madds

fangirl for life | 23 | remade my tumblr bc my old account is from 2015 :(

[webkinzzluvr]

closer to heaven, closer to you

Summary - It's 1993. Mike Wheeler's first book was a success, but he doesn't know how to write more about her. His friends' lives have moved on, graduations, jobs, and families, and he is stuck six years in the past. No new work on the horizon, no college degree, Mike returns to Hawkins to live in Hopper's cabin and refuses to see anyone besides Lucas, who is back in Hawkins and starting a family with Max, while he tries to get out of his rut. Dustin's coworker at NASA is headed to Iceland to study geothermal activity, and Dustin encourages Mike to tag along and get some space to clear his head, get outside, and start writing again. Begrudgingly, Mike thinks Dustin might be right, and Iceland is calling to him, the research facility right outside a small town where a young woman has been taken in by two elderly farmers. One horseback ride brings Mike back to the the superhero in his novel, the source of all his inspiration.

WC - 25.6k (not proofread)

Warnings - slow burn, HEA, they both think about moving on for a second, alcoholic mike, lumax have a baby, dustin works for nasa, will is an artist, writer mike misses his muse, el Is in her horse girl era

Author's Note - I haven't written in so long and then this just came to me... 50 pages in a word doc later and here we are. thank you all so much for your support! and now you all know why ive been awol. not a huge fan of the ending but couldn't figure out a good way to wrap it up sooooo also i just tagged people who commented sorry if you want to be removed i will!

Tag List - @thebadbatchfan @lilly-chan @jeongcake @sseorii @arlosworld91 @mykingdomforablog @callysta-starcrest @kiittytime @carylmeanslove @deloreanflight

Chicago, March 1993

“Hey, Mike, I have some news,” Mike’s agent says through the phone. Mike tugs on the cord, sitting down at his desk, a copy of his debut novel staring at him, situated between his typewriter and a picture of a girl.

“Yeah?” Mike says quietly.

“Well, you know how you were long listed for the Nebula this year?” his agent mutters.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Unfortunately, you haven’t been selected as a finalist.”

Mike releases a breath. “Did they say why?”

“Well, you know, Mike, it’s your first book. It’s amazing that you made it this far, but I think you just need some more time,” his agent says in an attempt to placate.

“Gio, can you just tell me what you heard?” Mike’s blood pressure is rising. He had never known the meaning of a labor of love before he wrote this. “I dropped out of college to do this. You said it’d be worth it.”

“It is worth it! You’ll write another book, and we’ll get to say you were long listed for the Nebula. This is going to get you press, regardless, and it’ll help you.” Gio can hear Mike’s heavy breaths.

Stranger Things is everything to Mike. It is the story of him, of his childhood, his friends, the only person he’d ever truly loved, how she saved him, in more ways than one. He wrote it for her, that she was still out there, and she would find it and read it, and she would know he still loved her. That he would wait for her forever. Mike’s heart hums in his throat. “Please, tell me the criticism. I want to get better.”

“Well, they don’t like this Seven character. She’s too unrealistic, that these boys would just accept her. She’s supposed to be more of a feral animal, you know? At least, that’s what the critics are saying. Not me, Mike, no, not me. This was a masterpiece for someone so young. But yeah, they don’t like her. She’s got a shaved head, she’s a liar, she hardly speaks, she can kill people, and we’re supposed to believe that our main character wants to take her to the school dance? But that’s what they’re saying, Mike, not me. It’s a great book. But, yeah, they hate Seven. They don’t want her to come back in book two. She needs to stay dead. I mean, she sacrificed herself for the boys. Let’s leave it there. Anyways, let’s talk later. Figure out what book two is going to be. I’ll be calling your editor and the publishing house. It’s disappointing, but now we know what to do to get your next story a success. The publishers are waiting to hear about book two. I’ll tell them you’re working on it. Bye, Mike. It’s an amazing accomplishment even without being a finalist.” The phone clicks. Mike hangs up the receiver. He doesn’t want to write a second book where she isn’t included. That chapter of his story already barely included her. This was supposed to be his chance to reinvent their story. He looks over at his picture of El, walks to the fridge, and grabs a beer. Then it’s the other five in the pack. When he comes to, he starts packing up. He needs to go to the only place he knows to find her presence. He needs her.

Ball State University, Early May 1993

“Henderson!” Scanning for his best friend, a head of thick, perfect hair swivels through the crowd. A toothy grin waves him over through a swarm of people. Dustin and Will are waiting with a seat saved for Steve. Steve trots over and plops himself in between the boys, squeezing each of their shoulders.

“Hey, Steve,” Will says quietly.

“Hey man! Congrats on graduating from Parsons. Sorry I couldn’t make it. Heard you’re a muralist? And a comic book illustrator?”

“Yeah,” smiles Will with a sheepish drop of the head. “I’m trying to see if Mike will let me adapt Stranger Things.”

“Oh my God, that would be so cool,” Dustin chimes in. “Where is he?” He turns around. Lucas, Erica, their parents, and Max’s mom are sitting closer to the stage.

“Oh, uh.” Steve runs a hand through his hair. “He’s, um, he’s not coming.” Dustin looks confused, his eyebrow raised expectantly. “Will?”

“He’s not talking to me,” adds Will. “He’s mad about my mural.”

“The one for the victims of AIDS?” asks Dustin.

“Yeah, that’s the one.” Will scratches the back of his neck, an old habit. “I included El’s face on there. I mean, the AIDS crisis only happened because of government neglect, you know? And why isn’t El with us? Because of the government. So, I thought it would be fitting to include her. But now he thinks that I think she’s actually dead, and that I don’t believe his theory, but I do. I really, really do.”

“So he’s not here because you included El’s face in a mural?”

“No, no,” responds Steve. “He’s not here because the people in charge of his book or something think that the Seven character should stay dead. And he didn’t win that award.” Steve looks down and shakes his head. “He’s living in Hopper’s cabin. Me and Mrs. Wheeler bring him food and whatever he needs. He won’t see anyone or leave. He won’t even talk to us. It’s bad. God, Henderson, I missed you. You’re coming back to Hawkins with me, right? Maybe you can talk some sense into him?”

“No, I’ve got to get back to Florida. I’ll be back at the start of June, though.”

 Feedback rings out through the seats. Graduation is about to start. Even through droning speeches and too many names to count, an all too cheerful, newly minted Officer Sinclair is jumping in his seat as a round-faced Maxine Mayfield receives her BA in Social Work. The Sinclairs and Ms. Mayfield are clapping loudly while Lucas whoops. Steve, Will, and Dustin turn to each other.

“Is she -?” asks Dustin.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve says.

“Looks like it,” Will mutters.

The graduation ceremony ends. Steve, Dustin, and Will make their way to Ms. Mayfield and the Sinclairs. Giddily, Dustin claps Lucas on the back.

“Since when?” he shouts.

“Since November?” says Lucas.

“She was pregnant during Christmas, and you didn’t tell us?” asks Will.

“It’s not like we planned it! We weren’t really sure what our next steps were,” Lucas replies. “And you know how she is. She hates pressure.”

“Well, now, boy, you’re coming back home. Your room is waiting for you two,” Mr. Sinclair says with a hand on Lucas’s shoulder.

“Oh, no, Dad,” mumbles Lucas. “We’ll find our own place. We just wanted to be near family for the help.” He turns to Steve. “Didn’t you hear? Chief Powell gave me a job. Yeah. I finished the academy in March. Max got a job with the Department of Children and Family Services. She’s going to be a youth advocate. So, we’re looking for an apartment.”

Steve is speaking before he is aware of what he’s saying. “Oh, Lucas, no. You know, I bought this house, right? You haven’t been over yet, but it’s huge. Three thousand square feet, five bedrooms. I thought by now I’d have at least two kids. It’s my dream to have some tiny feet in that house. Stay with me till you get situated. There’s more than enough space. When’s Max due? School gets out in five more weeks, but then I’m off till Labor Day, so I can also help out when the baby comes…” He continues rambling on. Maybe his dream of a family wasn’t going to happen any time soon, but he could be this baby’s uncle. He can’t fix Mike. Dustin and Will don’t need him anymore.

Lucas nods. That sounds much better than he and Max and the baby in his childhood bedroom. And there she is, her black robe now unzipped, an obviously protruding stomach.

Will goes to hug her, careful not to squeeze too tightly. Dustin is grinning from ear to ear.

“How far along?” asks Dustin.

“Thirty weeks,” she says, rubbing her stomach. “I can’t believe I let this happen. She’s supposed to come July fifteenth.”

“She?” Steve raises an eyebrow.

“I have a feeling,” Max says with a tilt of her head. Lucas kisses her on the head. Steve watches them. Maybe this will be the thing that gets Mike to come back to life.

Hawkins, End of May 1993

Mike sleeps in her bed. It doesn’t smell like her anymore, but he’s hoping that there’s some spot he hasn’t laid in, hasn’t defiled, that he can still cling to. Most days, he never leaves her bed. He never shuts the door to her room, always leaving three inches. The cabin is in disrepair. Mike knows he should fix it, and Steve is always offering, but he just can’t. He can’t change a single thing. He hasn’t been using the typewriter, only the pencils and papers that somehow survived the past four years since Hopper’s departure. Everything he writes down, he scratches out. He could never end her story in that classroom.

Gio calls, and Mike doesn’t pick up. He might lose his agent and his book deal, but a story that doesn’t include her is meaningless. Mike doesn’t know how to tell Gio that she has to survive. This is his chance to rewrite their story. He is not going to rewrite it in a way where he loses her sooner.

Lucas arrived in Hawkins last week. He came by to visit Mike a few times. Mike is glad to see him but only him. He can’t stand to see Steve who works at the school he lost El in the first time. He can’t stand to see his mother and the scars across her chest. They have been good to him for the last two months, bringing him whatever he needs, taking his clothing to be washed, and giving him space.

Lucas isn’t like that. He’s funny. He says he has big news, but he can only tell Mike when Max is with him. Mike accepts that Max should visit. He’s waiting for Lucas’s knuckles to rap at the door, but he wonders about stepping outside. The air is warm but not too thick yet. There’s a breeze drifting through the slats of the cabin. Perhaps today he can do it. And he does.

He sits out on the steps of the cabin as he hears a car roll up. Ruffling in the wind, his greasy hair lifts from his head for the first time in months. A Hawkins PD SUV rolls up, not unlike the one Hopper once drove up to the cabin each day. This time, Officer Sinclair is driving. The windows are tinted, but Mike can make out the silhouette of Max’s face. Rolling down the window, Lucas smiles at Mike. “Good to see you outside, man,” he says quietly, afraid of putting Mike off. He hands Mike three paper bags: one of clean clothes from Karen’s laundry room, one of groceries and toiletries, and one of letters, some from Dustin, or Will, or Nancy, or critics and reviewers and people from the publishing house. Mike takes them and begins to sift through this week’s food delivery. Eggos, milk, a head of broccoli for some godforsaken reason. Where’s the beer? Tinned fish, noodles, tomato sauce, eggs, bread. No beer. He doesn’t know who bought this, but it definitely wasn’t Lucas.

Mike sets the bags on the steps and looks up at Max. He hasn’t seen her since the Wheelers’ New Years Eve party, where she was especially reclusive and standoffish. Their relationship improved over time, but each one became quieter, more solitary as the years went by. He knows they’re living with Steve in that outrageously large house near his parents while they save up. He knows Max is talking to Steve about starting a self-defense class for the middle school and working for the Department of Children and Family Services with the hopes of becoming a social worker. She would be good at that. Lucas said she’d put in a lot of work to move past the things that had happened. Mike stands frozen in time, and a part of him hates that Max can move on. Or maybe he hates that she chooses to move on, to create a life outside of the one they all shared.

When he sees her, it all makes sense.

Mike can’t remember the last time he moved so quickly. Before he knows it, he’s hugging the both of them as tightly as he can, careful not to put pressure on Max’s stomach.

“Wow,” he says.

“Yeah,” Max shrugs. “Wow.”

Lucas’s arm hangs fluidly from her shoulders. He grins at her. “July fifteenth,” he says.

“So, this is why you’re really back?” Mike raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Lucas says shyly. “We, uh, we didn’t really know how to tell anyone. And it’s not really my place, you know.”

“It’s your baby, too,” replies Mike.

“Yeah, but I’m the one carrying her,” snaps Max. She rubs her forehead. “Sorry. Tired. I’m thirty-three weeks along. Three more weeks till full term! Then I have to push this damn thing out of me.”

“And you’re living with Steve because…?”

“Have you been to the house, Mike?” asks Max. “It’s huge. We don’t even live on the same floor as him. And it’s free, and we want to buy a house that we can raise Baby Ella in, and you know, Steve has wanted kids forever, but that’s just not happening for him right now, so he’s helping us out.”

Mike is stunned. “Ella? It’s a girl?”

“We don’t know, but Max thinks so,” Lucas says. His eyes are scanning Mike’s for any sign of happiness. Instead, all he sees is the deflated psyche of someone he once knew.

Mike looks down. “That’s great, guys.” His voice is cracking. “I’m just going to go put these inside. Don’t follow me. There’s like, rat poop in there. Don’t want to hurt the baby.”

Lucas watches Mike’s lanky form scramble into the house quickly, almost dropping the bags as he runs into the house. He can see the shaky rise and fall of his chest, the trembling fingers.

“Lucas…” mutters Max softly.

“I thought it’d make him happy, you know?” Lucas says exasperatedly. “I really thought it’d make him happy.” Lucas shakes his head. “I’m going to go in there.”

“Lucas,” Max says more firmly, “you have been here every single day after work. We are going to have a baby. We don’t have a crib, or clothes, or a changing station, or bottles, or whatever else she needs. And every night, you are here. And you say it’s because he needs you, but I don’t know, Lucas. I don’t know that you can fix this. But I need you.” She rubs her belly. “Ella needs you. We need you to come home. You can’t fix someone who doesn’t want to be fixed.”

“I know, Max. I really know.” He turns to look at the slightly ajar door. “Just let me go to talk to him.” Max nods.

Lucas hates how heavy these boots are. It feels so formal to climb up Hopper’s cabin in these clunky boots, his feet hitting the wooden steps with more force than he’d like. He’s afraid he might break a board. He doesn’t know how Mike can handle any more loss. Change can be a good thing. It’s the end of spring. It’s time for rebirth, for newness. For his daughter to be born. But Mike is stuck in the past, and Lucas can’t really blame him.

“Hey, Mike?” he calls out.

Mike is sitting in the empty sensory deprivation tub, eyes glazed over, tears falling silently. His head swivels to Lucas while the rest of his body remains motionless. “Ella?” he asks through a wobbly voice.

“I mean, Ellie is too derivative, according to Max, and Elle is too on the nose, so Ella,” Lucas explains. “I mean, it was that or Billie, and I don’t think I can name my daughter after a guy who would be mad about her existence.” Lucas has dropped next to the edge of the sensory deprivation tub, his back against the walls of it. Mike is glad for it. He can’t handle to be looked at.

Mike drops his head into his knees. “I don’t want to be like this,” he says. “Everyone tells she would want me to be happy. And I know it’s true. She made her choice, but I know she’s not dead. I would feel it, I would feel if she was gone. We’re like the same person. If she died, I would know it. Part of me would be dead, too. But it’s not. It just hurts, like it’s being stretched out. I know she’s there, Lucas, and I can’t move on. Dustin works for NASA, and you’re a cop, and you’re having a baby, and Steve bought a house, and Nancy is in the Middle East reporting about real life war, and Will… he’s actually making art. And I can’t produce a fucking sentence about anything that’s ever happened to us because writing down the truth is like admitting that we lost something. That she’s gone. But she’s right here.” Mike points to his chest. “I feel her, Lucas. She’s right here. And I can’t be happy until I’m with her. I can’t be happy for you, or for anyone else when my heart feels like it’s being stretched to the sky.” Lucas has stood up, and now he’s gripping Mike’s arm, Mike’s face brushing against it. He feels the hot splashes of Mike’s tears. “And you know what really sucks? I know she’s not dead. I know it. And that means I know she’s not talking to me. She could find me. She could visit me in her void. She could send me a sign. She’s a superhero, Lucas. She could tell me. And she just isn’t.”

