In My Blood

Episode 21 - "No More Lonely Nights"

   "Ellie, you have to stay- stop blinking!" I exclaimed in exasperation as I pulled my eyeshadow applicator away from the girl's face, but her giggles were contagious. "We're gonna be late!"

"Wrong way."

"If I used my finger, my hands would end up coated in glitter and Steve would complain about it tracking in his car." Eleven gave me a sly look, which I tried to counter with a stern one, but we both ended up laughing again. The middle school's Snow Ball had been her only topic of interest the past week. I couldn't remember much from mine besides sitting on the bleachers with Anya, but Eleven ate up every description I could give her. I held out the small eyeshadow palette in the girl's direction, careful to not have the loose powder spill on her lap. "Here, you finish it so I can fix that hair clip to stay in place."

She nodded excitedly and took it from my hand, squinting into the tiny mirror as she dragged her fingertip across a magenta shade. I got up from my seat on the kitchen stool to pull out the light blue clip hanging to a few pieces of her hair, opening it back up and maneuvering it to actually hold her hair back. Eleven's normally tighter curls had been blown out to be looser, something that had taken me more time than I'd care to admit to my father due to how short it was. She was smiling with excitement once I had finished, so it was worth it.

"Don't go away." I froze for a moment, the hairpiece just giving a satisfying clip right as she finished her sentence. Eleven lowered the eyeshadow palette and looked over her shoulder at me, her eyes wide. "I want... want you to stay here. Me, you, Hopper." I bit my bottom lip, returning back to the stool with a sigh.

"Ellie, I..." I began to say, but my voice trailed off as I felt the girl's hand take mine.

"Sister," Eleven said, giving it a squeeze. "We are. We can do it together."

"It's not that simple. Hawkins is the only safe place right now for you. I have to do this by myself, otherwise they'll come for us both."

"But I protect you?"

"And you've done an amazing job, El," I told her in a hushed voice. That managed to bring a small smile to her face. "But there's more happening that we don't understand, and these people might be able to tell me something. You figured out who you are... now it's my turn."

"You'll come back after," she nodded defeatedly.

"I'll be back quicker than you know it," I reassured her, trying to quickly turn the negative mood around for her sake. I picked up a lip gloss from the makeup supplies we had gathered and pursed my lips, giving her a second to repeat the action before I began to apply it on her. "They didn't think it through when they confirmed I can still get paid the jobs I would work to keep my cover. When I come back, I'm gonna have so much money that we can go shopping every day... and our stomachs will hurt all the time because we'll eat ice cream for breakfast." Eleven struggled to hold in her laugh as I moved to blush next. "I'm serious! And when I start getting jobs that pay even more money, we'll live in a house so big that even Polaris can have her own room- and we'll have parties like the Snow Ball every night!"