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With a sigh and the last drops of energy, Vickie slumped into a chair in the staff room. It was still dark outside, but the room was lit by harsh white lights that seemed to make Vickie's throbbing headache even worse. Two other nurses, who had too much energy for it being before six in the morning, were incredibly loud. Theresa had been stirring her long-cold coffee with a spoon for about three minutes now, while Jenny tried unsuccessfully to tune the radio.
Night shifts were truly the worst thing that could happen to a person.
Vickie yawned and looked at the clock hanging above the door.
Seven more minutes.
Vickie would have preferred to tear the skin off her body, let herself be stung by a swarm of hornets, and jump into a tub of acid if it meant she could go to bed right now.
She closed her eyes for a second and, for once, was glad to be tired. Fatigue prevented any angry thoughts about her, about the embarrassment, and above all, about the anger. Her mind was enveloped in a pleasant nothingness that let nothing in. Not the harsh light, not Theresa's clattering cutlery, not Jenny's radio, and certainly not Robin Buckley.
It was actually quite pleasant this way.
And she would have preferred to stay that way for the entire last ten minutes, had something not disturbed her concentration.
She opened her eyes and blinked several times in the bright light before turning to her colleagues. "Did you say something?"
Jenny laughed and Theresa smiled indulgently. "I was asking how things are going with your secret boyfriend?"
Vickie was instantly awake. She instinctively sat up straight and smiled warmly. "Great," she replied, hoping that neither of them noticed the tightness in her voice. "Everything's fine now, really fine."
Vickie wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt and gave the girls another smile.
The radio crackled again as Jenny turned the knob once more, but she still couldn't tune into any station.
Theresa sipped her coffee from the ugly red mug she was clutching in her hand. "Are you going to tell us the name of this mysterious stranger yet?"
Jenny laughed again and the radio crackled once more. "Please, we should be happy that we even know she has a boyfriend. If we ever find out his name, it'll be a miracle."
Vickie rolled her eyes. "I already told you, after Dan—"
"Yeah, sure, sure," Theresa interrupted. "We know. Dan was a jerk, and you're afraid that if you tell us the name of the new guy, you'll jinx it, but..."
The radio crackled again. The sound sent a chill down Vickie's spine.
"...but don't you think he'd like you not to keep it a secret? Maybe he'd appreciate that you trust him enough to tell your friends about him."
Vickie smiled falsely and glanced at the clock again. Only three minutes left. Three minutes and she could get out of there.
Jenny turned to her and narrowed her eyes. "Did something happen?"
Vickie looked at her in panic. "Happened? What? No! Nothing happened, everything's fine. Amazing even."
Sure, everything was fine. Except that these two cows were definitely not her friends, Vickie's boyfriend was actually a girl, and that girl had left her sitting alone in a restaurant for fifty minutes the night before, leaving Vickie so pissed off the next day that she couldn't sleep, so now she was not only exhausted, but also angry, and that damn radio still wouldn’t stop crackling.
God, was Jenny really so stupid that she couldn't even tune a radio?
"Okay, okay," Jenny raised her hands in mock surrender and laughed. "But one day you'll have to tell us more about him than just that he's nice."
The radio crackled again, and Vickie imagined herself grabbing the fire extinguisher from the wall and smashing the radio into pieces.
She smiled and glanced at the clock again. "Sure," she said, turning back to Theresa and Jenny. "I'll tell you about him next time."
***
When she finally got into the car, all her previous desire to go to sleep was gone. She didn't know if it was because of Theresa and Jenny or just that she'd had enough, but the anger returned. This was the last straw.
Perhaps the worst part was that for a second, she really considered confiding in her colleagues. But she couldn't. Of course, she couldn't. She couldn't confide in them about how upset and angry and hurt she felt right now because of Robin. Or that everything wasn't okay because Robin was still hiding things from her and making excuses and coming up with completely ridiculous stories about where she had been, and now she had stood Vickie up again, even though she had promised it would never happen again.
But of course, Vickie couldn't confide in them. Because knowing herself, she would probably reveal too much. And if there was one thing she couldn't afford to do, it was to hurt Robin.
So if she couldn't confide in them...
Vickie sat in her car for a while, watching the cars in the parking lot slowly drive off in their own directions. And then she made up her mind.
She started the engine and drove off. Just not home. Memories of that dinner at Enzo's came flooding back to her – how terribly embarrassed she felt when she realized Robin really wasn't coming, how she spent at least another twenty minutes on the phone with Robin's parents, who told her their daughter was "probably at the radio station." She remembered the awful night shift that followed, during which she had to fight back tears several times while administering medication to patients.
Vickie was angry again. But this time, she was determined not to bottle it up.
She stopped by Robin's house and then by Steve Harrington's, but no matter how much she knocked, no one answered the door at either house. It seemed like no one lived in this shitty town anymore. But the fact that she didn't find her here wasn't a big shock. No, if Vickie was honest with herself, she knew there was one place where Robin would likely spend most of her time, and it wasn’t in either of those places.
