Chapter Text
One second there was light. Too much of it, white and tearing, like the sky had cracked open. And then there wasn’t. Just a pressure in his ears and the taste of iron flooding his mouth.
Mike didn’t even remember falling to his knees, only that the ground was suddenly there, hard and cold, pressing up into him like it had always been waiting.
He screamed.
He screamed before his brain caught up with what his eyes were already refusing to see. He screamed her name until it stopped sounding like a name at all. Until it was just noise tearing out of his throat, raw and animal. Useless. He screamed like someone was peeling him open from the inside. Like if he made enough sound, something, anything, might just answer.
His jaw hurt. His chest burned. Somewhere along the way, his tongue split against his teeth and his mouth filled with blood, metallic and warm, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t feel much of anything except the need to keep screaming, to keep the moment from sealing shut.
Because if he stopped…
God, if he stopped…
Then she’d just be gone.
The realization came anyway. It always does.
It hit him not all at once, but in pieces that didn’t quite fit together. The Upside Down sealing in on itself. Everything dissolving like mist. The last look on her face: soft, but decided. He could still feel her kiss.
She had planned it.
That thought clawed its way through him, and an angry scream tore out of him one last time before it finally broke apart in his throat.
Then there was nothing.
Mike went silent.
The ringing in his ears faded. The smoke cleared. People were moving, he knew they were, even if he didn’t look. He could hear voices, feel hands on his shoulders, feel the ground beneath his palms. All the pieces were there.
They just didn’t connect.
He stared at the place where she had been. It wasn’t empty: there was scorched earth, warped air, the faint smell of ozone and ash.
He waited for a flicker, for a sign. A pulse in the air. A whisper in his head. Anything that said not yet. Anything that said you’re wrong.
Nothing happened.
His body didn’t react the way it should have. No sobbing, no shaking. His heart didn’t even seem to be beating right, just thudding dully, like it had forgotten its own job. He felt hollowed out, scooped clean.
Someone said his name. He didn’t turn.
Someone else said it louder.
Everything moved around him too fast. Shapes rushed past the edges of his vision. Boots scraped over dirt, someone tripped, someone else swore. There was the low, constant sound of people talking all at once, voices overlapping, breaking, rising and falling like waves.
Mike stayed still.
It felt like being underwater. He could hear his name being said, over and over again, but it didn’t belong to him anymore. It was just noise..
“Mike.”
“Mike, hey.”
“Mike, look at me.”
The words slid off him. Didn’t land.
Hands touched him. Careful at first, then firmer. Fingers curled around his shoulder, squeezing like they were trying to anchor him to the ground. Another hand brushed his hair back from his face, knuckles warm against his temple. Someone cupped his cheek.
Nancy.
He knew it was her without looking. The way she touched him gave her away, gentle but urgent, like she was trying not to scare him even as panic crept into her voice.
She said his name again. He didn’t turn his head, didn’t even blink.
His eyes stayed locked on the space in front of him, the exact spot where Eleven had been standing, where her feet had touched the ground, where the air still felt wrong, like it remembered her. He memorized it without meaning to. The scorch marks. The uneven dirt. The nothingness that wasn’t really nothing at all.
That was where she would come back.
And if he looked away, if he let himself see anything else even for a second, then what? She’d return and he’d miss it. She’d be there, confused and alone, and he wouldn’t be watching.
He couldn’t let that happen. So he stared.
Nancy’s thumb brushed under his eye, wiping at something wet he hadn’t noticed. She said his name again, closer this time, like she was leaning in, like she was begging.
He still didn’t move.
His chest felt too tight, but not in a way that meant he needed to cry. It was like all the feeling had been packed down, compressed into something solid and unyielding. There was no room for crying yet. No room for screaming. Just this waiting, this frozen, horrible hope that refused to die. Hope that he had felt before, hope that had been repaid before.
Any second now, his mind insisted.
Any second.
He didn’t know how long he stayed like that.
Time didn’t make sense anymore. It didn’t pass in minutes or hours, but in things changing around him while he remained exactly the same. His legs never shifted. His hands never moved. He did his best not to blink, because blinking meant missing something, and missing something felt dangerous now.
All he knew was that people kept coming. More hands. More voices. Fingers brushing his jaw, his temple, the back of his neck. Someone pressed a jacket around his shoulders at some point. Someone else knelt in front of him and tried to catch his eye, their face swimming in and out of focus. They all said his name like if they said it enough times he’d remember how to be a person again.
Mike didn’t respond.