“Mike…”

Mike turns his face away. “Just go home, Lucas. Go be with your pregnant girlfriend. You can help her. You have a family.” Mike shakes his head and lets out a little laugh. “You’re going to be a really good dad, you know? You’re the calmest person I know. You always know what to do. She’s lucky. I’m lucky. You’ve been a really good friend, Lucas.”

“Thanks, Mike,” Lucas chokes out through tears. “I’m really sorry.” They’re crying together now. “You deserved so much more. She deserved so much more. You are supposed to have a family, too. Ella is supposed to have a cousin.” Lucas gets up to leave and heads toward the door. “And you know, Mike. I believe one day she will. You will find her.”

Outside, Max is standing with her arms crossed. When she sees Lucas’s face, every part of her softens. Lucas breaks down in a way she hasn’t seen in so long.

“Hey, hey, hey,” she says soothingly, “we’re going to be okay. We’ve always been okay. You know, you can visit him every day if that’s what needs to happen. I’ll be okay. We’ve been through so much worse.”

“It’s not fair,” he cries.

“No.” Max runs her fingers over his eyebrows, flattening them out, wringing out the tension. “No, it’s really not.” Lucas runs his hand over Max’s stomach.

“Why do we get everything we want when some of them got nothing?” asks Lucas.

“I don’t know,” Max replies quietly.

“Do you think she’s alive?”

“I don’t know.”

Lucas nods. “I don’t know either.” Max takes the keys from Lucas’s pocket. She gives his hand a gentle squeeze. Her face is starting to fall, and she’s become so emotional lately that she’s unsure if either of them will be able to drive safely if they’re both sobbing. She pats his chest, twirls the keys in between her fingers, and opens up the driver’s side door. “Let’s go home,” she says quietly.

Inside, Mike is falling apart. The cabin is falling apart. The bike he once rode all around town is now too rusty and too small for him. He wants someone to shut him into this tank and to leave him there. He pulls it shut over him, hiding in the darkness.

There was a time where he believed he could be happy. He went to college; he met new people. He wrote stories in class about tales from a magical world that opened up and tried to swallow towns whole. One of his professors told him not to write what you know, but to write the story only you can tell. This is his story. They are his story. No one else knows and no one else can understand. Not really even Lucas, or Will, or Dustin, or Max, or anyone else. They may be linked together through this world they explored and destroyed, but no one ever knew El quite like him. And that is the story that only he could tell.

He knew then he would write their story. He would make her known to the world for her bravery and her kindness and her sacrifice. And he would give her a better ending. One where she’d be happy, hopefully with him. But in this world, the real one, where he is trapped, they don’t even want her happy. They want her dead. Again, and again, people tell him they want her dead. And he doesn’t know how to live without her.

Another one of Mike’s professors, shortly before he dropped out, told Mike that he should stay. There was only one year left of college. His professor thought he had potential, but he needed more refining, more courage in his abilities. He would also quote Toni Morrison: “the subject of the dream is the dreamer.” He told Mike that the publishing world might change him. Was the dream to write stories for others, or was the dream only about Mike? Mike is starting to realize maybe that was true. But the words “the subject of the dream is the dreamer” spin around in his mind. Maybe his story about El has never really been about her. Maybe the story is really about him. He is facing his reality. It’s not just that he wants to give El the ending she deserves. He needs a happy ending for himself, too. He is a part of this dream. He is the dreamer. And he can’t live it.

With no water, the sensory deprivation tank is scarier than calming. It isn’t latched shut; he could push it open with a little bit of force. But he has no energy. He does not know how he can go on.

Quietly, but so eerily like what he said almost ten years earlier, he finds himself crying softly out. “El, El, where are you?”

Iceland, End of May 1993

Johanna Olafsdottir has had many names, but this one is the only one that has ever granted her freedom.

Seven years ago, Johanna was Jane Hopper to most, Eleven to a few. El to the only ones who mattered. Seven years ago, she faked her death, begged the love of her life to understand, hitchhiked to Chicago, caught a freight ship out of Calumet Harbor that took her to Nova Scotia, and then joined a commercial fishing boat en route to Iceland. She found her way to a small town near waterfalls.

Halla and Olafur had been out for a horseback ride when they came across her, floating in the pools below the waterfall, a blindfold over her eyes. They thought she was dead, and Olafur, even in his sixties, found himself scrambling off his horse and into the water. He shook her violently, yelled at her in Icelandic, and when she came out of her void completely startled, he was surprised by the American English that flew from her mouth.

Their son, Gunnar, left Iceland. He felt suffocated, trapped, and went to the United States. They rarely heard from him, but together, they all learned English to talk to Gunnar’s American wife and children. They never visited. They never wanted to be visited. Halla and Olafur had a granddaughter in fifth grade. This girl could not be more than five or six years older than her. Their hearts ached for a granddaughter they didn’t know.

She didn’t explain much to them. She said that her mother was incapacitated. She didn’t know if she had a father, but she had a brother who had tried to kill her. He successfully killed her sister. She fled, and she ended up somewhere rural and quiet, like the town she knew before. She was known as Jane back in America, but she couldn’t use that name anymore. Halla and Olafur were old enough to know that some questions didn’t need to be answered. They called her Johanna and gave her the last name Olafsdottir. They became her parents. And they were happy to have someone to care for, and they needed the help. They ran a sheep farm where they sold wool and offered horseback tours of places inaccessible on foot or by vehicle to visitors. The farm had been in the family for centuries, and money wasn’t a problem, but they needed to have enough income to keep food on the table.

The sheep were becoming more work than they could endure. Their sheepdogs still did most of the herding, but shearing the flocks had become too much. The first time Johanna sheared the sheep, she was afraid. Halla, in her impeccable English, guided her hand.

“The wool hurts them during the summer,” she explained, “and this will help them feel better.”

Johanna nodded and learned to love them. They reminded her of herself. They were at the mercy of others, their comfort, their food, where they wandered on the land. She saw in them something she saw in herself, and she was committed to giving them as much love, care, and consideration as she could. The love, care, and consideration she felt she never truly got. Not while she was still an innocent.

Halla’s hips aren’t strong anymore, and she can only ride sidesaddle. Once the snow melted away and the days stretched on without end, Olafur took Johanna out on the horses. He taught her to ride and gave her a horse: Ida. Ida is brave yet careful. She knows exactly how to step to get her rider safely from place to place. And she knows how to make her rider free.

Johanna isn’t really her name. In her mind, she is El. She will always be El. And when El is on Ida, the wind in her hair, the blue lupines flying under Ida’s hooves, El is free. El is herself again. El rides until the end of the world and not see a building, let alone another person. Some days, El slips off Ida’s back, and they lie down in the blue flowers, and El holds the dirt below them, lets it crumble in her hands, and falls asleep with her head surrounded in soft grass. It is in these moments, when she knows she is completely alone, that she knows she is safe. That she is El again. But love was the price of safety.

El misses her old life. She misses having friends. In an attempt to stay unknown, she refuses to learn Icelandic, and most people in this town don’t speak English. Halla and Olafur have had a lifetime together and a life outside of their farm. El has the sheep, Ida, and the land.

A few months ago, they gifted her a book by an American boy about a girl with magical powers in a rural part of the Midwest. “The girl, Seven, she reminds me of you,” Olafur said with a gentle smile. El took the book gingerly from Olafur’s weathered hands. Stranger Things by Michael Wheeler. She nearly threw up. She hasn’t read it yet. She isn’t sure that she can.

Today, something is pulling her to the waterfalls. Iceland warms up rapidly in the spring, and the days are stretching longer and longer, but El hasn’t found her way to the waterfalls since the end of last summer. She slips off Ida’s back, grateful she never needs to tie her down, grateful Ida never strays, is always waiting steadily for her. Ida may be the most consistent part of her life. El wades into the water, always warm and welcoming, inviting her to return home. She comes as often as she can in the spring and summer when the weather allows it, giving her the chance to watch over him. She hasn’t been coming recently. She hasn’t been able to force herself to look at him after knowing that he’s written about her. Written about them. She doesn’t want to accept that he may never see her again, that he’s creating a new narrative about her in his mind.

El takes the bandana wrapped around her neck and covers her eyes as she sinks deeper into the water. The rushing of the waterfall, the softness of the wind dulls her senses and lull her into the void.

There he is. Wait, where is he? Asleep, in her bed? She leans forward to look at the sticky, long strands of hair glued to his forehead. “Oh, Mike,” she whispers. Last summer, he was writing furiously, spending every second in a library in downtown Chicago. He seemed happy, engaged. Here he is now, a shell of the person she saw last year. She brushes her hand across his cheek. Mike startles awake.

“El?” he says. He turns over in the bed and looks around confusedly. “El? Are you there?” El backs away from him, afraid of what she might do. She feels a tear splash down her face. “Mike…” she says softly.

“El?” He’s sitting up now. He knows she’s there. “El, tell me how to find you. Please, I’ll do anything. I need to know you’re okay. I miss you, El. I miss you. I need you and –” His voices falters. “I love you, El. I love you more than anyone I’ve ever met. Please, where are you? Where are you?”

He doesn’t know how, but he always knows she’s there. He can feel her presence fleeing and he wants to grab onto it.  El rips the bandana off her eyes and finds herself flailing in the pools. Ida gallops to the edge of the water. “It’s okay, girl,” El whispers as she swims to shore and crawls up the bank. “It’s okay,” she says, like she’s trying to convince herself it is.

Hawkins, First Week of June 1993

Steve’s new house is huge. A primary bedroom on each floor, another three bedrooms on the top floor, plus a finished basement with a bathroom. More bathrooms than people that currently reside in it.

Steve sleeps upstairs, making sure Max does not have to waddle up and down the stairs. An extra bedroom waits for Dustin, although Steve knows that Dustin will probably opt to sleep at his mom’s house. Tonight, however, Steve, Dustin, Lucas, and Max are sitting around the kitchen island, a beer in all of the boys’ hands, a ginger ale in Max’s.

“So, what’s been happening exactly?” Dustin asks. “I mean, I heard from Steve, but you’ve gone to visit him recently?”

Max rolls her eyes. “Every single day.”

Lucas gives Max a look. “He is bad, Dustin. The only thing he asks for anymore is beer. It’s like he’s turning into Hopper.”

“Don’t say that,” Steve chimes in. “He’s depressed. Karen told me that the publishing house wants his story to take a certain path. AKA Seven is dead forever.” He notices the stares. “Hey, she only knows that because she’s been reading his mail. His editor and publisher are begging him to respond. He’s on the hook for some three-book deal or something, and they already gave him the money, so he has to do it, and he’s not responding to any of them.” He takes a sip of his beer and shrugs. “Okay, so she’s been reading his mail and telling me. But up until a few weeks ago, I was the only one taking care of him besides his mom.”

“Well,” starts Dustin, “I have an idea. Okay, I did not tell anyone this, but NASA is trying to build a rover to put on Mars.”

“Like a robot?” asks Lucas.

“Yes, like a robot. It’s a robot that will collect information about Mars,” Dustin snaps. “This guy that I’ve been working with for the past few months, Greg, he took a team of people to Iceland. There’s a lot of geothermal activity there, so the ground is really hot, and they can try to mimic the climate of Mars and see how these robots will function. I mean, it’s a long shot, I don’t think we’ll be on Mars any time soon, but not the point. There’s this cabin on the research site. It’s a writer’s cabin, and it’s open. No one’s staying there. Greg is chill, he would let Mike stay there. We already talked about my mom going to stay there and get out of Hawkins because she won’t ever leave. I’d even pay for his airfare.” Dustin doesn’t say what’s really happening, that every time he thinks of Iceland, he swears he can see El’s face behind his eyelids, like she’s trying to tell him something. Sometimes, he can even hear the rushing of waterfalls, and then, all he can think of is Mike. He knows the message is from El. And he knows it’s for Mike, not him. But he can’t say that. He’s not sure that Lucas and Max believe anymore. He knows Steve doesn’t have a clue what’s happening. He doesn’t know why El is telling him, but he knows that she is telling him something. And he isn’t sure that Iceland could do Mike any harm.

“Aren’t the days in Iceland like super long?” Lucas’s eyebrows are raised.

“That’s kind of the whole point, though. You said he just lays there in the dark. There is no dark! It’ll be summer solstice soon, and they have all these cool celebrations, and I think it could help him start to feel better. Get out of his head, get outside. Try to write something. And if he doesn’t, well, I think it’d be better to be miserable in the sunshine than be miserable in a decrepit cabin with rats and midwestern humidity.”

“But, Henderson, how are we supposed to get him out of the cabin? I mean, Karen and I tried everything.”

“Not everything,” Max says as she pats her stomach.

“What are you saying?” Lucas’s voice is confused and slightly afraid.

“Well, you know,” Max says, “we could just say that Ella arrived early.” The boys look at her like she’s crazy. “Okay, I know it’s crazy. Ella would probably die if she was born right now. But I don’t think Mike would know that. Just tell him you can’t meet him tonight because I went into labor really early this morning or something, and that the baby is here, and he needs to see her. Just tell him, Lucas. Or, actually, Steve, you tell him. That makes it more believable.”

“That’s actually insane, Mayfield,” Steve sighs. “But it might work. Out crazy the crazy.”

“He’s not crazy, he’s grieving,” Dustin defends. “Also, I wrote to him and told him I’d be here. So wouldn’t he be able to put it together that this is some elaborate ruse to get him out of the cabin?”

“He hasn’t opened up a single letter since he got here over two months ago. I literally just told you that Karen is reading all his mail. He’s not reading it. It sits in a bag untouched.” Steve sets his beer down on the island and stands up, putting his hands above his head while he thinks. “Alright, this is the plan. Dustin, we’re pretending you don’t exist. That would be a giveaway, except, he doesn’t even know you’re here. So this is the plan, I’m going to go to Hopper’s cabin, I’ll say Max went into labor early this morning, I didn’t know because I was at school, Lucas was so busy, had to leave work early or something, I only just found out because I went home and no one was there, so then I went to the hospital, and Ella is here, and you just need to go see her, Wheeler, because she is just too. Damn. Cute.” Lucas finds himself reaching over to rub Max’s stomach and gives her a wink.

Dustin finds himself with his lips pursed together, an eyebrow raised questioningly at Steve. “Do you really think that’ll work?”

Lucas shrugs. “I think he needs to leave, and really, he is excited about the baby. He’s sad about it, but I think he knows what it means. And I think he’d come.”

“What are you all going to do when he finds out there’s no baby and this is basically an intervention to get him to go on a trip that I only came up with five minutes ago?”

“We’ll wait until tomorrow then,” answers Steve. “Dustin, get the airfare booked. I’ve got the number of a travel agent somewhere here. He’ll do it, I think. And if he doesn’t, well, Mrs. Henderson has the next flight out of here.”

Hawkins, One Day Later

Once the initially shock wears off, Mike is happy. Mike is truly, unadulteratedly happy. After so much loss, finally, there is life again. A baby. Ella, named after his El.

“Isn’t it early for the baby to be born? Max said she had two more months,” Mike asks Steve.

“I don’t know,” answers Steve, his knuckles white as he grips the wheel.

“Aren’t you supposed to know these things? Like, aren’t you a sex ed teacher?”

“Yes,” Steve replies curtly, “but I only teach the part before the baby. Not really after.”

