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stoprobbersfic · 2 years

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we together make a limb (jonathan byers/nancy wheeler)

rating: light teen word count: 6,004 She feels like she could float right off her bed and into the ether forever, until he finds her again and puts his forehead to hers, brushes his nose against the space between her eyebrows, tucks the knobs of her shoulders into his palms and brings her back down to earth. [what happened in the Two Days Later] missing scenes from vol. 2. read it on ao3

They were supposed to win.

The late March evening is still cool, nearly cold, but Nancy lays on top of her covers with her windows open. She can still feel the heat of Henry— (Vecna— One— Henry—) Vecna’s body, covered with flaming gasoline and bubbling, on her skin as she advanced. Can still feel the kickback of the shotgun, the burning in her bicep as she pumped the barrel to discharge each empty shell, as she riddled his body with buckshot.

He was supposed to die. Not Max. Him.

Sirens still wail intermittently in the distance. Red and blue lights occasionally reflect off her bedroom ceiling. In the dark the purple wallpaper reads nearly gray.

Or maybe that’s the Upside Down, sucking color and life from everything around her.

Four deaths, four rings, four cracks, all converging in an X-Marks-The-Spot of doom. She’s not sure what was supposed to happen; if this was it, or if they did anything at all to prevent his final plan. Maybe Hawkins was supposed to fall right into the Upside Down. Or maybe it was supposed to rush over them like a tidal wave.

In the end it was neither. Instead the rifts pulsate and glow, then go quiet and dark. She couldn’t take her eyes off them on the way home from the hospital.

She doesn’t know how far the cracks reach. She imagines them growing and growing, reaching out of Hawkins and west, due west, seeking, searching, finding. The Upside Down is stuck on the day Will Byers disappeared, and no one at the Byers household is picking up their phone.

Maybe it’s already swallowed them whole.

She reaches out, right hand onto empty covers. Squeezes her eyes tight and lets her fingertips extend a touch further. She remembers the way his weight held down her comforter that night after she went into the Upside Down for the first time, entirely by accident.

He barely moved as he slept, gun tucked between them, but he kept the covers tight on her, made them less like blankets and more like a shield. Closing the gaps where evil could sneak in between cotton and skin, keeping her safe.

She had ventured only the smallest touches that night; a finger to his watch strap or the edge of his t-shirt sleeve, inanimate decorations on his body that couldn’t respond. She couldn’t risk waking him, couldn’t fathom how she’d possibly explain what she was doing.

Behind her reddened eyelids she thrusts herself further back in the memory, the roughness of his denim jacket and the tightness of his arms and the way he rocked her as he murmured in her ear over and over, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.

Unbidden, unwanted, she thinks of Max’s mangled body, the blood dripping down her face and Lucas’s, his hoarse sobbing as he cradled her in his arms. They didn’t save her. They couldn’t.

The doctors don’t know how her heart started beating again. Nancy can think of only one thing and it’s the last shred of hope she has to hang onto. Because if that’s what saved her, even moments too late, then maybe—just maybe—

Her fingertips find nothing. In the center of her chest she feels another crack, another rift, not bones breaking but spirit, as she reaches for a hand that isn’t there.

++++

In the dim light she drifts through time like it’s made of powdery snow undulating over hills and valleys of memory.

The winter after Will’s return, bedroom phone clutched in trembling hand and whispers down the line to him after nightmares, lost and scared and alone. Telling him each object she saw in her room until the shadows turned from monsters back into discarded jackets and backpacks.

A motel room in central Illinois bathed in sickly bedside light, hands together on the grimy little table, scars set end to end to form a single line. A string, a tether, pulling them to each other, tightening slack no matter how much she tried to loosen it, no matter how much he let her. Back to back when she finally pulled honesty from him and found it even less flattering than the yellow lampshade.

Grimy sheets and a scratchy blanket on an unfamiliar, too-bouncy mattress but it didn’t matter, no it didn’t matter at all because all that was in that room was them and there was nothing between them anymore. Not lies, not denials, not even clothes. The first time she felt his weight on top of her – not her covers but her – and how hot his skin was, how the heat they made together was even better than the shield of her comforter the year before.

