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“El! Hey!”
Dustin jumps out of the car and runs over to El with his arm outstretched in a wave, even though the car hasn’t stopped moving. She smiles and stands up from the front porch where she and Will were sitting and talking while waiting for everyone else to arrive. Will is inside, helping Joyce set the table, but Joyce said that El could wait until more people got there so they could feel welcome. Joyce says it’s important to be a good host even if the people you’re hosting are people you see every day.
Dustin reaches her and is hugging her tightly before Steve can even finish parking the car. El hugs him back, feeling glad to know that Dustin is as happy to see her as she is to see him. She had probably missed Mike and Max the most while she was in California, but Lucas and Dustin were very close behind. Dustin pulls back after a minute with a grin.
“Man, it’s been way too long.” He says.
El can’t help but laugh at that, because he was over at their house yesterday. Today is only different because they are celebrating Jonathan’s birthday. Still, she knows to play along because he is trying to be funny. She nods very seriously.
“Way too long. Almost a full day.”
He grins at that and begins to walk up the front steps, only to pause and turn toward the car again. El turns too and sees Steve locking the car. She looks back to see Dustin roll his eyes and run back over.
“Steeeve- the present’s still in the trunk, don’t lock it yet!”
El folds her arms and leans against the railing of the porch. She’s content to watch as Steve rolls his eyes and the two of them argue while Dustin trudges his way over to the trunk and pulls out a large box with a very big bow.
“I’m almost scared to ask which one of them wrapped it.”
Will is standing in the doorway when she turns, with a dish towel tossed over her shoulder. He’s looking past her toward the car. She furrows her brow and tilts her head like she’s thinking hard.
“Hmm. I think I want to know what they got that is so big.”
Will nods.
“That’s a better question. Hey, Dustin!” Dustin turns away from Steve, who’s standing with a hand on his hip looking annoyed, and nearly drops the box to wave at Will enthusiastically. Steve scrambles to steady it. “Did you get my brother a microwave?”
Dustin shakes his head and pulls a face.
“A what?”
Will laughs, light and relaxed. “It’s so big.”
Dustin grimaces.
“Steve picked it out, don’t blame me.”
Steve splutters- which is funny, because El doesn’t think he’s actually upset- then bumps Dustin out of the way with the box and walks over to the porch.
“Can it Henderson. You begged me to take you shopping for weeks. I had to talk him out of getting Jon an ABBA record.” He says the last part to Will, who wrinkles his nose at Dustin.
“ABBA? For Jonathan?”
Dustin throws his hands up.
“Heaven forbid I want to buy him something cheerful instead of that moody stuff he usually listens to.”
El nods seriously.
“Will, maybe Dustin wanted Jonathan to be able to feel like a dancing queen.”
Will bursts out laughing. Dustin looks offended, while Steve rolls his eyes with a grin and pushes past Dustin into the house.
“Is that it Dustin?”
“Yes, yeah, you got me.”
“I liked that album.”
“Thank you, El! It’s a good record-”
“Doesn’t Steve blast it all the time?”
“So?”
“So, were you trying to impress him?”
“What!? No, ew. He’s lame-”
“Friday night and the lights are lowwww-”
“El-”
“Looking out for a place to gooo-”
“Will- Wow, you guys are so funny, you know?”
They walk inside the house, El continues to sing lines with Will, even though Dustin looks like he wants to fling them both across the room. Steve, Joyce, and Jonathan are in the kitchen. It looks like Joyce has convinced Steve to help her with the cookies, because now he looks kind of stressed, and has flour in his hair as he darts around the kitchen. The air is so warm and perfect despite fall that El feels for a moment almost like she’s back in their California home.
It is strange to be back in Hawkins.
Not strange in the way that being in California was strange, but strange because El feels like she has unlocked a set of memories she had forgotten. She remembers things like waking up to smell cold weather through the windows and walking over crunchy leaves, and the specific songs that Hop always claimed had to be played when fall arrived. She remembers what it feels like to have people outside of her family that know she is different and the way each person laughs when someone tells a joke.
