The doorbell rang, but I wasn't in the living room. I was still in Will's room, gathering my stuff so I could get the fuck out, back home, back to Hawkins, to the only person that truly got me right now. Will tried to clarify his statement a dozen times. "I don't mean we're breaking up forever, I'm just saying maybe having a break gives you the time to work on yourself instead of expecting me to fix it, okay? I still like you." Stubborn me didn't listen. Fuck Will. And no, not like that.

Anyway, a shocker was the fact that the cops rang the doorbell with a warrant and they arrested El before any of us even had a chance to call Ms. Byers. We even tried to go down to the station and save her from there but that didn't work either. El was probably long gone by the time we returned to the Byers's residence. Later that night we were visited by like FBI or CIA agents.

---

"I'm sorry, I guess I'm just having trouble understanding all of this," Jonathan muttered, sounding offended too, as if these agents didn't just drop a truckload of new information on us. Information that only aided my nightmares. "I mean, what exactly is going on in Hawkins? What's doing all these killings?" Jonathan asked the main lady in front of us. "That's what we're trying to ascertain," she answered. "Where is El, like, right now?" Mike asked frantically, now that him and his girlfriend had been separated again. "For her safety, it's best you don't know," the lady answered, which Mike didn't even try to take lightly.

Will had been pretty quiet during all of this. Of course he was. The silent idiot that couldn't bring himself to be of any use. "So, this training, to get El's powers back, how long is it going to take?" Jonathan asked to which the lady responded with maybe weeks, even months. "Months?!" Will exclaimed in disbelief. "Until then agents Harmon and Wallace will stay with you," the lady explained, pointing to the two guys behind her. "We're not the ones in danger," Mike said. "Our friends live in Hawkins!" I added. "And I'll work to contain the situation until Eleven is ready," she just replied. I couldn't take it.

"Send me! I can fight!" I said, kind of exposing me having powers but all I got was laughs in return, to which Will started defending me. "He can fight... we can fight!" he said. Kind of him, but I didn't need his help. "I know this is difficult to understand," the woman started but Mike immediately went against her again to which she had to reveal: "There are factions in our government working directly against Eleven, who are searching for her as we speak! We cannot risk contact!" she said, firmly.

"If Eleven is jeopardized, then so are your friends," she threatened, almost sounding like she was the villain and not the mind-space flesh monster, whose existence I have yet to mention to anyone. "What, so we're just supposed to trust you guys?" I asked. "We're friends of Owens," the lady replied. "Eleven trusted us. Now we're asking the same from you." She passed Mike a letter from El before the lady left us with Wallace and Harmon.

---

MARCH 24TH 1986

Despite all the arguing, despite everything, me, Will, and Mike were still a unit. Now, the three of us sitting in Mike's guest room that he had been sleeping in the past few days. Mike sat on the edge of his bed, I was laying flat down, staring at the ceiling, and Will was throwing a ball at the wall. It would bounce back and he'd catch it. Yes, I know, I still wasn't okay with Will, but now under house arrest I couldn't catch an earlier flight back home, so might as well just hang out with them either way.

"I mean, I just don't think they've thought this through," Will said, worrying, pacing through the room after he caught the ball again. "If this goes on for months, and people can't get a hold of us, they're gonna totally freak out," he continued. "Relax dude, it also means no school," I said as I gestured for him to pass the ball. He reluctantly did and very purposefully brushed his fingers across mine. I rolled my eyes at that and started throwing the ball up to the ceiling, and catching it when it came down.

"Besides, my mom's probably having a panic attack by now," Will continued, still pacing. The next time I caught the ball I muttered something in response. "What about Hawkins? As if the government can keep it contained. They barely have the past years that's why we kept fighting the monsters," I said. "Like you can contain any of this without El..." Will said before he hesitated for a second. "Or... you," he then quietly murmured. I sighed at how carefully he was moving around me. As if I was made of glass he was scared to break. Understandable, but God, it's not that bad.

Mike didn't care about that, so I just tapped his shoulder. "Hey, dude, you got any wise words for us in this stay-at-home spring break?" I asked him. Mike just muttered a quiet 'yeah', not really listening. Will caught it too now. "You know, if you keep staring at that it's not going to change, right?" he said. I lifted myself up, turning around and taking a seat next to Mike, who crumbled El's letter and threw it into the trash bin. Will took a seat on Mike's other side, leaving just Michael fucking Wheeler in between us. I swear it was always some monster in between us. Though, honestly... Mike's becoming a less worse monster.

