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2009
"She…she almost drowned the cat, Mike," Will sobs, clutching the wet and distressed kitten to his chest. The sound of his crying echoes in the closed space of the car. "How could this happen?"
"I don't know," Mike answers honestly and stares at the lit window in the second story of their home, their daughter's room.
"She's not getting better. It's worse, Mike, ten times worse and God, the look on her face. She was enjoying it." It comes out as a whisper, like he's afraid someone else would hear him say this grave sin, like he can't quite believe what he saw. But it's true, it's what happened and Mike had seen it, too.
Mike had been the one to wrench the cat out of her hands and the water and given it to Will. Mike had been the one to ask her, quite petrified, what the hell she was thinking. And she had exploded at them, like she usually did, screaming like she was possessed and tried to grab the cat again from Will's hands but Mike shielded both his husband and cat.
Was she? Possessed? Mike always wonders.
"We can't keep the cat," Mike says after a long silence. She's set on killing the helpless creature. Mike and Will got it because they thought it would help her develop empathy, but she is apparently so beyond that point. Absolutely fuck the psychologist who recommended this. Now they have a traumatized animal in their hands, a daughter crazed with an anger that Mike doesn't understand where it comes from or why, and yet another memory for them of their daughter doing something awful.
"What are we going to do? Walk into a shelter and say hey here's this kitten our daughter tried to drown?" Will kisses the kitten's head and cuddles it close to him. The cat, thankfully, seems okay with the affection from Will and has yet to lash out.
"Katie, you know how she loves cats. I'll ask her." Mike probably won't have to explain much to Katie. She's been his assistant for years now, she has witnessed more than a fair share of Cassandra's many, many outbursts and even if she doesn't know half of it, it doesn't take a genius to know something was…not right. Mike and Will have certainly known since she was a toddler, even if it had taken them a long time to admit it. They haven't accepted it yet. Who could ever accept something like this?
"I don't think I can go back inside the house tonight, Mike."
"Me neither."
It's probably not the best course of action, considering what has happened. Their daughter is only fourteen and God knows what she could be doing in that house and she has in the past destroyed things to hurt them. But they are only human and they are confused and scared and, like everything to do with Cassandra, they don't know what to do.
They stay in the car until the wee hours of the morning.
1997
"Does this look okay? Mike extends his arms to his sides to show Will what he's wearing. "Is it…do I look like someone trying to be an adult? Won't they hate it?"
In this light, wearing that sweater, Mike looks so much like the teenager who put together crawls using D and D figurines and Will can't help but laugh. It's been a decade, and Mike looks different but in his heart, he still holds that quality to him that made it impossible for Will to move on.
"Don't laugh at me, love, this is serious!"
"She's ours already, Mike, we don't have to impress anyone. In fact, we have to be ourselves." He gets up on his knees on the bed and beckons Mike to him. "And we aren't trying to be adults. We are adults. We have jobs, and goldfish, and very good connections in the government."
"Owens, what a man!"
Will giggles and kisses Mike. "Trust me, they can't take this back just because they don't like your sweater."
"So you agree? They'll hate it?" Mike jokes and goes for another kiss.
"Well, I love it. Love that you keep it, after all these years, even if it's a little tighter now." Will lets his hand wander down Mike's toned stomach. This is the same sweater Mike was wearing for their first kiss…and also their first time, which happened that very same night. Will wears it more often than Mike does, to be honest, but Mike dons it on when he wants to feel safe.
"Let's go meet our daughter," he says and kisses Will's cheek. He drags him out of the bed and out the door and goes over the speed limit so many times but he's excited and so is Will. It sucks that they can't be married yet but they can have a family, with a little help from government friends that cushion the worst parts of the process for same-sex couples.
They survived the worst kind of horrors, Will especially. They fought and won and also lost and grieved. So now after everything they are awarded this and it seems like a good pay off, a full family of three. They only have a picture of her, taken when she was one and a half years old and she is now two years old, and she's beautiful. She's blonde and her eyes are bright blue and she's serious in the picture, but they know she probably has the most beautiful laugh in the world.
They've decided to name her Cassie — Cassandra Hope Wheeler.
They're lucky.
2010
"I hoped it didn't have to come like this but we've exhausted all other alternatives. Cassandra, you're expelled."
"Oh my God," Will says into his hands. Next to him, Mike rubs his back and he is stunned into silence. Their daughter sits as far away from them as possible and they can't bring themselves to get closer to her.