She has been thinking about memory a lot recently. Her powers were not the only thing that came back in Spring. Papa- no, not Papa anymore, but Brenner- had given her memories of sisters and brothers she had not even known existed. It was a surprise to realize that she was not the last number, only the most successful one. But now she remembers sisters that were almost Jonathan’s age and brothers that were as little as kids too young to begin school. It makes her feel like she is grieving people she had never met, in a way. Even though the memories are assembling like spiderwebs as time goes on they are still unsatisfying and shallow.
Hop says this is normal. He is also now very focused on keeping her safe from the military officers that want to find her after what happened in spring, and so they spend more time together than they did even in the cabin. It is wonderful to be able to talk with him when she thought he was dead. Even if the stories he shares are dark and full of bad men, she thinks more than ever that he is a superhero for surviving them.
He will be arriving a little later than everyone else since he had a shift today. 8:30, he told her. By then everyone else will be here and they’ll have to figure out what to do until then because Joyce insists that no one eats until everyone’s at the dinner table, no matter what’s going on. Jonathan says it’s because she likes to know where everyone is and that they’re safe.
El turns to Will and Dustin, because it seems like they aren’t needed in the kitchen.
“Let’s go out to the backyard? I want to spend time outside before it’s too cold.”
In California, winter is very similar to summer, except a lot of people like to act like it’s a lot colder than it really is and complain about the soft breezes that El loved when her hair was longer. In Indiana, though, winter is much more bitter and El remembers how much she disliked the way it crept in even when she was still in the lab.
Will looks at Dustin, who shrugs, and the three of them make their way through the kitchen where Joyce is trying to coach Steve through rolling the little dough balls up without them sticking to his hands. Jonathan looks like he’s trying very hard not to laugh. He winks at them as they walk past.
It’s a little colder out than El thought it would be. She shivers against the faint chill that is already seeping in under her skin. But, still, it is a far better feeling than the bone melting heat that was invasive during their first month in California.
She settles underneath a tree and leans against it with a sigh. Dustin plops down next to her and then falls back with his arms outstretched against the leaves. Will is a little more delicate as he lowers himself down with an amused expression aimed her way. He and El have discussed Dustin’s dramatics before, and she’s come to the conclusion that he must feel things very quickly, and all at once, instead of thinking about one thing for weeks on end like she and her brothers do. It’s different from what she’s used to but she thinks it must be a lot easier that way.
“So,” Dustin pushes himself up on his elbows and looks between her and Will, “Is it weird that you’re back in Hawkins?”
“We’ve been back for months, man.” Will says with a confused smile.
“Well, yeah, sure,” Dustin concedes, “but you didn’t move in until, like, a month ago. And before that, you weren’t exactly… settled.”
El thinks she understands his question. They had stayed back in the few weeks after spring break to deal with the aftermath, but then they had needed to go back to their California home to “wrap up their affairs.” Jonathan said it didn’t make it easier that the authorities were still looking for them there. They had to pack everything up and move it all the way back across the country without alerting any bad men that something suspicious was going on. After that, it had taken a bit of time before they were able to find a new house to move into, and so they had stayed with the Wheelers in their basement, and then the Hendersons, and then at Steve’s house for two nights because he had a lot of empty bedrooms. Then Hopper had managed to convince the people who had bought the Byers’ old house to sell it for less money, and they had agreed because no one wanted to live in Hawkins anymore since the earthquake. They had only moved back in for real about one month ago.
“I like being back.” El says, because it’s true, even despite everything that has happened here. “I like the people better.”
Dustin grins at that.
“No shit, we’re totally tubular over here.” He makes a funny gesture with his hand. “That's what everyone sounded like in California, right?”
“Yeah, totally.” Will rolls his eyes. “They also said ‘surf’s up, dude!’ instead of hello.”
Dustin nods.
“Radical.”
“Oh!” El cuts in, “Jonathan had a friend who said ‘brochacho’. Does that count?”
“Oh my g- Argyle? Yeah, Dustin, you would’ve loved him. He sounded like he was from California, full valley accent.”
“He smelled strange.” El wrinkles her nose.
“Yeah, well, that’s because he was always high.” Will says with a tilt of his head. Dustin scrunches up his face.
“And he and Jonathan were friends?”
Will nods and picks up a dry leaf before crumpling it and letting the little pieces float to the ground.
