Chapter Text
Nancy later learns that they spend two full days in the MAC-Z, though it feels longer. Time moves oddly past her. She feels continually shell-shocked by the deal she's made, the radical ways in which her life is about to change, so she goes through the motions as if her body is not her own. Medical exams. Briefings. Statements given. She says nothing as the good news spreads among the captives: they're all going free once everyone's been questioned, on the condition of silence, of course. The word free echoes strangely in her head afterwards.
When it's finally time to leave, Nancy doesn't believe it; she keeps waiting for the gates to slam shut on them. Mike seems despondent. Nancy thinks she must look equally defeated, but she puts the brave face on—a familiar feeling, for her—takes his arm in one hand, takes Holly's in the other, and walks.
On her way out, she locks eyes with Dr. Kay, who nods almost imperceptibly. Nancy has to turn her gaze away, fighting back a full-body shudder.
The days blur even more from there. Nancy stays in motion, afraid that if she stops moving for even a second she'll collapse. She takes Holly to the hospital for a tearful reunion with their mother and a solemn visit to their father, who remains comatose but is supposedly on the mend. She returns to the Wheeler house for the first time since the Demogorgon attack and cleans, obsessively, top-to-bottom, scrubbing blood from the grout between the kitchen tiles, clearing debris from the upstairs bedrooms. She mostly works alone; Mike is beside himself still, with a look in his eyes like he's barely even there, and Nancy decides that Holly has earned rest after her ordeal.
The work is punctuated by visits from friends, which simultaneously warm her and fill her with dread, knowing what's to come soon. Will keeps an eye on Mike for her, while Jonathan keeps an eye on both of them. Steve and Robin alternate between helping and making a bigger mess—it had never occurred to Nancy that pizza boxes could end up in so many different places in one kitchen—but she's grateful for the distractions. The rest of the kids filter in and out. Joyce and Hopper bring them dinner one night and it almost brings Nancy to tears.
Before dinner, Hopper is rooting around in the Wheelers' fridge, making faces at Ted's beer selection. Nancy watches from the kitchen island, then glances back at the dining room, confirming that Joyce, Jonathan, Will, Mike, and Holly are still at the table, out of earshot. This is her chance.
"Hey, Hop?" Nancy starts, trying to sound more casual and relaxed than she feels.
"Yeah?" Hopper replies without looking up from the beer can he's examining.
"So is it... really over?" She takes the naive approach, hoping he doesn't see through her. "I mean, we're really just—free to go?"
He looks up at her for the first time, seemingly picking up on her odd tone. "Yeah, looks that way. I mean, this isn't my first rodeo with shady military agents, so I won't be surprised if I see them sniffing around Hawkins again. But I think this is the best outcome we could've hoped for."
"Is that what Dr. Kay told you?"
"In not so many words," Hopper says, shutting the fridge. "I can read between the lines. We all stay quiet, quit monster hunting, and they stay out of our hair for good."
Nancy's stomach sinks. He could be lying, but something tells her he isn't. He knows nothing about Dr. Kay's proposal. Her last-ditch hope that Hopper was in on it too—that she might have at least one true ally on her next terrifying journey—is fading fast.
"Why d'you ask?" Hopper cracks the beer can open, watching her with a patented detective's gaze. "Did she say something to you?"
"Same thing," Nancy answers, forcing herself not to drop Hopper's eyes. "Don't make trouble. All goes away. I just... don't trust them, I guess."
"You're right not to." He watches her for a moment, with a look that's a cross between suspicion and concern. "Come on, food's gonna get cold."
He walks off into the dining room. Nancy stays rooted at the kitchen island, feeling alone in more ways than one.
Three weeks before Christmas, Ted finally wakes up, and Karen is cleared to come home.
It should be a joyful day, but Nancy wakes up with a terrible tightness in her chest. She can't shake the irrational fear that Karen will take one look at her and know what Nancy's done. And would it be so irrational? Even when she had no idea about the monsters crawling around, Karen had always an almost supernatural ability to see right through Nancy, to know something's wrong when everyone else believed she was fine.
Not supernatural, Nancy thinks to herself as she gets dressed. Just a mother.
She practices her cover story in the mirror. I'm starting at Emerson next month. She tries to imagine all the ways that her family might poke holes in this story, then practices responses to these questions, over and over until she no longer sounds like she's lying, at least to herself.
On the dresser in front of her sits the single piece of paper that Dr. Kay gave her before leaving the MAC-Z: a new Emerson acceptance letter, doctored to grant her admission for the spring term. She folds it in three and tucks it into her back pocket.
Nancy piles Mike and Holly into her car—both because she's terrified to let either of them out of her sight again, and because she needs the whole family together for the Emerson lie—and heads to the hospital, finding it still covered in caution tape from the Demodog attack a few weeks ago. Doris the charge nurse takes one look at them, rolls her eyes, and lets them up to Karen's room without comment for once. Nancy has a sneaking suspicion that Doris is more excited for Karen's discharge than the Wheelers are.
