Meet Me In The Woods — Chapter 5
The daze stretches and doesn’t really have much of a start or an end. It’s just that sort of thing you feel after a particularly chaotic experience, shock probably. Perhaps it’s just your brain resetting itself. That’s not what either of them think at the moment, their minds off in that haze and totally uncaring as to what the reason for it is.
So they sit there in that silence for a moment, the foot of space between them and the two cabinets feeling suddenly very close and very far. Slowly, the room fills up, drop by drop of the muck spills into the space, and it rises at a torturously slow pace. It’s like it’s mocking them, because they both know there’s nothing they can do, that they’re gonna die here. Despite that, they’re both still quietly searching the room for anything that they could possibly do to get out. But nothing presents itself, and they come up empty handed. All the while the room continues to melt, grey matter melting from the walls and ceiling in a sickening display. So as the reality sets in that they’re not going to get out, instead of just sulking in her last moments, she quietly asks her unlikely companion a question. “Why the military?”
Robert hadn’t been looking at her, and was somewhat caught off guard by the sudden inquiry. His gaze flits over to her, and he just stares for a moment with a tired expression. “...Got sent to military school.” He mumbled after a moment, sounding almost disinterested despite his curiosity in her. “Why?” She murmured back, already very curious herself and a little surprised by his answer. “For discipline.” He muttered gruffly, looking back down at the sludge creeping up from the floor. He’s not sure why he’s being honest, or even indulging in her to begin with. Awaiting death with a stranger has that effect, he figures.
She’s quiet after that, thinking about the implications. It wasn’t unheard of for parents to send their sons to those schools when they were particularly reckless or rebellious. That never makes it okay, in her opinion, but she hopes the circumstances weren’t cruel. “Why’d you stay?” She asks quietly, cautiously because she recognizes how unusual it is for him to talk like this at all. “I just…got used to it I guess,” he murmurs, trying to sound disinterested. “I…had some good friends, figured I’d keep doing what I knew.” He added quietly, still watching the room fill. “What do you do?” He asks quickly when he feels that he’s been too transparent already. “Oh, I..well I’ve been waitressing lately…” she answers, picking some of the muck out from under her nails even though she knows it’ll be back soon enough. “I know that’s not really exciting, but I just…I’ve been busy with this lately..” she added, referring to the upside-down. “Really?” He asks with a raised brow. “What exactly have you people been doing down here? Actually, why did any of you know about all of that shit you told me?” He continued, remembering her mentions of her friends and their knowledge of this wretched place.
She isn’t really sure where to begin with that, but since she knows they’re both doomed, she figured she may as well tell him. “Cause Will went missing. We all got roped in at some point or other. By that point, no one else really knew what was actually going on in town, and…well, I guess it was just up to us to deal with it. Especially considering one of us was always being targeted.” She explains quietly, a bit solemn. “How’d you get roped in?” He asks her, wondering if that’s not something he should ask. Maybe he shouldn’t have, because he sees the expression that flashes across her face briefly, the one of pain or exhaustion, probably both. “I used to babysit for the Byers sometimes, just when Joyce needed some help. So..when Will went missing I tried looking for him with the others and when Joyce started saying she could hear him in the lights..I mean, everyone thought she was crazy. Like, it was bad. But I went over one night and I saw one of those things come through the wallpaper and…” she trailed off. Her eyes seemed foggy, far away as she recounted the memory. It seemed so long ago now. Robert wasn’t sure what happened then, what she wasn’t saying, but he wouldn’t pry. He knew not to.
“After that I stuck around, and the same shit just happened again. Then again. Then it went to shit last year…that’s when you guys showed up. Since then we’ve been doing crawls. Trying to find Henry and end this..” she finishes explaining. She knew that that was pretty basic, very vague, and sorely lacking in any real information, but they don’t have all the time in the world to recount all the bullshit their little group has been through in the past few years. All the fights against monsters and government officials and horrors they couldn’t really comprehend. The losses most of them still haven’t accepted.
“Crawls?” Robert asks, his curiosity getting the better of him. “Yeah, we would..” she starts hesitating since she’s aware of what she’s about to admit to a literal lieutenant. “We’d send Hopper down here in your trucks with a tracker, and we’d follow the signal around town in the Squawk van, sort of mapping out where Henry isn’t, just looking for signs of him. Anything.” She explains to Robert, glancing up at him a few times as she waits for whatever his reaction would be. Robert finds himself surprised, and even a little impressed despite the fact he knows he should be irked by it. “You people have been sneaking in through Mac-Z?” Robert asks her. “Yeah…” she confirms with a sheepish smile. “Man..you guys are ballsy,” he huffs, a smirk on his lips in spite of himself. He knows he shouldn’t find that at all amusing, that he shouldn’t like this woman or those people—hell, he knows he hates that Hopper guy, but the others don’t sound too bad. He almost forgets that he’s been unknowingly working against them for so long. “Oh you don’t even know,” she says with a small, fond laugh as she thinks about her friends. That’s something she admires about them, they’re all so daring and strong in the face of everything. Robert can see how much she cares for them in her face, though he already knew how devoted she was based on her crazed search for them not even fifteen minutes ago.