“Yeah. He and Jonathan had shop class together, I think. They were… I don’t know, I think Jonathan needed someone to help him relax. After, you know. Everything. Starcourt, moving…”
El stares at Will for a minute because she had not thought that was why Jonathan and Argyle were friends. She had never really known how to interact with Argyle, since he always made Jonathan act different when he was around. It seemed like a bad thing. She knew Will did not always seem happy because of it either, but she suddenly wonders if he knew what was happening better than she did. Dustin only nods and wiggles a little to adjust himself, making crackly noises on the dead leaves.
“So… is he going to college out in California, or is he still going somewhere nearby?”
Will and El look at each other. Jonathan has been acting strange when Joyce mentions college recently. He decided to take a “gap year” and wait, because Nancy is waiting, since they all know that they are not done fighting in Hawkins yet. But it seems like he is upset about something because he does not seem excited even when Joyce reminds him about reapplication deadlines.
“Honestly, I don’t know if he’s going to college.” Will admits. El nods.
“He seems like he doesn’t want to leave until he knows we are all safe.”
Dustin nods slowly and then looks back toward the house.
“I don’t know if Steve’s going to college either. I keep asking him about it, but he kind of shuts down whenever I bring it up. He says he’s ‘keeping his options open’,” Dustin makes fake quotations with his fingers, “but I don’t know what options he has if he doesn’t want to end up working for his dad. Which, I know he doesn’t want to do, because he told me so.”
Will frowns.
“I guess Robin and Nancy are sticking around too.”
Dustin nods.
“Steve told me that Robin got in on a full ride scholarship to Purdue but she turned it down. He tried to convince her to go, but she’s taking community college classes for now, and she says she might transfer in later.”
None of them have anything to say to that. For a minute, no one talks.
El picks at a blade of grass and feels guilty that Nancy- who is pretty, and smart, and bitchin’ in her own way- might not be able to do what she wants to do because she is involved in El’s mess. The mess that she made when she opened that portal. She knows now that she is not the monster, that title belongs to Brenner alone, but she also knows that if she never was born, then Will, and Jonathan, and everyone else would get to live normal lives. It stings sometimes when she thinks about it too hard. Will seems to notice what she’s thinking, because he knocks his shoulder against hers and smiles.
“Hey, at least we don’t have to worry about college applications yet, right? You saw how stressed Jonathan was last November.”
She manages to smile back at him and reaches for a fun memory from last fall. It was very soon after they had moved in, and they were still learning how to live together and compromise. She thinks back to one night when Jonathan was extra distracted because he had to send his application in for NYU the next day. He had to apologize for bumping into her about five times before she started scooting away whenever he entered a room.
“He burned his hair on his lighter and Joyce had to give him a haircut in the kitchen.”
Will laughs and throws his head back.
“I totally forgot about that, oh man.” He turns to Dustin. “It was on fire for like, a whole three seconds before he noticed, just-” He waves a hand across his own hair to mimic the fire.
Dustin grins.
“No shit, really?”
“No shit. Mom nearly had an aneurysm, she grabbed El’s iced tea and threw it in his face to get the fire out, only it still had these massive ice cubes in it-”
“California is very hot.” El clarifies.
“-yeah, and you use up all our ice. Anyways, she tosses it, and this ice cube hits him right in the middle of the forehead-”
“And your arm-”
“And it left this big bruise for a week. Luckily, he didn’t burn his bangs off, so he could still cover it up.”
“It was very purple.” El adds solemnly. For some reason, that makes Will and Dustin start to laugh very hard, but she isn’t unhappy that they’re so happy. She also feels happy right now. Even though it’s still cold outside, she feels warmed from the inside all the way through her body.
“Mom kept apologizing every time she saw it. I think she felt bad because it was like, a month into school, and she didn’t want to make the transition harder or anything. Although, actually, I’m pretty sure that’s how he and Argyle ended up friends, so I guess it worked out.”
El looks at him again at that, because she doesn’t remember how Argyle and Jonathan ended up friends, so how does Will? She makes a note to herself to ask Will about what he notices more often.
Dustin sighs as his laughter quiets down and sits up more fully.
“It’s cool that you guys and Jonathan and Joyce and Hopper are all, like, a family now. And it’s cool that you get along. It’d suck if it were awkward, right?”
Will looks down at the dirt.
“I mean, it definitely took some time. Not because of El, just… you know, figuring things out, I guess.”
Dustin nods thoughtfully and then looks at El.
