eight. THE GATE pt. 1

"ELEVEN."

"Mike."

The two preteens walked to each other hugged. Phoebe was glad to see El reunited with Mike, but she also felt terrible keeping her a secret from everyone. They all believed she was gone, so they mourned and missed her.

"I never gave up on you." Mike says as the parted from the hug. "I called you every night. Every night for-"

"353 days." Eleven finishes with a smile. Knowing that he did call and never gave up. "I heard." She adds.

Mike furrowed his eyebrows, "why didn't you tell me you were there? That you were okay?"

"Because I wouldn't let her." Hopper chimes.

That's when Phoebe and Hopper walked towards her. "The hell is this? Where you been?" Hopper asked, upset.

"Where have you been?" Eleven fought back. Hopper leans in and hugs her. As well as Phoebe. Hopper loved his girls and would do anything to protect them, even if they're fully capable of doing it themselves.

"You've been hiding her." Mike concludes, "and you knew?!" He then yells at Phoebe. "You've been hiding her this whole time." Mike pushes Hopper which caused him to turn around. "Hey!" He grabbed Mike by the collar of his shirt and pulled him close. "Let's talk. Alone." Hopper orders and he pushes Mike to a room.

Eleven walks over to Phoebe again and hugs her sister. "I missed you." She says to her older sister.

Phoebe tightens the hug, "I missed you too, but don't ever do that again. You scared me shitless." She tells Eleven. The young girl nods and went to hug her other friends.

"Is that your sister?" Billy quizzes as he saw Eleven hugging, Lucas and Dustin.

Phoebe nods, "yeah. Well, me and her a both adopted." She completely turned to Billy and looked at him. "When I was young my parents were killed. I was taken in by some scientists and was experimented on." She pulls down her sleeve to reveal the number 012 that was tattooed on her wrist. "Hence why I have these powers and such. I managed to escape and Hopper found me and took me in. He gave me a name, fully adopted me and now he's trying with Eleven, but it's kind of hard. People are still out there trying to look for her." She explains as short and as understandable as she could.

"I'm sorry that happened to you." He speaks, placing his hand on her cheek and rubbing her soft skin.

She sinks into his touch with a smile, "I'm kind of glad that it did because if it hadn't, I wouldn't have met these amazing people. And I would have met you." She says. He smiles at her and goes on for a kiss, but it was stopped when Hopper's voice sounded.

"What the hell is happening here?"

Phoebe quickly backs away from Billy and looks up at Hopper with a nervous smile. "You remember, Billy, right?"

"You said he wasn't your boyfriend." Hopper glares at Billy who was slowly sinking in his seat. Becoming a bit scared of the older and much taller man in front of him.

"Technically, he's not. We haven't exactly put a label on our relationship. We haven't proper-"

"I don't care." Hopper says, cutting her off. "If you hurt her, I will rip you apart." He threatens, looking down at Billy with his eyebrows furowed. A terrifying look on his face as Billy looks back at him.

"I won't." Billy replies.

Phoebe rolls her eyes at her protective father and pushes him away from Billy. "Leave him alone." She tells him.

Hopper scoffs and walks away from the two. When Phoebe watched him walk away, she noticed Eleven walking towards the kitchen with Joyce and everyone following behind them.

"Do you think if we got you back there, that you could close it?" Joyce asked Eleven, Phoebe hearing it as she got closer. Eleven glances at Joyce and then looks towards the wall in front of her.

The whole team gathered in the kitchen, taking seats or standing around the table.

"It's not like it was before. It's grown. A lot. And, I mean that's considering we can get in there. The place is crawling with those dogs." Hopper informs, leaning on fhe counter and looking off into the distance.

"Demo-dogs." Dustin spoke.

Hopper looks at him, "I'm sorry, what?"

"I said, uh, demo-dogs." Dustin repeats. "Like Demogorgons and dogs. You put them together, it sounds retort badass—"

"How is this important right now?" Hopper wondered, raising his voice and closing his eyes in annoyance.

