"Cate, oh, my god. You're not going to believe what happened today... Those aren't yours." Dustin frowned as he barged into her room just after hearing her get in. He pointed at the sweat pants that were obviously way to long for her.

    "Huh? Oh, yeah. They're not." Cate shrugged, grabbing some of her own pjs to change into.

Dustin moved closer towards her and sighed.

    "Are you drunk?" He asked curiously.

    "No." Cate scoffed.

    "Well, you at least had alcohol. I can smell it." Dustin crossed his arms across his chest.

    "What did you need, Dustin. I'd really like to go to sleep." She sighed.

    "Hold on." Dustin sighed and left the room.

She huffed and changed quickly into her pjs before sliding underneath her covers. Dustin knocked on the door again and walked inside with a glass of water and some pills.

    "To make sure you don't have a terrible hangover." He gave her the glass and pills, which she gratefully accepted.

    "Thanks, Dusty." Cate said quietly.

    "No problem." He gave his big sister a smile and sat on the edge of her bed. Grin growing bigger by the second. "El has super powers."

Cate nearly spat out the second gulp of water from her mouth.

    "What?!"

Dustin spent at least the next hour explaining to his sister everything he had witnessed. How El shut Mike's bedroom door on them just by doing it with her mind. How she recognized Will in one of his pictures. That bad people are after her. Will was apparently hiding from something, and Dustin explained that she placed their Demogorgon D&D piece on the board, stating that's what he was hiding from. He even told her about what they were planning to do the next day. By going to the power lines to try and look for Will again with El showing them the way. And that they all agreed they wanted her to join them. Cate agreed without hesitation.

The next morning they got up early and Cate drove Dustin over to Mike's house. The two barreling down the stairs into the basement. El's face lit up at the sight of her as Cate stepped off the last step, before going back to playing with Mike's walkie talkie radio.   

    "Hi, El." Cate greeted her happily.

    "Hi." Eleven smiled up at her, before again going back to the radio.

    "Cate! Oh, good. I'm glad you're here." Mike said quickly.

    "Thanks. Sounds like I missed quite a bit yesterday." She pointed out and looked back at El.

    "Yeah. But it's okay, though. You'll get caught up. So, this is our plan. We are going to tell our parents that we are staying at the AV Club after school. That'll give us at least a few hours for Operation Mirkwood. I'm assuming Dustin explained." Mike asked.

    "Yeah, he did." She nodded.

    "You seriously think that the weirdo knows where Will is?" Lucas asked with doubt lacing his voice.

    "Just trust me on this, okay?" Mike huffed. "Did you get the supplies?"

    "Yeah." Lucas nodded and pulled out his backpack. "Binoculars... from 'Nam. Army knife... also from 'Nam. Hammer, camouflage bandana... and the wrist rocket." Lucas boasted excitedly.

    "Whoa, whoa. What the heck do you guys think we're fighting here?" Cate questioned after seeing Lucas collection of items.

    "Yeah, you think you're gonna take out the Demogorgon with a slingshot?" Dustin scoffed.

    "First of all, it's a wrist rocket." Lucas corrected him. "And second of all, the Demogorgon's not real. It's made up. But if something is out there, I'm gonna shoot it in the eye." Lucas whipped the slingshot, making the two younger ones jump. "And blind it."

    "Dustin, what did you get?" Mike asked diverting the conversation.    

He grabbed his backpack and dumped out a whole bunch of snacks on the table. Cate rolled her eyes seeing the snacks her brother packed, realizing that's why he was raiding the kitchen before they left.

    "All right. We got Nutty Bars, Bazooka, Pez, Smarties, Pringles, Nilla Wafers, Apple, Banana and Trail Mix." Dustin smiled up at the other three.     

    "Seriously?" Lucas sighed.

    "We need energy for our travels. For stamina."

    "Dusty, this is like the worst selection of snacks you could have picked for a mission. Hardly any of this is healthy." Cate scoffed, tossing the Nutty bar she picked up back down on the table.

    "Hey, I did my best. Besides, why do we even need weapons anyways?" He scoffed. "We have her."

    "She shut one door!" Lucas exclaimed.

    "With her mind!" Dustin yelled back. "Are you kidding me? That's insane! Imagine all the other cool stuff she could do. Cate hasn't even seen it yet. Watch." Dustin said excitedly.

He walked over towards Eleven and grabbed Mike's Millennium Falcon toy ship and held it up.

    "I bet that she could make this fly." He held it out standing in front of Eleven. "Hey. Hey. Okay, concentrate. Okay?" He let it go from his hands only for it to fall straight to the ground. "Okay, one more time. Okay. Use your powers, okay?" He asked her slowly and proceeded to drop the toy ship again.    

