Steve had only woken once thanks to his own brain's dark meanderings and Eddie had had a nightmare, but they'd returned to sleep quickly both times, so after a mostly peaceful night's sleep, Steve decided he wanted to get at least partially back to normal. Before everything had gone to hell, he had tried to go for a run at least three times a week. It always cleared his head and set him up for the day.

He crawled out of bed still pretty early, leaving Eddie snoring with a quick kiss. After using the bathroom, he pulled on his old gym shorts and a shirt and headed downstairs. No one else was about yet, so he picked up his keys and let himself out.

The morning air was fresh with a slight bite, perfect running weather.

After doing a few stretches, he set off down the drive. He was just getting into a rhythm ready to turn along the road on his usual route, when a man stepped into his path and a flash went off. The stranger was lucky he didn't deck him as his fight or flight instincts kicked in, and after the last few weeks they were highly primed.

"Steven Harrington?" a voice asked.

He turned to see a woman holding a microphone and a tape recorder. Just a reporter his logical brain provided, but his illogical one refused to trust his eyes. One look at her had him spinning on the spot and running right back the way he had come at about double the pace ignoring anything she shouted after him.

The front door slammed as he leaned on it, heart going a mile a minute, once he was inside. He could feel himself shaking with the adrenaline. All thoughts of a nice calming run were so much dust.

"Steve?" his mom said, appearing on the landing in her dressing gown. "Good lord, you're a white as a sheet. What happened?"

She came down the stairs towards him quickly.

"Reporters," he said, willing his heartrate back to normal as best he could. "They must have been hiding in the bushes. I was going for a run, and they jumped out in front of me. I ... God, I nearly hit him, Mom."

"Which would have been perfectly understandable," his mom said, gently placing her arm around his shoulders. "Come on, I think you need to sit down. You're shaking like a leaf."

"What's going on?" came from the landing and he looked up to see Eddie standing there.

"Reporters," his mom said for him. "The cretinous morons thought it was a good idea to leap out of the bushes."

Eddie came quickly down the stairs.

"This is what you get for trying to be all healthy and all that crap," Eddie said.

It was a nice try, but Steve's heart was still going far too fast for him to really smile. He could tell Eddie wanted to reach out and pull him into an embrace, but with his mom there, couldn't.

"Your friend, Argyle, was extolling the virtues of hot chocolate to me the other day," his mom said, guiding him towards the kitchen. "A wise young man. I think we should test out his theories, don't you. At least the ones about chocolate, not the ones about weed."

"And never his ones about pineapple on pizza," Eddie added. "Fruit on pizza is just wrong."

"Tomatoes are fruit," Steve said as the titbit of information popped into his brain.

"They're sauce, they don't count," Eddie replied.

"So are olives," he added.

Eddie gave him a narrow-eyed look.

"Robin educated me when I made the same argument during a really boring shift at Family Video," he confessed.

"Of course, she did," was Eddie's reaction to that. "I stand by pineapple on pizza being a sin, and I should know, the whole town thinks I worship Satan."

"Sometimes I worry about this town," was the comment from Steve's mom's direction.

"That's what I've been saying for years," Eddie agreed.

Steve let them sit him down and fuss over him, Eddie keeping him entertained while his mom made the hot chocolate. It was definitely not how he had wanted to start the day, but he couldn't say sitting down to comforting beverages with his mom and his boyfriend was a bad end to the terrible beginning.

"Right," his mom said after they had consumed their drinks and chatted about nothing for a while, "I'm going to call Sam and have the irritants removed from the end of our driveway. I'm sure he can come up with some official reason. I have the feeling they are likely to get themselves killed if they startle the wrong person. Jumping out on people who have been in fear for their lives is just idiotic."

"You can say that again, Mrs H," Eddie agreed.

"They're just doing their jobs," Steve felt the need to add, because he had seen Nancy's journalistic instincts in action.

"Doesn't excuse lurking in bushes," his mom said as she placed her mug in the sink.

Steve knew when not to argue.

~*~

"Mom, did you order food?" Steve called out as he looked out onto the drive and the truck that had just pulled up.

"Yes," came the reply from someone in the house.

Steve was so used to going to the grocery store himself these days that he had almost forgotten it was not what the Harrington household had always done. When the doorbell rang, he went to answer it, to find one man in overalls standing there with a clipboard and his companion already unloading things from their truck.