They had been dating for a few months, so Vickie had already learned a few things about Robin. For example, their dates often had a movie playing in the background (either at the cinema or on Steve Harrington's old couch). Or that once Robin started talking about something, there was no stopping her. Vickie discovered how incredibly loyal, beautiful, smart, and funny Robin was, and she loved her for everything she was. Another thing about Robin that was impossible to miss was that she was hiding something. Something important that she never wanted to talk about. Vickie knew that Robin could be just as talkative as she was secretive, and that knowledge irritated her to death.
Vickie also knew that Robin spent almost every free second of her life at that stupid radio station.
The city was quiet at this early hour. Vickie drove through the empty streets as the first rays of sunlight began to fall on the rooftops. The radio in her car tuned into some unknown station, and without being able to realize why, in the fog of her emotions, the thought of the unknown broadcast annoyed her. Vickie's stomach was in knots, her hands were shaking – it was hard to tell if it was from agitation or just exhaustion.
She drove out of the residential area and onto a dirt road that led up a gentle hill. The station was already in sight. Two cars were parked in front of it, but neither of them belonged to Steve, who usually drove Robin. Vickie wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad sign.
She parked next to the green car, and when she turned off the engine, she realized that she had no idea what her plan was.
Shit.
Why had she come here at all? Okay, Robin was probably here, but what did Vickie want to do about it? Walk in with her head high and remind Robin that she had stood her up again? Break up with her? Break down in tears and anxiously ask for an explanation? Or just curl up in some dark corner and finally get some sleep? Or—
Okay, she needed to stop overthinking everything.
Vickie quickly got out of the car for some fresh air before her thoughts became even more complicated and tangled. She couldn't fall apart now – not when she hadn't even had a chance to talk to Robin yet. She didn't bother to lock the door and just walked quickly toward the main door of the radio station, focusing only on that, so as not to get lost in a whirlwind of other thoughts.
She hesitantly reached for the handle, but in the end, she just knocked. She held her breath, as if that would help her hear better, but- nothing. Silence behind the door, no indication that anyone was inside or that anyone could hear her.
Vickie took a sharp breath. She knocked again.
She waited and…
Still nothing.
Her fingers curled impatiently into a fist and her mouth tightened into a thin line. "Robin!" she called and knocked again.
And again, nothing. Nothing again and again and again. Nothing at Enzo's, nothing when she tried to call Robin at home, and again nothing now that she had come to her work, the place she cared more about than anything. Nothing.
Vickie rattled the handle, but the door was locked. Of course.
"Robin!" Vickie no longer tried to hide the anger in her voice. "If you're in there, open up right now, because I swear to God, otherwise I'm ending things right-."
But then the door finally swung open.
Only it wasn't Robin standing behind it.
In front of Vickie stood a middle-aged, bearded man with a bald head, glasses, and a shirt splattered with blood.
Vickie would have liked to tell herself that this was the strange thing – that this disheveled and visibly bruised man, whom Robin had never mentioned, was the reason her breath hitched. Unfortunately, the situation was even stranger than that.
Because the man was holding a revolver and pointing it directly at Vickie.
"Oh, shit." Vickie stumbled backward, and if it hadn't been for the railing she grabbed at the last moment, she probably would have tumbled down the stairs leading to the door.
"Are you from the military?" the man asked in a voice that was meant to be quiet and threatening, but if Vickie had to describe it in any other context, she would call it comically funny.
For a moment, she just stared at him in disbelief. At his wide eyes, the dried blood on his shirt, and the expression of utter, utter madness.
"What?" was all she could manage to squeeze out.
"I asked," the man said slowly, spreading his legs as if trying to correct his posture. "If. You're. From. The military."
The question was so striking and ridiculous that Vickie wanted to laugh. "The military? Like- like the American military or-"
"Murray!" came a voice from the hallway, and when Vickie recognized the voice, the whole world spun.
It was Robin. Robin.
But there was no room for relief or respite. Robin pushed the bald man – Murray – aside, and before Vickie could figure out what was going on, Robin pulled her inside.
"Have you lost your mind?" she turned to Murray and slammed the door. "Why are you pointing that at her? You could have killed her!"
Murray rolled his eyes ostentatiously and slipped the revolver into his pants pocket. "And please explain to me, dear, how the fuck was I supposed to know that she was-" He paused and turned to Vickie. He looked her over for a moment before asking, rather rudely: "Who are you again?"
Vickie blinked blankly. For a moment, she was convinced she wouldn't remember. But then-
"That’s Vickie."
"I’m Robin’s friend."
Vickie and Robin spoke at the same time. For a moment, it seemed as if the world had slowed down. Vickie's mind slowed down, and almost every new thought slowly ground to a halt before clearing. It was hard to concentrate, hard to think at all.
Surprisingly, Vickie had never actually been to the station before. Although she and Robin saw each other all the time, they agreed that her visiting Robin at the station would probably be even more conspicuous.
Unfortunately, Vickie didn't have much opportunity to appreciate the radio station's interior or equipment, because instead, her eyes landed back on Robin, startled. Robin, who didn't seem to find that- that man’s (Murray, she reminded herself) behavior particularly unusual.
"Are you okay?" Robin asked, taking a step closer to her. "I know Murray seems kinda mad, but you don't have to be afraid of him. He's just a little paranoid. But not in a bad way. Actually-"
"Robin?"
"Hm?"
"What is going on?"
"What?"