    "Idiot." Lucas scoffed.

    "Okay, Dustin." Cate quickly moved him away from her. "Sorry, El. My brother's a little overwhelming sometimes." She hissed at him.

    "Yeah, she's not a dog!" Mike quickly scooped up his toy and frowned at him.

    "Kids!" Mrs. Wheeler's voice called out from the door to the top of the basement. "Time for school!"

    "Come on guys. See you later, El." Cate waved at her and quickly ran up the stairs.

She climbed into the front seat, Dustin climbed into the passenger seat and Lucas climbed into the back. After a few minutes Mike finally emerged from the house, running to the car. After everyone was all settled she brought the boys to the middle school and took herself to the high school. Cate was at her locker when Nancy came up beside her.

    "Hey."

    "Hey. Have you seen Barb yet?" Nancy asked and Cate looked at her confused.

    "Uh, no. Not yet, why?" She asked curiously grabbing her books.

    "Oh, no reason... I just haven't seen her yet. She's usually here before me." Nancy sighed with a frown.

    "Hmm, well. I'll send her to you if I see her. But, how did last night go?" Cate asked wiggling her brows.

    "Shut up." Nancy hissed playfully, while pulling her closer against the lockers. "Did you happen to say anything to anyone about last night?"

    "Uh, no? Who would I tell? I'm friends with you and Steve. That's about it. Why?" She asked curiously.

    "I just feel like everyone's staring." She whispered and they both looked around. She didn't appear to be wrong. People were looking at her. Cate frowned and shrugged.

    "Maybe talk to Steve. I haven't seen him yet. But I doubt he said anything about whatever the two of you did. He can be a grade A douche sometimes, but he's not like that." Cate assured her with a gentle hand on her shoulder.

Cate left and went to class, and soon enough lunch rolled around. She hadn't seen Nancy yet, so she took her usual seat next to Steve and, unfortunately, Tommy and Carol.

    "That's why science doesn't make any damn sense to me." Tommy explained shoveling more food into his mouth. Cate cringed as Carol suddenly lifted her foot and placed it on the table.

    "I swear, look at this. It's totally frostbite." She complained.

    "Oh, thanks man." Tommy grinned as Steve gave him his pudding cup.   

    "It's a heated pool, you literally can't get frostbite." Cate rolled her eyes in annoyance.

    "Well, if it's not frostbite, genius, then what is it?" Carol scoffed.

    "I don't care what it is. It's disgusting!" Steve groaned leaning his head into Cate's shoulder to avoid looking.    

    "Seriously, we're trying to eat." Cate gagged.

Nancy came and sat down on the other side of Steve. She and Cate exchanged looks, leading her to believe she hadn't seen Barb yet, leaving yet another pit in Cate's stomach. She wasn't very close to Barb, but she still liked the girl as a person. They were friendly and she'd hate to see something bad happen to her.

    "Hey, Tommy?" Nancy spoke up. "When you left, did you see Barb?" She asked hopefully.

    "What?" Tommy raised a brow, acting clueless.

    "Barbara, you dingus." Cate scoffed. Tommy sent her a small playful glare.

    "She's not here today." Nancy said softly.

    "I seriously have no idea who you're talking about." Tommy said, making himself and Carol let out a set of snorts in amusement.

Nancy looked down at the floor with a sigh and Steve noticed.

    "Come on, man. Don't be an ass. Did you?" Steve asked roughly. "Did you see her leave last night or not?"

    "No, she was gone when we left." Tommy gave in, speaking in an annoyed tone.

    "Probably couldn't stand listening to all that moaning." Carol pointed out rudely and Tommy let out a soft snort. Cate nearly choked on her own pudding as Carol started pretending to moan in the middle of the cafeteria. "Ooh. Oh, Steve. Oh, Steve! Oh, Steve!"

    "Oh, Steve!" Tommy mocked laughing.

Cate watched them, sick to her stomach for more than one reason. It sucked knowing Steve had did it with her, but it sucked more that he was grinning proudly as his friends literally made fun of Nancy right in front of her. Cate was right, he could be a Grade A douchebag sometimes.

Carol slapped the table, making her mocking moans even louder and Cate peered over at Nancy who looked extremely embarrassed. Cate huffed and jabbed her elbow down onto Steve's leg that was crossing over the other underneath the table. He hissed in pain and glared at her. Cate made angry eyes at him gesturing to Nancy and then Tommy and Carol.

