After a safety briefing, Karen left for Joyce's house. She told her friend's mother that she felt better after having the medicine and might go to AV club. She departed, leaving a kiss on the cheek, spare keys and a note for Mr Clarke that Grace wouldn't need at all.

Karen knew Grace was responsible enough to take care of herself. On the clock she saw it was atleast 2:55 and went back downstairs to alert Eleven. "Hey. It's almost time to go, you ready?"

El nodded and got up from her sitting place on the couch. Both girls had devoured what was left of Dustin's snacks. Combined with the food Karen gave Grace and the waffles Grace occasionally snuck downstairs for Eleven, they were full. Grace felt better. She felt better knowing they were going to try and find Will. She felt better knowing that they had Eleven on their side. She felt better knowing she was going with Mike.

Eventually they reached the powerlines. It was 3:15 and the boys were nowhere to be found. She was constantly reminded of her unpleasant first kiss. Did she even consider it to be a first kiss? It was terrible and slobbery (not from her, from the worm that practically forced himself on her), she hated it. Sometimes she imagined what it'd be like if Mike was her first kiss instead of Freddy. He'd be sweet and gentle and probably there would be much less saliva.
She cringed thinking of it again but snapped out of it when she saw a cat approaching them. Grace thought it was adorable. Eleven, however, was reminded of a harsh memory.

When she noticed her friend was dazed she immediately checked on her. "You ok?" El snapped out of her daze. She thought the girl was about to say something but was interrupted by the boy's arrival.

"Grace!" Mike seemed weirdly happy to see her. She sighed, relieved he wasn't mad at her for the cheek-kiss. After it happened, he stared at her for a couple of seconds before running up the stairs and going to school. She got no response but she was glad to see he wasn't repulsed by her action.

Grace thought there was something off about Mike. She couldn't place a finger on it but she could tell something was different. She decided to ignore it and greet him back.

"Hey Wheeler. I saw Joyce at the store today. You're mom is visiting her right now."
He took a second to read her expression. She looked happy yet tired. So, so tired. He smiled and nodded.

"El, hop on to Dustin's bike, Grace you can ride with me," Grace got on his bike and Lucas swore he could see Mike blush.

"We only have a few hours," Mike explained. The gang rode away into the woods and after lots of banter and pedaling, they eventually got to a hill.

They all jumped off the 3 bikes, Mike helped Grace after her dress got slightly stuck. In his right hand he held her small hand and in his left hand he supported the bike. They stayed holding hands for awhile afterwards, not even realising they were doing it.

Mike, Grace and Eleven went further ahead from Lucas and Dustin. Grace casually mentioned that her and Eleven had ate all of Dustin's snacks. Mike didn't care, he smiled.

Suddenly Grace realised what was different with Mike.

He had a large cut on his chin. Grace let go of his hand and grabbed his shoulders. "Did Troy or James do that to you?!" Grace held his chin and inspected it further. "What? I just fell at recess." He tried to avoid her question. El butted in, "Mike, friends tell the truth."

What if Grace thought he was a loser? She'd happily stand up to them any day and yet he just let them trip him up.

He looked back into Grace's beautiful brown eyes. She looked so concerned, like a lost puppy who'd just lost her owner. He couldn't lie to her.

"I was tripped by mouth breather Troy, okay?" Mike admitted. 'Mouth breather Troy' was Mike and Grace's personal nickname for him. One day Grace got so annoyed with Troy that as soon as she got to Mike's house after school she ranted about how much she hated him and called him that. They were in tears laughing afterwards and it became their special thing. Mike liked that they had a inside joke. Of course she had more with Will, but Grace was Grace and he wanted her to pay attention to him. He felt selfish for thinking that but he did. He wanted to be the one that made her laugh everyday and comfort her when she was sad, not Will. He felt even worse thinking that after his disappearance. 

She hugged him hard. "I swear to god if they do anything again, they'll regret it." He smiled softly. When Lucas and Dustin saw, they looked at each other and smirked. Eleven interrupted their moment by asking, "mouth breather?"

They broke the hug and turned to her. They shared a look as Grace began to explain to her. "A mouth breather basically is like a really dumb person. A mean person." Mike nodded.

"Yeah, like a knucklehead."

"Knucklehead?" Grace giggled at her new friend's confusion. El just shrugged and started walking ahead. Lucas and Dustin had already over taken them.

"I don't know why I just didn't tell you. Everyone at school knows about it by now. I just didn't want you to think I was such a wastoid, you know? I'm such a loser." He looked at his feet.

