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When the dust settles, Nancy takes Holly home to their big, empty house.
Mike was the last to see their parents in the hospital. Their mom is walking and talking, but it’ll be a while before she’s able to return home, he thinks. A week, or a couple of weeks—Nancy can’t remember what he’d said, if he specified a timeline at all. If he were here, she’d ask him, but he’s not; he went home with someone else tonight. It was probably Lucas or Dustin, but honestly, Nancy wasn’t keeping track. Maybe all the kids went to Lucas’ or Dustin’s, so they could spend the night together, huddled in sleeping bags on someone’s living room floor like they seemed to at every DND sleepover—but this time, not because they stayed up too late playing their game, but because their friend is dead.
Nancy steps in the front door, her hand on Holly’s shoulder. The silence that permeates the house feels out of place, and she realizes this is probably the first time it’s been completely empty since two families started sharing it over a year ago. Idly, she wonders where Jonathan, Will, and Joyce are now. She figures Joyce probably went with Hopper, and Jonathan went with Will and the kids. Probably, she thinks, everyone else banded together to share their grief as Nancy walked Holly back home alone.
The sound of their footsteps against the linoleum echoes loudly throughout the house, so it’s impossible for Nancy not to notice when Holly slows to a stop. She glances down to ask what’s wrong, only to stop when she sees Holly staring at the carpet.
The floors have obviously been cleaned since the last time either Nancy or Holly was here—although she doesn’t know by whom—and the kitchen tile is entirely spotless. But there are small, faded, dried stains on the carpet leading into the living room, and Nancy isn’t sure how they got there. They might be from the Demogorgon her mom wounded, or they might be footprints El tracked in after she followed Holly through the gate. Nancy would like to think the stains only look like blood when you know that’s what they are, but that’s probably overly optimistic.
Mom’s going to go ballistic when she sees that, Nancy thinks for a strange, instinctive moment, and once she’s actually processed the thought, she doesn’t know if it makes her want to laugh or sob.
She can’t do either of those things, though. Holly is here, and she’s safe, and that’s the most important thing right now. Nancy can hold it together for her sake, at least.
So she clears her throat and says gently, “C’mon. Let’s try and get ready for bed.”
Nancy leads Holly upstairs to the bathroom, where she hovers outside the door and listens for the faucet turning on and water hitting the bathtub tile. She stays there for a few minutes before it occurs to her that she’s being overbearing, so she decides to go back downstairs instead. Holly has to be starving, Nancy reasons, and she should probably eat, too, so she grabs some bread, peanut butter, and jelly, and makes two sandwiches. Nancy has just finished cutting them into triangles when she hears the soft pad of Holly’s footsteps echoing back down the stairs, and she looks up to see Holly standing in the entryway to the kitchen, her hair damp, and wearing a blue pajama set with long sleeves that dangle past her wrists.
For some reason, the sight of Holly standing there in her too-long pajamas makes a sudden lump appear in Nancy’s throat. Quickly, she clears it and manages, “Um, are you hungry? I made peanut butter and jelly.”
“Starving,” Holly says, and though her smile is a little tentative, it feels Nancy with relief, anyway.
Nancy and Holly eat their sandwiches at the kitchen table in silence. Holly wolfs her sandwich down eagerly, but Nancy only takes small bites at a time, the sticky wads of bread and peanut butter feeling like they’re stuck in her throat even after she’s swallowed. It isn’t until Holly pushes away her empty plate and her gaze begins to wander toward the living room carpet again that Nancy sets down the remainder of her sandwich and asks, “Ready for bed?”
Holly nods, so they both stand and return upstairs. Nancy doesn’t quite tuck Holly into bed, exactly—she hasn’t done that for Holly since she was three, and even then, it was only on nights that her mom was too busy with PTA meetings—but she does fluff her pillows and switch off the overhead light.
“Nancy?” Holly asks quietly as Nancy turns on Holly’s lamp.
Nancy pauses. “Yeah?”
Holly looks up at her. She hesitates, her mouth pulled to one side, before she asks, “Are you sure Mom and Dad are gonna be okay?”
Nancy’s chest goes tight. “Of course,” she says. “Of course they are.”
She was sure that was what Holly wanted to hear, that those words would be all it’d take to reassure her. But instead of giving Nancy a smile or some expression of relief, Holly looks away, her mouth pulling into an even deeper frown.