"What the fuck is going on?"
Vickie felt like she was about to lose her mind. She was standing there in the stupid hospital clothes she hadn't had time to change out of yet, her head was still throbbing with pain, and she was about seventy percent convinced that she was in the middle of a fever dream because this couldn't be happening.
"What do you mean?" Robin laughed nervously and took a step back.
Vickie's eyes widened and she laughed incredulously. "What- what do I mean? Are you serious right now? I was just about to be shot by some crazy guy-"
"Hey!" Murray said, but after Robin glared at him, he raised his hands in mock surrender and stepped back to give them some privacy.
"Your parents can't tell me where you are, and you haven't contacted me for several days-"
All the color drained from Robin's face. "Oh, shit. Vickie, I'm so sorry, I- I had something important to do and-"
"Oh, of course! I almost forgot! You always have something important to do, am I-"
Vickie glanced behind her and froze. At the back of the station, behind the glass box, was a group of people. And what was craziest was that Vickie knew most of them.
Sitting side by side on the couch were Lucas Sinclair, a daily visitor to the hospital, and Nancy Wheeler's younger brother – Mike? They were engaged in an obviously fake conversation, which was probably meant to make it seem like neither of them was listening. Sitting in an armchair was a girl she often saw with Lucas at the hospital (probably his younger sister), who didn't even try to pretend she wasn't actively listening. On the other side stood Joyce Byers, who was whispering something intently into her son’s (Will Byers) ear while watching the two girls. They all looked exhausted, battered, and covered in dirt and...
Why were they even here? Why had Robin been holed up at the radio station for several days with the strangest combination of people in all of Hawkins, and why did they all look so… serious?
Then she noticed the arsenal of weapons stacked on the table, and her blood ran cold.
"What happened?" Vickie whispered. She turned to Robin. "What- what's going on?"
Robin opened her mouth as if to answer, but in the end, she just rubbed the right side of her face helplessly. "I'll explain everything, okay? But this really isn't the best time, because we have to- I mean, sorry, I don't think I can explain it, but maybe it would be best if you left now, okay? I'm really sorry, because I don't want to kick you out, but-"
Vickie backed away. "Robin? Could you please tell me what is going on?"
She didn't mean to, but panic crept into her voice, and suddenly everything seemed a thousand times worse than before. She felt the strange tension in the room, the heaviness in the air, the way everyone was watching her warily, and it all made her feel sick. She didn't know what had happened, but something was wrong, something was off. She wanted to run away, she wanted to hide, she wanted to grab Robin and get as far away from this strange situation and all these people as possible.
"Alright," came a voice from across the room, and suddenly Mrs. Byers was walking toward them with an impatient look on her face. "I don't want to interrupt but now is really not the time for any arguments. I'm sorry, but you'll have to leave. I don't have time to deal with this."
Robin smiled apologetically at Vickie, and now, perhaps for the first time, Vickie looked at her properly. At the circles under her eyes, which were perhaps darker than her own, at the way she was holding her chest with her hand, as if something hurt, at the huge bruise on her cheek and—
"You're bleeding!" Vickie covered her mouth when she noticed the dried blood on Robin's neck.
That jerk Murray snorted – as if Robin being hurt meant nothing to him and he didn't care at all, and Vickie officially decided she hated that man.
She approached Robin and immediately pulled her head closer for a closer look.
"Vickie, it's nothing, I swear," Robin protested, trying to pull away, but Vickie wouldn't let her.
"Listen, girl, you really have to go." Vickie barely registered Mrs. Byers speaking. She was focused solely on finding the wound. She had to find where the blood was coming from, to see how serious it was.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Murray muttered, and Vickie glared at him.
She turned to Mrs. Byers. "Where's your first aid kit?"
Mrs. Byers raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Oh, you're not staying," she said with an incredulous laugh.
God, was there even a single competent adult here?
Vickie pursed her lips. "Fine. I'll help myself." She grabbed Robin by the wrist and headed to the other side of the room. Robin gasped in surprise but didn't protest further.
"You," Vickie nodded at Will. "You look capable. Do you know where the first aid kit is?"
You would have thought he was a deer cornered by a wolf, the way he looked at her in alarm. "Me? Well-" He looked around in confusion, but in the end it was someone else who spoke.
"Here," Lucas said, tapping the first aid kit that was lying in an empty space next to him.
Vickie smiled briefly. "Thanks." She reached for the box but stopped halfway.
She looked up at Lucas. "Is that... blood?"
Lucas blinked a few times before noticing where Vickie's gaze was directed. He looked down at his carelessly bandaged chest and the bandages through which blood continued to seep. "Oh! Yeah... yeah. It is."
Vickie closed her eyes and exhaled. For a moment, she tried to shut off all thoughts and imagine she was at home. Covered with a blanket and fast asleep, without any spiraling thoughts about Robin, and unaware of this ridiculous situation.
She opened her eyes again. It seemed that her joy at the end of her shift had been premature.
"Okay." She turned so she could see everyone clearly. "Besides Robin and Lucas, is there anyone else who needs treatment?"
The answer was silence. Mrs. Byers just rubbed her face wearily and muttered something incomprehensible to Murray, and Mike Wheeler shook his head.
