Chapter Text
There were a myriad of reasons Emma wasn’t excited about being forced to go back to school and chief among them was the fact that she had to quit her job at Enzo’s.
She’d finally started making good tips, got the good shifts, and was able to schedule her own hours. But Emma knew herself. And she knew that if she was working a job and going to school, she would have no energy for monster hunting or taking down the Mind Flayer.
So she’d reluctantly handed over her two weeks to Harry, who was nice enough to offer her the job back if she changed her mind at any point.
The other reason was going shopping for everything.
Hopper, in a strange fit of remorse, offered to pay for whatever she needed, so Emma took advantage of his generosity and spent the day before she was scheduled to start school shopping at Melvald's with Jonathan Byers.
Nancy and Steve were both busy and Will was just a few blocks down at the Palace Arcade with the rest of the party, so Jonathan offered to help her while he waited.
According to a small plaque on the door, the store used to be a diner, but the only remnant of its history was the small malt counter near the back, still run by the original owner in his retirement. Most of the parents took their kids in for a quick drink and then would buy something else on their way out.
Melvald’s reminded her of the Dollar Tree back home, aisles packed with generic brand products at lower prices while the Big Buy carried the name brands. She was originally going to head over there, but then Joyce offered her employee discount, and Emma was never one to turn down a sale.
“God, it’s been forever since I’ve needed this stuff,” Emma said as she tossed several college ruled notebooks into her cart with a sneer. Jonathan chuckled beside her as he held two sets of pens out for her. One colorful, the other standard black. Emma grabbed both of them and threw them into her pile.
“I’m almost jealous,” Jonathan spoke beside her. He seemed perpetually hunched over, like he was trying not to draw attention to himself, “I mean, I know it kind of sucks being torn from another dimension and everything, but it must be nice not having to worry about school.”
“It was,” Emma bemoaned, her dramatic sigh drawing another chuckle from the shy boy, “It was so nice, I just worked, watched movies, read books, listened to music…it was great.”
Jonathan smiled, a small thing that barely reached his eyes, and tossed several markers and pads of sketch paper into the cart. Emma arched her brow.
“You’re in Mrs. Click’s AP History class right?” Jonathan asked rhetorically, pointing to the list Emma held tightly in her hand with her new schedule.
“Yeah, but I don’t see what markers and graphic paper have to do with that–”
“She does a ton of art projects,” Jonathan explained matter-of factly, Emma groaned, “Like, a ton. I managed to get around it using photography, but she made it clear she doesn’t make exceptions for her AP students.”
“You’re kidding,” Emma moaned, hanging her head in frustration.
Jonathan shook his head with a grimace, “It’s the worst part of that class, by far.”
Emma sighed.“Great,” she muttered sarcastically, crossing out Mrs. Click’s list as she moved onto AP English with Mr. Hauser. The bookstore by Radioshack would have the texts she needed for a reasonable price (and she was happy to see most of them were books she’d already read and knew by heart), which meant she just needed some sticky notes to tab the books and a good set of highlighters to mark the passages.
Jonathan looked over her shoulder to see her full schedule, eyes widening as he placed a set of pens and notebooks for himself into the basket of the cart. “So why does Hopper have you doing all this again?”
Emma shot the boy a glare making it clear she did not approve of Hopper’s stupid plan, even if it meant keeping Eleven safe and having a pair of eyes on the ground. “Because he thinks the government’s gonna be asking questions if there’s a rogue teen on the loose,” Sarcasm dripped down her chin. She made a point not to mention the real reason why Hopper wanted her back at school. To keep an eye on the boy he deemed a liability.
Jonathan scoffed and shook his head, “Then they’d have to question half of Hawkins at that point.”
Emma chuckled slightly and nodded in agreement, “Between you and me, I think he just doesn’t like not knowing where I am,” She admitted, finding it was rather easy to confide in Jonathan when it was just the two of them, “The man is a control freak.”
“Oh, I know,” Jonathan chimed in with a smile, “One time, I ran away from home and when I finally came back, he pulled me down to the police station to ‘teach me a lesson’, like who does that?”
Their laughter echoed off the walls of the aisle, drawing the ire of several moms and dads with their kids. Both teens shared a look as their faces grew red before bursting into more laughter.