"It's not. I'm sorry." Dustin apologizes, turning away.

"I can do it." El speaks.

"Not alone." Phoebe counters, walking over to her little sister.

"You're not hearing me." Hopper shakes his head at the girls.

"We are hearing you." Phoebe said.

"We can do it." El repeats. The two girls nod their heads, letting their father know that they can do it and they will. Whether he likes it or not.

"Even if El and Phoebe can, there's still another problem. If the brain dies, the body dies." Mike says, looking at everyone around him.

"I thought that was the whole point." Max interrupts.

"It is, but if we're really right about this...I mean if they close the gate and kills the mind flayer's army..."

"Will's a part of that Army." Lucas said, understanding Mike's point.

"Closing the gate will kill him." Mike finishes.

The group sighs and tries to figure out what to do. That was until Joyce for up from her head and made her way into Will's room. Everyone followed after her. Will was laying on his bed, asleep and it was freezing when you stepped foot into the room.

"He likes it cold." Joyce whispers, looking towards the opened window.

"What?" Hopper questions.

"It what Will kept saying to me. He likes it cold." Joyce said again. She walked over to the window and closed it. "We keep giving it what it wants."

"If this is a virus, and Will's the host, then..." Nancy trails, looking down at Will.

"Then we need to make fhe host uninhabitable." Johnathan completes.

"So if he likes it cold—"

"We need to burn it out of him." Joyce said.

"We have to do it somewhere he doesn't know this time." Mike advises them.

"Yeah, somewhere far away." Dustin agrees.

Phoebe looked over at Hopper. She notices him thinking and smiles. She knows exactly what he plans on doing.

"I know a place." Hopper says, "come on." Hopper went to wrap Will into a blanket and picked up him. Joyce and Johnathan following him from behind.

"We need to go, El." Phoebe tells her little sister. Eleven nods and began to walk out of the house with Mike following behind her. Phoebe joins and starts walking to the front door with Billy trailing after her.

"Phoebe, wait." Billy calls as they stepped foot outside of the house, "I-I-"

"Everything is going to be fine. I'll come back. I promise." A small tear fell from her eyes. Hoping that she will be alright and that she will come back to Billy. "Also, please keep the kids safe. Make sure nothing harms them or anything."

"I promise, but promise men that you'll be careful. I don't want to lose you." He pleads, pressing his forehead against her and closing his eyes to stop any tears from forming and falling down. Phoebe never seen him so emotional. Of course, she hasn't. She barely knows that guy, and yet she dragged him into this situation.

"I will." She promised. He nods and hugs her tightly. He breathes in her scent and hoped that it wouldn't be the last time he did. "I'll be back." She let's go of the hug and walks towards Hopper's truck. Phoebe gets inside of it after Eleven did and closes the door behind her.

Hopper backed the truck out from its parking space and turned around to drive away.

Phoebe looked back and saw everyone standing on the porch. She felt a few more tears falling down her face as Billy watched them leave.

I'll be back. I'll be back. I'll be back. She kept repeating in her head. She knows she can do this. Especially with the help of her little sister.

Phoebe turned her to look out the window in front of her and released a shaky breath.

The car ride was silent. Hopper drove down the dark roads while the two girls looked out the windows by them.

"So, what, we're just not gonna talk about it, huh?" He quizzes, gaining both of their attention. Phoebe figured he had to be talking to Eleven. She ran away.

Eleven turned to look at him with a puzzled look, "about what?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'm just curious, you know, why all of a sudden you look like some kind of MTV punk." Hopper clarifies, keeping his eyes on the road. "I'm not mad, kid. I just wanted to know where you've been. That's all." He adds, glancing over at her.

"To see mama." El replies, softly.

Phoebe decided to keep quiet. She didn't want to get involved or ruin the flow of trust that was happening in front of her. She did notice the shocked look on Hopper's face when Eleven finally told him where she went.