Vickie rolled her eyes. "Okay, if any of you haven't come clean and are bleeding internally right now, don't come to me for help." She pointed at Mike. "I need some space."
Mike obediently got up, and Vickie forcefully sat Robin down in the empty spot on the couch. She noticed that the others had started whispering in the background, but she didn't care. She opened the first aid kit and was relieved to see that it contained an almost full bottle of disinfectant, gauze, and several new packs of bandages. She could work with that. It wasn't ideal, certainly not, but it was something.
"I need water."
About three different pairs of feet ran off somewhere, and in a moment a bowl of fresh water was standing in front of her.
Vickie looked up. "Okay. Who wants to go first?"
Lucas and Robin exchanged a meaningful glance, and Vickie tried not to let her face betray how impatient she was now.
Robin cleared her throat. "If I had to compare our injuries, mine is about as significant as a dead goldfish, while Lucas's is on the level of Chernobyl."
Lucas snorted, but Vickie had already gotten to work. "Okay. Jacket off," she nodded at him.
He raised his eyebrows but didn't protest and carefully slipped out of his jacket. Vickie could feel Robin staring at her, but she refused to look back. Not now. Definitely not now. She didn't have the energy or mental capacity to uncover all the ugly and difficult things between them.
Vickie was a nurse. And she had a job to do.
She reached for the bandages around Lucas's chest and began to unwrap them. She grimaced. "Whoever bandaged you did a terrible job. It's completely loose."
She could have sworn she heard someone behind her mutter something like: "I told you I didn't know how to do it."
The closer she got to the wound, the more her stomach churned. Lucas had slightly raised his arms to make it easier for her to free him from the bandages. When she untied the last remnant of the blood-soaked bandage, she froze.
The whole room fell silent with her. Vickie stood motionless, staring at the gaping wound on Lucas's chest. At the three wounds on his chest, stretching across it.
Once again, it was difficult to think. Her mind felt heavy, and all she could do was stare at the bloody gashes.
The silence was broken by Lucas's timid voice. "Is it- is it that bad?"
Vickie shook her head almost imperceptibly and swallowed. "No, it looks... it looks like superficial wounds. I'll just have to clean it up a bit, but it's nothing serious." She was telling the truth – the wounds looked scary, but they weren't fatal or anything to worry about. Except for a few annoying weeks while the wound healed, there was nothing wrong with it. No, what really bothered Vickie was something else.
"Robin?" she asked in a calm voice without taking her eyes off the wound.
She heard Robin take a sharp breath. "Yes?"
"Where were you?"
She looked at Robin and didn't try to pretend that the anger on her face was anything else.
Robin looked uncertainly at Lucas, who pressed his lips together helplessly, and then turned back to Vickie. "We went hiking and-"
"Stop it already!" Vickie lost her temper and threw the bloodstained bandages on the floor. "Stop lying, it's embarrassing, pathetic. Do you think I'm completely stupid? These are wounds from an animal. From an animal, Robin. So don't insult my intelligence and try to fool me into believing you two got hurt falling down a hill. And that man said that- that the army is after you? You just disappear for a few days, make promises, and then never show up, and I'm sick of it. Where were you? What the hell caused this?"
"Hey, hey, hey, not that I want to get involved, but we really can't tell-"
Mike, who was following up on Vickie, didn't finish because he was interrupted by Will's hiss.
"Not now."
Vickie wasn't focused on them. Instead, she kept looking at Robin.
Robin nervously bit her upper lip. "It was-"
"A bear," Lucas quickly interrupted her.
"A bear?" Vickie raised her eyebrows. Robin couldn't look her in the eye. Vickie grabbed a clean rag and dipped it in a bowl of water. She wrung out the excess water and vigorously set about cleaning the wounds. "So a bear did this. Great. Sure, that makes perfect sense, right? Hawkins, which is under a stupid quarantine, is also home to at least fifty grizzlies. Am I understanding this correctly?"
"I swear I'd love to explain everything to you, but I can't. Okay? I really can't."
Lucas hissed when the rag touched his skin, but Vickie continued cleaning. She ignored how fast her heart was beating, how the anger continued to rage inside her head, and focused on his wounds.
"Robin's right, you really can't be here, this isn't a joke. We're dealing with something important here. And dangerous," added the young Wheeler.
"Yes and I'm really going to need you to leave once you've treated those wounds," Mrs. Byers called from the other side of the station.
Vickie threw a cloth over the edge of the bowl and dripped disinfectant onto the gauze. She carefully began cleaning the areas around Lucas's wounds, taking care not to get the disinfectant into them.
"I know you must think I'm the worst person in the world right now, but I swear to you, there's a logical explanation for all of this. But I can't, I can't explain it to you without putting you in danger. I can't, okay? And I'm so sorry about that." Robin reached out to put her hand on Vickie's shoulder, but Vickie pulled away.
She pulled new, unused bandages out of the plastic packaging. She motioned for Lucas to raise his arms again and began bandaging his chest once more.
From behind, Murray laughed incredulously. "I still don't understand why we're even having this discussion. Um, hello! The army could have planted her here to get information out of us!"
"Oh, shut up," said a voice, probably belonging to Lucas's sister, for the first time.
