"When people pin me as a clown

You behave as though I'm wearing a crown

When I'm lost I feel so very found

When you anchor me back down"

-Anchor, Mindy Gledhill

"GET SOME REST, OKAY?" Lucas waited for Caroline to meet his eyes.

They stood on her back porch. Caroline was wrapped in his jacket for the millionth time that week, feeling shakier than ever. A deep, gnawing, horrible kind of hunger tore at her. She felt like she had never eaten before, but at the same time, the thought of food made her want to puke.

Oh, god, is this is how Will is feeling... She thought.

"Use your Walkie if you need anything." Lucas let go of her hand and started to turn away before Caroline lunged forward to grab him.

"Where are you going?" She said. Her eyes narrowed when she saw the guilty look on his face. "You're going to try to look for Will, aren't you?"

Lucas sighed. "Callie, the worse he gets, the worse you get. He's dying in there. He's my best friend, okay?"

"Lucas, listen," she said softly. "I want Will back more than anything. But running out in the middle of night to god knows where won't help anything. And there's no way in hell you're doing this without me."

"Caroline..."

"No. Luke, listen. Just... wait until tomorrow. Then we can go together, alright? I'll feel better in the morning and I will have had another one of those weird... dream things. Then we'll know where in the Upside Down he is. We need time to prepare."

Lucas didn't respond.

Caroline sighed and pulled him into a hug. He was stiff at first, but soon enough he melted into her.

"Promise me," she whispered. "Promise me you won't do this without me."

Lucas nodded into her shoulder. "I promise."

Two minutes later, Caroline walked into her house, feeling like she was floating. There was a huge grin on her face and a giddy feeling she couldn't explain. Being around Lucas just made her feel... happy.

Happier than she had been in a long, long time.

"Look, we gotta go through this again."

"I told you everything that I saw."

Caroline's brows narrowed when she heard the unfamiliar voice next to her mother. She walked into her living room, shoulders slumping in relief when she saw Chief Hopper on the sofa.

"Mommy?" Caroline's voice cracked.

Joyce looked up, startled, and immediately went on guard when she saw the state of her daughter.

"Oh, sweetheart," Joyce pulled her to the couch and knelt down in front of her. "Are you sick? Where have you been?"

"I was with the boys," Caroline said tiredly. here, in the arms of her mother, she almost felt like a kid again. "Wait, where's Lonnie?"

"He left, sweetie," Joyce put her hand on her daughter's forehead. "You're freezing!"

"I'm just sick," Caroline said. It wasn't a lie. It just wasn't the whole truth.

She was a pro at half-truths.

"How are you holding up, kiddo?" Hopper addressed her now, a gentle look on his face.

"As well as I can be. I still have your jacket, I can go get it-"

Hopper flashed one of his rare smiles and waved his hand. "Don't worry about it. I have plenty of those things. You keep warm, alright?"

Caroline nodded. Joyce ran her hand through her daughter's sweaty hair and kissed her forehead. "Go to bed, sweetheart. Get some sleep, okay?"

Caroline stumbled off to her room and shut the door loud enough to be sure that Hopper and Joyce would hear it. Then she right away pressed her ear to the door to eavesdrop.

"Oh, gosh. Tell me again." Her mother sounded distressed.

"Upstairs or downstairs?"

"Upstairs."

"There was a laboratory. It was where they must do experiments or something, and then there was... there was this kid's room." Hopper exhaled deeply.

Caroline gasped sharply. Kid's room? Could it be Will's?

"How do you know it was a kid's room?" Joyce questioned.

"More like a prison," Hopper muttered.

If it was a prison... what did they want with Will?

"So why would you think it was a kid's room, then?" Joyce pressed.

"Because, I told you, the size of the bed, there was a drawing, there was a stuffed animal-"

"You didn't say there was a drawing." Joyce echoed exactly what Caroline was thinking. Will was an artist, he always had been.

"Yeah, there was a drawing of a... an adult and a child. It said 'Eleven' on it."

Caroline sank down to the ground, her mind going a million miles and hour.

Eleven.

She had come from the lab. She really did know something about Will.

She was the key to everything.

Oh, God, Caroline had screwed up.

"Was it good?" Joyce asked.

"It was a kid's drawing, Joyce. It was stick figures."

"Wasn't Will," Joyce said decidedly.

"Earl... The night that Benny died, Earl said he saw some kid with a shaved head with Benny Now, I pressed him, he said it might be Will, but maybe..."

"Wait... Maybe, it wasn't?"

Caroline was stuck, now. If she told Hopper and her mom about Eleven, they could help. But at the same time, Eleven had been very clear about how dangerous that would be.