"Okay," was all Hopper could think to say. "How'd you get there?"

"A truck." El answered. Keeping her replies short. Phoebe shook her head, not believing El got into some random truck to find her Mama. Anything could've happened to her.

"A truck?" Hopper repeats.

"A big truck." Eleven nods.

"A big truck? Who's truck was it?" Hopper asked, his voice becoming louder.

"A man's."

"A man's?"

"A nice man." Eleven said, leaning back into her seat and breaking the eye contact she and Hopper were having.

"Okay. So let me just get this straight in my head. So a nice man in a big truck, he drove you to your mama's and then what? Your Aunt Becky gave you those clothes and that makeup?" Hopper rants, trying to understand where Eleven went and why she looked the way she looked.

"I-" Eleven voice cracked a bit and she looked back over to Hopper. "I shouldn't have left." She confessed.

"Mmm-mmm." Hopper hums. Relaxing a bit, "no. No, this isn't on you, kid. I should have been there. I should never have lied to you about your mom. Or about when you could leave. A lot of things I shouldn't have done. Sometimes I feel like I'm..." Hopper takes a deep breath, "like I'm just some kind of black hole or something." He ends.

Phoebe released a sigh. Tears once again forming in her eyes, "you're not."

"A black hole?" El asked, confused.

"Yeah, it's a...you know, its this thing in outer space. It's like, it sucks everything towards it and destroys it. Sara had a picture book about outer space. She loved it." Hopper explains, sniffing a bit.

"Who's Sara?" El wondered.

Phoebe knew who she was. It was Hopper's actual daughter who died from cancer. Hopper told Phoebe the story and how much he loved and missed her. It always pained him to talk about her.

"Sara? Sara's my girl. She's my little girl." Hopper explains, looking to El.

"Where is she?"

"Well, that's kind of the thing, kid. She, uh...she left us." Hopper tells Eleven. Not wanting to say the word dead.

"Gone." El whispers.

"Yeah. The black hole. It got her." He blames himself for what happened to Sara. "And somehow...I've just been scared, you know? I've just been scared that it would take you guys, too." Sadness took over Hopper's voice.

Phoebe and Eleven looked over to him. Tears falling down their cheeks.

"I think that's why I get...so mad." His voice cracks a bit. He closes his eye for a second and shakes his head. Ashamed of himself. He did the same thing to Phoebe when she first came. He used to be super overprotective over her. When she first came, he never let her leave the house. Never had anyone come over. When she figured out that she was starting high school, she was beyond shocked. He figured that it be safe for her out there since no one was looking for her for years. Hopper still did worried though, a lot. Till this day, he's still protective over Phoebe. Just not as much as before. He allows her to hang out with her friends, go to parties. Letting her live her teen years. There are days when he becomes nervous and anxious when she doesn't contact him or is gone for longer then what she said she would be gone for. Like the night of Halloween when she didn't call and tell him she was staying over Billy's. He's just afraid that one day they will come out of nowhere and take her. He would have no one else to blame for but himself. "I'm so sorry, you guys. For everything. I could be so...so..." Hopper trails.

"Stupid." El says.

Hopper chuckles, "yeah. Stupid."

The two girls let out a soft chuckle as well.

"Just really stupid." He repeats.

El and Phoebe looked at each other with a soft smile on their faces. They both turned to Hopper a grabbed the hand that wasn't on the wheel.

"We've been stupid, too." El said.

She was right. There have been so many times when Phoebe would put herself in danger just to protect her friends and family. Not caring what would happen to her. Then El runs away to God knows where when she knows there are people out there looking for her.

"I guess we broke our rule." Hopper jokes softly. "I don't hate by the way. This whole look." He motions his hand to show that he was talking about Eleven's outfit. " It's kind of cool." He returns his eyes to the road.

"Bitchin." El says.

"Bitchin?" Phoebe repeats with a smile.

"Okay, sure." Hopper chuckles, looking at his two girls. "Bitchin."