Hopper’s dusty cabin and its hopelessly deflated futon, stuffed onto a loft that hadn’t been swept in at least a decade, and the sweat soaking through their clothes, leaving salt crystals on their skin as he sobbed and she rocked him this time, her turn to hold and protect and reassure, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.

His bed, bruised and bloodied, trembling with fear and smeared with whatever bodily fluids a monster made of amalgamated flesh oozes, running hands over cuts and lesions just to be sure they are actually still whole. Apologies falling from lips, more jumble of words than composed thoughts, desperation to make sure he knows how much she loves him, how much she never wants to fight with him again, never again, not when they could lose each other in the blink of an eye, at the hand of a man or a monster, it doesn’t matter. His hands in her hair, his forehead against hers, grounding her, keeping her present, keeping her sane.

She feels like she could float right off her bed and into the ether forever, until he finds her again and puts his forehead to hers, brushes his nose against the space between her eyebrows, tucks the knobs of her shoulders into his palms and brings her back down to earth.

She fists her hands in the covers until her knuckles turn white to try to hold onto an planet that is spinning too fast.

++++

She is not sure if she sleeps. Her brain circles and spirals, and wonders.

What if she had gone with Mike? Taken the initiative, surprised him for once? Found out what was going on to make him so distant and fuzzy over the long-distance telephone line.

Would it have been better? Worse? Would there have been another girl? Another life he’d built filled with friends and activities; no time left for Nancy Wheeler?

Would they have found out about what was going on in Hawkins? Would Fred have gone to investigate Chrissy’s death? Would he have died anyway? (No, her mind whispers, that’s just you, that’s only because you know what lurks under this town and you brought him with you, you dragged him along, you killed him too. Add him to your list, Nancy.)

Would Max have lived as long as she did, would she have made her miraculous recovery? (It’s not a recovery if she’s in a coma, her brain reminds her, but she shoves it away; she has to count not dead as a victory, maybe the only one they have.)

Would Eddie have been crucified by Jason and the basketball team? Lynched in town square only for Patrick to die anyway?

Would Dustin and Robin and Steve have figured out what to do? Would they have found Vecna, fought him? Would they have survived?

What if Jonathan had come like they had planned? Would the phone in Lenora still be off the hook? Would her brother be dead, like Henry showed her?

Would Jonathan have died following her into the Upside Down, fighting by her side?

Would Hawkins be doomed without her or with her?

She tries to imagine his voice, what he’d say, how he’d reassure her. Because he can – he always can. But he’s not here and she’s too scared to say the words to herself, even in his gentle tenor.

It’s too much weight, too much on her thin shoulders, her delicate spine. There is no one at her back to hold her up, trust her, believe in her. Only more cracks in her insides.

++++

Her mother’s voice is soft and gentle as it slips into the inky blackness of her unconsciousness.

“Nancy, sweetheart? Are you awake? I made pancakes.”

It takes her a moment to wake up, to come to, and in that liminal space his voice is there too.

Your mom doesn’t knock?

“Nancy?”

Her eyelids feel like lead, but she pushes them open anyway and finds her mother standing over her.

No, she doesn’t knock. Never has.

“Come on, sweetheart, you look pale. You need to eat, OK?”

She dresses slowly, in comfortable house clothes that are loose and soft, clean of the viscera of the nightmare dimension she’s spent two days in. Downstairs, Holly sits at the kitchen table, her mother stands at the stove, her father is settled in his favorite chair watching the news.

It’s so normal she wants to scream. Maybe throw things.

She walks into the kitchen instead and picks up the phone. She’s dialed the number so many times she doesn’t even have to think about it; her fingers fly over the buttons.

The busy signal blares out of the earpiece and she thinks about throwing things again.

“Nance, honey, come get some breakfast,” her mom says and she hangs it up instead.

“An earthquake,” her father mutters. “An earthquake in Indiana and they’re just now thinking to send the National Guard…”

Anger seethes inside her at his willful ignorance. On the TV she can see one of the cracks in the earth; at its center is the barest red glow. What kind of fucking earthquake glows?

