• 𝙴𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝙱𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑 𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚃𝚊𝚔𝚎 - 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙿𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚌𝚎 •

Everyone followed Joyce into Will's room when she abruptly stood up from the table. They saw his unconscious body still in a hospital gown as he laid on his bed.

"He likes it cold." She mumbled as everyone felt a cool breeze from the open window.

"What?"

"It's what Will kept saying to me. He likes it cold." She repeats as she shuts the windows. "We keep giving it what it wants."

"If this is a virus, and Will's the host, then..." Nancy trails off.

"Then we need to make the host uninhabitable." Jonathan finished.

Wow. Finishing each other's sentences? Aw! Couple of the year! Sorry, not a good time.

"So if he likes it cold..."

"We need to burn it out of him," Joyce concludes.

"We have to do it somewhere he doesn't know this time," Mike reminds.

Dustin agrees, "Yeah, somewhere far away."

Apparently, Hopper has some place in the woods and that's where he's telling Jonathan to go as he brings Will's body and puts him in the back seat of their car. Bea was pacing all around the living room. She needs to find a way to convince Joyce to let her go.

"Joyce!" She calls as she chases the woman out the of house.

She turned around with a fake assured smile, "Hunny, go back inside where it's safe."

"No. I don't mean to disrespect you, Mrs. Byers, but I'm going whether you like it or not." Beatrice stands her ground. She is not going to give up without a fight. Not when it comes to Will. Not anymore.

Joyce sighs as she thinks about it, "Okay. You can come. But, hurry." The girl smiles brightly that she got through to her.

Beatrice quickly says goodbye to everyone and hugs them all. She sits in the back with Joyce and unconscious Will as Jon backs out of the driveway with Nancy in the passenger seat. Bea stared out the back window as she slowly waved to her friends.

The ride wasn't too long, which everyone was grateful for. They pulled up to a cabin in the woods. It's not like every horror movie and/or book starts out this way or anything...

"It's actually kinda nice." Nancy comments on the interior of the cabin once they walked in.

It really is nice. Except the wooden planks over the windows, and the glass shards scattered across the floor. But, we won't talk about that.

After looking around, Joyce confirms, "We'll do it here."

The Byers moved a cot around to have it next to the fireplace and placed Will down on it. They also tied him up so when he's awake, he can't go anywhere. Nancy stocked up on wood to burn, while Bea helped rearrange heaters to face her best friend.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Bea questions.

"This thing has had Will long enough." Jonathan answers.

Joyce breathes heavily as she stares at her son, "Let's kill the son of a bitch."

Nancy and Beatrice turned on all of the hot equipment they brought, and Jon lights the fire pit. The house must be scorching hot for this to work. And then they wait for any movement.

Will slowly begins to wake up after a while. All of the other participants have taken off their jackets because of the heat. They were sweating in unimaginable places.

The boy gasps up from the bed and tugs on the ropes holding him down. "What's happening?" He pulls harder on the restraints. "It hurts!"

He keeps moving and screaming about the heat hurting him. The cot never completely situated on the floor. He starts screaming at them to let him go. Instead of doing that, Joyce turns the heat all the way up.

Beatrice turns around as his screams grow louder. She can't see him like this. She should've listened to Joyce and not come. It hurts too much, and if she keeps seeing him struggle, she is going to want to let him go. But she knows she can't, and it would just be hurting him more.

Will shakes back and forth. His brother found comfort in Nancy as he cries into her shoulder. Joyce was watching with a clenched jaw as memories of Bob flashed through her eyes. She's not just doing this for her son, but for everyone this monster has taken.

"It's not working. Mom, are you listening to me?" Jonathan shouts over his brother's screams.

"Just wait!"

"How much longer?" Beatrice cries to Joyce.

"Look... look at him!" Black veins clouded his body and face. It was the Mind Flayer in him trying to escape the heat.

"Jonathan, wait!"

"You're killing him!"

"Just wait!"

"No!"

"No, leave it!" Joyce yells to her oldest when he tries to turn the heat off. They're so close! So close to getting this thing out of her boy.

"You're killing him!"

"Leave it!"

