— CHAPTER 7 —
WE COULD BE HEROES

WEDNESDAY 9th NOVEMBER,
1983

AT 3:15pm, just as had been planned that morning, Cath met the boys by the bike rack outside school. The dull clouds hung low in the sky, even painting the vibrant dashes of primary colours on kids' rucksacks in an unsaturated grey. Since it seemed they were taking 'turns' now, it was once again Lucas's responsibility to chauffeur her on his bike (he had offered up Mike, but the boy had protested, claiming his seat was saved for El). Maybe she should think about getting her own bike some time soon.

     And, just as planned, Eleven had been waiting for them. It was the first time Cath had seen the girl in daylight, and she looked even more lost now than she had curled up under that blanket fort in the basement — her deep brown eyes blinked curiously, both void of any thought and yet bursting with words going unsaid. Just as silently, she'd hopped on the back of Mike's bike and the group had set off on their journey...

Which brings them to now: an hour and a half, three Reese's pieces and at least two wrong turns later. With every feeble step she takes along the dirt path, Cath feels a pang of regret that she didn't wear more appropriate shoes for the occasion, for her trusty Mary Janes grow more muddied and scuffed by the minute. What's more, they have started to ache, leaving her feet with a vague throbbing sensation that she hopes is the worst it will get.

She's debating whether it would be out of line asking Dustin for another chocolate bar, when Lucas breaks the focused silence between them. "Do you think she even knows where she's going?" he conspires, nodding ahead to where Eleven plods quietly next to Mike as he drags his bike alongside his hip.

"I don't know..." Dustin showers the last of his Smarties in his mouth, crumpling the wrapper into his pocket. "She looks pretty sure. If she wasn't, we'd be goin' in circles."

     "But we're trusting this weirdo with Will's life! What about you, Cath?"

     She glances off to the side, as if she hadn't the foggiest idea who he was referring to. "Hm? Who?"

     "What do you think of her?"

     "Oh, I don't know..." Biting her lip anxiously, Cath observes Eleven from behind. All of a sudden the girl whips her head around and catches her gaze — she darts her eyes down to the flakes of bark sticking and un-sticking to her soles. "I guess..." she begins, "It does seem pretty odd. And out of the blue."

"See? She gets it!" Lucas runs a hand down the side of his face and considers the girl sceptically once more. She knows she is fairly rational-minded herself, never quite being able to reach such far-flung states of mind like her sister could, but Cath is starting to feel almost certain that Lucas Sinclair is, out of every kid around her age she's met, the most pragmatic to a fault.

     "But didn't you see what she did to that door yesterday? That's not normal," Cath tries to justify. Maybe they are being a little crazy, trusting a total stranger — and a very strange one at that — but Eleven seems hellbent on finding Will, just like they are. Perhaps she really does know where he is...

     "That was so cool..."

     "It's not cool, Dustin. It's freaky. Which is why we should've stuck to the original plan — telling Mike's mom."

     Cath blinks, gauchely flicking back and forth between the two boys; she's torn. "Well, I– I still think it would've been best to bring her to Hopper in the first place, but at least we should give her a chance... right? And then if it doesn't work out, we go back to the plan."

     "Yeah, try telling that to him—"

     "Guys!" Mike hollers from up ahead, right on time, scrutinising them over his shoulder. "You know we can hear everything you're saying, right?"

     With a few cynical grumbles from Lucas under his breath, the trio are silenced once more, before the boys drift into a differing natural conversation, something to do with comic books or action figures. Somewhere between Green Lantern and Nightcrawler, she accepts her somewhat comfortable position on the fringe, and starts stepping a few paces ahead of them. Surely they don't need her eavesdropping over-eagerly all the time.

     The kids disperse and re-join along their path like the particles Mr. Clarke told them about in their lessons, bonding and re-bonding but never straying too far from the other. Around the time the sky begins to cool with a Carolina blue hue, streaked with paint strokes of peach as the sun attempts to slice through the overhanging clouds, the 'weirdo' herself has fallen into step beside her. She doesn't even know where to start with what to say, so she ends up just walking quietly, stealing the occasional sideways slant out of curiosity. Eleven's lips start to move, her brows creasing with concentration as she tries to form a word.

