E Pluribus Unum
Eleven wandered around in the dark void. She was trying to find the location of the Holloways, Mrs. Driscoll, Bruce Lowe (one of Nancy and Jonathan's ex colleagues) and Billy Hargrove. While she searched the void, the rest of the party stood around in the kitchen. They were giving her some space to do her thing while they waited.
"It can't be good for her to be in there this long." Mike said.
"Mike, you need to relax." Max told the boy.
"What if she gets brain damage or something?" He worried, pacing up and down outside El's bedroom door.
"Oh, shit." Lucas exclaimed. "Is that, like, a real thing?"
"No, it's not." Max answered. "He made it up. Mike doesn't know what he's talking about."
"Oh, and you do?" Mike fired at her.
"No, I..."
The pair continued arguing while Nancy continued her investigation down the phone. "Yes, from The Hawkins Post. I- I called a couple of days ago about the-" The man on the other end interrupted her. "Yes, yes, um... I was just following up to see if anything else had gone missing, or if- Okay. Um, sorry to bother-" The man hung up, cutting her off. Slightly dejected, she hung the phone back on it's receiver. Jonathan crossed that contact out in the book they had been going through. Nancy couldn't help but sigh. "Who's next?"
"There is no next." Jonathan told her. "Unless you want to start calling random people's homes."
She chucked her notebook down onto the counter. "It doesn't make any sense."
"What part of any of this makes sense?"
"There's a pattern, okay? A consistency to their behaviour. They've been feeding on these chemicals since this started, and- and, what, they just stop, out of the blue?"
"Maybe they have all the chemicals they need." Will suggested from where he sat on the stool next to the kitchen counter. "Maybe they've all turned into those... things."
"But what about the source? I mean, did the Mind Flayer just suddenly stop infecting people? And even if the flayed are monsters now, why can't El find them?" Nancy ranted.
"Okay, can you guys settle an argument for us?" Max asked, crossing the room to where the others were. Mike and Lucas were right behind her. "Who do you think should decide El's limits? Mike or Eleven?"
"The way that you frame that is such bullshit." Mike fired at her.
"It's not bullshit, Mike. This is your whole problem. And it's also precisely the reason why she dumped your ass."
"El dumped you?" Nancy asked her brother, eyes wide and eyebrows raised.
"Yeah, because she is conspiring against me." He pointed at Max. "She's corrupting her."
"No, enlightening her." Max corrected. "The fact is, she's not yours. She's her own person, fully capable of making her own decisions."
"She's risking her life for no reason." Mike argued.
"For no reason?" Nancy questioned. "Mike, the flayed are out there doing God knows what."
"Killing, flaying..." Lucas added in.
"Transforming into monsters." Will also added.
"And El's not stupid." Nancy continued. "She knows her abilities better than any of us."
"Exactly, thank you." Max smiled.
"And she is her own person." The older Wheeler added.
"-Exactly."
"With her own free will."
"Exactly. El has saved the world twice, and Mike still doesn't trust her."
"You wanna talk about trust, really? After you made Eleven spy on us?" Mike yelled.
"Wait, what?" Lucas asked.
"Oh, she didn't tell you this?"
"No."
"Your girlfriend used El's powers to spy on us."
"No, no, no, I did not make her." Max interjected. "It was her idea. And why are we even talking about this, seriously?"
"Yeah, who cares?" Will spoke up.
"I care." Lucas said.
"Yeah." Mike agreed. "I guess girlfriends don't lie, they spy." He turned to Max
"We were just joking around." The red-head defended.
"Wouldn't it've been so funny if I was taking a massive shit or something?"
"You weren't." Max pointed out.
"But what if I was?"
"Then gross!" Max cringed.
"Seriously, Mike?" Nancy questioned.
