When Lily's eyes opened that morning, she instantly knew there was a problem.

For one thing, she hadn't woken up to the sound of her alarm blaring on the clock on her nightstand, the room covered in a heavy silence as thick as a blanket. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, casting the room in a warm glow that wasn't typically there when she got ready for the opening shift at the arcade before the sun had risen in the sky. So when she finally looked over at the clock, the numbers 8:34 blinking back at her, she shot up out of bed quickly, instantly moving for her closet to get ready.

"Shit," she murmured as she pulled the Palace Arcade shirt off the rack in her closet. "Shit, shit, shit,"

A muffled groan came from the bed, where Eddie's face was buried in his pillow, and he looked over at her, confusion in his heavy-lidded eyes. "What's going on?" he asked groggily, eyeing the redhead changing out of her pajamas and into her work clothes. "Don't get me wrong, I love the view." he said, gesturing to the sight in front of him. "But what's the rush?"

"I overslept," Lily said, pulling on the Palace Arcade t-shirt and moving to grab her jeans from where they were draped over her desk chair. "My alarm didn't go off, I should've been there an hour ago."

"Baby, you're off today." Eddie reminded her with a yawn as she stopped, hands frozen on the button of her jeans.

"I'm..." she trailed off thoughtfully, looking back over at the calendar hanging on the wall. "What day is it today?"

"Fuck if I know," Eddie said. "Thursday, I think? Maybe Wednesday? I don't know. But we were talking about our plans just last night, remember?"

At his words, a wave of relief crashed over Lily, who took a seat back at the edge of the bed, catching her breath. She knew she'd been working far more hours than she should have lately to earn some extra cash, but what she wasn't prepared for was the overwhelming sense of quiet upon realizing there was nowhere she needed to be that morning. As Eddie sat up next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, she leaned back into him instinctively, already feeling her tired body turning back into mush as she fought to keep her head up, the adrenaline beginning to ebb out of her system.

"Don't take this the wrong way," Eddie said, looking down at the redhead next to him. "But you kinda look like a zombie."

Lily's eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she looked back up at him. "Charming, Edward." she said sarcastically.

"I mean, you're a hot zombie, obviously." he rambled, trying his hardest to save the conversation. "But you look exhausted. When's the last time you got a full night's sleep?"

"I got one..." she trailed off, thinking but unable to come up with an answer. "Okay, point taken, I get it."

"Exactly," he continued. "You've been working yourself into the ground taking all these shifts at the arcade. You never worked this much before."

"We were never so short staffed before." she pointed out. "It's been easy to pick up some extra shifts for some extra cash."

"But not today," he said, leaning back so he was once more lying down in bed and pulling her along with him, and Lily instinctively curled back up against his side. "Go back to bed, honey."

Lily nodded, though before she could respond, she felt her eyelids growing heavier, allowing them to close once more as she listened to the sound of Eddie's heart beating against his chest. It felt like only a moment later, but when she opened her eyes again, Eddie was gone, leaving Lily alone in the room, and as she looked back over to the alarm clock, she saw that it was shortly after ten.

Still in her work clothes, Lily sat up slowly, stretching her arms. She climbed out of bed, walking through the mobile home in search of the curly-haired man, but she stopped short as she heard his voice through the cracked window in the living room. He spoke softly, his words drifting inside with the wind, and Lily walked towards the screen door, catching a glimpse of the sight before her.

Eddie sat on the front steps of the mobile home, a cigarette dangling between his teeth and a guitar in his lap, but his attention was firmly on the gray cat sitting next to him. He reached a hand out to scratch the animal between the ears, talking to him as if in the middle of a serious conversation. However, at the creaking sound of the screen door opening, he looked over at Lily, a smile crossing his face.

"Babe, come meet my friend." Eddie said, gesturing for her to take a seat next to them, and she stepped forward, sitting down in the remaining space on the steps.

"I didn't know you had a cat," Lily said curiously, her eyebrows furrowing together in confusion.

"Oh, I don't," Eddie assured her. "I've named all of the strays living around here over the years. This here is my buddy, Marlin. Marlin, this is my girlfriend, Lily."

"It's nice to meet you," Lily said, giving the cat a scratch behind his ears, and the cat began to purr in response.

"So did the extra sleep help?" Eddie asked, and Lily nodded. "You look less zombiefied."

