Chapter Text
It was an ordinary evening in May. A normal evening in a normal life of a normal girl, which was all El ever wanted to be. From the moment she entered Nancy Wheeler’s bedroom at twelve years old and observed the intimacy of being a girl, an experience stolen from her by Brenner, she wanted that. After everything, despite the odds, she managed to find it.
She smiled down at her ring, the giddiness bubbling even after seven years of marriage. She married Mike in June of 1989, only weeks after they graduated high school. For anyone else, that would have been crazy. They'd been a unit for so long, two halves of one whole, and both knew there was never going to be anyone else. They knew they’d marry someday, so why wait? That, and Mike knew the only way Hopper would justify letting El move to Ann Arbor Michigan with him for college was if they were legally bound to each other. It may have been abnormal of her to be the only girl in her graduating class to accept her diploma with a small diamond ring on her left hand, but she could never be truly normal.
The kitchen door rattles as Mike and Violet enter, their laughter spilling over from the yard. One of the reasons they bought this house- besides that it fit within the small budget- was that they had a view of the backyard from the kitchen and living room. When they toured the house with Violet in the baby carrier, the realtor pointed out the backyard view from the kitchen. He said it would be an asset when their daughter was older. He said that it would be nice to cook dinner or put laundry away while she entertained herself in the yard. It was impossible to imagine the six month old so reliant on them for everything imaginable to be self-sufficient enough to play outside, but here they are, four years later, with a child who does entertain herself in the yard. Violet still prefers Mike to play with her once he’s home from Hawkins Middle School. This afternoon when he returned home, they resumed some imaginative game with dragons and a princess, a hybrid of stories Mike’s told her and her favorite movies.
Violet kicks her shoes off at the door and runs to her. “Mommy! Daddy picked me up and spinned me around and I got so dizzy I fell down! Did you see?”
El laughs softly and lifts her onto the wooden chair they always kept beside the counter. “I didn’t see! I was chopping up broccoli for dinner. Can you help Mommy?”
She passes Violet one of the children’s knives Will brought for her last Christmas from some fancy New York City boutique. Violet's tongue sticks out, the same way Miles does while concentrating, and she beginsto shakily chop the vegetables for dinner. A familiar awe washes over El as she watches her. How did this happen? How could that tiny thing El saw on an ultrasound become this big already? How did the small baby who cried when El left the room become someone with a favorite color? How had realizing she’d missed a period led to Violet, the most perfect mix of her and Mike, the center of their universe?
Violet wasn’t exactly planned, not an accident, but not expected. They had always assumed children would come a few years after college. So in May of Mike’s junior year, when she peed on a stick while he sat beside her on the bathroom floor, they were shocked. El would always remember looking up at her husband, her fears melting away as he cupped her cheek. Tears slipped down his face, and one hand had already moved to her still-flat stomach.
She married Mike Wheeler because there was no version of her without him, their souls connected since he found her in the woods in a yellow Benny’s shirt. Even at eighteen years old, so young in the eyes of everyone else, she knew with every fiber of her being this was the right choice. Having Violet only amplified that feeling. To raise a child with Mike, to see what their love created, to nurture and know such a wonderful child, it was more than she ever could have imagined.
Violet sneaks a glance at El, a mischievous smile gracing her face as a fork floated before her eyes. It has been happening more lately. The floating silverware, television channels flipping on her own, and lights flickering as Violet's control grew. Six months ago she levitated a cookie from the stove to her plate, confirming what Mike and El suspected since the lights flickered when she was a newborn.
El knew from the moment she found out she was pregnant. Her powers had always lived quietly beneath her skin, but this felt different. She felt in tune with her baby, her powers thrumming through her veins, connecting them even before she held their daughter in her arms. She would lay in bed at night with a hand on her growing stomach to search for that feeling. The soft hum underneath her palm would comfort her. At times, she felt as if the baby was reaching back, a way of saying that I am here.
The reveal of her powers terrified El. The choice to have a child was a risk in itself. Doctor Owens may have created her birth certificate, allowing her to build something resembling a normal world. Yet creating a new life, knowing her telekinesis could be passed down, knowing what people might do if they got their hands on that power, was something else entirely. A selfish risk, according to her sister Kali when El reached out to her through the void during her pregnancy.
But it was safe. Doctor Owens assured them again and again that El was safe, the program Brenner founded was gone, that she could no longer be a weapon. She could raise a child in a safe, happy home, where she will never be poked and prodded, put through tests, created to be a monster, a machine, not a girl. Kali argued that having a child was a chance of dooming another life to testing. She said as long as either of them lived, they’d never be safe, that cursing an innocent life was cruel.
Nothing could be cruel about life with Violet. The choice to become a mother was scary, it still was, but El would not trade any fears for anything. Sometimes, a quiet sadness for Kali would creep over her when Violet turned to her for comfort, wrapping her legs around El’s middle and clinging to her arms, as if the only thing that could calm her was her mother’s touch. Her sister severed any chance for a connection that deep. Now that she had Violet-now that she understood how deep, how primal a mother’s love could be-she could never imagine anything else. For so long, El believed she was a monster, but how could a monster ever create something as beautiful as Violet, who has powers just like she did?