"I'm just trying to demonstrate how careless Max is with Eleven's powers. In fact, how careless all of you are. You're treating her like some kind of machine when she's not a machine, and I don't want her to die looking for the flayed when they've obviously vanished off the face of the Earth." Mike ranted. "So can we please just come up with a new plan because I love her and I can't lose her again."
Everyone's eyes widened as they stared at Mike, who realised what he had just said.
***
Catherine woke up to the sound of Robin yelling for help, but she could barely register where she was. Her mind was all foggy and the only thing going through her mind was song lyrics, something she found very useful. "Raindrops on roses," Cat mumbled, her eyes glazed over.
Robin looked over to her friend. "Cathy? Are you okay? You're not making any sense."
"And whiskers on kittens." Cat continued to mumble.
"Hey, would you stop yelling?" Steve mumbled, finally waking up.
Robin turned her head as far as she could to try and see Steve. "Steve! Oh, my God! Steve... Are- Are you okay?"
"Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens..." Cat muttered.
"My ears are ringing, and I can't really breathe, my eye feels like it's about to pop out of my skull, but, you know, apart from that, I'm doing pretty good." He lifted his head and up and looked around the room, as much as he possibly could. "Where's Cat? Is she okay?"
"She's fine, I think." Robin told him. "She's on the other side of the room. I believe she's muttering the words from 'The Sound of Music'. "
"Did they hurt her?" Steve asked, worried about the state of the love of his life.
"They said they had to sedate her, that she was dangerous and then a doctor took quite a lot of blood samples." Robin explained.
"Oh, God..." Steve muttered. Hearing that, he just knew they had found out about her powers and were going to perform more experiments on her. He couldn't let them do that to her.
"Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings..." Catherine continued, the medicine continuing to mess up her brain. "These are a few of my favourite things..."
"Well, the good news is that they're calling you guys a doctor." Robin told him, chuckling slightly. "I mean, Cathy seems relatively fine other than her face. From what I can see, they messed her nose up pretty bad."
"No, no.." Steve murmured, wishing he could see his girlfriend and help her. "Is this his place of work?" He asked, turning his head to try and see Robin's face. "I love the vibe."
Catherine had now started swaying her head back and forth while she continued through her song. "Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes... Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes..." She giggled quietly to herself.
The two teens that weren't completely out of it began to think of an escape plan. "So, okay, seeing as lovely Cathy is going completely crazy," Robin said, "we can't use her powers as a means to escape." Steve nodded, agreeing. Robin looked to her left and saw a table covered in equipment. A plan formed in her head "Do you see that table over there to your right?" Steve turned his head. "No, your other right."
Steve turned his head so he could see what Robin was looking at. "Oh, okay."
Still completely out of it, Catherine continued mumbling to herself. She was spouting complete nonsense. It was almost as if she was having a conversation with someone. "Well, it's no use now, to pretend to be two people." She mumbled. "Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person. Impossible? Nothing's impossible. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." She continued to ramble to herself, each sentence making less sense than the last.
There was a crash as Robin and Steve crashed to the floor, still tied to the chairs. Their plan to hop over and grab the scissors hadn't gone as they'd hoped. "It's okay, it's okay. Don't cry, Robin." Steve comforted, thinking that the blonde was crying. She began to giggle. "Are you laughing?"
"Yeah." She answered, still laughing.
"Jesus!"
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry. It's just... I can't believe I'm gonna die in a secret Russian base with Steve 'The Hair' Harrington and Catherine 'Psycho' Henderson. It's just too trippy, man."
"We're not gonna die. We're gonna get out of here, okay? All of us. We're gonna get out and we're gonna stop the Russians from turning my girlfriend into a lab rat. Just- You gotta let me just think for a second."
"Do you remember, um, Mrs. Click's sophomore history class?" Robin asked out of the blue.
Steve shook his head. "What?"
"Mrs. Clickity-Clackity." Robin smiled at the memory. "That's what us band of dweebs called her." Steve sighed. "It was first period, Tuesdays and Thursdays, so you were always late. And you always had the same breakfast. Bacon, egg, and cheese on a sesame bagel. I sat behind you two days a week for a year. Mister Funny. Mister Cool. The King of Hawkins High himself. Do you even remember me from that class?"