She held up his chin. "Mike, you're not a loser, you're one of my best friends. And plus, I thought you think I was a loser because I accidentally kissed you. I thought you'd hate me." She admitted. They started walking along side each other.

"I could never hate you. And plus, I liked it." Her heart stopped. She felt the odd feeling. The butterflies. Did Mike like her?

"I liked it too." He smiled at her reply.

There was a silence between them. It wasn't awkward. It was ambiguous. They were both contemplating telling each other but they were never sure if they should or not. They enjoyed the silence for what it was, with the crunching of leaves, chirping of birds and the humming of the tyres playing in the background as their soundtrack.

Eleven powered on ahead of everybody, leading them in the direction they needed to go to find Will. After a long game of eye spy, it got dark and they had finally arrived at their destination.

It was Will's house.

"Here." El said as she stood a few meters away from his front door.

"What? This is Will's house. He lives here." Grace explained. Eleven looked scared. "Hiding."

Mike tried to explain to the girl. "No, no, this is where he lives. He's missing from here. Understand?"

Lucas and Dustin had fallen behind the trio and eventually caught up to them. They threw their bikes to the side. "What are we doing here?" Lucas questioned. "She said he's hiding here." Lucas looked around. "Um, no."

Dustin let out a frustrated sigh, "I swear if we walked all the way out here for nothing-" "That's exactly what we did." Eleven looked at Grace for support but she didn't know what to make of the situation. On one hand she wanted to do anything to get Will back, on the other she didn't understand how he'd be at his house, even if he was 'hiding'.

"I told you she didn't know what the hell she was talking about!" Grace was slowly starting to think maybe Lucas was right. Maybe she didn't know where Will was.

Mike rolled his eyes. "Why did you bring us here?" Eleven stuttered but was interrupted by Lucas.

"Mike, don't waste your time with her." Grace turned to face Lucas. "Lucas! Don't you think it's weird how literally the day Will goes missing, she shows up? Don't you think that it's weird how she can literally pinpoint Will in a picture? Dude c'mon. She literally has freaking SUPERPOWERS and you're sitting here acting like a sour Sally." Lucas rolled his eyes. Usually in arguments Grace had his back. Mike decided to butt in. "What do you want to do then?"

"Call the cops, like we should have done yesterday-" "Hey! We are NOT calling the police on her, are you outta your mind?" Grace and Lucas started bickering as Dustin tried to get their attention.

"GUYS!"

Grace sensed something. "It's Will."

They got back on their bikes and sped after the police cars. All the cars seemed to stop at the quarry. The place was choc-a-bloc with police cars, ambulances and even a fire truck. They hid behind the previously mentioned firetruck and looked out into the lake. Something was being fished out.

It was a body.

The body was small. It looked like it could belong to a child. A boy. It had a plaid shirt and light blue jeans with a red bodywarmer.  That's exactly what Will was wearing when he disappeared. They placed it on to a small boat. There was no denying that what ever it was, it was dead. Grace could see Chief Hopper was in shock over their discovery. He looked as if he wanted to cry.

Grace slowly stepped out from behind the truck to get a better look. What she saw tore her apart. It was Will's body.

She fell to the floor. She couldn't stop the tears. She wanted to scream and cry and fall into oblivion.

Her best friend was dead.

"It's not Will, it can't be," Mike said. He rushed over to Grace to make sure she was okay. Grace could barely breathe. She was trapped on a loop of crying and struggling for breath over and over again. Her whole body was shaking. Mike wrapped his arms around her and she held onto him for dear life. "It's Will. It's really Will." Lucas didn't want to believe it but there was no proof it wasn't him.

Grace slowly started to rise from the ground with Mike's help. He started to back away. El put a hand on his shoulder. "Mike?"

He hit it away.

"'Mike?' Mike what?! You were supposed to help us find him alive. You said he was alive. You made everyone think he was. You dragged Grace on. Look at her!" Grace was in total shock. Lucas was trying to comfort her but everything was a blur. She couldn't focus on anything apart from the corpse of her best friend - her platonic soulmate - being dragged out of a lake, dead. It kept replaying in her mind. Over and over. She couldn't stop crying. The shivering was getting worse. She was in a terrible state.

"Why did you lie to us?" Eleven looked in shock. Like she too believed he was alive.

"What's wrong with you?" Mike meanly questioned her. "Mike, stop." Grace tried to cut this off. Everything was horrible right now, they didn't need another argument.

"What is wrong with you?" He got right up into the girl's face. She was almost crying. All she wanted to do was help her new friends. She didn't plan this.
Will wasn't dead. He was in the upside down. The world that she accidentally opened up.