All the yelling and commotion is too much for Bea. She needs to make them stop. Make the noise stop.

And so she did. The only way she knew how.

She screamed.

Everyone stopped what they were doing. With covered ears, they turned to Bea.

When she stopped screaming, Joyce put her hands on her shoulders and asked, "What— what happened? Did someone die?" The woman was shaking.

Beatrice shook her head 'no' as she looked at Will. With the room silent, she pointed at him. "Look at his neck."

Will was choking as these black lines covered his face. His body shook with more power than before. He snapped out of the restrictions and grabbed his mother by her neck, choking her.

Though, it is important to know that this is not Will. It's the mind flayer trying to hold onto his body.

Nancy burned the fire-stick and poked Will with it, ultimately causing him to let go of his mother. He screamed from the pain as Joyce fell back. He suddenly stopped moving before opening his mouth once more and screaming. This time, what looked like black smoke flew out of his body from his mouth. It grew as a cloud above the five before flying away with so much force that it broke Jim's door.

As they watch it leave the cabin, the Byers began to disconnect the heaters and put out the fire. But Nancy and Bea were too curious. The ran after it and watched the smoke disappear into the night sky.

They walked back in and quickly took note of Joyce and Jonathan crying to Will's sweaty and unconscious body, begging him to wake up. They needed to know that it worked.

Then his eyes slowly open as he takes in who's in front of him. "Mom?"

The Byers tackle each other in a family hug as Bea and Nance watched from the sidelines, hugging each other. They didn't want to intrude on the family moment.

But eventually, the girls stepped forward and sat together. Jonathan walkied to Hopper and told him that it was time to close the gate. Soon enough all the lights grew very bright in the cabin. It was hard to miss since it was so blinding.

But, as soon as they shut off, they knew one thing was certain.

Eleven closed the gate. And they could only hope that they were now safe.

•••••

Later on in the month, Nancy, Jonathan and Murray Bauman all came forward about the lab. Not completely, because people wouldn't believe them. But their proof was enough to shut the lab down for good.

Beatrice stood in the middle of her mother and father at Barbara's funeral. After all this time, they can finally move on. And, well, move.

But not until the end of the school year. The Holland's agreed that Beatrice can finish her last year of middle school as well as go to the snow ball tonight. They only allowed it if they could drop her off and pick her up.

When getting dressed, she kept checking herself in the mirror. She was so nervous. Was she pretty enough in her dress? Was her hair curled enough?

And most importantly... Would she dance with Will Byers?

The past two years have been crazy. What if he doesn't like her more than a friend? What if he thinks of her as a sister? That would just be gross.

Inhaling sharply, she walked out of her room. Her parents were waiting for her in the living room and once they saw her, they stopped everything they were doing.

"Awww, my baby is so beautiful!" Marsha cooed at her daughter. She ran and gave her a big hug and a dozen kisses on the top of her head.

"Thanks, mom," Bea chuckled.

They took some pictures — more than some — and then it was time to go. They brought Bea to the middle school and waved goodbye from the car after she told them a time to pick her up.

As their car drove away, those dang nerves came back when she saw the entrance to the school. Exhaling deeply, she walked in, handing her ticket at the table where Mr. Clarke was.

When she opened the doors to the gymnasium, she was amazed at how pretty it looked. She was in such a daze that she almost walked straight into Nancy's punch table.

"Woah, Bea?"

"Hey, Nance."

"You look beautiful tonight. Dressing to impress?" Nancy suggestively winks.

"Um, no." Beatrice coughs awkwardly, "It's just a dance. Not here to impress anyone."

"Hm, okay." Nancy nodded, totally believing her. "The group is over there." She pointed to the back tables where Bea saw all of her friends standing.

And she was off. On her way to her friends. She was so nervous to see Will that her hands were sweating.

When she hears Lucas ask, "Is there a bird nesting in there?" she couldn't believe that he was talking to Dustin.

"What did you do to your beautiful curls!!" Beatrice quietly screamed at her friend.

This caught the attention of the rest of them as they turned to her. No one said anything, they just stared.