"WHAT!" Cassandra loudly exclaims and for the first time looks to them as if waiting for them to do something. It isn't a pleading look, the sort a child in trouble gives their parents. It was demanding, annoyed.
"I'm very sorry," the Principal continues, completely ignoring Cassandra's outburst. "I did all I could but the board is horrified and frankly, so am I. We tried everything, we were very understanding for so long, but this truly crossed a line."
"This is bullshit! I didn't do anything to her, she's such a bitch!"
"Cassandra, you lured a student into the school basement and pulled a knife on her and you cut her! Does that sound like anything to you?" The principal sounds scandalized and in his eyes, there's fear. Will knows fear, he can recognize everywhere. He lived in fear as a teenager and now as an adult he's come to fear his daughter.
She really had done that. She lured a student, a student she spent weeks befriending, into a deserted dark place and pulled a knife on her. The poor girl had cried her eyes out and screamed until her throat went raw while Cassandra circled and taunted her. Thankfully, a janitor who needed a restock of cleaning supplies had gone down to the basement and heard the screams.
"It was a stupid prank and it got out of control, okay? It's Halloween, everyone in school is doing Halloween pranks. I'll apologize." Will can tell she is trying to sound remorseful, but it comes out like a badly rehearsed line, robotic-like and not an ounce of truth behind it.
"The decision has been made. The family won't be pressing charges, to avoid further scandal," he informs them.
"Do something!" She tells them, setting her furious eyes on her dejected parents who can't even look at her.
"You heard him," Mike says and he squeezes Will's shoulder, looking for an anchor. "The decision is final. Go wait outside, and leave your bag. We'll take it to you." Will's hand covers Mike's hand on his shoulder. He knows why he added that last part. Last time they told her to wait by the car she plunged a knife in one of the tires and took off by herself and didn't show up until the next day.
She huffs and throws one last nasty thing to say to the principal and stomps off. The door slams so hard that Will fears the glass window in it could break but it just rattles and echoes in the silence. Mike squeezes his shoulder one more time.
"We are so sorry. For what happened, for everything," Mike tells the principal. Someone has to apologize sincerely, and they know their daughter is incapable of that and even less now that she has been expelled.
"We appreciate you trying to help," Will adds and with that they get up and leave the school.
In the car, after fifteen minutes of stifling silence, Mike asks, "Why would you cut her? How could you do that?" Will wants to ask how it was possible that she not only thought of this whole plan but actually went ahead with it, but he stays quiet.
"It was an accident. The knife slipped." She sounds bored, like she's had enough of this and wanted to find something else that tickled her brain. Mike and Will don't share the same feeling. Mike swerves the car and pulls to a stop on the side of the road. His fury is barely contained.
"Do you think we're stupid? Your knife slipped on her arm? You almost sliced her veins. I don't fucking believe you. I think you meant to harm her, Cassandra." She is not Cassie, not anymore. They haven't called her Cassie in two years.
Truth be told, Will thinks she meant to kill the girl. But he says nothing. He'll tell Mike all his grievances later, locked inside their room. They never leave their room unlocked anymore, and it's been a while now that they stopped feeling guilty about it, not when at the worst of their fights over her transgressions, the doorknob will rattle angrily in the night.
"Well if I'm such a fucking psycho then she is lucky it was her arm and not her throat."
Mike closes his eyes, all the fight leaves his body and he leans his forehead against the steering wheel. He admires Mike, he always has, but this has made him admire him even more. Where Will reacts with horror and despair to his daughter's doings, Mike always shows himself calmer, even when he's as horrified as Will is. But it seems like today finally put an end to his calm reactions, the dam had broken and they were in an active flood.
"We're taking away all your electronics, of course," Will fills in after Mike tries but fails to put words together. It will take them a couple of days to figure out an alternate school and schedule extra sessions with her psychiatrist even though that doesn't seem to be working. Nothing has worked, it just gets worse and worse and worse.
2005
She has just turned ten when Will and Mike can't look the other way anymore. They can no longer pretend she's just a difficult child, that it was a bad day, that it’s difficult being adopted, or that she is a bullied kid for her gay parents. There is a cruelty to her that made Will's skin crawl, reminiscent of what he felt when something related to Henry or the Upside Down got too close to him. And isn't that an awful thing? His daughter, what should be his greatest joy, makes him react as he had when faced with his biggest trauma.
