"HELLO? YOU GUYS CAN HEAR ME, RIGHT? Are you there?" The voice came out of seemingly nowhere. It startled the four kids, who were sitting inside the shelter of a rusted down bus. The heat and the waiting were sapping at their nerves.

All four of them sat up at the words. "Do you guys hear that?" Dustin was looking around with his eyebrows pulled in. The others pulled the same expression.

"Was that Sar?"

Lucas crawled up onto one of the seats to peer out the dusty windows. "I don't see her." The junkyard was deserted, and a helicopter whirred overhead.

"Can you guys hear me?"

Mike looked around, as if expecting her to be right there. "She's not here."

"It's gotta be Sar, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. She's doing that telepathy thing. Like Jean Grey," Dustin elaborated, sitting back down on his seat.

Lucas pulled a face at him. "I know what she does."

"Are we going to answer?" Mike interrupted their bickering. "We have to answer, right? I mean, she's looking for us."

"What if she's been captured?" Lucas asked.

"Like Lando Calrissian," Dustin acknowledged.

"Look, I know you can hear me. I'm with Nancy and Jonathan, and Chief Hopper and Joyce Byers. We know the bad men are looking for you and we need to know where you are, so we can help you."

Lucas was shaking his head rapidly. "Lando," he reminded. "Don't respond!"

"You really think the Moonmaiden would give away our position?" Dustin hissed.

"Maybe! If she was captured!" Lucas was throwing his hands up in exaggerated motions. "And stop calling her that. She's not the Moonmaiden."

Dustin raised his eyebrows. "Just wait until she turns into a moon goddess. Then you won't be disagreeing." Lucas just gave him a look.

Mike leant forward. "Look, if she wouldn't be doing this if she was captured. Didn't she say she would rather die than be captured?"

"Yeah, to Steve Harrington," Lucas exclaimed.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Lucas was shaking his head. "You can't trust anything anyone says to Steve Harrington."

Dustin nodded at that. "It's Steve Harrington."

"Okay, well what do we do? She says she's with the Chief and my sister!"

"Maybe they're all captured," Dustin said. He raised his hands to clasp them over his hat. "Oh no, that would be bad."

"Please answer. We're trying to help you. El? Are you there, El?" Eleven looked up at the boys, as if alarmed. Her eyes were wide.

Lucas waved his hands in front of him. "Eleven, no! Don't do it."

She crinkled her eyebrows. "Why... not?" she asked slowly.

Mike turned back to face the two boys. "We need to respond. Sar wouldn't sell us out. Why would she sell us out to the men who captured her?"

"For her own freedom!" Lucas exclaimed, raising his hands in the air as if it was obvious. "Are you guys kidding me?"

"Would never let her be free," Eleven put in, knees drawn up beneath her chin. "She's safe. We can talk to her."

Mike dropped his hands down beside him. "See, Lucas?" Lucas just made a noise of protest and threw his arms up. Dustin was still holding onto his hat on his head. Mike flattened his lips as he creased his eyebrows. "The old junkyard, past the Elm train tracks," he said out loud, hoping the blonde girl would somehow hear it.

•°•☆•°•

SAR TURNED AROUND. "The old junkyard, behind the tracks off Elm," she told them. Hopper revved up the car. "Got it. I know the ones."

Hopper nodded. "So do I." Sar leant back against the leather seats as Hopper started the car in that direction. She'd managed to calm down in the time they'd been waiting for the boys to respond. She never meant to get so wound up all the time, but it was impossible. How do you ever fully recover from something like that? Her fingers wrapped up in her yellow skirt.

The junkyard was halfway across town. The scientists' cars had long taken off in that direction, and Hopper was trying to navigate them to the area in the shortest, different way possible. Jonathan was holding on to the handle on the roof for dear life as they skidded down the roads, slamming across uneven street ways. Sar decided to do the same while Nancy looked utterly frightened in the middle. But they had to get there soon.

Sar relaxed after a few moments as she got used to the bumping of the Byers' old car. She leant against the car window. What other time than tracking down a group of hunted kids while trying to avoid evil scientists, to contact Katie and James? "Four, you there?" The dry landscape was sliding by as Hopper drove at top speed. They were spinning around the corners in a way that Sar was certain would be very illegal, if Hopper wasn't the chief.

James replied almost immediately. It was the middle of the afternoon, to be fair. "Hey, how's my favourite girl doing?"

Sar made an amused face, leaning her head back against the window. Her blonde hair had come completely out of its ponytail now, lying across her shoulders. "We all know that's a lie, Four. Everyone knows Katie is your favourite."

"Second favourite," he corrected.