Saying anything would be useless. So she goes to her mother instead and accepts the plate of pancakes.

“I know it’s a bit late for this, but it seemed like a blueberry pancake kind of day, what with everything going on,” her mom says and only then does Nancy think to look at the clock.

Nearly 3 p.m. How long did she lay awake in bed last night? How long did she sleep? The world feels muddled, fuzzy.

“Have you heard from Mike?” she asks and hopes against hope she just slept through a phone call.

Her mother huffs, turns so her back is to Holly. Her little sister doesn’t even look up from her coloring.

“No, and when he gets home from this visit I am going to murder him for this. Or lock him in his room forever, I haven’t decided yet.”

(We could hide you in our basement. Like El.)

“Still,” her mother is still talking, “I’m sure he must be fine. I know Joyce just got that new job, selling encyclopedias over the phone, so maybe the timing has just been bad. And she would absolutely call us if something happened to him, so he’s got to be safe. Maybe they haven’t heard the news yet. I mean, you’d think an earthquake in Indiana would be national news but, maybe it’s not.”

You would think that, wouldn’t you? Nancy’s stomach goes sour at the thought, and she grips her plate a little tighter. The thought of sitting down to eat feels so unappealing but she can’t remember the last time she did, and she feels the weakness from hunger. Her arms hurt and her chest does too, not just from the fear and the worry but from how the vines wrapped around her, held her against that wall and tried to choke the life from her.

She wonders if her mom can see the shadow around her neck. If she recognizes what it is. If she wonders how her daughter got it. Or if it’s too faint and her mother is too good at ignoring the strange.

“Right yeah,” she picks up a fork automatically, looks over at the table. Holly has gotten up and wandered over to her father, fitting herself next to him in the recliner to watch TV with him. “Do you mind if I eat in my room? I’m still really tired.

A furrow appears on her mother’s forehead; maybe she doesn’t see everything, but she also doesn’t see nothing at all.

“Sure, Nance,” she says slowly. “Just bring your plate back down when you’re done.”

She picks at the pancakes, the silence in her room unsettling. Opens a book, reads the same sentence six times and sets it down again. Turns the radio on and lays on her bed with her eyes closed, wondering if maybe she can sleep more, until a news report breaks in and sends her heart plummeting to her knees.

She snaps it off.

She feels useless. She feels stuck. She feels terrified, and she doesn’t know what to do next.

The phone on her nightstand rings and she lunges for it, nearly falls off the bed snatching it off its cradle.

"Jonathan?!" she can't keep the frantic note out of her voice.

There is a pause, silence, and as she holds her breath it nearly rends her in two.

"I was right about you having the same number." The voice is male but it's wrong, it's so wrong and she chokes on it. Bites her tongue to hold it in but the smallest sob manages to escape anyway, tasting like blood. "Sorry, Nance. Still can't get him?"

"No." She breathes it more than speaks it, but her voice still shakes on the same beats of her pounding heart. "I don't know where he is. Where any of them are. Mike is with them, and he hasn’t called, he hasn’t tried to get in touch. And I don't understand--"

"Nancy? Hey Nancy, Nance, it's OK," Robin's voice is high and female and sweet, sweet relief. She spent a year hearing one boy's voice when she so desperately wished for it to be the other's and it's like she's back there all over again. She feels cold, so very cold. "It's OK, Nance, they're OK. They have to be. We would have heard if they weren't. I promise, we would have heard."

Robin doesn't know that, doesn't have the authority to say it, but Nancy takes her at face value because to not would break her, she is sure of it.

Unbidden an image pops into her mind’s eye: Chief Powell, standing solemn on their front stoop hat in hand. Mr. Wheeler, Mrs. Wheeler, can we talk privately? I’m afraid I have some news about your son—

They told Joyce Byers they found her son’s body; they made it real enough that when she went to find Jonathan for help, she found him at a funeral home picking out caskets. She wonders if he was there when Hopper came to his mother’s doorstep to deliver the news. She wonders how he reacted; she’s never asked him. She wonders how she would react if they came to her doorstep; would she rise with righteous anger or would she shatter in a million pieces, never to be whole again?

She shoves the thought violently away before it can get any further.

