(y/n) - your name

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Dude, I'm telling you, you're taking us the wrong way."

"It's north. I'm positive. I checked the map." Steve and Dustin were arguing over which way Skull Rock was, everyone else lagging behind them with annoyed expressions.

"You do realize Skull Rock, it's a super popular make-out spot?" Billy nudges (y/n) at the mention of the spot and she rolls her eyes playfully, letting her boyfriend pull her close as he drapes an arm around her shoulder. "Yeah, well, it wasn't popular until I made it popular. All right? I practically invented it. We're heading in the wrong direction."

"Pretty sure you don't have much use for the spot so whose to say you might have forgotten where to go after your long hiatus with girls." Billy mocks and Steve glares at him, opening his mouth to snap back at him but (y/n) stops the boys.

"No fighting. Let's go save Eddie ok? I don't want to hear either of you making remarks at each other." The boy's nod at (y/n)'s words, Robin and Nancy snickering at how they listened to their friend. "Good, Steve, lead the way." he takes the group further into the threes and away from the pathway.

"I love how you have the boys wrapped around your finger (y/n). A great skill to have." Robin says, winking at her best friend as she walks past her and Billy. She chuckles as she looks at her boyfriend who rolled his eyes with a smile.

"Admit it, it's true." (y/n) says.

"I ain't saying jack shit." Billy says, raising his hands in defence but he leans down to whisper in his love's ear. "It's true, you have all of me princess." he smirks as she shudders when his lips brush against her ears. "Or maybe I should say you belong to me."

"Come on you two, enough dawdling." Nancy says as she snickers, gently pushing Billy and (y/n) to walk faster so they don't lose sight of Steve. Everyone jogs to catch up with Steve and Dustin, (y/ n) checking behind her every now and then to make sure Max and Lucas weren't lost and were still following them. She frowns seeing the downcast look on Lucas' face, Max talking to him. They looked like they were having a serious heart-to-heart, not pushing to eavesdrop and let the two figure things out between them.

"He's not good enough for her." Billy says, narrowing his eyes at Lucas. Everyone knew he didn't like the boy since his sister and him dated and then broke up.

"He loves Max, look at him. He dropped everything to make sure she's ok." (y/n) says and Billy looks down at her to see her smile at the two kids. He didn't want to admit it but he could see the familiar way Lucas was looking at his little sister, the same exact way he looks at his love.

"I guess... but if he hurts her-"

"-you're not hurting him." (y/n) quickly cuts off her boyfriend, narrowing her eyes at him and he raises his hands.

"Ok ok. Not touching the kid, fine." The couple keeps walking again, carefully walking down a steep slope.

"Sometimes I'm surprised you're dating me." (y/n) suddenly speaks up as Billy helped her down, holding her hand and he raises a brow at her. "I thought I would forever stay an outcast 'cause I'm not exactly blending in with the community here." she raises her arm, comparing it to her boyfriends. "I mean, I have more colour than you-"

"-and you thought that would stop me from falling in love with you?" Billy frowns at (y/n)'s words, a pang of hurt in his chest.

"No-I mean, I don't even love myself like you love me..." she whispers, brushing her fingers against her scarred wrist. Her memories brought back that self-hatred and disgust she had of herself, wishing that she could've gone back to not knowing anything except the happy memories she had of her friends but she couldn't pick and choose what she wanted to forget forever.

Billy takes hold of (y/n)'s hand, entwining their fingers together and leaning down to press kisses down her wrist. "Then let me love you enough for the both of us." he kisses the back of her hand, holding it tight in his as his love smiles up at him with teary eyes.  

"You both are so fucking cute, I just wanna squish you and the kids." Robin says with a smile and (y/n) moves to jump on her back to hug her, Billy chuckling lowly at his loves antics.

"Ya know, I missed you both a lot." (y/n) says to Nancy and Robin, moving to stand between them and hooking her arm around theirs. 

"Because we're your best girl friends?" Robin says.

"Exactly. My best friends!" (y/n) beams at the girls and they smile at her.

"I would say we're the most amazing group of friends that ever existed." Nancy says, smiling at Robin and the latter smiles brightly knowing that she had more friends now. 

Maybe one day she could tell them what she told Steve...

"Bada bing, bada boom! There she is, Henderson! Skull Rock." Steve exclaims as he treks through bushes to come out standing before Skull Rock, the rest of the group following him. "In your face, man. In your stupid, cocky little face."

Dustin couldn't believe it, looking down at his compass and his map. "Doesn't make sense."