The crowd changed. He could feel it, even without looking. The energy shifted, thinning out. Orders stopped being shouted. Boots stopped running. One by one, the soldiers disappeared, their presence draining away.
It got quieter, the kind of quiet that presses in on your ears. The sky might have been getting light. Or maybe it already had. Dawn and night blurred together into the same dull shade. His eyes burned from staring, but he welcomed the pain.
Pain meant he was still here. Pain meant he was still watching. Waiting.
When she came back, he had to see it. He had to be the first to see it.
Mike Wheeler remained exactly where Eleven had left him for as long as he could. He would have stayed there forever.
A voice cut through the fog, familiar. Nancy, maybe. It sounded like her. It might have been Max.
They had to leave.
Leave.
The word didn’t make sense. It bounced uselessly around in his head, never landing. Leave what? Leave where? You didn’t leave something unfinished. You didn’t leave someone who was still coming back.
Move.
Mike couldn’t move. If he moved, he’d miss it.
“No,” he whispered, though he wasn’t sure the sound actually made it out.
“Mike, we have to go.”
Hands closed around his shoulder and tugged gently, like they were testing him, seeing if he’d follow. The contact snapped something instinctive inside him. He shrugged hard, jerking away without looking, his shoulder rolling forward to break the grip.
Don’t touch me.
Another hand tried, firmer this time. Fingers digging in, pulling, insistent.
Mike recoiled.
His body reacted before his mind did, twisting away, shoulders hunching protectively. The touch felt wrong, too real, grounding. Like it was trying to drag him back into a world he wasn’t ready to be in yet.
He didn’t want comfort or reassurance or to be led away.
All he wanted was to stay.
“Stop,” he said hoarsely, though it barely sounded like his own voice.
The hands hesitated. He could feel eyes on him now, worried, uncertain. He refused to give them his face, refused to let anyone see the fragile thing holding him together by a thread.
His gaze stayed locked forward.
That space.
That spot.
As long as he was there, watching, the story wasn’t over yet.
As long as he didn’t move, she was still coming back.
Now he was sure it was Nancy.
She knelt in front of him, close enough that her knees pressed into the dirt, close enough that he could see the red rims of her eyes if he let himself look. He didn’t. He only registered her by fragments, by the fall of her hair, the familiar shape of her hands, the way her voice wavered when she said his name.
He angled his body slightly, just enough to keep her from blocking his view. He had to see the spot. He had to keep his eyes on it. He twisted at the waist, shoulders turning away from her, like a compass needle stubbornly refusing to point anywhere else.
Nancy followed his movement. She looked at him like he was small. Not in a cruel way, but like he was something fragile she didn’t know how to hold without breaking. Like she already understood what he couldn’t let himself see yet.
“Mike,” she said quietly. “We have to go.”
He shook his head, just once.
She reached for his hands. He didn’t pull away this time, but he didn’t squeeze back either. His fingers felt distant, like they belonged to someone else.
“Please,” she whispered. “You have to move.”
He swallowed. His throat felt tight, scraped raw from screaming, from breathing in the smoke, from holding everything in.
“I just…” His voice cracked, thin and strange. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I need to wait.”
Nancy frowned. “Wait for what?”
He finally looked at her then. Just briefly. Long enough to make sure she was still there, that she wasn’t blocking his view.
“For El,” he said, like it was obvious. Like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. “She’s coming back.”
Nancy’s face did something he didn’t like. Her mouth trembled. Her eyes filled, and she looked away for half a second before forcing herself to look at him again.
“She will,” he added quickly, panic flaring at her silence. “She just, you know, she had to do it like that. But it’s okay. It’s safer now.”
He glanced past her shoulder. The soldiers were almost all gone now, their trucks pulling away, their radios falling silent. The air didn’t feel so tense anymore. The world was settling.
“See?” he said softly. “They’re leaving.”
Nancy followed his gaze despite herself.
“It’ll be safe,” Mike continued, his words tumbling out faster now, desperate to make her understand. “She couldn’t come back with them all here. But now she can. She just has to wait a little.”
He looked at the spot again, heart thudding faintly in his chest.
“I can wait,” he said. “I’m good at waiting.”
He didn’t notice the moment they decided.
There was no announcement, no warning,just a shift. Nancy stopped asking. She stood, wiping at her face, and for the first time since she’d knelt down, she didn’t look at him like she was waiting for an answer.
She looked past him.
“Jonathan,” she said. Her voice was steadier than it had any right to be. “Steve.”
