In the grand scheme of things, everything was fine.
But in the natural scale of evaluating the world, everything was not fine.
Will, freed of the Mind Flayer's control, was not fine.
Eleven, having closed the gate and made up with the most important man in her life, was not fine.
Steve, on the mend for being beaten to a pulp and titled the best damn babysitter in Hawkins, was not fine.
And Tatum, sweet Tatum, was not fine.
The roar of the road filtered up from below the police marked station wagon as it raced away from Hawkins Lab, no longer pursued by demons. Eleven had cranked up the radio despite Hopper's protest, recognizing a song that Tatum had played during their cabin clean up.
The Clash flowed through the speakers of the car, almost warming up the sharp temperature of mid-November as heavy bass blasted out.
El peered over her shoulder into the back, Tatum laid out on her back along the seat with dried blood from her eyes, ears and nose settled roughly into her skin.
"Were you sure?"
El's eyes flickered from the teen to Hopper, brows furrowing. "Sure about what?"
"That she was like you. That she could help you close the gate."
"No." El propped her chin on the edge of the seat, nearly turned all the way around to watch Tatum, hoping for some sign of consciousness to appear. "But I had a feeling. There was something about her, ever since we met. Something that reminded me of Nine."
Hopper glanced between El and the road, headed for the cabin where they had agreed to meet up for the time being. "What happened to her? To Nina."
"Papa took her away after we opened the gate."
"Took her away?"
"Gone."
Hopper's brows lifted, letting out a soft sigh. "She got a sister and lost her all in one day. This poor kid."
"She's strong," El nearly whispered, eyes tracing the rise and fall of Tatum's chest. "I couldn't have done it without her."
"Make sure to tell her that when she wakes up, because she isn't going to like the world when she does."
Where the road stopped and the trek to the cabin began was already stacked with vehicles, it clear that they were the last to arrive to the safe house. El helped Hopper pull Tatum from the backseat, the chief carrying the limp teen along a poorly lit path as El struggled to hold the flashlight steady.
Unable to summon the power to open the door alone, Eleven pulled the screen free and pushed open the front door, holding it open for Hopper as a crowd surfaced.
"Where's T-"
The entire cabin fell silent as Hopper carried an unconscious Tatum inside, the blood on her face a tell-tale sign of distress.
"What the hell happened to her?" Steve asked as he lowered a bag of frozen peas from his face, bruised but no longer bleeding. The middle schoolers lounging around him shared the same sentiment, hesitantly rising from their reclined positions.
Nancy's brows furrowed as she stopped short of Tatum, fingers hovering over the dried patches of blood before looking to El who donned similar features despite trying to wipe them away with haste. "I don't..."
"We'll explain in a minute," Hopper told Nancy softly, nodding for El to open the door to her bedroom. "Let's put her down."
Pulled from her reunion with her friends yet again, El helped Hopper lay Tatum down on her bed.
"I'll clean her up," Joyce offered, the mood of the house so sullen it was almost crippling. She brought a warm, wet towel into the room, shooing El and Hopper away as she sat on the edge of the bed.
"Tell us if she wakes up, okay?" requested Hopper, lingering in the doorway before finally accepting his dismissal.
As Joyce wiped away the dried blood from Tatum's face, Hopper's voice carried through the close door, recounting the phenomenon they had witnessed during the closing of the gate. She nodded along softly, as if the story were coming straight from Tatum's mouth.
Joyce lightly ran the towel along Tatum's earlobe, running it down the dull blade of her dagger earring that was smeared with blood. "It's always the ones you don't expect, huh?" she asked, not waiting for an answer. "You sure sound like a badass to me." Her lips pursed sadly as the little information they had on Tatum's sister was revealed, causing Joyce to sigh. "She was pregnant. I'd forgotten all about that. I was at her funeral, you know. The whole town was. She was a wonderful person. I wish she had the chance to see you grow up."
A soft knock sounded on the door, Steve's beat up face poking through. "Can I come sit with her?"
"Sure, of course," Joyce quietly said, doing a last once over of Tatum's face to remove any blood left over before standing up. "Let us know if her majesty wakes up, won't you?"
Steve nodded trading places with Joyce and instead of sitting on the edge of the bed, slid down onto the floor and rested his head back on the mattress. His eyes closed as the door clicked shut, raising his nearly lukewarm bag of peas back over his face. "We better be starting a babysitters club so we can rant about this shit," he said with a huff.