"Better luck next time kid." (y/n) says, patting Dustin's head as she walks past him and lets him and Steve continue to argue, searching around the giant rock to find Eddie.

"I concur-"

"-Jesus fuck!" (y/n) screams in fright when Eddie jumps down next to her from a branch, scaring her and he quickly apologises.

"Shit! Sorry (y/n)!" he blinks in surprise at how easily he scared her, holding her shoulders. Billy glared down at Eddie from a distance, gritting his teeth and seeing him touch his girlfriend.

"Jesus, we thought you were a goner." Dustin gasps, quickly moving to hug Eddie tightly and the older one falters slightly before he hugs the younger one back.

"Yeah, me too, man. Me too."

~~~~~~~~

"When I got to the shore, I tried calling you guys, but, uh... my walkie was busted, man. Drenched." Eddie took in a long drink of water that (y/n) passed to him along with food and other snacks that she brought in her backpack for everyone to eat but clearly the starved man needed it more. "Thanks (y/n)..." he nods at her and she gives him a thumbs up, leaning back against Billy as Eddie told the group everything that happened last night after the group caught him up on everything they found out. Including (y/n) getting her memories back and her being a conduit to send someone to the Upside Down if they touch her. "So, uh, I did the thing that I do now, apparently. I ran." he chuckles dryly.

"Eddie, that's a normal human response." (y/n) says noticing the frown growing on his face. "You were terrified, any one of us would've done the same thing. Flight or fight and in this case, flight is the only correct answer. You shouldn't be ashamed of running away. There wasn't anything else you could do." Eddie takes in her words, looking down at the ground.

"Do you know what time this was? The attack?" Nancy asks and Eddie answers her, showing everyone the time on his watch that stopped working the minute he fell into the lake. While explaining all this, Dustin was pacing behind the group, mumbling to himself. "9:27." Nancy reads the time on the watch Eddie throws at her after catching it.

"Same time our flashlights went kablooey." Robin answers.

"Which means that sudden surge of energy that shattered our flashlights was Vecna using his powers to attack Patrick..." (y/n) realises and the group nods at the explanation. 

"So now we know how he attacks and where he attacks. Through the mind and in that abandoned house in the Upside Down." Billy pipes up. "But how the fuck do we kill him?" everyone throws in different ideas.

"All of the above, but we can't do any of that 'til we find a way into the Upside Down." Nancy says.

"We need El to get her powers back."

"Everything was way easier." Steve and Max complain, hoping that Eleven gets her powers back and manages to come back to Hawkins in time to help them. "We had this girl. She had superpowers."

"Superpowers. Yeah, you mentioned her." Eddie nods like this wasn't new news to him. "Hey, uh, Henderson's not, uh, cursed, is he?" he asks, noticing the kid pacing behind the group and Steve shakes his head.

"Cursed? No, no. He's fine. Mental? Absolutely."

"anyway," (y/n) pipes up. "we need to figure out how to get into the Upside Down. I know you said Eleven closed the gate beneath StarCourt Mall but you sure there isn't another one that might be open-"

"-exactly!" Dustin exclaims as he points at her.

"Point somewhere else punk." Billy snaps and Dustin quickly drops his hand before going on a whole spiel about how he was right about leading the group in the correct direction to Skull Rock and how his compass was working correctly until they went further east. "Now it's way off. When I was leading us here, I wasn't wrong. The compass was."

"So you're using faulty equipment. You're still wrong."

"Except compass' can't be faulty Steve, unless the magnet in it is being interfered by another magnet or another electromagnetic field." (y/n) says in realisation and Dustin and Lucas look at her in surprise. "What? Why do you all look surprised?" the whole group was looking at the girl with wide eyes.

"Because none of us knows that except the two nerds here obviously." Steve explains.

"Bullshit really?" (y/n) says and everyone slowly nods. "But that's just common sense." she exclaims.

"Or you're a nerd like them too princess." Billy chuckles lightly.

"Taking physics in high school back home doesn't label me as a nerd unless I was taking it to raise my ATAR ok." the group gawks at (y/n) and she sighs in annoyance as she ran her hands down her face.

"You took physics as a course!?"

"Jesus fucking christ... Yes! I did ok! But I wasn't smart! I was coming in last out of the 5 students that took it with me!" (y/n) huffs out.

"Ok, but what the hell is an ATAR?" Eddie asks. "You're clearly not from here are you (y/n)?" the girl gives him a deadpan look and he blinks in surprise at where the innocent and shy girl he first met was. Oh right, her memory was gone and now apparently her memories are back.