Chapter 25: The Explanation And Loss
FIRE had grown and smoke gathered in the air, thick and choking. American soldiers crawled into the mall, footsteps heavy and guns aimed and ready, the lights on their rifles cutting through the shadows. Yet Jean didn't depart from Billy's side even as he finally blinked his eyes open. Instead she lifted her hand from his bloody chest, moving it to brush away his damp, golden curls from his forehead, and doing something that promoted him to fall back into deep sleep.
His scrunched and panicked features relaxed under her ministrations -something that caught Max's attention before they were all hauled outside to the mall's carpark, leaving the shadows bruised with neon light behind them.
Police cars, ambulances and fire trucks crowded the parking lot. Red and blue emergency lights flashed and twirled through the night air that was still hot despite the recent and quick downpour of rain that fell over the small town of Hawkins, sending down a sheet of water to heal the damage and wash away the horror of the battle of Starcourt Mall. It was much like the night that Jean Grey first appeared, months later and the mystery that shrouded her whole being had somehow intensified ever since.
Jean and Max watched as the medic's rushed to get the unconscious Billy inside the ambulance, providing him with whatever urgent treatment he needed before heading to the hospital.
"What did you do?" Max asked, curiously eying the taller girl as she referred to the last action she took that put Billy to a comforting sleep.
Jean sucked in her dry lips, briefly lathering it with her tongue before she let out a soft sigh. "I blocked some things from his head. Just a few memories I could reach that would only hurt him for now."
She had no intention of keeping his memories from him. If she had, Jean wouldn't have been any different from the Professor after what he'd done to her. Jean wasn't capable of taking Billy's pain away, she only buried them until he was strong enough to face it head on, bit by bit. And she would be there every step of the way for him to do so.
Sending her an unsure nod, Max shuffled closer to Jean, eyes drawn tightly together in concentration. "I don't how you did it, but you saved his life. I don't know how to thank you."
"Don't mention it." Jean solemnly said, beckoning for Max to head on inside the ambulance to go with her brother. "You should go with him."
Maxine nodded affirmatively, followed by Lucas who's been staring at Jean with awe for the last few minutes.
"Jean!" Eleven shouted suddenly, darting across the pavement, swinging around her leg cast carelessly as she lunged at her older sister. Jean slipped from Max's arms and was enveloped by El, and whatever strength had been keeping her legs straight, broke and she buckled in her arms.
"Are you okay?"
"Mmm." El hummed softly. "Jean?" She whispered into her bloody hair as she wrapped her arms around her
"Yeah?" Jean replied, moving away and guiding Eleven to sit near one of the ambulances.
With pursed lips, El darted her gaze between the mall entrance and Jean's translucent green eyes, no longer an amber color. "What happened... earlier?" She asked hesitantly.
Jean swallowed the lump in her throat, knowing that she'd have to explain what the hell happened back there and how she did what she did. She feared what her little sister figure would think of her if she told her everything she now knew of her past. She didn't even know if she or anyone else would believe her. But now wasn't the time.
"I remember now." Jean vaguely said, eliciting El's confused response. "What...do you remember?"
Once she met with Jean's gaze, Eleven found that her eyes lingered with something akin to regret.
"Everything." Jean said with a sad smile. Luckily for her, El didn't have time to ponder on Jean's words once Mike suddenly called her over, and she left with a befuddled expression plastered on her face.
Jean felt drained and heavy-limped as she leaned her back against one of the many ambulances, releasing a short huff when Steve suddenly appeared by her side.
"Hey," Steve said, a crooked smile gracing his bruised up features that were now covered with plaster. The red haired girl said nothing in return, refusing to even meet his gaze as she looked over in the distance with an apathetic expression.
Steve's grin faltered for a second before he raised his brows in question, his hand moving to slick his hair back. "So, what was that back there?" He asked, wondering why Jean tensed under the unintentional scrutiny of his words.
"It's a long story." She muttered, titling her head to finally face him.
Harrington's mouth opened qnd closed as he eyed her closely. He could clearly see it now. The coldness that surrounded her. Her eyes were glassed over dispassionate disolation, and her aura seemed to be dipped in a numb harshness. But he quickly shook his head in denial at her obvious change in demeanor.
He cleared his throat, starting to speak with a short stutter. "W-well, you totally embarrassed me in front of Robin. I thought you said you couldn't move things with your mind."
"So did I." She shrugged.
"Well, that was pretty badass," Steve sent her a genuine smile. "What you did for us."
At his words, he watched as Jean froze vacantly. Steve couldn't get over how when he looked into her eyes, he found they were ancient. They were eyes that have seen and endured unspeakable horrors. Things that would make grown men soil themselves and pass out in fright.