Mike felt it before he understood it. Footsteps closing in. Shadows stretching toward him. His shoulders tensed instinctively, every nerve lighting up.
Hands grabbed him.
“No,” he said immediately, the word tearing out of him hoarse. “No, stop.”
Jonathan took one arm. Steve took the other.
They were stronger than him. He knew that. He’d always known that. He was just a skinny kid, and they were older, broader, solid in a way he wasn’t. Two of them should have been enough. But adrenaline doesn’t care about logic.
Mike twisted violently, planting his feet, his body surging with a sudden, frantic strength that surprised even him. His heart slammed against his ribs. His vision tunneled. All he could think was don’t let them turn me away.
“I said stop!” he yelled, thrashing hard, wrenching his arm free from Jonathan’s grip. Steve cursed as Mike drove his elbow back, catching him in the side, just enough to break contact.
He ducked, spun, shoved, kicked and fought hard.
For a second, just one, he was free. He staggered back toward the spot, eyes snapping forward, relief flooding him like he’d narrowly escaped something terrible.
They grabbed him again.
He fought harder.
He kicked and twisted and dragged his feet through the dirt, clawing for balance, refusing to be lifted, refusing to be moved. His chest burned, lungs screaming, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t, he wouldn't.
Someone shouted his name and another set of hands joined in.
“Mike!”
Mike barely registered him before Lucas reached for his arm, trying to help restrain him, trying to calm him down. The movement came too fast, too sudden, and Mike reacted purely on instinct.
He swung. His fist connected with Lucas’s jaw, solid and awful, the impact jolting up his arm. There was a sharp sound, teeth snapping together, breath knocked loose.
Lucas stumbled back with a gasp.
Everything froze. Mike stared at him, horrified for half a second, the reality of what he’d just done crashing in.
“I didn’t…” he started.
But then someone grabbed him again, and the fear drowned everything else out.
“I’m sorry,” he choked, even as he struggled, even as he wrenched his body away again. “I didn’t mean to, I just, please…I can’t go! I can’t go!”
He fought like someone trying to stay alive because that’s what it felt like.
If they took him away, if they turned his head, if they forced him to stop watching, then it would be over. Then the waiting would end. Then the truth would finally reach him.
Hopper had to step in.
Mike didn’t see him at first, just his shadow, wide and solid, blocking his view for half a second, and panic flared so sharp it stole his breath.
“No.” Mike gasped, twisting hard, trying to slip away like he had before.
It didn’t work. Hopper’s hand closed around the back of his vest and his arm in the same motion. Not rough. Just final. Like grabbing a child who’d wandered too close to the road.
Mike fought anyway.
He kicked, shoved, thrashed with everything he had left, adrenaline still roaring in his veins, but it was nothing against Hopper. Hopper didn’t even stagger. He just pulled Mike in closer, one arm locking around his chest, holding him tight against his side.
“Easy,” Hopper said, low and strained. “Easy, kid.”
Mike shook his head violently. “No. No, no, no, let go of me!”
He tried to wrench free, clawing at Hopper’s sleeve, his hands shaking so badly they barely worked. His feet left the ground for a second and terror ripped through him, white-hot.
“Put me down!” he screamed. “Please, please!”
Hopper adjusted his grip, lifting him fully now, like Mike weighed nothing at all.
And something inside Mike cracked.
His strength drained out of him all at once, leaving only desperation in its wake. His head snapped back toward the clearing, his eyes wide, frantic, searching.
“She’s coming back,” he said, the words spilling out in a rush, broken and breathless. “You have to wait. You can’t take me away. I need to see it.”
Hopper didn’t answer.
Mike twisted in his arms, tears finally breaking loose, hot and unstoppable.
“And you.” His voice broke completely. He swallowed hard and tried again. “You of all people should know.”
That made Hopper flinch.
“You have to understand,” he pleaded. “You have to. She’s not gone. She just… she just needs time. It’s safer now. The soldiers are gone. It’s okay for her to come back.”
He craned his neck, desperate to keep the spot in sight, even as Hopper turned away.
“Please,” Mike whispered, his voice wrecked. “Just wait a little longer. Just let me wait. She’ll come back. I know she will.”
Hopper held him tighter. Too tight for comfort. Too tight to escape.
“Tell him,” Mike said suddenly.
His voice cut through the air, sharp with panic, cracking at the edges. Hopper paused mid-step, surprised enough that his grip loosened just a fraction.
“Tell him, Dustin,” Mike begged, twisting his head to look past Hopper’s shoulder. “Tell him we need to wait.”