"That doesn't sound like a bad idea."
Steve perked up, dropping the peas to the floor as he turned over his shoulder. "Tate?"
"Jesus." Tatum dully blinked in her surrounding, eyes terribly blood shot. "You look like hell."
"Oh this?" Steve asked as he drew a circle around his face. "That's from your boyfriend."
Tatum's brows furrowed, slowly trying to prop herself up on her elbows. "What?"
"Remember when I told you on the radio that he showed up at Will's house?" Steve grabbed another pillow from the side of the bed, putting it behind her back. "I tried to play it off that Max wasn't at the house, but those little shits were too close to the window and Billy saw her. He didn't take it kindly." He sighed, taking a seat at the end of the bed and tucking one of his knees to his chest. "That guy's got a lot of rage. He probably would have tried to kill me if Max didn't knock him out."
Requesting the bag of frozen peas from the floor and proceeding to rest it on her forehead, she leaned back. "Max knocked him out?"
"Literally. There was still a syringe of what they used on Will to knock him out when he was spying and she stabbed Billy with it." He absently checked his watch. "There's a good chance he's still unconscious in the Byers' living room. Did you know Max knows how to drive?"
"A thirteen-year-old learned how to drive before me?" Tatum asked with a light groan, having to stop her laughter to keep her stomach from hurting. "Why did she have to drive?"
"Those little shitheads decided they wanted to go into the tunnels after Billy knocked me on my ass. They managed to throw me in the back of the car before I woke up."
"You guys were supposed to be on the bench."
"Yeah, but they got tired of sitting around. And I'm a shit babysitter. I should've been able to talk Billy down and make him go away."
Tatum shook her head lightly. "You're not a shit babysitter. You fought for their safety until you literally couldn't. That deserves an award in my book." She held gazes with Steve for a moment, lowering the frozen bag from her forehead. "What is it?"
"The award you should be getting is astronomical in comparison," he told her. "You closed the gate."
"El did most of the heavy lifting."
"That's not what she said," Steve countered. "She said she couldn't have done it without you."
Tatum stared at her hands for what seemed like an eon, flipping them over to evaluate the source of power she felt so deeply before that she couldn't conjure. "Did they tell you about what I found out?"
"You mean your sister?"
"I saw her," Tatum said, eyes raising to Steve's. "One of the doctors called her Nina, because she was number nine in their experiments. El said she helped her open the gate last year, but what she doesn't know is what happened after."
Steve's eyes narrowed. "But how do you know what happened after?"
"Because I saw it through my own eyes as if they were hers." Tatum sat forward, lowering her voice as if she couldn't say it any louder. "They made her go inside. While they took El away, they made Nina go inside the rift into the Upsidedown. And they left her there."
"What?"
"Steve, she's still in there."
Steve's confused expression fell to surprise. "What do you mean?"
"She's still in the Upsidedown. She's been in there for a year and she's still alive." Tatum looked away, tears brewing in her eyes. "And I closed the gate on her."
"Hey." Steve reached out, taking one of her hands with both of his. "Don't do that to yourself. You didn't know. You couldn't have."
Hopper knocked on the bedroom door, cracking it open as Steve let go of Tatum's hands. "Is she awake?" He smiled lightly as he spotted the brunette, genuinely happy to see her coherent. "Hey, kid. How are you feeling?"
"Like I got hit by a truck," Tatum replied, using the non-tattered sleeve of her leather jacket to wipe away the few tears that threatened to fall.
"I'll second that one." Steve grabbed the discarded bag of frozen peas, climbing off of the bed. "I'll get these back in the freezer."
"Did you get that doctor out of there?" Tatum asked, pulling her knees to her chest as Hopper joined her in El's room.
Hopper nodded lightly. "Yeah, yeah we did. He actually gave us some interesting information. Owens said that there was a file at the lab about your sister. It's got everything that happened with your mom inside, too. He said he never got to meet Nina, but he was told all about her. And if he recognized you to look like her, that means there's a photograph of her in that file. You can see what she looks like. You can find out what really happened."
Tatum's brows furrowed lightly, head swirling with too many thoughts at once. "How do we get back in there if the military is coming? You called them about it before I went to get Eleven, didn't you? It'll be swarming with people by the morning."
"That brings me to ask, are you up for another mission?"
"Do I get to sleep first?"
Hopper laughed softly. "Yes, yes you can sleep first."
||
Billy Hargrove's stolen camaro was crammed with teens as it raced across Hawkins under the cover of night, everyone within exhausted from the events they'd been put through.