"Cath."

Eleven's eyes bore into hers so intensely that they are impossible to look away from. Her eyelids flutter bashfully, as she averts her gaze downwards to something on Cath's shoulders. "What... are they?" she asks, with a surprising weight and earnestness to her voice.

"Which part?"

To show, the girl reaches out and cautiously strokes a finger against the soft ends of Cath's braids sticking out from under the hair tie. Understanding, she holds one up herself and inspects it. "Oh, you mean my braids?"

"Braids," Eleven repeats affirmatively. Another new word for her limited vocabulary.

"I did them myself," she proudly inspects her braid on the other side of her head, unable to suppress a smile. "I've been trying to learn how to for ages, because my arms always start aching if I do them. My dad used to try... but they ended up looking more like ship ropes..."

This time when she looks to her, her face is etched with a vaguely lost look. Alright, too much.

"Do you like them?"

Eleven nods. "Pretty," she murmurs.

"Gee, thanks," Cath gushes. She knows they aren't that good, but it is a compliment nevertheless. When she glances to her left again, she catches Eleven wistfully running a hand over her own shaven head — merely smoothing down the bristles of her buzzcut. She looks so... somber.

     And that simply won't do.

     "You know," she says, "your hair is a little too short to do much with it at the moment. But, give it some time — maybe when it's grown out some more, I could do some braids on you? It's easier on others than myself."

     As if someone had flicked a switch, Eleven perks up with a glimmer of hope twinkling in her eyes. She doesn't say anything more, but her delighted little gasp and the slightest hint of a smile speaks volumes. Cath doesn't know what it is about her, perhaps her quiet nature, but she can't see why any 'bad men' would ever be after her — well, aside from her abnormal abilities, she's just a girl like she is. And unexpectedly easy to talk to; maybe because of her considerable social ineptness, Cath can be allowed to feel like the guide, the nurturer for once.

     Sunset soon melts away into dusk, and with that brings a formidable evening chill. After hours of determined trudging through the woods, Cath finds her feet walking down a similar dirt path — one winding down to the Byers house. Eleven stops in their yard, before a backdrop of wind-beaten laundry lines and an eerily quiet aura settled over the seemingly empty house.

     "Here," she gestures to the house, a cloud of mist materialising as a ghost of her word.

     "Yeah, this is where Will lives."

     "Hiding."

     The four of them pause, hesitant with confusion; what did she mean 'here'? This couldn't be it. Surely not.

     "No, no," Mike says, "this is where he lives. He's missing from here. Understand?"

     "What are we doing here?" Lucas asks exasperatedly, to no one in particular.

     "She said he's hiding here."

     "Um... no! I swear, if we walked all the way out here for nothing—"

     "Lucas, please, just give her a chance," Cath intervenes pleadingly, although even she feels completely thrown by this anti-climax of an evening. She thought it seemed like too much pressure to put on the poor girl...

     "I told you she didn't know what the hell she was talking about!" Alive with fury now, Lucas storms over to Eleven and grabs her by the shoulders. "Why did you bring us here?!" he seethes, hands trembling as he clenched them around her sleeves, while she stammers helplessly in the dark.

     As soon as Mike intervenes, the two break out into a heated back-and-forth, which Dustin and Cath find themselves hopelessly caught up in the middle of. But it's not that which piques their attention; it's the wailing. At first it's only distant, buried deep in the thick of the woods. Then it grows louder, more imminent, and evermore tragic in its chorus of sirens.

     "Do you think...?" Cath barely whispers. She turns to Dustin, wondering if he's thinking what she is. His intense focus on the sound tells her the answer.

     "Hey guys..." he murmurs, distracted and not loud enough to grab their attention.

     That's when the lights of cold blue and urgent red sharply sear through the gaps in the trees, flashing so brightly and combined with the blasts of the nearing sirens, they make her ears and eyes throb with a dull ache. But it simply confirms what she was already thinking: they've found him. If it had been one lone cop car, perhaps she would have dismissed it — she can't do that when there is a rapid procession of them turning the corners with a sense of emergency.

     "GUYS!" Dustin yells this time, and finally the other two notice what they're seeing too, catching on. It's almost second nature for Cath to hop on the back of Lucas's bike, latching her arms underneath his shoulders as he takes off with fierce pedalling behind Dustin, Mike and Eleven down the road, just following the wailing in the night.