“You really care about them, huh?” He murmurs, his head tilted as he looks over at her. At her silver streaked face and warm eyes. It’s not so much of a question as it is an observation, like he felt the need to acknowledge it outloud. “Of course I do..” she whispers back, smiling again in a more genuine way. “They’re like my family,” she tells him, “I’m lucky to have known them.” The reality seems to return to their minds after she says that. It was a reminder that that’s what they’ll be soon, memories in other people's minds. The reminder weighs heavy in the air between them as they both watch the matter rise higher and higher in the room, now about three feet off the floor. Still, they stay perched on the filing cabinets, knowing that they’re going to die no matter how high they cower from it. Maybe they just want this last moment of connection, if nothing else, because they aren’t ready to die, and they can only take comfort in each other.
“This was my squad,” Robert says quietly after producing a photo from the inside of his coat. His family goes unsaid, but she can see it in the way he looks so fondly at the picture. He shows it to her after a moment, a hint of pride in his tired eyes. The photo shows him and a handful of men standing in front of the ocean, smiles on their faces, all dressed in uniform. He looks a bit younger, though he’s not very old now, just stressed, the bags under his eyes evidence of his time in the military. Her gaze flits from the easy smile on his face in the picture to the bloody and dirt covered face he has now. “You guys look happy,” she whispers, smiling as she looks at the black and white image. She doesn’t ask what happened to any of them. Now isn’t the time for those memories. “We were..” he confirms quietly, looking at the photo again with a wistful expression. Quickly he puts the photo away again, likely on account of those painful memories starting to resurface. Instead he pulls another one out. One she soon sees as a picture of a large, happy dog, one of those big mountain dogs. “Lola,” he said quietly when he handed her the picture. “She was my dog growing up,” he tells her.
She took the photo and looked at the dog's face. She looked so happy, laying on her back in the sun with her fluffy belly waiting for scratches as someone took the picture. “She’s cute,” she whispers as the image grows blurry. She’s starting to cry, she realizes. Maybe it’s because she’s about to die, or maybe it’s because this big, scary military guy loved his childhood dog so much he keeps a photo of her by his heart, but she’s tearing up again and trying in vain to wipe the tears away. “I’m sorry,” she laughs, sniffling a bit as she looks at the photo again. “I don’t—oh I don’t know why I’m crying,” she whispered.
Robert watched her for a moment, a solemn expression and a downcast gaze on his face. There was a lump in his throat that he tried to swallow down, but it didn’t go away. He took a deep breath, trying again to get it to go away, to shake off the growing emotions. But his eyes grew glassy despite himself. “Don’t apologize for it,” he muttered gruffly, his brows pinched together as he tried to reign himself in. Clearly he understood why anyone would be crying right now. He took the photo back from her when she handed it over, and one quiet little tear fell down his cheek as he gazed at Lola’s sweet face. Robert wondered if he’d see her on the other side, if her ears would flap in the wind as she bounded through a field like she used to, if she had been waiting there for him.
The silence stretched again as they both reflected. She was scared. She certainly wasn’t ready to die, not yet, not after everything she’s fought through. It feels like a slap to the face that this is how she goes. Getting trapped in the upside-down with no one she knew, all because of something none of them knew was even possible. It feels unfair. Of course it does. Sure, she’s a grown woman, but she’s still young, even if the past few years have made her feel much older. There was so much she wanted to do that she never even started. She kept telling herself she’d start, or go, or do, only after this mess was said and done. Only after she could rest easy at night. Now she realizes, not only was that never an option, that she’d never be able to truly rest easy again, but she’s never going to choose what she does ever again. There won’t be a life to live. It’s a sickening thought as it sinks in more and more, and the tears never stop because of it.
“I wanted a dog,” she tells Robert quietly, “I wanted one after this was over. Thought maybe I’d travel with them, that we’d just take a nice long road trip.” Her voice trembled a little as she tried to breathe and soothe her tears, just enough to be coherent. Then she continued, hugging her legs against her chest as she spoke, “I could’ve finally seen the coast…”
“What else would you’ve done?” Robert asks her quietly, if only to distract himself from the same thoughts, or maybe to know this woman a little better before they go. His interest surprised her, but she had already let quite a few walls down, what’s a few more? “...I wanted to meet someone. Not—well not just to get married. I really wanted something special.” She admitted quietly, leaning back against the wall as she stared at the opposite end of the room. “Doesn’t everyone?” Robert asked, finding what she said strangely sweet, if intimate. “I guess so. But I wouldn’t have settled..” she elaborated, now looking over at him. She wanted a soulmate, for lack of a better word. “How would you know?” Robert asked. “If someone was the right one, I mean,” he elaborated. Everyone has a different response to that, and it means something different to everyone. He wants to know what it means to her.