“I thought there’s a timeline to this.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know the exact day that baby Sinclair was conceived, so I can’t tell you what the timeline should be. All I know is that she is here.”

“Okay, gross,” Mike says as he runs his hands through his greasy hair. “Listen, can I shower at your place before we go to the hospital? I don’t really have running water in my bathroom.” He’s looking at himself in the rearview mirror. His face, always angular, is gaunt. His hair is long and shaggy. “Maybe you can cut my hair, too?” Mike finds himself wanting to look good. To make a good impression for this baby. This baby that won’t even be able to make out the shape of his face. He thinks back to what Steve just said. “Wait, it’s a she?”

Steve blinks and shakes his head. He’s grateful that Mike requested to go to his house first. It’ll be less suspicious that way. “Yeah. Ella Sinclair.” Mike grins to himself and looks down. His fingernails are awfully long, too.

Steve’s truck pulls into the curved driveway of his house. Mike notices that the Hawkins PD vehicle is sitting outside the house. Steve notices Mike noticing. “Oh, uh, Erica took them. They were both freaking out, you know. Hey, listen, the downstairs bathroom is kinda their space right now, and mine is like an explosion, you know, all the hair product, so I’m just going to send you down to the basement, when we get in. Just go straight down and clean up really fast. I’ll cut your hair, if you want. Then we’ll go to the hospital.”

Dustin, Lucas, and Max sit gathered in the family room, a coffee table with the plane tickets sitting in front of them. They hear the garage open, but instead of hearing the resistant and confused footsteps of someone who has been unknowingly brought to an intervention, they hear the quick clap of feet down the basement stairs. Then, they see Steve’s nervous figure approach them.

“What is he doing in the basement, Harrington?” Dustin snaps.

“He wanted a shower. And a haircut.” Steve runs his fingers through his hair nervously. “I mean, this whole lie has really woken him up. I think this might actually disappoint him a lot. He asked to come here to get cleaned up. There’s no water in the bathroom there or something.”

“Okay,” Max says, her voice lilting upwards with confusion and anxiety, “so if he freaks out about me being here with no baby, then what’s the plan?”

“How about just me and Steve talk to him?” offers Dustin. “He’ll take the lie better from us. Then you guys can surprise him with your no baby after.”

“Alright,” Steve says brusquely.

Downstairs, Mike is scrubbing his hair, his face, every part of his body he’s neglected for almost three months. Steve gave him a razor, and Mike is happy to get rid of these wisps of almost there facial hair. Steve waits outside the bathroom door, hair clippers and scissors in hand. Mike lets him in, standing only in his underwear. He’s gotten awfully thin when he had already started with so little. Steve is almost uncomfortable with how thin he is, but he stands behind Mike, shearing the black locks off. Once he’s done, he gives his hair a ruffle. “Looking good, Wheeler,” he says. Steve’s heart gives a pang. So much hope of his own is wrapped up in the future. A baby, Lucas’s baby, Max’s baby. Maybe a baby of his own one day. And Mike is so, so happy about this baby. And it’s a lie.

Steve reminds himself that it’s not a lie. It’s just not the truth yet. But the baby will be born. And Mike can be this happy then, too. He can be this happy twice. When Steve is done, Mike is alone. He gets dressed slowly. Something about today tells him that the rest of his life is about to start. This is going to be the after. The past six years, Mike has been on hold. He’s been waiting for something to propel him forward. He thought it was his friends, or college, or his book, but really, they just helped the time pass. He knows that it’s today. Today is the event that moves him forward. Today is the day his life starts again. He looks at himself in the mirror, his face clean shaven, his hair cut, finally washed and scrubbed and clean, and he makes a promise. Whatever happens today, he will let it happen. He will let life move him forward. He will move with it.

Steve and Dustin are sitting on the couch when Mike comes around the corner. “Oh, Dustin,” Mike says slowly, like he’s trying to understand. “Why are you here?”

“Oh,” Dustin replies slowly, “you didn’t read my letters?”

“No…” Mike’s voice trails off. “Shouldn’t you be at the hospital?”

“We were, um,” Dustin can’t come up with something to say, “we were waiting for you. I don’t have my car, you know, it’s still in Florida. So, Steve has to drive me. And he wanted us to all go together.”

“Okay…”

Dustin rolls his lips together, chewing on them slightly.

“You’re lying,” Mike erupts. “You’re lying. What the hell are you two trying to do right now?” He looks between Steve and Dustin, his face incredulous. “There’s no baby, is there?”

“Well, there is a baby,” Steve adds. “It’s just not born yet. But Max is definitely pregnant.”

“Yeah, Max is pregnant. There’s a baby in there, alright,” Dustin nods.

“Okay, so what are you doing?”

Dustin doesn’t know what to do except grab the tickets on the coffee table and show Mike.

“Listen, I know this is crazy, but no, Max did not have the baby. She’ll have it eventually. Like, six more weeks or something. But my coworker Greg, he’s doing this really groundbreaking research in Iceland, and there’s this old writer’s cabin near the research site that you can stay in. And I think you really should go. I think you should go get some sunshine and try to figure out what you need to do. I heard, Mike, I heard about the advance you got. I heard about what happens if you don’t write a new book. And you need to go. You come back in four weeks, Max won’t be due for ten more days. So, you won’t miss the baby. Look, I’m really sorry because I know you’re happy about the baby, but I just feel like this is something you should do. I really, really feel like this is something that you should do. And I don’t know why, but I just feel it, Mike. Can you trust me?”

Mike thinks about the promise he made to himself in the mirror. He’s angry, biting his lip, hands clenched, his freshly cut fingernails leaving little half-moon prints in his palms. And somehow, he finds himself nodding. He remembers the feel of El. How she visited him just after he was wondering where she went. Maybe this is a sign.

“What’s in Iceland?” he asks.

“Um, ground that is really hot and a lot of sun so it’s kind of like Mars?” offers Steve.

“Wow, Steve, good job!” Dustin gives him a high five. “I mean, that’s why Greg is there. But there’s a lot of flowers there. Not a lot of people. Sheep, I think. Horses. Sunshine. Volcanoes. Waterfalls.”

Mike perks up at the mention of waterfalls. “When does the flight leave?”

“Well, I wanted it to leave tomorrow, but I could only get one the day after, so two days. Chicago. We’re borrowing Steve’s truck.”

Steve is surprised. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, Henderson. Since when did we agree on that?” He shakes his head. “I’ll tell the school I need a sub. We’ll all go.”

“Okay,” Mike nods, “okay. Well, I’ll stay here, then. I assume Lucas and Max are hiding somewhere? Okay, okay. I need to go back and get my clothes and my journals and stuff. But I’ll do it.”

“Sounds good,” Steve says. “I’ll get a bed made up for you upstairs.”

“I’ll stay in the basement,” Mike replies. Steve nods and heads down the hall and toward the stairs. Mike wanders over to the couch and plops down, Dustin following suit.

“What changed your mind, man?” asks Dustin.

“About what?”

“I don’t know, about living?”

Mike sighs slowly. “When I saw Max and Lucas, I was really happy for the first time in a long time. Like, life wasn’t going to be bad forever. But when I heard her name… Ella… it just broke my heart.” Mike drops his head. He doesn’t want to cry. “Everyone else gets to live and move on except me. I don’t get anything.” The tears are falling. He wipes at his eyes with the back of his hand. “But maybe I do. Maybe I get to try. I know she wants me to be happy. And I know she’s out there. And every day I spend laying in her bed, and all I do is drink, and I’m wasting away, and I’m not happy, and I’m definitely not any closer to finding her. So maybe, if I get happy, or if I just do something, then I’ll find her. Maybe if I write some more, she’ll find me. Today, when I was getting ready to see the baby, or I thought I was getting ready or whatever, I just decided to try. And if this is what you think I should do, then I really don’t have any reason not to do it.”

“Oh, thank God!” Dustin exclaims. “You have no idea how happy this makes me. You have to go there. I don’t know why, either, but you have to go. Something is telling me to make you go. So in a few days, we’ll go to Chicago, and you’ll go to Iceland.”

Mike nods. Dustin’s shoulders sag with relief. Life will start anew tomorrow.

The basement isn’t reminiscent of his mother’s, but Mike finds himself thinking of El as he stares at a desk pushed up against a wall. The desk isn’t anything like the one El slept on. Diagrams, half graded papers, a notebook of lesson plans, and a pair of reading glasses sit atop it. There’s a picture of Steve and Robin, another of him and Dustin. There’s an old sofa. Mike isn’t sure where it came from or how Steve managed to furnish this massive house. Steve left out blankets and pillows, and Mike is almost tempted to hide under the desk, but he can’t bring himself to clear Steve’s work off the desk.

Mike isn’t sure if he’s excited, terrified, or broken hearted. Has he really been so messed up that his friends think the only way to help is to ship him off? But Mike reminds himself that El isn’t here. He knows that for a fact. She is not in Hawkins, and Mike scoured all of Chicago for someone like her, and he hadn’t found her there. Would she be in the Midwest at all? For all he knows, Iceland is closer to her.

He lays down on the sofa, nestled in a bunch of blankets, his head sinking into an old down pillow, his freshly sheared hair poking at his neck and around his ears. He starts to doze off, until he feels someone brush the hair away from his forehead. When he opens his eyes, he knows it’s her. “El?” he says. “I know you’re there.” He’s afraid to move, to scare her off, to lose her presence. “Please, please tell me I’m right.” He feels her now, his hair ruffling up. Suddenly, he there is cold air on his cheek, hears a rush of water. Then there is nothing. “I’m coming. I promise you, I’ll find you, El.”

Rural Iceland, First Week of June 1993

“We’re going to cancel our tours,” Olafur tells his companion. He’s lying in his bed, his feet propped up. “The doctor will be here soon. I expect I broke something.” He sighs and rubs his face with his hand. “You’re going to have to do all the work around here. Halla, she can’t keep up. Can you handle this?”

El nods. She has always been drawn to solitary, meticulous things. Whether it’s making a diorama or shearing sheep, she finds herself happiest when she is in tune with her hands and tuning out of the world. She is ready to take on the farm. She can do it herself. But when she looks at Olafur and Halla, she wonders what will happen to her when she is old. Suddenly, a fear of being alone overtakes El. A reminder of the conversation she once had with her father, her real father, about a future with a daughter. El’s stomach twists, but she nods in reassurance toward Olafur, the man who has become her father in a different way.

Olafur’s horse, Ida’s sire, does what he wants. Which means that earlier today, he decides to run off abruptly. Horses are capable of creatures. When they go down a cliff, they have an amazing ability to control their descent. Olafur, however, in his old age, does not have an amazing ability to stay on a horse. In this same moment, El is in the waterfall pools again, trying to find Mike. She’s been successful, despite not knowing about Steve’s new house. She’d even found Dustin in Florida a few months earlier. She thinks Mike looks better now, his hair a more controlled fringe, his face shaved, new clothes and no stench of alcohol seeping out of his pores. Mike is saying something, speaking directly to her, but then there is a clatter of hooves. When El hears Ida run off, she rips her blindfold off and scrambles out to the shore. Ida is gone. Ida never left. Was this her fault? Was this El’s fault for interfering with the world as it wants to be?  Is this the consequence for too obviously visiting Mike?

Twenty minutes later, Ida is back, braying nonstop. El slides onto her back, and they ride to where Olafur had fallen, realize what had happen, and leave to get Halla.

Halla does not know what to do. Where Olafur fell is really only accessible on horse or some sort of all-terrain vehicle. Their old, rusty truck is not able to retrieve him. Halla and Olafur’s farm is a few kilometers outside of a tiny town, and a few kilometers past them is a new NASA research site. They have all-terrain vehicles. Olafur had given some of them horseback rides when they couldn’t use their vehicles. They are nice young people, no older people with families willing to uproot their lives and study in a place so far north you are practically in heaven.

“Johanna,” Halla says, “I think we need to ask the young men at the research center to go get him.” El doesn’t have an identification, so she can’t legally drive. “Take Ida. That way you can take them to where he is. Hurry, Johanna. Please. Nothing bad can happen to him.”

El understands her desperation. El knows what it’s like to love someone so much you can’t comprehend leaving them. And she knows what it’s like to live without them.  

Within fifteen minutes, El arrived at the site. She is afraid. The men here have been nothing but nice to her family, and the few women that join them have tried to befriend her, much to her chagrin. El, while lonely, isn’t sure that she wants anyone new. The young scientists, many of them not much older than herself or her old friends, resemble too many things. New friends and letting go of the past, of her old friends. And research. The government. Things El isn’t sure she will ever be comfortable with.

The site is roped off in certain areas, so a truck or a car can’t get through, but Ida weaves her way through. There is a cabin at the edge of the research site, and Greg, the head of the project, is cleaning it out. He hears the clatter of Ida’s hooves on the ground.

“Johanna! Hey! How’s it going?” he says cheerfully. El doesn’t respond. His eyebrows knit together. “I’ve actually never seen you out.” His American English is a comfort to El, but in this moment, all she feels is worry. She can sense how confused he is, and she knows he understands that something is wrong.

“Greg? Are you busy?” she asks timidly.

“Is something wrong?” he replies. Greg is gentle and always waiting for someone to speak. He never speaks out of turn, something that El finds unsettling. He waits for her to respond. It’s been so long since someone waited for her to respond.

“Yes,” whispers El with a shake of her head. “Something is wrong. Olafur fell off his horse. I can’t get to him. Halla can’t get drive the truck to where he is. We were hoping that you could take one of your research vehicles and go get him.”

“Of course, of course!” Greg says. He dusts off his hands on his balding head. “Let me go get one of the guys to bring it over.” He gestures over to some boy who can’t be older than Eleven is, who rushes off further into the camp.

“What is this place?” asks El.

“Oh, it’s an old writer’s cabin. It just happened to be on the edge of our site. My friend, Dustin, back in Florida, he’s got a writer friend who’s coming to stay here. No one is using it, so, why not?” Greg shrugs his shoulders. El’s mouth dries up. Dustin? Writer friend?

“Where is Florida?” she asks.

“Oh, it’s in the southeastern part of the United States,” Greg explains. “Are you from Iceland? Your American accent is perfect.”

El doesn’t know what to say. “I am not really from anywhere.” Greg ignores this. He’s cheerful, almost annoyingly so. It’s part of what makes him such a great scientist, a relentless optimism and drive to figure things out. He isn’t disheartened or put off ever, and definitely not by El’s stiffness. He chocks up her rigid English to it not being her first language. The question could spark his interest, but he hears the distant churn of wheels against the gravelly earth.

Meanwhile, El’s mind spins. Dustin from Florida. Not from the Midwest. Not her Dustin. Not her writer.

The young man drives up in what looks like a John Deere Gator, but in white with NASA’s logo on the side. Another slice of America in what El thought was a refuge, far from anyone and anything that ever knew her.

“Well, I think it’ll be faster if you direct me. You can tie up your horse out here,” adds Greg as he climbs into the vehicle, the young boy, presumably an intern is driving.

“She won’t go anywhere,” replies El.

“Well, Johanna, hop on.” El clambers in the vehicle, holding onto the edge as she stands partially out of it, scouting for the trail that will lead them to her new family. The young man driving introduces himself as Clark Holloway, a recent hire that completed a summer program last year in Cape Canaveral before being selected for this project. He’s chatty, unlike the positive but welcoming Greg.

Soon enough, they arrive at Olafur’s spot. His body isn’t mangled, but he isn’t young, and the fall he took was hard. The spotted skin of his hands and forearms is scraped and bleeding, and his ankle is already swollen. There is no way he’ll be able to walk.

“I don’t think we can get him up,” says Clark. “I mean, I can’t get all four of us out on that thing. Greg, you take Olafur. Come back for us, please.”

