°
°
°

chapter sixteen

DIANA SINCLAIR HAD CHOSEN WRONG. It had taken them exactly thirty-seven minutes to catch each other up on their respective sides of the situation. There were Russians in an underground facility, and they were opening the gate to the Upside Down. They were the reason the Mind Flayer was able to survive, and they needed to be stopped before they ripped it open completely. Someone would have to go down there and destroy the machine that was opening the gate to finally eradicate the Mind Flayer.

Hopper, Joyce, and Murray Bauman— a rude and balding, bearded white man who, fortunately, seemed to be willing to help in anyway he could— were set in their decision to take on that role, though Hopper wasn't too happy with Joyce's participation. According to Dustin and Erica, the adults were in over their heads. The facility was too big and maze-like for them to travel without any assistance. Hopper agreed to take the two kids' help but only from the outside, which was no good without the "super powered" radio tower Dustin had put up at the highest point in Hawkins.

Dustin and Erica would need a ride, which would be taken care of by Steve and Robin and Diana, since she didn't want to leave her sister's side, which was proving to be a mistake. This would leave the people she'd come with, who would only have to keep Eleven and themselves hidden and safe, alone and vulnerable.

When everyone looked to Diana to see if this was the right path, she almost didn't know what to say. Almost. "This'll work but there're problems I can't see, and I know—" She stopped herself for a moment, took a glance around the room then continued on. "I know that if we see the Mind Flayer before this is all over, he can't have El. If he gets her, then there's nothing standing in his way, even when the gate closes. No one survives that."

"No need to sound so ominous," Murray let out with a frown.

Dustin waved him off and said offhandedly, "She's psychic. It's just how she talks." The boy watched her. "So you're saying the Mind Flayer will be back?"

"I'm saying that evil is good at finding a way, so let's not give him any more reason to."

The ride to Dustin's radio tower was an admittedly bumpy one with lots of yelling and speculation about Dustin's new girlfriend, Suzie's, existence. When they reached their destination, Dustin and Erica wasted no time getting into contact with the others and helping Murray find his way through the facility.

Dustin had given their groups code names. They were Scoops Troop and the others were Griswold Family. Murray was 'Bald Eagle' much to his audible chagrin.

It didn't take long for the Mind Flayer to reappear, ever large and menacing, on the roof of the mall, which was easy to see from their position. Griswold Family, as Dustin continued to point out, was unresponsive, but there was a resounding roar over the walkie.

"Get up," she told Steve as Dustin yelled into the device, waiting for a response that wouldn't come. Steve shot up without a second thought, and they began to run to the car.

"Where are you two going?" Erica shouted to them.

"To get them the hell out of there," Steve tossed back.

Diana glanced to her sister. "Stay here."

They both jumped into the car, an uncoordinated Robin right behind them. Steve threw the car into reverse and forced it from its place lodged in the mud. He drove it like that straight onto the road, and went forward, his foot flooring the gas. He drove like a bat out of hell, and Diana wasn't sure it was good for her nausea.

As the mall came into their sights, they could hear gunshots and see Nancy shooting at a car coming straight for her.

Billy.

Steve, seeing no other way to save her, drove the car straight into Billy's, sending both cars skidding. Steve slammed the brakes and they halted in the parking lot. "Ow," Diana murmured, rubbing her neck. She glanced at the other car which was now on fire and noticed an unconscious Billy in the driver's seat.

"Are you guys okay?" Steve asked, panting.

Robin's words came like a question. "Ask me tomorrow?"

"Nice driving," Diana muttered sarcastically, but her words were drowned out by the snarling of the large creature that had noticed their location and was quickly descending from atop the mall. Steve and Robin watched it with surprise but, of course, Diana had already known what they were in for.

An ear piercing honk came from the right of them, drawing their attention. "Get in," Nancy yelled from the passenger seat of the station wagon.

The three of them squeezed into the back of the vehicle, Diana's back pressed to Steve's chest and her knees even with Robin's. The Mind Flayer had begun to follow them. It was then that Diana noticed the absence of Mike, Eleven, and Max.