     Her mind races with a million visions all at once, and a trillion other doubts: What state will he be in when they find him? Will the 'bad men' be there? What if it isn't even him? And then she starts to think about what could change from now — she decides, right there and then, when he eventually comes back to school, she won't be a coward anymore. He's her friend, through and through. Maybe she'll ask him in Mr. Clarke's class, if the seating plan hasn't changed; she will ask him if they can be friends again. Or maybe she won't even have to ask...

     Lucas's bike bumpily careens down the hill with haphazard pedalling, and for once she doesn't care that she might fall, she doesn't care, because Will might be found — she's half off anyway, so before he's even slowed to a halt completely, Cath hops off the back and stumbles full-speed down the rest of the hill down to the bottom of the quarry, where she can see the police lights have clustered together in a light show of red and blue.

     She runs until she reaches a parked fire truck, clinging onto the ice-cold metal pole to stop herself, as she lunges forward with remaining momentum and gets a first glimpse through the crowds gathered, and all she can think is move, move, I can't see—

     Then she sees.

     At first it doesn't quite compute. It doesn't occur to her why the men in their luminous coats are wading through the water, plunging their hands into the dark, cold depths below. It doesn't truly sink in until they lift out a small, limp body — so small — out and load it onto a stretcher. She doesn't accept it's him until the all-too familiar flash of red stands out in the shrouded dim light; suddenly she can see him right there, just a few nights ago, meandering timidly behind her house with that friendly smile, and that jacket. Only then does she realise it's Will Byers, just like she had wished.

     And then comes the sickening punch to the gut.

    The closer the stretcher comes to shore, the more her mind fogs, numbed by the aftershock. Cath's knees buckle in on themselves, forcing her to shakily plant herself on the bumper of the truck. She leans her temple on the cold metal pole, hands still clinging on like it's her lifeline. She begins tuning back into reality, piece by piece, only just noticing the others had seen too and are now gathered with her at the scene.

    "'Mike'? Mike WHAT?" The sudden outburst causes Eleven to cower away as he smacks her hand from his shoulder; Cath doesn't even flinch. "You were supposed to help us find him alive — you said he was alive! Why did you lie to us? What is wrong with you? WHAT is WRONG with you?!"

     "Mike..."

     "Huh?" Mike seethes, hands trembling in fists at his sides, not out of fear but like he might burst into tears at any given moment. Cath hasn't gotten that far yet. She's still putting the pieces together.

     She doesn't find the energy to chase after him when he charges off on his bike. She can't face Lucas's hand on her shoulder, an attempt at comforting her, as she shrugs it off. She won't even follow after the boys and Eleven when they make their own way home. Slumped alone against the fire truck, she's paralysed.

     Cath's senses begin waking up after a few minutes, and she realises she's been fixated on the patch of water where they retrieved Will, and where he no longer is. She shoots up with a sudden purpose — she has to see him again. That can't be it.

     Without thinking twice, she begins to wade through the crowds, navigating her way under strips of tape drawn around the quarry, or tall men in coats and hats rushing around and doing orders. Too busy to notice the little girl hoping to at least say goodbye to her friend one more time. She locates the stretcher, and for the first time gets a look at him as up-close as possible; she sees his grey complexion, even remotely green in an algae-stained tint, as his damp clothes drip with water and sag from his cold limbs.

     Her father once told her people looked peaceful when they died — her mother had, and so had her other grandparents. Will doesn't look peaceful at all. This is just a corpse, his shell.

     She's about a metre away when they drape the sheet over him, leaving only a moulded cast of his body visible. And she forces herself to think of it, for real this time:

     Will Byers is dead.

     "Will—" Cath gasps, blindly reaching out for him in a last attempt at farewell. A pair of sturdy hands clamp onto her shoulders with a bear-like grip, and another body now obscures her view of the boy, its owner forcing her to look him in the eye.

     "What are you doing here, kid?" Hopper inquires, intending to be firm, but exhausted with the grief of Will's finding.

     "I just—" she chokes out, words escaping her. "We— we thought we'd... h-he..."