Olafur nods. There are gashes that need attending too. “I’m so sorry,” El’s voice cracks. “I should’ve been with you. I’m sorry.” She feels tears wet her lashes, but she can’t let them fall.

“Oh, Johanna,” Olafur replies. “It’s not your fault.”

“It was my fault,” she is crying out now. “I went swimming in the waterfalls again. I could’ve been with you.”

Clark and Greg are talking quietly a few feet away, clearly trying not to interrupt what they assume is a moment between an upset niece and her elderly, injured uncle. El hears hushed voices discussing the logistics of getting him back to their farm and who will go pick up El and Clark.

“No,” mutters Olafur. “I’m fine. It’s only my ankle.” Olafur shakes his head. “Johanna, I know that is the place that makes you happiest. I see you on Ida. I see when you sit in the grass with the sheep. I see when you fall asleep in the lupines during our twenty hour days. And I see where you want to be, and it’s those waterfalls. Oh, you don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

The tears are finally falling from El’s lashes now, and she doesn’t exactly know why. Maybe it was how much she lost, and how much she has gained from the kindness of this man and his family. And how responsible she feels for all that everyone around her has lost.

“I should have been there,” says El. “I am sorry, Olafur. I really am.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s your smart horse who found me, and you are the smart girl who trusts that horse,” he smiles quietly. “So let Greg take me home, and you and the young man will catch up later.” El nods. Greg and Clark lift up the old man from the rocks and gingerly place him in the vehicle. Olafur and Greg wave goodbye, and Greg gives El a reassuring look.

“We’ll be back soon,” Greg says. “I’ll have Halla pick him up at the site, and then I’ll come get you two.”

El nods, but she wishes she could call for Ida and run off into the blue sky. She knows that it really is no big deal that Olafur fell. He is okay. He’ll recover. Nothing bad happened. But it could have, and she is too trapped in her old life to have been there. She needs to let go. She tells herself; she needs to let go of Mike. The tears are falling. Really falling.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Clark is saying quickly. “Hey, don’t cry. It’s going to be just fine. Really, it’s going to be fine. Why are you so upset? It’s not your fault. I know it’s scary, but really, it’s going to be okay.”

El shakes her head. “No,” she says. “I used to be different.” She keeps shaking her head, it now in her hands.

“What do you mean?” asks Clark. “We’re all changing all the time.”

“No,” El says. Clark is speaking fast. She doesn’t even know what he’s saying. He’s telling her how everyone changes all the time. How he was a different person this morning before he had to drive the Gator out here, and before he met her and this old man that everyone on the site seems to really admire. El wants him to be quiet, and his quick speech gives her an impression of someone she once knew. Dustin. And she knows the best way to stop a genius’s mind from moving is to interrupt him.

“I used to live in America,” she says.

“Oh, really?” he asks. “Where? You know, we’re probably going to be here a long time, and I talk a lot, so you should probably interrupt me.”

Suddenly, he doesn’t remind El of Dustin. He reminds her of Mike. And she finds herself speaking.

“I think I grew up in Indiana,” she says. “It’s in the middle outside Chicago.”

“Oh!” exclaims Clark. “I know Indiana. Actually, this guy in my summer intern camp was from Indiana. Anyway, how’d you end up here?”

El thinks. How can she link these two stories together? How can she start in Indiana and end in rural Iceland?

“My mom died when I was very young,” she says. “I never knew about my real dad.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” replies Clark. He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. Actually, I already said that. I just wanted to say I’m sorry about your mom, and I’m sorry for interrupting you.” He gives her a sheepish smile. Her heart twists. The quirk of those lips is so reminiscent of someone she once knew. Maybe this can be letting go. Maybe she doesn’t have to be alone.

“My mom died, and then this doctor took care of me. He raised a bunch of us,” she squeaks out. The words almost can’t come out. She’s trying to link these lifetimes she’s had. “But he was bad. I ran away, and I ended up at… at a friend’s house. And I stayed there a while, but the government was after me.”

“After you?” asks Clark. “Why? Because you ran away?” El nods. “Ohhhh…” He suddenly understands. “Like the Department of Children and Family Services?”

“Yes, but I was only eleven,” she chuckles to herself at that one. “I didn’t understand. So the police chief, he took me in. He became my dad.” She’s losing herself in this story. Her voice splits in two, and she doesn’t know how to continue on.

“I’m so sorry, Johanna,” he says. “Can I call you Jo?”

El laughs to herself again. What is happening? How is she always being rescued by kind boys with big brown eyes? She nods again. It’s been a decade, and somehow, history is repeating itself. She finds herself making sense of how she can connect these stories.

“There was a fire in the mall where I lived. It was really bad. My dad… my dad died.” She isn’t lying. “So then my friend’s family finally took me in. And we went to California, but we didn’t like it there. So we went back to Indiana, and there was an earthquake, and she had to move in with our other friend’s family. But I couldn’t do that. And with all the bad things happening in town, my sister died.”

Clark is approaching her now. “I’m really so sorry, Jo,” he says. “That’s so hard to hear.”

“I ended up leaving. I went to Chicago, and I found out that I had family here. My dad’s dad’s sister. I never knew about them before, so I came here. And I’ve been here for six years now.” The lie rolls off her tongue so easily she’s afraid of the history she’s creating for herself. A history where Mike isn’t the most important thing.

“Are you happy?” he asks.

She shrugs. She slumps down onto the ground, her head fully in her hands, her legs curled into themselves. Clark finds himself joining her. The budding blue flowers surround them.

“You’ve lost a lot,” he says. “It’s not fair.”

She shakes her head. The words can’t come. Clark touches her arm, and she lifts her head to look at him.

“You’re very strong,” he says, almost shyly. “Thanks for telling me.”

“I haven’t told anyone,” replies El.

“Really? Not even Olafur and Halla?”

“They know enough. They know I had to come here. They don’t need to know anything else.”

Clark nods. His hand is still on El’s arm. She turns to look at him, her stringy hair sticking to her face. He brushes it out of her face, his thumb lingering on his cheek, wiping away a tear. She grabs his hand and brings it down to her lap. “Do you think they are coming back soon?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” laughs Clark. “I know I’ll be in Iceland for a few more years working on this project.”  His hand curls around hers, but she lets go, scooting away. She is suddenly faced with what she has done. What she has chosen to do. How she has given up on him for the chance of not being alone. Is she a traitor? She lays back into the soft blue. He stays sitting.

“I don’t know that I will ever return to America,” she mutters quietly.

“You don’t have to,” he replies. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

El thinks back to Mike’s haircut. The sobriety, the new clothes. Is he moving on? Is he waking up? El thinks back to what she told herself earlier – she needs to let go. What does letting go even look like?

Clark lays down next to her. He turns to her, his ashy brown hair falling into his eyes. “But do you think you might want to take me horseback riding?”

“Too soon,” she says. She looks away from him. The intensity of his stare, the amount of care he has shown her, it’s too much. She needs it to end. She’s afraid of what it means. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees Mike’s face, but she’s starting to understand that maybe there is another world for her. One where she isn’t always alone. One where she’ll fall off her horse, and she’ll have someone to find her. She hears the rumble of the Gator, and the NASA logo emblazoned on the side, and she finds herself terrified. Clark jumps up to his feet, grabs her hand, pulls her up, and leads her to the vehicle. He doesn’t let go. El doesn’t know what to think.

Later, when El and Olafur and Halla are gathered back at their house, Olafur tells El she’ll be doing the horseback tours from now on. Perhaps it’s fate.

Rural Iceland, Three Days Later, 1993

“So, it’s not the best, but we’ve cleaned it up for you,” Greg says, ushering Mike around the little cabin. “There’s a sink, and a stove, and a fireplace. All the cooking stuff we’ve got is basic camping stuff, so nothing too nice. We got you a desk and a table, but we only have these folding chairs right now. Still getting the site set up. You’re actually pretty far out on the edge. The rest of camp is set up about a mile in. Anyway, we didn’t even know what we’d need or how long we’d be here, so things are trickling in. But we got you a bed.”

The writer’s cabin is more like a dilapidated shack, but the summer is warm, and he doesn’t worry about the draft. It’s all one room, and there’s no washroom or toilet, but the communal camp ones an eight-minute walk away. Mike takes a long look at the bed. It’s a full-sized bed, bigger than he thought they’d offer him. It’s made of carved wood. It’s handmade, it seems. “It’s nice,” he notes.

“It was donated, actually,” mentions Greg. “There’s this couple. Farmers. I helped them out a few days ago, and they showed up with this in their pickup this morning. The husband made it himself for their son, but they don’t need it anymore, so it’s yours.”

“Why not yours?” asks Mike.

“It’s not really standard issue for us, and it’d be unfair for me to take it when no one else has anything like that,” replies Greg. “But you know, a friend of Dustin’s is a friend of mine.” He laughs to himself. “I’ll do anything for that little guy.”

“I’m sure he’d love you calling him a little guy.”

Greg shakes his head. “Hey, join us for supper, alright? I know you must be tired, but everyone is dying to meet you. A lot of them have read Stranger Things. They’re dying to know what happens to Seven. I mean, there’s no way you kill her off, right? She has to live. She’s the magic of the whole thing.”

Mike nods. “Yeah, that’s kind of why I’m here. Going to take some space to figure it out.”

“Well, let us pick your brain. Maybe we’ll inspire book two.” Greg waggles his eyebrows at Mike and then finds himself immediately embarrassed by the act. “Anyway, unpack. Rest. I’ll get you in about an hour.” The keys to the Gator jingle in his pocket. “It’s about a twenty-minute walk into camp, but it’s only a few minutes on the Gator, so someone will come pick you up.”

Mike nods and sees Greg out. He lays down in the bed, but he is too jittery to fall asleep. What is he doing here? What is he doing with his life? The three book deal he signed is taunting him. He can’t kill Seven. He knows that, and here are other people agreeing with him. Seven must live. She must live.

The world is moving Mike forward. He made an agreement with the world to let it move him forward. And if the people of the world think Mike should be in Iceland, and the people who are housing him in Iceland think Seven should live, then maybe Gio is wrong. Maybe the whole publishing house is wrong. Maybe the world has sent him here to hear those exact words out of Greg’s mouth. Telling him not to give up on her. Not to give up on their story. To believe in her.

Mike always believes in her. She’s his superhero. He goes to the makeshift desk Greg prepared for him and opens up a journal.

An hour later, a young man, around Mike’s age with dusty hair and big brown eyes, knocks on his door. The journal is full of scribbles. Mike is so engrossed that he missed the sound of the Gator pulling up. The door creaks open.

“Hey, man,” he says awkwardly, “I’m Clark. Greg is busy cooking, you know he’s just the best at making a huge meal for everyone, and everyone is staying around to come and meet you, so he couldn’t come get you, so that’s why I’m here. You’re Dustin’s friend, right? From Indiana?”

“Yeah, I am,” Mike replies quietly. The rapid speech reminds him of Dustin, but also of himself.

“Oh, cool,” exclaims Clark. “I don’t know Dustin super well because we never were on any projects together, but we did this summer program last year, and he was just the best. You’re from Indiana too?”

“Yes.”

“That’s so weird. I just met someone else from Indiana the other day. Small world, I guess.” Clark slips into the driver’s seat, Mike next to him. The wind is whipping their faces, too loud for the two of them to speak. Mike is starting to understand that there’s a whole world out there that he doesn’t know. These people who know Dustin. Lucas and Max’s baby. Will’s art in New York. Steve’s home in Hawkins. Nancy in the Middle East. 

Mike knows he is an acclaimed author. Well, he’s close enough to being an acclaimed author. But the past three months have passed in a blur. Friends graduating college, starting real jobs, starting families, following their dreams. And Mike knows he’s successful. He has more than enough money, and he’s got two more books on the line. They’re climbing out of the green grass and into a field of blue sky. Mike is amazed. They’re climbing upward, toward warm earth heated from the nearby volcano. There are no buildings standing tall, only the research buildings and barracks, the tiny shack they call a cabin. Mike feels like he’s the only thing for miles and miles. As they continue their ascent, Mike is grateful he didn’t walk. The earth is a meadow of green and blue, the sky so clear. Mike thinks he could be in heaven.

Then he remembers Clark when the vehicle slows to a stop. There’s a group of people sitting outside at a long picnic table. Clark’s hair is flopping into his face from the breezy ride over. Mike is grateful he let Steve trim his. Greg jumps up to greet him.

“Did you get some rest?” asks Greg eagerly.

“No,” Mike’s face turns red and sheepish, “I came here to write, and that’s what I’ve been doing.”

“You’re a writer? What have you written?” Clark joins in.

“Have you heard about Stranger Things?” replies Mike.

“Oh, you’re Michael Wheeler!” exclaims Clark.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“Wow,” Clark mutters. “That’s really cool. I heard you were up for the Nebula.”

“I lost,” Mike says.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Clark doesn’t know when to shut up. “Honestly, I haven’t finished reading it. I’ve heard a lot about it. Most of us are sci-fi nerds over here.”

“Mike is here to clear his head and start working on book two,” Greg adds. He sets down a platter of food and wipes his hands on his pants. “Alright, let’s eat, boys.”

The meal is good. Fish prepared in some way that Mike hasn’t ever heard of and a dark, rich bread. Everyone is speaking so rapidly and frantically, trying to get out whatever they’ve been thinking. Most of these people are in small groups out completing field work or compiling that work into some digestible source of information. Mike slows down and eats. He hasn’t really tasted food in a long time. He forgot that it can be good. Finally, Greg turns to Mike, who has gone unnoticed during this entire meal.

“Can we get you anything, Mike?” he asks.

Mike wants something. Mike wants something so badly, but he can’t even bring himself to say it. He misses it so bad. Mike chews on his lip.

“Beer?” he finally replies.

“Of course,” laughs Greg. He gets up and comes back with a bunch of bottles of pale ale, not normally Mike’s speed, but he misses the calming buzz it gives him. How it quiets how much he misses her. The world has brought him to Iceland. He’s writing again. He’ll bring her back to him. She’s out there, somewhere. And he’ll write her into his life right now. He’ll get a second chance at life. She’ll be the superhero again. There is food in front of him, food that he’s touched. His hair is cut. And he wants a beer.

Greg passes the bottles around, along with his keys and the keychain bottle opener. Clark leans over with his chin in his hands, his elbows on the table.

“So, tell me about your book,” a guy in his thirties says.

“Wait, you haven’t read it?” A young woman’s voice joins from down the table.

“It’s so good. Congrats on being listed for the Nebula!” another voice adds.

“Okay, but really, what is it about?” he asks again.

“Oh, um,” Mike doesn’t know where to start. “Well, it’s about these kids. Patrick, Jamie, Brian, and Matt. They live in the Midwest, and Matt goes missing. They’re determined to find him, but then they find this other girl. Her name is Seven, and they don’t really know anything about her, except that she’s escaped a hospital, and Patrick takes her in, and the boys work with her to find Matt. But there’s this whole government underworld thing going on.”

“I found it interesting,” Clark joins, “but I’ve been too busy to finish it. Where’d you get this idea?” He’s confused.

“Oh, uh, they did a lot of government research in rural Indiana where I grew up. Like, for the Cold War, you know? So, it was mainly based on that.”

Clark’s brain is starting to spin. Something doesn’t make sense.

“Well, Clark, we’re about to ruin the book for you. Please tell us Seven comes back,” pleads one of the women at the table.

Mike’s face splits into a small smile. He shakes his head. “I’m here because I’m trying to figure out book two. I signed a three-book deal, so I’m kind of trapped. After all the stuff with the Nebula, my publisher is pushing everyone else to tell me that Seven shouldn’t come back.”

“Why?” Greg finally joins.

“They hate women!” the woman adds again.

“We get it, Jen,” huffs Clark.

