Papa
Cat wasn't sure what had happened. One moment she was trapped in Vecna's mind, moments away from death. The next, her eyes were shooting open and she was falling to her knees in Eddie's trailer. Shakily, her hands reached up and lightly touched the skin on her neck where the vines had strangled her. Robin and Eddie were kneeling in front of her, faces creased in a mix of worry and relief. Catherine pushed the headphones off her ears, discarding them to the couch just behind her and switching the tape off. "Jesus Christ, Cat!" Eddie exclaimed. "Thought you were gonna float up to the ceiling and have your bones broken like Chrissy!"
"Sorry to disappoint." Cat forced a smile on her face as she rubbed at her throat. She could still feel a pressure around her neck as if the vines were still there.
"You okay?" Robin asked.
Cat nodded her head, looking around at the petrified and relieved faces on the kids. "Where's Steve and Nance?" She asked, eyes wide in worry. Her brain automatically assuming the worst had happened since she couldn't see them.
"Vecna took her too. Before she could climb up the rope." Max told her. "Steve's there with her, making sure she's okay until we can wake her."
Eddie pulled himself off the floor, holding his hands out to help Cat stand up. She smiled at him in thanks, pushing her hair away from her face. "Now that you're awake, we should probably go back to finding something to help Nancy." Robin said, as the group made their way back to Eddie's room- which was where he kept all his music. Erica stayed back in the living room, serving as a messenger between the two groups. Cat sat herself on the edge of the bedframe as the group scrambled through the various tapes owned by the metalhead, none of them being something Nancy would choose as her favourite song.
"Nancy, just stay with me." Steve's voice was loud as he panicked, not sure what else to do other than to try and speak to the girl in front of him. "Stay with me, okay?" His hands clutching her shoulders as he tried to wake her from the trance. "Whatever you guys are doing up there, hurry up!" Steve yelled, briefly looking up at the gate.
Erica nodded her head, wasting no time in running down the hall to the others. "Steve says you need to hurry!"
"Yeah? No shit!" Dustin yelled, glancing over his should at her as he and Lucas searched through a pile of tapes.
"We're trying. We can't find anything." Max cried.
Cat curled her knees up to her chest, becoming increasingly scared that she was going to lose another close friend to the evil that haunted Hawkins. She tried to stay focused and help her friends with their task, but Vecna's words kept rattling around in her head. And she couldn't help but think that he was right- it was her fault that those bad things had happened to the people she cared about, because she couldn't save them.
"Seriously! What is all this shit?" Robin yelled out in frustration, a handful of heavy metal tapes in her hands.
Eddie waved his hands around in the air, equally as frustrated and confused. He still didn't quite understand the significance of the music. "What are you even looking for?" He ran over to his bed, placing a few of his tapes just by Cat's feet.
"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.
Nancy began gently rubbing Cat's back and stroking her hair. "It's okay." She whispered. "Take your time."
"He told me some awful things. How we were alike and almost the same, me and him." Cat paused as she worked out how to repeat the things Vecna had said to her. "That I wasn't worthy of being the same number as him. And that I wasn't worthy of my powers, which is why he took them." Subconsciously, her fingers began to rub over the faded number tattooed on her wrist. "He said it was my fault Will went missing, that people in this town are dead. Including Barb, and Bob and... and Billy. And he's right. It is my fault. I- I couldn't save them." The tears were falling down her cheeks now. "They died because of me. Because of me, Nancy."
Nancy wrapped one of her arms around Cat's shoulders. "Oh. Oh, Cat. That's not true." She took hold of one of Cat's hands, squeezing it gently. "That's not true at all. You shouldn't listen to him, he's just trying to scare you and manipulate you. Cat, listen to me. None of that was your fault. None of it. I promise you." Nancy let go of Cat's hand, instead gently turning the girl's face to look at her. Nancy's face was serious as she took in how broken her best friend looked. "None of it was your fault. Okay? You would've been missing with Will too had you cycled with him home. And had you stayed with Barb, I would've lost more than just one of my best friends that night. Catherine, you didn't kill Bob, or Billy. Okay? You did all you could to help save them. What happened was out of your control. None of it- none of it was your fault. Please don't blame yourself for what happened, Cat."
