╭                                                                 ╮
━━━━ " 📂  "

𝙋 𝘼 𝙍 𝘼 𝘿 𝙄 𝙎 𝙀

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SADIE HAD WATCHED FAME BY HERSELF, and she had enjoyed it very much, Claudia coming and joining her towards the end of it, Dustin quickly sneaking past so not to be roped into watching it again.

After making sure that Mike and Eleven had gotten her bag with Dustin, Sadie had gone to bed herself, hoping that Nancy and Barb had managed to get home safely. She woke the next morning to her mom knocking on the door, and within an hour, she was ready to leave, having showered, changed and eaten before setting off for the day.

She felt sick - maybe it was something off with her breakfast, or that she was nearing her period and mistaking cramps for stomach ache - in the sense that it just sat dully in her stomach as she drove towards school alone.

Sadie had offered Dustin a lift there, but he wanted to go check up on Eleven first. Together they decided that she would come by later that day after school, so that she could also check up on the poor girl. Honestly, the older sister was still in shock over Eleven even being there, and really wanted to try and get her feeling as comfortable as she could be whilst Mike worked on getting her to talk a little bit more. Which was she assumed was their plan; trying to figure out where El came from.

In the mean time, she had stopped by the store as she left for school early and picked up the things she promised for Eleven before pulling up on the school parking lot, right beside the Ford LTD that belonged to Jonathan Byers.

Who was currently leaning on the hood of his car, waiting for her. "My mom is going crazy." He exclaimed as Sadie pushed open the door, leaning over to the passenger seat and dragging her bag over onto her shoulder. "I know it's a bad thing to say but she is - she really is."

"I believe you." Sadie blinked, slamming the door behind her and coming to a stop next to him. "Why is she going crazy?"

"It's insane - it's actually insane." Jonathan shook his head, hand clutching at the strap of her bag. "I woke up this morning and she was in Will's room - and she had all the lights in there in a circle."

He glanced over to Sadie, watching as she encouraged him on with a nod. "She wanted him to talk to her through the lights or something - she was convinced that he was trying to talk to her. It's crazy - she swore that he had shown her something and that something is making the bulb light up."

"It might the electricity from the storm." Sadie replied absentmindedly. Jonathan nodded; he had put that point across during the drive the day before, and he was glad that she wasn't thinking too much into it like his mom was. He couldn't quite deal with it all.

"But she thinks he isn't lost and something is going on... that it wasn't the storm that fried the electricity and something happened in the wall?" Jonathan screwed up his face, shaking his head. "He's just lost - she knows he's just lost and that he'll come home soon."

"You're right, he will." Sadie nodded. "But your mom struggled with anxiety right? It might be motherly grief, which can be incredibly strong.. and then that joined with her anxiety resurfacing is bringing on paranoia and maybe hallucinations."

"You think my mom is hallucinating things?"

"It's possible. She won't have slept enough... or it might be something simpler like she's seeing patterns that aren't there and thinking into them - apophenia is the natural human urge to look for patterns, but it evolves into pareidolia." Sadie explained, reaching into her bag and pulling out a notebook, flickering through the handwritten pages until she found the one she was looking for.

"You think my mom is hallucinating or finding non-existent patterns?" Jonathan repeated. He just wanted to make sure, really.

"I think she's going through something that every mother fears of going through. It just so happens that previous.. conditions make it worse." Sadie shrugged. Perhaps she was being harsh about it, and it was a subject that could be approached with more caution, but she was in a bit of a hurry; she needed to find Barb and Nancy before first period. "I'll make brownies and bring them over.. if I have time. I need to check with... Dustin."

"Dustin?" Jonathan blinked. "You need to check with.. Dustin?"

"No - Dustin's there." Sadie pushed herself away from the car. "Jonathan, I'll get some more research on it later, I can think of a book right now that I might go get for you at lunch.. but for now I'll call you, and I'll go talk to Dustin and I need to find Nancy. And Barb. She disappeared before we could watch Fame."

The Byers boy looked utterly bewildered by Sadie's schedule. Everyone also seemed so surprised at how busy she could become, but considering she was nice and pretty smart, a lot of problems came her way for answering.

But none seemed more important than talking to Dustin, who had left a little early to go to Mike's. He was stopped by the side of the parking lot and waving his arms rapidly to her her attention, relaxing when he saw her come over.

"Sadie - it's only quick." Dustin panted. It appeared he had taken a detour to tell her whatever was necessary, and was in a rush to get to school. "We're meeting up at the power lines outside of Mike's house tonight. At 3:15. We've discussed it, and El seems to like you, so she can come."