    "Okay, guys..." Steve said trying to cover his laugh with a cough. "Listen, I'm sure she's fine. She's probably just... She's probably just, like, skipping or something." Steve patted her leg under the table to comfort her, but Nancy didn't look amused.

    "Yeah, yeah. Probably." Nancy frowned slightly, speaking as if to reassure herself.

    "Ahem. Hey, I'm done you wanna come?" Cate directed at Nancy standing up from the table.

Nancy had never looked more grateful in her life. Nodding quickly and standing up from the lunch she had hardly touched.

    "I'll come too." Steve said about to get up, but Cate grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back down.

    "Uh, no. This is just girl talk. Bathroom. You can't come." Cate said quickly and grabbed Nancy's hand rushing off. Steve watched them leave a tad bit confused, but he shrugged and stayed nonetheless.

    "So when exactly was the last time you saw Barb?" Nancy asked as they moved through the halls towards the front of the school.    

    "After changing. I walked by you, then down the stairs. She seemed a little upset and I asked if she wanted someone to walk her to her car and she said, no, that she'd be waiting for you." Cate explained. "I just have a bad feeling about this... First Will. Now Barb. And Barb would never skip." She shook her head.

    "Yeah, I know and me too. Maybe we could just call her house. Maybe she got sick or something?" Nancy suggested and Cate agreed.

The finally made it out front of the school and Nancy jumped onto the pay phone.

    "Come on. Pick up, pick up." Nancy was nearly pacing while standing still, listening to the ringing of the phone. Cate rubbed her arm reassuringly. "Hi. Hi, Ms. Holland, it's Nancy."

    "Oh, Nancy, how are you?" Ms. Holland said on the other end of the phone. Cate pressed her ear near the receiver alongside Nancy, who willingly shared.

    "Good. I'm good. Um, I was just wondering if, uh, Barb is there?" Nancy asked casually.

    "Mmm. Nope. She hasn't come home yet."

    "But she did come home right?" Nancy asked quickly. "After the vigil?"

    "No, she said she was staying with you last night." Ms. Holland replied with a questioning tone.

    "Right, yes. She did, sorry. I meant... , did she come home this morning? I think she left some textbooks and she was gonna go pick them up..." Nancy explained quietly.

    "Oh, um, I haven't seen her."

Cate gave Nancy a look to shut it down, before she made her Mom suspicious.

    "Do— Do you know what? I just remembered, she's at the library..." Nancy said trying to brush it off.

    "Nancy, will you please have her call me as soon as you find her?"

    "Yeah. I will. Sorry to bother you." Nancy said and quickly hung up the phone.

    "Well that didn't go so well..." Cate sighed. She ran her hands through her long hair.

    "No. It didn't, did it?" Nancy sighed.

The school bell rang at the end of the day, and Cate and Nancy walked out towards her car. Nancy was staying after with Steve for the football game. But Nancy wanted to walk Cate to her car, hoping maybe Steve would be there since he wasn't by her locker. As they neared the parking lot, Cate noticed Steve, Tommy, Carol, and Nicole, one of Carol's little groupies. They were leaning on Jonathan Byer's car as he approached them, they began to confront him about something. Cate picked up the pace assuming it wasn't good.   

    "Hey, Man." Steve said casually hoping off Jonathan's car.

    "What's going on?" Jonathan asked nervously.

    "Nicole here was, uh, telling us about your work." Steve stated to him, clearly pissed off.

    "We've heard great things." Carol said sarcastically.

    "Yeah, sounds cool." Tommy agreed with a scoff.

    "Yeah, we'd just love to take a look, you know, as... connoisseurs of art." Steve said.

    "I don't know what you're talking about." Jonathan sighed and tried to break through them to get to his car door.

Tommy swooped in and grabbed his bag from off his shoulder.

    "Hey!"

    "Oh, no?" Steve scoffed.

    "Please, just give me my bag..." Jonathan asked desperately.

    "Man, he's totally trembling. He must really have something to hide. Here we go." Steve began looking through the bag, before pulling out a collection off freshly developed photos. "Ah, here we go." He looked down at them, flipping through them one by one. "Oh, man." Steve frowned.

    "Let me see." Tommy said. Steve handed him a few of the pictures, trying to give ones without Cate indecently pictured. But Tommy grabbed at a few before he could stop him.

The photos were from his party last night. Starring him, Tommy, Carol, and a lot of Cate and Nancy. Steve's blood began to boil inside him seeing the pictures, specially as he reach a few provocative ones. Cate taking her shirt off at the pool, showing her only in her bra. The two of them falling in the pool together. Cate in the window of his bedroom, bare backed as she changed. Nancy in her bra at the window before they got together that night. It made him feel possessive and angry that someone would do this to either of them. But he couldn't control the anger he felt over Cate the most. She was his best friend, his person to protect. To care for.