“No, I know how these men work. I’m a woman at a NASA research site in the middle of fucking nowhere. I know how men work,” Jen says. “What’d they tell you, Mike? That she’s some unlovable monster? She’s weird so no one will like her? God, it’s so stupid. She’s the only thing that makes the story work. You better keep her in. She’s the fucking superhero.”

Mike’s face splits open into a brilliant smile. The ale has softened him. People do agree with him. People think his story makes sense.

“I want to,” he responds softly. “I really, really want to.” The ale is starting to seep in. He is remembering El in ways he hasn’t in a long time. He isn’t sure if it’s the freedom to talk about his book without judgment, or the unrelenting sunlight, or a good meal with kind people. But her face is clearer again, no longer that last moment of tears and shouting and begging and passion. Her in the pink dress at the quarry, or the eyeliner when he saw her for the first time in a year. The time they spoke on the roof of the Squawk. Her face is so clear, and he’s drifting further and further from her. Time is pulling him further from her. But he can write this book. He can bring back the girl in the eyeliner. He can write her back into his life. And he will. The daylight never ends here, and now he has all the time in the world to write. He can already map out the shape of the story.

Meanwhile, Jen is in a teasing mood, or maybe she just likes to stir the pot. Her eyebrows are raised as she makes a pointed look at Clark.

“How’s Johanna, Clark?” she asks. Clark blushes a bright red.

“She’s fine, Jen. Why do you ask?”

“I overhead you when she and Halla were here. I heard you’re going to go help her repair a fence tomorrow.”

“Drop it, Jen,” Greg says. “He’s twenty-one and so is she. They’re in the middle of nowhere. What else are they going to do?”

“I hear she’ll take you on a horseback ride.” Jen’s tone of voice is suggestive.

“We’re not doing anything besides building a fence,” argues Clark. He’s sober and angry. He sees Mike’s mind drifting off. “Hey, Mike, have you ever ridden a horse?”

“Yeah, when I was younger. Why?”

“Oh, Johanna’s family gives tours on horseback of the waterfalls. They’re hard to get to, or so Greg says. But we should go sometime. I’ve never been either. Olafur’s the best, but I think Johanna will end up taking us.”

“You just want a reason to see Johanna without looking suspicious,” is Jen’s rebuttal.

“So, what if he does?” grumbles Greg.

Mike’s interest is piqued by this conversation. He has every desire to bring El back to life. He thinks of the waterfalls. Maybe he can find her there. Maybe she’s in the mist. Maybe he’ll feel her in the pools below. “I think I would like to go see the waterfalls,” Mike says at last. “It’s something I’m considering writing into my next book. Or the last book. I don’t know yet.” Clark nods politely and then turns to everyone else.

“Listen, it’s eight, and I said I’d be there at five to fix the fence before the lambs go out to the fields. I haven’t drunk anything. Mike, do you want a ride back?”

Mike nods. His hands are itching for a pen. He needs to bring her back to life. He feels her now. She’s closer than ever. He can’t imagine what it will be like to be at the waterfalls. She’ll be there. Somehow, someway, she’ll be there. He knows it. He senses her, like he always has.

“Good luck on your novel, Mike,” Jen says.

“Yeah, we’re excited for book two. It’s going to be great. Whatever you do, it’s going to be great,” adds Greg. He slips the keys to Clark, and both of the young men clamber into the vehicle. Mike is amazed at how it’s still daylight.

“Sorry about that,” whispers Clark. “Johanna is the niece of these local people. Actually, she’s from Indiana too.” His eyebrows furrow together. The story isn’t making sense. Did it ever make sense, and was he just too blind to see it? Words tumble from his lips. “Anyway, her uncle fell off his horse a few days ago. Greg and I went to help after Johanna came to get us. They brought that bed here today. I don’t know how they knew someone would need it, but they did. Jo, just knows things. It’s kind of uncanny. But Olafur, her uncle, he broke his ankle, so he’s much housebound. And they do a lot of upkeep during the summer since the winter’s so bad, so I told her I’d help out. Halla isn’t aging well, so it’s pretty much just her.”

Mike says nothing. He nods, and then out of nicety, he says, “I’m glad you’re helping her.” They’ve arrived at the cabin, and he runs up the creaky steps and into the one room, and he sits down to write. El will come back. He will bring her back.

Rural Iceland, One Day Later, 1993

The sunlight is a bit thinner, but in the days leading up to the solstice, its shine never wavers. It’s Clark’s one day off, and he borrowed someone’s truck while they were trekking up toward the volcano to take temperatures and study the soil. It feels good to be behind the wheel of a something where the wind isn’t nipping your nose constantly. He pulls up to the old white house, shifts gears to stop the truck, and studies himself in the rearview mirror. Light, ash brown hair. Big brown eyes. An unremarkable face. And Jo is so beautiful to him.

Clark doesn’t actually know if he likes her or if he’s just bored. But it’s something to pass the time. Inside, El is arguing with Halla. El doesn’t know if she even remotely cares about Clark, but she knows she’s afraid to be alone. But at the same time, she finds herself wanting nothing more than distance.

“Johanna,” Halla pleads, “it might be nice to spend time with someone your age. He’s a nice boy.”

“He’s an American,” snaps El. “I don’t want to go back to America.”

“No one is asking you to marry him,” Halla says. “Olafur and I – we want you to make friends. We want you to be happy. You are so young, and we are almost seventy. We won’t be around forever."

“You have at least fifteen more years.” El is fumbling around the kitchen, looking for a snack before the long day’s work.

“You have spent so much of your life alone,” Halla says firmly as she stops to touch El’s arm. “I know you don’t tell us much, but we know that. Please, Johanna, don’t spend your whole life alone. Make a friend. Just one.” El is enraged. She has not spent most of her life alone. She had a whole life with a boy who loved her, who she loved back. Who she still loves. Who she prays still loves her. A part of her knows he does love her. And another part knows that mountains would have to move for them to be together again. El knows friendship. El knows companionship. El knows love. And El knows everything she says is a lie.

She hears the engine of the truck rumble and then stop. “I need to change my clothes,” she says brusquely to Halla. “Please have him wait.” She’s in a pair of thin linen pants and a tank top, but she needs something sturdier. Her overalls are in her closet, her canvas button down that protects from the day’s relentless sunshine hanging haphazardly across her bedframe. Her muddy rubber boots sit near the front door and greet Clark as Halla welcomes him in.

A few minutes later, El descends the stairs pulls on her yellow boots. Her heart twists when she sees Clark. Eyes that could never be his. A smile that could never be his. She doesn’t know what to think. She misses Mike more than ever, but she knows Halla’s words are true. El has always been capable of being independent, but she has never wanted to be alone. Perhaps she can’t have Mike, but she can have a future she was promised.

She thinks about the last real conversation she had with Hopper. A world with a daughter. She can’t remember if Hopper mentioned Mike, but the way it plays out in her head, the world Hopper created for El was one of motherhood. Not of partnership. Hopper never did like the idea of El with a boy, anyway. The thought of being with anyone besides Mike fills her with fear, but the boyish grin on Clark’s face as he follows her out to the sheep pen soothes her slightly. Maybe a family isn’t just a dream. Anyway, he’d have to return to America at some point, right?

“How are you doing this morning, Jo?” he asks cheerily.

“I’m fine.” El’s voice is clipped.

“What’s wrong?” Clark stops. El’s dream fades from view. She turns around to look at him, her French braid swinging over her shoulder. She wants to yell at him for things that aren’t his fault. She wants to yell at him for things that are his fault, like the way he touched her arm four days ago in the field of blue lupines, the way he wiped away her tears. She is so, so confused. The only person who could bring her clarity is the person she can never see again, the person who created all of this confusion to begin with.

“I am just worried,” she says. She looks down at her hands and makes sure the cuffs of her shirt cover her tattoo.

“About Olafur?”

“Yes,” she sighs. “I’m worried about him being alone. And then about me being alone.” A few hundred feet further are a bunch of sheep, their wool starting to grow in again. Some of the little lambs are fattening up for the September slaughter. That’s El’s least favorite part, the part she refuses to do. Not all sheep are raised for wool. Some of them become food. She never participates in that, leaving all the work to Olafur and other young men from the village who only speak Icelandic and cannot bother her. Now, there’s all these Americans. She feels the resentment she’s always had for the United States government bubbling up in her chest again.

“But you’re not alone.” Clark gestures to the sheep then to the stable down the other way. “You’ve got all of them.”

El almost giggles. The laughter is so light she thinks it might not be real. Clark reaches out to touch her braid. She lets him. “Yes, but I won’t always have family,” she says so quietly in hopes he didn’t hear her fully.

“Oh, Jo,” mumbles Clark, running his thumb over the soft brown of her hair. “You’ll have a family.” He drops her braid and his face flushes red. “I bet you’ll have a girl just like you.”

El’s heart seizes. Where is Mike? Why isn’t he here with her? This is wrong. This is so wrong. But she also wonders what right even is anymore. Clark takes the bucket she was carrying from her. She reminds herself of those thoughts she had while they waited for Greg. That maybe there is another world for her. This world that she is in is never one she anticipated, and she likes it. The mundanity of the herding sheep, mending fences, processing wool. Riding her horse and grocery shopping with Halla. Fixing up things in the house. Sometimes, drawing or painting, although it reminds her of a boy who used to be her brother, and she never finds the power to finish what she starts. Clark hoists up the bucket in his arms but doesn’t reach for her free hand with his. She’s grateful.

When the sheep have been checked and fed and released from the pen, and the collies have had the same done to them, and they’re out roaming, El and Clark focus on fixing some of the posts of the pen. The work is silent and meditative. Occasionally, their fingers will brush, but El fights the urge to jerk back. Everything feels like a betrayal of Mike, but not allowing herself the company of others somehow feels like a betrayal to herself. She did go so long being alone. She knows this. Mike was the biggest part of her life, but their time together was only a sliver. She wants someone. She just can’t figure out how to make Clark that person.

When the posts are fixed, they head into the stables to muck the stalls. It doesn’t bother her anymore. They refill the hay, brush their manes. El twists Ida’s tail into a tight, sturdy braid while Clark attends to Olafur’s steed.

“You know,” he says between the stalls, “I heard Halla say you offer horseback tours. To waterfalls, right?”

El wants to say yes. But waterfalls aren’t for her and Clark. She thinks back to the three waterfalls. When she came here, she only saw two. Maybe there is only room for two.

“Yes, we do,” she finds herself responding. “Olafur usually does them, but it’s my job now.”

Clark senses her hesitation. She’s like a frightened cat. He doesn’t know what will happen if he gets too close before she’s ready. There’s a static electricity between them, but it’s not thrilling. It’s terrifying. He doesn’t know if he’s going to be shocked. He doesn’t know what’s happening. But he’s twenty-one, and the only other woman he’s regularly around is ten years older and a relentless bully, and Jo is so, so pretty. And he owes it to Mike and his book. Clark knows what it’s like to be chasing something that seems so crazy. And if Mike is a storytelling, and he wants to see the waterfalls, then he’ll help him out.

“Well, I’d like to go. And there’s this guy who just arrived, he’s pretty cool, and I think he needs to get out some time, so maybe you can take both of us? He’s interested in the waterfalls, and he’s only been in Iceland a day. We’d pay.”

El is relieved to not have to be alone with Clark. Besides, they could really use the money with Olafur’s new medical bills and his inability to work. Without Clark, they were going to have to hire some boy in town to pick up the slack. Now, they don’t have to. Now, she can maintain her friendship with Clark and not have to give into anything more.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay. Meet me at the house in two days. I’ll get Halla’s horse ready, too, for your friend. We can’t wait till the solstice. Too many visitors.”

Clark leaps out from in between the walls and into El’s stall. He’s covered in dirt, sweat, mud, and now horse poop. “Jo, you’re the best,” he says, and he envelops her in a hug. He doesn’t know why, he doesn’t know what overcame him, but he does. El is stiff at first, and then she melts into it. Olafur and Halla have been so loving, but she can’t remember the last time someone was just glad to hold her. Until she does. She thinks of Mike in his camo, his tortured face, the desperate kiss. The lies she told him. The truths she told him. How much she loves him. But he’s not here. He may never be here. Clark is here. So, she opens her arms as if to gather up whatever future awaits her and wraps them around Clark. He’s warm, and he melts into her. She’s happy for it. For a future where she doesn’t have to be completely alone. But she remembers the cool feel of the void, of Mike’s lips on hers that final time. When Clark pulls away, she sees the grass and dirt in his hair and snaps back into reality. But something about the way she feels reminds her of Mike. It’s almost like he’s there, too.

She doesn’t know Clark. Really, she doesn’t know Mike anymore. She knows herself now, though. And she never wanted to be independent. She never wanted to live this great life. She wants someone who understands her. And maybe she can be understood differently, now. Mike knew her best. Mike understood her childhood. She wonders who will understand her as an adult. Is it Clark? She isn’t sure, but a tiny part of her is open to the possibility of more, so long as she squeezes her eyes shut each time he touches her, squinting away the memories of Mike.

Rural Iceland, Two Days Later, 1993

Mike is writing. Greg is inspiring, and Jen is too. Everyone he’s met has been supportive and helpful. Mike decides not to deviate from the story he knows, the story he lived. Seven won’t be present for most of the second novel, but she’ll be around. She’s still there. She’s visiting him in the void. He’s searching for her everywhere. Even now, he knows he’s searching for her.

It’s early morning in Iceland, but you would never know it. The sun is always up, and as the days inch closer to solstice, Mike finds it harder to discern what time it is. Mike hasn’t slept in days. He’s already almost forty pages into the novel. He remembers what it was like to miss her, to wonder where she was. It’s cathartic. He found her again. He will find her again.

Clark is borrowing Greg’s truck again and told Mike he’d get him around seven in the morning. Johanna has to take care of the sheep before then, and Clark needs to be back at the site at ten for a meeting. It’s the only time that really works, besides the night, which is when Mike finds himself most inspired.

Mike sifts through the pages of the notebook that he’s filled with scribbles and notes. The story of his friends taking shape in a new way. Suddenly, he misses Will and Dustin. He’s sorry for how much he’s expected of Lucas when Lucas has so much going on. He’s sorry for ignoring Will. He’s sorry for forcing Dustin to feel like he’s responsible for him. He’s sorry to his mother for how he’s treated her. For being a drunk to Holly. For ignoring Steve. For ignoring everyone. For living in fear.

Mike isn’t afraid anymore. He’s been so afraid of taking any steps forward, of falling and failing. Now, he’s ready to fly. Writing this next book is reminding him of what he and El have been through. He knows they’ll make it through it again.

Mike finally decides to head to bed, and only a few hours pass before Mike awakes to the rumble of Greg’s truck as Clark pulls up.

He runs outside and shouts, “Clark, I’m so sorry. I overslept. I’ll be out in five minutes!” Mike scrubs his face, brushes his teeth, changes his clothes. He takes a quick look at himself in the mirror. A five o’clock shadow darkens the hollows of his face. He tries to smooth over his hair, now sticking out unevenly since growing back from Steve’s haircut. He doesn’t know why he cares so much about how he looks. He runs out to the truck, slides into the passenger side.

“Good morning,” Mike says breathily.

“Good morning,” parrots Clark. “Are you doing okay? You seem… off.”

Mike shakes his head. “Never better.” He means it.

Meanwhile, a few miles away, El is on Ida, making sure the collies and the sheep are headed in the right direction. They’ve been getting too close to the research facility, and El is afraid. She likes to believe that no one at NASA would ever harm her sheep, but when she looks at them, so gentle, trusting, and sweet, so willing to please, she sees herself. She sees her sister. And she doesn’t know that she can ever look at anything related to the government and feel comfortable.