He and Mike have been married for a few months now and he wishes the memory of the day only consisted of happy and wholesome moments, but as it turns out he nor Mike get that luxury. Cassie had had one of her tantrums the night before the wedding, and in a fit of rage she'd locked herself in their room and took scissors to their suits. He and Mike had spent months choosing the perfect suits for their big day, and in a matter of minutes she had turned that dream to shreds. They bought replacement plain suits the morning of and spent the reception trying not to show their iciness toward their daughter.
Since then it never got any better. It escalated until the point they are called almost weekly to the principal's office to discuss Cassie's declining grades or concerning behavior or notify them that there have been complaints from the families. It becomes so frequent that at some point they have stopped feeling shame and morphed into feeling nothing at all. Numb, that's how they feel in each of those meetings.
The worry is always there, of course. Sometimes, when it's just them and when it has been a particularly trying day and it's late at night, they will admit to each other that they also feel annoyed, that sometimes it feels like loving her is a chore.
They cry after.
"I wonder if this is how my parents felt when I was a nightmare in school the year after you went missing," Mike says while playing with fingers. At least their relationship, their love, has not dwindled with the circumstances. There's always that.
They are waiting for her to wash up so they can have yet another talk, and she's taking her sweet time.
"Did you ever tell Mr. Kowalksi you hoped the school would one day burn with him in it?"
"Can't say I did."
"Do you ever," Will starts but stops himself. He can't believe he's even thinking about it. He can't believe he almost said it out loud. It's horrifying and true but if he says it, he can't ever take it back.
"Do I ever?" Mike pulls him closer, and Will slumps into him. Maybe if he finally says it, his tongue will stop itching and his head will no longer feel like lead.
"Think of Henry. When she…does things." Like what she did to their suits last year, and what she did to Will's painting last week. They way she terrorizes her teachers and classmates and how she hates animals. She is unresponsive to therapy, unresponsive to their attempts to make her feel special and loved. The only thing that seems to bring a spark in her eye is violence and terror and control.
"Sometimes," Mike says and Will breathes a sigh of relief. He's not the only one. Mike thinks so too. "I can't help but think of Eleven also. If Cassie had powers, I'm sure we'd have a trail of blood following us."
"E-Eleven?" Will doesn't understand why he stutters. The thought has crossed his mind, but up to that point he had the full intention of never saying it and taking it to his grave. Not anymore. In California, he had seen many tantrums and he remembers thinking they were lucky she didn't have powers back then, otherwise the house would have come down on top of them.
"I still have nightmares about Rink-O-Mania. All I see is blood and hear that girl's screams," Mike confesses. "I keep thinking, you know, what if one day Cassie does something like that? What if she reacts like…like it's nothing. What if she does something worse than that. What do we do then, baby?"
"I don't know," Will lies. Mike knows it's a lie, but they've been truthful enough for a single night.
2011
The call to Owens destroys something in them. It's the last morsel of hope they had left, now ripped to shreds by the discovery that makes this all very clear. It will never go away, it will never get better and if they don't do something now they'll live with an even bigger pit in their souls, worse than the one that's opening up now.
"Forward it to me. All of it," Sam says. There's an apology in his voice. "I'll head down there. See you in a few hours."
"You don't have to come," Will rushes to say. He's elderly now, fast approaching his eighties, if he’s not there already. "Just send a team. You can help us that way, make it easy. Quiet."
"I have something else to discuss with you." The line goes dead. Across from him, sitting at their kitchen table, Mike downs his whisky. His hands shake as he puts down the glass and reaches for the bottle once more. It would be his second and it's only ten in the morning, but Will doesn't begrudge him for it. If he didn't feel as nauseous as he does now, he'd ask Mike to pour him one too.
"Will, I swear, if that man comes here and tells us a demogorgon has popped up after all these years…"
"Maybe they discovered she's Henry's granddaughter or the antichrist." God, at what point did it become so bad he's talking like this about his daughter? He doesn't know if they failed so badly at raising her right or if she's simply this way naturally but he still loves her. He does love her but he can't deny that he's also repulsed by her.
He reaches for his laptop and gets to work.
She'd been smart with this. Will and Mike had no idea about these hidden folders and programs until Dustin casually said it during one of their phone calls and when he had the blood in their veins turned to ice. Sure enough, she has them. And in it she details everything. Every appalling thought, every twisted feeling, so many disturbing photos that make Will want to bleach his eyes which is a feat of itself, since he'd seen the horrors of the Upside Down.