Cat nodded, her head falling against Nancy's shoulder. They sat there, on the steps of the Munson trailer while Cat calmed herself down. Her fingers wiped at her eyes, pushing away the tears. "Thank you, Nance. I'm sorry you had to go through that too."
Nancy smiled softly, resting her head against the top of Cat's. "I'm sorry you've had to face that twice." She whispered in reply.
***
The group had moved to sitting around the living room of Max's trailer, deciding that Eddie's trailer was too cramped with all nine of them taking up the space- plus no one wanted to be remotely close to the portal after everything that had happened. They were all scattered around the room, listening to Nancy tell them about what Vecna had shown her. Cat had refused to speak any more about what she had seen and what Vecna had told her, instead curling up on Steve's lap. The boy was sat on the couch next to Eddie, with Erica on the metal head's other side.
Nancy's voice was hoarse as she spoke, eyes trained on the ground in front of the armchair where she sat, opposite where the boys, Erica and Cat were sitting. "He showed me things that haven't happened yet. The most awful things. I saw a dark cloud spreading over Hawkins. Downtown on fire. Dead soldiers. And this... giant creature with... a gaping mouth. And this creature wasn't alone." Nancy shook her head ever so slightly as she spoke. "There were so many monsters. An army. And they were coming into Hawkins. Into our neighbourhoods. Our homes. And then... he showed me my mom. And Holly. Mike." A tear slipped down Nancy's face as she mentioned her family.
Cat cast her gaze to the floor. The sight of her friend crying over these visions was breaking her heart- especially after the girl had seemed so strong when comforting Cat over her own experience with Vecna. She hated how this monster had played with her friend's feelings, showing her visions of her family in danger.
"And they..." Nancy continued as more tears rolled down her cheeks. "They were all..." She cut herself off with a shaky breath, shaking her head to the side.
Steve hugged Cat tighter to his chest, thinking about how she had to go through a similar experience, hating how he hadn't been right there next to her to help her through it. "Okay, but... he's just trying to scare you, Nance."
Cat nodded her head, looking up at her friend. "You told me that's what he was doing to me. Scaring me. He's doing that to you, too. Nance, these visions are just to scare us away from fighting back against him."
"Right? I mean... I mean, like Cat said. It's not real." Steve added, agreeing with his girlfriend.
"Not yet." Nancy shook her head, finally looking up from the floor to gaze around at her friends. "But there... there was something else. He showed me gates. Four gates. Spreading across Hawkins. And these gates, they looked like the one in Eddie's trailer, but... they didn't stop growing. And this wasn't the Upside Down Hawkins." Nancy shook her head. "This was our Hawkins. Our home."
There was silence throughout the room for a moment before Max broke it. "Four chimes." Everyone turned their gaze towards her, waiting for the young girl to elaborate. "Vecna's clock. It always chimes four times. Four exactly."
Cat slowly nodded her head, curling up closer into Steve's chest. "I've been hearing them too. Max's right. It's always four."
"I heard them too." Nancy whispered.
Max rolled her eyes as she realised something, a piece of crucial information that they should've figured out long before now. "He's been telling us his plan this whole time."
"Four kills." Lucas chimed in, warily looking over to Max, who was leaning on the opposite side of the doorway. "Four gates. End of the world."
"If that's true... he's only one kill away." Dustin realised.
Eddie put his face in his hands, muttering to himself. "Oh Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ."
Robin looked around at the group, face falling in confusion. "So, if this Vecna guy needs four kills, why's he also going after Cathy?"