El is guiding Ida who is guiding the sheepdogs who are guiding the sheep. She wants them safe. She wants them protected. Some part of her wants them alone, but when she sees them all in their herd, she knows that they are better off together. Together, they are safe. They have each other. No one will wander off. No one will get hurt. She and Ida protect them. The dogs protect them. This is her job in life, to be a protector.

She plans to be back around seven-thirty, when Clark said he would arrive with a friend. Waterfalls. The thought makes her breath feel short. Waterfalls. With someone who is not Mike. El only ever found two waterfalls. Maybe that was a sign. She decides that, before she has to see Clark, she needs to visit Mike once more.

Ida rushes her toward the waterfalls, and El slips off her back as soon as they stop. She strips of her clothes, being sure that they’ll be dry when she sees Clark, ties her hair back, and wades into the water. She’s searching for Mike. She can’t find him.

She doesn’t know what this means. She’s never not been able to find him. He’s always been there.

She thinks back to Clark, about the hope for a future. Clark’s light hair that is nothing like Mike’s. Clark’s dreams that are nothing like Mike’s. But Mike isn’t here anymore. She can’t find him.

El isn’t sad. She’s angry. She’s bitter. This would always happen. He would move on. She told him that he would understand. And now he does. Now he knows. Now he’s gone.

She gets out of the water, pulls on her clothes, and slips back onto Ida’s back. She prays the wind dries her hair before she returns. The wet hair is embarrassing to her now. It’s a reminder of her desperation to see Mike. A Mike she can’t access. This has never happened to her before. She’s lost him.

Back at the house, Halla is preparing her horse and Olafur’s horse for Clark and Mike. Olafur is sitting on their porch in a rocking chair and a slow grin spreads across his face when he sees the boys arrive. The truck stalls out on the long, dirt driveway, and the two boys hop out and wind their way up the rest of the walkway to the porch.

“Hello, Olafur,” says Clark.

“Hello, Clark,” he replies. Olafur wishes to stand, but he can’t. “I’d stand up to shake your hand, but I’m afraid I can’t.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Clark laughs. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Yes, Johanna is a special girl,” Olafur replies. “Nothing would run without her. We are so lucky to have her.”

“She really is special,” Clark agrees, his eyes drifting somewhere else. Mike clears his throat, and Clark snaps back into it. He claps his hands and turns to Mike. “Oh, Olafur, this is my… friend. This is my friend, Mike.”

Mike leans over with a hand out. “Nice to meet you,” he says. Olafur grips his hand in a firm handshake. Olafur’s hands are calloused, sinewy, spotted with time. Mike’s hands are inky and his fingertips are rubbed raw and red from gripping a pen so tightly. There are paper cuts in a few places from the frantic turning of pages as Mike tries to commit every memory he has from that time to paper.

“Are you a writer, Mike?” asks Olafur.

“Um, yes.” Mike blushes red. The Nebula Award, despite being American, was giving him a lot of notoriety, apparently. “I actually just lost a very big award.”

“Really? What award?”

“The, uh, the Nebula,” responds Mike.

Olafur’s eyebrows knit together as he tries to piece together who Mike is. His gray eyebrows jump up as he figures it out. “Oh, Michael Wheeler! You wrote Stranger Things. I read it and enjoyed it. I gave it to my niece, Johanna. Seven is so much like her. I don’t think she finished it yet, though. You know, she is so busy taking care of me and Halla and the animals.”

Clark is becoming increasingly suspicious of both Mike and Johanna. The pieces are starting to click together. Is Johanna who she says she is?

Halla emerges from the door behind Olafur. “Hello, boys,” she greets. Olafur points to Mike. “He wrote Stranger Things.”

“Oh, really?” asks Halla. “It was a great book. I told Johanna to read it, but I don’t know if she did yet. What are you doing in Iceland?”

“Working on book two, actually,” he replies.

“Oh, I hope Seven returns. That poor girl. She deserves so much better.”

Mike looks down at his dirty converse and smiles. “That seems to be what everyone is saying.” He chews on his lips and looks back up at the older couple. “I want her to live. She’s the superhero.”

“Yes, she is the superhero,” Olafur smiles. He looks over at his wife, standing beside him with her hand perched on his shoulder. Mike’s heart gives a pang, and he wonders if he’ll ever have anything like that. “Halla, why don’t you take the boys to the stable?”

Halla nods, steps down the porch and back onto the dirt driveway. It’s a bit of a walk, and she gestures for her to follow them. Clark is surprisingly silent. Mike wonders if it’s because he’s afraid of embarrassing himself in front of Jo’s aunt and uncle, or if it’s just too early, or if maybe Clark only talks when he’s nervous. Mike’s hands are shoved deep into his pockets, his hair flopping back into his face. It’s about a ten-minute walk down to the stable, and the horses are already prepared for them. Olafur’s horse, Thor, will be Mike’s today. Halla’s horse, Jokull, is ready for Clark.

Halla leads the horses out of the stables, their saddles already on them, and helps Mike and Clark mount them.

“Johanna should be here any minute,” she says. She sighs. “She’s very worried about the research site being built. Afraid of what might happen to the sheep. They’re wonderful creatures, but sometimes they do things without realizing.”

“She really loves them,” adds Clark.

“Yes,” Halla mutters. Her voice quiets. “I sometimes think only the animals can understand her. It’s been six years, and I don’t know how well we know her.”

“It sounded like she’s been through a lot,” Clark says. “Well, she told me about some things that happened before. So, I understand. Or I think I do.”

Mike is uncomfortable. He doesn’t know who Johanna even is at this point, besides the estranged American niece of these people, and someone Clark is infatuated with. He’s on top of Thor, a massive horse, or at least a horse that seems massive in Mike’s limited experience.

“The waterfalls are very beautiful,” reassures Halla.

“I’ve been dreaming of waterfalls for a very long time.” Mike pats Thor’s neck. “I used to have this dream, about leaving where I grew up, and going to find waterfalls.”

“Hopefully that dream can come true today.” Halla is sweet. Clark, now on Jokull, hears the clop of hooves. Mike’s hands are still running through Thor’s mane, focused on this horse now. He never knew how gentle they were, how large they were. He feels at ease on Thor. Mike doesn’t even look up when Clark says, “Hi, Jo,” and Jokull turns to face Ida.

“Hi, guys,” Mike hears a familiar voice say. Thor isn’t facing the rider and her horse, and Mike isn’t really sure how to get Thor to move in the directions he wants him to go. But he knows that voice. He hasn’t heard that voice in a long time. Mike is begging, pleading that this horse will move itself. Suddenly, it brays and moves abruptly.

Mike sees her. His heart stops. He thinks he might throw up.

He’s gone through this a thousand times in his mind. How he’d find her. How they’d reunite. He never, ever imagined it would take place on a horse in a rural part of a rural part of Scandinavia in front of a guy named Clark who is infatuated with her. Mike always knew he would find her, but he thought he would be able to run to her. To embrace her, their faces touching for the first time in over half a decade. And instead, he is on this goddamn horse.

El is staring back at him. “Mike?” she gasps. “How did you find me?”

Mike doesn’t know what to say. “I… I didn’t.”

This stings El. Is this why she couldn’t find him? Did he not want to be found? Did she summon him here? The thought flickers through her mind and remains there: he didn’t find her. He just showed up here. He didn’t search for her. He wandered upon her. El can’t face him. She gives Ida a tap with her heel. She needs to leave. Ida gallops off, Halla turning to Mike. Blinking rapidly, Clark is beyond confused.

“Do you know her?” asks a perplexed Clark.

“I love her.” The words stumble from Mike’s mouth. He can’t believe he just said it, but it’s the truest thing he’s ever said. Clark studies Mike for a second. He recalls the stories Johanna told him – a dead mother, a doctor, a friend, a police chief, a fire, an earthquake. Stories so ridiculous he didn’t think they could be true. He thinks about Mike’s book. Halla is thinking about it too. They both didn’t completely understand it; Clark didn’t even finish it. But the pieces are starting to fit together.

“Jo told me about her life before. That it was bad in a lot of ways, so she tried to find family to take her in,” he starts.

“Jo?” asks Mike. He is still shaken from the earlier events.

“Johanna,” adds Halla.

“That’s Johanna, on the horse. Our guide to the waterfalls,” Clark says confusedly. “But Jo’s stories, they were unbelievable. Just crazy how bad they were, and I just thought this poor girl. But that wasn’t even the half of it, was it?”

“What are you implying?”

Clark turns to Halla. “Jo is Seven,” Clark states clearly. He turns to Mike, or maybe the horse turns to Mike. “Jo is Seven, and you are the main character. You’re Patrick! And Dustin… Dustin is your genius crazy friend, Jamie?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Mike reminds himself of the concern El always feels, NASA is a part of the government. Maybe the Cold War is over, but he cannot forget that. He cannot forget what was stolen from him. She might be right here, but years have gone by with him wondering what happened. Years of reinventing their stories, years that he will never get back.

“I saw it,” mutters Clark. “That day in the lupines, when Olafur fell. I grabbed her hand and I saw it.”

Mike’s eyes widen. He isn’t sure what he’s more upset about – El’s secret being revealed or someone else holding her hand. Clark reads Mike’s facial expression.

“Oh my God, it’s not like that!” Clark shakes his head. Halla gives him a suspicious look that he tries to ignore. “Okay, maybe it was. For me, yeah, sure. She’s pretty, and she’s really nice, and she’s kind of like this blank slate if you don’t know her at all, and I’m super bored and lonely out here, so I could just make up whatever she is in my mind.” He’s back to rambling. Mike is more at ease again. “I don’t know. Don’t listen to me. But I saw the tattoo. I didn’t know what it was for, but it’s her number, right? Like in the story? That’s all a true story?”

Mike refuses to answer.

“Listen, I’ve had this crush on her for like, a week. This has been a decade long buildup based on that book. That damn book is a whole love letter to her. It’s like you’re trying to commit everything you ever had with her to memory.” Clark runs a hand through his hair. He doesn’t even begin to realize how right he is. “I promise you, Mike. I promise you I will never tell anyone. I’m going to be here for years working on the rover. I’m not going anywhere.” Clark shakes his head. He’s certain now that all of Jo’s hesitancy is because of Mike. “This is so fucking crazy.” Clark Holloway is a scientist. He lives in the scientific method, in the tested hypotheses and analyzed data. There’s nothing about his interactions with Jo that tell him she likes him. Maybe she’s open to the possibility of liking him, but now he knows there’s no chance. He’s not a greedy or vindictive young man. He lives in pursuit of truth. And right now, the greatest truth of all, love, is unfolding right in front of him. He’s twenty-one. There’s time. But when he thinks of Johanna or Jo or Seven or 011 or whoever she is, he thinks of all the time she’s lost, and all the heartbreak Mike imbued into that damn book. Clark couldn’t get through it all, but he knows that much is true, and he finds himself saying, “You have to go get her, right? You have to!”

Mike doesn’t know how to ride a horse, but he finds himself lightly kicking it, and it gallops off, leaving Clark behind. He’s on Olafur’s horse, Ida’s father. Thor will take him to Ida. And wherever Ida is, El will be. Clark stands back, trying to clamber off Halla’s horse. He’s trying not to laugh at the absurdity of the situation, but he knows some things just might not be explained. There are so many strange things about this universe. He’s trying to put a robot on Mars. Who’s to say that a girl who had scientific experiments performed on her doesn’t have telekinetic powers? He understands how little he knows. He doesn’t worry.

Halla, in her old age, speaks slowly after all the commotion. “I have always wanted her to be happy. Almost six years with her, and all I want is for her to not be alone. Then, you show up. And now someone else from America.”

“Life is weird,” agrees Clark.

“Yes.” Halla brushes gray hair out of her face. “But stranger things have happened.”

A Waterfall, Iceland, June 1993

El is sitting by the water. Rushing past, the waterfall soothes her. This used to be her safe space. Her place to visit Mike, or Dustin, or Max, or Lucas. To see how Nancy is holding up in war. How Hopper and Joyce’s new house looks. And now, it’s the last place she wants to be, but she doesn’t know where else to go.

She went to the farthest corner of the earth, so high she’s practically in heaven. There are no buildings. She crushes the ground in her hands. She looks over at the field of blue. And somehow, Mike found her.

She lays back down, Ida grazing a few feet away. She wants the waterfall to lull her to sleep. Instead, she hears horse hooves. A few hundred feet away, there is Thor. There is Mike.

“I don’t know how to get off this thing!” Mike shouts at El. Startled, El looks up. She laughs at the absurdity of it all, and Mike manages to stumble out of the stirrups and swing himself over and onto the ground.

“El!” he yells. He’s running toward her. “Eleven.” This time his voice is quiet, barely squeaking out. El stands up and walks to him. She’s shaking. She’s terrified. They’re standing next to each other now, but El can’t bring herself to touch him. If she touches him, it’s real. And if it’s not real, she doesn’t know what she’ll do. How she’ll go on.

“El,” the words start to fall from his mouth, “it’s not that I didn’t look for you. I did, everywhere, all the time. I wondered. I wrote that book in the hopes you’d find it. I came to Iceland because Dustin… that’s a long story, but Dustin and Lucas and Max and Steve thought I needed to clear my head. I needed to write more. I needed to bring you back. And I came here, trying to write you back into my life, and El…” His voice trails off and cracks. He shuts his eyes tightly. Eleven is so, so close to him. She reaches out, her hand playing with the coarse hair at the nape of his neck. She brings their foreheads together.

“I would visit you,” she says, “in the waterfalls. I would go into the water, and I would find you. I couldn’t find you. This morning, I couldn’t find you, and I thought that meant...”

“I knew you were there.” Their faces are touching, both of them crying. Their tears and breath mingle together. “I knew you were there. I never gave up on you, El. Never.”

El starts to laugh. She brings her lips to Mike’s. It’s like a first kiss all over again, except this time, not in an empty classroom, in front of the waterfalls Mike promised. It’s slow and gentle and anxious. Mike is afraid of holding on too tight, as if she’ll escape from his grip, and he’ll never see her again. She pulls back, their foreheads touching again.

“I love you, Mike,” she whispers. “Do you understand?”

“I always understood,” he replies. “I didn’t want to, but I did. I learned to understand.”

“Mike, I don’t want to be alone again.”

Wrapping his arms around her, Mike tugs her to the ground, holding her tightly, his nose nuzzling into her hair. It’s long, finally. In a braid. It’s beautiful. “You’ll never be alone again, El. I’m so sorry.” He’s starting to cry. “I’m so sorry, El. I should’ve protected you. I should’ve done more. You never should have left. You were supposed to have a life. With us. With all of us. Be a sister to Will and Jonathan. Be friends with Max. Be Hopper’s daughter. You were supposed to have a life.”

“With you?”

“Yes, with me,” laughs Mike. His cheeks flush a bright red. This is the life he has been working toward.

“I have a life,” explains El. “I have Ida.” She gestures to the horse. “I have Olafur and Halla and the farm. I have a life here. The animals, I love them.” She wraps her fingers around Mike’s wrist. “I don’t want to go back to Hawkins.”

“You don’t have to.” Mike brushes a few stray locks out of El’s face. “You found the far-off land with the waterfalls, El. You started over in a new place. Nothing bad will happen to you here.”

El contemplates all the feelings she’s had. Feelings of wanting to move on, move toward something. Toward a future where she isn’t alone, where she has a family. Where she doesn’t have to worry about falling and not being caught. She thought the world was pushing her toward Clark, and it was. It pushed her toward Clark, who brought her Mike. She is confused. Elated, but still so confused. How is this real?

Mike thinks about the day in Steve’s basement, where he decided that wherever the universe pushed him, he would go. He thought going to Iceland would appease Dustin and potentially get him to work on his book. Make something happen. Get over his brief stint of alcoholism. It brought him here. It brought him to that cabin, to Greg, to Clark, and to El. Mike has always felt like he and El were made of the same thing, that they could never truly be split. He believed that she was alive because he knew he’d feel it if she were dead. And it all led him to right here.