Nancy hesitates at the side of her bed, scrambling to think of what to do or say to fix it. “Do you…want me to stay in here with you tonight?”
It seems like a good judgment call. Holly hasn’t been back here since the night of the incident; she probably doesn’t even want to sleep alone. Of course, Nancy needs a shower and a change of clothes before she can think about sleeping anywhere—she’s still wearing her battle gear, and she’s covered in dirt and grime—but still, it’d be nice to share a room with Holly for the night. It’d be nice, she thinks, to not feel alone, for once.
But Holly shakes her head. “I’m okay.”
Nancy frowns. “Are you sure? I can—”
“I said I’m okay, Nancy,” Holly interrupts sharply.
Nancy takes an unconscious step away from the bed, blinking in surprise. Holly is staring down at her sheets, her shoulders hunched, and it’s like a sudden switch has been flipped, like this can’t possibly be the same girl who smiled tentatively at Nancy over their sandwiches just five minutes ago.
Logically, Nancy knows this isn’t that out of character. Holly has been prone to mood swings ever since the Byers moved in and their parents started fighting even more, not to mention she’s been through hell and back the past three days. More than likely, this angry response has more to do with Holly than it does with Nancy.
And yet, out of nowhere, Nancy suddenly thinks back to this past spring, when Holly had come to her with some problem at school. She can’t remember what it was now—maybe a teacher gave her a bad grade, or she got in trouble for not practicing violin at home, or something. And because their parents had been so stressed and arguing so much lately, Holly hadn’t wanted them to find out and make things at home worse, so she’d told Nancy.
Nancy isn’t sure now what she’d said in response—it’d been the morning after a crawl, and Jonathan was still silently stewing over something innocuous Steve said the night before, and Nancy was utterly exhausted—but it was probably some suggestion about asking her teacher for extra credit, and then their parents would never find out, and there’d be nothing to worry about. But for some reason, this response made Holly even more irate—she’d sulked, and when Nancy tried to say something to make it better, she’d yelled.
“You don’t get it,” she’d shouted at Nancy, her little fists clenched. “You don’t even care, all you care about is trying to sound smart!”
At the time, Nancy waved it off as her frustrated little sister acting out. Now, though, Nancy stares down at Holly and feels something tighten in her stomach—shame or hurt or maybe, finally, the loneliness she’s been trying to fight off all evening.
“Okay,” Nancy finally says. “Fine. If you’re sure.”
Holly doesn’t answer, so Nancy moves toward the door. “Night, Holly,” she says as she lingers in the bedroom doorway.
For a second, Nancy thinks Holly won’t say it back. But then, as Nancy shuts the door behind her, she hears Holly mumble, “Goodnight.”
It’s muffled into her pillow to the point that Nancy almost doesn’t hear it, but still, she tells herself that it’s at least something.
As Nancy walks back down the hall, she knows she should take a shower, too. Her face is crusted with sweat or tears or both, and she feels filthy. Instead, though, her feet carry her down the stairs and into the living room. As she sits down on the couch, she briefly entertains the idea of turning on the TV for background noise, but she never even picks up the remote. She just looks around at her big, quiet, empty house, and wonders if she’s close enough to Holly’s room that she’d be able to hear her if she called for help.
But help for what, Nancy thinks? The Upside Down is gone. The demogorgons, demodogs, and demobats are all dead. Vecna and the Mind Flayer are dead. And Holly and the rest of Nancy’s family—once her parents get out of the hospital, at least—are safe. The nightmare that has consumed her life for the past five years is over. There’s nothing for her to worry about, not anymore.
And yet, Nancy still doesn’t get up from the living room couch. She just sits and stares, and again and again, her gaze goes back to those stains on the carpet.
It’s not like Nancy wants to look at her mother’s dried blood. But it’s like a compulsion of sorts. No matter how many times she looks away, she just keeps looking back. There’s one stain in particular, the one closest to the kitchen, that inexplicably keeps catching her attention. It’s larger than the others, and the more Nancy looks at it, the more she realizes that if she tilts her head at a certain angle, the stain starts to resemble the familiar, kidney-like shape of the pool in Steve’s backyard—
The sudden knock at the door makes Nancy jump.
She has no idea what time it is. It has to be at least 2 AM, maybe later, and she can’t think of anyone who would show up at her house so late. It occurs to her that the government agents could’ve easily had second thoughts about letting them all go so easily, but just as she’s debating whether she can get away with opening her door to American soldiers with a rifle in her hands, there’s another soft tap at the door.