"You have such a way with words, Munson, it's no wonder you're a musician." Lily chided. "But yes. It's been so long since I've been able to sleep in that I forgot what it felt like. I think I really needed a day like today."

"Good," he assured her. "Because we're going to have the best day today. We're finally going for pizza and milkshakes, remember?"

Lily felt a surreal sense of electricity move through her at his words, and she couldn't help the smile on her face when she nodded. How those words had gotten them through the end of the world, and at moments had felt like an impossible dream that they were seconds away from losing forever, only to now be so close at hand. Those words were finally coming to light that day, and she could hardly wait.

"Go get ready," he said, leaning forward and pressing a quick kiss to her lips. "You're all mine today, Mayfield."

Lily headed back into her room, quick to get changed out of her work clothes and into a striped shirt and denim skirt, braiding her red hair back to keep it out of her face. By the time she pulled her shoes on and wandered back outside to where Eddie was waiting, he couldn't keep the smile off of his face as she reached for his hand, guiding them back towards his van.

Lily tossed Eddie the keys, the man all too eager to drive his truck again once the plaster cast had been removed from his leg, fully healed after his attack from the Demobats. She climbed into the passenger seat of the van as Eddie turned the keys in the ignition, the cassette tape inside already beginning to blare through the speakers.

"There's my girl," Eddie greeted the van, running a hand over the dashboard in admiration. "I've missed you. So glad Lily took such great care of you while I was gone."

Lily rolled her eyes playfully as Eddie drove to the first stop on their agenda for the day. While usually she might not have been overly excited to visit the Palace Arcade on her day off, especially after the morning she had, she couldn't deny the excitement that flickered within her at the idea of getting to spend an afternoon playing the games that she spent her days admiring from afar, and hoping to rack up some points of her own on her favorites. She hadn't spent a day playing at the arcade since the start of the summer before, and she was more than ready to make up for lost time.

The inside of the Palace Arcade was a blur of colors and sounds, from the theme music of Pac-Man at the first machine to their right, to the sounds of Skee-Balls being rolled down the lanes against the back wall. While the demand for the arcade had died down considerably since their grand opening in the past few weeks, the place was still crowded with teenagers still enjoying their time off from school while Hawkins High was used as a shelter for those displaced by the earthquake, and enjoying the early summer break before they were due back to take finals at the end of the month.

"What's first?" Eddie asked, brandishing a quarter from his pocket and handing it to Lily. "Dig Dug?"

Lily smiled. "Dig Dug it is,"

Lily led Eddie over to the machine, sticking the quarter in the coin slot and watching as the machine booted up with the theme music. Lily reached for the joystick, letting the game consume her focus as she maneuvered Dig Dug through the tunnels. Next to her, Eddie watched intently as she moved through the levels, each one getting progressively harder until she was finally trapped and beaten by one of the monsters.

"Dammit," Lily sighed, shaking her head as the game displayed her score. "I'm a little rusty after all these months." she explained to Eddie. "Not my best."

Lily's eyes fell back on the screen, which now displayed the top 10 scores of all time. While Lily had managed to get her name on the board at number 6, she couldn't tear her eyes away from the name that still lingered at number 1.

MADMAX

Lily bit down on her lower lip to keep it from quivering as she looked at her little sister's name displayed at the top in glory, remembering the younger redhead spending her afternoons at the arcade when they first moved to Hawkins, and even more frequently when Lily began working there. The hours she'd poured into Dig Dug even back in California, the game you could never quite tear Max Mayfield away from. Although she'd visited the arcade far less frequently after Billy died, in the times where she'd needed to wait for Lily to be done with her shift, she still called the game home.

"Such a badass," Eddie said encouragingly, pointing to Max's name. "Y'know I once spent an entire day here just trying to beat her score? Open to close, Dig Dug was mine the entire day, and I never came close. I don't know how she does it."

"Just feels empty without her playing here sometimes." Lily admitted. "I know she wasn't here as much the past few months unless she needed to be, but looking over here at work and not seeing her camped out is something I'll never get used to."

"And you won't have to get used to it." Eddie said encouragingly, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. "Because someday soon she'll be right back here where she belongs, keeping a hold of her crown as the Queen of Dig Dug."

"Yeah," she agreed, nodding. "Yeah, you're right."

"So what's next?" Eddie asked, looking around the room. "Air Hockey?"