The fork drops into the bowl of spaghetti, finishing her trick. “Wow Violet!” El smiles at her. “How did that one feel?”
She worries about pushing Violet too far. She will never let her feel the way she had in the lab. She will not make a machine of her daughter. She will not allow her to believe her powers were her identity, without them she would be nothing. She will not create a machine of a child. Violet is Violet. Her powers are something extra, a gift from Mommy, as she and Mike explained. A gift that was only for them, a secret nobody else could ever know.
“I brought it up then down!” Violet claps for herself. “Did you see that Daddy?”
Mike comes back from setting the table with a proud smile. He brushes a hand over El’s hip as he leans in to kiss Violet’s head. “I saw that, Vi,” he said, dishing out the spaghetti. “Let’s go sit down for dinner.”
Violet slides off her chair and hurries after Mike, her brown curls bouncing as he carries the bowls to the table. She hums to herself as she settles at the wood. El follows, drying her hands on a dish towel, watching the two of them with a quiet disbelief that this was her life. She wondered when the joy would settle, if it ever would. Four years into parenthood, and still, as Mike and Violet sat together, talking about her day at school, it didn’t feel real.
The thought of her own mama flickers through El’s mind with a quiet ache as she nods along to Violet recounting her snack time, something she had already heard when she picked her up from preschool after her shift at the library.
Her mama had never gotten to hear about El-Jane’s-day at school. She had never gotten to go at all.
Instead, she was Subject Eleven. Eleven did not get to go to school. Subject Eleven did not have a mother. She had a woman who lay nearly comatose, trapped in her own mind, still yearning for the baby that had been taken from her.
El was not her mama.
She has her baby, she reminds herself of that constantly. Their house is a mosaic of Violet. The living room doubles as her playroom, shelves lined with toys. Family photos fill the walls. Her small shoes are always left by the door. Drawings she’ds made, carefully hung and framed, cover every empty space. Everywhere El looks, there were reminders of how wonderful life has turned out to be.
“Tell Daddy what you drew today,” El says. “I think he’ll appreciate it.”
“
Yes! I showed Mommy when she got me, and she said to put it in my folder so we don’t forget it in the car, soo Mommy, can you get the folder so I can show Daddy after dinner? I drew a big, humongous, huge purple dragon and it has-"
A sharp crash splits through the house, cutting her off. El reaches for Violet’s hand as she whimpered as the front door burst open and strangers flood in.She drops to the floor as a crushing pressure arrives behind her eyes. Violet slips from her hand as she screamed, her throat tearing as it hurt so bad. She trieds to channel her powers but feels emptiness. Nothing. Useless. A sickening realization settles in that she is left powerless, defenseless, as strange men enter her home. She claws at her ears, desperate to stop this pain, her vision blurring. Violet’s purple bowl splatters to the ground as Mike pulls her into his arms. She hears yelling, unfamiliar voices mixing with the familiar pitch of Mike and Violet.
The gunshot rings out. El screeches as she watches it happen, willing time to freeze, a chance to somehow grab them and disappear somewhere safe. Mike’s body jerks, his hold on Violet tightening for a split second before he crumples to the floor. Violet falls with him, arms wrapped around his neck, her sobs growing with every passing second. A man in a suit yanks at her. El barely registered the blood soaking through Mike’s shirt onto Violet’s as his hand lost its grip on her arm. A pool of red spills onto the kitchen tile as Mike chokes out for Violet.
“Daddy! Mommy! Help me!” She shrieks. Her hands grab at her own hair, the invisible pressure hurting her just as it does El. Her face scrunches as she tries to kick him. “Mommy it hurts. Make it stop!”
El tries to crawl, desperate, determined, the instinctive need to grab her child from danger briefly overpowering whatever is happening to her. She manages to inch forward, but it is useless.
Violet's cries amplify as the man steps over Mike. She’s small in his arms, her bare feet flailing as her hands reach forwards towards her. “Mommy!” She wails, her voice piercing through El.
She kicks again, her fingers twitching before her head lolls to the side. Her limbs go slack. The sudden silence terrifies her more. At least when Violet cried out, she could hear her voice, her daughter's needs greater than any pain forced upon her.
“We’ve got the girl,” a deep voice calls out. “Let’s clear out.”
El can only watch in horror, still writhing in pain, as they step past her, ignoring her screams, and carry Violet, her baby, a piece of her, away. The horrific pulsing stops. The pressure vanishes, and it leaves something hollow, and it's almost worse because it means Violet is gone, really gone, they took her and El is still here and her daughter is gone and they ambushed them and she was supposed to be safe.
She gasps, the air tearing from her lungs, adrenaline crashing against her as reality sets in. Her daughter sat here eating spaghetti. Men in suits entered their home. They somehow suppressed her powers. They took Violet. They shot Mike.
Mike.
She drags herself towards him, hands slipping against the floor, her whole body trembling, weak and shaking as panic surges through her. Mike lays there coughing, his own eyes wide with fear, despite the gun shot in his stomach.