"Mom?" Nancy announces their arrival gently, Mike and Holly at her shoulder.
Their mother is sitting up in bed, looking so much better than she did when Nancy found her on their kitchen floor that it briefly knocks the wind out of her. Karen starts to say something but doesn't manage to get the words out before Holly flies at her for a hug.
"Careful with the stitches, honey," Karen rasps. She wraps her arms around Holly and smiles at Mike and Nancy over Holly's shoulder.
"How are you feeling?" Nancy asks, perching on the edge of the bed. "We brought you a change of clothes if you're up for it."
"Very," Karen says, stroking Holly's hair. Her surgical bandages are gone, exposing the angry red scars across her throat and chest. Nancy winces when she sees them and hopes that her mother doesn't notice.
The room feels heavy despite the happy occasion. Nancy can't help but think about all the lies and half-truths that they've told their mother, plus the lies that are still to come. After much debate, they'd decided to tell Karen the Kay-approved cover story: that the Demogorgon attack was the result of a military experiment gone wrong, that the children were rounded up for their safety, that the threat has since been contained. They had also given her a sanitized version of Eleven's fate—something about being caught in the crossfire, a story that Mike had to leave the room for—and Karen accepted it all with a knowing sort of look in her eyes. Nancy suspects that Karen knows they're hiding something from her, but she leaves it alone; at the end of the day, all she cares about is that her children are finally home and safe.
Which makes Nancy's choice all the more devastating. But she tries not to dwell on this just yet—no use grieving her family while she still has them.
Once Karen is changed, the four of them head upstairs to Ted's room. Nancy's chest squeezes painfully again as they ascend. She knows that she can't put it off any longer; it would only blindside them even more if she waited too long to tell them that she was leaving, after they were finally back together again. With Ted's hospital stay expected to last into the new year, she's running out of time and opportunities to have the whole family in one room again.
Ted is in good spirits when they arrive, still floating on painkillers. Holly immediately climbs up beside him and tucks herself under his arm; Karen gives him a warm squeeze of his shoulder and settles into the chair by the bed. Mike hovers by the window, his thoughts clearly elsewhere. Nancy stands halfway between the door and the rest of her family, feeling like the distance between them is much greater than it really is.
After the usual check-ins—how everyone's feeling, how excited they are to be home soon—Nancy steels herself and clears her throat.
"I have some news. Good news," she says, though her tone suggests otherwise.
Karen beams at her. "What is it, Nancy?"
"I didn't tell anyone—I didn't want to jinx it, I guess—but I sent another application to Emerson a few months ago," Nancy hedges, trying her hardest to look excited. "Wishful thinking at the time, but I thought maybe the quarantine would be lifted by now. They just got back to me and offered me a spot for the spring semester, if I want it."
No one says anything at first. Karen's face seems torn between pride and hurt.
"The spring semester starts next month," her mother says softly.
"Yeah." Nancy swallows and drops her gaze to the linoleum floor. "I wish it wasn't so soon, especially after all this, but—I accepted."
"You're leaving?" Mike asks. His voice is hoarse.
"Not for a few more weeks. But, yeah. The new term starts at the end of January."
Holly's lip quivers. "Are you gonna come back to visit?"
"Of course I am," Nancy says. Another lie, probably, but she says it earnestly enough to almost make herself believe it, too. She has no idea what her life will look like in the new year. "For spring break. And summer too. As often as I can."
Karen is still quiet. Nancy stares at her, finding it suddenly hard to breathe. She hadn't realized until this moment how badly she needs her mother's blessing, even if she doesn't know the truth behind Nancy's departure.
Finally, Karen breaks into a tearful smile.
"I'm so proud of you, honey."
Nancy's heart breaks all over again.
As the days go on, Nancy begins to feel, bizarrely, like she is preparing for her own death.
She spends a day cataloguing everything in her room, setting aside gifts that she thinks her friends and family might appreciate, like some kind of quasi-last will and testament. Hand-me-down clothes for Holly. Well-worn fantasy books for Mike. The Bowie poster on the wall should return to its rightful place with Jonathan, she thinks, and Robin would probably want her tape collection, if only to poke fun at her for her choices.
Nancy, Steve, Jonathan, and Robin agree to no Christmas presents this year—they've hardly had time to do any holiday shopping—and instead plan a movie night in the Wheelers' basement. It feels like a somewhat desperate ploy for normalcy. None of their hearts are really in it, but Nancy doesn't care; she's happy to drink in what feels like frighteningly finite time with them, three of the only people in the entire world who understand everything she's survived.
Except for one thing, she thinks, but she shuts that thought down quickly.
Jonathan's upstairs making popcorn when Steve and Robin arrive, presenting a VHS tape of Aliens.
"Horror movie on Christmas?" Nancy asks.
"There is nothing scarier than the increased family time and sentimentality inherent to the holiday season," Robin explains, kneeling to feed the tape into the VCR. Nancy can't fault that logic.
Jonathan returns with popcorn and more of Ted's much-maligned beer. Nancy bites her lip, wondering if she should wait until before or after the movie to bring up the Emerson story. As she mulls it over, the choice turns out not to be hers.