“I never want to be alone again,” El repeats.

“You never have to be,” he replies. He’s cradling her in his lap, all long limbs entangled. He holds their faces together, and their lips meet again. This time, it’s like the very last time. Or what he thought was the very last time. All desperation and pain and passion. Everything he’s wanted to say for six years but been unable to. But now, this time, there’s a promise of a future. This time he holds on, and he knows he will never have to let go.

The Cabin, Iceland, One Week Later

Mike is completely overwhelmed by El’s presence in his life again. A stack of spiral notebooks sits on the desk, pencil shavings littering the floor below. His novel has taken shape. Reuniting with El unlocked so many memories of the past. Of what it was like to be a middle school boy waiting for his first love to return, of the hope it took to keep her memory alive, not unlike what he felt up until a week ago.

El is asleep in his bed, and he’s at the stove making coffee in percolator. She’s in a t-shirt he stole from Steve, stopping mid-thigh.

El gives no one any explanations. She doesn’t bother to tell Halla and Olafur, although she knows they have questions. She trusts that Clark is intelligent enough to be silent, and Greg just believes that Johanna and Mike are having a summer fling. He doesn’t know that Mike has been considering staying in Iceland for the rest of his life. Mike is embarrassed to tell people how strongly he feels about El, knowing people think they’ve only been together a week.

Mike pours the coffee into a mug, letting it cool as he swishes it around. He takes a sip. It’s still so hot it burns his mouth. He sets it down on the countertop and stares at El who is stirring awake.

“Hi, Mike,” she says drowsily. Mike cannot believe this is his life. Mike cannot believe all of his dreams came true. Sliding into bed beside her, he wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her close. She nuzzles her nose into his neck and breathes deeply. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too,” he says softly, tightening his grip around her. “I missed you so much. You have no clue.” She pulls her head back to kiss him softly. Mike rolls over on top of her, pressing their foreheads together.

“El,” he says.

“Yes, Mike?”

“What if I stayed here,” he says. “What if I just never went back?” He slumps to the side, pulling her to face him. “I don’t want to be without you ever again.” He takes in a deep breath and then bites his lip, hard. He’s embarrassed, painfully so. “I love you, El. I never said it enough. I don’t know that I’ll ever say it enough. I don’t think I will. But I don’t want to leave. I want to be right next to you for the rest of my life. I never want to let you go, and I hope you know what that means. You have to know what that means.”

“I do,” she says. “I know what that means.” She sits up and leaves to go drink his coffee. “I need to get back to the farm. It’ll be another month before Olafur can go back to normal.” She starts to pull on her clothes, laughing as Mike stares at her.

“I want to stay here, El. If this is where you want to be, then I will be here, too.” He starts running his hands through his hair awkwardly. He’s known her for a decade, yet he still is terrified of saying what he really thinks. “I have money, from the book. And I can keep making money from writing, and I don’t really have to do it in any one place, you know. I mean, I’ll have to go back to Chicago, but that makes sense anyway since I need to visit my family. And yeah, it’ll be really hard to keep you a secret, but it’ll be okay. We’ll be okay. We can finally be okay.”

“Okay,” she says, laughing and pulling Mike out of bed. “Okay, Mike.” She touches his face gently. “But I think you should go home this fall. The winters are hard, and you’ll probably be stuck here.”

“I’m supposed to leave in two weeks.” Their foreheads are pressed together while they speak, their breath mingled. “I don’t want to.”

“Okay,” she says smiling. She pulls back and starts to braid her hair behind her. “Go home in October. Come back in April. I will still be here. I’ll get ready for you.”

“Get ready for me?” asks Mike with a quirk of his eyebrow.

“There are lots of holes in this cabin. It’ll be cold in here,” replies El. “I have to go.” She looks around the cabin. “Olafur and I will fix it during the winter. Greg and Clark can help too. We can live here, Mike. Together.”

Mike’s face splits wide open. “I’m going to walk up to camp to call home.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” Mike smiles, pulls her in for one more kiss, and watches her leave before pulling on his own shoes and heading up to the site.

After walking up the hill for about twenty minutes, Mike arrives outside Greg’s office. The door is open, and he can hear two men talking. Clark is there.

“Hey, Mike!” Greg exclaims. “How are you doing?”

“I’m doing great,” Mike says earnestly. “I was wondering, uh, if I could use your phone? To call home?”

“Of course, but it’s going to cost you a pretty penny,” jokes Greg. “Just kidding. The bill is on NASA. Clark and I will give you a minute alone.”

They brush past him, Clark tapping Mike’s arm with his fist. He leans over and whispers, “I’m glad she’s happy.” Mike grins to himself before sinking into Greg’s desk chair and picking up the phone. He isn’t sure who to dial – Steve, his mom, Dustin? He has no clue. Steve makes the most sense. There’s three people in that house, and it’s summer now, so he won’t be at work. Mike’s hands work hard to remember the numbers he needs to dial. On the second ring, someone picks up.

“Harrington speaking,” Steve’s voice rings through.

“Oh, hi, Steve,” Mike says.

“Wheeler!” Steve leans back on his couch, putting his feet up against the coffee table. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I’m, uh, I’m staying here.” The words rush out.

Steve sits up, his hands on his knees. “What?” he asks. “What about the baby?”

“Well, she’ll still be there in the fall, right?”

“I guess she will be.” Steve’s eyebrows knit together. “I’m confused, Wheeler. What happened?”

“I’m over a hundred pages into the second book.” It’s not an outright lie. “I think I just want to stay here until I finish it. I plan to come back in the fall when I’m done with it. And, you know, before it gets cold.”

“Okay.” The silence hangs between them for a second. “Are you happy, Mike?”

“Yeah.” Mike hangs his head and grins to himself. “I’m really happy.”

Hawkins, Indiana, October 1993

“You have to hold her head, Mike,” Max complains. She’s brushing the soft black hair of Ella’s head with her fingertips as Mike adjusts his hold on the bundled-up baby. Lucas is standing against the wall; his arms crossed against his chest.

“You’re scaring Max,” says Lucas as he moves to sling an arm over Max’s shoulder.

“She’s amazing,” whispers Mike.

They’re in Steve’s living room, a baby bassinet in the corner, baby stuff littered everywhere. They’re all there – Mike, Lucas, Max, Dustin, and Will. They haven’t been together like this since New Year’s Eve of 1992. Almost an entire year. Mike hasn’t spoken to Will since the mural went up. They haven’t been left alone yet, and Mike doesn’t want them to be.

“So, Iceland, huh?” asks Will. “Thanks for leaving me out of the loop, guys.”

“Sorry,” Dustin responds. “It was all really fast.”

“Yeah, it was,” agrees Mike, gently rocking the baby in his arms. She’s starting to fuss, and he’s afraid of what upsetting her means.

“What was it like?” asks Max.

“Endless daylight, super beautiful. No buildings for miles and miles, these blue flowers everywhere. I pretty much spent all my time writing,” Mike replies.

“That’s not what Greg told me,” teases Dustin. Mike’s face turns bright red. The only person aware of Johanna’s true identity on the entire Ireland is Clark, who Dustin claims to hardly know, and who told Mike themselves that they were trustworthy.

“What?” Will’s eyes study Mike. Lucas and Max share a look.

“I heard Mike met a girl,” Dustin says smugly.

“Wait, really?” Max is shocked.

Mike’s hands fiddle with each other. He isn’t sure he can tell them he’s moved on from El, and he knows he can’t tell them the truth. He’s not ready for that. She’s not ready for that. They only had four months together. He knows that they plan to move in together when he comes back in the spring. She’ll keep working on the farm and Olafur plans to hand it off to her sometime in the next few years. Mike will continue writing and is supposed to meet with his publisher while he’s in Hawkins. They have a life planned together, next steps already laid out. But those plans are for them.

Mike loves his friends, but he loves El so much more. All he’s ever wanted for the past ten years is to keep her safe. So, he lies. “Um, yeah. A local girl. An American, actually. Her aunt and uncle live there, and she moved there to take care of their farm. It’s a long story.”

“I heard it isn’t.” Dustin grins so widely that even Lucas is uncomfortable. “You met her like the first week you were there, and then any time you weren’t writing, you were with her.”

“Really, Mike?” asks Lucas.

“I guess.” Mike’s eyes flicker down to baby Ella. “I don’t really want to talk about it. I’m happy with her, okay? But I’m not ready to talk about what it all means yet. I’m not moving on, if that’s what you guys are trying to say. I’m just moving forward.”

“Okay, okay.” Max has become so motherly that it is disconcerting to Mike. “Leave him alone, boys. How’s the novel, though? I heard you finished it. Congrats, by the way.”

“Thanks.” Ella is starting to stir more fitfully in Mike’s arms.

“It’s not what they want. I mean, Seven stays alive, but Gio is coming to meet with me today. I want to show him the memorial,” explains Mike.

“I’m really happy for you,” Will adds.

Mike nods, and the movement of his body is too much for little Ella. She starts to cry, her fussing fully grown. Max scoops her out of his arms and gestures for Lucas to follow her to the nursery. “She might need a change,” Max explains. “Or a bottle. Dustin, could you make a bottle, please?”

Dustin gets up and walks into the kitchen, leaving Mike and Will alone. Mike drops his head into his hands.

“Will,” Mike starts, “I’m sorry about how I handled the whole mural thing. I get it now, what you were trying to do. About all the victims of government neglect. I get it Will, and I’m really sorry. And you know, I had this idea, where you can make a graphic novel adaptation of Stranger Things, if you want.”

“Really, Mike?” asks Will. “I’m so glad. I’m so, so glad.”

“I’m sorry,” Mike says. “There’s so much I wanted to tell you, but I was so upset about her. I’m sorry.” Mike looks down at his watch. “Hey, me, you, Dustin, Lucas if Max will let him, let’s go out tonight. Get drinks or something. Like the old times. But I’m going to be late to meeting with Gio, so I have to head out there right now.”

Will nods, and Mike gets out to leave. He’s behind the wheel of his mom’s old station wagon, soon to be Holly’s car when she turns sixteen. He’s driving downtown to meet with Gio outside the earthquake memorial, where the world split open. A storyteller, Mike is spinning a new world in which Seven was his friend, Jane, died in the earthquake. Stranger Things is his version of a world where Jane’s life matters. Where she saves them and then returns, against all odds. The portal in his novel, that’s where the earth split open, where he got the inspiration for how the monsters came through. He’ll explain it all.

Gio and the publishing house and even his editor have received copies of his manuscript for part two. Mike has no clue what they think, what they plan to do with this story. He knows it’s good, and it’s true to him, but he’s not sure if it’s as marketable as Gio probably wants. It’ll never be adapted into a movie or a show, but maybe Will’s art house will turn it into a graphic novel. Will is the only person Mike even trusts to bring this story to life.

Gio is already sitting at the bench when Mike parks and gets out to meet him.

“Mike, this better be good. I drove two hours from Chicago for this. I haven’t heard from you in seven months, and then you mail me your manuscript, no explanation? This better be good, Mike. The publishers didn’t like that. They really didn’t like that. And your editor too, said you’ve been ignoring them just as long, and then you mail them a copy? Unbelievable, Mike. Really.” Gio takes a look in front of him. “Where am I, anyway?”

“Welcome to Hawkins, Gio,” Mike says. “This is where I grew up. This is where the novel is supposed to take place.” Gio is silent for once, a shock to Mike. “I don’t know if you read it. I know you didn’t want Seven to continue living. And I couldn’t handle that. That you, the publishers, my editor, the critics, the fans, they all really thought she should die forever? She should never come back?” Gio is not only silent, but still. Normally, his leg is bouncing or his hands shaking. Instead, he’s just staring at Mike intently. “That destroyed me.” Mike turns to stare at the memorial, Gio’s eyes mirroring his gaze. “When I was in middle school, I met this girl. I was getting bullied badly. My friend had gone missing in the woods. We found him, but it was really crazy, and everyone treated us like there was something wrong with us. Something that we made happen to our friend, that he went missing because we deserved it. Then Jane showed up, and she changed my life. I had a new best friend. People stopped being mean to me at school. I was weird, still, but I had someone. Someone who made me feel like I had superpowers. Someone who was my superhero. She was so cool, and kind, and accepting. Her mom was dead, she was in the process of getting adopted, her life was hard. But she made everyone else’s life so much easier. She was so selfless. I really loved her. Like actually loved her. Then a few years went by, and the earthquake happened, and you know, she’s so selfless. She tried to stop it, like she could. Like she could change things. And the earth still opened up, and it let out all these monsters. All this grief and loss and having to figure out how to rebuild my life. That’s where I got the ideas for the monsters. The earthquake and the cracks it left in the ground were like the portal. But she died, so we could all have a chance at living. She saved me. She saved my friends. She even saved my sister and my parents. And this story is my homage to her. This is how I’m honoring her. And I don’t want her to die. I don’t want to kill her off. I want to give her a happy ending. She never got one, Gio. And this is my chance.”

Gio is truly silent. Mike is uncomfortable. “Damn, Michael Wheeler,” Gio finally utters. “I can’t argue with that. Actually, I just wanted to give you a hard time. You left us all hanging, and we put a lot of money into you, so that was pretty scary. My ass was on the line, but yeah, we all read the second book, and it’s a winner, Mike. It’s really good. Like really, really good. Like we’ll let you do whatever you want, we don’t even need this sob story good.”

“Okay,” Mike sighs. “Okay, that’s good to know.”

“Is it true though? All that stuff about your friend? Did she really die here?”

“Yeah,” Mike says uneasily. “Yeah. I spent a long time looking for her. Like maybe a portal to another world really did open up and take her. But I didn’t find her. I only found her in my writing. So, when you told me to keep her dead, I just… I couldn’t do it.”

“Alright,” Gio says. “Listen, keep up the good work. Whatever you need to do to make book three happen, do it. I’m going to figure out what there is to do in this tiny little town, and then I’m going to drive back to Chicago. Please don’t make me do this again. Sorry about your friend and all, but damn, this is a long drive to nowhere.”

“Okay, Gio,” replies Mike, standing up and shaking Gio’s hand. “I, uh… I went to Iceland to write this. Long story. But I think I’m going to move there permanently in the spring. It was good for my writing.”

“Those phone calls are going to be really expensive,” Gio says.

“Take it out of my advance or my royalties or whatever.”

“Sounds good.” Gio pulls his keys out of his pocket. “I’m also taking the money for gas and whatever food I eat out here from you. You’ll still be in the Midwest for a while though?”

“Yeah, until April.”

“I’ll be in contact with everyone. I’ll make sure this book is ready to go by then. Editors, cover artists, everything. We’ll make it happen for you. I mean, you’re making it happen for me. This book is going to sell real well.”

“About the cover artist, my friend’s an artist. Could I just have him design it?”

“Will it be free?”

“Probably?”

“Amazing! Alright, Mike, have a great winter in this boring town. I’m proud of you for this book. It’s good. And… I’m sorry about your friend. Really. I’m sorry for what we all said about her. Or her character or whatever. It’s a good story. She’s a good character. You’re doing her justice, based on everything you just said.”

Mike nods and waves, and Gio heads off to his car. Mike can’t move just yet, until Lucas appears next to him in his uniform.

“We’re going to go get drinks,” Lucas says. “C’mon.”

The beer bottle is cold in Mike’s warm hand. Everyone is laughing, smiling. Lucas is relieved to hear that Mike has moved on. Will is happy they’re all together. Dustin is happy that his plan succeeded. And Mike, Mike is nervous.

“How’d it go with Gio?” asks Dustin.

