Chapter Text
At first, all there is is darkness. It’s potent and black, dark as ink, heavy as rock. But it only lasts for a moment before color seems to flood in. On the tip of her fingers, they outstretch, and buildings rise, pavement appears, people exist from one blink to another. It comes to be that, just before the bomb went off, in a second of wretched indecision, El Hopper decided to live, and despite the cold and scared glare in her sister's eyes, she jumps into a gate after Henry’s body hits the ground. She funnels every hope and dream she has into that jump, and prays she has enough time to make it out safe and sound on the right side up.
When landscapes materialized, she had thought herself home, but when she looked back to see an empty meadow instead of the shell of Hawkins Lab, now completely replaced by a quiet grassy field. It wasn't long before she realized that whatever, or rather whenever, it was that she had landed in was not her home, despite the jarring similarities. It was only a slightly distorted copy of her reality.
Suddenly, days turned to weeks, weeks into months, and though she had been through at least two dozen realities, the only thing that seemed to be predictable was the slow change of the seasons. She had braved through autumn, stumbled through winter, and now she was barely scraping by as the spring flowers began to bloom. She would make her rounds through Hawkins, checking off characters in her head until she was sure she was home. Sometimes, some are missing. She’d been through a few realities where Nancy never existed, some where she is Mike’s younger sister. In others, Hopper is long dead, either from overdose or old age; there was one reality that he stayed in New York, never coming back to Hawkins. There are even ones where the changes are so miniscule, some where instead of Lucas, Max chooses Dustin. Others where neither Max nor Dustin ever arrived at Hawkins to begin with. But one thing is recurrent: the existence of the upside down is either eradicated or was never there to begin with.
Sometimes, she gets desperate enough to put the differences aside. She’ll spy on them, spy on Mike, and see from afar as he smiles or laughs, and for a moment she doesn’t care if he’s a girl here, or if he’s a good decade older than her Mike; she just craves to feel him, to see him look at her again. But she always catches herself, knowing that her Mike is waiting for her on the other side of one of these gaping realities.
She just has to keep looking, and she’ll find him.
On day 136, reality 29 (or was it 28?) El goes into that caving of time and space that sits atop of Hawkins Lab and comes out of what seems to be an abandoned construction site, smothered in harsh sheets of rain. She nearly drowns not only from the rain but the cavity of dirt she struggles to maneuver out of. As she frees herself It comes down harder and faster, bordering on hail and smothering her in mud. El runs against it through the eastern side of the lot. She could sprint through these woods with her eyes closed; she knows how to get to the cabin in every reality there is, and it has sat there, sturdy and abandoned, for at least a third of the dimensions she's braved through. As the rain somehow gets harder, the cabin comes into view, greeting her once again.
She uses her powers to swing open the cabin door and comes face to face with all the cobwebs and cardboard boxes she had become accustomed to in the last four months. She always checks the faucet first, feeling herself smile softly as the water, slowly but surely, sputters out before becoming a pressured stream. She runs her hand under it, feeling the warmth encapsulate her palm.
Warm running water—so far, so good.
She sets her jeans to dry over a box labeled “‘Nam” and her sweater over another labeled “Richie.” Her sneakers sit gaping open by the kitchen sink as she lets herself submerge into the bathtub. She can nearly feel the exhaustion bleed out to her, feel her eyes grow heavy as the rain pitter-patters against the sturdy roof of her trusty cabin.
El is already skeptical that this isn’t her reality. She’s uncertain if Hopper would go through the struggle of removing her bath and packing his life up in just the few months after she has disappeared, but she doesn’t know quite enough to mark it off the list. She beats the dust mites off an old mattress that sits in what used to be her bedroom. Then, just as the sun brushes the horizon, she closes her eyes and sleeps, tossing and turning, dreams riddled with Mike’s optimistic gaze just before the final battle. His three waterfalls, her empty promises—it’s enough to keep her awake for a thousand timelines.
She wakes up, covered in a thin sheen of sweat, panting like a dog, and though the rain outside has long subsided, this guilt that weighs on her tiny shoulders only seems to magnify.
“Just a little longer.” she mutters into the night.
For a moment, she tries to go back to sleep, but the ache becomes unbearable. There, in the quiet of the night, she lets her mind indulge in more than just slumber; she delves into the void, looking for Mike. She tries to think of her Mike, of the unique freckled configuration that only spreads across his nose and cheeks, but knows that there are too many specificities in that request.
Yet, Mike appears. He’s stationed under the thin sheet of his comforter with what seems to be a binder and a reading light. As El gets closer, she hears the quick grinding of a pencil and his soft murmurs.
“And the troglodytes… troglodytes? No,” Mike whispers, the blanket swaying with the scribble of his pencil. “No, easy. Way too easy.”
El lets herself relish in the familiarity of his voice, of his sweet, persistent muttering. She approaches him slowly, feeling the still water ripple at her feet.
“If I force them into the dungeon, then they’ll have no choice but to face one big monster, but what monster?” El smiles, slowly sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Orcs?” He jots down. “No.” Then erases.
It sure does sound like her Mike.
“Can’t be Balor; the party cannot take that. Plus, Max’s is only level one, They wouldn’t last more than a couple of hits. What could it be? What could it be?” She can basically see the pencil rhythmically tap his lips. She’s sure his eyebrows are furrowed in thought, his lips pursed. God, she’d do anything to see it.
He gasps, “The Demogorgon!” and this is followed by the quick scribbling of his pencil.
Until it suddenly stops. Mike freezes, and as a result, so does El. He sits there, still under the blanket, before he suddenly throws the comforter off, revealing his bed head and a confused gaze. El sits very still as he seems to look around the room, as if listening for something only he can hear. It isn’t until he looks at her, peers right through her, that her chest tightens—and in an instant, she’s returned to the dusty old cabin, the echo of his gaze still lingering.