"Harrington residence?" the man asked.

"Yes," Steve replied.

"Where do you want it?" was the next question.

"In the hall, thank you," he said, opening the door wider.

The two men were efficient at least, bringing in bags and trays and stacking them up. Steve stayed out of the way because they seemed to have a system, but he couldn't help noticing there were a lot of items. At some point his mom arrived as well to also watch proceedings. When the apparently never-ending stream of groceries finally did finish, his mom tipped the delivery men with a smile, signed their paperwork and shut the door.

"Mom," Steve said looking at everything, "are we expecting people?"

Some of what had been brought in definitely looked like platters. He was not aware of any party his mom had planned.

"Yes," she told him. "It's more of a meeting than a party, but food always helps these things."

That didn't really answer his question.

"Sorry," his mom said as she seemed to realise this as well. "When I spoke to Sam this morning about the reporter problem we finalised how to move forward. Everyone involved with the Upside Down will be coming here later this afternoon to be briefed on the cover story and in some cases to be briefed on the Upside Down, at least partially."

"You convinced them to allow the other parents to be read in?" Steve asked in shock.

"We have children wandering around with severe PTSD," his mom replied, "you bet I did. The idea these government types have of blackmail is laughable; they should try corporate law for a while. But don't worry, all the kids were consulted first."

"Not sure you're going to be able to lessen Ted Wheeler's reaction with a charcuterie board, Mom," he pointed out.

"Yes, he was one of the sticking points," his mom said, "but I believe Mike and Nancy agreed they couldn't tell their mom without including their dad. Your father should be home soon, and I plan to explain everything to him first so he can help."

Steve went cold at being reminded about his dad arriving at any minute. This was so big. Utterly huge even as far as life changing things went and he couldn't quite totally convince himself his dad was going to react well.

"Darling," his mom said, placing a hand on his arm, "you don't have to worry. Your father will, no doubt, have some very choice words, mostly aimed at the government, but I will make sure he calms down. All you have to do is figure out how to best survive being hugged within an inch of your life, because we all know your father is the number one hugger in this family."

She gave him a small smile and he managed one in return, but he couldn't push away all the anxiety. He hadn't been on the receiving end of one of his dad's hugs in a while. They had been butting heads since he graduated with disappointing grades, neither quite willing to offer an olive branch. A tiny part of him couldn't help wondering if his dad would blame him for what had been going on. Not asking for help for a start.

"Let's get everything put away," his mom said, "and you can tell me what's bothering you while we work, if you would like."

Steve wasn't sure he could articulate his amorphous fear very well, but he nodded and moved to help pick up the first of the delivery. At least being in motion was better than standing still and worrying.

Eddie appeared halfway through moving the delivery to the kitchen and immediately pitched in to help. He'd been giving Steve slightly worried looks the whole time.

"Everything okay?" Eddie asked quietly as they put some of the normal groceries away in the cabinets.

"Just needlessly working myself up over my dad coming home," he admitted quietly.

"You think he's going to freak?" Eddie said.

"Oh, I know he's going to freak," he replied, "but Mom is going to deal with that. It's afterwards I can't make myself believe will be okay. I think we were just about ready to start to fix our relationship, but all this, what if it's too much? What if I'm too much?"

"Stevie," Eddie said, moving in closer for a moment, "I think the only way you could be too much is if you decide to team up with Supergirl and Will the Wise to take over the planet, and only then if you do it in an evil way. Otherwise, I think you mom and dad would be right there to help you."

"You couldn't do a worse job than most world governments at the moment," his mom commented as she walked past.

Steve almost jumped out of his skin, because he hadn't noticed his mom was on their side of the kitchen.

"See," Eddie said, as if that proved his point.

"But I think you might want to leave the world domination until El and Will have graduated high school," his mom added.

Steve laughed despite his worry.

"We'd need Erica to plan it all anyway," he said, deciding to go with the flow rather than worry himself through the floor, "and she will want to graduate as valedictorian before she'd even consider it, so we have to wait for that too."

"I could compose you a theme song," Eddie joined in. "Even benevolent dictators need a theme song."

"Like from Star Wars?" Steve asked.

"Yeah, only more metal," Eddie replied.

They spent the rest of the kitchen organisation assigning all the party to ridiculously cliched jobs within their new regime. It was as silly as it was fun and Steve almost managed to forget his anxieties ... almost.

Then there was the sound of a key in the front door.