SIXTEEN: REMEMBER THE STARS

VERONICA, JONATHAN, NANCY, AND MURRAY WERE HARD AT WORK in distributing the recordings they had made of Doctor Owens's confession. The words still sent chills down Veronica's spine. This man deserved everything he had coming to him. They made copy after copy of the tape, putting it and a letter with the full 'explanation' into envelopes and preparing them to be mailed to all major media outlets.

Finally, after what felt like forever, they were finished. Murray slammed the bottle of Vodka down on the table and poured everybody a glass as they celebrated.

Murray held up his glass for a cheer, "To taking down the man!"

"To taking down the man!" they all repeated, taking sips of their drinks.

After everyone was very much enjoying their drinks, Murray asked, "Those commie bastards sure know how to make a spirit, right. Am I right?"

He went to pour them another drink but Nancy stopped him, "Oh, no, that's enough. We, we have to drive."

Veronica had almost forgotten about going home. The thought seemed surreal, knowing the hard part of this mission was over. All that was left to do was return home.

Murray looked at them all in disbelief, "Drive? What, tonight?"

"Our parents..." Nancy mumbled the half-assed excuse, her words already starting to slur. This girl really could not handle her alcohol.

"Would be proud if they knew what you were up to," Murray insisted, continuing to pour the drinks (which Veronica was not opposed to). "Just tell 'em you're at Tammy's or Dawn's or whoever's... and take my guest room."

"I mean do... do you want to stay?" Nancy asked the two teens, an indecisive expression on her face.

The boy next to her shrugged, "Well, it is pretty late."

"My parents don't give a shit either way," Veronica sighed, "I'm fine with staying." Murray clapped and poured her another drink, which she was always thankful for. She was far too comfortable with drinking for her young age, maybe that was a problem but she didn't really care right now.

"Okay, I uh... could I use the sofa?" Jonathan asked. Veronica bit back a smirk knowing there was no way Jonathan was going to share a room (or bed, for that matter) with Nancy.

"Okay, I'm confused, what's going on here? Lover's quarrel?" Murray asked with an unimpressed look on his face.

Veronica snorted at the comment, but no one paid attention to her. Jonathan instead began to explain, "No, no. I mean, we're just friends."

Before Veronica could cut in with a genius comment about how she had kissed Nancy Wheeler the previous morning and Jonathan Byers certainly did not, Murray laughed, "You've told me a lot of shockers today, but that, that is the first lie."

"Actually, it's not," Veronica finally interrupted the conversation, "Because Nancy just broke up with her boyfriend and is actually kind of with me, so, yeah, they're just friends, but thanks for assuming I wasn't involved in the equation to begin with, most people don't."

Nancy bit back a smile and Murray just smiled. "That's the most I've heard you talk all day, Ronnie, can I call you Ronnie? My apologies, you just might wanna talk to Johnny boy here about the heart eyes he's giving your girlfriend."

Jonathan coughed, not liking how the attention pivoted to focus on him. "I, uh, what heart eyes? We're friends," Jonathan turned to face the two girls, "And uh since when were you two..."

"Since yesterday, keep up," Veronica spoke with a deadpan expression and monotone voice.

"I love a good ole case of the questioning," Murray said, laughing as he took a sip of his drink, "Always fun."

"It's never been questioning for me," Veronica got ready to defend herself, but she was cut off by Murray.

He shook his head, "I meant her. You mentioned the ex-boyfriend? She wants to be safe and go back to... name?"

"Steve," Jonathan supplied.

Murray nodded, "Ah, Steve. We like Steve?"

Nancy nodded, "Yes, yeah."

"But we don't love Steve."

"I... I do!" Nancy sounded more like she was trying to convince herself rather than anyone else in the room.

"Second lie of the night!" Murray exclaimed, "Steve is safe, right? The nice guy..."

"The nice guy who kissed my best friend," Veronica muttered, earning appalled looks from Nancy and Jonathan and a satisfactory look from Murray.

Nancy looked at her in disbelief, "What? When?"

"The night you two more or less broke up," Veronica explained, "He was drunk, you stormed out on him, that's all I know, dude. Heather felt super bad about it, though."

"Ah, and now Heather steps into the story!" Murray sounded incredibly entertained, "So... Nancy, you've got good ole Johnny here who so has the hots for you, you've got Ronnie, and you... well, you used to have Steve. You must be the prettiest girl in Hawkins."

"I don't... I don't like her," Jonathan tried to defend himself, but even Veronica could see that it was futile.

Nancy bit her lip, "This is fucked up. I can't believe they... was it the first time they kissed?"

"Still hung up on that? Okay," Veronica shrugged, "Uh, as far as I know of, yeah. Heather's big on not messing with other girl's boyfriends, she got cheated on freshman year so."

The brunette shook her head, "Right, shit, forgot about that. I... I need another drink." She took a swig of the vodka in her cup before slamming it back onto the table. "I'm going to sleep, where's your guest bedroom."

Murray pointed her in the right direction, a giddy smile on his face. Nancy left the room, more or less slamming the door of the guest bedroom, leaving just the three.