"Before the cops came El and I had a fight," he said. I had to bite down on my tongue to not laugh at him. "A bad fight, like I know we've fought before but... this one felt more adult, like more real, like one you don't just come back from," Mike kept explaining and for some reason, his words didn't make me want to punch him, for the first time since... well...

"You could've said something!" he shouted, furious. But this time, I had a good reason. "Mike trust me, I swear, she told me not to tell you!" I shouted. Mike snorted. "Real convenient you tell everyone about what Will saw on Halloween night but not tell me about El!" he jabbed, hard. "What kind of a friend are you?!"

"Maybe I should've said something, and maybe if I said that thing, then maybe she'd want me there with her, wherever she is," Mike's word somehow, kind of resonated with me in a way. In a way that still made me mad at Will, but... maybe not wanting to be at this distance. In that moment something awoke deep inside of me. That weird, undying... fluttery feeling that had been a driving force in my life for so long. And for just that one moment... it felt like my life wasn't a total mess.

I shook my head. "You're gonna see her again Mike," I said as I looked at him, Will's head peeking out from behind Mike's ginormous head. It distracted me but I had to get a message across. "And whatever you didn't tell her, that you did tell all of us last summer..."

"I'm just trying to demonstrate how careless Max is with El's powers, in fact how careless all of you are. You're treating her like some kind of machine when she's not a machine and I don't want her to die looking for the Flayed so can we please come up with another plan because I love her and I can't lose her again." I couldn't help but roll my eyes at that, because for what were you telling this to us and not to her as if your relationship hasn't been rocky as fuck for the past few days.

"You can say it to her then," I finished, giving him two pats on the back. "She's gonna be fine, she's not in Hawkins like the others, and that's what we should be worried about," Will then chimed in. "You don't trust Owens?" Mike asked Will, skipping me for a second, but it didn't feel as forced anymore. "I don't know, I mean... he's been good to us, and to El, but he wasn't able to protect me. That was you guys who saved me," Will said, carefully making eye contact with me then his eyes gliding down to his left side. It confirmed that he still had the burn scar from the fire poker. That made my eyes move to the glove around my own fucked up hand.

I sighed. "Looks like it's gonna be up to us again," I said. Mike quietly chuckled. "Always is, isn't it?" he asked me. Before I could respond, Jonathan was standing in the room. "Which is why we can't stay here." Jonathan walked in, grabbed a chair and sat down. "Let's assume these friends of Owens are telling the truth. We can't call Hawkins without alerting the military," Jonathan started explaining. "Fine. Then we'll just go to them," Jonathan then said. I started nodding at that. "Yes, yes, send me, get me to the airport, I can fight!" I said excitedly but Mike made me shut my mouth.

"How would we even get there, to Hawkins? We don't have a car," Will said. Jonathan smiled. "We'll hitch ourselves a ride... a cheap one," he said, holding up the business card of the pizzeria Argyle worked at.

---

I was busy grabbing my stuff while Will was elsewhere helping Jonathan. Mike came into the room, his bag already packed and ready to go. "You're done already?" I asked him as he came in with a purpose. "Never really unpacked," he said quietly, debating something in his head. "Thanks... by the way," Mike muttered. I frowned as I turned around. "For what?" Mike smiled, scratching the back of his head, embarrassed. "For knocking some sense into me, I mean I was being a total self-pitying idiot," he said. I tilted my head slightly. "What made you realize it?" I asked, not even mad at him anymore, just trying to keep the peace and not force him into apologizing now that he was finally doing that in the first place. "I uh... I heard you guys fight... yesterday..."

"Wait, what do you mean?" I asked, trying to sound like I genuinely cared but it was just a lot right now. "Last summer... I was were you are. I know what it's like. Which is why I know I can't fix it for you, it doesn't work like that because it didn't work for me back then either," he explained.