“I guess…there would just be a feeling. Like a hunch…I wouldn’t know yet but, that’s what connections are. I think,” she whispered, looking over at him as if unsure of what exactly she was saying. It’s clear to Robert that while she isn’t necessarily inexperienced, she hasn’t had such a profound connection before. But, that’s not saying much, because you’ll never have that kind of connection except with your soulmate, in theory anyway. “Do you know what they’d be like?” He asks next, far too interested for a stranger. Are they still strangers? “No,” she admitted quietly with a sniffle, shifting her position on the cabinet to face him better. “I’m not picky. I think it’s really just about if they’d love like I do.”
Robert considered that for a moment, not quite getting what she meant at first. It’s easy to just think about what someone is like, if they like the same music or movies that you do, if they’re funny or smart, but she’s right isn’t she? That’s all good and nice, but what does it matter when compared to whether or not they’ll actually return the devotion you offer them? Maybe that’s the only way people would ever be compatible. It can’t just be statistics, it can’t just be up to looks and personality traits.
“How’d you get that?” She asked Robert suddenly, gesturing to her forehead in reference to the wound on his face. It seemed she was nervous talking about her desires, even now, and the fact he’d been quiet for a moment made her feel too exposed.
Robert was still stuck on her admission when she asked, and he took a moment to catch up. “Oh…that—” he caught himself, having been about to call Eleven ‘that freak’, but perhaps he’s had a change of heart by now. “Your friend she..had the door on my Humvee smash me in the face.” He murmured. In response she laughed at first, before stopping herself when she figured he wouldn’t find that as amusing. “Sorry—sorry,” she murmured. Just the image of Eleven doing that to her pursuers was a bit amusing to her, though now she finds the image of Robert getting hurt in any capacity upsetting. “No, no, it’s kinda funny I guess,” he muttered hoarsely. “Dunno what I thought I was doing all this time..tracking her down..” he continued, shaking his head in something like remorse.
“What do you mean?” She asks Robert, leaning over the gap between the cabinets slightly. He’s quiet for a moment, looking over at her. “I just mean..that I guess, maybe we’ve been wrong about this place.” He murmured, albeit reluctantly. While he finally had a change of heart, he’s still a bit too prideful, a bit too dedicated to the military, to easily admit its faults. Now, because of it or not, he’s stuck in some dingy, dim room with her, watching as their deaths approach them slowly.
Her tears intensify after he says that—they haven’t really stopped in a while. So she covers her face, just accepting that the muck still on her hands will get on her face in the process. Hearing him say that sends a wave of hopelessness through her, because finally, finally one of them gets it. One of them realizes what they’re fighting isn’t something they can use against the Soviets, that it’s so much more than that. That something like war—even a cold one—would pale in comparison to this place, to the plans Henry and the Mindflayer have. But he’s dying with her, it’s too late, and she doesn’t even know if her friends are okay. She has no idea if they got out, and her radio is full of that silvery substance, ruining any chance of getting through to them.
Slowly they both realize they’re out of time, that they can no longer distract themselves with some heart to heart.
So Robert adjusted how he was sitting on his cabinet, staring at his hands in his lap with a remorseful expression. He doesn’t know how to ease her crying, how to comfort her in these last few moments, he doesn’t even know if it would be appreciated. But, despite his own mind protesting it, he turned towards her where she’s perched on her filing cabinet. It was difficult for him and his long limbs to accomplish, so his movements were a bit awkward, but he succeeded, and watched for a moment as she stared at the silver liquid only inches from the tops of the cabinets.
His choice seemed to be right on time, because when she looked back up at him she couldn’t stop herself from leaning forward as the tears kept coming. Robert—almost instinctively—opened his arms for her as she closed the small space between their cabinets. “I don’t want to die,” she sobbed quietly into his filthy jacket. She wished that if she really had to die now, that it could’ve at least been quick. That they didn't have to sit and wait for it, knowing that they’re going to suffocate slowly and painfully under weight that will crush them.
Robert was wishing that same thing, his jaw clenched and throat tight again. He accepted her into his arms and set his chin on top of her head, still wanting to somehow soothe her even though he knows he can’t. All he could do was keep her warm, and make sure she wouldn’t be alone once the matter finally engulfs them.
Once again, Robert’s eyes were glassy, so he closed them and pressed his cheek against the top of her head. A few silent tears fell into her hair, and they whispered their goodbyes as they both waited for the end.
