A NEW AND IMPROVED VERSION
Ryan Fordman has lived next door to Steve Harrington her entire life. Her entire life, he'd always been a window away, occasionally shouting across the space between their houses. They were inseparable... at least, they we...
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Peter stood on the elevator as Eleven worked to close the gate, watching as something big moved in the shadows. As the shadow grew closer, he realized he had seen the thing in a picture Will had drawn. The Mind Flayer was trying to break through the gate. "Oh my god."
The gate started to close faster when a demodog jumped in the elevator at Peter. He turned around, shooting quickly at the monster before it got anywhere near El. It fell off the elevator into the abyss.
Next to him, Hopper shot at another dog, drawing Peter's attention to the fact that there were demodogs climbing the walls. There were way too many of them, but not as much as there were before.
Behind them, El started to scream. Peter looked over his shoulder to see El levitating, going head to head with the Mind Flayer itself. The sight made him lower his gun, staring at his little sister in awe. She was winning. They were going to win this.
*•*•*
Ryan checked the kids for any injuries, wiping the dirt off their faces in the light of Billy's Camaro. So far, there were only a few bumps and bruises on the kids, nothing major. They were all okay. They were alive.
The headlights behind them started to brighten more than they should. Ryan raised her arm to shield her eyes as she looked at the car, her confusion shifting to understanding as she realized what was happening. El was closing the gate. "That's my girl."
*•*•*
Aaron sat on Ryan's bed with the Byers' and Nancy, all the windows and doors open to bring the cold air in for them to cool down. All he wanted to do was fall back on the mattress and sleep for a week.
Around them, the lights started to get brighter, so bright Aaron felt like he would go blind, when suddenly, they returned back to their original setting.
Nancy stood up, walking over to one of the lamps, "What-"
Aaron smiled, "Eleven."
*•*•*
Peter stared up at where the gate had been only a few minutes before. It seemed like nothing was there to begin with, like all of their nightmares had been just that, nightmares.
El collapsed into Hopper's arms, blood from her nose drying on her face, "You did good kid. You did so good."
*•*•*
Ryan held open the passenger door, moving the seats forward, "Everyone in."
"Where are we going?" Mike stepped forward, rambling a mile a minute. "Are we going to see Will? What about El? What about-"
"First, Steve is going to get his car off the side of the road. Then we're taking this back to Billy at Joyce's and going to Hopper's." It was a plan she had thought up in the moment, once she realized they would eventually have to return the car to Billy and that Steve had left his on the side of the road when they were hunting Dart. "Got it?"