"No," she said immediately, her voice rising. "You have to turn around. We can't just leave them there."

"We're leading it away," Jonathan let out, shooting her down.

"But Billy," Diana pressed.

Her brother turned to look at her, speaking then. "He was unconscious when we left."

"We're feeding them to the wolves—"

Dustin's voice, along with another voice belonging to the apparently not so fictional Suzie interrupted her. The former seemed to be trying to the girl to tell him Planck's Constant, but she wouldn't give it up until he gave her something.

When they started singing Never Ending Story, it was dead silent in the car because everyone was struck with absolute disbelief, but Diana groaned and yelled out, "Jonathan Byers, if you don't turn this goddamn car around—" But it seemed she wouldn't have to make her case any longer because the Mind Flayer was turning back, and Jonathan was  soon following suit.

The creature made it there before them, but they were bounding out of the car before Jonathan even put the car in park. "The fireworks," she told her brother. "We have to distract him."

Lucas took her hand and led her—led all of them— to the fireworks. He took an armful from the overfilled basket and dumped them into her grasp, topping it off with a box of matches. He'd obviously come prepared. He did the same thing with the others and had them pair off. Diana and Steve beckoned Robin to follow them as everyone rushed up the escalators.

The building shook with the monster's movement in the center of the court, and he screeched he began to reach out to what looked to be Eleven and Billy.

They all spread out on the second level, desperate to hit the monster at all angles. Lucas was the first to throw a firework. "Flay this you ugly piece of shit," she heard him yell, and the chaos began. They threw relentlessly, the fireworks noisy and the Mind Flayer clearly distressed, but this couldn't last forever. They would all run out and the smoke would clear and the creature would be on El again.

"That's it," Robin said when Diana reached out her hand for more for what felt like the hundredth time. She'd put everything she had into her throws and her arm felt strained, but it was nothing compared to the sinking feeling in her stomach.

"Dustin," Steve shouted into the walkie Dustin had lended Robin. "We're out of time."

Dustin's voice came loudly over the device, but it was not directed to them. "Hurry. Close it now."

Soon enough the explosions came to a halt, which meant they were all facing the same problem. From where she stood, Diana could see Billy more clearly now as he lifted himself away from Eleven and stood facing the Mind Flayer. When the creature reached out his fleshy appendage this time, Billy was there to meet it, taking the thing in his hands and attempting to hold it back.

Diana had seen this before.

Several other appendages formed from the monster, and they met Billy's torso in an obviously painful hit, bringing the teen to his knees. He gave one last scream of defiance, and the Mind Flayer delivered one last killing blow, before retreating from him completely. Billy fell to the floor and Max— Diana had finally noticed her vibrant red hair behind him— yelled for her stepbrother.

Then something changed in the creature. He began to back away, destroying more of the mall as he slammed his legs into the ground but still managed to lose his balance, and when he fell in a large heap, he did not get back up.

The adults had done it. They'd closed the gate.

Then the rest of it became a daze to Diana. They were being ushered out by government officials and the mall was being set on fire and Max was sobbing and everything was just spinning.

Then they were sitting on stretchers and in the backs of fire trucks and someone was flashing a flashlight in her eyes and checking her vitals and giving her ice for her neck and a water bottle. She took it gratefully and downed it in one go and almost threw up in the process, but she was able to hold it together. Steve had left her to go find another ice pack because his was beginning to melt and she was all alone. Her brother was somewhere comforting Max.

They gave them blankets and tried to force them to call their parents, which was a no-go for everyone but Max considering that Joyce already knew and the others had siblings old enough to cover for them. And there would be no calling Hopper given the wounded look on Joyce's face and the lack of the former embracing his daughter. Joyce was there to give El a hug after she hugged her own son, but when Eleven caught Diana's gaze, the younger girl's expression only grew more pained. She broke away from Joyce and rushed over to Diana, who was standing in fear of what was coming next.

"Why didn't you see?" The girl asked her, tears pouring onto her cheeks and the bandage on her forehead sinking with her crumbling face.