"Okay-" Before Sadie could say anything else, Dustin had gotten his feet back on the pedals and cycled off, shouting back his apology to his sister.

Sadie felt a little more at ease about El now that the boys had discussed it. Clearly it hadn't before, and as much as she wanted to help she also wanted them to be comfortable and happy.

It was fortunate that they saw that too.

✧

"Good morning Sadie!" The girl almost stopped in her tracks, watching as Steve Harrington rose his hand in a high five as he passed her, Sadie automatically doing it in return and watching in utter confusion as Steve continued down the corridor.

"Er - good morning!" She called after him, words a little wobbly from surprise as she returned it, her frown deepening as he even went so far as to turn around and wave to her. That had never happened before, and she doubt it would again.

Sadie could only guess one person who had made him that happy, and she didn't think she had even seen him smile like that around Carol and Tommy H. And moments later, she was sidling up to Nancy's locker, pushing the door gently closed and interrupting whatever it was she was doing.

"Good morning." Sadie smiled pointedly, meeting Nancy's eyes with a grin. "Come on, tell me everything!"

"Morning Sadie." Nancy couldn't even hide the happiness from her expression. "Me and Steve.. had sex last night.... I'm really happy."

"Good. As much as I worry about him.. he said good morning to me as we passed in the hallways." Sadie replied, clutching her bag as her and Nancy made their way down the hallway towards where her locker sat. "And that might be pushing me towards thinking he's actually a pretty nice guy, and that he's just influenced by Tommy and Carol."

"I think so too." Nancy said dreamily, a moment of bliss passing quickly before she came to. 

"Oh by the way, have you seen Barb since last night?" Sadie asked as they came to a stop beside her locker, pausing and waiting for an answer from the Wheeler girl as she twisted the lock. She didn't get one, just confusion. "We were going to go back to mine and watch Fame, but she disappeared."

"Really?" Nancy looked concerned. "I haven't seen her, no. But we have English first, so she should be there. Also - I'm sorry for making you two go there last night, it wasn't right."

"Don't worry about that." Sadie waved it off as she rifled through the contents, slipping a few textbooks in there from her bag and taking her notebook out. "Really. I got free beer, which made my night a lot better. Actually.. Barb might be a bit upset about her hand.. the cut seemed pretty deep. But enough about that. You and Steve actually slept together?"

She closed the locker door, Nancy hiding a smile as she nodded. "That's big. Maybe he isn't as much as a dick and I thought he was. I mean he can't be really, can he?"

"I don't know." Nancy walked alongside her as they headed to English. "I don't think he is. But if you're at least a little convinced maybe you can help Barb understand? I just don't want to upset her... I know she's only looking out for me."

"Maybe we can start by checking on her hand?" Sadie advised as they came to a stop outside of their classroom. "She should be in there, so just apologise and then we eat lunch together, okay?

"Yep." Nancy nodded. "Honestly, I'm really glad that you..." She paused as they made their way through the doors, eyes landing on the empty seat besides Ally that was definitely supposed to have Barb in.

"Maybe she's late." Sadie knew it was more than unlikely that she was - Barb was never, ever late. "Come on, we'll just sit down."

Above them, the bell rang and the two girls hurried into further into the classroom to their desks.

She slid into her seat behind Ally, whilst Nancy was on the other side of her. Clearing her throat and placing her bag down in the floor, the heavy book inside that she needed to return to the library banging against the floor, Sadie leaned forward. "Hey, Ally. Where's Barb?"

"Have you seen her at all?" Nancy chimed in, leaning closer to Sadie to be a little more discreet. It was really obvious just how bad she felt about suggesting that her two friends returned home early that night, and Sadie knew Nancy would never intentionally hurt them - she really just didn't want them to be bored - so she wanted to help her convince Barb that maybe Steve wasn't such a shitty guy.

"Um, shouldn't you know?" Ally asked, clearly not in the greatest of moods on that Wednesday morning. To be fair, Sadie knew that English wasn't Ally's favourite class, and she wasn't very good at it either, meaning she probably wouldn't like it.

"You haven't seen her anywhere?" Sadie was more than used to the rude replies from other classmates and brushed it off easily, not letting it get to her. "At all?"

Ally shook her head and turned around, prompting a sigh from Nancy. "It'll be fine." Sadie promised her. "Barb's probably just late, or she might have had to go to the Hospital for stitches. I'll ring her mom at lunch, you can come if you want.. or you could see if Steve.. or Tommy and Carol had seen her at all since leaving his house?"