"Look... this woman, Terry Ives, she claims to have lost her daughter, Jane. She sued Brenner, she sued the government... Now, the claims came to nothing, but what if... I mean, what if this whole time I've been... I've been looking for Will... I've been chasing after some other kid?"

"You have," Caroline whispered from her bedroom. "You have."

"Caroline, are you there? Over."

Caroline leapt out of bed and grabbed the Walkie. "I'm here. Over."

"I'm at your back porch. Are you ready? Over."

A big goofy smiled spread across her face. "You waited for me. Over."

"Of course I did," Lucas scoffed. "I made a promise to you. Over."

"My mom is out," Caroline said. "Come on in. I'm in my room."

Approximately thirty seconds later Lucas knocked on Caroline's bedroom door.

His eyes went wide when he saw the state of her bedroom.

"Wow. Uh...rough night?" he asked carefully.

Caroline sheepishly shoved some trashed comic books under Will's bed. "It was a few night ago. After we found Will's body."

Lucas nodded in understanding. Then he looked her over. "Wow, you're prepared."

Caroline was wearing Lucas's jacket over an old T-shirt with jeans and a pair of boots that Will had gotten for their birthday but never touched. Her hair was in a braid over her shoulder. She felt like one of the badass horror movie girls who went to go fight the monster when no one else would.

"I've got a bag of stuff," Lucas said, tearing his eyes away. "My wrist-rocket, a couple of rocks, the compass, now that El isn't here to screw with it..."

"So... this is it," Caroline said. Lucas nodded.

"Let's go find Will."

They pulled out of the house from the back way, through the dirt and overgrown grass. As they pulled out on the street they caught view of a Hawkins Power and Light van. The man inside just sat there and waved at Lucas and Caroline, who waved back politely.

"Those vans have been everywhere lately," Caroline said as they rode through the forest, their destination in view.

Lucas shrugged. "Yeah. Must be a lot of electrical issues."

Caroline was silent, thoughts spinning.

Electrical issues.

Eleven seemed to be able to manipulate electricity. Hawkins Electrical lab. Children's drawings. Eleven.

Caroline's stomach was starting to hurt. She couldn't tell if it was because of the stress or because of Twintiution struggle of having your brother be stuck in the Upside Down not having eaten anything in days.

Just another day in Hawkins.

"What's wrong?" Lucas asked, sounding concerned.

"Nothing. I'm just starving. It's like it doesn't matter how much I eat, I still feel sick." She rubbed her stomach miserably.

Lucas stopped and turned to dig around in his backpack. Then he held out a stick of beef jerky, the Slim Jim kind that had been Caroline's guilty pleasure since she was little. "Here.. I brought some snacks."

Caroline's face morphed into a slow smile and she opened up the jerky and started chewing. "Wait, why did you bring snacks? I thought you hated jerky."

Lucas shrugged. "I do. I just... knew you'd be hungry."

"And you just had this sitting around your house?" Caroline pressed, smirking. "'Cause a couple weeks ago when I came over, Erica was talking about how she'd never allow 'that nastiness' in her house."

Lucas was grinning. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Fine. I went out and got some for you. So what?"

"Nothing," Caroline was grinning like an idiot. "It was just sweet."

They headed up to the fence, stopping their bikes when they reached it. There in front of them loomed the Hawkins Lab.

"Oh, man," Lucas breathed. "It's huge."

"That's what she said," Caroline muttered back.

Lucas let out one of his rare genuine laughs. "And this is why I adore you."

Caroline's face went hot.

Lucas's eyes went wide and he stared at his feet. "I- I mean- you know, it was just...funny. I didn't mean it like...like that-"

Caroline swallowed and nodded quickly. "Yeah, yeah, I know."

Lucas rubbed his neck awkwardly and then opened his mouth as though to say something else, but quickly shut it.

They walked along the fence in awkward silence. Caroline tried not to get her hopes up- of course Lucas hadn't meant it that way. They were best friends.

God, get your priorities straight, she scolded herself. You're looking for Will.

"So..." Lucas cleared his throat. "Uh... is your dad still here?"

Caroline stared at her boots as they crunched the leaves underneath her. Finally, she said, "No. He- he left. Turns out he was just there for the life insurance money from Will."

Lucas blanched. "What?"

"Yeah," Caroline said bitterly. "Stupid to think he'd change, even fro his son's funeral, but here we are."

Lucas looked at her. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah. It sucked."

"Well... while he was there was he okay?"

Caroline bit her lip. "No.. not really. I mean, we still really hate him."

Lucas nodded. "Yeah, of course. He ditched you guys."

Caroline shook her head. "And that's not even all. Jonathan had to threaten him so he wouldn't talk to me."

Lucas sounded puzzled. "Why can't he talk to you?"

Caroline took a deep breath. "It's just... he... did something to me before he left the first time. It was... really bad. Jonathan still wants to go to the cops, but it would just be more problems for Mom."