“It’s like, dude, you’re not my dad,” Jonathan chuckled out.
Emma rolled her eyes, smiling widely, “Oh my god, I know! Like, I already have one set of parents, I don’t need another.”
Jonathan’s laughter dissipated into a fond sigh as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Still, I suppose it’s nice to have someone who cares.”
Emma’s chest panged, twisting at the implication of Jonathan’s words. She wasn’t naive, she knew that Hopper held some kind of care for her, however little it may be–he wouldn’t have told her about Eleven if he didn’t–but the outward acknowledgement of it sat low and uncomfortable in her gut, churning like badly beaten butter, unable to smoothen.
“Yeah, I guess,” Emma simply agreed. It was easier than telling the truth and that was a can of worms she couldn’t open with anybody, no matter how easy it was to talk to them. Besides, most people just wanted someone to agree with them. They wanted a sounding board, an echochamber. They weren’t interested in why the idea of someone caring for her sat like badly prepared food in her stomach, nausea migrating up to her throat and threatening to make her hurl. They weren’t interested in the sudden tension inhabiting her body, the awkward silences that lingered after every word.
They wanted someone to nod and agree. That was all.
Jonathan, however, didn’t seem to believe her. His eyes lingered on her face, the tight frown tugging on her lips, the clench of her jaw. “You okay?”
Emma hummed, slowly blinking as she waved away the teen’s concern, “What? Oh, yeah, I’m fine, just trying to decide whether or not I really need a scientific calculator for Mr. Mundy’s class.”
Jonathan grimaced and pulled the TI-55 off the shelf, “You do. And it needs to be this one specifically or you will fail the class, trust me.”
Emma groaned but threw the calculator into the basket with more force than necessary. Jonathan chuckled.
“Not a fan of math?”
“Hate it,” She sneered, “It makes no sense to me, everything feels arbitrary, and there’s like a million different ways to get the same answer but only one acceptable way according to teachers.”
“Oh, I’m with you there,” Jonathan hummed in agreement, rolling his eyes as he looked at his own list, “I have no idea why Will finds it so fascinating, it hurts my head when I think about it too hard.”
“Nancy can rattle off equations like it’s nothing and meanwhile I’m over here, like…” Emma gestured wildly to herself before shrugging, drawing another laugh from the usually sullen boy. His demeanor changed slightly at the mention of the other teen, clearing his throat as he stuffed his hands in his pockets again.
“So, you’ve been hanging out with Nancy again?”
Emma did not have the mental capacity for this right now. “Nope, uh-uh, we’re not doing this today.”
“Talking about what?”
She stopped the cart directly in front of Jonathan, lifting her brow as she stared at the teen over the mountain of school supplies building in their cart. “Seriously?”
Jonathan shrugged, his face burning under the sudden attention.
“Jonathan…” Emma crossed her arms across the cart handle with a scoff, “It’s obvious you have a crush on Nancy.”
“What?” He tried and failed to blow out a nonchalant sigh, a flush creeping up his neck at the sudden call-out, “I don’t have a crush on Nancy Wheeler. I mean–we’re friends sure–”
“You literally ask me about her every time we hang out.” Emma finished for him.
“That doesn’t mean I have a crush on her,” Jonathan sputtered out, stumbling over his words as he tried to regain a sense of dignity, “That just means that I care about her as a friend and want to know how she’s doing.”
Emma tilted her head and stared. Jonathan refused to meet her eyes.
Silence stood between the two teens as more moms with their kids passed them in the aisle, paying no attention to the strange pairing. To anyone else it would have looked normal. A girl dressed in flannel and jeans standing across from a boy dressed all in black with a series of band pins decorating his lapel. On the outside, they looked like they could be the perfect couple, with the rich mothers and suburban dads relieved the two freaks paired off.
Only Emma and Jonathan knew how strange and weird it really was, and even though they’d become somewhat friends over the course of the last year, there was always that awkwardness hanging over them, refusing to go away.