Steve, almost having too much fun driving Billy's car, pulled into the long driveway of the Byers house, carting Lucas, Max, Dustin and Tatum to the initial scene of the crime. He threw the gear into park, sighing as he killed the engine. "Let's see if he's still alive."
Although Jonathan, Will and Joyce were on the opposite side of town to drop Nancy and Mike at home, the rest of them piled out of the camaro and walked through the front door as if they lived there.
And as expected, Billy was still laid out on the living room floor.
"Jesus," Tatum muttered to herself, following in behind Max.
"Thinking twice about dating him, huh?" Max practically growled, folding her arms over her chest as she stared down at her stepbrother.
Tatum sighed. "We weren't dating." She motioned out the open front door. "Let's get him in the car. I doubt Ms. Byers wants to come home to this." She picked up Billy's legs as Steve took his shoulders, the two carrying him out to the camaro and nearly throwing him into the backseat.
Steve shut the back door, less than politely smacking Billy in the head as he did so. "I'm going to take Lucas and Dustin home. Do you want a ride, too or are you going to go with Max?"
"I'm gonna go with Max to make sure she gets there safe. We'll sneak her back into her room somehow."
"How are you going to get home?"
Tatum shrugged lightly. "I'll walk. I have a lot of things to talk about."
"You were just unconscious for almost an hour. Are you sure you should be walking home?" Steve asked with a quirked brow, absently tossing Dustin his keys and he and Lucas headed for the BMW.
"I'll be fine, Steve."
"Can you call your parents?"
"And have them drive from Chicago to pick me up?" she asked. "No, I don't think that'll work."
Steve's expression fell lightly, remembering that while he wouldn't get a welcome from his parents when he returned, Tatum wouldn't have anyone at home at all. "Do you want to stay at my place?"
"I'll be fine," Tatum assured, waving Max over as she surfaced on the porch. "Really, I will. I'll see you at school tomorrow, okay?"
"Jesus, we do have school tomorrow, don't we?"
Tatum only laughed to herself softly, taking the passenger's seat as Max climbed back into the driver's seat, the gas pedal rigged with a cardboard box that allowed her to reach the pedal. First to leave the driveway, Max sped off with impressive skill.
"So," Max said despite the silence, "you have superpowers."
Tatum tried to stifle a laugh, the growing smile almost paining her tired body. "Way to put it, Max."
"That's what Hopper said," she defended. "You were literally floating. Like, in mid air."
"That much I don't remember." Tatum rested her head back on the seat as they neared Billy and Max's street. "This isn't what you expected when you moved here, is it?"
Max laughed, shaking her head. "Not in the slightest. I'm taking it's the same for you?"
"You've got that right," Tatum replied with a scoff. "My father's on drugs, my mom's death was covered up, I have a mystery sister and now I apparently have supernatural abilities. I was normal two months ago, I swear."
Max pulled up poorly to the curb outside of their house, killing the headlights before the car entirely. She looked into the backseat, Billy still unconscious. "What do we do with him?"
"He can sleep in the car," Tatum replied as the two hopped out of the camaro, tossing the keys onto Billy's chest. "Let's sneak you into the house."
It didn't take long before Tatum was hauling Max through the open window of her bedroom, lifting the middle schooler's feet above her head until the redhead toppled inside.
Max poked her head out the window after steadying herself, smiling lightly. "Thanks Tatum. For everything. You've saved my ass more than once today."
"Don't mention it," Tatum said, hands propped on her waist. "But really, don't mention it. The government can't know you were involved, like at all."
"You got it. Goodnight."
Tatum gave a light wave before ducking back around the house, stopping short of the camaro. She leaned into the open passenger side window, taking the dagger earring out and leaving it on the dashboard. "We're all angry, Billy," she said with a sigh. "But that doesn't mean you get to hurt people." She grabbed her backpack and cricket bat from the floorboard, slinging the bag over her shoulder as she headed down the dimly lit street, absently swinging her bat against the wind.
It wasn't long before a set of headlights were on her back, a red BMW pulling up at her side.
"Get in, Tate."
Tatum gave a sigh of defeat, knowing full well that she was only halfway home and her legs were killing her. She gave Steve a pointed look before climbing into the passenger's seat, resting her cricket bat between her legs. "You didn't have to come."
"I know." Steve let up on the brake once the door was swung shut, headed for their neighborhood. "But it didn't feel right leaving you out here."