    "Dude." Tommy scoffed and Carol grabbed the photos from him.

    "Yeah, this isn't creepy at all." Carol said disgusted.

    "I-I was looking for my brother." Jonathan tried to excuse himself.

    "No." Steve stated firmly, shaking his head. "No, this is called stalking."

    "Uh, guy's what's going on?" Cate asked quickly, making it to the group of people.   

    "Here's the starring lady's." Tommy grinned at them both and Cate frowned confused.

    "What?" She scoffed and crossed her arms.

    "What?" Nancy asked confused.

    "This creep was spying on us last night." Carol explained, glaring at Jonathan. "He was probably going to save this one for later." She smirked, pulling some of the pictures from Steve's hands and holding out one to her and Nancy.

    "Jonathan?" Cate asked him concerned and he looked down to the ground.

She took the picture from Carol and looked at the black and white image. It was of her bare back in Steve's window as she changed. She wanted so badly not to be mad at Jonathan, but she suddenly felt really violated and insecure that he did this. In all honesty, no one had ever seen her in such a compromising position before. Her face paled a little bit as she looked up at him. Jonathan still looked down at the ground, unwilling to meet her eyes. Steve noticed the exchanged and his blood boiled again as Cate hugged the picture close to her, wrapping her arms around herself self-consciously.    

    "See," Steve clicked his tongue. "You can tell that he knows it was wrong, but man, that's the things about perverts..." Steve said as he stepped up towards him, adjusting Jonathan's collar. "You know, they just can't help themselves." He began to rip up the pictures he had in his hand, making Cate and Nancy gasped. "So, you're going to stay away from Cate... And Nancy. You hear me? Freak. And to teach you a little lesson, we're gonna have to take away your toy."

    "Wait, Steve..." Cate said quietly.

As much as she felt super exposed right now, she didn't want Steve to do something especially on her behalf. Which she did catch his words and how he quickly he seemed to cover himself adding Nancy to the conversation. Internally she wanted to analyze it but now wasn't the time. Steve grabbed the camera from the bag and Jonathan's eye's widened. He took a step forward towards Steve.

    "No, please, not the camera." He begged and Tommy stopped Jonathan from moving any closer to Steve.

    "No, hey, hey, hey. Wait. Tommy, Tommy. It's okay." Steve assured him and Tommy chuckled as he backed off.

    "Steve..." Cate nearly whimpered as he held out the camera towards Jonathan. He paid her no mind, keeping his eyes on Jonathan.

    "Here you go, man." Steve said softly.

When Jonathan reached for the camera, he let it slip purposefully from his hands. It crashed to the ground, clearly broken, after hearing the sound of smashing glass. Cate held her hands over her mouth in shock and Tommy began laughing hysterically.

    "Come on, let's go. The games about to start." Steve said pleased and he walked right past Cate and Nancy.

Nancy gave her a look and Cate shook her head, telling her to go. Tommy and Carol followed after Steve, not before Carol ripped up more of the pictures and tossed them on the ground in front of him.

    "Jonathan..." Cate sighed and bent down to help him.

He quickly moved to grab his camera, still avoiding all eye contact with her. So she picked up a few of the pictures, noticing one of Barb sitting at the pool.

    "I'm sorry..." Jonathan mumbled slightly.

    "Hey, Cate!" Steve called out to her from across the road. His arm around Nancy. "Come on."

    "Uh..." She quickly picked up a few of the pictures and stuffed them in her pocket before walking backwards away from Steve, away from Jonathan. "I'm... I'm going home!" She yelled back and booked it to her car before anyone could stop her.

She climbed in and drove to the middle school, picking up the three who were outside waiting for her. She had stashed the pictures in the glove box and they drove towards Mike's house. She parked in front of the house instead of in the driveway. They ran to the house, each of them picking up a bike and heading towards the power lines in the woods where they were supposed to meet Eleven.

    "El!" Mike called out, seeing her in the distance. She looked a little lost in thought, until she turned to look at the four approaching bikes. "You okay?" She nodded at him slowly and he nodded back, before patting his bike seat. "Hop on. We only have a few hours."

They began to ride through the woods, until they reached a trail they had to push their bikes up. Cate watched with a small happy smile seeing Mike and El interact as they walked together in front of them. It seemed like they had a connection and it was cute. Even though, Lucas and Dustin didn't seem to over all pleased. Just after the sun began to go down they biked up the road, still following after Eleven. Cate recognized where they were immediately.