“Jonathan,” Emma’s brows nearly disappeared behind her bangs, “Every time you look at Nancy I worry your eyes are going to pop out of your head.” Jonathan opened his mouth to protest but she cut him off, “Seriously, it’s like watching a fish lust after a cat,” She explained, trying not to wince at how harsh her words sounded. Maybe the fish was a bad metaphor. But if she was being honest, as much as she liked Jonathan and Nancy in the show, knowing both of them in real life was a different challenge. The more she got to know all three of them, the more it became obvious Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve were all horrible for each other romantically, “A very sad, very lonely fish lusting over a very happy, very independent cat.”
“Okay, okay, I get it.” Jonathan snapped, heaving out a sigh as he hunched further inward. He shook his head and shut his eyes, opening one to peek through with a wince, “Is it really that obvious?”
Emma smirked and slammed an extra notebook into his chest, “Like a dog with a bone.”
Jonathan shook his head with a rueful chuckle and followed her to the checkout.
The party was in chaos when they finally reached the arcade. Will was in the middle of a ‘godlike’ DigDug run according to Dustin, who immediately asked Emma and Jonathan if they had any spare quarters the moment they arrived.
“I’m so close to beating Dragon’s Lair, please,” The curly haired boy pleaded, hands clasped together over his chest, “I just need four more quarters.”
“Face it, Dustin,” Lucas spoke up with a triumphant smile, “Princess Daphne will always be mine.”
“No, she won’t, asshole!” Dustin snapped sharply before turning back to Emma with an innocent look on his face. She stifled a laugh at the sight, “Please, please, please, please–”
“Alright, fine!” Emma rolled her eyes and fished through her bag, pulling out a stack of quarters, the kid’s face lighting up as she waved them in front of him. She snatched it from his grasp with a curl of her fist, holding it just out of reach as he tried to jump for it. “But, only if Lucas gets a turn too.”
“Bullshit!”
Lucas’s laughter rang out from beside the DigDug machine, “Suck it!”
Dustin whirled back on Emma, trying to jump for the quarters again. She held them high above her head. “That’s not fair, he’s already beaten it!”
Emma shrugged and pocketed the quarters, “Then I guess you have to scrounge up your own money.”
Dustin groaned while Lucas laughed.
Jonathan struggled to hide his smile at the scene unfolding before him.
“Guys, come here!” Mike yelled, awe in his eyes as he waved the two over, “Will is getting close to MADMAX’s score.”
“Shit, really?” Dustin pushed his way through while Lucas hung precariously over the railing.
Jonathan furrowed his brow as he and Emma crowded around the machine, “Who’s Mad Max?”
“The current reigning champion of DigDug,” Mike explained, “Nobody knows who he is though.”
Emma pressed her lips together in a sly smirk.
“He totally demolished Dustin’s high score,” Lucas chimed in with a snicker.
“No, he didn’t!”
“It was awesome.”
“Shut up!” Dustin smacked Lucas’s shoulder, nearly pushing the boy off the railing.
Emma sighed and grabbed the kid’s backpack, separating the two by pushing Dustin over to the other side of the machine. It was like wrangling toddlers. And she hated toddlers.
“Hey!” Dustin yelled in protest.
Emma shot him a glare that shut him up immediately, “No more smack talk and no more getting physical or I swear to god, I will call both of your mothers, got it?”
The threat was enough to shut up the two boys, each of them muttering out a quick ‘sorry’ while Will continued his run.
Emma rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. Jonathan smirked.
“What?” She snapped.
He shrugged, not even bothering to hide his smile, “Nothing.”
She scoffed and turned her attention back to the arcade machine. Will was locked in, not even bothering to pay attention to the hoots and hollering behind him the further he got. When he passed Dustin’s score, the party erupted into cheers.
Their voices grew louder and louder and louder, until they were met with the disappointing beeps of Will dying at the hands of one of the enemies.
“Dammit!”
“Shit!”
Will hung his head in shame.
Emma and Jonathan shared a look. She brought her hand to his shoulder and squeezed, “Hey, you did great, kid.” She assured him. Slowly, but surely, Will’s face perked up, “All that time on your Atari must be paying off huh?”
A soft pink dusted his cheeks, a sheepish look crawling over his face as he struggled to meet her gaze, “I remembered the strategy you told me about,” He admitted with a shy smile, “About dropping rocks for the bigger kills and digging deeper tunnels to trap the enemies in.”