Dustin stood a few feet away, hat tucked under his arm, face streaked with soot and tears that had already dried. He opened his mouth like he might say something. Then he didn’t.
“Will,” Mike said next, louder now, desperation bleeding into every syllable. “Will, you know. You know how this stuff works. Tell him.”
Will’s eyes flicked up to meet Mike’s for half a second. Then they dropped.
Max’s arms were wrapped around herself, jaw tight, staring at the ground like it might swallow her whole. Lucas held his jaw gingerly, still stunned, but even that wasn’t what stopped him. He looked at Mike with something like grief layered on top of fear, and shook his head once. Barely.
No one said a word.
They were already standing differently now. Straighter. Braced. Like people preparing to leave a place they didn’t want to remember.
Mike’s chest hitched.
“Guys?” he whispered.
The silence answered him.
They weren’t looking at the spot anymore. None of them were watching it like he was. They were looking at him.
And the looks on their faces weren’t disbelief. They were pity. The kind of looks that meant they’d already gone somewhere he hadn’t. Somewhere he couldn’t follow.
His breathing turned shallow, panicked. His head snapped around desperately, searching for one last person who might save him from this.
“Nancy,” he said.
Hopper stopped completely this time.
Mike craned his neck, tears streaming freely now, his voice breaking apart in real time. “Nancy, please.”
She stood a few feet away, arms crossed tight over her chest like she was holding herself together by force alone. Her eyes were red and swollen, her face pale, wrecked, but steady in a way that terrified him.
“Don’t make me leave,” he begged. “Please, don’t do this to me.”
His words spilled over each other, frantic and raw. “She’s coming back. I know she is. I just need to be here when she does. I just need…”
“Nancy,” he sobbed, her name cracking like glass. “Please.”
For a moment, she looked like she might break. Like she might rush forward and tell Hopper to stop, tell everyone to wait, tell Mike he was right and they were all wrong.
Instead, she shook her head.
It was small. Almost apologetic.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. ‘’We have to leave, Mike.’’
And that was it.
That was the moment something finally slipped inside Mike Wheeler. Not enough to shatter. Not yet. Just enough to hurt in a way he’d never felt before.
Hopper turned, and the clearing began to disappear from view.
Mike twisted in his arms, reaching out blindly, his eyes still searching the space where Eleven should have been, where she had to be.
“I’ll wait,” he cried, his voice tearing itself apart. “I can wait! Please!”
No one answered.
And slowly, unwillingly, Mike was carried away kicking and screaming. But his heart stayed, his soul stayed. Maybe, apart from his flesh, it all stayed.
They ended up at the Harrington house.
Someone suggested it, Mike wasn’t sure who, and the decision stuck without his input, like everything else had. Steve’s parents were away. There was space. It was safe. Practical. Words like that floated around him, meaningless.
The Wheelers followed because there was nowhere else to go.
Mike’s house was gone. Or half of it was, at least, had been ripped open, ruined. And home, the other kind, the one that really mattered, was impossible, because El was missing.
By the time they arrived, Mike didn’t have much left to say. The adrenaline had burned itself out, leaving him hollow and aching. His throat felt shredded. His body moved when it was told to move, sat when it was told to sit. Someone pressed a glass of water into his hands at some point. He held it without drinking.
People kept talking around him. Quiet voices now, careful. Plans for tomorrow. For later. They spoke like the story had reached a stopping point, like something had ended and could now be dealt with.
Mike listened without listening.
It was clear, suddenly, that they didn’t understand. Not really.
They thought they did. They looked at him with sympathy, with sadness, with that same careful expression Nancy had worn earlier, but it wasn’t the same thing. They didn’t know Eleven the way he did. They didn’t feel her the way he always had, like a constant hum under his skin.
Of course they didn’t feel certain.
Of course they thought this was over.
Mike sat on the edge of one of Steve’s couches, shoulders slumped, eyes unfocused, letting the room blur around him. The Harrington house was too clean, too bright, too normal.
What was the point of trying to convince them?
He’d already tried. With blood in his mouth and terror in his chest and his whole heart laid bare, he’d begged and pleaded and fought, and still they’d carried him away.
So he went quiet.
Let them think what they wanted. Let them believe whatever version of the world made sense to them. It didn’t change what he knew. It didn’t shake the certainty settled deep in his bones.
Eleven was still out there.
Missing meant not found yet.
Missing meant temporary.
Mike leaned back, staring at nothing, holding onto that truth like it was the last solid thing left to him.
They could stop believing if they wanted.
He wouldn’t.