     He runs one hand gently up and down her arm and asks, "You said you lived on Kerley road, right?" When she gives a distraught nod, he sighs. "That's on our way there... here, come with me." Putting one arm around her shoulders, Hopper parts through the crowds with her and leads her to the cop car, where she slumps into the front seat. Following behind him down the road are the procession of cars again, right when she realises why the image had struck her earlier on — it's like a funeral procession.

     When Hopper finally pulls up outside of her house, Cath tiredly drops her feet outside of the car, letting him guide her around to the other side. As she's about to walk up to the front door, it opens; Thomas stands in the doorway, his features set with worry as he observes the unexplained stream of police cars parked outside his house, and finally his daughter.

     At last, she crumbles. Her feeble footsteps turning into great bounds, she tears up the steps and launches herself into her father's arms; her face buries itself as far into the fabric of his shirt as possible as her tears begin to wet it, great sobs lurching through her. Stupid. They were so stupid. What made her think they would actually find him? Plagued by naïvety, she'd let her hopes consume her like the rest of them, only to receive a stinging slap of reality in the face. They were just kids. Stupid, stupid kids...

     Cath drowns out Hopper's somber explanation of the events as Thomas rubs soothing circles on her back, replaying the events of that last night she saw him, wishing she had said something, noticed something.

     She can still see Will's smile.

━━━━━━

     THE glass bulbs are still slightly lukewarm from when they had last used them. Daphne drags her fingers along a string of them hanging from the ceiling, remembering when they had been alive with bursts of magenta, marigold, cobalt and more; now they are void of any colour, empty and lifeless, the only source of light in the room coming from a dim lampshade and the intermittent flashes of the police lights reaching through the window.

She begins re-tracing their steps, trying to find what they missed... where they went wrong.

After the bundle of joyful lights had blinked vividly to them only hours before, Joyce had come up with a brilliant system. The pair of them had grabbed a paint brush and worked on streaking the walls in smudged letters of the alphabet, all the way from A to Z, with a corresponding light bulb strung above it. It was a way beyond Yes or No answers — and frankly, it was genius.

"Are you sure this is gonna work?" Daphne had asked.

"If he's there, it has to..." Joyce's voice shook as she rubbed her hands together. "Come on baby... come on, talk to me, where are you?"

And then the lights had started blinking, one by one above each letter, spelling out a sentence which, although Daphne knew it was probably stupid to do, made her instinctively turn around to scan her surroundings:

R-I-G-H-T H-E-R-E

"... 'Right here'?... I-I don't know what that means, I– tell me what to do, what should I do? H-how do I get to you, how do I find you, what should I DO?"

Almost instantly, the first letter had illuminated: R... then U... by the time N had been lit up, the puzzle pieces had already connected in Daphne's mind and she froze.

R-U-N.

Suddenly the room had burst with the incessant strobing, searing white light glaring off of the wallpaper and making the room the brightest she had seen it in a while. An almighty CRASH resounded from behind, both of them spinning around to take in the horrific monstrosity emerging from the wall — first a bulging shape, jagged and protruding out of the flower-print wallpaper, before a gnarled claw sliced through, rotting fleshy skin stretched over its bony talons that dug into the wall to help pull itself through the hole.

     She had never seen anything like it — or was she seeing it? Was this just her imagination? Some sick, otherworldly creature she'd only seen familiar species of in her favourite movies, conjured into a horrifying reality. What was she supposed to do? Run, scream, hide? Her fight-or-flight suddenly kicked in, the danger impending and pungent. There was only one thing they could do:

     "JOYCE, RUN!!" Daphne shrieked, grabbing Joyce's hand and yanking her from her solitary, shell-shocked stance. The pair bolted out of the front door hand-in-hand, not daring to stop for even a moment, even if that thing wasn't chasing them. Daphne's heart did frenzied somersaults and melted her guts to be molten, churning and screaming all over her body with adrenaline surging through her, and all she could think was don't stop, DON'T STOP—

     A pair of headlights had suddenly sliced through the pitch black darkness, Joyce almost being struck down by the car. A distressed Jonathan had hopped out, holding her in his arms as she started crying and trying to explain everything between hiccups of tears, whereas Daphne had crouched down by the car trying to get her hands, legs, everything to stop shaking.