Beatrice cleared her throat and said, "I would say, 'take a picture, it'll last longer' but, the photobooth is over there." She pointed behind her to where Jonathan was taking kids pictures.

"Bea, you look beautiful!" Max complimented as she gave her friend a hug.

"Thank you. You look gorgeous," she replied. "Right, Lucas?" Her question was asked at the perfect timing because a slow song started playing over the speakers.

Kids all around them started to dance together. Lucas nodded in agreement to the question and faced Max.

"Max... Hey. Um, it's nice, right?" He asks, talking about the music, "You want to, um... You want to, like... you know? Like, just you and me?"

"Are you trying to ask me to dance, stalker?" Max questions.

"Ohhhhh, that's what he was trying to say." Sarcasm dripped from Bea's every word. She only received a middle finger in return which had her, Will and Mike chuckle quietly.

"No, of course not." Lucas answered Max's question, ignoring Beatrice's comment, "Unless you want to."

"So smooth." Max chuckles. "Come on." She grabs his hand and drags him onto the dance floor.

Bea placed a hand on Dustin's shoulder soothingly. She knows about his crush for the redhead. Looking back at his friend he asks, "Do you—?"

"No. Sorry, Dust." She pats his back.

"Hey, zombie boy." A brunette girl walks up to the group, "Do you want to dance?" She asks Will.

"Um... I don't..." He stammers as he looks at his friends, especially to see Bea's reaction but her head is down, "I mean... I mean, yeah. Sure." He agreed after Mike sent him an encouraging smile.

Beatrice's head snaps up. Of course. Why would he even say yes? She literally insulted him. Does she even know his real name?

Mike seemed to be the only one to notice both Bea's glare and Will's longing stare as he walked onto the dance floor.

"Oh, shit, Bea. I— I didn't know you liked—"

"Stop talking," Beatrice cut Mike off. She let out a big sigh, "I'm getting a drink." Walking with her head down she went back to Nancy.

"One shot, please."

"One shot of fruit punch coming right up." Nancy chuckled. When she didn't hear Bea laugh along, she looked up to see what dampened her mood, "Bea?"

Nancy filled the girls cup with punch. "Yeah, yeah. I was dressing to impress. But, it doesn't matter. Will's dancing with some girl who called him 'zombie boy'."

"Those Byers, huh? Takes them a while to catch on, but they'll realize soon enough."

After downing the cup, she looked up at Nance and wondered,  "How did you and Jonathan get together?"

"Um, that's a story for when you're older." Nancy spoke with red-tinted cheeks.

"Okay." She shrugged. She didn't really care too much.

"Hey, I have to go." Nancy walks away quickly. Beatrice was going to ask why she was rushing, but then saw who she was walking to. She's going to ask Dustin to dance so he isn't alone.

Sighing, Beatrice filled another cup of fruit punch and started heading towards the gym doors, but a voice stopped her.

"Where are you going?"

There were two voices.

Looking up, she saw Eleven in a beautiful blue dress with a red belt. And when she turned around, she saw Will, waiting for an answer.

"Um, I..." She stammers. She looked back to El but she had already left to find Mike. Thanks, El.

"I... uh, I was going to go home," Bea admits.

The boy was confused. "Why?"

"Because I have nothing to do here," she shrugged.

"Why would you think that?" He steps closer to her.

"Because everyone has a partner to dance with. Even Dustin is dancing with Nance. Why are you even here? Shouldn't you be dancing with that brown haired girl?"

"Bea, are you jealous?"

She scoffs. "Are you... Are you serious?"

"Well, you directly commented about that girl, so..."

"I meant, are you seriously that dumb to even have to ask?"

What Beatrice didn't expect from her small confession was for Will to walk up to her and kiss her. It was short and it was weird, but it meant so much to her. She only hoped it meant that much for him, too.

When they pulled away, the both of them smiled and walked onto the dance floor, hand-in-hand. They spent the rest of the night dancing with their friends and having a great time with each other.

When Nancy and Bea were near each other, Bea agreed, "You're right. They realize soon enough."

•••••

(🕰) T TIME!

and that's a wrap on season two!!

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