And there's also her master plan…and a manifesto that comes with it. Hundreds of back-and-forth messages with her would-be victim. The victim she'd been preparing for almost an entire year.
You're so lucky you have normal parents. A real family.
I'm glad I met you. Someone normal in a sea of freaks.
I don't understand why the government would give a child to degenerates. I know it's not right.
My fag parents would never let me go to church. Don't tell anyone but I overheard they were once involved in satanic stuff.
I want to be saved so bad. I hate my life. I hate that I'm stuck with them.
Would you help me?
I've been thinking…I have a plan to leave. Go to you.
Go to her. To kill her. To lure her deep into the woods and tie her to a tree so she could torture the girl for hours, make her think she was sent by her – what is it that she called them – fag parents to fulfill her satanic initiation that requires a sacrifice in the form of a devoted girl. She’d planned to stab the girl and keep the tally on the bark of the same tree she’d be tied to.
She has a script.
Will sends everything to Owens. He doesn't skip one thing. And when he does arrive at their home, he's white as a sheet and that's when Will knows they've made the right decision.
"I was planning to contact you, but you got ahead of me."
"You knew about Cassandra?" Mike asks, incredulous. Will feels the same way. If they knew…
"No, no," Owens assures them with a shake of his head. "We knew she was troubled but…this is a surprise for me, too. Most times, a loving home and professional guidance are enough to contain these situations. I'm sorry I was wrong. I'm sorry it wasn't that way with Cassandra."
Under the table, Mike and Will clutch hands. It's all they can't do not to cry in front of Owens and his team.
"But listen to me, you had nothing to do with this," Owens tells them. "Feeling guilty is inevitable but trust me when I say you two have no responsibility in this. You have tried and tried and Cassandra, it's just the way she is. It would have been the same if she had other parents, or if she was to remain in the system. So I want you to keep that in mind for what I'm about to tell you." He slides a file across the dining table.
"What are we looking at, exactly?" Mike is cautious. He, like Will, has learned to associate these brown thick folders that this particular branch of government issues with Upside Down matters.
"A couple of weeks ago, we came across a secret operation that has been standing since 1987, possibly longer.
"No," Will says under his breath but it doesn't stop Owens.
"It's a derivative of one of the research operations that Dr. Kay had in her lab in the Upside Down. One no one, not me, not Dr. Kay or anyone who came after her had any idea of. Maybe Martin did, but many secrets died with him in ‘85. And apparently we have uncovered one."
"Owens," Mike says in warning. "What does any of this have to do with us? We're no longer involved. We haven't been involved in whatever that was in years and right now I'd like to focus on why we called you, which is to put our daughter in a mental institution before she kills people. A real threat. Can we do that?"
"This first. It's my condition. You gotta hear me out." After a long pause he continues. "A small number of Hawkins Lab employees were double agents of this operation. During Will's hospital stay in November of ‘84 and all throughout 1985, they took double samples of your blood, dated and stored them along with a copy of each record. The samples tripled while you were hospitalized in Hawkins lab, I think you know why."
Images of the Mind Flayer invading his body flash before his eyes.
"They monitored what little progress Dr. Kay had in her own research and they waited. They studied the blood, little drops at the time, but didn't attempt anything with it. Until a couple of years ago. Technology allowed them to make their desired progress."
"No, okay, shut up," Mike bursts out and drops Will's hand to wrap his arm around him. "Are you saying they used Will's blood? Why would they? Will only pulled from Vecna those times, okay? We've explained this. He's not like that. It's gone. All that is gone."
"He pulled from the source. Not Vecna," Sam corrects. "And that source was in every drop of blood they had. Stronger in the last samples."
"I'm gonna be sick." Will gets up from under Mike's arm and rushes to the kitchen. He hurls in the sink, splashing Mike's discarded whisky glass in vomit. Once his meager breakfast is gone and he's sobbed for fifteen minutes in Mike's arms, he comes back to the table where Owens waits patiently.
"We executed the team for treason. Trying to bring back that program, all that it entails, it was the worst kind of sin. But I am sorry to say it, they were successful. They injected a pregnant woman with Will's blood from November 3rd 1984, when the possession was in full form. And the baby's blood, his DNA, it has the particles. It was everything that Martin and Kay dreamed of, come to life almost three decades later."
