𝚂𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝙶𝚎𝚝𝚜 𝙷𝚞𝚛𝚝

𝟶𝟷𝟼

Mike stepped in front of the rest of the crowd as he met El in the middle of the room. They embraced in a tight, loving hug. Neither of them wanted to let go. Steve looked over at Stephanie to see her eyes locked on the girl. He nudged her slightly. She turned her head to look at him.

"Who is that?" Steve asked. Stephanie looked at him shocked, but that's when she realized that no one had ever told him about El.

"I'll tell you later." Stephanie smiled at him, attempting to keep her balance. Steve noticed and gently wrapped his arm around her. In return, she draped her arm over Steve's shoulder. Stephanie watched as Hopper and Mike went into a separate room. Dustin and Lucas immediately bombarded El with a tight group hug. 

"We missed you," Lucas stated, not letting go of the girl.

"I missed you too," El replied.

"We talked about you pretty much every day," Dustin said, the group let go to face each other. El looked a Dustin with a weird expression. She then held her hand up and brought it toward Dustin's mouth.

"Teeth," El stated, noticing the difference with the boy.

"What?" Dustin looked confused, not realizing the change since he last saw the girl.

"You have teeth," El confirmed, still looking at the boy strangely.

"Oh, you like these pearls." Dustin said, giving his 'famous growl' which made El cringe. Stephanie let go of Steve and carefully walked over to the girl.

"I told him to stop doing that, but you know he never listens." Stephanie chuckled, causing El to turn around and notice the girl's state. Eleven carefully walked up to the teen girl and hugged her. "I missed you kid," Stephanie whispered, still hugging the girl.

"I missed you too." They pulled away and El's gaze went to her leg. "What happened?" Eleven sounded almost angry. Stephanie gestured to the demo dog lying dead on the floor.

"Took a good chunk out of my leg too. Hopper had to give me stitches." Stephanie informed the girl.

"Stitches?" El looked at the girl confused, not knowing what those were. Before Stephanie could respond, Max spoke up, wanting to introduce herself.

"Eleven?" Max asked, stepping forward. She stuck out her hand for El to shake. "Hey, um, I'm Max. I've heard a lot about you." Max complimented the girl but El almost seemed to have a grudge against the redhead as she walked right past her to talk to Joyce. Stephanie walked back to Steve who was still as confused as ever. She guided him into the kitchen so they could talk in a little bit more privacy.

"Ok so long story short her name is El, but that's short for Eleven. Yes, her name is a number we know. She was a lab experiment at Hawkins lab and it gave her superpowers. When she was there she opened this gate to another dimension, but before she could close it she ran away. The thing is that she ran away the same night Will disappeared. The kids and I found El while searching for Will and she became our friend. We helped her, she helped us, that sort of thing. Oh, and Mike was like obsessed with her. But if you ask me, El's not ready for a relationship because she was locked in a lab her whole life." Stephanie rambled on about the events from last year while trying to leave out the unimportant details.

"Powers?" Steve asked because while everything else made sense to him, having superpowers didn't.

"She can move things with her mind," Stephanie responded nonchalantly, thinking this wasn't a huge deal.

"Oh cool, you say that so casually," Steve commented, wracking his brain trying to fit the pieces together. He looked over at Stephanie, a smile on her face as she watched the rest of the kids catch up with El. Steve smiled while looking at the teen. He didn't understand much but he did know that he needed to keep her safe during this mess, and maybe those shithead kids too.