Lucas shot his sister a sharp look, but immediately hissed when Vickie wrapped another layer of bandage around him.
Robin ignored him and tried to make eye contact with Vickie again. "I know I screwed up. And I promise I'll explain everything to you one day, really, but-."
"Explain it to me now." Vickie turned to her, her voice breaking. "Explain it to me right now or- or God, I swear, it's-" Vickie stopped, suddenly too aware of her surroundings.
She was too exposed, small, stupid. A chill ran down her spine when she realized she was under the scrutiny of everyone present. The thought made her almost stutter. Did she even think for a second about how it must have looked when she barged in like that and demanded answers? Why should she, as a friend, a mere stupid friend, have the right to demand the truth about how Robin spends his time? She forgot where she was, who she was, who she and Robin were, and that this wasn't exactly normal behavior.
Maybe she shouldn't have come here at all. At least before, she felt like she knew who Robin was.
She blinked away her tears and turned back to Lucas. She tied the end of the bandage and carefully checked that everything was secure. She was done. Not just with the bandage, but with something else as well, it seemed.
She just wished it didn't hurt so much.
Robin grimaced and reached for her again. "Vickie, I-"
"Jesus, just tell her!"
Vickie jerked her head and turned toward the voice. It was the little girl again, Lucas's sister.
The girl watched her with raised eyebrows, exhaustion written all over her face, but still full of confidence that Vickie could only quietly envy.
"Erica, we can't just tell people what we're doing here," Lucas protested.
"Why not? There are at least fifty of us involved in this anyway-"
"You're exaggerating."
"-the world will probably end in a few hours, and I don't know about you, but I would feel much safer knowing that we have someone with medical training with us."
Vicki's mind was racing, one thought louder than the next, but none clear enough to form a coherent idea. Her heart was pounding harder than before, and her stomach was in knots.
She nodded gratefully to Erica. Then she turned to Robin.
"What caused Lucas's injuries?"
A shadow passed over Robin's face, something that looked a lot like remorse. For a moment, Vickie thought Robin wasn't going to tell her anything. That this was all she would ever learn from this expression full of remorse and uncertainty and fear. She was afraid this would be her last memory of Robin Buckley. Robin as the person who refused to break down the barrier.
But then she spoke.
"It was demogorgon."
***
Vickie really needed to get some sleep.
She sat on the hood of her car, staring into the distance. Her hat had been lying on her lap since she had pulled it off her head in frustration, the laces on one shoe untied. The sun was shining brightly, and even though it wasn't particularly warm, Vickie didn't bother to find a coat. The meadow stretching out before her seemed almost naively romantic. Even so, she could see the shadows creeping between the blades of grass, something dangerous that was still nothing more than a premonition.
She wasn't alone outside. Murray was rummaging through the engine of a battered van a short distance from the station, with no visible success. That was the van Robin was in when she got hurt, a vague realization flashed through Vickie's mind, but she couldn't bring herself to give it any more energy. Will Byers (the boy who was probably a wizard) sat on the steps leading to the radio station door, Mike sitting next to him. They were engaged in an apparently lively conversation – Mike was gesturing with his hands and talking passionately to Will, who was looking shyly at the ground with a slight smile. Vickie let her gaze rest on them for a moment before sighing and turning her eyes back to the sun's rays. Their intensity burned her eyes.
The door creaked, and Vickie instinctively turned her head in that direction. Robin came out of the door, and Vickie found herself unable to react in any unusual way.
It was still Robin, that was clear. With her short hair, her freckled face, her thoughtful and caring expression. Vickie could spend years exploring every tiny bit of her face and still not have had enough. If she could, she would collect every new atom of Robin that came her way.
But it would have been pointless. Vickie wasn't afraid that Robin had suddenly stopped being Robin. She was afraid that she had stopped being her Robin.
Robin looked around, and when she saw her, she froze for a second.
They were both standing on thin ice. One wrong step and they would fall through the surface.
Vickie quickly turned her head and focused on the sea of gravel beneath her feet.
With every step Robin took, tiny pebbles crunched underfoot, and Vickie vaguely realized that they were getting closer to her, until Robin herself finally appeared in front of her.
And the whole world spun uncomfortably again.
"Hi," Robin breathed. "I know you said you needed to be alone and stuff, so feel free to kick me out, but-" Robin paused uncertainly. "Can we talk?"
Vickie would have liked to be a woman with at least a shred of self-respect and send Robin packing. But when she noticed Robin's poorly concealed anxious posture, something inside her almost broke.
She stared into her wide blue eyes until she finally nodded.
"Yeah," she said softly. "Yeah, we can."
Robin nodded gratefully and sat down awkwardly and cautiously on the hood next to Vickie. She left an empty space between them. It wasn't noticeable, but compared to how it used to be, Vickie wanted to scream.
"I thought you might have gone home already," Robin began, unusually cautiously. "You left outside like an hour ago, and I didn't want to stalk you, you know. I really wanted to give you space, but then I thought maybe you had left so I went to check and- here you are!" She laughed nervously and looked cautiously at Vickie. "But I couldn't blame you if you had. I mean leave. I understand that all of this is probably... a lot for you right now."
Vickie shivered and wrapped her arms around her chest. A lot. That was probably another way to describe it all.