"Hey, is everything okay?" His heart galloped at a relentless pace once he realized how different she seemed. "I mean, of course I know that it's not, considering that we've almost been killed by an inter-dimensional spider monster. But-"
Steve didn't have a chance to finish since Jean had effectively cut him off with a wave of her hand, as her worried eyes traveled across the carpark to see Joyce leaving the mall with only Murray by her side.
Hopper no where to be found.
"Oh, no." She gulped harshly, seeing the distressed look on Joyce's face as she looked around her like a lost child.
A wave of dread engulfed the entire parking lot.
And in a matter of three seconds, Jean's thick wall of apathy and detachment perished, and she felt everything.
Air was knocked out of her lungs. Silence. Abyss in her gut, a desert in her throat.
Hopp was dead.
~~~
Dawn was breaking softly over Hawkins, gentle colours guiding the darkness away. Nancy had brought Jean home with her after the incident. The redhead had walked by her side as grief overflowed her eyes, tears ran down her reddened cheeks, wrapped in a blanket, not that it offered her any warmth.
"Thanks for letting me stay the night." Jean weakly muttered after she reached the end of the basement's stairwell. Nancy closely followed behind her, and eventually leading her to one of the cleaner couches to sit on.
"Oh, you're welcome. Only Mike and his friends hang around here. And he's sleeping at the Byers' with El tonight." Nancy cautiously said as if walking on eggshells, although Jean immediately tensed up as she recalled what had happened between her and El after the shocking news of Hopp's sacrificial death.
"No, no, no!" Eleven's beaten eyes were widened, as she struggled in Jean's grip. Her once innocent brown eyes filled with utter chaos and mayhem at the discovery of her father's death.
El's fragile body thrashed against the fidgety arms of Jean. "He's not gone!" She yelled in denial. Her hysteric voice was wracked with untamed emotions, and she could not prevent the fathomless repressed feelings from clawing to the surface of her mangled heart.
Jean's lips trembled, vision blurry from the tears she held back, refusing to meet any of the worried gazes Joyce, Mike, and Steve sent her way. "El, El, listen to me, you need to calm down."
A brutal sob ripped itself through the brunette's throat as she eventually stopped clawing against the arms that were holding her tightly against the owner's body. "Please, you can bring him back." El said with a desperate hitch of her throat.
"W-what?" Jean said with a stutter, her eyes widening.
"B-bring him back like you did with Billy."
"El..." Jean couldn't explain how much she wanted to in the heat of the moment. But she couldn't bring him back. Not when there was nothing of him to bring.
Plus, any speck of energy she had, Jean had poured into Billy's weakened form with no way of doing the same thing again any time soon.
"Jean, please." Eleven begged, grasping Jean's hands in desperation as if it were her last lifeline.
"I-I.. I can't."
"No! Don't say that!"
Confliction married Jean's features, her eyelids shut for a fraction of a second so she would recollect herself. "I'm sorry."
"Get away from me!" Eleven screamed at the top of her lungs, and then separated from Jean's apologetic form as fast as she could, without sparing her another glance.
A silence loomed over the two girls for a short while before Nancy awkwardly broke it. "Anywho, it's no problem. It's the least I could do after you saved our lives back there."
Jean gave Nancy a polite smile in return, but it felt too foreign on her grief-stricken face. "My pleasure."
Nancy arranged the sofa for Jean to sleep in, but as she did, she would glance at the silent Jean every once in a while. Her eyes were drawn tightly together in concentrationas she let her lips press lightly together in question of the girl's powerful abilities that she didn't care to disclose from the beginning. Perhaps it was the investigative journalist within her, because she couldn't help but want to explore further.
"Jean?"
"Yeah?"
"If you don't mind me asking... How come you didn't do what you did... you know, earlier?" She asked, quirking a curious brow at her and Jean sighed at her inquiry.
"Let's just say that... it was a part of me that I didn't know I had." The redhead bit the inside of her cheek. "Or wanted to have."
"Oh..." Nancy knew not to probe any further, so she suppressed her curiosity for the moment.
"Night, Jean."
The redhead nodded. "Goodnight, Nancy."
After she turned off the lights, Jean laid back on the couch, her thoughts blurred. And her clouded gaze shifted tiredly along the walls.
Once Jean sighed once more at the recollection, she laid on the couch. And Jean then finally released the tears she'd been holding back in the dead of night. She was shivering with sobs, so cold even in the dead of summer.
Jean couldn't and would never blame Eleven for her emotional outburst.
She was grieving. She was angry, and not just with Jean. El was angry at Hopper for being a hero. She was also angry with herself for her own weakness, and for not being able to protect the people she loved.
Jean understood that to a painful extent.
So, from experience, Jean knew that the best thing to do was to give Eleven the space that she needed for the night before she could talk to her in the morning.