“Nancy?” A familiar voice says from the other side. “C’mon, it’s just us.”
Nancy blinks. Then she stands, crosses the room, and answers the door.
When Nancy thinks about it, she realizes that, despite their break-up, she probably wouldn’t have been surprised to find Jonathan standing on her doorstep in the middle of the night. This house has been his home for over a year now, after all, and if he felt like he needed to give Joyce and Hopper their space, this would be the first place he’d come to. It wouldn’t have surprised her to see Steve on her doorstep, either; it’s not like it would be totally out of character for him to make a pit stop to check in on her and Holly before heading home.
What does surprise Nancy, however, is opening the front door to see both Steve and Jonathan standing there.
“Hey,” Steve says, as though it’s completely normal for the two of them to show up on her doorstep unannounced.
Nancy stares at them. “What are you doing here?” She says automatically, and then, with a slightly irrational spike of fear, “Is everything okay?”
“What? No, no, everything’s fine,” Jonathan says. He glances around—into the house, over at Steve, and then away—before he finally says, “We just…wanted to check on you.”
To check on her. Both of them. As if that’s a completely normal course of action to take at 2 AM.
“I’m fine,” Nancy says. Her tone comes out more stiffly than she intended, but, well, there’s nothing she can do about that now.
“Okay,” Jonathan says after a beat. “Well…good.”
The three of them stand there for a moment, silent, until Steve clears his throat. “So,” he says. “Can…we come in?”
Nancy hesitates. It’s late, and Holly’s asleep—Nancy should be asleep. But the late November air is freezing, and the longer she keeps the door open, the more the cold gets in, so finally, she steps to the side.
Once they shuffle into the house, the three of them stand in the foyer for a moment, Steve and Jonathan looking awkwardly hesitant. Clearly, they didn’t plan things this far. Nancy wants to ask how they planned this at all, to ask what miracle could have possibly occurred for them to arrive at her house together without killing each other in the process. But before anyone can say anything, Steve’s eyes suddenly drift toward the same stains Nancy’s been staring at for the better part of the past hour.
“Jesus,” he mutters under his breath.
Jonathan follows his gaze before his mouth draws into a thin line, and something in his expression—in his and Steve’s expressions—makes Nancy suddenly want to snap. Because what right do they have to show up in the middle of the night without asking, and then parade their sympathy in front of her? They weren’t there that night. They were in the radio van, trying and failing to hunt down Vecna while likely arguing about something pedantic, while Nancy washed her mother’s blood off her hands in a hospital bathroom.
But they’re here now, Nancy realizes. And when she takes another look at them—a longer look, a real look—she realizes they look about as terrible as she probably does. They all could’ve died tonight—for a moment there, Steve almost did—and despite everything, maybe it makes sense that they’d both seek her out after something like that. And though a small, vengeful part of her thinks it’s too little, too late, Nancy finds she can’t quite begrudge them for it.
So, finally, Nancy blows out a breath and says, “Do either of you want something to drink?”
She makes them tea. Or, well, she boils the water for the tea. Jonathan is the one who grabs the chamomile tea bags from the pantry, well-versed in where everything’s located after a year of living here. Nancy is surprised, though, when Steve locates the mugs in the cabinet on his first try. She guesses she forgot how much time he spent here, back when they were dating.
Nancy pours the hot water into three mugs, Jonathan places the tea packets inside each one, and Steve passes the mugs around. For some reason, the situation doesn’t feel as awkward as it did when they were all lingering in the foyer. In fact, with the presence of two other people in the house, the warm mug pressed to her chest, and the drip of the leaky kitchen faucet in the background—when did that start? She should look into getting it fixed before Mom comes home—it’s easier for Nancy to fool herself into thinking that she feels better now than she did when she arrived at her dark, quiet house with Holly an hour ago.
“So,” Nancy says as she leans her back against the kitchen counter. “How’s everyone else holding up?”
Steve lets out a sigh. “Robin’s…okay, I think. I dropped her off at the radio station.”
Nancy frowns. “You didn’t stay with her?”
“For a little bit,” Steve answers. “But…Vickie was there, too, so I left.”
