Nancy stood in the shower letting all of the dirt and grime wash off her body. On any other day she would relax, feeling the warm water run from her hair to her feet.
She turned to face the shower head. If it were any other day she wouldn't be this dirty. If it were any other day, she would be able to relax. But it's not any other day. Can any other day happen after today? Images of what she saw flash through her mind. How can anyone go back to normal after that?
Her hands push her hair back as she struggles to keep her panic down. She can still hear the screeches of that horrible monster. She could've died. Her breathing speeds up, her chest tightens and her anxiety rises. She feels like she's there again. Running away as fast as possible from that /thing/. It took Barb. Maybe even killed her. It could've killed her too.
Nancy's about to give in to her anxiety when she hears a noise from the other room. It pulls her attention from her racing thoughts.
Oh, Jonathan's here.
And just like that, her breathing slows. She doesn't have to panic, she's not alone. It's amazing that knowing someone is right there, right within reach, can make such a huge difference. He makes her feel safe. He pulled her out of that place she had found herself lost in. If he's there, she'll be ok. There's someone who knows exactly what happened and will believe her even when what she says makes her sound like a lunatic.
She slows her breathing, trying to calm her still rapidly beating heart and steps out of the shower.
Nancy walks in to her room and closes the door softly. When she turns around, Jonathan is looking up at her from the floor where he's laying out a makeshift bed.
"Better?" He asks.
She rubs the back of her neck before answering, "yeah." She brings her arms down to cross them. The silence in the room feels more awkward than it did before.
Jonathan glances down nervously to the blanket he layer out on the floor. "Is this ok? Uh, I found it in the closet," he stands up. An oddly weird pause fills the air before he continues, "I can go home, I just figured-"
"Yeah yeah no no, uh, I uh, I don't wanna be alone." She doesn't know what she would do if he wasn't there to keep her thoughts at bay. Being alone would feel the same as a death sentence.
He lets out a breathe of relief and nods.
"Do you-"
"No, uh no" he looks to the ground.
Another silence falls into the room as they both settle into their own beds. Nancy turns to the side and tries to settle her mind. Her attempts are in vein as she starts to loose control of her thoughts once again. She breathes in and out. She can't do this. She knows she can't. It's so quiet. Then she thinks about Jonathan. He's right there at the end of her bed. Why doesn't he just sleep with her?
She sits there for a few seconds, battling herself over wether or not she should ask him to get in her bed. Eventually she decides she'd rather feel awkward than send herself into a full on panic attack.
"Can you just come up here?" She calls out to the bottom of her bed. She hears nothing and for a split second she's afraid he's ignoring her in favor of pretending to be asleep. Then she hears the rustling of sheets and a small "yeah."
Jonathan climbs in bed next to her. After a few seconds he asks "do you want the lights off or"
"On," she interrupts.
"Yeah," he lets out a shaky breath and continues, "ya know, it can't get us in here."
She thinks about it. He might be right but then again, "we don't know that."
Jonathan stay silent but turns towards her. There's a silent agreement between them when he does this. Nancy's right. Neither of them know enough to make any assumptions about this creature. They don't know anything about it or the place it came from. All they know is that they both saw the insanity that was the day they experienced and that they saw it together. It makes them connected.
Nancy stared at the ceiling drifting to sleep, wondering if things will end up ok or if this will be the way she dies. Running from a horrible monster.
That thought followed her into her dreams.
It was the pool. It was void of water unlike it had been the night Barbara disappeared. But here Barbara hadn't disappeared. Nancy gasped in fear. The dirty, bloody corpse of her dead best friend was slumped against the wall of the pool. Her skin was deathly pale and looked almost frozen. Her body was covered and blood and slime. Nancy tried to scream but no sounds came out. She climbed the pool ladder as quickly as she could.
Once she reached the top her surroundings had changed. Only trees and vines surrounded her. She heard that awfully familiar screech and turned around. It seemed as if time had slowed. The monster was feeding on something. The closer she looked the more horrified she became. The monster-shredded body of Jonathan Byers was lying on the ground. The only person she had left who was there for her.
The horror grew to terror as the monster screeched and gave chase towards her. She turned to run away as fast as she could. The more she ran the more aware she became of how painfully slow she is. The monster was catching up to her incredibly fast and there was nothing she could do about it. It's pre-bloodied claws reached out to grab her.
She sat up in a cold sweat, breathing hard. Her breaths were shaky and she felt so terrified that she could throw up. Jonathan shot up next to her immediately engulfing her in a tight hug. He wrapped his arms around her. One around her midsection and the other in her hair, holding her to his chest.
She grabbed onto the back of his shirt crying into it "Barb, she's dead. She never left the pool. She's still there. She's dead. You were dead. It got you I saw it. It was tearing you apart. I tried to run I tried. It was so fast. It got me. She's dead. I killed her it's my fault. Please don't leave. I can't be alone." She rambled on mindlessly with the events of her nightmare still plaguing her mind.
Jonathan rocked her back and forth mumbling comforting phrases like "it's ok you're safe" and "I'm here I'm here I won't let go" into her ear.
After a few minutes she calmed down a little. She gave into the rhythm of Jonathan's movement.
When she was coherent enough to form a sentence she asked a question "will I ever be the same?"
Jonathan thought for a moment about her question. It was a question he had asked himself a few times while he stared at the ceiling, unable to fall asleep. He had never reached a conclusion. "I don't know," he released her from his embrace to hold her face and make her look at him, "but even if nothing goes back to normal, we can be not normal together. We'll be ok"
"But what if we're not ok? What if we end up like Will or Barb?" Nancy trembles in his arms.
"We're not gonna end up like them. We're not gonna disappear. We've seen what we're up against. They never knew. We'll be ok. We can do this." He let go of her face and pulled her back into a hug, resting his head on hers.
Although he didn't believe a single word, he knew Nancy needed to hear it. He was right because not long after, she started to calm down. Although she didn't believe it either, a certain truth rang through his words;
They may not know anything about this thing but they do know that it exists. They know what it looks like and where it lives. They have an advantage that neither Barb nor Will had. Maybe everything will be ok. Maybe they can make it out of this.
She pulled out of his embrace to look up at him.
"Thank you," her eyes flicked back and forth between his, the space between them being short enough to prevent her from focusing on his whole face.
"I, uh, yeah sure" his gaze flicked down to her lips for just a moment before moving back up to meet her stare.
His glance didn't go unnoticed. Nancy started to lean in almost unconsciously. They could feel each other's breathe of their skin when one thought rang through her head. 'Steve'. She pulled away.
She has a boyfriend what was she thinking? She can't just betray him like that! Even after everything her and Jonathan have gone through together. She can't just go kissing other boys. She looked down at her hands in shame.
"I'm sorry, I can't."
"Yeah, uh Steve, yeah of course it's ok." He tried not to take it to heart. It was a heat of the moment thing. She has a boyfriend anyway.
"I'm just gonna go back to sleep." She slid back down.
"Yeah ok." He lay down with her.
Both of them knew they weren't actually going to sleep but neither of them cared.
Somehow by the end of the night, they were tangled in each other's arms. Neither of them could remember how it happened but they decided not to question it. Besides, they had seen stranger things.