Diana felt tears begin to burn the backs of her own eyes at the pure pain on her friend's face. Why hadn't she seen? Admittedly, she could slightly recall an absence of Hopper in her visions beyond this time, but she hadn't thought much of it because she would've seen something big. She would've.

She should've.

"I don't know, Eleven," was all she could answer. "I'm sorry. I would've never let him go if I'd known. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She kept apologizing, and when the girl let her, Diana brought her into her blanket hugging her tightly.

"I'm sorry."

4 WEEKS LATER

EVERYONE SHOWED UP TO Chief Hopper's funeral and enough of them showed up to Billy's too, but those were just the first of many. The government and media had passed it off as a fire, which it was in the end, but the fire had become the explanation for all of the death. The mall had been destroyed, taking all the remains of the Mind Flayer, and all those people, with it. Diana had seen Max again for the first time since the incident at the funerals.

She'd heard from Lucas that the girl hadn't been leaving her room, and Diana told him to give her time and promised him that she would check on her herself soon. Other than a few hugs at the funeral, Max didn't really acknowledge any of her friends outside of that.

She'd just went home.

As for Eleven, she'd been staying with Joyce and her sons. They were planning on moving eventually, so the boys were spending every moment they could together, and Mike and El were just about inseparable, as were Jonathan and Nancy. Eleven was understandably taking Hopper's death hard and so was Joyce, even though Diana was sure the woman thought no one noticed.

Erica had just barely forgiven Diana for keeping such a big secret from her and had only agreed to move on as long as Diana kept her in the loop.

Their mother had spent days yelling at them for staying out all hours of the night and forbade them from going out unless it was to honor the dead.

So Diana had to sneak an unemployed Steve into her room some nights. He would park down the street and climb a tree into her window. His black eye had faded with time, but his father had been angry to see it in the first place, and his employment status had only made things worse with the older man. As if any of it was Steve's fault. Steve had found his way into Diana's room for the night many times in those four weeks to get away from his father. If her mother found out, legal adult or not, she would be more than pissed, but even if she did get caught she would still find some way to protect him.

"Move out," Diana whispered to him one night. He'd been in her bed, lying beside each other but purposely not touching. Neither of them could sleep, a regular occurrence since they'd been introduced to the Mind Flayer. "Just move out. You've got savings, and they compensated you for the fire. You could do it—"

He turned to look at her, a frown on his face. "I can't. Not without a job, and no one's hiring right now. It's too soon. Too risky."

"You'll have one by September," she promised. "You and Robin."

He sat up then, a surprised look on his face. "You're sure?" And she nodded. What he said next took her by surprise. "Come with me."

"As in move in with you?" She asked incredulously, her heart nearly halting in her chest.

"Sure. People move in with each other all the time."

Do they?

Diana blanched at that but managed to control her volume. "Do you know what people would think? They'd think you'd gotten me pregnant or worse, they'd think we were sleeping together in the first place."

He didn't laugh.

"Is the idea of being paired with me that bad, Diana?" Now he seemed to be a bit angry.

"They would eat us alive, Steve, and not just because of stupid pregnancy speculations." This time she was serious. It was one thing for them to be friends or even for him to date a black girl and for her to date a white boy, but a whole other thing for them to be more than casual in the public eye. No matter how progressive many people in their town claimed to be, they still held prejudices, especially those a part of the generations before them. Besides, she wouldn't be able to move in with him even if she wanted to.

"Who cares what they think? None of its true anyway."

"I'm not moving in with you, Steve. I love you, but I won't do it."

He scoffed. "I hate when you say that."

"'I love you'?" She asked, her heart beating a bit quicker. "You're my friend, of course I love you." She hadn't said it many times before, only when she remembered she could. Somewhere along the way, though, those words had begun to mean something else for them, even if they hardly ever used them.