    "Why are we at Will's house?" Cate questioned uncomfortably.

She wasn't quite ready to see Jonathan again, even though it didn't look like his car was home.

    "Here." Eleven pointed at the house.

    "Yeah, this is where Will lives." Mike pointed out just as confused.

    "Hiding." Eleven stated.

    "No, no. This is where he lives." Mike stated again trying to seem more clear. "He's missing from here. Understand?"

Dustin dropped his bike and huffed trying to catch his breath. Cate and Lucas walked up just behind him.

    "What are we doing here?" Lucas asked annoyed.

    "She said he's hiding here." Mike said.

    "Um, no!" Lucas scoffed.

    "I swear, if we walked all the way out here for nothing." Dustin breathed heavily annoyed.

    "That's exactly what we did." Lucas complained. "I told you she didn't know what the hell she was talking about!"

    "Okay, Lucas. Calm down. I'm sure there's a reason she brought us here." Cate huffed dropping her bike and walking towards Eleven. "El, I need you to try to explain why you brought us here." She asked softly.

    "I-I..." She stammered nervously and Cate tried to smile to reassure her it was okay, but they all turned as Lucas spoke again.

    "Cate, don't waste your time with her."

    "Guys you've got to let her explain. Getting mad at her does nothing good." Cate explained.

    "No, listening to her does nothing good! She can hardly speak!" Lucas argued.

    "Hey." Cate stated firmly using a babysitter tone on them, making each of them shut up. She hardly ever was hard on them, unless things got to out of hand. "Let's not get snippy. Okay? I'm sure this is just as hard for her. So, let's just think about what else we can do since Will isn't here. Suggestions?" Cate asked.

    "Call the cops, like we should have done yesterday." Lucas said a bit calmer, not wanting to piss her off.

    "We are not calling the cops!" Mike argued quickly.

    "Hey, guys?" Dustin said softly as he walked forward.

He tugged on his sister's sleeve. She suddenly heard it too. Sirens.

Mike and Lucas started arguing with each other loudly ignoring them.

    "GUYS!" Cate and Dustin yelled.

The bickering and arguing stopped as the sirens were upon them blasting loudly as they sped up the road past the Byer's home. A sinking feeling hit Cate's stomach, knowing they were all thinking the same thing.

    "Will..." Mike breathed out.

    "Let's go. You cannot be seen." Cate whispered harshly and grabbed her bike.

The boys all nodded and followed after her as she peddled down towards the Quarry after the line of ambulances and police vehicles. She sped behind one of the ambulances and hid behind it ushering for the boys to come forward. The all stood and watched as they seemed to be dragging someone out from the water.

    "Oh, my god." Cate covered her mouth, seeing a small body being pulled out of the water.

    "It-it's not Will. It can't be." Mike shook his head in denial.

The body was fully out of the water and they brought it onto the shore, giving each of the kids a clear view. The boy with a bowl cut, a red vest on his torso...

    "It's Will. It's really Will..." Lucas said choking back tears.

    "Um, Come on. Come back..." Cate said quickly to the kids, ushering them away from the edge of the vehicle. They really didn't need to see this.

Dustin clung to his sister's side and she rubbed his back, while wrapping her other arm around a crying Lucas. She did her best to hold back her tears. She needed to be strong for them.

    "Mike..." Eleven said softly as she reached out for him.

To everyone's surprise Mike slapped her hand away.

    "Mike? Mike, what?" He scoffed angrily. "You were supposed to help us find him alive! You said he was alive!" Mike began to shout.

    "Mike, calm down..." Cate warned.

    "Why did you lie to us?" Mike's voice broke quieting down slightly. "What's wrong with you? What is wrong with you?"

    "Mike..." El said holding back her own tears.   

    "What?" He said angrily and she held her tongue. Mike brushed past her angrily and grabbed his bike.

    "Mike, come on." Lucas said through his tears. "Don't do this, man."

    "Mike, wait. Don't go alone!" Cate called out after him.

    "Mike, where are you going?" Dustin's voice quivered with his own sadness and tears coming through. "Mike!"

    "Come on, we need to get you home..." Cate sniffled slightly ushering the boys and El onward.

They dropped El off at the Wheeler's place letting her into the basement with Mike. She made sure Lucas got home safely and then the two of them went home after picking up the car and stuffing the bikes inside. When they pulled in they walked inside to see their mother quickly stand up from the couch and rush towards them.

    "Where were you? Did you see the news? Are you both all right?" She asked quickly hovering over them both.

Cate and Dustin couldn't take it anymore. They both broke down and cried in their mother's arms. Will Byers was gone.