"It's not like there are any of those things running around anymore."
"Demo-dogs."
Tatum's brow lifted, rolling her head to the side to look at Steve. "What?"
"Demo-dogs. That's what Dustin named them. They weren't full sized Demogorgons and they did kind of look like dogs."
"That actually has a good ring to it," Tatum said with a light nod. "Demo-dogs."
"Hey, how's your arm?"
Tatum lifted her tattered sleeve, having to wiggle the fabric around before she found the dried-up cut trailing her forearm. "I'd forgotten about it, actually. It doesn't hurt."
"You should definitely clean it tonight before you go to bed."
"I don't know if I'm going to be able to sleep," she replied, dropping her arm to her lap. "I don't know if I'll ever sleep again, honestly.
"I think you will. You look pretty tired."
"You look like you were hit with a brick."
The car erupted into soft laughter, Steve's car slowly rolling into his driveway.
Steve ran a hand through his hair as they climbed out of the BMW, leaning his forearms on the top of car. "You sure you'll be alright tonight?"
Tatum nodded assuringly, already backing up from the vehicle. "I'll be alright. Really, I will."
"You know where to find me if you change your mind."
The seniors parted at the road, it not taking long before Tatum unlocked the silent house and stepped inside.
She kicked off her muddy boots at the door, waiting to set down the rest of her things until she was safely inside her bedroom. The cricket bat was tucked away deep in her closet and the shredded leather jacket joined it, hopefully never needing to see the light of day again. She stripped out of the clothes that smelled like a mixture of junkyard and rotting meat, reclining herself into a hot bath that she used not only to clean the day away, but the wound on her arm as well.
It was only just as she felt like she could finally relax when the library below began to call her name.
Tatum slowly dried herself off, taped gauze around her arm and dressed in an oversized t-shirt and shorts, bare feet making quiet steps as she descended the staircase back into the dark first floor of the empty house. Her wet hair hung low as she reached for the doorknob of the library, finger not needing to touch the cool metal before it turned itself.
She took in a sharp breath as the door swung open without physical touch as if she had forgotten everything that happened below Hawkins Lab.
There was a part of her that had hoped all of it was a deep fever dream she had finally woken up from, but reality was much stranger.
She flicked on the library light, taking in the blank room as it had been for the past few months. Although she was wishing something new had emerged since her wild days babysitting, but she was disappointed. Grazing her hand along the empty side of the corkboard as she walked a large circle around the room, she took a seat in her father's office chair.
The house was so incredibly quiet.
Tatum leaned her head back, eyes closing as she took a deep inhale of Jordan's familiar scent.
She hadn't decided if she wanted to hug her father or hit him, and she imagine it would take a long time before she could make up her mind.
Her brows furrowed lightly, eyes flickering underneath her eyelids as a low hum forced its way to her in the silence.
That was something new.
Keeping the world blocked out visually, she focused on the sound.
Tatum stood from the chair, walking to one of the several bookcases guided by only her sense of space, eyes only opening as she found a small, seemingly insignificant button nestled just inside the middle shelf.
As she pressed in the button, the bookshelf unhinged itself from the wall, creaking open with Tatum's help.
Lit by a single overly fluorescent light, the small room within the wall of the library was filled to the brim with equipment she wouldn't have expected Jordan to know how to use.
Video recording. Audio recording.
A manuscript.
Tatum stepped inside, praying the door wouldn't shut behind her as she drew a finger over the panel of six monitors that show grainy, dark footage of the house in its current state, lined up with the front porch, the foyer, the kitchen, the upstairs hallway, the living room and the back garden. The audio ports were labeled for each telephone in the house as well as 'living room lamp' and 'T's alarm'.
The disgust was imminent on her face, horrified as she took it all in at once.
All of her suspicions had been correct.
It didn't take long for her to find the hammer buried in the attic.
One by one the video feeds dissipated from the monitor, the audio feeds soon to follow.
Without regard for her parents' return in the late morning, Tatum grabbed the finished manuscript from the slim metal desk within the hidden room and left the door hanging open as she retreated to her bedroom.
Turning off her main light and letting the lamp on the nightstand illuminate a smaller vicinity, Tatum crawled in bed and opened the thick, prong-bound manuscript.
Almost as soon as Tatum realized that her father had written the novel with the intention of his missing daughter being the assumed Russian spy nestled in Hawkins, the world blinked out of focus as exhaustion took her over.