“I don’t know what I’d do if I woke up one day and had a brother.”
El tilts her head to consider. It took time to know whether she, Jonathan, and Will were really brother and sister or if she was just going to live with them, but eventually it seemed that there was no other way. They were nice, and honest, and helpful when she was dealing with hard things at school. Jonathan liked to help her out with history homework especially because he said it made sense to him. Will taught her how to paint until she could do it by herself without making brown every time she mixed colors.
But suddenly, something occurs to her. She thinks of the times when she sat next to Will when he was calling home because she couldn’t talk over a “non-secure line”, and heard Dustin complain about Steve and then say something about how cool he was at the same time. Maybe it is not exactly the same, but Will and Jonathan are not her brothers because they live with her, but because they choose to care about her. Maybe it is the same with Dustin and Steve. She looks to Will and realizes that he must be thinking something similar, because he has a funny expression.
Dustin looks at both of them and his brow furrows.
“What?”
“Well…” Will bites his lip, “who drove you here?”
“Huh?” Dustin makes a second confused face on top of his first, “Wait- Steve? No way, that’s not the same at all.”
“Why?” El asks, since she knows it isn't, but it also is in some ways.
“Because the Byers adopted you, and I don’t want Steve’s parents to adopt me. Not a chance. Plus, he’s an adult, so my mom can’t adopt him.”
“I mean,” Will frowns, “She could, right? That’s not really how-”
“Besides, he’s my friend, not my brother. It’s just different. We don’t live together or anything.”
“Doesn’t he do brother things?” El asks, kind of determined to win this argument now.
“What’s a brother thing?”
“He drives you everywhere, he gives you advice whenever you ask, you stay over at his house all the time, you argue all the time- I don’t know, you just- do things?” Will counts off. “It’s not like there’s some special thing you do and then you’re family. It can just kind of happen, I think.”
“It’s not like there’s some special thing like- marriage, or adoption. Might I remind you again, that both Hopper and your mom adopted El.”
Will rolls his eyes.
“You’re missing my point, man.”
“I’m not, I just don’t agree with your logic. Besides, he does that for all of us.”
“Whatever.”
El wrinkles her nose.
“But, you are his favorite. He doesn’t pet my hair.”
“He doesn’t what?”
El shakes her head and reaches over to Will, sticking a hand on top of his head and messing up his hair like she has seen Steve do to Dustin before. Will squawks and leans back, only she moves with him, so he flings himself out of her reach and rolls a few feet away so he is covered in leaves. She tilts her head back and laughs hard. When she looks over at Dustin, he isn’t laughing. She thinks that maybe she’s made him upset somehow, until he lunges over the circle with a hand outstretched and she has to duck to protect her own short hair. She squeaks like Will and stands up to get out of his way, but Dustin has a determined look on his face, so she runs first because sometimes she forgets she has her powers back.
Will is lying on the ground watching the two of them and laughing. Jonathan would say he is cackling because it’s the kind of laugh that he used when he showed El how to switch the labels on Jonathan’s records so that Last Christmas by WHAM! would play instead of The Clash. It was funny.
Unfortunately, El does not have many options other than to run into the woods, freeze Dustin in his tracks, or run into the house. She chooses to run into the house because she knows that Jonathan will back her up and because she can smell cookies.
She darts in the door and jumps up on the counter right next to where Steve is pulling out a batch of fresh cookies. He looks at her confused, but with a smile.
“Hey, El? What’s-”
Right then, Dustin decides to run into the house with leaves falling off his body. Steve sees him and sidesteps in front of El before Dustin can reach her and grabs Dustin by the shoulders so he has to stop moving. Dustin deflates like a balloon.
“Steve let me go, I need to get her back.”
Steve shakes his head with his hair bouncing back and forth. El admires how bouncy and shiny it is. He glances back at El and she makes a confused and nice face like Will taught her to do when you’re going to get in trouble. Steve shakes his head again and turns back to Dustin.
“Yeah, right. Get her back for what, you little bastard?”
“Uh,” Dustin pauses because he can’t explain what El said without telling Steve what Will and El said about him. Luckily for Dustin, Joyce cuts him off.
“Dustin- leaves in the kitchen? C’mon, you know what I’ve told you. We’re making food.”
Steve puts his hands on his hips and tilts his head at Dustin.