"Because he wants me dead and out of his way." Cat mumbled, shifting to sit on the arm of the sofa. Her feet rested in Steve's lap, the boy gently squeezing her knee to try and bring her some comfort.
"What?" Dustin asked, his eyes wide as he stared at his older sister. "What do you mean, he wants you dead? Why?"
"He has done this whole time." Cat added, eyes glued to Steve's hand that was resting on her leg. "Every time there's been a gate open here in Hawkins, something has wanted me dead. More than anyone else. The Demogorgon always went after me more than it did Nancy and Jonathan when we fought it at the Byers' house. And then when Will was possessed by the Mind Flayer, he said it wanted me out of the way. I thought it was because I was just trying to protect him." She shook her head. "I was wrong. At the mall, last year, the Mind Flayer went after me again. It tried to kill me, tried to get me out of the way so it could go after El. It wasn't the Mind Flayer that wanted me dead. It's been Vecna. It's been him this whole time."
"But why?" Lucas asked, heart breaking for the girl he thought of as an older sister. "Why's he after you?"
Cat tilted her face up towards the ceiling as she let out a sigh. She rolled up her sleeves, holding out her tattooed arm towards the group. "Because of this. Dr. Brenner made me his first experiment, his first proper experiment. He'd already labelled Vecna as 001, so I'm not sure why he made me the same number. Vecna told me that I failed Brenner, that he sent me back to my parents when he realised his little experiment wasn't working and then started all over again. This time starting from 002. I wasn't mentioned again, I was left to be forgotten about because I was deemed as a failure to Brenner's whole program." She paused as she rolled her sleeve back down. "He's been hunting me because only he can be 001. I'm not worthy of the number or my powers because of all the shit Brenner did to me. That's why Vecna's been hunting me. Killing me isn't going to affect his plans of tearing Hawkins apart. I'm just like... like a side quest to him."
"So, he's hunting you for sport?" Robin asked, fear evident in her voice.
Cat nodded her head, resting her arm on Steve's shoulder. "You could say that. Yeah."
"Jesus Christ." Eddie groaned into his hands. It was clear that everything that was going on was way out of his depth. It was for everyone. "Jesus H. Christ."
"Try 'em again." Steve looked over to Max. "Try 'em again." He was referring to the Byers and El in California, who the group had tried to phone several times since they'd left Eddie's trailer.
Max sighed but walked over to the phone and dialling in the number for the Byers. It rang a few times before a familiar beep sounded in Max's ear. "Anything?" Dustin asked, watching as Max defeatedly hung the phone back on the hook.
"No." She shook her head. "It rang a few times, then went to busy signal."
"Maybe you punched it in wrong." Steve suggested. "Try again."
Max rolled her eyes at him. "I didn't punch it in wrong."
"Well, I don't know." Steve shrugged, becoming stressed. Stopping Vecna and his curse was something bigger than they had ever faced before, especially when the creature was after two of the people he cared about most. The Hawkins group were in desperate need of backup, and with the Byers family not answering their phone, Steve wasn't sure how they were supposed to win this time around.
"I think she knows how to use a phone." Dustin commented.
"I'm just saying, she could've typed it in wrong."
Max huffed, re-dialling the number for the Byers house in California and holding the phone against her ear. The line rang for a moment before cutting off with the same beep as before. "Same shit." Max informed the group, hanging the phone back on the hook.
"How is that possible?" Lucas questioned as Max walked back to where she had previously been standing.
"I told you, Joyce has this telemarketer job." Dustin said, crossing his arms over his chest. "She's always on the phone. Mike won't stop whining about it."
"Yeah, but to be busy for almost three days straight?" Cat shook her head slightly. "That can't be Joyce. There's no way."
Max nodded her head in agreement. "Cat's right, it's not Joyce. Something's wrong."
