Chapter Sixty-Five: Our Song

"I was right. Skull Rock was north."

Annie sighed and rolled her eyes, really hoping they had abandoned this argument by now. There were other things they needed to focus on. Like killing Vecna so Annie didn't have to wear headphones until the end of time warding off some psycho killer.

"Seriously? You're serious?" Steve asked. Dustin nodded. "This is Skull Rock! You're totally, absolutely, 100% wrong. Right now."

Dustin leaned forward. "Yes. And no."

Annie shook her head and mumbled, "Oh my god," under her breath. She was seconds away from drowning him out again with her headphones.

"This compass worked correctly when we left the Wheelers'. It was correct when we got in the car on Kerley. But it started to slip the further east we went," Dustin explained. "Now, it's way off. When I was leading us here, I wasn't wrong. The compass was."

Steve was so done. As were most of them. "So you're using faulty equipment. Dude- you're still wrong."

"Yeah, can we please stop arguing about this?" Annie asked, a hand on her headphones.

Her brother turned and pointed at her. "Those should be on."

She made a face and said, "They're playing, I'm fine."

"Anyway," Dustin said, stopping the sibling fight. "It isn't faulty. Lucas, do you remember what can affect a compass?"

Lucas, who was scratching the back of his neck, paused. "An electromagnetic field." He said it as if it were some grand reveal. Annie was still confused why this mattered.

"I'm sorry, I must've skipped that class," Robin said, begging for more words.

"In the presence of a stronger electromagnetic field, the needle will-"

"Deflect toward that power," Annie disrupted. "Yeah, yeah, I was in that class, what does this have to do with literally anything going on?"

He sighed. "If I could finish?" Annie held her hands up, a mock surrender. "This means there's either a super big magnet around here, or..."

"There's a gate," Lucas finished for him.

Annie's eyes widened. "Wait, the gate emits an electromagnetic field? Well if I had known that then of course I wouldn't have asked where you were going with all of that," she said.

"Never doubt me," Dustin said as he pointed to her.

"But, we're nowhere near the lab?" Nancy pointed out.

Dustin turned to her. "But what if, somehow, there's another gate? A gate that we don't know about. It'd have to be smaller, way less powerful."

"A snack-sized gate," Robin offered.

"How? Why?" Steve asked.

The kid shook his head. "No idea," Dustin said. "All I know is that something is causing this disturbance, and the last time we've seen anything like it, it was a gate. And I hope it is, because then we'd have a way to Vecna. And a shot at freeing Annie from this curse."

With that, he was off. "Where are you going?" Steve asked. Dustin didn't answer. "Hey, hey, hey, hey! Eddie's still a wanted man, we can't just... go for a hike in the woods."

Dustin held up the compass. "This little steel capsule might be the key to saving both Annie- you're baby sister- and Eddie. What say you, Eddie the Banished?"

They all turned to look at Eddie, to see what he was thinking. He turned and made eye contact with Annie, then back over to Dustin. "I say you're asking me to follow you into Mordor, which, if I'm totally straight with you, I think is a really bad idea. But, uh, the Shire... the Shire is burning."

Annie looked at Dustin, who started to bounce. "Why's he- what's he doing?" Steve asked.

Eddie stood up and did a quick roll of the head. "So Mordor it is."

He started walking off, leading the troops, but then immediately turned around to grab his walkie and beer. Steve mumbled in the background, then scolded Eddie for leaving his things.

As they walked, Annie went ahead and put her headphones back on to play her music. She didn't like having them on all the time, but she also knew she couldn't keep them off for long periods.

They walked through the woods again, following Dustin as he let his compass pull them in the right direction. It was just tiring to walk back and forth, back and forth, back and forth...

"Hey." The voice cut through the music, causing Annie to look over and see Eddie standing there.

She took her headphones back off, but kept the music playing so it would still protect her. "Hi," she replied, not really knowing what to do.

"So, uh... being cursed..." he started. Annie had no idea where he was going. "That's... that's gotta suck."

Annie did everything not to outright laugh at the dude. "Yep. Kinda like being accused for killing three people with witchcraft," she answered.

Eddie laughed, and she could see he was starting to loosen up a little bit. "Yeah, you know. Helps to have a support system full of people who believe you're innocent."

Nodding, Annie looked up ahead at Max walking with Lucas. "Yeah, it does." The redhead glanced back and made eye contact. Annie blushed and turned back to Eddie.

Ever the observant one, Eddie didn't let the look go. "So... you pretty close with her? Max, if I remember right."

A redness dusted Annie's cheeks, and she cleared her throat before answering. "Yeah. Been through a lot of shit together, most all of it involving this other dimension we've mentioned. Trauma bonding and all that," she answered. She wasn't quite sure if Eddie could be trusted yet.

He nodded, getting the answer he wanted. "Cool... cool..." They fell into an awkward silence. One quiet enough, that Eddie could hear Annie's music playing. "I've noticed you've practically become one with the headphones."

Annie looked down at them and then back up. "Oh yeah, it's the defense against Vecna. I don't really get it, Robin or Nancy can explain better than I can, but basically... your favorite song is supposed to help pull you from Vecna's grasp. All the good memories to battle against the bad ones he throws at you..."

She hesitated before saying the next part, not knowing if it would make Eddie feel really weird. Or even really guilty. She decided to go for it. "It worked. Saved me a couple days back. Been practically forced to wear these ever since," she said, gesturing to the headphones.

Like she suspected, Eddie didn't respond at first. She just couldn't tell what was keeping him quiet. Annie was about to say something, but Eddie spoke up first. "I'm sorry. I know this happening because you guys decided to help me."

"Eddie." Annie was firm, and it stopped the young adult from rambling anymore. He looked at her, somewhat surprised for her outburst. "It is definitely not your fault. I was being targeted by Vecna way before we decided to help you. I promise. Do not go blaming yourself for something you have quite literally zero control over."

He had absolutely no idea how to respond to that. For one, she was close to a decade younger than him. That was kind of weird on it's own.

But for her, the one who's suffering from being targeted by a fucking demon, to tell him he was a poor bystander who got caught up in all this? It actually made him feel slightly better than before.

He'd never truly be free of the guilt he felt, but at least it wasn't so heavy now.

"Thanks," he mumbled, not knowing where to go from here. Annie hummed and nodded, not needing to say much more.

Eddie felt the need to start up another conversation, considering he's not a fan of quiet, but got interrupted by Steve. "Annie! Headphones!" he called. Steve had glanced back to check in and saw the headphones off, and really, definitely didn't like that.

"Yeah, yeah," she weakly argued, slipping them back over her ears. Once more, her mind swam with Bonnie Tyler's voice. While she looked at the setting sun, she thought more of the time she saw the movie. How, the first time, it had been a family affair.

Her mother and father were home for a while, and wanted to do something over the weekend with the kids. Despite their protests, they went out to the theater to watch a new movie. Footloose. At first, Annie thought it would be stupid.

Boy, how wrong she had been.

Steve had taken her to see it four more times before it left the theater, then they got it on VHS so she could watch it whenever. The need to the cassette of the soundtrack happened during this time, too. It became her thing.

Annie, Holly, and Meghan had a whole sleepover movie night, watching Footloose first. They liked it, but not on the same level as Annie. No one could get up there, though.

Then she watched it with Max. Their first movie night was a blast, happening over their Thanksgiving break. Max enjoyed it, but enjoyed watching Annie's face light up as she sang to nearly every song. It was amazing,

Maybe Max was right, Annie could never grow tired of this song.

A/n: I wanted to have a conversation happen between Annie and Eddie, so I thought this was a pretty good time to have it :) See y'all tomorrow!