Nancy nods. She’d been pretty sure Robin and Vickie were together already, but Vickie’s sudden presence at the radio station, combined with Robin’s very vague excuses for her being there, pretty much confirmed it. “How about Dustin?”
Steve blows out another breath. “With the rest of the kids.” He pauses before he adds, more quietly, “I think they needed their space.”
Nancy doesn’t say anything. She tries to take a sip from her mug, but the tea is still too hot.
“Is your mom doing okay?” Nancy finally asks Jonathan, tentatively. “After…”
After we all watched El die, she can’t bring herself to say.
“Hopper’s with her,” Jonathan says, which isn’t an answer, and his voice sounds hollowed out in a way that, despite everything they’ve been through, Nancy has never heard it before. “Or, she’s with him, I guess. But…I don’t know.”
She doesn’t ask why Jonathan’s here instead of with them. Probably, he followed Joyce and Hopper back to the cabin, lingered long enough to make sure they’d be alright, and then made himself scarce when it became clear he was intruding on something private. After all, Nancy has been around the Byers family enough in the past year to know how much their dynamic has changed; while Joyce spent all her time helping El and Hopper train at the cabin, Jonathan stuck to the radio station with her, Steve, and Robin. The two of them still talked, of course, but it was mainly in passing at the Wheelers’ dinner table, or to check in on Will. Nancy doesn’t know if the change started in California or after they returned to Hawkins, but she knows without Jonathan having to tell her that he’s felt out of place in his own family for a long time.
“Okay, but,” Steve says, interrupting the silence. “How are you?”
Jonathan blinks at him. “Huh?”
“I just meant…I mean, you know, back when you lived in California…weren’t you guys…”
Steve trails off. Siblings, Nancy knows he was going to say.
Jonathan’s expression does something complicated. “I’m…” For a moment, Nancy thinks she sees his mouth tremble, but then he sighs and says, “I’m okay.”
Nancy swallows. “Jonathan…”
“I am,” Jonathan says. He shrugs and looks away. “I just…I guess I don’t really want to be alone. Right now.”
Steve lets out a wry snort. “Yeah, well. That makes two of us.”
He looks over at Nancy after he says it—like he expects her to say, Make that three, or something—but Nancy just takes another sip from her mug.
“Holly doing okay?” Jonathan asks Nancy, breaking the silence.
“Okay as she can be. She’s asleep upstairs.” She almost tells them about Holly snapping at her, but in the last moment, she decides against it and says instead, “At first I wasn’t sure I should leave her alone, but…” She shakes her head with a laugh. It’s supposed to sound wry, but somehow, it comes out a little hollow. “But I guess that’s stupid now, right? I mean…it’s over. All of it, it’s really over.”
“Yeah,” Jonathan says after a beat. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
Nancy expects to see twin expressions of relief on Jonathan and Steve’s faces—the same kind of relief she knows she should be feeling. She thought she caught a glimpse of that relief in the truck before the government agents stopped them, but right now, that feels like years ago. Maybe, though, in this moment, that feeling will finally crash over all three of them at once—maybe they’ll all laugh, or cry, or break out the rest of her mom’s wine supply while reveling in the fact that they made it out alive.
Instead, Jonathan looks over at Steve. Steve looks back. It’s hard to tell exactly what passes between their expressions, but it doesn’t matter, because in that moment, Nancy realizes almost instantly that she was right. They did plan this.
And then Jonathan says in a careful tone, “Nancy…I think we should talk about earlier.”
Nancy looks from him to Steve, whose expression gives nothing away. “What about earlier?”
Jonathan and Steve exchange another look, and it grates on Nancy’s nerves in ways she can’t explain.
“Nance,” Steve says finally, his voice low. “You nearly died.”
Nancy blinks. Whatever she was expecting, it wasn’t that. “What?”
“When you went up against the Mind Flayer,” Jonathan says. “You almost—you could’ve died, Nancy.”
And there it is.
Honestly, Nancy might’ve expected this from Jonathan. She’d seen his concern when she raised her gun and stalked toward the Mind Flayer, and he’s always been a little overly possessive. But Steve had been the one to let her go and pull Jonathan away. She’s a little surprised, honestly, to see that same concern in his expression, now.
The mug of tea in her hands that had felt so warm and comforting only a moment ago now feels stifling hot, and the closer she holds it to her body, the more it feels like that heat is pouring into her chest, seeping through her lungs and into her nerves. When she finally sets it down on the counter, it makes a sharp clack.