"Yeah, yeah okay. Thanks." Nancy swallowed, tapping her pen against the cover of her book. "Tell me what Mrs Holland says? We have Chemistry straight after lunch so we could meet up before."

"Don't forget about the test, so don't worry about it too much." Nancy nodded at Sadie's word. The Henderson girl herself wasn't that worried, she just so happened to be rather good at all sciences, but others might have done, so just warned her anyway.

Sadie was good at dealing with several things at one - English class, Chemistry tests, worrying about Eleven, worrying about Will and now worrying about Barb as well. It was all quite easy for her to handle at most times. She just had to keep Nancy calm about it, and perhaps nothing too bad would happen.

She could only hope anyway, her mind becoming distracted as Mr Boushebel entered the classroom, his copy of Heart of Darkness already in his hand. Although rather confusing, Sadie loved the book they had been assigned to read and had already read it twice over in between their classes. It was a good distraction. She needed a little one, just for a bit.

✧

Reading and analysing Heart of Darkness was exactly what Sadie had needed, and she enjoyed it quite a bit as the time went by. But it got to a point where she couldn't be distracted; in the classes following she hid a scrap bit of paper behind her textbooks as she scribbled down things she would pick up for Eleven when possible, and also plans of action to what could be done with her.

Her mom had sent her with a sandwich for lunch, and Sadie had left Nancy at the cafeteria with Steve to ask questions about whether they had seen Barb. Instead of joining the rest of the crowds, Sadie took a seat on one of the benches out of the front of the school, Chemistry book balanced on her knee as she ate and studied at the same time, and after she took the last bite she got up, making her way over to the phone.

She dialled in the memorised number, lifting the phone to her ear and noticing that the same buzz she had heard in the back of her phone call to the Hawkins Post was still there. Although strange, this time she didn't let her paranoia overcome her and she remained on the phone, twisting her sweater sleeve over her free hand.

"Hello?" Finally, Mrs Holland picked up, her curt tone ringing through Sadie's ears.

"Hi, Mrs Holland, it's me, Sadie." She began, applying the honeyed tone that only sometimes worked with the woman. But over phone, the voice couldn't be disrupted by odd facial expressions.

"Oh, Sadie." Mrs Holland seemed unusually chipper that afternoon. "How are you?"

"I'm fine, thank you." Sadie replied, tapping her fingernails on the box around the phone. "Yeah - I'm good. I was wondering if Barb happened to be there?"

"Barb?" Mrs Holland repeated. "No, she hasn't come home yet, but I didn't think she had any free periods today. So I won't see her until after school."

"She did come home though, right?" Sadie asked. "After the vigil?"

"No... she said she was staying with you or Nancy last night." Sadie almost swore as she heard the woman's tone grow worried.

"Sorry - right, she did. I'm getting people mixed up." Sadie choked back her worry. "Ally was the one who I was checking on for that, I was wondering if Barb came by this morning before school? She said that she was going to return a book she borrowed from me? I wouldn't bother her about it if we have the same classes, but I have to hurry after school ends so I don't think I'll be able to see her until tomorrow."

She was lying - and it was a big lie - but she didn't really know how to ask any other way, so she could only hope for the best and that her tone wasn't completely betraying her.

"Oh - you know what, I haven't seen her. Have you checked with Nancy?" Mrs Holland replied.

"Do - do you know what?" Sadie was losing her nerve a little bit. "I just remembered that we were supposed to meet in the library now - I can check then."

"Sadie, will you please have her call me as soon as you find her?" Mrs Holland asked.

"Yeah. Yeah I will." Sadie quickly promised. "Definitely - sorry to bother you." She hung up the phone, replacing it on the hooks before slowly returning to the bench she had left her stuff on, slumping down as she picked up the Chemistry book.

Barb hadn't gone home that night. She would wait to tell Nancy until after the test so that she didn't completely blow it. Knowing the news herself was strange and Sadie didn't quite know what to do. But Nancy would. As soon as she could let Nancy know then a path to take to try and figure out where Barb would be could emerge.

Until then, Sadie could only worry about her whereabouts whilst scanning the page she had already read hundreds of times over until it would sink in again, like she didn't already have it memorised and sitting in her mind just waiting for use.

Perhaps she would figure out something later, after she had gone over to Nancy's to talk with Eleven and Mike some more.

It would have been so less worrying if Barb had just waited a few minutes so that her and Sadie could walk back to their cars together - so much easier for her as well.