"Well, only one can take the couch, but two can take the bed. Who will follow Miss Wheeler?" Murray asked as if this was some sort of game.

"You're sick," Veronica spoke, but there was no malice in her tone as she stood up, "Suck it, Byers, your crush has the hots for me."

"How do you know?" Jonathan scoffed while Murray just watched on in silence.

Now, for the moment Veronica had been waiting for since freshman year, she leaned in and whispered into Jonathan's ear, "I can describe in painstaking detail how she kissed me and very much did not kiss you. Would you like me to?"

Biting back some jack ass response, Jonathan shook his head before saying, "You'd think shared trauma would make you a bit of a nicer person."

"Nope," Veronica laughed as she more or less sashayed towards the guest bedroom. Things were looking up from here.

DANIEL HADN'T SPOKEN TO HIS BOYFRIEND IN TWO DAYS. Although he knew he and Mike were far enough along in their relationship to not be constantly seeing each other, it still hurt. Well, not necessarily hurt, Daniel just felt empty. He knew Mike wasn't gone for good, they would see each other on Monday at the very least, but not knowing what was going on with him was unnerving. However, there was more to focus on right now. Like the fact that not only had Dart escaped but that he had gotten bigger. How much bigger, they didn't know, which was the worst part. He and Heather leaned against Steve's car while Steve got the buckets of raw meat and other supplies out of the car.

"Thanks for being here, Daniel," Heather mumbled as she hung an arm loosely around her brother's shoulders, "I know you're probably worried about Mike."

"Well, setting bait for a monster from the Upside Down is better than sitting at home and waiting for my boyfriend to call like some loser."

"At least you have someone!" Dustin shouted from the behind the car before coming around to the side and standing next to the pair, "I still have no idea how to get Max to like me."

"Hey, 'nough girl talk!" Steve yelled, holding buckets in his hand and passing them out to all three of the others, "Let's get this shit done."

"You really are something else, Harrington," Heather laughed as she put on the gloves and took the bucket, "Ugh, this shit is nasty."

"Come on, we gotta get going, Lucas is meeting us at the junkyard," Dustin explained as the group started walking along the tracks.

Daniel sighed, "No Mike?"

The curly-haired boy shook his head, "Him and Will have been radio silent all day, sorry."

Daniel sighed. Still, they must soldier on as they had bigger fish to fry. They decided to split up, both starting from either side of the road so Dustin and Steve were walking along the tracks while Heather and Dustin were going around the other way. Pretty much as long as they walked in a straight line, they would make it to the junkyard. Daniel knew these woods like the back of his hand so there was little chance they would get lost.

As they said their brief goodbyes, Daniel pretended to look away as Steve kissed Heather's cheek before everyone went off in their separate directions.

"So..." Daniel broke the silence, a small smile gracing his soft features, "You and Steve?"

"Shut up," Heather pushed her brother slightly, laughing as he dropped the piece of meat he was holding from the slightest bit of force she put in. "I don't really know what's going on with us. I guess we'll talk about it when there isn't a baby Demogorgon on the loose."

"Yeah, I just want things to be okay," the younger boy sighed, throwing meat behind his shoulder occasionally as they walked, "Is it bad that it's been not even two days and I miss him?"

"That's what happens when you're in love," the girl huffed, using a gloved hand to push a curl behind her ear.

Daniel didn't like that answer. "We've been together for almost a year, you know that? It'll be a year since Will went missing in a few days and then a week after that is our anniversary. Isn't that weird?"

The dark-skinned laughed before saying, "Weird that my brother is in a long, stable relationship before I am? Absolutely. But if it's right, it's right. If it's love, it's love. You know?"

"Yeah," Daniel's cheeks were pink, but he could easily blame that on the cold. "I do love him, I just wish I knew he was okay. I mean, who knows what the hell is going on at the Byers house right now. For all we know the baby Demogorgon already got to him."

Heather nudged him softly on the shoulder. "Hey, thinking like that won't do you any good, trust me. Remember when I told you Will was probably dead?" The boy shuddered, remembering that night too clearly. He nodded. "And do you remember just how wrong I was? God, I was such a cynical bitch and look where that got me last year. I was chasing after a boy with a girlfriend and fighting monsters from an alternate dimension."

"Your point?"

"You're the one who told me to wait it out, to be patient and just live in the now," Heather explained further, but Daniel still hadn't quite caught on. "You've always been the optimistic one out of the two of us, why did you let that change?"

Daniel didn't have an answer for her. He wished he did. It had been too long since he spoke to his sister like this. It was reminiscent of their nights under the stars. Remembering these, he said, "We don't talk like we used to. I miss the stars."

"I miss them, too, Daniel. I miss them, too."

( note! )

oof okay i know a lot happened in this chapter ah im just tryna get shit done like bitch we already almost done with ep six can you believe?? i feel like it was YESTERDAY that i posted this story and now we at 75k reads and this book is almost over like what the fuCK

also, i thought this was beautiful and i need everyone to see it:

if any of y'all ship harringrove stop reading this pls