"I wouldn't leave," she glanced at her. "Not without saying something."
"Great," the other girl nodded quickly. "That's fine. Great."
Silence spread between them again, and Vickie took a shaky breath. She ran her hand over the hat on her lap and smoothed it out. The simple movement calmed her.
"It was great how you bandaged Lucas up. I think he's really grateful- I'm really grateful. And actually, I think everyone else is too. At least now we can stop thinking for a second about whether Lucas is actively dying or not."
"The wound was superficial. It would have to be deeper and go through vital organs for him to be dying," Vickie remarked, swallowing hard.
"Yeah, yeah, sure. That's what Mike said, too." Robin nodded toward the staircase, and Vickie turned in that direction again. "But I didn't know if he wasn’t just saying that. So, he wouldn't scare Lucas."
Vickie watched as the two boys suddenly burst out laughing at something Mike said, shaking with laughter, leaning into each other. Mike's hand remained on Will's shoulder, and neither of them seemed to mind.
Vickie raised her eyebrows and said wearily: "I thought you said Mike is dating that supergirl."
Robin stiffened beside her and allowed herself one quick glance toward the boys before forcing a smile. "Yeah. He is."
Vickie raised her eyebrows again and looked at Mike's hand, still firmly resting on Will's shoulder. "In that case, maybe it would be best to break up with her as soon as possible. This isn't... nice to her."
"No. It's not."
She didn't have the energy to devote too much attention to the boys, nor the tact when talking about them. Her head was spinning from all the new stimuli that had come her way today, and she didn't have the capacity to add homoerotic friendships to the mix.
"Is it-" Robin paused. "Is it still hard for you to believe all this? Because trust me, I had a hard time taking it all in. This whole thing is just crazy."
It was crazy. Vickie found it hard to believe that she was even conveying this information, that this new reality for her had existed for several years.
The worst part was that none of this was really that far-fetched. It wasn't just sensationalist newspapers and paranoid esotericists who called Hawkins cursed. Everyone knew that something was seriously wrong, and every single resident of the town harbored those fears. They just didn't talk about it. This strange pride, this fear of anything unorthodox, was probably encoded in Hawkins' DNA. And although Vickie could convince herself that she was different from the other residents and that she didn't ignore the obvious, she now realized that this was just a pretense. In the end, she was just as afraid of the unknown as everyone else.
That's how she was able to overlook all this madness for years. Just to maintain the illusion of normality.
"The rational part of my brain is probably still processing this," she finally said. "I don't want to dismiss it, but I still feel like you're retelling the plot of some trashy fantasy book. But you showed me the corpses of those demi- demro-"
"Demogorgons."
"...demogorgons and that’s pretty convincing evidence."
A recent memory came to mind - the dead bodies of emaciated, twisted monsters with gaping mouths and broken bones beyond recognition. Her heart began to pound again, as if she were standing in front of their corpses once more, trying to push the image out of her mind.
Robin nodded, and Vickie noticed out of the corner of her eye that she was also rubbing her hands nervously. "Yeah, I... I guess that’s right."
Vickie felt that fluttering unease rising in her again. She dropped the hat back into her lap and turned to Robin. "So, this is why you were so secretive? Because... because you were trying to save Hawkins – or maybe the whole world – from some wizard from another dimension?"
The words sounded so incredibly ridiculous.
Robin tried to smile, but the corners of her mouth fell uncertainly. "I understand that it's hard to believe. It’s-"
"No, I understand," Vickie shook her head. "Or – understand is probably the wrong word, but I believe that this happened and is still happening, I just-" She furrowed her brow and looked Robin in the eyes with slight confusion. "Just, why you? Why- why does this fall on the shoulders of two forty-somethings and then an army of barely adult kids? Like - can't you find anyone more capable?"
Robin opened her mouth, only to close it again, her face set in a look of consternation and thoughtfulness. And for perhaps the first time in this stupidly long morning, Vickie saw something other than regret in Robin. It was as if for the first time, not just today, but in all these years, she was thinking about the absurdity of it all.
"I guess... well, if not us, then who?" Robin finally breathed shakily after a moment's thought. "The military is against us, the government is the reason this mess happened in the first place, so – if we can't rely on anyone else, then we have to do it. Even though we're just-" She waved her hand vaguely in the air and tried to laugh. "-a bunch of kids."
Vickie pressed her lips together, raising her eyebrows. "So you think this is all worth it? That it's worth risking your own life?" Her chest tightened again, and she breathed shallowly. And the anger and frustration and all those other nasty feelings returned to their usual places.
"No, Vickie, that's not what I meant," Robin grabbed her hand desperately. "Or- or maybe I do, I don't know, I just mean-"
"Robin, stop." Vickie snapped at her and pulled her hand away sharply. "I don't want you to risk your life. It goes against my grain, and it makes me sick when I think of all those evenings you canceled our planned dates. Do you know that I blamed you for that? That I spent all that time angry while your life was at stake? I lived in complete emptiness, without any stupid clue about what was happening to you, where you were. God, Robin, you didn't even hint that it was something dangerous," Vickie stammered, but quickly regained her composure. "You could have died, and- and I wouldn't have had the slightest idea! That's awful. You realise that’s awful, right? I need to know why. Why couldn't you explain this to me sooner?" Her voice was shaking now, but in the end, she couldn't help but let herself be drawn into this moment with complete intensity. She needed an explanation, she needed anything that would make at least a little sense on this strange day.