“So, what?” she says. “You’re here to lecture me about it?”
“No,” Jonathan says. He’s using the tone of voice he uses when he thinks he’s being patient, but it’s obvious to everyone else that he’s holding onto that patience by a thread. “No, we’re just—”
“You know what?” Nancy interrupts. “I don’t think I like this whole newfound friendship the two of you have going on. I think I preferred the dick-measuring contests.”
In any other context, it’d be a joke. But it can’t be when Nancy’s hardened her tone into something cold and cruel, and when she flicks her pointer finger from Steve to Jonathan so dismissively.
“Nance,” Steve says softly, sounding a little wounded. “Come on—”
“No, you come on,” Nancy says. “What else was I supposed to do, Steve? I don’t remember anyone else stepping forward to volunteer. And do you know what? If they had, they probably wouldn’t still be standing here. I am, and I’m fine, and if anything, you’re the one who throws yourself into harm’s way every chance you get—”
“What?” Steve says. “No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do!” Nancy cries, incredulously. “What, just because you think I’m not capable—”
“Nancy,” Jonathan says. “No one’s saying you’re not capable.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that we’re worried about you!” Jonathan bursts out. “Alright? You used yourself as bait against a giant monster, and you nearly died, and you don’t even want to talk about it! You’re acting like everything’s fine!”
“I am fine—”
“No, you’re not,” Jonathan says.
Since when do you care? Nancy wants to say. Nancy pretended things were okay between her and Jonathan for over a year, and he never said anything. Nancy pretended things were okay back when she and Steve were dating, too, and he never said anything. Both of them have always seemed so content to pretend not to notice Nancy barely holding things together. It’s a little rich, she thinks, that they’ve only decided to notice now, when Vecna is dead, the Mind Flayer is dead, everything is over, and everything is okay, everything is supposed to be okay—
“Nancy—” Steve starts.
“What?” Nancy snaps, furious and not even really sure why.
Steve raises his hands, his expression and tone placating. This isn’t unusual for him; it’s the same tone he’d use every time things between Nancy and Jonathan were even tenser than usual at the radio station. Of course, that was only on the rare occasions when Nancy wasn’t the one trying to placate Steve and Jonathan during one of their pointless arguments. There’s always been a lot of that going around between the three of them, she supposes—Jonathan used to use the same tone back in 1984 every time Nancy complained about Steve.
“Look,” Steve says now. “We didn’t come here to ambush you. Alright? We just…” He glances at Jonathan, Jonathan glances back, and Steve finishes, “Like Jonathan said, we’re just worried about you. That’s all.”
Nancy blows out a breath. She wills her racing pulse to slow down, her tone to come out quiet and even. “I know,” she finally says. “I know you are. And that’s great. But I’m trying to tell you that you don’t have to worry about me. And I can take care of myself.”
“But you don’t have to,” Steve stresses.
“Steve—”
“Nance,” Steve says. “I was terrified when I was hanging off that radio tower tonight. And that’s nothing compared to facing down some giant, crazy monster all on your own. And I just thought—” He stops, then corrects, “We just thought that…well, at the very least, you shouldn’t be alone.”
Steve sounds so genuine when he says it. His gaze practically bores into hers, and Nancy has always hated when he’d look at her like that—that open honesty and vulnerability that she’d never known what to do with.
There’s a sudden burning sensation behind her eyes, and she has to blink hard to push it down. “Look,” she says, fighting to keep her tone even again. “I appreciate that you came over. And I get it. It was a big night, and you guys were scared enough to put the dick-measuring aside and check in on me without killing each other. But like I said…I’m fine. So if that’s all you needed to hear, then—then you’re both free to go. Okay?”
Steve stares at her. In the instant that Nancy glances back at him, she sees his expression shift, revealing something like disappointment, or possibly defeat. But just as quickly, the expression is gone, easily replaced by something neutral and unaffected—the same mask he used to wear back when he was King Steve.
Jonathan’s expression is different, though. He just looks at Nancy, calculating and assessing, and says, “So, that’s it, then? You’re just going to…what? Bury it all down?”
Nancy’s eyebrows arch. “Excuse me?”
“Jonathan,” Steve starts.
“No, no,” Nancy says, anger flaring. “Go ahead. That’s why you guys are here, isn’t it?”