     She had been first to notice the flashing lights in the distance, rushing in a stream down in their direction. They had pulled up slowly behind Jonathan's car, and out had stepped Chief Hopper; the moment he laid eyes on Joyce, he removed his hat from his head and slowly walked towards her. It seemed clear what was coming next.

     Will Byers's body had been found in the quarry. He was dead. And that was the end of that.

     As she stood inside the house now, looking at the wreckage left over — the hole in the wall and the lights — she couldn't understand how. Hadn't they gone all that effort to talk to him just before? That was him, wasn't it? It was too real, the responses and the timing to just be some kind of coincidence, or sick prank. But the more Daphne watches Hopper, who is not entirely sure where to draw the line as Joyce continues explaining how she still believes Will is alive and how he spoke to her, she reluctantly begins to accept the sad reality like she should: Will is dead and gone, and she most likely led on the hopeful imaginings of a grief-stricken mother.

It still seems strange though.

She can't stay in this room any longer. Daphne wanders down the corridor, peering into the empty room where Will should be. Jonathan sits at the end of his bed, his head in his hands — sensing the motion stirring, he peers up at her with bloodshot eyes that glisten with unshed tears. Jesus Christ. She doesn't know if she can do this. What do you say to the boy who's just lost his brother? Daphne knows what she would have wanted when her mother died, but it ended up with her mostly fending for herself. Nor is she Jonathan.

"I..." she says, just to break the silence. "I'm s-so sorry." No, she wishes she took that back. It was all people ever told her after her mother died: I'm so sorry for your loss, recycled over and over again, but sorry for what? None of it felt genuine. But what else was there to say? If he struggled to face her before they found Will, how can he even stand her being in the same room as him? The last thing he needs is some mopey once-childhood friend monologuing about grief and how if he needs her, she's here. Daphne shouldn't be here right now.

"Um... I get that you don't want me here right now, so I– I'm just gonna—"

Daphne sucks in a bewildered breath; Jonathan has suddenly lunged forward, and before she knows it she finds his arms wrapped around her so tightly she can barely breathe, and trembling as he forces the tears to come. Beginning to cry too, she reciprocates, interlocking her fingers around his back and letting him melt into her. He mumbles something incoherent into her shoulder, muffled by her jacket and his weeping, so she gives him an extra squeeze for good measure.

As she leads him over to the edge of Will's bed, letting him hold her even tighter and feeling the tension he'd been withholding since Monday releasing, tear by tear, she's reminded of the more innocent times. Jonathan might have taken over as the man of the house since Lonnie left — but to her, he will always be the small, rosy-cheeked boy with a timid temperament but a heart of gold. Her first partner-in-imagination, one of the first who helped her escape from those first dark years after her mother was lowered into the ground.

She doesn't know how long they have been sitting there, clinging onto each other like buoys in a raging storm, when Hopper hovers in the doorway. "It's time to go home, Daphne," Hopper says.

Daphne nods, dabbing her eyes with her sleeve. "Call me later, okay?" she says, catching Jonathan's stare. With a reassuring pat of his knee, she follows Hopper out of the room. Joyce is perched on the couch, stony-faced with a fire of determination still lurking in her eyes, even after everything. She can't decide if that is a good or bad thing.

"So, you saw everything with the lights?" Hopper asks as he shuts the front door behind him.

Sighing a little cloud of mist, Daphne shivers under the evening breeze that has chilled more since she was last out. "Yeah... I'm telling you, that wasn't normal. Maybe it wasn't Will, but something was going on... do you believe her?"

"Believe what?"

"You know, Joyce? Everything she told you?"

Hopper doesn't answer; instead, he opens the car door for her to get in the passenger seat.

"I can walk home, thanks."

"Not tonight you can't," he asserts, gesturing to the empty seat. "Get in. Your dad's been worried sick."

"When isn't he?" Daphne grumbles, lowering herself reluctantly into the car and letting Hopper shut the door for her. She has to admit, getting home in the safety of a cop car does provide her some reassurance.

About halfway through the journey, which is short in itself, Hopper breaks the silence that has settled between them. "I saw your sister tonight," he deadpans.

Cath? "In... what way?" she interrogates. "Is she okay? Is she hurt?"