"Yeah," she replies on a long, shuddering breath. "I'm sure you're right."

"I'm so sorry, Nancy. We didn't mean to..." the other girl trails off, and Nancy's not sure what word to sub in for her silence. "We didn't mean to."

"It's okay, I know... I know." She closes her eyes. Behind her forehead, a pounding starts up. "Why did you call?"

"You know how they're sheltering the people who lost their homes at the gym? Dustin had the idea to bring some stuff over to them. He's been going through his old games and toys all day, Steve and I are gonna get some stuff together too and take it over there tomorrow. We wanted to know if you wanted to help?"

Help. The word breaks through the panic fogging her brain, lets her muscles relax enough that she slides the rest of the way off the bed and onto the floor, folding herself into a little ball in the corner where her nightstand meets her bed. Yes, she can help. Helping is what she's best at. She can straighten her spine and put on a brave face and gather old clothes and toys from a life that seems more over than she could have ever dreamed and give them to people who need them. She can spring to action, step in to save day.

If she doesn't she will sit here and she will wonder and she will crumble to dust.

"Yeah. Yes." it comes out more confident than she feels, steel over open wounds and broken veins. "Yes, I want to help."

"OK great. Wonderful." Robin sounds oddly hesitant like she knows she is lying. "We'll come by your house in the morning, yeah?"

"Sure. Sounds great."

She doesn't wait for the goodbye, just gently sets the phone back in its cradle. For a moment she lets herself stare at it, focuses her entire consciousness on one thought: Find me.

The image of the phone blurs and doubles, but it stays stubbornly silent.

She rises on fawn-like legs and goes to talk to her mother.

++++

Nancy dreams.

She is back in Steve’s pool. Barbara’s corpse is still cocooned to the curve in the deep end.

Nancy…

Vecna’s voice beckons her. She ignores it. Walks over to her friend instead.

“Barbara,” she whispers, crouching in front of her. “Barb. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never meant for this to happen. I didn’t know. But I didn’t forget. And I didn’t let the world forget you, either.”

Nancy…

“Shut up,” she mutters, touches Barbara’s arm. It is sticky and slick and cold, but she keeps her hand there for a moment. “I miss you, Barb. Goodbye.”

Nancy…

“Alright you freak, I’m coming,” she snaps, stands and ascends the ladder. This time nothing pulls her back or impedes her way. When she reaches the deck she sees Steve’s patio set, beyond it a set of headlights. They’re too far off the ground to be his BMW, or Jonathan’s Ford. There is a person in the front seat, but she can only make out a vague silhouette.

I want to show you…

“Yeah, yeah,” she sighs, and looks down as a crack opens between her feet.

…where I am going…

The crack expands, splitting the earth before her in a long, glowing line. A taunt. A path.

“Follow the yellow brick road,” she murmurs, and takes a step forward. A horn honks twice, deeper and more resonant than a normal car. More like a camper van, or a Winnebago.

A ride could be faster, but the crack is not a road. It splits the earth with the inevitability of a compass, ignoring manmade paths and spaces and buildings, guiding true. Straying from it will only lead her to distraction.

She takes another step. Nothing gets in her way.

Nancy walks. She follows the crack through Hawkins and then out of town, into the forest and beyond until the landscape drops away and all there is left is dust and a cloudless, endless night. She doesn’t know where the light comes from; she cannot see a moon.

A demodog crosses her path, pauses. She stops, holding her breath. It looks around with its eyeless, faceless head, as if it’s searching for something beyond her. Sits down just like any other dog she’s seen. The familiarity of the motion almost makes her laugh.

“If I ask nicely, will you not eat me?”

The chuckle behind her almost scares her out of her skin.

“I’ve been told he likes nougat.”

Jonathan’s hair is shorter, and he is wearing the blue sweater she remembers from that night in the woods. The one she keeps at the top of her closet, next to the box that holds his father’s gun. All missing in this funhouse mirror world, stuck in a day that started everything that ended everything she knew.

“Are you real?” She reaches out as she says it, and her fingers pass right through the wry grin that twists his lips.

“No,” he says, and she wants to sob and scream at the same time. “Not here. But out there, yes. I’m real.”