“Oh my God,” Jonathan says, voice seeping with frustration. “You always do this, you know that? Either you ignore a problem and hope it goes away, or you turn it into some big fight. You can’t just talk about it. You never want to talk about it.”
Nancy lets out a harsh laugh. “Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me. You want to lecture me about not being able to talk about my problems?”
“She’s kinda got a point there, Byers.”
“Steve,” Jonathan says, but as his face flushes, Nancy thinks to herself that at least he has the decency to look embarrassed. He turns back to her. “Nancy, that’s—this is different.”
“Really,” Nancy says flatly.
“Yes, really,” Jonathan says. “This is about how you—how you dive headfirst into every problem, whether it’s life or death or not, like you don’t even care.”
Something squirms in Nancy’s chest. She glances over at Steve, but he quickly looks away.
“Look,” Jonathan says, his tone softer now. “I—I know you saved our lives tonight, okay? I know no one else could’ve done it. But that doesn’t mean that we weren’t terrified watching you do it, and it doesn’t mean you have to pretend to be okay afterward.”
Nancy’s hands curl at her sides, her nails digging into her palms. She wants to tell both of them that it isn’t fair that they’ve come here tonight to project their feelings, their concerns over her life, onto her. Instead, as she fights to keep her voice cold and flat, all she says is, “I’m not pretending anything.”
“Nance,” Steve says almost gently. “You are.”
Nancy works her jaw, but she doesn’t say anything. It feels like there’s something hot boiling inside her chest, and in that moment, she vehemently wants Jonathan and Steve to be gone. She wants to be alone, just her and her empty house and all the feelings she’s been fighting down for weeks—for years—just so she can keep them all from spilling over.
“It’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it,” Steve continues.
“Steve,” Nancy warns.
“But it’s normal, when your life is in danger, to—”
“Steve—”
“I mean, hell, Nance, what if you had really died—”
“Then at least it would’ve meant something!” Nancy bursts out.
The kitchen goes dead silent. Even the leaking of the faucet has stopped, and all that’s left is Nancy, breathing hard, and Jonathan and Steve, who have gone very still.
“Nancy,” Jonathan starts.
“Stop it,” Nancy hisses. “Just stop it, you don’t—you have no idea what it’s like.”
“Nance—”
“My best friend is dead,” Nancy practically spits out. “She’s been dead for four years, and it wasn’t because of a fluke, or because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was because of me. And I can either live with that for the rest of my life, or I can—I can do something to make it matter.”
Jonathan swallows hard. “Like what?” He demands, his voice uneven. “Like get killed by some interdimensional monster?”
“I didn’t die,” Nancy mutters.
“But you could have,” Jonathan says. His voice shakes. “You just said it. And you think, what, that would’ve been fine? That would’ve made everything better?”
“That’s not what I’m saying—”
“Nancy,” Steve interrupts, his voice firm where Jonathan’s isn’t. “Look, I—I get it. Alright? I feel guilty about that night, too, but—”
“Oh, don’t,” Nancy says, suddenly furious. “You didn’t feel guilty at all. All you cared about was pretending like things were normal, like I wasn’t grieving every single day—”
“Because you weren’t talking to me!” Steve shouts. “How was I supposed to know what to do? We were teenagers, Nance. You never told me what was wrong—”
“More like you never cared enough to look—”
“Guys,” Jonathan tries to interrupt. Apparently, it’s his turn to play the placating one, now.
Steve blows out a long breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. Nancy crosses her arms, looking away from them both.
“Look,” Steve finally says, his tone quieter this time. “It doesn’t matter, alright? Nance…that night, it wasn’t your fault. And running into danger and throwing yourself at every problem that comes your way…it’s not gonna change anything. If you’d died tonight—” Steve stops suddenly, his voice cracking, and when he starts again, his voice is shaking, now, too. “Nance, do you have any idea what I—what we would’ve done if you’d—”
But Nancy is shaking her head, swallowing hard as she says, “Don’t. Please don’t try to guilt trip me about this.”
“Nancy,” Jonathan says incredulously. “This isn’t a guilt trip—this is what happens when two people fucking care about you. Is that so hard to believe?”