He stood then, shoving his hands into his pajama pants pockets. "You just don't get it, Diana." He shook his messy hair because he'd long since stopped worrying about it being perfect in front of her. "Robin is my friend—Dustin's my friend, but I'm not in love with her, and I sure as hell ain't in love with him." He paused, sighing heavily. "When everything was going wrong last month, I realized that we don't have forever. No one does and I should've told you then. I tried to tell you then."

Diana was utterly speechless. Of course she wasn't oblivious then, but she hardly knew how these things went. She knew that Steve was notorious with the girls at their school, but then he met Nancy, and then Diana watched him slowly get over Nancy. Leaving whatever unspoken thing that had formed between them, well, unspoken hadn't seemed like it would be a big deal, and she'd promised everyone that they were just friends because they were. However, his feelings had clearly been torturing him for a while.

What Diana herself felt had been put on the back burner. An eighteen year old's feelings for someone who was essentially her best friend sort of paled in comparison to another dimension and creatures trying to kill them.

"Say something," he begged, but Diana didn't know what to say. She did know, though, that she hadn't planned on kissing Steve Harrington when he climbed through her window that night, but plans changed.

Because she'd hardly ever been good at saying how she felt—because she was just good at making mistakes—and because she stupidly loved him too, she fisted the front of his shirt and pulled him closer to her until their lips were pressed firmly together. For a moment, they were both still. Then she wasn't sure if he moved first or if she did, but he was kissing her and she was kissing him, and it was like coming up for air after years of not having any.

His lips were gentle against hers at first, but she pressed harder against him, snaking an arm around his neck and a hand into his hair. Steve rarely ever let anyone touch his hair, but he never had a problem when it came to her.

He wrapped an arm around her waist and dragged a hand up her spine, his lips opening above hers. Their mouths moved together heatedly. Diana felt something spark in her chest as he pushed her backward onto the bed.

Their lips met with a new vigor, but she broke away and he proceeded to trail his lips down her jaw but paused himself to catch his breath. His cheek was pressed closely to hers. "I should tell you that I'm moving then—to Evansville."

She felt the moment he tensed above her then he suddenly pushed himself away, going onto his back next to her. "That's—that's—why?"

Diana watched his face, which was filled with confusion and concern. "I got into their university."

His expression slowly turned to one of realization.

"Congratulations," he said earnestly, then as if she didn't know, "That's four hours away."

"Depends on how fast you drive," she whispered. "If you still want to see me."

He took her hand in his and squeezed. "Of course—of course. I just never thought that if we ever got here it would have to be long distance."

Her brows furrowed with sadness and thought of the days that remained of August and what they would have of September. "We still have the summer."

"We always had summer, Diana," he murmured, blowing out a breath of humorless laughter. "What happens when you meet some other guy whose got his whole life planned—"

"You're being ridiculous," she said, sitting up, lightly throwing a hand over his mouth and straddling his waist. His eyes widened, but she promptly ignored  that. "If we want this to work, this is how it's gonna go: we're gonna spend the summer together—like we planned. We'll see each other whenever we can on weekends, and we'll see each other on every holiday you can think of, and we'll call each other all the time. Nod if you understand."

He nodded, and she pulled her hand away from his mouth only to see that he was smiling now, though a bit subdued. "So how's the future looking for us?"

"I don't know." And for that she was glad because there was something glorious about the unknown when it came to him and their relationship. Like she'd said though, it wouldn't be easy and people would talk, and she would be plagued by visions of a future that did not include them, but that would be a problem for another day, as all their problems tended to be until they weren't. "Isn't that great?"

Steve shrugged as she went onto her back beside him. He leaned over, kissing her cheek, then, as if remembering he could, kissing her lips. "Let's do dinner tomorrow then."

"I want to check in on Max tomorrow," she murmured. "Maybe next week?"

His face turned solemn at that, and she knew that he had long since begun to care for the girl too. "Sure. The 9th sound good?"

"Perfect."