“You won’t answer your phone! I can’t find you anywhere!”

“That weight? That you’re carrying around with you, all the time?” he reaches out, fingertips passing through her chest and she swears she can feel them inside her, cupping her heart. “I feel it too.”

“Jonathan—”

His fingers move up, to her neck, to her pulse, to her cheek. And she does feel something, she’s certain of it. Like spiderwebs, or the kiss of a ghost.

“You found me once, when you were trapped in this place. Now it’s my turn to find you. X-marks-the-spot, remember?"

"I don’t understand.”

“You will. Every time they think they’ve got the best of us, we always come out on top, don’t we?”

“Not this time. Jonathan, this time—”

“Tom and Bruce. The Mind Flayer. The Demogorgon. They all thought they had us beat. But they’re no match for us.”

“Jonathan—”

Suddenly his hand is real. Very, very real. It is warm and rough against her cheek and it steals her words, her breath.

“Remember: Straight into Will’s room. And don’t step on the trap.”

She awakens with a gasp, rocketing up in bed, hand clutched to her own face. She cannot tell if it’s the blurring between sleep and consciousness, but she swears her cheek is warm.

And for the first time since this nightmare of a week began, she lets herself cry.

++++

She wakes easier the next morning but stays in bed a long time. Snatches of her dream and confused thoughts are tumbling through her head, and instead of trying to push them away she takes a moment to sit with them.

When she’d opened her diary in the Upside Down, seen the date in the past, she’d also seen the entry.

OK! So, Steve and I, we made up today. And Barb definitely knows now. But I guess I feel better with her knowing. It’s just not anything serious—

For a moment, she misses the girl who wrote that with a pang so deep in her chest, it feels like a knife wound. Not for the first time that week, that month, that year, or any of the years since Will Byers went missing, she wonders what it would have been like to stay that girl. A girl whose life revolved around school and boys, who had a best friend since childhood and straight As.

Who would that girl have become? Would she have stayed smart, would she have been kind? Would she have been pulled into Steve’s circle with Tommy and Carol and become cutting? Cruel? Would they have made her popular, and would she have become callous? Would she have brought Barb along with her, or would she have left Barb behind?

Would she have become brave?

She remembers seeing Jonathan in the school hallway, carefully pinning his brother’s missing poster to corkboard. How Steve and Tommy had scoffed, called him pathetic, depressing. How she’d felt pulled in two directions – one to stay with the popular crowd, with King Steve and his influence, his tall frame and his charm, and another to go toward a tawny-haired boy she’d known since she was a small child, whose little brother had always been kind and polite, had always offered her a smile when he came over and never bugged her the way Dustin or Lucas or Mike would. Whose parents had split up and made him the weird kid, the school pariah, a fuck-up by association.

Whose shoulders were stooped with worry and whose eyes were even puffier than usual from exhaustion and panic.

It had taken courage to step away from her little group, to approach him and say something, and even then all she had managed was It sucks. And he’d looked at her, past her, and waited for the cruelty to come, because that’s what he was accustomed to.

He’d still listened to her and helped her. No questions asked.

God, she misses him.

Nancy scrubs her hands over her face. Behind her eyes, the pressure of her tears spreads and makes her throat tighten and ache.

“Fuck,” she whispers. She doesn’t want to cry again; her sob session in the middle of the night had felt like scraping out her insides, and she’s just now finding ways to put them back into place. What she really wants, if she’s willing to be honest with herself, is just a hug. A hug from him, if the universe could oblige.

She is not, she knows, the girl who wrote that diary entry anymore. Not just because of the supernatural, not just because she has worked to thwart four apocalypses so far by her count (three and a half, she corrects herself; she wants to pretend the rifts running through Hawkins don’t exist but denial’s never gotten her anywhere useful).

It doesn’t matter who that girl would have become. The girl she is has been shaped by each of those fights, by great loss and by great love. She is much braver, much stronger, than that girl could have ever imagined being.

The shape she has grown into is not the one she would have predicted. But she likes it more.