“What did you do, man, roll around in a leaf pile?”
“Yes.” Affirms El.
“Alright.” Steve grabs Dustin by the shoulders again and turns him around, even though Dustin is protesting, then begins to push him outside. “We’re getting you leaf free, like you’re five, happy?”
Dustin groans and looks back just enough to glare at El, but she grabs a cookie from the sheet and waves until both he and Steve are outside. Joyce laughs and returns to her salad making while shaking her head.
“Those two. I don’t know how they keep up with each other.”
El nods sagely.
“They are brothers.”
Joyce laughs.
“I guess so. They do act like that sometimes, don’t they?”
El nods again and takes a bite out of the cookie.
“They are-”
“Don’t speak with your mouth full, hon, you’re gonna get crumbs everywhere.”
El swallows.
“They are like me and Will. We’re brother and sister like they are brothers.”
Joyce pauses what she’s doing and sets down the knife with a confusing expression on her face.
“I guess you’re right, sweetheart. It’s kind of like that, isn’t it.”
Before Joyce can say anything else, Jonathan walks back into the kitchen. El smiles wide to see him. He smiles back at her and grabs a cookie before jumping up next to her on the counter and pulling her in for a half hug with only one arm.
“Happy birthday, Jon.” She says.
“Thanks, El. Hey- I think I saw someone else pull up out front. It looked like the Wheelers but I couldn’t tell.”
El grins.
“I’ll tell them to go to the backyard instead of in the house. There is a leaf fight going on right now.”
“Oh, is there? Guess we’d better go warn them then. You’re on my side, though, right?”
“Only because it is your birthday.”
“Gotcha. Well, I’ll take what I get. Go ahead out back and secure us a pile, kay? We can ambush them when they head around.”
El nods solemnly and jumps off the counter, and Jonathan does too.
When she steps out the back door, she finds Will, still covered in leaves, who looks like he’s trying very hard not to laugh as Dustin chases Steve with a handful of leaves.
“Stay away from my hair, you little psycho!”
They watch for a minute as Steve successfully manages to make Dustin drop his leaves, and then as Jonathan and Nancy walk up from around the side of the house, and Dustin takes his opportunity while the three of them are saying hello. It does not take long before everyone is throwing leaves at each other and running away.
Will and her still stand on the porch and watch. He looks over with a small smile and bumps against her shoulder again lightly.
“Hey, listen. About what Dustin said earlier… I don’t know how you feel about all of…” he waves a hand back at the house, “But I’m glad that I woke up one day and had a sister. I wouldn’t change it.”
She smiles at him.
“I am glad too. I like having brothers.”
Will’s smile looks like how she felt earlier, when she was sitting with Will and Dustin and everything felt warm throughout her whole body. She thinks back to what she lost all those years ago- brothers, and sisters- and how she’d found one again for a short time in Kali. And then still more family in Mama and her Aunt Terry. It hurts sometimes to know that she is not able to be with them because bad people want to hurt her, and they would hurt them if they wanted her to cooperate. It doesn’t replace the pain to have Will and Jonathan and Joyce and Hop and all the others, but the pain she felt when she thought Hop was dead was just as real and awful. She thinks of when she was stuck back in the lab again reliving days over and over like a nightmare and all she wanted to do was see her family again, even surrounded by memories of her old one. She thinks it would be just as bad to lose them now, so she knows she can’t ever lose them. But for now they are safe.
And-
Dustin and Mike finally manage to bring Steve down in a combined effort, and Dustin immediately holds up a triumphant handful of leaves. Jonathan is carefully picking leaf pieces out of Nancy’s pretty, curly hair off to the side of them. Will is covered head to toe in leaf bits, so he almost certainly won’t be able to step foot into the house. From the sound of Joyce bustling around in the kitchen, it seems like someone else has just knocked on the door, so it might either be Robin or Lucas and Erica, but it seems like it must be the Sinclairs because she thinks she might hear Erica’s voice. If she checks her watch she’ll see that it’s only 6:52, but Hopper will be arriving home early because (even though she doesn’t know yet) he begged Flo to make Callahan take over his patrol because Jonathan’s birthday is today. Max woke up for a few minutes last week.
-because they are all safe, they are all together. El does not have to lose anyone today.
In fact, it seems that she is only gaining.