I looked away in embarrassment. "Oh that? Nah, don't worry that was nothing," I said but Mike replied something unexpected. "Doesn't matter. It just, made me realize... maybe I've been too obsessed over El that I kind of lost sight of my friends... I'm sorry," he then apologized. Finally. I smiled, glad this stupid feud was finally over. "And you're not just saying this because we'll most likely spend a lot of time together in the coming days?" I asked, poking fun at him. He took it well. "Obviously," he answered jokingly.

The conversation gave me hope. Because Mike and I had been fighting for a long time. Mostly because he had been a selfish prick. But if he was apologizing for that, did that mean that maybe I was becoming a selfish prick instead? No, that couldn't be. And every thought just swirled and swirled and... I don't know. I guess my undying love for Will was stronger than whatever was pulling me down. Deep down I felt it. Will still cared too. How was I going to fix this? How was I going to drag us out of this?

A car pulled up and Jonathan and Will were in the room in the minute. "You guys ready?" Jonathan asked as Will and I made eye contact combined with a slight nod. Time to park the relationship drama for a second and go and save the world again. If only it was that easy.

A gunshot followed by a loud thud and as Jonathan went to check either Wallace or Harmon, I don't know who was who, was unloaded an entire magazine of his pistol too. Jonathan came running back shouting something along the lines of we gotta go. Now, in this second I wasn't scared, I could use my powers to defend myself, but then I realized the kind of now confirmed repercussions that could have. Entire factions of the military hunting me? Yeah, I don't think so, gotta stay hidden from the public or they'll kill me for being me.

The window to the room Mike had been sleeping in got smashed and more bullets were shot towards us. Luckily Jonathan was already dragging us out of the room before any of us could've been pierced by the bullets. Will barely reached the roll of paper he had with him to the airport. Getting to the living room we just barely avoided getting shot by a legit gun shooting like, legit military type bullets as one of the two agents gestured for us to follow him. We walked a small round in living room avoiding the different bullets coming at us from all angles until the dude finally cleared us a way to go outside.

Argyle arrived right on time too. Jonathan stopped his van, got him to open the door to the back, pulled the now injured agent in and helped us get in too. "Oh my God, is that real blood man?!" Argyle shouted frantically. "Drive!" Will and Mike shouted back in unison. Argyle nodded, then must've been distracted by a soldier. "Why is that guy holding a gun?!" he shouted again so, Will and Mike shouted again: "Drive!"

---

This is not the time to admit it, I know. But after Will and I had the fight and took some distance, I wrote my thoughts down. In a letter to Max. The only person left that in that moment understood me. I feel like that's not wholly true anymore now that Mike apologized and I knew that Will wasn't actually mad at me, just... making a choice for the greater good. So now that the letter to Max is a bit pointless, let me read it to you.

Dear Madmax,

I wish this letter could reach you the moment I'm done writing, but for that I should've just told you that over the phone. Will and I just had a fight. He was angry at me for not replying to his letters, obviously. What hurt was that he said he couldn't help me with my issues, that it wasn't up to him to fix me. He then said we should take some distance. I wouldn't admit this if I wasn't writing this to you but it broke my heart. I love him, but I don't know how to tell him because my mess of a life is in the way. I don't expect him to fix me either but I feel like... like something is wrong with me that needs to be fixed before I can truly go for him unconditionally. But, we didn't really work over the summer either because he was too scared to be found out. So I guess that's just the status of our relationship. Will is too scared to tell literally anyone and won't kiss me unless there's no one else in sight. And I'm broken, too broken to still even care anymore. I wish I could just be better, and he wouldn't be so scared... that I wouldn't expect him to fix me completely. I think I just overestimated his contributions to my mess of a life. Now I don't know what to do anymore. I wish I could just fall for a badass girl like you. Then I wouldn't have to worry about hiding. One worry less in this horrible life. Uhhh... yeah... anyway, how are you holding up there in Hawkins without me? I hope you're doing okay, and I promise we'll swallow or snort whatever shit Eddie managed to collect after break all right? You're my favorite ginger, don't you forget that.

With love from your favorite junkie,

(Y/N)

Like I said, useless now that I knew Max was probably off adventuring with my other friends still in Hawkins, fighting the flesh man monster that Sky had failed to grab. And then suddenly an idea came to mind. I didn't know whether Sky was still alive, however, I had powers now, and now that we were finally out of sight of government, maybe I could see what the Hawkins gang was up to.