She snorted at that. "Plus, it doesn't help your case that the only family you have are all girls, and guess what? That's us two."

"Hey, I know more girls than just you two," James protested. "You know, I get out! When I'm not babysitting Katie. We're not just in a bubble, you know."

"Well, maybe you should be. It's dangerous out there."

"Says the criminal."

"Oh, will you shut up about that," she mused, her voice coming through in a snort. "And it's fun!" She kicked her legs up over the other, annoying Nancy who sat next to her, though the girl had a tiny smile on her face.

She heard James' snort. "Right. Robbing banks and going on wild car getaways is fun."

"Uh-huh," she defended. "You wouldn't know it until you tried it." James just made a noise of amusement. "Whatever. And I'll let you know that you're no longer my favourite guy."

"Oh buzz off, Sar. I don't care if Steve is your favourite now."

"Another lie," Sar sang.

"You're a fucking annoying sister," he grumbled.

"Ah," she said with a smirk. "I'm switching over to Katie now," she mused. "Bye now, James—yeah, bye!" She cut him off before he could even reply. It was teasing and they both knew it.

Sar had relaxed back in her seat, glancing out the window. "Hey, Katie You there?." Katie wasn't her real name, not really. No one knew Twelve's real name. In fact, no one past Eight could recall their names. They'd been taken differently to the others, and weren't given the luxury to remember all or even part of their name (considering most were never given one at such the young age). But Twelve had decided Katie was her favourite name, and so it's what she named herself.

"Hello, Sar." Katie's sweet voice never failed to warm up Sar's insides. This was the girl she'd raised. All the kids had been taken within the same couple of years, so they'd all grown up together. The ages at which they'd been taken varied though, from children to just newborns.

"Did you make something explode today?"

"No, not today." Katie sounded almost disappointed. Sar imagined the look on her face, with her lips pulling into an annoyed frown, green eyes tilting downwards slightly and crinkling at the edges, the scar down her cheek looking even deeper in the glare. It was her signature pissed off look. Sar was just grinning at the thought.

She rolled her head over so it rested on Nancy's shoulder. Nancy looked startled, but not overly surprised. Sar was super tired. That night spent at Nancy's house, Sar had let Jonathan and Nancy sleep on the bed while she took the mattress in front of the door, promising to protect them if this monster came. She knew it wouldn't. But she hadn't slept well, that night. The impending nightmares frightened her, and she didn't want to dare fall asleep with them lingering across the vale of consciousness. She stayed up all night in the blankets talking to Will. They were both frightened together, at least. "Hey. So I promise that when all of this... crap has blown over, I'm going to come live with you."

"Really?" Katie instantly perked up at that, tone high and excited. "You really will?" 

Sar smiled."Yeah, of course. I'll have to keep in touch with the friends I've made here... but I miss you guys too much. And this town is too dangerous for me. For all of us."

"Talking to someone?" Nancy asked, looking over at the girl.

She nodded softly. "The people who became my family." Sar still hadn't told the others about James and Katie, save for Steve. That would come later.

"Are you still hunting the scientists?" asked Katie, thoughtfully.

"'Hunting'," Sar laughed. "I wish we were hunting them. We're trying to stay out of their way as much as possible. You know that if they found me they'd take me back."

Katie seemed to consider this. "Then don't let them catch you." The silence that enveloped the two for the next minutes was comfortable. Sar had propped her legs up against the driver's seat in front of her, knees pressing against her chest. Her leather jacket had been discarded in the warmth of the car and was pooling on the seat around her back. Sunlight was heating her cheek. "I miss them."

Sar's eyebrows crinkled. "Who, Katie?"

There was silence from the other side for a moment, before the thirteen-year-old spoke up. "The others."

Sar pulled the edge of her mouth up into an incredibly sad smile. "Me too, Kate. Me too." Her thoughts faded off into pitiful silence as she rested her head against Nancy's shoulder. There was nothing else she could say to the girl — nothing that would matter. She couldn't tell her they were coming back, or that what they did was justified, or that they didn't let all those kids die. It was selfishness, was all it had been. And sometimes you need selfishness to survive.

"We'll see each other soon, right?" Katie asked. "I mean, you'll come live with us. I've missed you so much while you've been away, Sar. I can't wait."

"Right."  Sar smiled. "You're going to have to show me around, yeah?"

"Yeah! The people here kind of suck, but it's still nice. And you can have the best view in the house, the one with the wall of windows! You can see all the stars from that spot. They're spread out all across the sky." Sar imagined Katie throwing her arms into the air to mimick the action. She paused. "Like the ones Lune drew on the ceiling of the dorms that one time."