"I bumped into her down at the quarry," says Hopper solemnly, letting her figure out the rest. If she was there, and so was Will, then she must have seen... oh no. "She must have been there with the rest of Will's friends. Lookin' for him, maybe. Cath's fine — I mean, she isn't hurt, she's just... really torn up about it."

She can imagine she would be. Cath, the frightened little thing, getting caught up in witnessing her closest friend's body being retrieved — and that probably isn't even the end of it. Daphne certainly doesn't feel like it either. Tonight felt so promising, as immature as it sounded. She tries to ignore the air of finality that pollutes the night when Hopper drops her off in front of the house.

It's not pleasant to think about the end.

     Later on Daphne gets her first real glimpse of the aftermath when she's brushing her teeth, not long after she got in and took a panic-ridden lecture from her father about going out late at night. At the end of the hallway, Cath's bedroom door remains open just a crack, and she has a feeling she knows exactly what she's doing in there.

Only one thing for it. She rinses her mouth of any toothpaste remnants before switching the light off, navigating her way carefully along the dimly lit landing with its creaky floorboards beneath the carpet. Leaning her temple against the wooden door, she gently knocks. "Can I come in?" she asks quietly.

A small whimper from inside gives her enough of a ticket inside. Daphne slowly pushes the door open, turning the corner to find Cath. Her sister lies curled up underneath her duvet, eyes looking puffy and swollen as she clutches her soft stuffed rabbit toy to her heart. Pitifully, Daphne tilts her head at her.

     "Hey... how're you doing?"

     "Fine," she answers pathetically.

     Managing a light chuckle, Daphne pats a small gap on the mattress. "Do you think you got room for one more?"

     She knew this would please her — for the minute she suggests it, something in Cath's eye changes, and she shuffles over to the corner of her bed to allow ample space before she can change her mind. Daphne lowers herself onto the bed, trying her best not to squirm too much as it squeaks under her weight (which frankly, she's mildly offended by) until she finds a comfortable position. Cath blinks at her, her left over tears still glistening in her cornflower blue eyes as they lie practically nose-to-nose.

     They used to do this as children — sometimes when Cath had a nightmare, the other way around, or even just for fun. Often it would have been preceded by an animated storytelling of some sort, where Daphne could make any old book sound like the most thrilling, action-packed epic of all time, and they had both loved it. Cath had always been her greatest listener. But it must have been at least four years or so since they last did this.

     "Hey look," Daphne smiles, rubbing the belly of her toy rabbit, "It's your little friend..."

     Cath sniffs, turning it around and looking it in the eyes. "I still sleep with him every night by my bed. I know it's kind of babyish."

     "Nothing's babyish if it makes you feel better."

     "I bet the other kids at school don't do that."

     "How do you know that? Maybe Troy Walsh sleeps with his lickle teddy every night to keep him safe from the big bad monsters under the bed..."

     "Do you remember who gave this to me?" Cath suddenly asks, her face growing serious.

     Daphne looks from the rabbit to her a couple of times; then remembering, her heart shatters softly in her chest. She doesn't need to say it, for the answer is obvious. Will. She reaches to turn off the bedside lamp, the room falling into darkness except for moonlight fighting to breach the airy curtains. Cath crawls forward slightly and nestles into her chest, Daphne wiping a few stray tears from the girl's cheeks.

     Soon they drift off to sleep in a tangled mess of limbs, in a soft slumber with the hope of a better day tomorrow.

━━━━━━

A/N;

welp... i'm sad. orchestra, play 'heroes' by peter gabriel.

i'm not even sure what to say here.... r.i.p. will?? OR NOT, HMM—

from this point onwards, a lot of the action is going to start picking up, which i'm really excited for! also lots of ✨stress✨ for the characters, so that's fun.

also, very important announcement, tomorrow (march 22nd) it will be will's 50th birthday, so HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY WILL! i hope you're safe and sound in the world somewhere, happily sketching and living your best life, and that you hopefully haven't been killed off by the duffers yet. also i hope you still have that coconut bowl cut – maybe it was your lockdown haircut?

thank you for reading as always! hope you are having a wonderful day/evening ❤️

— Imogen

[ Published: March 21st, 2021 ]