Lily smiled, leaning over and giving Eddie a kiss on the cheek. "Air Hockey it is."

Following an afternoon competing in Air Hockey, Skee-Ball, and several runs on Arkanoid and Gauntlet, Eddie and Lily left the arcade late in the day, the sun already beginning to set behind the buildings of Hawkins. They piled back into the van for the other stop at a pizzeria just outside of Hawkins, undamaged in the wake of Vecna's attack, and the neon sign shone like a beacon down the road as they approached.

"What kind of pizza do we want?" Eddie asked as he pulled the van into park, turning the keys and killing the engine.

Lily shrugged. "Pepperoni?" she suggested.

"Hear me out," Eddie said as they climbed out of the van, instantly reaching for his girlfriend's hand as they walked towards the front door of the pizzeria. "That friend of Byers who drove them back from California, Argyle? He makes pizzas and he said the best one was pineapple and jalapeno. What do you think?"

"I think it sounds like you've been smoking some of that Purple Palm Tree Delight they left you to help with your pain." Lily said, eyeing him with an amused grin as they took two seats in a booth near the back of the restaurant.

"'Try before you deny,' he told me." Eddie said encouragingly, and Lily buried her face in her menu to keep from chuckling. "Wheeler and his mage girlfriend even said it was good. I'll tell you what. We'll get half pepperoni, in case you don't like it, and on the other half we'll do the pineapple and jalapeno. I know it's sacrilege, pineapple on pizza, but if the guy who knows where to get the good shit is telling me to try it, I think I owe it to him, right?"

"Deal," Lily agreed finally, Eddie giving her a cheesy smile in return.

"Have we had a chance to decide on an order?" the waitress, a teenage girl with a high ponytail with a visor on top asked, pulling the notepad from the pocket of her apron.

"Yes," Eddie said. "We will take a large pizza, half pepperoni, half pineapple and jalapeno. And an M&M milkshake with two straws."

"You've got it," she said, scribbling down the order before heading back to the kitchen.

"You know, we could always make this interesting." Eddie suggested, leaning back in his seat.

"Oh yeah?" Lily asked.

"Yeah," Eddie said. "On whether or not the pizza's good. Loser has to go skinny dipping in Loch Nora?"

Lily thought for a minute, looking at Eddie's outstretched hand. "Don't all the fancy rich people live in Loch Nora?"

"Even better," he said without missing a beat. "Gotta give 'em a good show."

"Fine," Lily said, extending a hand towards Eddie's and shaking it.

As the milkshake was delivered, set in the middle of the table with a straw facing each of them, Lily couldn't help the blush that covered her cheeks as she took in the magnitude of the boy sitting across from her. How that day running into him while putting up posters for the Hellfire Club had led to a friendship that spanned time and space through the Rightside Up and the Upside Down, and to the love that radiated whenever he was near. To think she'd willingly given up so much time with him in her haste to leave town, but she knew now that she had the rest of their lives to make up for it.

When the pizza was finally set down in front of them, a devilish glint flashed in Eddie's eyes as he smirked over at Lily. "Alright, we try Argyle's first," he suggested, grabbing a piece of his own while Lily picked up hers. "Loser goes for a swim?"

"Loser goes for a swim," she echoed, clinking her piece of pizza against his in a sign of cheers before bringing the piece up to her mouth.

Any retort Lily had about the pizza died the second she tried the slice. She was instantly hit by the spice of the jalapeno, but was quickly offset by the sweetness of the pineapple. She furrowed her eyebrows together in confusion at the two ingredients that shouldn't have gone together, much less on pizza, but for some reason, it worked.

Looking over at Eddie, who had a wide smile on his face as he swallowed the bite, Lily sighed, setting the piece down. "Try before you deny," Eddie reminded her with a shrug, knowing without any words from the redhead that he was victorious.

"Try before you deny," she agreed, nodding slowly.

"Looks like we need to add one more spot to our list before we go home tonight." Eddie said. "I think a trip out to Loch Nora may be in order."

Lily sighed, leaning back in her seat. "Dammit, Argyle." she muttered under her breath. "Yeah, yeah. You win."

"Hell yeah I did," he said, smiling as he leaned forward to take a sip of the ice cream beverage in front of them. "To pizza and milkshakes."

Lily smiled, leaning forward and taking a sip of her own. "To pizza and milkshakes."