“It went well, actually,” Mike admits. “The goal is to have it all edited by April. Um, and to have the cover designed, which I was actually hoping you’d do, Will.”

“I’d love to, Mike.”

“But there’s something else I have to say.” He’s searching for the words, which is funny because he’s the storyteller. He has to let it out. “I’m moving back to Iceland in April. Permanently.”

“Because of the girl?” asks Dustin.

“Yeah,” Mike says.

“You love her?” Lucas is staring at Mike.

“Yeah.”

“What’s her name?”

Mike’s breath catches. “Johanna Olafsdottir. She’s a sheep farmer.” He’s amazed at how well he’s doing at this lie.

“Very interesting, Mike,” Dustin says. He shares a look with Lucas.

“It’s all new, but… those four months were the happiest months I’ve had since that summer at Starcourt. I mean, before Billy, and me and El broke up. But I’m going back to her. I’m not ready for you all to meet her yet. I don’t know that she’s ready to meet any of you. But the only time I’m really happy is when I’m with her, so I hope you guys understand that.”

“Well, I don’t really understand you moving to the middle of nowhere to be with a sheep farmer, but I understand that you need to be happy,” Lucas says.

Dustin is laughing to himself. “I can’t believe I was so successful. A book, and a girl? Way to go, Henderson!”

Will is studying Mike for any signs of sadness. “I know we’re all thinking it,” Will says, “so I’m just going to come out here and say it. What about El, Mike?”

Mike doesn’t know if he can respond. “I’m not ready to talk about that yet. I’m happy, okay? So let’s leave it there.”

Iceland, March 1994

Winter has started to defrost. Olafur is back to normal, and Greg spared a few men on this late morning. They’re moving camp up higher on the volcano, where the ground is even hotter, and that means that the cabin is no longer on the site. It’s a forty-minute walk in, now, and Mike will still have unlimited access to the phone. But this means that Mike and El are free to be alone there. To start their life there.

Greg acquired all the materials to insulate the cabin and add onto it. A real, finished bathroom. Two separate bedrooms. A big living room with the potential to add on more. A thousand square feet. A place for a young couple. For a family, even.

Olafur and El are sharing lunch outside on the porch steps, freshly rebuilt, no longer creaky and flaking off. Cheese sandwiches in their hands, chewing silently.

“Johanna,” Olafur starts, “can we talk about Michael?”

“What do you want?” Her voice is less clipped, less blunt. Her language has softened during her time with Mike. The words, harsh in the wrong tone, ring out accepting.

“Who is he?”

El doesn’t know if she wants to be honest, but she knows that she can be with Olafur. The years past show her that he is kind, trustworthy, safe. He never asks questions he doesn’t think he needs the answer to. But he’s the closest thing she has to a father right now, and he thinks he deserves the answers.

“Why?”

“Because, Johanna, you are my daughter now. And if you’re going to live with this American boy, then I want to know who he is.”

El sucks in a long breath. The entire story is going to come spilling out. Every part of it.

She hasn’t used her powers in such a long time that she isn’t sure if they still work. They’ve been a reminder of why she’s lost everything. Of how her world has changed, and the things that forced her to become different. But now, she has to.

“Watch,” she says, as she looks over to a hammer laying on the edge of the step. Completely focused, her hand outstretched, she summons all her energy to raise the hammer. She feels the blood trickle down her nose, and then swipes her hand to the side, the hammer going flying into the grass. Olafur is in complete shock.

“Johanna, what -?” he starts.

“Let me tell you.” She turns to him with his hands in hers. “When my mother was pregnant with me, she was a part of an experiment. To make children like me, with powers. And it worked, but it ruined her. She went crazy. And I was raised by this doctor, this doctor who made us do terrible things. Like I was a weapon. He made me fight people, fight my own brother. And I got so angry, I created this hole in the world, and I sent my brother through it. All of these things happened. Monsters and people dying…” She’s getting overwhelmed. “I know that it sounds crazy, but it’s true. It’s all true. But in all of that, when I escaped the doctor, when I realized what I had done, there was this boy, Mike. He found me in the woods. He took me in. He made sure I was safe. He was the first person who ever loved me for me. He never cared if I had powers. He never cared about any of that. We were really young. I was twelve. It went on until we were sixteen, when I came here. I ran away because the government was mad at me. They wanted me. They would always want me. And I couldn’t go back to that, so I ran away to here.”

She drops her head onto Olafur’s shoulders. She’s crying now, fully. “I had to leave him. I had to make him think I was dead. My whole life, I have been strong. I have protected people. I have taken care of people. I have been selfless. And the only thing I want is Mike. The only time I am selfish is with Mike. He knows me better than anyone else. When I am with him, he takes care of me. I don’t have to worry about anyone else.” Olafur wraps his arms around her. “Everyone wants me to be independent. But I just don’t want to be alone.”

“Oh, Johanna,” Olafur says, “you’ve never been alone. You will have us. You have had us. Now, you have Mike.”

“It’s not Johanna,” she says.

“Oh, we always knew that,” laughs Olafur. “What is it, then?”

“El,” she says.

“It’s very nice to meet you, El,” Olafur laughs.

Iceland, April 1994

The cabin is finished. Now, the living room and kitchen stand facing one another. There’s a complete bathroom, with a shower and a tub. Mike isn’t sure that they need a tub but makes a note of how baby Ella was bathed by Lucas and Max. There’s a hallway and two doors down it. One leads to a bedroom, another to an office that could be converted into a bedroom if the situation ever called for it. At the end of the hallway is a window looking out. A window that could convert into a doorway if they ever needed the home to expand.

El’s hands are on Mike’s arms as she shows him around it. “Do you like it?” she asks.

“I love it,” he says, sitting down at his new desk, a huge, wooden one, complete with a typewriter, flanked by a wingback chair. She sits on his lap and wraps her arms around his neck, leaning down for a kiss.

“I talked to Olafur,” she mumbles.

He pulls back abruptly. Olafur is his new Hopper. The mention of his name gets Mike’s heart racing. “Yeah?”

“I told him about me. I told him about us. I showed him.”

“I’m proud of you, El.”

“He’s getting old,” she says.

“I’m aware.”

“I’m going to take over the farm.”

“You’ll be great at it,” he reassures her. “No one is better with animals than you. Those sheep are lucky to have you.”

She slips off his lap and wipes her hands on her jeans. “I made you something, Mike,” she whispers. “It’s a little late for it now, but I wanted to give it to you.”

Mike follows her into the bedroom, now their bedroom. He remembers back to when they were kids, when they lived together before. When he dreamed of her living with his family, of being a family, but not really. Here they are a family. Here, it becomes a reality. The childhood dreams of playing house are coming alive. There’s a package wrapped up in brown paper. He opens it up gingerly. Inside, is a perfectly knit sweater.

“I made it,” El says. “The wool is from the sheep. I made it all myself. Every part of the process. I sheared them, I washed the wool, I spun it, I knit it. For you.”

Mike’s smile is so wide that El can’t believe it. “Living without you was the worst.”

“Really?” she giggles. He pulls her down, and they tumble into the bed, his face peppering kisses all over hers.

“We never have to again.” Their faces are pressed together so closely Mike feels the tangle of their eyelashes brushing together.

“I love you, El,” he says.

“I love you, too, Mike.” He sits up.

“I have something for you, too.” He runs back out to the living room where two huge suitcases, a duffel bag, and a backpack wait for him. He’s rummaging through the duffel bag when he pulls out what he was looking for. His second book. On the cover, an immaculately drawn image of El.

“I keep telling myself that I wrote it all for you, but I really wrote it for me. Because I wanted to make a world that you were still a part of. So, I did,” he says sheepishly as he hands his book over to her, both of them crouching on the floor. “Will drew the cover. It’s already in print, and they’re doing this whole big release in London. I’m going to start book three soon. They want it to come out in the summer two years from now. And I just, I wanted you to know that I didn’t come to Iceland looking for you, specifically. But I came here to write again. Because that’s where I found you. That’s where you lived. I’m successful because of you. I’m here because of you.”

El pushes him onto the ground and climbs into his lap, hugging him tight. They sit like that together, arms wrapped around one another tightly, her face pressed against his neck. “Oh, Mike,” she says as her lips press against his jaw. “I missed you.”

London, July 1996

Stranger Things 3 sits in a huge stack. Michael Wheeler sits in the middle as he signs at the meet and greet. The previous book finally did win him the Nebula, and he used the money to fix up the sheep pen and stables at Olafur’s, who no longer works at all. Their house is much bigger, and El anticipates that one day, they’ll live there when Halla and Olafur no longer can.

Still, no one exactly knows who this Johanna Olafsdottir is. Mike’s family know that he’s met someone, and they’re under the impression that she doesn’t speak English. Lucas, Dustin, Max, and Will heard that Johanna might be pregnant, but it all seemed like rumors based on Mike’s vague replies about how his life was going. Mike still isn’t sure how to bridge that gap.

In another part of the store, Will Byers is preparing to sign copies of the graphic novel adaptation of the first two books. This is the first time he and Mike have seen each other not on one of Mike’s visits back to the United States.

Everyone is here for this book signing. Karen, Ted, Holly, Nancy, Jonathan, Joyce, Hopper, Dustin, Lucas, Max, Steve, Robin, Ella, and the newest addition, another girl, Billie. Lucas and Max are still at Steve’s, who is no longer sad about being single. Jonathan is working on a film at a production company in SoHo. Nancy is a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, her war reporting over. They’ve been spending a lot of time together again, and everyone is suspicious.

Billie is seven months old, so Max is learning to live again. Steve is helping her start a self-defense club for the girls at the middle school. She’s becoming a social worker. Lucas has been promoted at the police department. Will is now gaining traction as an illustrator and cover designer for fantasy and sci-fi novels. Dustin is doing some top-secret research on space travel. Joyce and Hopper are in Montauk. Holly is headed to college. Things move forward.

After the signing, everyone is gathered around in a restaurant, finishing up their meal. Mike isn’t sure how to start the conversation. He thinks back to that lie he told two years ago, about the sheep farmer, and he decides to take the leap.

“I know you’ve all been curious about Johanna,” he says.

“Oh my God, Mike,” Max exclaims. “Did you break up?”

“We haven’t even gotten the chance to meet her,” Karen complains. “It’s been two years, Michael.”

“Listen, there’s a reason you guys haven’t met her,” explains Mike. “And you can’t meet her here. But I’ve rented a house about twenty minutes away. She’s there, and I want you all to come. Cars are coming for us. I arranged it all.”

“Okay, Mr. Hotshot Writer,” teases Nancy.

“Please guys,” begs Mike. “I’ve taken care of everything. All you have to do is show up. But whatever you do, be calm.”

When they get the house, a massive one with seven bedrooms and a winding walkway up to the door, it’s become increasingly apparent to Mike’s friends and family just how successful he’s been as a writer. They slowly climb up the steps, ogling at this place. “I’m just renting it for a few months while we launch it. Then I’m heading back to Iceland. We’ve got some guys covering the farm, but she doesn’t like to be away for that long.”

Everyone is talking amongst themselves, and when they find themselves at the door, it opens up quietly, with no one on the other side.

“She needs us to be quiet,” Mike explains. He sees the wheels turning in Dustin’s head. Dustin knows. Dustin’s always known that El is alive. He had his suspicions when he felt this need to get Mike to Iceland. He thought the story about the sheep farmer was crazy. And now he knows. When the door opened with no one there, he knew.

“She’s Johanna?” he asks Mike loudly. Suddenly, they hear the cry of a baby. Max looks at Billie in her baby carrier. Billie is asleep.  

“I told you to be quiet,” hushes Mike.

And there, in a grand living room in this old Tudor home on the outskirts of London, is El. El and a baby. Mike sinks down into the couch next to El. “How is our baby?” he asks her, pressing a kiss to her temple.

“Good,” replies El. She looks around at everyone. “Really good.”

[sapphosweirdkid]

so glad they let Lucas be a little silly this season. he gets his serious emotional moments but he's also a bit goofy. "snipers chew gum" respectfully what my guy? my goofy goober guy? like look at him

[honkmiwiwi]

it’s like a renaissance painting

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

#We Love Passionate Teachers (New Girl 2x1 | Abbott 3x10)

[webkinzzluvr]

i love being a teacher but god it was so hard this past week I cried in front of my class but those sweeties brought me notes and snacks the next day (which I had them eat instead lol) <3

[webkinzzluvr]

i'm working on my mileven fic that many of you have been interested in but I just wanted to come on here and say that it is SOOOO much longer than I anticipated it would be and I had the hardest week ever of my adult working life since I graduated college three years ago :(

it's sitting at 12.3k words rn and I wrote this post about what I wanted it to be but it's definitely shifting... including an el who is considering moving on from mike (don't crucify me it'll be HEA) hopefully this week will be better and i'll finish it. everyone manifest that for me! I appreciate your support in my return to writing fic <3

[sophsun1]

#clicking on that filtered content post

[webkinzzluvr]

jason bateman I love you jason bateman

[v4mp1rete3th]

[dimension20memes]

Thought this was fitting for the current events

[pissylivvie]

short hair finn lovers i get you !!!!!!

so tired of ppl acting like he doesn’t look just as good with this hair length … no one could convince me not to do tricks on it like ugh YUM.

[kindheartedtruth]

Chapter Eight: The Battle of Starcourt → STRANGER THINGS • SEASON THREE

[webkinzzluvr]

thinking about me and my cousin refusing to go to a fourth of july party to finish this season in one sitting. going to 7/11 a week later for a free cherry slushee bc of alexei. dressing up like vsco girls with my best friend and freedom and boys and walking around town everywhere and the last summer I had while still in hs

or maybe I just miss life before covid and becoming an adult

[frozenfrogz]

I don’t think you understand how much I love him…

[webkinzzluvr]

so obsessed with the beauty and evan peters ugh old AHS stans pls watch

[fadeintoyou1993]

reading fanfic in bed is one of the best things that could happen to a person

[nunchler]

obviously bigotry isnt rational but "women are naturally worse at spatial reasoning and math" is a wild opinion to have when women have historically been the primary textile producers in a lot of societies. have you ever seen a tablet weaving pattern

[number-one-castiel-apologist]

“Why are you watching it again? You already know what happens.” Because The Character is in there, bro. THE CHARACTER

[bumblebeebats]

I feel like some people need to relearn Genre Expectations... "Man, this tragedy sucks!!! Why didn't they just do XYZ, then everything could have ended happily!!" well, then it wouldn't be a tragedy, would it. "Man, this lighthearted teen romcom is terrible, it's so sappy and unrealistic!!" Well, yeah. If it had been gritty and dark, it wouldn't have been a lighthearted romcom, would it. Is the writing actually bad or are you just trying to order a milkshake from a Home Depot

[katherynefromphilly]

Reblogging for

“Is the writing bad or are you just trying to order a milkshake from a Home Depot”

I feel like that should be the canned response to anyone who complains in your fic’s AO3 comments about the [thing] when the [thing] is clearly tagged.

[medusadyke]

academic dishonesty is not something you can spin as moral lol i do not want to share a career field let alone a social sphere with a bunch of chatgpt using ass bitches

[medusadyke]

"you're just scared your diploma is going to devalue" i'm afraid you dumb bitches are going to become my colleagues and drag social services to hell

[hylianengineer]

I'm afraid they'll become scientists and data that lives depend on will turn out to be wrong - and people will die.

I'm afraid they'll become engineers and sign off on bridge designs that collapse - and people will die.

I'm afraid they'll become medical professionals who don't know what they're doing - and people will die.

The assumption that academic dishonesty is okay is rooted in the idea that what you're learning to do doesn't matter.

[constance-mcentee-deactivated20]

"The assumption that academic dishonesty is okay is rooted in the idea that what you're learning to do doesn't matter."