"What happened to the mother?" Will speaks for the first time since Owens started this discussion.
"Dead. Didn't survive the birth, not that she was a priority. They had used the very last sample, according to the file," he nods to the folder. "They didn't need her anymore. Whatever the outcome was."
"Why are you telling us this?" Mike and Will ask in unison.
"Biologically, it's not yours. But it is your blood, in a way, Will. And I would much rather this child live under the care of loving parents that know what to expect. It beats the alternatives, you know what those are."
"You realize you're here to take the daughter we already have to institutionalize? What makes you think we're fit for this after that?" A tear slips Mike's eye. Will wipes it away.
"I told you, it's not on you."
"It feels like it is."
"All I'm asking is that you give this boy a chance, give yourselves a second chance."
"Does he have a name?" Will can’t help but ask the question.
"No."
They name him Connor.
2012
Connor is a happy baby. He has black hair and green eyes and in a certain light, Mike will often say they look just like Will's in the sun. He has yet to show any signs of powers and he's generally a calm baby. Only makes a fuss when he's sleepy, but they've learned the trick to put him to sleep quickly and without a hassle.
Since Connor's arrival, and Cassandra's absence, they've been able to invite people back into their lives. People they pushed away in fear of what Cassandra could do. Dinner nights with their friends were back on and they've been going to birthdays and movie nights and trips. Today is Connor's birthday, and it’s a full house.
It feels like walking steadily after a long surgery recovery. The scar will always be there, but they're healing. Even if Connor is still just a toddler, they are careful. They go to therapy, they keep a close eye on his reactions. Their eyes are always searching for an object moving on its own.
Mike is in their bedroom looking for a decent shirt replacement after Connor spilled his juice on him when his phone rings. He picks up without looking at the screen.
The recording announcing a call from the facility sends a chill down his spine, but he accepts the call.
"Hello Cassandra."
"Mike." Right, she now referred to them by their names. It doesn't hurt. They understand. "Where's Will? He with you?"
"He's downstairs. It's your brother's birthday today."
"Oh fuck off, he is not my brother! He is the baby you replaced me with!"
Mike winces and takes the phone from his ear. He counts to five before he returns it and says, "He is your brother, and we didn't replace you. You're our daughter. He's our son." Cassandra may not be able to hurt them or anybody physically where she is, but she still has the tools to hurt them somehow. She'll always hurt.
"Right, he magically appeared on your doorstep the day you shipped me off to the fucking looneybin, asshole. How could I forget?"
"We don't have to explain anything to you, Cassandra. We've told you it isn't like that and you can believe what you want. Why did you call? What do you need?"
There's silence on the other line until she finally speaks again. "They said I still can't room with anyone else. I feel so alone."
They were warned about this. About the possible calls that became a reality, the manipulation. Cassandra would never be allowed to room with another person, ever. She wrote a murderous manifesto, for heaven's sake, and charged with conspiracy to commit murder and intent to torture (quietly, like they requested). So Mike knows it's a lie they've told her that, because it's not even a possibility. Mike also knows she's only saying she feels alone to produce a reaction out of them.
It's been over a year. They know better.
He doesn't know what to say, so he says nothing. When he doesn't respond the way she wanted she sighs in dejection and launches into a rant about some patient or the other. All Mike does is listen. On the corner of his eye, he sees movement and he turns his head to see Will enter their bedroom with Connor in his arms. Mike sees it in Will's eyes, that he knows immediately it's her on the line.
He puts the phone on speaker.
"Your dad is here, if you want to say hello." She does, but it's stilted.
"Hi Cassandra," Will answers, his voice unsure. "Um, did you get the book we sent? Did you like it?
"I got it." But no answer if she liked it or not. She'll never give them that satisfaction.
"Your brother is also here. Don't you want to wish him a happy birthday?" Mike tries, even if he knows the answer. They will always be her parents, and that means they will never stop trying, what little they can try.
"No." And she hangs up.
The silence after is painful, but broken every now and then by Connor's babbles.
"There's a party downstairs," Will reminds him. "Change your shirt and come down. I want to sing happy birthday before he gets sleepy. It can still be a happy day. For all of us, Mike."
Mike nods and kisses Connor's head and then tilts Will's face up for a kiss of his own. They smile at each other and Will turns to go back downstairs.
They don't notice, but their bedroom window cracks open on its own.