The redhead's eyes eventually fluttered closed, yet somehow she was still producing tears, still creating rivers that curved down her grief-stricken cheeks. And she descended into darkness with more than one problem in mind.
~~~
"Hi, Jean." Mike mumbled, he and Will dragging their feet across the latter's living room.
The redhead swallowed thickly, the next morning had come and gone and Jean noted how the two boys didn't look any better than she did. After all, kids their age could only endure so many tragedies in the span of one day. "Hey." She said, giving the Byers' house a quick scan, silently asking about El's whereabouts.
"How's she doing?" She asked.
Will and Mike exchanged hesitant looks before answering.
"Worse if that's possible." Mike frowned, he looked in the direction of Will's closed room, and Jean took it to be where El was staying. "She won't eat, she won't sleep. She's just...sitting there, staring out the window."
"Oh..." Though she felt her heart cracking away at the young boy's crestfallen expression, Jean shoved those feelings aside for a moment along with her worry for Eleven, and she headed to the kitchen to find Joyce.
"Hey, Joyce."
A surprised yelp forced out of Joyce's mouth as she spun around to see Jean standing right behind her, bracing a hand on her chest to quell her startled pulse. "Oh, hi, Jean."
"How are you feeling?" The tall teen asked, her voice dripping with sympathy for the rattled woman standing before her.
Joyce managed to give her a fake smile as she busied herself with whatever she could. "Better than I thought I'd be."
The telepath didn't need to use her powers to know she was lying. She was an emotional wreck.
"You don't have to act tough in front of me. You know, I can read your mind." Jean said, sitting at the kitchen table across from Joyce.
"He always said how that drove him nuts." The latter chuckled, but a reluctant tear traveled down her cheek.
Jean's lips simultaneously formed a saddened smile. "I know it did."
"Even though you haven't known him for very long," Joyce began, taking a deep sigh before she continued. "but he... he thought of you as his daughter."
Holding the urge to collapse into tears, Jean nodded in response. "I know."
And he was more of a dad to me than my own father was.
"You should get some sleep." After clearing her throat, Jean said.
"No, no, I'm good." Joyce shook her head, almost neurotically walking around the kitchen. "Lots to do."
"There's nothing to do right now. Go rest."
"I told you, it's fine."
"Joyce?" Jean sighed, bringing two of her fingers and placed them against her temple. "Yeah?" The older woman replied.
"Go to sleep."
Joyce's lips raised slightly, forgetting what they were talking about as she felt her mind going black. "That sounds like a good idea." She said before proceeding to go to her room.
Satisfied, Jean remained seated at the table for a few moments before she heard Mike and Will coming in.
"Where's mom?"
"She went to rest." The Grey girl said, getting up to get feet, her green eyes mindlessly moving to the room where El was cooped up in.
"How'd you get her to do that?" Will asked in bewilderment. No matter how many times he begged his mom to lie down and get some sleep, she'd refused him, stating that she was 'fine'.
Jean shrugged. "With my powers of persuasion."
And Will dedicated her a smile of awe.
"Are you going home?"
"Yeah, my mom told me to come so she'd make sure I'm okay." Said Mike in response to the teenage girl's inquiry. He looked cautiously between Jean and the closed room that housed El's depressed form before abruptly saying, "Umm, Will's coming with."
"I am?" Said boy scrunched his eyebrows, but he quickly caught on, nodding after receiving a look from Mike. "I am."
"Okay, well, bye." Jean waved the two boys off as they left the house. And after a few beats of silence, she decided to go for it.
She hesitantly walked to the large door and raised her fist, but didn't knock. She didn't know if she should. Jean was aware that Eleven needed some alone time. But.....
"El?" Jean called out after knocking a few times, finally opening the door when there was no response. When she entered, she was met with the depressed, hunched back of Eleven sitting on the bed. The latter didn't look back, facing the closed window and refusing to let her brown eyes meet with her sister's green ones.
"What...are you doing here?" Was all she said, breaking the awkward beat of silence between.
Jean gulped harshly, her lips forming a tight line before she shrugged. "Just checking up on you." She said with a weak smile, though it soon fell when she noticed how El occasionally extended her arm while clenching and unclenching her outstretched palm. "What are you doing?"
"Practice." El replied through clenched teeth. She was growing frustrated by the minute every time she tried to use her telekinesis with it not responding at all. It was bad enough that she'd lost Hopper, but now it also felt like she was beginning a huge part of her, as well.
"Go on then." Said the redhead, sitting on the opposite side of the bed.
