There's No Place Like Hawkins//Stranger Things. SH

SEVENTY FIVE

"Madonna, Blondie, Bowie, Beatles?" Robin began to list the artists who's tapes she had seen laying around in Nancy's room. "Music! We need music!"

Eddie grabbed a tape from the pile in her hand, holding it up. "This is music!" He argued.

Cat climbed off the bed, rushing back out into the living room where her backpack sat next to the couch. She picked it up, pouring her collection of tapes onto the sofa. Hastily, she sorted through them, looking for anything that had the slightest possibility of saving Nancy. "Guys!" She yelled, pulling out a Madonna tape from her collection. "I've found one." Wasting no time, Cat pulled her Walkman closer to her, hands shaking as she swapped the tapes around. "Steve!" She called, rushing to the centre of the living room and looking up to the ceiling to where her boyfriend was looking after a cursed Nancy. "Steve, I found something that might work!"

Just as Steve looked up to her, letting go of Nancy to hold his hand out for the headphones, Nancy's eyes shot open and she gasped. "Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." Steve wrapped his arms around her as she sunk to the floor, catching her and making sure she was alright. "It's okay. It's okay. It's okay."

Once Nancy had got her breath back and felt okay to move, Steve helped her climb up the rope to the real world. When Steve made it back through the gate, he immediately rushed over to Cat, pulling her into his arms. "You okay?" His voice was soft as his eyes trailed over her body, looking for any fresh injuries. When he saw the faint bruise beginning to form on her neck, his heart broke. "What happened? Are you okay?"

Cat nodded her head as Steve's fingers lightly traced over the mark. "I'm... I'm okay." She plastered a fake smile on her face. "I just- I just need to get some air." Steve smiled softly at her as he let her go, watching as she walked out of the trailer.

His smile dropped when he turned around to face his friends. "Did something happen to Cat, too?" Steve could already guess the answer just from the looks on his friends' faces. "What happened?"

A sad look took over Robin's face as she answered. "You wouldn't have known because you were trying to save Nancy, but... Vecna got Cathy too."

Steve couldn't bring himself to say anything as he stared wordlessly at the closed door. "I'll go talk to her." He had taken only a couple of steps forward before Nancy stopped him, placing her hand on his arm.

"I'll do it." She said to him. "Not that I don't think Cat wants to see you, I just think that talking to someone who's been through what she has might be better for her right now." Steve nodded, both in agreement and understanding, and let Nancy step out of the trailer to speak to his girlfriend. Nancy closed the door behind her, taking a seat on the trailer steps next to Cat.

"I'm not mad at Steve for staying with you." Cat told her, keeping her eyes fixed on her trainers. Her knees were curled up to her chest, and her fingers fiddled with a loose thread on her trousers. "I understand that he was making sure you were safe. It wouldn't have made sense for him to swap places with someone else when the main priority was saving you. And because he was so wrapped up in making sure you weren't taken by Vecna he didn't know that I had been too." She rambled, Nancy staying quiet while her friend spoke. "Steve still cares about you, in a platonic way of course. I would be mad if he didn't actually." Cat smiled a small smile, looking up at Nancy for a moment.

"Do you wanna talk about what you saw?" Nancy asked softly. "When Vecna took you."

Cat buried her head in her knees, tears welling up in the corner of her eyes at just the memory of what she'd been through. "It was scary." She whispered. "Scarier than last time. I mean, it was dark and then I was in that place Max drew the other day. The foggy, red broken Creel house. And I couldn't see him at first, but he was there. Vecna. And he practically told me his entire life story, before tying me to one of the pillars next to Chrissy and Fred. The vines, oh Nancy, they hurt so bad. And-" Her breath caught in her throat as she remembered the words Vecna had said to her.