---

It had been a while since I had ever been in mind-space. But the others now knew I had the powers back. I had managed to get Max to appear there. She was sitting on the ground, her back turned to me, just... sitting, not saying anything. I slowly walked towards her, placed my hand on her shoulder the second I reached her and then saw her eyes. Rolled up, lighter blue than normal, like she was in a trance or something. Something was up. Obviously.

When I looked up, in front of Max appeared this sort of red smoke that started filling up mind-space. Could it be Sky's influence? Wherever she was. Without hesitating I walked in, and on the other side found myself walking through puddles of mud and gross vines, of course related to the Upside Down. The sky was red, the clouds were red, everything was red.

"How do you like them? Max." The same eerie low voice I had been hearing past summer, telling me he just wanted me to watch, but also in my nightmares, the one that asked me if I wanted to see. But the voice was here, physically, not in my head. Up ahead was what looked like a broken house and I could make up the vague shape of what seemed to be Max. Before I could even shout her name she ran but fell to the ground. "Shit!" she shouted as what I expected to be a vine pulled her back towards one of the vine pillars scattered around this place.

This was it, the chance to get revenge, but suddenly, a gut feeling told me to stop, take it slow, that this guy wasn't a weak enemy I could just knock out, just like that. So, I sneaked my way from pillar to pillar up towards the broken house which revealed to me that this dude was indeed the flesh man monster that was chilling in my mind-space trying to get Sky. And well, based on the fact I was here, with powers, Sky's first line of defense fallen, must've proven that gut feeling right too. He kicked Sky's ass again. A song then started blasting through the entire space, as if someone had turned on a speaker. I recognized the song immediately.

"Ooh, what'cha listening to?" I asked as I grabbed her headphones and put them on. "Oh, nothing, just the best song you have ever heard!" she said excited as she pressed play. A beat started playing as Max grabbed the bottle and opened it. The song finally started playing as I realized she was listening to Kate Bush. "Oh Kate Bush, yeah I know this one, of course I do,"

"Max!" I heard Dustin shout from afar, which dragged my attention towards a portal, a gate to the real world where Dustin, Lucas, and Steve were sitting around her body. That Max was sitting in the same position as she had been sitting in my mind-space. "They can't help you Max," the flesh man said, turning from the portal, back to face her. "There's a reason... you hide from them," he continued.

Max wasn't scared, or at least, she didn't make it obvious. "You're not really here," she said boldly, despite almost being choked to death by the vines locking her in place. "Oh, but I am," the flesh man responded before moving his monsterly hand up to her face. It made my own monsterly scarred hand sting a bit. In mind-space the hand wasn't gloved so I had to be confronted by its ugliness. Whilst looking at my hand, I saw movement in the corner of my eye. Max's body started floating upwards, into the sky as if she were ascending. Yep, something was up, definitely. I had to step in. If mind-space really carried over everything...

I pulled the switchblade from my back pocket and placed it on the floor. Closing my eyes I started convincing myself of a fake truth again. The switchblade didn't start on the floor, it came from this guy's neck, simply return it there. Will's request for distance then suddenly popped up in my head which made me lose balance for a second and get angry. But that anger then focused into something else. Not only did I throw the switchblade straight at this dude's neck, but the anger from the past few days I had bottled up released along with the throw.

The knife hit bullseye and with the power I had thrown it, the dude got blasted aside, freeing Max. "Run!" I shouted the second she dropped on the floor. She made eye contact with me, nodded and hightailed it towards the portal. Kate Bush was singing at all her might as the flesh man stood up again. He saw me, so I had to flee but... this wasn't about me. This was about Max surviving, so I created a distraction, started throwing whatever I could find lying around here at the guy. It distracted him for long enough so that Max could escape. The portal closed behind her and Kate Bush stopped singing. But the monster? He wasn't done with me just yet.

I froze the minute the portal closed and tried to throw another rock. With his mental abilities he pulled me closer. "You're... here," he said, slowly, eerily, and for the first time in a long time, I was shitting bricks again. "And if you're here..." he started. "That means I didn't finish the job with her." And I knew exactly who he was talking about. Not Max.

Sky.