Robin shook her head. "I know I screwed up royally. And I wanted to tell you – I thought about it so much, and I swear, several times it was on the tip of my tongue. But then it always seemed more complicated and complicated-“
"This isn't a small thing," Vickie interrupted, trying to calm her shaking hands. Although she tried to be patient, her voice took on a sharp tone again. "This isn't like you forgetting to mention that your grandmother used to be an opera singer or that you broke your leg in third grade. This is serious. And I had – I have a right to know. I'm your girlfriend, and that means you commit to discussing these types of things. Even the complicated stuff."
Robin bit her lower lip and quickly looked away. "I couldn't. I'm sorry, I wanted to – or maybe not, but I knew I should tell you, but I couldn't. Just couldn’t. I wasn't capable of it. Even though I told myself a hundred times that I would tell you, even though I planned it, I-" She exhaled shakily. "I'm sorry, but I couldn't."
"But why? I want a reason, Robin, I deserve it."
"I know, I know, I'm not denying that, it's just..."
"The reason, Robin," Vickie interrupted her again sharply, no longer controlling her tone. The hat slipped from her lap to the ground. "What's the reason? The reason. Why?"
"Because I'm selfish, okay?" Robin blurted out, and Vickie paused. "I'm selfish, no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise, that's the real reason. There's nothing... nothing more complicated than that. Just this."
The silence that followed was sharp and uncompromising.
Robin jumped off the hood. She leaned against the car and buried her face in her hands. Vickie remained seated.
And she thought how terribly stupid this was. How they continued to put up invisible barriers between themselves and tear down invisible bridges, when Vickie was only a few inches away from Robin and, if she wanted to, could have pulled her close, put her hand on her shoulder.
All the remaining anger in her evaporated at that moment.
She looked at her uniform, at the dried drops of Lucas's blood that adorned it, and took a shaky breath.
She looked up and, for a moment, let herself be carried away by the idea that everything was fine. She watched Robin, her back turned to her, her shoulders rising with each shallow breath, the few strands of hair matted with blood now even more prominent in the sunlight.
"What do you mean, you're selfish?" she asked quietly.
She heard a stifled gasp, but it took a moment for anything else to happen. Then Robin dropped her hands and turned to face Vickie.
"I didn't want to drag you into this."
Vickie swallowed. "And that's selfish... how?"
She just wanted to know the reason.
Why had Robin never said anything to her, why had she never acted like anything was wrong? Vickie needed that explanation. Like oxygen, like green tea at seven in the morning, like Robin's kisses behind closed doors. She needed it.
Robin rubbed her face again and suddenly seemed terribly vulnerable. The purple bruise on her cheek made her look so vulnerable.
"Actually, it's probably a trivial thing," Robin said quietly. "It's definitely not based on anything rational."
Vickie's knuckles turned white from how tightly she was gripping the edge of the hood. "That's okay."
Robin's face was devoid of its usual overflow of emotions and experiences, one mixed with the other. Her eyes were empty. "Almost every person I love, every person I care about, is involved in this whole mess."
The words fell heavily, with unmistakable weight.
"Except for you and my parents, everyone else is part of this terribly amateurish group. We don't have any real plans or vision, none of us are strategists. And even though I always try to have faith in what we're doing, I still- I still find myself thinking of us as children playing with plastic figurines. And that… scares me. So much," Robin looked up, her voice breaking for a moment.
Vickie could hear her own heart pounding in her ears, every breath was laborious, and as she watched Robin, she wanted nothing more than to go away somewhere far, far away together.
"Steve is always showing off now, he's careless and- and it irritates me so much that I feel like slapping him sometimes. It's as if- as if he doesn't even notice the unnecessary risks and thinks they're just little things, but they're not- they're not little things. Will is connected to some multidimensional creature, and on top of that, he's going through something that everyone else is successfully ignoring. Nancy is the first to jump into everything headfirst, we send Erica alone on dangerous missions, and Dustin hasn't been himself since-" She stammered and stopped.
Vickie stared at her silently before asking, "Since what?"
"Since Eddie died," Robin rasped, immediately clearing her throat. She blinked rapidly several times before forcing herself to continue. "I hate it. That everyone could die at any moment, and I'll care about every single death as much as the next. I don't want that. So that's why," she looked up. "That's why I didn't tell you. Because I'm- I'm selfish, and I know it, but I just couldn’t afford to worry about another person."
Vickie exhaled shakily and rubbed her clenched chest with her palm.
She remembered their story, the Russian bunker, and the dying possessed children, and realized that not only had this really happened, but it had happened to Robin. It wasn't a fairy tale she could tell with hindsight. It was something she had experienced and carried with her every single day.
"But I guess it didn't matter anyway. Now you know, and if I hadn't told you today, you would have found out anyway. Sooner or later. So all my secrets and lies were just... pointless," Robin added, her voice tinged with disgust at her own words.