Warmth filled her chest, unable to hide her shock at the confirmation that he had actually been listening when she rambled. She’d never really been into arcade games, but her friends loved them, so she would watch and absorb their information by osmosis and mirroring their strategies. Playing on Will’s Atari was the first time she’d actually put them to use.
She ruffled his hair fondly and held her hand out for a high five, “Nice.”
Will beamed as he brought his hand to hers.
“Wait a second,” Dustin chimed in, “You’ve been secretly teaching Will how to play DigDug?”
Emma shrugged, “Not really, I just play and help him when he gets stuck.” Her eyes drifted over to Jonathan, who still had that smug smirk on his face, “And it wasn’t really a secret.”
“She’s really good,” Will chimed in, still beaming. A flush crept across her cheeks. “Like, crazy good. Every time I get a high score, she beats it easily.”
“Okay, that’s an exaggeration–”
“Wait a minute!” Lucas cut her off, eyes widening as they swiveled from the machine, to her, then back to the machine, then back to her, “You’re MADMAX!”
“That makes so much sense–”
“Of course, why didn’t I think of that–”
Emma squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she had a pair of noise cancelling headphones right about now. The mixture of voices sent a shot of irritation through her body and it took all her willpower not to yell and snap at the boys in front of her as they continued to bombard her with questions.
“I’m not Mad Max, okay?!” She finally cut them off, nearly raising her voice. Her shoulders tensed, creeping closer to her neck until a familiar ache stretched through them.
All four of the boys shared a confused look.
“Then who is?” Lucas finally asked.
Emma deflated as she exhaled. Part of the fun was seeing Lucas and Dustin react to who Max really was. Plus, it didn’t seem fair to out her yet as the top scorer. Especially when the boys were so convinced it was a guy.
Her lips curled up into a smirk as she shrugged, “I guess you’ll have to keep playing to find out.”
The party erupted into a cacophony of yells, screams, and protests as she walked back out the door.
Emma missed Amazon.
For as much as she hated Jeff Bezos, Emma really missed the convenience of shipping something directly to her door in less than two days. Amazon had made her life so easy, and now that she was stuck in an era without it, she hated to admit there was probably a reason why Bezos had gotten so profitable in the first place. He was still a terrible, morally bankrupt, piece of shit excuse of a human being, but goddammit she missed how convenient everything used to be.
She hated having to trek to Downtown Hawkins for anything and then having to carry it all the way back up to Steve’s house. This time, it was for books. Mr. Hauser had assigned them the first few chapters of Frankenstein for Halloween, and even though Emma officially started tomorrow, she’d been keeping up with everything via Nancy, Steve and Jonathan just to make her life a little bit easier.
Today though, right after Jonathan picked Will up, Emma decided to pick up the book for tomorrow so she didn’t appear unprepared. Hopper was right, this was a do-over, and as much as she hated high school, her brain refused to let her half-ass anything anymore. Of course, she always made the same promise every year before school and it always fell through. Maybe she should just cut her losses and accept that she was doomed to fail before it even began.
And with her focus split between Eleven, Will, and the Mind Flayer’s plans for this year, Emma wasn’t even sure if she had the time or effort necessary to dedicate herself to school. She didn’t know how Nancy did it.
When she finally picked out a copy of Frankenstein she liked, she shoved it in her back pocket and moved over to Radioshack.
Steve would be picking her up soon, but Emma had one last errand to run before everything finally kicked into gear tomorrow.
“Hey! There’s my favorite customer!,” Bob Newby’s smile was infectious, and it was almost impossible to be in a bad mood when he was around. Emma had been coming in more and more on her days off, picking up a walkman, some headphones, and whatever else she needed to soup it up. Bob was great at helping her make small adjustments to what she purchased to make it more convenient. He’d added stuff to her walkman to make it more portable, souped up her headphones for noise cancellation, and offered his services pro-bono because of how often she came in.
“Hi, Bob,” Emma tugged her lips into a smile, stepping right up to the desk with a purpose, “How’s the day been going?”
The flush on his face told her all she needed to know, “Great. I uh…I took your advice with Joyce, to you know…spice things up a bit, and I think she really liked it.”
