huh?”
“Come with me, I think I know what to do until we can explain to the boys,” Max replies, Jane smiles, "You don't mind hiding for a while, do you?”
“No,” Jane opened the Eggo box and approached the toaster, “It's not a closet, thought, is it?”
“No, no, no,” Max approached the table, “I'm not a monster! I wouldn't hide you in a closet for, like, three hours, until Lucas comes and decides to take a shower.”
“So?”
“Come with me.”
Jane grabs the waffle from the toaster and follows Max. She sees the photos in the hallway. One is of Mike and Max in orange robes. Mike has two fingers behind Max's head, and Max is crossing her arms, looking like she wants to be anywhere there. Then there's a picture of Will and Mike at a lake. Will has a notebook and seems to be drawing, while Mike's head rests on Will's shoulder. In the lake, you can see Dustin swimming to chase Lucas, who's popping out of the frame. Apparently, Max took the picture. The next photo shows Lucas in a dark blue tuxedo, dancing with Max, who's wearing a dark green tuxedo and has longer hair than she does now. They're both smiling huge smiles. Jane frowns at Max's smile and sighs.Why does she feel angry when she sees that photo? No, it's not anger, not exactly, it's also sadness; maybe she just wishes she had been there. Jane decides to ignore that feeling and stops looking at that photo, she moves on to look at a photo in which Max is with Holly, in what seems to be the Wheeler's basement, Holly is sleeping on Max's shoulder, who has her head resting on hers and is also asleep, Jane smiles at the sight.
She decides to stop focusing on the photos when she sees Max open a door and signal her to come closer.
"Where are we going?" Jane asks again, as Max takes her hands while they descend the last few steps.
"It's the basement," Max says, with sadness in her voice, which makes Jane a little worried. "Uh, I... Listen, when Hopper and Joyce moved to Montauk, we divided your things among all of us and—"
On a table, around an old television, are the many horse figurines she had in her room, a couple of the stuffed animals, and picture frames, photos that were taken around the summer when she and Max met, one of the drawings Max had made in California when Will had taught her to draw, there is also a portrait that, Jane notes, is quite new, of herself.
“Well, that,” Max sighs, “it's…it was, like our own little place to remember you, the place to come to when we missed you so much that it felt impossible to breathe or just to come and talk to you, since we had moved from Hawkins, we couldn't visit your grave as often as we wanted and—”
“Did Will do this?” Jane asks, grabbing a canvas that was lying on the table.
"Oh, that's a new one," Max said, approaching Jane.
"They are…" Jane paused, looking at the painting, "us. Wow, Will has really improved a lot, it's… beautiful."
"I know, right?" Max smiled, with that smile that made Jane's face feel hot, "it's amazing, a masterpiece, really, but he doesn't listen to us and says we only say it to flatter him."
“He’s silly,” Jane laughs., “Um, Max?”
“Yes?” Max asks, approaching the closet and taking out a couple of blankets, leaning against the sofa, “What's wrong?”
"How long do you think I should stay here?" Jane gestured toward the basement. She sat down on the part of the sofa that Max had already arranged.
"Don't worry. I'll tell them as soon as possible; I won't keep you here for too long." Max smiled in a way that made Jane forget the bad feeling in her stomach.
Someone opens the front door, Jane can hear Lucas say “I’m here! You missed me a lot, didn’t you?” Upstairs, Jane watches, frowning, as Max's face softens and she rolls her eyes affectionately.
"Sorry, you can..check out the basement, if you wanna. I need to, you know, make sure Lucas actually gets in a shower and stuff," Max said, getting up from the floor. "Just don't touch the skateboard on the wall! Will said it's still drying, and he'd kill me if I made lose all the work he spent on it.”
"Okay," Jane replied, looking down. Max stopped halfway up the stairs.
“Jane?” She says, Jane looks up, she feels like Max is trying to read her, like she always does, like she has always understood her without Jane necessarily having to explain herself. Much better than Mike ever did.
"Yes?" Jane replied, realizing she was getting lost in her own thoughts again.
“We missed you.” Max said, with a smile, that to be honest. Jane missed a lot. Much more than she missed Mike’s, than she missed Mike in general. Was that wrong, somehow? “Are you okay? You seem…thoughtful.”
“You should go with Lucas. He might get worried and come here and…”
"Hey, it's okay, I promise I'll tell them as soon as possible, okay?" Max smiled, tilting her head. "We can't have a girl as pretty as you living in our basement forever, can we? We should treat you like a princess, at least."
Jane nods with a smile that was getting bigger Judging by Max's face as Max gives a mini bow on the step, then hears Lucas calling her from above, she rolls her eyes.
“I guess I have to go” she huffs, “I'll be back in a few minutes with your dinner, is that fine with you, Princess Jane?”
"Okay, I'm not complaining, my…" Jane mentally searched for the word she always heard in princess movies.
“Knight?” Max offered.
“My knight.”
Max laughed, oh how Jane had missed that laugh , how she had missed being the one who caused it, Jane heard Lucas call Max again, Max sighed and finally started to go upstairs, but not before turning around again and saying;
"Seriously, I'll tell you as soon as possible, okay? That's a promise," Max said, and Jane still doesn't understand why that makes her feel like her face is burning hot.