SARA HAD BEEN SITTING IN BED FINISHING OFF HER CHEMISTRY HOMEWORK FROM THE OTHER NIGHT. She still had a wet cloth over her forehead in an attempt to ward off her headaches, and her eyes burned from where they stared down at the paper. She knew James would kill her if he knew she was doing homework instead of resting, but quite frankly she was more scared of her teacher than of him. Sar was still doing catchup work for not being at school for years. Her stereo was playing The Police in the corner.

The doorbell rang out through the hall. Sara's pencil stopped on the paper and she paused for a moment. She briefly considered not answering it until it rung again twice more in quick succession. She stood up in brief annoyance, brows furrowing. Her light blue nightgown fell around her ankles as she stomped through the house. "Coming!" she exclaimed loudly as it rang again. Sar threw open the door before she even checked to see who it was. Steve and Dustin stood on her doorstep, both wearing matching expressions of sheepish guilt. Sara blinked at them for a second. "What are you two doing here?" she asked. The night was cold in her light gown and she rubbed her freezing bare feet against the doorstep. Steve was pretending not to glance at her shapely figure where the nightgown was clinging to it, but didn't do a very convincing job.

"Well," Dustin began, "I may have raised a little slug and it may have turned into a baby demogorgon." He paused with a wince.

Her eyes widened and her mouth gaped open. "A what?" She pulled her nightgown tighter around her figure. "Wait here." She strode back into the house, leaving the door slightly open. Her silk nightgown fell around her figure like a whip as she turned the corner into her room. Steve was still staring after her. Dustin pointed at Steve with a grin, who went red and smacked lightly him on the head.

When she returned, she'd changed into a yellow sweater and jeans. Her hair was tied back and she held an axe in her hands. "Okay. Now you are going to explain all of this to me, Henderson," she exclaimed with an accusatory finger pointed at him as she walked past.

"An axe?" he questioned.

She just gave him a look. "You seriously raised a baby demogorgon and you're worried about my axe? You have a lot of explaining to do." The girl stomped past them, waiting for Steve to unlock the car.

"He ate Mews..." Dustin murmured with a hint of sadness.

They jumped into Steve's Beamer, Sara being forced to climb in the back. Steve still looked slightly guilty as he started the car and they began to tell her the whole story. When they'd finished, she was staring at both of them accusingly and with an expression of disbelief. They withered under her gaze. "You bloody idiots! You let a baby demogorgon escape into the woods?" she was shaking her head at them in disbelief. Her elbows were resting on the back of Steve's seat.

"Well that's why we have you!" Dustin exclaimed. "You're way more responsible than Steve."

"Hey!"

"And you can help us steal some meat for a trap to lure Dart into!" Dustin nodded as if it was a fact.

Sara gave Dustin a look, blinking him at the splashes of moonlight hitting her eyes through the windshield. "We are not stealing from a grocery store," she said.

Dustin turned around in the front seat. "Sara! You have mind powers!" He wiggled his fingers by his head as if to solidify the point. "Why would we spend all our money on meat when you could just get us some?"

Sara crossed her arms over her chest and leant back argumentatively. She had her eyebrows raised. "And what do you have to say about this?" she asked Steve. He looked back at her and shrugged.

"I kinda agree with Dustin, Sar. I mean, we could use it." He winced under her annoyed gaze in the rear-vision mirror and focused on driving.

She just watched them with disbelief. "You two are assholes," she said after a moment, giving Dustin another sharp stare. "I hope you know that."

Back in Sara's room, quiet and alone, a walkie-talkie sat unused on her shelf. It was one the boys gave her a while ago, and connected to a channel her father could use on his own radio. The Police still played softly on a spinning record in the corner, smooth and quiet. The radio on her shelf crackled. "Sara." Her father's voice crackled through the speaker in a cough. He sounded worse-for-the-wear, weathered and unwell. "Sara. I need your help, please. I'm trapped in the tunnels beneath Merril's farm - at his pumpkin patch. The Upside Down, it's here." The radio crackled again in the empty room. "Please, Sar. Please. I need your help." Another cough. "Sara. Please." No one was there to hear him but the whispering of headlights on the windowsill outside, and the murmurs of tired birds' wings.