Vickie shook her head. "Well, I-"
"I'm sorry," Robin interrupted her, her voice breaking. "I fucked up and I'm sorry, but... I didn't want to lose you too."
Vickie could no longer stand her ground.
She slid off the hood and, pushing aside the thoughts convincing her that this was a bad idea, pulled Robin tightly into her embrace.
She wrapped her arms tightly around her neck and buried her head in the hollow of her neck. Robin stumbled back in surprise at first, but then- then she hugged her back and pulled her close, especially tightly. The world around them disappeared, and at that moment, Vickie couldn't care less about Murray standing nearby or the approaching apocalypse just around the corner. She held her tightly, afraid that she would slip away, that she would melt away under her hands. She held her as if her own life depended on it, holding her for all those nights when she didn't even know that Robin was risking her life.
"I would have done the same thing," Vickie breathed. "I'm still mad at you. Incredibly mad at you, and I will definitely yell at you later. But I wouldn't have told you either. I- I would have done the same thing."
Robin hugged her even tighter, and Vickie sensed from the gesture that Robin might have needed this just as much, if not more, than she did.
"I'm sorry,” Robin mumbled. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
Vickie didn't say anything in response, just held her close. It was the only thing she had left now. Time suddenly lost its meaning, and all that mattered to Vickie was feeling the warmth of Robin's body against hers, having her and being able to call her hers again.
When they let go, Vickie finally felt the damn closure she had been so desperately pursuing for months.
Robin wiped away a tear with her finger, and Vickie couldn't help but laugh when she noticed how she had smudged her mascara all around her eye.
"Let me see," she reached out and carefully wiped it away with her thumb. Robin finally smiled – really smiled – and suddenly Vickie was able to fully appreciate the beauty of that morning.
She took Robin's hand and pressed it to her heart. "I promise you I'll try not to die." She put as much seriousness into her voice as she could muster, because she needed Robin to know that she meant it.
Robin laughed shyly and nodded. "I'll take that." Then she paused for a moment, apparently hesitating before asking, "Do you... forgive me?"
Vickie smiled and shook her head. "No. But give it time."
She might have been love-struck and understanding but that didn’t mean she was stupid. Robin still stood her up.
"I thought so," Robin whispered, but Vickie could hear the smile in her voice. "But I had to try anyway."
Vickie smiled. And then she did something stupid. Before she could stop herself, she cupped Robin's face in her hands and kissed her.
She felt Robin's initial surprise, which quickly gave way to understanding. Robin's lips tasted like reconciliation, and there was no trace of regret left.
Vickie felt the corners of her mouth twitching into a smile, but she couldn't control her emotions anymore.
Robin was hers. She was still hers, and no one could take that away from her. Never. And even when things got complicated and ugly, Vickie knew it was worth it to stay. She was actively choosing Robin.
When they pulled apart, Vickie was sure that everything would be all right. Robin was grinning from ear to ear, and Vickie laughed. They could handle this. Vickie could handle this. What were monsters and the fear of death and the end of the world in the face of Robin's heart?
"I promise I'll take you to Enzo's one day."
Vickie playfully nudged her. "I hope so. And get your wallet ready, because I'm going to order the most expensive items on the menu. As penance."
Robin rolled her eyes but kept holding Vickie's hand. "Fine."
She wanted to stay there forever – in front of her yellow car, face to face with Robin, with the sunlit meadow in the distance. But when she began to focus too much on her surroundings, she realized exactly where she was and what was around her.
She turned her head, and although she no longer saw Murray by the van, her gaze fell on Will Byers and Mike, who were very obviously looking at the ground so as not to accidentally make eye contact with the girls.
Vickie covered her mouth in horror and recoiled from Robin's touch. She looked at Robin, who was also staring at them with her mouth open. "Fuck."
Vickie glanced at them again. "Do you think they saw us?"
Robin sheepishly wrinkled her nose. "Probably? I think so, yes."
"Shit."
"But I think it'll be okay," Robin looked back at them with a slight panic in her eyes. "If I'm reading this right, I think they understand. And Will caught us once before and didn't say anything to anyone, so I think we're fine. Right? This is fine."
"What?" was all Vicki could manage to say.
Robin winced. "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that too."
Vickie groaned and buried her face in her hands. "I'm going to get one more piece of news today, and my head is going to explode." She looked up. Robin was still looking at the boys, but her expression was more confident than before.
"No, I really think it'll be fine," she said after a moment's thought. "They won't say anything."
It was actually beautiful how Robin's confidence made Vickie give up any lingering panic. She could be calm.
"Okay," she nodded and looked back at them too. "They won't tell anyone."
And anyway, why should Vickie worry about someone catching her kissing her girlfriend when the end of the world was imminent?
This was the least of her problems.
And so, after a moment's hesitation, she took Robin's hand again. Robin raised her eyebrows in surprise, but didn't protest.
Vickie smiled. "They won't tell anyone. I'll calm down. We'll go inside now, and I'll finally patch you up. Then you'll explain the rest of the things I don't understand, and you’ll tell me how exactly you’re planning to kill that wizard from another dimension. Then we'll kill the bastard, neither of us will die, and when it's all over, I'll finally get some sleep. Sounds good?"
Robin squeezed her hand. "Sounds like a date."
And Vickie couldn't wait.