It was rather peculiar. Eleven's powers used to occasionally affect the nearby electricity; when attempting psychic communication, nearby lights would sometimes flicker or even go out entirely. suggesting her abilities may also cause distortion of the electromagnetic field. But now, nothing was happening. Jean was sure that they didn't completely go away, and that she was just suffering from a terrible wound that would take a while to nurse and heal. But Jean knew for a fact that the rage El emitted wasn't the way to go about it.
"I lost it!" Eleven abruptly yelled, grabbing the nearest object to her right (which happened to be a pillow) and she threw it as hard as she could, reluctant hot tears traveling down her cheeks.
It was as clear as daylight. Eleven wasn't mourning the loss of her powers. She was in mourning for losing the only father she ever had.
"You're using the wrong emotion." Jean indicated and watched as Eleven sent her a heated glare.
"I need...anger." The younger girl venomously said, clenching her teeth. That was how things have worked for her abilities, by channeling all of her negative emotions into them and letting it consume her for the moment. With help from Kali, Eight, Eleven learned to harness her anger at will, allowing better control over her powers. She even had used that knowledge to aid her while closing the Gate the year prior.
But now it wasn't working at all.
"The anger is not enough." Jean affirmed, gently shaking her head.
"It worked so far." She sharply bit out, trying to sound as aggressive as possible, but Jean wasn't fazed. "Come on, let's try something else."
"See that? Try telling it to come to us." Jean pointed at the same pillow El had just flung, starting with something simple for the beginning. And surprisingly, El complied, albeit with a slight eye roll, and she attempted to use her psychokinesis once more.
But it was to no avail.
"I can't." Eleven gave up with a frustrated huff.
"You know, I was once told that true focus lies between rage and serenity." With a soft smile, one that hid too much pain, Jean reached out to Eleven, brushing back her curly hair with a gentleness that made El want to break down in tears. "Would you mind, if I-" The redhead carefully let her fingers sweep over Eleven's temple, only proceeding when she gave her a nod.
It was difficult at first, since El's powerful mind was subconsciously resisting her, but as she focused, Jeanscrunched her eyebrows upon further entry into her mind. Eleven's breathing picked up as she navigated through her memories, some of which were rather unpleasant; her years of abuse and experimentation at the Hawkins lab, discovering what happened to her mother, and the news of Hopp's death all came crashing down on her, and Jean all the same.
But Jean calmed her breathing, and her face relaxed, mustering all the focus she had to find what she was looking for. She saw a flicker of the memories she needed so she pulled it forwards to her and El, projecting it to both of them so they could both relive it. Jean could see the moment the memory flashed in her mind, all the good times Eleven and Hopper had. From the moment he found her lurking in the woods all by herself, to when he decided to raise her as his own. Even the constant playback of him insisting on his '3-inch rule' was a pleasant memory to El. She unfroze, trembling a little, eyes wide in disbelief. She stared down and then back up, looking at Jean whilst not looking at her, her eyes were unfocused like she was miles away.
Tears were collecting on El's lower lashes looking ready to spill at any moment. And a sigh emerged from her nostrils, her eyes were shut. The words she was about to mutter, difficult to say. "I miss him so much."
"I know, I know. So do I. I'm so, so sorry." Jean's voice broke as she rushed to wipe away Eleven's tears, her own eyes watering.
The brown haired girl frantically shook her head, as if still refusing to acknowledge her father's death. "He..shouldn't have died."
Jean couldn't have agreed more. Hopper didn't deserve to die. Alas, death was inevitable. Whether it was mental death or physical.
With a nod, she replied to the mourning teen. "I know. He was a good man, he was a really good man. I mean he took me in without even knowing who I was. I could've been a serial killer for all he knew."
Her words elicited a tearful chuckle from El.
"But I guess sometimes death just comes for the good ones first." Hesitantly, Jean wrapped her arms around Eleven's form, stroking her back every now and then to let her know that she was here for her. "You just have to be strong, just like you always have been. Make him proud."
"Okay." Sniffling, Eleven nodded, holding onto her sister. "So, what now?" She asked, regaining some of her composure back, but still hugging Jean.
"Now, we get something to eat. Waffles?" Jean suggested.
With a slight shake of her head, Eleven made a request that brought a smile to Jean's lips. "Eggs." She said.
After a few beats of comfortable silence, the fiery redhead cleared her throat, the two finally separating. "Hey, El?"
Eyebrows perking, El looked at her with curiosity etched onto eyes. "Yeah?"
"...I think I'm from an another dimension."
A/N:-
Aand this chapter concludes the end of part 1! Just wanna let yall know that updates will get a hell of a lot slower from now on depending on the release date of Season 4 of Stranger Things 🤣
I wanted to apologize for not updating for a while, but I had my med school finals which ran for months. And on top of it, my country's been going through an energy crisis, so there was legit no electricity for like 14 hours a day for the past 2 months 😂 So... Yeah.