“Come on, Nancy,” she tells herself. “Get up. Get dressed. You’re going to go help some people today, and that’s going to feel good. And then, when you get back, you’re going to steal Mom’s car and drive west until you find your fucking boyfriend if it kills you.”

It’s an absurd plan; it’ll never work, she’ll never get away with it. And she loves it.

When she smiles it is light and true, and the pressure is gone from behind her eyes.

++++

She applies her makeup with careful touches, concealer and blush and eyeshadow, her favorite purple, and carefully tames her curls and clips them back from her face. She regards herself in the mirror, coiffed and covered, the optimistic colors of her shirt, the practicality of pants and sneakers, and gives a nod. Yes. This is the brave face she will present to the world.

Then she opens her closet and begins to sort.

She pulls out clothes from girlhood, frills and dresses and ribbons she used to favor for its mix of innocence and acquiescence. Nancy’s never been an idiot; she’s always known how to get what she wants. But the girl who chose these clothes asked for things sideways, through fluttering lashes and roundabout hinting.

The girl she is now, the woman she’s about to become, asks for forgiveness, not permission.

It is oddly fitting that Mr. Rabbit is on top of the box of toys her mother brings to Steve’s car; another piece of Nancy Who Was not Nancy Who Is. She expects the nostalgia pain to be sharp, but is pleasantly surprised to find it’s not.

“It’s OK if you want to save him, you know,” her mother offers.

Something inside her wants to laugh wildly. Here she is again in the middle – behind her is a boy with big hair and big eyes, big dreams of a small life with a big family and not much else, and somewhere out in front of her is a boy who is much quieter, much more careful with his heart and his dreams, who is difficult and challenging and devoted to the people he loves more fiercely than anyone she has ever met, and who she knows loves her – her favorite childhood stuffed animal in her hand and a choice in front of her once again. The only difference is Jonathan isn’t standing there, tacking a missing poster to a corkboard.

His words from her dream, from years ago, come back in a rush, from the one moment he felt real. Don’t step on the trap.

“No,” It’s an easy answer. “He’ll be more loved in a new home.”

Her mother follows her as she takes the box over to the car to join the others, expects to hear her say something about how proud she is of her, or about how glad she is they’re helping their neighbors. Anything but what actually comes out of her mouth.

“Did somebody order a pizza?”

The dust-coated yellow van and its massive red sign are out of place in the neighborhood. In reality, she thinks. For a moment they all freeze, trying to make sense of it.

Surfer Boy Pizza. She’s never heard of that before. Why would anyone brand pizza for surfers in Indiana? There’s no water here. No surfers. Surfers are in places like California, like—

Her brain stutters to a halt, and she swears her heart joins it. She can’t blink, she can’t even breathe, as the van door slides open.

And suddenly they are there. All of them. Mike and Will and El (where is her hair? What happened to her hair?) and a long-haired boy she doesn’t recognize and there, just behind her brother’s shoulder, is Jonathan. His hair is long, much longer than she remembers, much longer than her dream, and she thinks it’s blonde almost, (California sun, she thinks and then, inexplicably, Surf’s up, dudes) but she knows his face, knows his eyes and the slope of his shoulders and it’s impossible but it’s unmistakable: it’s him.

She only realizes she’s running when the shock of sneakers hitting pavement travels up to her knees.

They’re all running; Mike to her mom, Will and El past her to Dustin, and Jonathan to her and when he’s there, right there, nearly close enough to touch, she finds herself slowing. Hesitating. Because what if she’s dreaming. What if Vecna is in her head again, what if this is all a hallucination?

Are you real? She’d asked him in her dream and he’d said No. She thinks if she reaches out just to pass through him like a ghost again, it might kill her.

And then suddenly his arms are around her, lifting her off the ground and holy shit, holy fuck, he is real, he is so real. Her arms go around his neck instinctively, holding on for dear life as her heart and her brain both restart and then take off, flying a mile a minute.

His grip on her is so tight it squeezes all the air out of her lungs and when she can breathe back in again the air is filled with him. His hair and his skin, the sour undertones of sweat and grime, of cheap shampoo and cheaper soap. How long have they been driving? Days, it must be days, at least. As he sets her down his stubble brushes her cheek and she nearly swoons from it. Rubs her face against his cotton shirt and the soft skin of his neck.