"Cheers," Jonathan says, holding his can in the air, "to Nancy, for making it out of this insanely cursed town."
"Pardon?" Robin asks.
Jonathan's eyes widen, realizing he's said something he shouldn't have. Nancy sighs. Of course. Mike must have told Will, who must have told Jonathan, who naturally assumed that Nancy had told Steve and Robin by now, over a week after announcing it to her family.
"Nancy, I'm sorry—"
"It's okay," she assures him, accepting a can from Steve, whose eyes are flicking back and forth between them confusedly. "I should've told you guys sooner, I'm just—sad, I guess. To be leaving so soon. But I'm heading to Emerson next month."
"Next month?" Steve repeats.
"Spring term," Nancy says, lifting her can in a mock-cheers.
"Well, shit." Steve takes a pensive drink, seemingly just to have something to do with his hands.
"You deserve it," Jonathan says with his usual quiet earnestness. "After everything you did, you should finally get to go live your real life."
He has no idea how far off the mark he is. Nancy feels her face crumple and looks down at her hands to hide it.
Robin studies her quietly, fidgeting with the tab of her beer can but not opening it. "Does it make me a bad friend to be sad about this? I mean, you're sad. I should get to be sad, too, right?"
"Sad is fine," Nancy confirms, fighting a lump in her throat.
"Great, we're all sad." Robin settles onto the sofa between Nancy and Steve, misty-eyed but otherwise chipper. "So, is this secretly your going-away party?"
"My flight's not until the middle of January," Nancy says, waving her hand when Robin offers her the popcorn bowl. "I'm sure we'll see each other again before that. Going-away party can wait a while."
"Are you kidding?" Robin says. "We're not gonna leave you alone between now and January. Get ready to get sick of us."
"Not possible," Nancy says with a mournful smile. On screen, Sigourney Weaver totes a rifle that's bigger than her torso. Nancy excuses herself halfway through the movie and cries in the upstairs bathroom, muffling the sound with both hands.
Christmas and New Year's Eve pass too quickly. Nancy spends both with her family, grateful that the Emerson story is at least giving her a convincing reason to be a little weepy at the dinner table. She finds herself clinging to all of them, convinced that she's leaving for good, even though Dr. Kay had assured her otherwise.
"It's very important that they think you're going along with your life as normal," Dr. Kay had reminded her, in one of their last conversations before leaving the MAC-Z. "This isn't going to work if they know what you're really up to. Make it believable. Call your mother. Go home for the holidays."
"What happens if any of them find out?"
"For your safety and theirs, I suggest you do everything in your power to not let that happen."
She didn't need to elaborate. Nancy's smart enough to fill in the blanks.
The day before her flight, Nancy packs and unpacks a suitcase, unsure of what one should bring for conscription into semi-forced military service in an unknown location. She settles on cold weather clothes and a single handgun, wrapped delicately in a scarf and burrowed in the center of the suitcase with a fleeting prayer that her bag won't be pulled for a random search on the way to Boston. She considers packing some mementos from home—her old music box, maybe, or the old journals she'd filled as a kid, before her life turned upside down—but it all feels like too much. She settles on something small enough to fit in her pocket: prints of Nancy and Barb from a carnival photo booth and a Polaroid of Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, and Robin, all squeezed onto the sofa in the basement of the Squawk.
Speaking of which—Nancy jumps up and flips the radio on her dresser on, realizing that she's already missed the first few minutes of the broadcast.
"—and nothing says Happy New Year like lifting a nearly two-year quarantine, huh, folks?" Robin says, her voice lilting a little as it always does when she's on the mic for WSQK. "Our valiant soldiers are finally moving up and out, as are some other illustrious Hawkins residents."
Nancy rolls her eyes but can't help smiling, knowing exactly which "illustrious resident" Robin's referring to.
"A dear friend of mine is striking out into the great big world tomorrow," Robin continues. She's trying to keep her usual radio-voice up, but Nancy knows her well enough to identify the melancholy note underneath. "And I can say, without exaggeration, that I absolutely owe my life to her. Maybe a couple of lives."
You have no idea, Nancy thinks, folding a sweater and tucking it into the suitcase.
"As sad as it is to see her go, I just have to remind myself—as we all do, sometimes—that 'goodbye' doesn't always have to mean goodbye." Her voice is really wavering now. "Sometimes it means, 'see you later.'"
Nancy pauses. Her hands shake against the clasps of the suitcase.
"So on that somewhat depressing note, here's a song that's way too good for goodbye. Coming all the way from Australia to your eardrums, off of their self-titled debut album, it's Crowded House with 'Don't Dream It's Over.'"
Robin's voice is briefly replaced with the opening guitar rift. Nancy shuts her eyes and presses her trembling hands against them, running through the same thoughts that have passed on a loop through her head for the last few weeks: is it too late to choose the other path?, followed quickly by, you'll damn them all.
There's no going back now, Nancy knows. Her fingers stop trembling.
"See you later, Nance."