"They're right." Nancy said, standing up from her chair and wandering over to the window, gazing out at the trailer park. "It can't be just a coincidence. It can't be. Whatever's happening in Lenora is connected to all of this. I'm sure of it. But Vecna can't hurt them. Not if he's dead." She spun around, looking towards her friends. "We have to go back in there. Back to the Upside Down."
"Whoa, no, no, no." Steve immediately voiced his disagreement.
"Nope. No way." Eddie agreed, shaking his head.
Standing up off the couch, Steve gently moved Cat's feet off his lap. "Let's think this through." He stated, trying to reason with Nancy as to why he thought her idea wasn't the safest.
"What is there to think through?" Nancy argued back, stepping into the middle of the room as she faced Steve.
"We barely made it out of there in one piece." Steve reminded her.
"Yeah, because we weren't prepared." Nancy shot back, desperate for a way to end the fight against the Upside Down so that they could save their friends and family. "But this time, we will be. We'll get weapons and protection. We'll go through the gate, we'll find his lair, and we'll kill him."
"Or he'll kill us." Steve pointed out. "The only reason that you survived is because he wanted you to. Hell, we were lucky that Cat's managed to escape him twice! He's not scared of us, not even Cat when she had her powers."
"And for good reason." Robin chimed in, pushing herself off the floor and standing with them. "We were wrong about Vecna. Henry. One." She shook her head in confusion. "Sorry, what are we calling him now?" She asked, looking around at the others.
"One."
"Vecna."
"Henry."
Robin shook her head for the second time. "Right. We've learnt something new about Vecna/Henry/One. Well, two things, I guess. He wants to murder Cathy, but he's also a number. Like both Eleven and Cat. Only, he's a sick, evil, male, child-murdering version of them with really bad skin. But my... my point is, he's super powerful. He could turn us inside out with a snap of his fingers. I mean, he took Cathy's powers like it was nothing. It's- It's not a fair fight." She rambled.
"So then why fight fair?" Dustin questioned, causing everyone to look at him. "You're right. He's like Eleven. But that gives us an upper hand. We know Eleven's strengths. And weaknesses."
"Weaknesses?" Erica repeated, eyebrows raised.
"When El remote-travels," Dustin began to explain, "she goes into this sort of trance-like state. I bet the same is true of Vecna."
"That would explain what he was doing in that attic." Lucas added.
Dustin nodded, pointing his finger at his friend. "Exactly. When he attacks his next victim, I'll bet you he's back in that attic, physical body defenceless."
Steve raised his eyebrows at Dustin's words. "Defenceless?" He repeated. "What about the army of bats?" He gestured between the wounds that decorated both his and Cat's skin.
Cat nodded her head. "I wouldn't call having an army of flesh-eating bats being defenceless."
"Right. True. We'll have to find a way past them." Dustin realised. "Distract them somehow."
"And, uh, how do we do that, exactly?" Eddie asked, beginning to stand up from his seat.
Dustin shrugged his shoulders. "No idea." Defeated, Eddie slouched back down in his seat, resting his head in his hands. "But once they're gone, he doesn't stand a chance. It'll be like slaying sleeping Dracula in his coffin."
"That all sounds good in theory, but there is no pattern to Vecna's killings." Robin pointed out. "At least, not one that I can decipher. And we don't even know when he's going to try and attack Cathy next. As for his fourth victim, we don't even know who that might be."
"Yeah, we do." Max spoke up, cutting of Robin's rambling. "I can still feel him." She added, rubbing her hand up and down her arm as everyone's eyes fell on her. "I'm still marked. Cursed. I ditch Kate Bush, I draw his focus back to me."
"Max." Lucas said, his voice conveying how he felt about her plan. "You can't. He'll kill you."
Cat shook her head, running a shaky hand through her hair. "No, Max. N-No. I mean, it would allow us to sneak up on him and get rid of him for good. But I'm not about to let you willingly put yourself in harms way." She shook her head again. "No, absolutely not."
"I survived before." Max reminded them. "I can survive again."