Emma tried to hide her own blush at the man’s confession, stifling giggle behind closed lips, “Really? See, I told you,” Her smile grew wider, “Joyce Byers is a lucky woman.”
Bob’s eyes fell to the floor in embarrassment, “Aw, shucks, you’re too kind. What about you? How’d the new improvements go? You like them?”
“They’re great!” Emma admitted aloud, pulling her headphones free from her bag to show them off, “Not actually noise cancelling, you know, but enough to where I don’t feel like my head is going to explode.”
Bob hummed in agreement, “I know exactly what you mean. The worst part about working here is the lights,” He pointed up towards the buzzing fluorescents, “Let me tell you, those things bug the crap out of me, excuse my language.”
Emma couldn’t help but laugh. He was so all-american it hurt. No wonder Joyce fell for him. She was already planning on trying to save him, but now, having interacted with him on an almost daily basis all throughout the summer, she had no doubt in her mind that she desperately needed to save Bob Newby.
“I actually needed your help with something.”
Bob leaned in with a twinkle in his eye, “I’m all ears!”
Emma slammed her backpack on the desk and pulled out her phone, handling it gingerly as she placed it on the counter, Bob staring at it curiously. Her nerves bundled themselves deep in the back of throat, blocking her breathing as she inhaled sharply.
This was probably a terrible mistake. A horrible, awful one that would either lead to outing her biggest secret or her losing her phone, or both. But, she needed something.
“My friend built this for me,” She said, having practiced her lie all morning, “He says it’s some kind of portable communicator like the ones in Star Trek,” Bob chuckled fondly and began to examine the device, awestruck by the slim design and the touchscreen. “Only problem is, it only seems to work when I’m in the same range as him. Which kind of defeats the whole purpose of a portable communicator in my opinion.”
“Well the communicators in Star Trek are beyond anything we could conceive of now,” Bob began to ramble, carefully examining the device with one of his magnifying lenses, “They traverse space and time, so I’m not surprised your friend could only get it to work within a certain range.” He removed his lens and inspected it from a bird’s eye view, “It’s quite an interesting design though. No transceiver, no antenna, it seems like it’s all internal, which is what you would expect from someone trying to emulate the future, but you would think you would see the components he used.” Bob was clearly talking to himself, thinking aloud, but Emma bit down on her lip regardless. The knot in the back of her throat migrated to her stomach, sending her nerves alight.
“My friend builds stuff like this all the time as a hobby, and he’s constantly trying to work and rework his designs, so…” Emma trailed off lamely, hugging her arms close to her torso as her eyes darted between Bob and her phone.
“Sounds like your friend and I would get along,” Bob chuckled, finally placing the device back down on the counter. Emma smiled tightly. “Well, I think the main thing you need to do is boost the signal. Sounds a lot simpler than it is, but don’t worry, if it doesn’t work, I’ll have this communicator back to normal in no time.”
Relief flooded through her.
If there was anyone who could do what she was hoping he could, it was Bob Newby. And she knew if he messed up, he would always fix it. It was just the act of handing over her phone, her last lifeline to the world she knew, that made her stomach jump into her throat and her hands shake.
Bob’s expression softened. “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of it.” He assured her, able to see past her brave face and into the worried lines of her brow, “Besides, I would never dream of destroying another tech nerd’s creation. That’d be like…Saruman corrupting the orcs into Uruk-Hai.”
Now that made her laugh. It was stupid and corny, but it eased the tension building in her stomach and was a cruel kind of irony. For the man who looked like Samwise Gamgee to be the one to make a Lord of the Rings reference.
“Thank you, Bob.” Emma choked out.
His smile lit up the whole store, “Anything for my favorite customer.”
Emma rolled her eyes, but said nothing as her smile grew wider.
She just hoped it worked.
A sliver of moonlight illuminated the dark path as two pairs of boots crunched against the snow covered leaves. She panted and heaved, straining against the weight of her backpack while the figure in front of her finally stopped.
They lingered on the edge of a newly-made pond, the still waters almost black against the mossy grass. It had been roped off with caution tape, evidence markers dotting the dirt beneath them, outlining footprints, broken trail markers and perhaps the most fear-inducing of all, dried blood against the rocks. A soft orange light stretched its fingers out towards them, drawing them further in as the faces of the two could finally be seen.