"Mike." She wanted desperately to explain it to them. To make everything better. To make Grace stop crying and shaking. But she didn't know the words. Eleven tried to explain it but no words were coming out. "What?" Mike questioned her. He was up in her face. Trying to get a reaction from her. Any reaction. Lucas was holding Grace and Dustin was protectively stroking her back. She was back on the ground now. She didn't think she could get up this time. Lucas was crying too.

"Mike, c'mon, don't do this man." Lucas tried reasoning with him while comforting the vulnerable girl on the floor. "Mike!" He was ignoring Lucas's plea completely.

"Mike. Please." Grace feebly tried calling after him but it was no use either. "Mike, where are you going?" Under the light of the moon, Grace could see Dustin was crying too. "Mike!"

He grabbed his bike and left them there.

Grace bawled even more.

Lucas held onto his friend tighter.

Dustin tried to help them both up from the ground.

Eleven was stuck there, staring at him as he sped off into the night.

Grace rode with Lucas, Eleven rode with Dustin.

They dropped Grace and El off at Mike's house. They weren't just going to leave El there, even if they were disappointed with her.

Grace made sure Eleven got into the basement safely and only said, "night."

She went to the front door and opened it slowly. She slowly walked into the livingroom. Delancey was in tears, Nancy was comforting her. Her sister heard someone enter and looked up.

"GRACE!" She ran and hugged her harder than ever before. On the bike ride back, Grace had been able to calm down but as soon as she saw Lance the waterworks started again. Nancy walked up to them both and hugged them at the same time. They stayed that way for a while. Karen rushed into the livingroom.

"Oh my god! Grace! Thank god you're alright! I'm so so sorry." Grace left Nance and Lance's grip and held onto Karen. For most of the night she stayed close to Karen's side. The woman protectively held her as they sat on the couch. They tried to put on the TV to calm Grace's nerves but it never truly worked. It was almost 10 at night and she knew she'd have to go to bed soon. Grace wasn't sure if she wanted to see Mike just yet.

She found her overnight bag and got changed into her nightdress. She washed her face and looked at herself. She looked terrible. Her eyes were red from the tears and her cheeks were flushed.

Karen alerted her that the sleeping bag in Mike's room was ready. Grace slowly entered the room that Mike had been in for most of the night. The girl could see him in his bed. At first she thought maybe he was crying.

Karen had given her an extra blanket for during the night. She got into the sleeping bag and closed her eyes. She couldn't sleep

"Mike are you asleep?"

"No." He sniffed. Yep, he was crying.

"I can't sleep either." For a while there was an awkward silence between them. "Can I sleep in your bed?" She requested. Grace didn't want to be alone.

"Okay."

He moved closer to the wall as she got up and went under his covers. They were face to face. She could see tears down his cheeks.

"Hello."

"Hello."

"I'm so sorry Mike." She wiped away his tears. Mike looked at her expressionlessly for a moment. "Don't be sorry. It's not your fault." He put his hand on her cheek and brushed away a stray tear that was leaking from her eye. They laid there like that for a while. He was stroking her cheek with his thumb. It was hypnotic.
"Do you remember when we went to Benny's during summer?"

Honestly, she couldn't. She could remember it being just the two of them going to Benny's for lunch. Grace had jokingly teased Mike and asked if he was taking her on a date. He'd blushed at this comment.

But apart from that she couldn't remember a thing. She nodded at him, none the less.

"Do you remember what happened that night?"

She shook her head.

He slightly sighed.

He thought about kissing her for a second. She thought about it too. They leaned in even further. They were nose to nose at this point.

Delancey opened the door and spoke into the room, "night kids."

Mike groaned. He was so close to finally kissing the girl of his dreams, even if they did both feel terrible. "Night 'Lance." Grace replied as her elder sister went back into Nancy's room.

Instead of kissing him, she hugged him. He hugged her back. This was different from their usual hugs. It was oddly intimate. As if they were healing their sadness through it.

"Sweet dreams, Wheeler." He smiled. He didn't even know he could smile in that moment. He felt drained.

"Stay cute, Knightwood."

A/N:

Sooooo that happened. GOD DAMN IT DELANCEY!

RIP WILL'S FAKE BODY 1983 - 1983

I'll be updating this story every week (usually on weekends).

I actually love reading all the comments tho like omg I want Mike and Grace to be together just as much as you guys dw dw.

I was almost gonna include a kiss but then I was like nahhhh fam too soon

Please leave a vote if you enjoyed and add to library for updates! Also leave feedback/suggestions I love reading them and they help me out a lot!

UPDATE: I wrote in a lil bit before they almost kiss because it will set up a very important part in the new chapter!