"That's-" Cat rested her head in her hands. "Max, just... no. If we can't think of anything else, I'll do it. But not you Max." She was still racked with guilt over Billy's death, she refused to let anything else happen to Max. If the plan somehow didn't work and Max was taken from them for good, Cat wasn't sure what she'd do. "I've survived him twice, I'll do it."
Steve was quick to argue against Catherine. "No, no, no, no." He shook his head, waving his hands out in front of him. "You," he pointed his finger at his girlfriend, "are not putting yourself through that again. I'm not letting you risk yourself for this plan."
"What's the alternative, let Max put herself in danger?" Cat fired back at him. "No, I won't let that happen. I'll lure Vecna into his trance-like state and then when he's dead, Cyndi Lauper's voice will save me. Just as it did before."
"Cat, Vecna very nearly killed you just now." Nancy spoke up. "You only survived as long as you did because he let you." She shook her head ever so slightly, glancing at the floor. "I doubt he'll be so lenient next time."
Max folded her arms across her chest. "Cat, just let me do it. Okay? I'm not gonna argue with you over this. I'll ditch Kate Bush, draw his focus away from Cat and any other potential victims. I just need to keep him busy long enough so that you guys can get into that attic. Then you can chop his head off. Stab him in the heart. Blow him up with some explosive Dustin cooks up. I honestly really don't care how you put this asshole in his grave. Just... whatever it is... whatever you do... try not to miss."
***
The group gathered around the table as Eddie slapped down a book, already open to a specific page. "Check this out. The War Zone." His fingers pointed at the small advertisement in the bottom corner of the page. Cat scrunched her face up at the name, not liking the sound of the shop. "I've been there once. It's huge. They got everything you need for, uh... well, killing things, basically." He glanced around at the group.
"Do you think fake Rambo has enough guns there?" Robin asked. "Is that a grenade?" She pointed to the logo on the paper ad. "I mean, how is any of this legal?"
"Well, lucky for us it is, so..." Eddie responded, a sarcastic grin on his face. "This... This place is just far enough outside of Hawkins. As long as we steer clear of the main roads, we oughta be able to avoid cops and, uh, angry hicks."
Cat raised an eyebrow and let out a small snort. "Yeah, we're going to the wrong place if we wanna avoid angry hicks." She commented. "That's exactly where they'll be."
Erica nodded her head in agreement. "If we're trying to avoid angry hicks, maybe we shouldn't go to some store called the War Zone."
"Normally, I'd agree, but we need the weapons." Nancy voiced her opinion. "Especially since Vecna took Cat's power, we need all the weapons we can get. So I think it's worth the risk." She folded her arms across her chest as she stood up straighter.
"Me too." Lucas voiced his agreement.
"But is it worth the time?" Dustin questioned, looking around at each of them. "It'll take all day to bike there and back."
"Who said anything about bikes?" Eddie quipped.
"What? You have some car we don't know about?" Cat asked. "Because we'd never all fit in your van, and Steve's car is too small for us and the weapons we plan on stocking up on."
"It's not exactly a car, Henderson." Eddie stood from where he was leaning over the table and turned to her, a crooked smile on his face. "And it's not exactly mine," he looked back at the rest of the group, "but, uh... it'll do." He spun around to face Max, who was standing a little way from the others. "Hey, Red, uh, you got a ski mask or a bandanna, something like that?" Eddie asked her. "I'd use mine but-" He gestured to his own bandanna that was tainted with blood and wrapped around Cat's forearm.
Max thought for a moment before nodding her head. "Just, wait a moment." She instructed, leaving the room to go find the mask she'd worn on Halloween two years prior when she first met the Party.
***
A/N:
So, Cat's alive! Vecna's not killed her yet.
By the way, this might be the last update for a couple of weeks as I'm going away for a well needed holiday. But I promise to resume updates as soon as I can once I return.
(Edited: 04/08/2022)
(Edit 2: 13/03/2023)