One, a mess of curly blonde hair and a muscular figure, holstering the flashlight in his jean pocket while he pulled out a map, the moonlight and the beams of the pond enough to illuminate the path he’d made. The second was a much smaller figure, a woman with short hair barely reaching her chin, pulled up out of her face to reveal sweat glistening on her brow.
“You’re sure this is the place?” She panted.
The man turned to face her, a casual arrogance swirling in his cerulean gaze as his lips perk up into a knowing smirk, “Exactly. Her mom said she disappeared right here, and I don’t remember any ponds with glowing lights in this spot do you?” The orange made his eyes glow in a way that made her stomach lurch, playing with the straps of her backpack as he folded the map and placed it back in his bag.
“Well, no, but it has been almost ten years since we’ve been back,” She replied matter-of-factly. “They could have dug one for wildlife preservation or to provide irrigation–
“And what are the chances of that?” His eyes blaze with certainty as he shines his flashlight directly in her face, “I mean, the exact place she disappears is the exact place a new pond just happens to spring up? With a strange orange light and a giant ‘keep out’ sign?”
She was at a loss for words.
“Well, when you put it like that–”
“If I’m right,” He continues, shining the flashlight on the dried blood and broken tree branches. He shuddered out a breath as he pulled out a walkie talkie so old she almost thought it was obsolete. “Then it makes sense why nobody else could find her. Why she’s suddenly disappeared off the map.”
“Or…her parents aren’t even bothering to find her, just sending the police and people like us on wild goose chases,” Her words are a bitter, sour thing, tinged by guilt and shame at showing up just a few days too late to stop her best friend from being kidnapped or worse. She knows the parents in question, has seen them interact with their daughter, she knows if one of their kids went missing it would take them days to notice. Which was why it was so strange her mother reached out to the both of them specifically to ask if they’d seen her almost twelve hours after she disappeared.
“They’ve changed a lot since we’ve been here,” The man said in a pale imitation of the last conversation she had with her friend.
“So she says, but come on Al, we know better.”
“Do we?”
The question cuts through her like a knife, knotting her stomach tighter and harsher as the weight falls deeper into the pit.
She says nothing, instead peers over the edge into the abyss of black water and glowing light, wondering–not for the first time–if his hypothesis is correct. It’s the craziest thing she’s heard in years, certifiable, and yet she can’t bring herself to disprove it. She’s heard the call a million times, gone over the map and the details of the case like a madwoman, combing everything for something that would prove her friend was taken by ordinary means.
Instead, all she saw were dead ends and cold leads that made no sense, unless she subscribed to the theory presented before her.
“You realize if you’re wrong we’ll be charged for interfering with a crime scene.” It’s a last ditch effort to dissuade herself. It doesn’t work.
His eyes lit up, “And if we’re right, it won’t matter.”
Silence stretches dangerously between the two of them. Her eyes remained locked on the pond before her. It’s still, too still, especially for an area like this. No wildlife swims in the depths and even the mosquitoes refuse to go near it. A shiver erupts down her spine.
“Come on, Soph,” He pleads, voice close to breaking. She can just barely see the wetness of tears threatening to trail down his cheek, “You know I can’t leave her behind.”
“You seemed to do a pretty good job of it when you moved out to LA,” Her tone is harsh, and something akin to victory dances in her chest when she sees him flinch. Good. They struck exactly where she meant them too.
“That was a mistake,” He almost looks like he means it, “You know it was. I thought…”
“You thought you had more time,” She heaves out.
He bites down on his lip and nods, gaze lingering on the pool of water in front of him.
She sighs and uncrosses her arms, squeezing her eyes shut as she tries to force courage to well up in her chest. It refused to.
“Well, then,” Her voice shakes, betraying her own fear, “Time to see if you really are as smart as you think you are.” She climbs over the caution tape and holds out her palm.
He shakes out a smile and follows her lead.
Hands clasped together, a rush of anxiety and excitement thrums through their veins. The ground beneath them sinks deeper under their feet, as though trying to suck them in.
“One…”
She inhales sharply.
“Two…”
He clenches his jaw.
“Three.”
They jump into the abyss together.