Sar grinned fondly at the memory. "She got in so much trouble. But they kept them up there." The smile was turning down at the corners and tears were threatening to rise to her eyes. She blinked slowly. "I miss her so much."

"Me too," Katie said. "I still remember all the constellations' names. Cassiopeia, Aquila, Ursa Major, Aries, Aquarius, Gemini..." Katie recited. "I count them at night with James." Sar was forced to look away from Nancy's wandering gaze.

"I count them too, Kate." She didn't tell Katie about the stick-on-stars on her ceiling, nor the way she imagined them on Steve's when she had to go to sleep, nor the way her nightmares worsened when she wasn't under them—when she wasn't under her own set of stars, that wouldn't move for the world. Lune's stars.

She found her hands wrapping around her middle the way she did, fingers crawling to dig into her soft flesh. She felt the bones of her ribcage jutting out and remembered how incredibly thin she had become during her time there.

"James says I have to start studying now." Katie's soft thoughts rung through her mind like honey, breaking Sar from her thoughts. How did the lab end up with something so pure?

She closed her eyes momentarily. "Tell James he sucks, for me. I'll talk to you later, Kate."

"Bye, Sar. I can't wait to see you again. I've missed you so much." And then Katie was gone from the connection Sar had made. The girl sunk back down in her seat, eyes falling closed. Her hands came to rest back in her lap. She just tried not to think. They must have been getting closer to the junkyard. The rows of houses were starting to blend into forest, and concrete roads starting to blend into dirt ones. The Elm tracks were the ones that ran behind Steve's house, so Sar was familiar with them. She leant back as they veered around the backstreets.

"The bad men are here." That wasn't Katie or James. The voice was softer, and much more cautious.

A crease appeared in Sar's eyebrows and she sat bolt upright in her seat, startling Nancy. "They've found them."

"What?"

"Hawkins Lab. They found the kids. Hurry up!" Hopper swore under his breath at that and pressed down harder on the accelerator. There were no more thoughts sent to her, from Eleven or any of the other boys. All of the passengers in the car exchanged wide-eyed looks. They sped across the road that lead to the train tracks, and down the dirt road into the junkyard. The car skidded to a stop beside piles of hunks of metal. Sar was craning forward against her seatbelt, trying to find where the kids possibly were.

Hopper jumped out of the car. "Stay here," he told them, loading his pistol. The chief moved around the piles of junk, where two perfectly good, running cars were parked. They were already here.

Sar, of course, had never been good at listening to instructions. She slipped out of her seat and moved over to crouch behind the hunk of a rusted down car. She didn't have her gun on her, and her axe had been confiscated too. She peered through the broken window. There were three men searching for the boys, stretched out across the junkyard in front of her. One of them was stepping into the doorway of a broken-down bus, gun cocked in his hand. Hopper was sneaking up behind him. He threw his hand into the man's head so he slammed against the bus door. When the man crumpled to the ground, the one to his right turned to look at him. "Hey!"

But Hopper stepped forward first and knocked a single good punch into the side of his head. He was out with just that. The other scientist turned around, revolver pointed at Hopper. Sar jumped out from behind the rusted car. She grabbed a metal folding chair from a pile of junk. "Yah!" Sar slammed the metal chair over his head. "Take that, you bitch," she sneered as the man crumpled to the ground. She chucked the rusted chair to the side. It clattered against the metal pile loudly.

Sar saw the four face watching through windows of the bus. A wide grin appeared on Dustin's face as the four of them raced to the doorway. The kids leapt from the open doors of the bus. "Sar!"

"Yes, Moonmaiden!" Dustin threw both his hands in the air in a fist-pump.

Eleven came jumping out of the bus, throwing her arms around Sar's middle. She'd lost the wig Sar had seen her with last, and her pink dress was now scuffed with dirt and mud. Sar secured the girl against her with tight arms. Eleven eventually let go. Sar stepped back, placing a comforting hand on the top of Eleven's head. The girl was smiling up softly at her.

Sar's eyes grazed down to the unconscious man lying on the ground and she made a face. She gave the scientist's side another angry kick in satisfaction. Then she raised her eyebrows at the onlookers. "Let's go," she said, putting a hand on El's shoulder.

•°•☆•°•

Ok but when Sar went 'Uh-huh' I imagined it as an Emilia Clarke uh-huh. Also just to make it clear, when Sar is talking in her mind she's not talking out loud, it's just projecting thoughts into someone else's head and being able to read the thoughts they send through the connection.

Not super proud of this chapter, and it's taken me super long to write, but hope everyone enjoyed it! Sorry about any grammatical mistakes.