"Oh." Lucas went silent. "Did he... hit you or something?"

Caroline shrugged. "I mean, sometimes. He hit all of us. But that wasn't it."

"Oh. Well... do you want to talk about it?" Lucas looked at her with sincerity, completely ready to listen.

Caroline wiped away a tear, wishing the icky feeling in her stomach would go away. She wanted to forget about those days with Lonnie. "Someday. It's not that I don't trust you..."

Lucas waved it off. "Callie. It doesn't matter, okay? I know you trust me. You don't have to tell me. But... I'm here if you ever do wanna tell me though."

Caroline smiled and stuffed her hands in the pocket of Lucas's jacket that he had lent her again that morning. "Well... thanks."

A loud revving of engines made them turn sharply. Through the fence they could see several Hawkins Power and Light vans pulling out of the laboratory way too quickly to not be suspicious.

"What the hell?" Lucas muttered.

Suddenly Caroline jumped. "Shit- shit! They must have found Eleven!"

Lucas's eyes went wide and he cursed and mounted his bike, Caroline following suit just as fast. Together they sped out of the forest and towards Mike's house, praying that they weren't too late to save their friends.

"Dustin, do you copy?" Caroline panted into the Walkie as she pumped her feet so hard that her bike wobbled. "Dustin!"

"We must still be out of range," Lucas shouted over the wind. "Just keep going!"

Suddenly Dustin's voice came crackling over the radio. "Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God-"

"Dustin!" Lucas yelled, clearly relieved. "Dustin, do you copy?"

"Yeah, Lucas, they're on us!" Dustin sounded desperate.

"Where are you?"

"Cornwallis."

"Meet us at Elm and Cherry!" Caroline said urgently. She met Lucas's eyes and he nodded in agreement."

"Copy. Elm and Cherry!"

Less than two minutes later all five kids sped into the intersection between Elm and Cherry. Without stopping, they continued to where they all knew they'd be safe.

If safe was even a possibility now.

"Lucas!" Mike shouted at him.

"Where are they?" Lucas demanded.

"I don't know," Mike said.

"I think we lost them," Dustin panted. The kids had slowed down now.

Suddenly tires screeched onto the road and they turned in horror to see the vans driving towards them

"Go, go, go, go, go!" Mike screamed as they all started pedaling again.

Dustin was screaming random gibberish and Mike was adding in various versions of, "Go, go, go, go, go! Faster, faster!" as if he thought they were going to stop.

Caroline felt that now was an appropriate time to add in. "SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!"

Dustin screamed "Oh my god!" just as a van appeared right in front of them.

Caroline gasped and suddenly locked eyes with Lucas. There was no way that the van could stop in time to avoid running them over, and it wasn't like they would even try.

They were about to die.

Caroline shut her eyes.

But the impact didn't come. Caroline opened her eyes again just in time to see the massive van flying over them.  She had just enough time to think 'van's aren't supposed to do that' before the van crashed behind them.

Caroline looked forward and caught sight of Eleven, who was sitting on the back of Mike's bike. She was still wearing the pink dress and white shoes, but the wig was gone and she was covered in dirt. Her face was screwed up in anger, her hand outstretched, blood dripping from her nose.

Caroline waited until they were at the junkyard to pull Eleven into a hug, which surprised both girls. Eleven cautiously put her arms around Caroline, who just squeezed her tighter.

"El, you are the definition of a badass," Caroline laughed. She pulled away to see El looking bewildered but happier than Caroline had ever seen her.

"Badass," El repeated. She was smiling widely.

"Holy... holy shit! Did... did you see what she did to that van?" Dustin was walking around, his hands above his head.

"No, Dustin, we missed it," Mike said irritably.

"I mean that was..." Dustin was at a loss for words.

"Awesome. It was awesome," Lucas finished. He looked at Caroline, who was sitting next to El, the two girls holding hands and smiled at the budding friendship.

He came and knelt next to Eleven and looked her dead in the eye. "Everything I said about you being a traitor and stuff... I was wrong. I'm sorry."

Caroline smiled gently at him. It had always been hard for Lucas to swallow his pride, but here he had done it so genuinely.

"Friends... friends don't lie. I'm sorry, too." Eleven said quietly.

"Me, too." Mike was standing a couple of feet away, watching Lucas.

He gulped and held out his hand to his friend, who stood up and shook it.

Hello beautiful people! This chapter was so much fun to write. I love writing about Lucas and Caroline. They need a ship name. Any ideas?

CALLIE AND EL ARE FRIENDS NOW! I'm so happy. There are gonna be a lot more cute scenes with them, too.

Next chapter is where everything ties together! It's gonna be really intense!

Love you guys so much! Comment and vote!