Steve didn't know what to say so he just remained silent.
"Of course you don't. You were a real asshole, you know that? I don't even know how Cathy could like you so much. I swear, every time I saw her looking at you, she had heart eyes."
"Yeah, I know."
"But it didn't even matter. It didn't matter that you were an ass. I was still... obsessed with you. Even though all of us losers pretend to be above it all, we still just wanna be popular... accepted, normal."
"If it makes you feel any better, having those things isn't all that great. Seriously." He sighed. "It just baffles me. Everything that people tell you is important, everything that people say you should care about, it's all just..." He chuckled. "...bullshit."
They were both silent for a moment before Steve spoke up again. "But I guess you gotta mess up to figure things out, right?"
"I hope so. I feel like my whole life has been... one big error."
"Yep." Steve laughed.
"At least it can't get any more messed up than this." Robin grinned. "Being hostages in a Russian base and having a friend with superpowers." She laughed.
"You know, I wish I'd spoken to Cat during high school instead of leaving her to become popular. And, I wish I'd known you in Click's class."
"Yeah?"
"Really, I do. Maybe you could've helped me pass the class. I mean, Cat tried, but... Well, here I am. Maybe instead of being here I'd be on my way to college right now."
"And I would have no idea that there were evil Russians beneath our feet, let alone Catherine Henderson having superpowers." She chuckled. "And I would be happily slinging ice-cream with some other schmuck."
They both laughed.
"Gotta say, though, I liked being your schmuck. It was fun while it lasted."
"It was."
It was then that the soldiers came back, the door opening with a loud buzz. Catherine let out a surprised shriek, still in her dazed state. "The Queen!" She mumbled. "Oh, dear, Cheshire, it seems she wants my head. What am I to do?"
The General chuckled as his men picked up the chairs Robin and Steve were tied to and sat them upright. "Where were you two going?"
"Oh, Wonderland." Cat sighed dreamily. "Isn't it wonderful. Oh, I must see the Mad Hatter and the Hare. Aren't tea parties such fun, Dinah?"
The men ignored the spaced out teen and Robin just sent a confused and worried look over to her. The General bent down, now face to face with Steve. "Try telling the truth this time, yes? It will make your visit with Dr. Zharkov less painful." He looked over to the doctor and nodded.
Dr. Zharkov approached Catherine with the needle gun first. "No, no, no!" Robin cried.
"What are you doing?" Steve yelled, seeing in his peripheral vision where the doctor was headed. "Get away from her!" The doctor, of course, payed their cries no attention and continued with his job. The other soldiers laughed at the teens' struggles.
"Stop!" Robin yelled. The doctor plunged the needle into Catherine's neck, ignoring her rambles of Queens and talking rabbits. The liquid absorbed itself into her veins and subsequently her bloodstream. For a moment she went quiet before she continued spitting out complete nonsense.
"But I don't want to go among mad people." She huffed quietly to herself, sounding like one half of a conversation. "Oh, there's that talking rabbit again. Rabbit, excuse me! Hello?"
While she continued to ramble, the doctor plunged the needle into Steve's neck and then Robin's before all the soldiers left the room.
"Why, yes," Catherine spoke in a rather posh voice, "it is rather a lovey day for a game of flamingo croquet. I would be honoured to play a round against you, my Queen. Queen of Hearts, isn't that funny? A Queen of Hearts." She giggled.
***
A/N:
How ironic is it that this chapter has many Alice in Wonderland references in it and I'm publishing it the same day I'm having an Alice in Wonderland themed tea party with my family for my birthday? (Don't worry, we are abiding by the rule of six law that is currently in play- because corona)
***
(Edited: 27/07/2020)
(Edit 2: 15/09/2021)