It feels like home.

When he pulls back she almost wants to scream, but his hands are firm on her shoulders. Her eyes rove over his face, every line and spot and bit of stubble; he looks tired and he looks worried in that way that makes him seem angry, brow furrowed and mouth tight as he searches her face in return.

“Are you OK?”

“Yeah,” she answers automatically, without thinking, but his mouth tightens more and she snaps back to attention. “Yeah, I’m OK.”

Her fingers flex around his forearm – it’s so warm, warmer than he usually is, warm like sand under hot desert sun – slide up to his elbow and back. Checking, making sure he’s still tangible. God, she has so much she wants to tell him. So much she has to tell him.

“But Jonathan—”

“This isn’t an earthquake,” mouth so tight now there’s just a line where his lips should be and how is she supposed to kiss him if he’s tucking them away like that, “I know. I know a lot more than you think.”

That’s not what she’s expecting to hear.

“How?” How could he possibly know, who told him if it wasn’t them and she knows it wasn’t them because she’s been trying to call him. “We’ve been trying to call you—”

“I know. I’m sorry. We couldn’t risk contact.”

What?! Her hands stop their desperate moving, grip onto his forearms hard. Holding him there, like her nails digging into flesh will ensure he maintains corporeal form; will ensure he doesn’t just disappear again. She still isn’t quite ready to trust her senses.

“Couldn’t risk contact?!” she hopes it doesn’t come out as hysterical as she feels.

“Hey, hey,” his face softens, lips return from their hiding place. Oops. Maybe it did. “I’ll tell you everything, OK? I promise. But for now… I’m just glad you’re safe.”

She nods because she doesn’t know where to even start to refute him, to tell him safe is just an illusion, a brave face she’s putting on because the town is split in four and the Upside Down is controlled by a monster and that monster might be dead or it might just be hurt and really angry and now he’s got a way into their world so no, she is not safe, he is not safe, none of them are safe—

And then his lips find her forehead and suddenly she is safe.

She forgot. It’s been such a long, long time since she’s been this close to him. She forgot that his own heat doesn’t just warm her, it suffuses her; that his strength doesn’t harden her, it bolsters her. That his touch, his grip, doesn’t hold her down or in place; it steadies her on her own two feet so she can move forward with confidence and ease.

Her eyes flutter shut and she leans into his kiss, into his strength, and finds for the first time in days she can really, properly feel the ground beneath her feet again.

When he scoops her into a hug once more, she’s present and ready, her arms flying around his neck and her lips finding his ear so her whispered I love you can reach him loud and clear.

++++

She thought they’d have more time. She’s not sure why; maybe because the sun was shining when she walked into the cabin, because Jonathan had kept his hand in hers or his shoulder at her back since he’d reappeared at the end of her driveway.

Because having him there and by her side made the most impossible of tasks seem possible again.

And then it started to snow.

They trek out to the field in a cautious line; she brings up the back, unwilling to let him out of her sight. The tall grass is speckled with bright early spring flowers until suddenly it isn’t. Instead there is a line of gray, of fuzzy rot.

She knows this rot. They all do.

In the distance a plume of smoke has grown and crackles red with lightning. In front of her, Eleven crouches at a flower, examines it closely, then rises. Nancy can’t see her face but she knows the fury and determination in every line of the young girl’s body. She feels it in her own, wrapped into a triple helix with bone-deep terror.

The world blurs, tilts a bit off its axis. She reaches for his hand and this time it is there.

Jonathan is warm and solid and real beside her. His fingers lace with hers with the same iron grip. He is breathing hard, his own fear and his own anger, and she feels her lungs start to sync with his.

The world has gone wrong and yet, and yet, and yet. Inside she feels so right.

And something deep inside her chest starts to knit together again.

#jancy fic #jonathan x nancy #jancy #nancy wheeler #jonathan byers #introspections and dreams and missing scenes and reunions #and two teenagers in love #them against the world #season 4 vol. 2 fic #this one is somewhat terrifying to put out there #as a first statement #but i hope y'all enjoy

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