“Well, maybe it is!” Nancy shoots back. “Maybe dating both of you made me feel like I had to get used to thinking I had to handle everything by myself—”
“Or maybe you push everyone away before they can even try to help you—”
“Of course I do!” Nancy shouts. “Of course I fucking push everyone away! Barb died because of me. My parents ended up in the hospital because of me. And now it doesn’t even matter that Vecna and the Mind Flayer are dead and that everything’s over, because I have to live with knowing that for the rest of my life, and I can’t—”
A choked noise emerges from Nancy’s throat. She’s crying, she realizes suddenly, tears tracking down her face as her breathing comes out heavy, and she tells herself to stop it, to get it together, to push it all down like she always does, but she just—she can’t.
“Hey,” Steve says suddenly, gently, his face falling. “Hey, hey, Nance—”
He steps toward her, but Nancy steps back, sobbing out, “Stop it, don’t—”
Don’t get close, she thinks. I hurt everyone I touch, I ruin it, don’t—
“You don’t,” Jonathan says quietly, appearing beside her, his arms wrapping carefully around her waist as he pulls her into him, and that’s when she realizes she’s spoken that loud. “You don’t, Nancy. I promise, you don’t.”
Nancy’s next sob is muffled into Jonathan’s shirt, and that’s when she feels Steve’s arms come around her, too, her back settling against his chest as his chin rests on top of her head. “You don’t,” she hears him echo, the words rumbling through her chest. “We’re both right here, Nance, we’re proof that you don’t.”
Nancy’s chest hitches with another sob. “It’s okay,” says Jonathan, or Steve, or maybe both of them. “It's gonna be fine, Nancy, it's gonna be okay.”
Nancy isn’t sure that it is okay, honestly. And yet, as she presses her wet face into Jonathan’s shirt, she finally feels her breath start to even out.
“It’s never going to go away,” she says, or realizes, after several minutes. Her voice is so scratchy and hoarse, it almost hurts to speak. “It’s over, but it’s never really going to go away.”
“I know,” Jonathan says. For a moment, she swears she feels someone press a brief kiss into her hair, but it happens so quickly she isn’t sure if she just imagined it. “I know.”
And he does. So does Steve, and out of all of them, aside from maybe Robin, he’s the one who had the least amount of personal stakes in this mess, at least from the beginning. The nightmare she’s lived in for the past five years is over, and yet, everyone Nancy cares about will be marred by it forever.
And as strange as it sounds, knowing that finally makes Nancy feel just a little less alone.
At last, Nancy lifts her head from Jonathan’s shirt. She leaves a smear of snot and tears behind, and when she mutters, “Sorry,” she isn’t sure if it’s because of the stain or because of the waterworks in general.
But Steve shakes his head. “You don’t have to apologize, Nance.”
Nancy swallows and steps back, letting the circle of Jonathan’s and Steve’s arms fall around her. “I’m—um, I’m sorry about earlier, too,” she says, voice still hoarse. “I shouldn’t have…I shouldn’t have said any of that. To either of you.”
“I know,” Jonathan nods. He gives her a small, wry smile. “I’m sorry, too.”
Nancy rubs at her eyes, letting out a self-conscious laugh. “God. Sorry. This was—I really don’t know what came over me.”
Steve is frowning now. “Nancy, seriously, it’s okay. You really don’t have to apologize.”
She drops her gaze so she doesn’t have to meet Steve’s earnest expression, but the only other thing she can find to look at is her own dirty, grimy clothes. It occurs to her for the first time that Steve and Jonathan are both wearing fresh, clean outfits, and that only Nancy is still in the remainder of the battle gear she wore tonight.
She clears her throat. “I should…probably go shower and change.”
“Sure,” Jonathan says quietly, after a beat. “Right.” He glances at Steve, and then Steve glances back, the two of them sharing another silent exchange, and when their exchange is evidently finished, Jonathan says tentatively, “Do you…want us to go?”
Nancy swallows. In the silence, the emptiness of her house feels impossibly more oppressive than it did when she and Holly arrived, and despite everything she's been through—the monsters she’s battled, the fights she’s survived—the thought of facing that silence alone for the rest of the night makes her stomach feel like it’s been hollowed out.
“No,” she says at last. “I don't.”
Steve and Jonathan wait downstairs in the living room while Nancy showers. As she stands underneath the spray of hot water and watches the dirt slide down the bathroom tile, she imagines she’s washing away all the pain, too, like it’ll disappear down the drain with the rest of the grime forever. But when Nancy steps out of the shower and wipes away the fog from the bathroom mirror, she sees the same tired, haunted face staring back at her, and knows it’s all just wishful thinking.
