CHAPTER TWELVE
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

LEXIE TAPPED HER FINGERS onto the desk nervously as she sat at the reception desk of the police station. It was a Saturday, so she was covering most of the day for Flo.

On the desk sat a newspaper that was still going on about everything that had transpired at the lab. It had been a month, officially, since everything had happened. But in a smaller town like Hawkins, news like that lasted for months. When something big happened, people never forgot because usually nothing else was worth talking about.

The lab was shut down and several officials were arrested for covering up the death of Barbara Holland, a girl who had gone missing the year previous. Lexie felt guilty because she had never really known her, she remembered her being close friends with Nancy Wheeler and that was about it. They were saying that she was exposed to some toxic chemical in the lab and that was the reason for it having to be shut down.

She wasn't sure how it made her feel, now that it was all neatly tied up. Well, maybe not neatly, but to everyone else it seemed like a random, tragic accident. Not everyone knew the truth. It was something she still thought about, something she could still hear in her dreams sometimes. But now they could go on with their lives and that was a good thing, she supposed.

"Hey, kid," Hopper's voice said from in front of her. She snapped out of her daze staring at the paper and smiled at him distractedly.

"Hey," she greeted quietly, folding up the newspaper and pushing it to the side to get her mind off of it.

Hopper beckoned her back to his office wordlessly and she followed him, closing the door just enough so that they wouldn't be overheard by anyone else.

"So? Is she going to be able to go?" Lexie asked, now smiling a bit wider as she was reminded of something a bit more lighthearted.

Hopper nodded. "Owens said that it should be fine. Kids don't ask a lot of questions," he explained, smiling a bit himself.

"I beg to differ," Lexie countered with a laugh, thinking of those particular kids and how they were questioning things constantly. "I'm glad El will get to go to the dance, though. I think they deserve a fun night like that."

There was a pause as Lexie looked at him, remembering how he had been before all this had started when she had just started to consider being an intern at the station. She had really had to convince him to let her do it, and he almost didn't at the time.

"I'm glad that you have her," she said, smiling widely this time. "I'm glad you have each other. You're a good dad."

He smiled at her and looked at her for a few moments before asking her, "How are you doing, kid? I saw you looking at the paper again."

Lexie shrugged and tried to force her voice into sounding the same. "I'm okay. I just worry about them," she admitted. "And it's just weird. How much attention it's all getting, how it's not exactly the truth."

"Why don't you get out of here a little bit early?" he suddenly suggested. Lexie raised her eyebrows at him like there was going to be a catch. He gestured to the door encouragingly. "Come on, before I change my mind."

She grinned at him and nodded. "Thanks, Hop."

__________

Maybe she could have been spending her free night doing something other than helping her little sister prepare for her middle school dance, but she honestly wouldn't have wanted to do anything else. It felt normal for a change, almost like things were getting back to how they were.

Emily had spent a while fretting over what she was going to wear despite vehemently denying that she even cared at all. She had claimed that it was just some stupid dance and the only reason that she was going in the first place was because her friends were. But Lexie remembered being that age, really caring what everyone thought of you and how self conscious that time could be. Even now things could still be like that.

Now they were walking down their street on their way to the middle school. Lexie still didn't have a car, and after her mother and aunt had insisted on taking pictures, she had insisted on escorting her to the dance. Emily didn't even put up a fight.

"Are you excited?" she asked her sister, looking over at her as they continued their walk.

"I guess," her sister replied, running her hands over her dress like she was regretting even wearing a dress in the first place.

"You look very beautiful," Lexie assured her.
Emily didn't say anything. They walked for a few more moments in silence.

"So, are you looking forward to dancing with anyone in particular?" Lexie went on, trying to joke around but also ask the question seriously. Genuinely, she just wanted her sister to have a fun time.

"I don't think they'd want to dance with me," Emily told her almost immediately. She fidgeted with her dress some more. Lexie frowned. She could understand having that feeling, but it wasn't something she'd ever want Emily to have to experience.

"I'm not sure that's true," she dismissed, waving her hand playfully. "You never know what might happen. And even then, you're going to have a blast with your friends, okay?"

"Okay," Emily finally agreed, smiling slightly. Lexie smiled back, glad that at least some of her words had resonated.

They reached the school, near where the entrance to the gym was and Lexie halted her steps once she realized that Emily was slowing down a little bit.

"You're fine," Lexie assured her one last time and Emily nodded her head, eyes brightening when she caught sight of Dustin getting out of a car near the entrance. She called out the boy's name and he turned toward her, grinning widely. As they met up and entered the gym together, Lexie called out, "Have fun!"

When she turned around, she smiled softly when she realized that she recognized the car that Dustin had just gotten out of. It was Steve's.

Steve met her eyes and waved her over through the passenger window and she walked over, leaning down so that she could talk to him through the window.

"It's cute that you gave him a ride," she said immediately, gesturing behind her back into the gym.

Steve shrugged. "Kid needed some hair tips. Not a big deal."

Lexie laughed and shook her head. Steve looked around and was reminded of the fact that she and Emily had walked there.

"Hey, let me give you a ride," he insisted, as he often did nowadays. Steve was pretty much her closest and only friend now, and they spent most of their free time together anyway so he ended up giving her a lot of rides. The fact that they were neighbors also made it a lot more convenient. What she didn't realize is that he would've done it even if they weren't neighbors.

Lexie agreed wordlessly and opened the door and sat in the passenger seat of his car. She noticed that he was staring in the direction of the gym, a look that she couldn't quite read on his face. Her eyes landed on him, then back toward the gym.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Steve directed his gaze away from the gym and smiled at her, nodding.

"Yeah, I'm great, actually," he told her like he really did mean it. "Wanna do something to kill the time before we have to come pick those shitheads up? Like see a movie or something?"

She laughed and nodded, agreeing, "Okay, sure. What do you want to see?"

He stopped for a minute and thought, and after a second without an answer, Lexie was ready to start listing out movies that had come out recently.

"I mean that new Dune movie is out, that one looked pretty interesting," she suggested and Steve shot her an incredulous look. "What?"

"It looks cheesy as hell," he pointed out, starting to pull out of the middle school parking lot and onto the street. In a quieter tone, he added, "Also I don't get it."

"You're just saying that because you never read the book, Steve," she countered, giving him a teasing look.

"Look, you're a crazy awesome genius and I'm not, I get it—" he ranted with a grin and Lexie hit him in the arm playfully.

"I wouldn't go that far, at all," she denied.

"I would," he shot back immediately. After a few seconds, his eyes lit up when an idea suddenly struck him. "That Beverly Hills Cop movie just came out, we could go see that. It looked pretty cool."

Steve looked over after she didn't answer for a few seconds, fully expecting her to reject his suggestion. But she was just smiling widely at him.

"What?"

Lexie fixed her eyes on the road and settled into the seat.

"We can go see your California cop movie."

"I promise if you don't like it we can go see your book movie about the desert," he assured her. She grinned even wider and rolled her eyes.

"Okay, deal."

END OF PART ONE

__________