Billy Hargrove didn't sleep well, but he rarely had a peaceful night anymore.
His dreams had been plagued with the thought of his father discovering his mother in town and all of the ways it could have gone wrong, dreams that also reverted to Victoria's face turning into Tatum's, calling out for his help as Neil hit her mercilessly.
Was she calling out for him or was he just losing his mind?
And when the sun flashed through his curtains, the day was welcomed.
For the first time since July, his dreams were worse than his reality.
Billy dressed quickly, choosing a simple combo of jeans and a Metallica t-shirt for a comfortable car ride to Bloomington. He only took a brief moment to fiddle with his curls, stopping when the memory of Tatum's hands playing with them sent a chill down his spine.
The house was eerily quiet as he moved the rest of his packed boxes into the camaro, his room growing ever emptier as the character of the space left with each box.
Billy sighed as he deposited the last box in the passenger's seat of the car, returning for the lone duffle bag sitting in the middle of a stark white room. It was best if he took all of his belongings before Neil decided to throw them out after he was gone.
"Max?" he called, carrying the duffle out into the hall. He stopped outside of his sister's closed bedroom door, rapping a knuckle against it twice before cracking it open. "Max?"
The redhead was nowhere to be found.
Billy sighed softly to himself, leaving the house behind and taking a lasting look before hopping into his car.
Was she really not going to say goodbye to him?
He kicked his car to life, significantly cramped as he pulled away from the curb and headed for the Rivers house to meet up with Jordan and Victoria before their trek across the state. The radio remained off, the short trip done in silence while his thoughts ran rampant.
Billy rolled up outside of the towering house, swinging his keys around his finger as he climbed out. He raised a hand in greeting as Ben met him in the front yard, thankful for a warm face in the morning.
"We've got breakfast inside for you," Ben told him, running a hand through short curls. "I'll move the rest of your boxes over to the U-Haul."
Billy's brows quirked. "Are you sure? I can help."
Ben waved over his shoulder. "Don't be mad. Go have something to eat before the drive."
Although he handed his keys off hesitantly, the low growl in his stomach sent him inside. He slid the front door open, stretching his arms before stopping just short of the kitchen.
A cheer broke out inside the house, the room littered with teens donning bright faces. A banner was strung up in the otherwise undecorated space, wishing him luck while party blowers went off in unison.
Billy couldn't help but laugh as Max wrapped her arms around him, squeezing her tight. "What are you guys all doing here?" he asked, exchanging a short handshake with Steve.
"They said breakfast and I live next door," Steve replied with a shrug and a smile.
"You didn't think you were just going to leave for college without saying goodbye to us, did you?" asked Dustin, the only one who hadn't waited for Billy's arrival to start eating a mound of pancakes.
Elena ushered Billy to a seat at the table, both it and the breakfast bar set with plates of food. "And we couldn't let you leave on an empty stomach." She squeezed his shoulder. "Jordan is picking up your mum from her hotel. They'll be here shortly."
"You guys really didn't have to do this," Billy told them with a grin, genuinely worried that one of them might notice he was on the verge of tears.
He could only imagine how happy Tatum would be to see him finally being accepted and loved by her friends.
Nina rolled her eyes, taking the seat to his right. "Don't be stupid. We're happy to do it."
"And we're definitely going to come bother you at Indiana," Mike noted, poking his fork in Billy's direction and accidentally slinging a string of syrup onto Steve's plate.
"Dude, gross," Steve remarked with a short lived scowl.
Lucas waited for Elena to slip out of the room before practically leaning over Max to speak to Billy. "And you can take us to college parties. We will be the coolest kids at school if we can say we went to a party at IU."
Billy laughed. "The only ones I would even consider taking to parties are Nancy and Steve."
Nancy fluffed her hair as she earned a dirty look from the almost-freshmen, sipping graciously on a cup of coffee. "I will definitely be taking you up on that."
Steve motioned a finger towards Billy, lounging at the breakfast bar. "I'll be with you next semester. I'm earning my Keg King status back from you at the spring frat parties."
Billy scoffed with a notable grin. "You wish, Harrington."
"I'm serious!" Steve earnestly replied. "I'm already working on my application for next semester." He referenced a hand out. "You take this semester to establish your keg greatness, and then I'll show up in the spring to take it from you. Then, we're both IU legends."
"We all know who the real Keg King is," Nancy said, finding herself smiling despite most of Halloween night being a blackout haze for her. "She'd put you both to shame."
Steve lifted his mug in a toast. "And she has."
Billy joined in as the others did, no name needed to identify their subject. "All hail the Queen."
The rest of the morning carried on with chitters about classes on all sides, everyone excited for the semesters ahead of them, as well as Steve going on for nearly thirty minutes about all of the movies Robin was making him watch in order for him to be of any kind of help at his new job at the movie store in town.
It was a sweet, warm morning, and exactly what they all needed to settle their hearts with the finality of the Byers and El leaving on top of Hopper and Tatum lacking from the festivities.
Even when Victoria arrived, the atmosphere remained vibrant and fun.
All of them were curious to hear about what Billy was like as a kid, and Victoria wanted to get to know those that her son spent his time with.
No, Victoria hadn't fully grasped the concept of Tatum's disappearance from the world and the hole that it left, but she was fully interested in becoming a part of his current, running life and friends.
By noon, all of the food was gone and the U-Haul was fully packed and ready to depart.
"Ready to go?" Jordan asked from the doorway of the kitchen, dressed down from his typical business casual and instead wearing jeans and an IU t-shirt.
Billy paused, rising from his seat at the table. "There's actually one more thing I want to do. I won't be long."
Jordan shrugged softly, having an inkling of what he would do. "Take your time."