When Nancy’s hair and teeth are brushed, and she’s changed into clean pajamas, she pads back down the stairs. For a moment, the sight of Jonathan and Steve in the living room makes her want to laugh; they’re seated at opposite sides of the couch, gazes entirely averted from each other. As though saving each other’s lives is one thing, but sharing a couch cushion is completely crossing the line.
She doesn’t laugh, though. Instead, she clears her throat and says from the bottom of the stairs, “I’m done.”
Jonathan and Steve both look up. She waits for them to stand and meet her, and when they don’t, she raises her eyebrows and says, “So…are you going to come up?”
Steve blinks, and Jonathan glances over at him, and Nancy decides she doesn’t have the patience to deal with whatever weird emotions they’re slowly processing. Instead, she just huffs and turns to march back up the stairs.
It only takes a few seconds for her to hear Jonathan and Steve’s footsteps following behind her.
In Nancy’s room, she switches on the bedside lamp. She doesn’t really need to sleep with the light on, not anymore, but after nights like tonight…well, she’s used to the habit.
The look that passes over Steve’s face as he steps inside her bedroom is complicated, Nancy thinks. It occurs to her, suddenly, that it's been a long, long time since he’s spent the night here.
“So,” Jonathan starts, standing at the edge of the bed. “Uh, how do you want…?”
There’s a moment where Steve looks over at Jonathan, quick and almost hesitant, and there’s something about that look, about what might be hidden behind it, that gives Nancy pause. But then, just as quickly, Steve turns to Nancy and shrugs, and it’s like the moment never happened at all.
“It’s up to Nance,” Steve says.
Nancy looks at Jonathan. He’s glancing between the bed, her, and Steve, and she isn’t sure if there’s a blush darkening his face, or if it’s just a trick of the light.
Regardless, for once, Nancy decides to take pity on them both. “I’ll take the middle.”
She sees Jonathan pause after she slides into bed, an unreadable expression flickering across his face. He probably never thought he’d be back inside her bedroom, either, Nancy realizes, and for a moment, her heart twists in her chest. She thinks about changing her mind—calling the whole thing off and telling them they can huddle together in blankets on the living room floor, instead—but then Jonathan swallows hard and lowers himself onto the left side of the bed, and after a moment, Steve pulls back the covers and slides in to her right.
It isn’t until they’re all lying under the sheets that Nancy realizes this bed was absolutely not designed for three people. The only way they can all comfortably fit is if they lie on their sides, so they all turn onto their left, Steve staring at Nancy’s back, Nancy staring at Jonathan’s, and Jonathan staring at the bedroom wall. She hears Steve shuffling around behind her, like he’s trying to figure out where to put his arms and hands, and when his palm briefly settles against her hip, he jerks it back and mutters, “Shit, sorry.”
Nancy swallows. “It’s fine.”
She hears Steve swallow, too. “You’re sure this is okay?”
Nancy blows out a breath, letting her eyes close. Hawkins has always been a quiet town—well, except for when it isn’t—but tonight, it feels even quieter. She doesn’t hear a single cricket or frog outside her window, doesn’t see a single sweep of car headlights passing by. It’s like the rest of the world has stopped or faded away, and all that’s left is her, Jonathan, and Steve, huddled together in her bed.
“Yeah,” she answers finally. “It’s okay.”
The room descends into silence again. She can feel Steve’s gentle breath against the back of her neck, see the steady rise and fall of Jonathan’s chest as he breathes, and for the first time all night, Nancy finally feels some vital piece of her settle.
“Thank you,” she says after a moment.
In front of her, Jonathan rolls over to face her—as much as he can in this bed, at least—a question in his eyes.
Nancy swallows again and clarifies, “For checking on me tonight.”
Jonathan’s gaze tracks steadily across her face. “Yeah,” he says finally, his voice soft and careful. “Of course.”
He says it like it’s nothing; like it’s a given that he and Steve would’ve come over regardless. But the thing is, Nancy means it.
It’s a little funny; she and Jonathan are broken up now. She and Steve have been broken up for years. It should feel strange, honestly, for Nancy to realize that these are probably the only two people in the world she would want with her on a night like this.
It doesn’t, though. As Jonathan rolls back over and Nancy closes her eyes, listening to the even, gentle sound of Jonathan and Steve’s combined breathing…
Well, somehow, it doesn’t feel strange at all.