His body jerks with the effort as blood spreads beneath him. One hand pressed uselessly to his side, his face twisted in pain.
“El, ” he rasps. “El, they took Violet.”
She tries to move faster, but her limbs won’t cooperate, her strength gone, her body still reeling from whatever they had done to her. Pathetic. Weak. Useless.
“Mike,” Her voice cracks as she reaches for him, her hand finally finding his arm. She grabs the corner of her own shirt to hold against his stomach, desperate to do something, to not destroy her family even more. “I’m sorry,” She sobs. “I’m sorry.”
Sirens wail in the distance, growing closer, but all she can do is clutch her husband's arm. He coughs again, his pale face grimacing in pain. Her husband, who tried to save Violet, who didn’t crumble to the floor like she did, all she can do is stare at him as tears run down her face. She has to get up. She has to do something. What is there even to do? Who do you even call when you already know who stole your child? The Bad Men took her. She knows it. The Bad Men work with the government. They were watching her. They knew Violet had powers. They knew their address. They knew all this because El was not safe because to them she is Subject Eleven and her child, her whole world, is gone.
The sirens are louder, too loud, as if from the front yard. She hears footsteps, and she panics, wondering if it’s the bad men coming back to finish the job, but it’s medics with a stretcher.
They move quickly, two of them dropping to their knees beside Mike, forced calmness in their voices. “Gunshot wound,” one says. “Stay with me, sir. Can you hear me?”
Mike coughs, his body shaking as blood soaks through the fabric pressed against his stomach. His face is even paler, his lips tinged red as he tries to breathe. His eyes are unfocused, searching, and El bites back another sob as they land on her. “Violet,” he chokes. “Where is Violet?”
"Easy, okay sir?” The medic murmurs, hands moving quickly to replace El’s shaking grip with gauze. He calls out an order to the other medic, who grabs an oxygen mask for Mike.
El wraps her arms around her knees. Useless.
They lift Mike onto a stretcher. He whimpers under the oxygen mask, sounding small and fragile, and her chest tightens at how scared he sounds.
She wants to stand. She should stand. She should get up and get out the door and demand to search for Violet and be with Mike at the hospital and somehow save her daughter and fix her family. She stares at her kitchen floor, the white and yellow tile taunting her as the blood seeps through the grout. Violet’s spaghetti has stained the floor too. She will be hungry. El wonders if she should put the leftovers away for when she returns home.
Hands touch her shoulders and she flinches, but it’s too familiar. Hopper crouches beside her, his brows furrowed together, and she’s suddenly twelve years old again and the police officer who helped save Mike’s friend Will has found her in the woods.“I’m here.” The familiar gruffness of her dad’s voice almost soothes her, if only for a second. “A neighbor called it in. He said something about a loud noise, something like a gunshot. I came as soon as I got the call. Can you stand for me, El?”
She grips his arms, her legs numb. She cannot move. Her husband is being wheeled out of her home and her daughter was stolen from their home and she cannot stand. “Violet is gone,” she cries out. “They did something and then she was here and then she wasn’t and I couldn’t use my powers and my head hurt and she was crying and they shot Mike and we were just eating dinner!”
The taste of copper floods her mouth, mixing with the saltiness of her tears. She instinctively dabs at her nose, confusion flashing through her, she hadn’t even used her powers.
“The bad men took her!” she shakes, clinging to him. He helps her to her feet, his arms steadying her as her legs threaten to give out. “How are we going to get her?” She shakes in his arms. “I need to go get her. I need to make sure she comes home soon. She shouldn’t be with them. She shouldn’t be with the bad men.”
Hopper does not seem to understand the gravity of it. If he did, he’d be chasing after them, finding Violet before it gets dark. She wants to shake him, to make him understand just how serious this is. Instead, he strokes her hair.
“We will find her,” He whispers as he hugs her tightly. “I promise you. We will find her. I need you to come with me so we can get to the hospital. We're going to wait for Mike. I am going to contact Owens. I will-“
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Violet’s purple sneakers she tossed aside when she returned home this afternoon. Another wave of tears washes over her, her shoulders shaking as her legs give out again. She doesn’t have her shoes, she realizes. She flinches, picturing her daughter's small feet unprotected. She was wearing a short sleeve shirt and shorts. She will be cold and El knows they will not have a blanket for her. No shoes, no sweatshirt, no dinner.
She recalls all the times she laid in bed imagining her own Mama’s pain. She would lay beside Violet, stroking her long nose as she slept soundly, wondering how much her Mama’s hands itched to do the same. She attended Violet’s dance recital the other week, clutching Mike’s hand as tears poured down her face in pride, but also sadness, knowing how much both she and her Mama missed out on. She read to Violet, shocked they both got teary over Where The Wild Things Are, both their emotions heightened by each other's sadness. She knew her Mama never had that experience. Never did she ever imagine she would relate to her Mama in anything besides the unconditional, undying love a mother has for her child. She naively believed that would be what connected them for the remainder of their lives. As Hopper leads her out of their house, the front door broken down, she realizes just how wrong she was. El, like her Mama,now understands what it’s like to lose a child at the hands of Martin Brenner.