Billy parted from the rowdiness of the kitchen, the cheery voices silenced as he stepped out onto the pool deck and slid the back door shut. He pocketed his hands as he looked over the drained pool, a layer of dust collecting at the bottom. He made his way around the jutting parts of the house, stopping just shy of the lattice framing that went up to the small balcony outside of Tatum's room.
He took in a deep breath before he began to climb.
He was overwhelmed by a sense of familiarity and comfort, ascending from the base of the home and hauling himself over the stone edge onto solid ground. His hands had lost the callouses that had formed from climbing the rungs so often, his palms burning pink. Hesitantly, he pressed down the handle of the slim door, the squeak of the mechanism flooding his mind with memory after memory.
He couldn't count how many times he had climbed up the side of the house to get to her.
Instead of being met with a warm, well decorated room, he was met with emptiness.
All of the furniture had been removed and every photo and artwork had been taken down, swelling the room with stark space.
Billy's brows drew in softly, not surprised by the lack of items within, but by the sense of her presence.
Without questioning the insanity of the motions, he checked behind the doors of the closet and bathroom, pausing before looking over his shoulder.
Why was he expecting her to be there after all this time?
Billy ran a hand through his hair while pocketing the other, sighing to himself as he turned in a short circle. He glanced to where the bed had been, smiling to himself.
"I love your laugh, but oh my god, you're going to get us caught! I do. I do love your laugh. And I love you."
"She loved you a lot, you know."
Billy nearly jumped as Nina's voice flowed into the room, cutting his memory short and drawing his attention back to the door where she lingered. "I was lucky to be loved by her."
"Azathoth said he didn't know what you meant to her when he took you as his host, but he was lying." Nina joined Billy in the middle of the room, arms absently tucked around herself. Whether she knew it or not, she dressed insanely similar to her sister. "He hated her from the moment he saw her when she and Eleven closed the gate last year. He hated that he was taken down by two teenage girls and that Tatum found her power through defeating him. I spent so much time hiding from him, but the entirety of the Upside Down exists through his thoughts and feelings. His emotions radiated off of the trees. He knew exactly what he was doing when he took you."
"She tried to tell me, you know. I wasn't involved in what happened the year that they closed the gate, so I was left out of loop. The night that I was taken, she tried to tell me about all of it. Her powers, the Upside Down, Eleven. I didn't believe her, even though it made everything that had happened before make sense." Billy sighed, folding his arms. "I freaked out and left. I kept driving to clear my head and something crashed into my car outside of the abandoned warehouse where the rift had formed. If I had just stayed and listened to her, maybe things would be different."
Nina shook her head softly. "Don't do that to yourself. There are so many things that could have been different, but we all know that she was willing to sacrifice herself for us no matter what. I wanted her to save her strength and leave me in the Upside Down, but she insisted. If she hadn't pulled me out, maybe things would be different, but that's not something we can take back. Just like you can't take back leaving that night. Ben wishes that he had gone into the base alone to shut down the Key, so that Hopper might still be here, but that can't be taken back either. All we can do is honor their memory and make the most of the second chance that they both gave us."
Billy's brows lifted, looking over to her. "Are you sure you're only fourteen? You have the wisdom of an old wizard who lives on top of a mountain."
Nina grinned. "I've lived a life much different than everyone else. Sometimes I feel like I'm thirty, but then I try and be social with strangers and feel like I'm two years old and don't know how to talk to people. It just depends on the day." She chewed on the inside of her lip, the emptiness of the room unsettling to her. "As much as I wish that she had left me over there, I also wish that I had been able to spend more time with her. I followed her voice in the Upside Down when I could. Azathoth liked to spy on her, so her voice often echoed in the forest. I got to know her a little that way, but I really only had moments with her. A handful of hours that were spent plotting a game plan that worked but killed her anyway. The same day that I got a sister, she was taken from me. She spent so much of her time looking for me, rooting through the hidden files of the lab and trying to find a way to get me, and she did the impossible. No one should be able to open a rift as easily as she did, and she shouldn't have been able to literally pull Azathoth out of you, but I guess that was just Tatum. Always doing the impossible."
Billy smiled. "That does sound like her."
"I know she always wanted me to get out of that place and live a normal life, so that's what I can do for her. I think it's the same for you, isn't it? She wanted you to have a relationship with you mom again and get to go to school, right?"
He nodded lightly. "I wouldn't have reached out to my mom if she hadn't brought it up. And now here she is, in your house, seeing me off to college."
"It feels like she's still here sometimes."
Billy stayed silent for a moment, eyes flickering around the room. "It really does."
Nina sighed to herself. "I'll give you a minute, but Dad seems pretty adamant about getting on the road soon."
The room fell back to a soft hum of life as Nina left him alone, memories pulsating around him.
Billy glanced to each imprint in the carpet that the furniture had left behind, recalling the layout of the room without hesitation.
Tatum had never rearranged her room after moving in the year before, perfectly content with her original set up. Even if she were there to go to college, the room would have remained as it was, likely only missing clothes and her beloved record player.
With all of it gone, it left an overwhelming sense of finality.
She was gone, and the Rivers family was leaving Hawkins for good.
Billy's body tensed as a shiver ran up his spine, the sensation of fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his nape flooding his skin with goosebumps.
He could almost smell her, that familiar mix of coconut and menthol that had long since dissipated from the house.
Billy squeezed his eyes shut as the feeling slinked away, walking to the door as the eeriness engulfed him. He took a last look around the room. "I love you," he whispered, closing the door to seal the past away.
He had to remind himself that it was only a memory, mostly because he couldn't fathom the alternative.
Tatum was dead, and that was that.