°°°

Things with Max were, expectedly, not great, and even though she'd allowed Diana entrance into her room, she didn't have much to say about anything at all actually. Diana had simply promised her that she hadn't wanted to talk about heavy shit that would make both of them, especially Max, feel bad. She'd brought Max new editions of Wonder Woman comics and snacks and when she realized the girl would continue to be taciturn, she'd decided that it was better to take the inch she'd been given and leave the girl to her own devices.

She'd patted the girl's shoulder and said, "If you want to talk, I promise I'm here, and I can be tight lipped about it if you want me to be." She'd recalled the girl's absent parents when she'd entered the house. "And if you wanted to stay over a night or two or a week or three, Lucas wouldn't be a bother, and we wouldn't even have to talk really."

She should've probably stopped offering her room—her home—up as a safe haven, but she couldn't help herself. When Max didn't reply, she'd murmured a goodbye and reached for the door handle.

"Diana?" The girl had called from her bed where she'd lain on her side. She gazed back at the redhead. "Thanks."

Diana had given her a small smile. "Yeah. Just call if you need something." Then she lightly shut the door and showed herself out.

That was last week. Max hadn't called, but Diana knew she would eventually.

For now, Diana had a date to enjoy at Enzo's Italian Restaurant.

She and Steve had both been a little nervous at the start of it, but then they seemed to remember that they'd been friends for nearly nine months before that moment. Then they laughed at how serious everything felt at the establishment and agreed that maybe that's why the food was so good. He told her how he had a crush on her in seventh grade, and she didn't believe him.

"It's true, it's true," he promised, smiling widely. "You had big curls and you wore this pink jacket and you always had your head in your sketchbook. I thought you were the prettiest girl in Ms. Johnson's class."

"You remember all that?"

"Crush, remember?" He laughed. "And I left a note for you in your desk and you never replied."

Her brows furrowed. "I never got it, and I never had any precognition of it or anything, but I wasn't really good at any of that back then."

"I took that 'rejection' to heart, y'know?" Steve groaned, shaking his head, disappointed with himself. "That's why I was so stupid and why I said the things I did."

She'd forgiven him for that a long time ago.

"Some middle school vendetta, huh?" His cheeks turned red at that and he looked down, a perfectly placed strand of hair temporarily floating away from his forehead. She took a moment to admire him once more. His suit jacket was pressed over a white button down that he had neglected buttoning the first two buttons of. His brown eyes were bright, and she assumed hers mirrored his. She'd felt freer than she had in months— a feeling that would probably only last until morning.

Truth was that even though his words had hurt her, she never hated him for it.

"It was stupid, I know, and then you just got prettier," he murmured like it wasn't fair. Her cheeks heated under his gaze, and she was happy it would go unnoticed. "And everyone wanted to know you, but you wouldn't let them."

"I wasn't good company back then."

"C'mon. Were any of us?" They both laughed at that. High school wasn't exactly filled with the most pleasant of people. "I felt alone for a lot those years, and I thought you were just checked out of all of it, and when I saw you at that party last year—"

"It was a surprise," she finished, nodding then she decided to give up a few truths too. "I was always so afraid back then, and I was in denial for most of junior year. Perfect timing too because guess who went missing and guess who couldn't see it happening." She gave him a weak smile.

"Uh, wow..." He said, trailing off.

When he didn't continue, Diana took a sip of her sparkling water and frowned. "Yeah, I convinced myself that I was better off without the whole being a psychic thing, and I managed to block months worth of visions from my mind, and I'd never do it again. Never."

Steve reassured her that the past didn't matter and that they'd made it out of the woods. Then their conversation moved back to lighter topics, and the night ended with her lips on his and his arms around her and playful goodbyes. Reality had come to take them from the bubble of serenity that Enzo's had created for them, and any moment now, death and trauma and sadness would arrive to take their rightful places at the forefronts of their minds.

Regardless of this, when he'd pulled away, she'd looped her arms around his neck and whispered promises that she didn't know she would never be able to keep.

You'll never have to be alone again, Steve Harrington.

All we have is time.

When the truth of the matter was that time had never been her friend. Not for one moment.

Not for one goddamn second.

hey! really, really sorry for how long this is. thanks for reading.
-syd