•°•☆•°•


SARA WAS TRUDGING THROUGH THE FOREST, SLEEVES OF HER BELOVED YELLOW SWEATER TUCKED UP TO HER ELBOWS AND REVEALING THE PALE STRIPS OF SKIN BETWEEN. She had a bucket of raw cow meat in her hands, which she was staring down at distastefully. Every few moments she would stick a gloved hand in and pull out some meat to scatter along the train tracks. It was the exact same ones which she'd walked along with Steve last year. At the thought of him, she glanced back where Steve and Dustin were chatting a few paces behind her, just out of shot of her hearing. Steve looked up as she made eye contact with him and gave her a small smile before she turned back.

"It's not about the hair, man," Steve was telling Dustin. He chucked down a few more chunks of the raw meat onto the tracks. "The key with girls is just... just acting like you don't care."

Dustin squinted. "Even if you do?"

Steve shrugged nonchalantly, hair bobbing. "Yeah, exactly. It drives them nuts."

The younger boy seemed eager now, ignoring his job of laying the meat entirely. They were following Sar's trail anyway. She still knew the track well since when she and Steve had walked along it almost a year ago. "And then what?"

"Then you just wait until, uh," he turned around to chuck meat behind him, "until you feel it." He nudged Dustin on the shoulder with a knowing smile.

Dustin just looked confused. His cap was sloping on his head. "Feel what?"

"It's like before it's gonna storm, you know? You can't see it, but you can feel it, like this, uh... electricity, you know?"

"Oh, in the electromagnetic field when the clouds in the atmosphere—"

Steve cut him off, "No, no, no, no, no. Like a... like a sexual electricity." Sar looked back again with squinted eyes, wondering what the boys were talking about. She could only hear the murmur of their words, and even then she couldn't entirely make out what they were saying. She made eye contact with both boys, who gave her an awkward smile.

"Oh," Dustin supplied.

Steve hit him softly again on the arm. "You feel that and then you make your move."

Dustin nodded. "So that's when you kiss her?"

"No, whoa, whoa. Slow down, Romeo." His hair flopped in front of his face again as he threw down more meat. "Sure, okay, some girls, yeah, they want you to be aggressive. You know, strong, hot and heavy, like a... I don't know, like a lion. But others, you gotta be slow, you gotta be steady, like a..." he made a sliding movement with his hands, "like a ninja."

Dustin's eyes didn't even dart up, saying the next words without a second thought. "So what about Sar?" Dustin asked. "What is she?" Steve looked up at the girl walking in front of him, yellow sweater looking beautiful around her frame. She had a pistol sticking out of her back pocket and a wildflower in the other, hair tied up in a ponytail.

He shrugged as Dustin watched him intently. "Sar is neither. I don't know, it's hard to explain."

"What do you mean?"

Steve sighed as he scattered some more raw meat on the tracks, eyes narrowed as if he was trying to figure it out himself. "I mean, I guess there's a third kind of girl who you're never sure what they want. And sometimes you think they want you, and they act like you're their world — and then other times they act like they don't care. And I guess then you just have to wait and figure out what they want from you." His eyes turned back down to the ground.

Dustin screwed up his face. "Well shit. I think this girl is that kind. What do I do?"

Steve's eyes darted back up to Sar momentarily before shaking his head with a sigh. "Just... do what I said. Show her you don't care. And she'll come through." He nudged Dustin playfully with his elbow again and watched as Sara kicked a stone down the tracks. One of her strands of light hair hung in front of her eyes, glowing with an ethereal white as the sunlight caught it. He shook his head as she brushed it away with careful fingertips, and turned back to his task.

•°•☆•°•

I love how Steve is just going against his own advice with Sar - like literally since they've met he's been nothing but kind and caring towards her awwwww. Also confused Steve.

School starts again today and I am so annoyed!!! Ignore any mistakes for that reason! (Also I'm still dead over Infinity War thanks)