I left school at lunch time, heading over to the lab, where I found My dad already there waiting for me.
"Hey." I greeted, hoisting myself up to sit on the hood of his truck while he leaned against it.
"Hey. Joyce'll be here any second with Will." I nodded. "You ok?"
"Are you gonna ask me that twenty more times today, or will this morning's answer suffice?" I shot back, looking up at the lab building.
"Sorry, my bad. It just looks like you have something on your mind, thought it might be about last night." I shook my head.
"That should be what's on my mind, but it isn't." He furrowed his eyebrows.
"What is on your mind?" He turned towards me, leaning his elbow against the hood.
"Nothing. Its not important."
Luckily he didn't have to opportunity to press it any more, because Joyce's car pulled into the driveway, and she and Will got out of it.
"Hey buddy." Dad greeted.
"Hey." I walked over, wrapping an arm around Will's shoulders and leading the way into the building.
"So you saw it too?" I asked. He looked up at me. "The Upside Down, the red storm."
"Yeah. You saw that?" I nodded.
"I'm sure its probably nothing. You and I have shared trauma, it'd only make sense that we had similar after-effects. Don't worry about it." He nodded, looking down at his feet. "Just a word of advice?" He looked up at me again. "You ever need someone to talk to...someone who understands first hand, and isn't going to talk to you like you're made of tissue paper," He chuckled, "You tell your Mom to call me, ok?"
"Ok. Yeah, I Will." I nodded, ruffling his hair like I often did with Eleven.
"Yeah, I know you're Will. I'm Riley, we've met before remember?" He shook his head, chuckling.
"That's awful." I smiled.
"What do you mean? That's comedy gold right there." I turned around, flashing Joyce a smile in greeting. She smiled too and mouthed:
'Thank you'. I nodded, turning to face forward again. I knew she was thanking me for kind of distracting Will from the reason we were here, joking around and being stupid. But she didn't really need to thank me. Will wasn't the fragile little kid that everyone thought he was. If that was the case, he wouldn't have made it as long in the Upside Down as he did.
~~~
Every time Will and I ever went to the lab, which they'd insisted on us doing since we'd both spent pretty unbelievable amounts of time in a place with a supposedly toxic atmosphere, was pretty simple. They'd weigh us, do a simple check up, inject us with something that I'd still yet to identify, and hook us both up to a machine that studied our brainwaves and charted them.
Typically, we'd done this separately, in separate rooms, but this time, since we'd both seen exactly the same thing, they put us in a room together, side by side. I uncomfortably picked at the hem of my hospital gown, and thought of the fact that for practically Eleven's entire life, this was all she wore. It must've been incredibly de-humanizing.
"Riley, Sir Will! How are ya?" Dr. Sam Owens greeted, causing Joyce to perk up from her spot beside Will, while Dad leaned on the wall across the room. "Mom. Pop. Let's take a look, see what's going on here." He pulled his swivel stool to rest in between our chairs. "Will I see you've shaved off a pound since we saw you last. Must be making room for all that Halloween candy. What's your favorite candy? Dessert Island Candy, if you had to pick one?"
He was trying to relax Will before he had to get into the reason we were here, but I don't think it was working. I think Will was just uncomfortable having to talk to this guy more than he already had to. He was perfectly nice and all, but he was doing what everyone else had a tendency to do, which was treat Will like a little kid, which he was not.
"I don't know." He said, shrugging.
"Come on. Life or Death situation, what do you pick."
"I guess..." He looked at his Mom, who mouthed what she thought was probably the answer. "Reese's Pieces."
"Good call. Good call. I'm more of a Mounds guy, but I gotta say, Peanut Butter and Chocolate, come on, hard to beat that." He said. "Alright, so tell me what's going on with you guys, tell me about this episode you had."
"Well, my friend were there and then they just weren't and I was back there again." Will said.
"In the Upside Down?" He nodded and Dr. Owens looked at me.
"Yeah, same on my end. I mean, I had just gone outside to get groceries I left in my car and then boom. Upside Down. I even went back inside the house, and it was like I was there until my Dad got my attention and then everything went back to normal."
"Alright, what about you, Will? What happened next?"
"I heard this noise, and so I went outside, and it was worse."
"How was it worse?"
"There was this storm." Will said, looking at me. I nodded, urging him to continue.
"Ok, so how did you feel when you saw the storm?"
"I felt...frozen."
"Heart racing?"
"Just frozen."
"Like Frozen, cold frozen? Frozen to the touch?" Dr. Owens questioned.
"No, like how you feel when you're scared and you can't breathe or talk or do anything. I felt...I felt this evil..."
"Like it was looking at you." I continued, earning looks from everyone. He nodded.
"It was Evil?" We both nodded. "Well...What do you guys think the evil wanted?"
"To kill." Will answered.
"To kill you?"
"Not us." I said, looking to him for clarification. He nodded again. "Everyone else."
~~~
Dr. Owen called Joyce and My dad into his office, and I sat beside Will outside, watching him doodle in his sketch book.
"How do you feel about all of that in there?" I asked.
"About what, exactly?"
"The way Dr. Owens was talking to you." I clarified. "I mean, he's nice, and he's trying to make you feel more comfortable but-"
"But he talks to me like I'm a baby who can't handle anything?" He asked. I nodded. "Yeah...everyone talks to me like that now. Mom and Jonathan, my friends, Dr. Owens." He nodded.
"It must get old pretty fast."
"I know they're trying to help," He said, looking up from his sketchbook to make eye contact with me, "But it doesn't help. It just makes me feel like there's something wrong with me, like I'm some kind of..."
"Freak?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"Well who's to say that's a bad thing?"
"The kids at school." He pointed out. I shook my head.
"Ignore them. They're idiots who wouldn't last one day going through what you did." I told him. "Can I tell you what my favorite book quote is?"
"I guess."
"When I was growing up, my little sister Sara's favorite book was Alice in Wonderland, and I used to read it to her all the time. There was this one quote that I just fell in love with, because when I read it, I came to the conclusion that this is the first dialoge in a book that I had ever read that made it ok to not be normal, and it was the Mad Hatter asks: 'Have I gone Mad, Alice?'. And do you know what she says?"
"No." He answered, shaking his head. I smiled, recounting my little sister doing exactly that when I asked her that question. She always said no, despite the fact that we'd read this book a million times because she said she wanted to hear me say it. She said it sounded more whimsical when I said it.
"I'm afraid so," I quoted, "You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret." He raised his eyebrows and I moved my head closer to him. "All the best people are." He smiled at this and I laughed, sitting up straight in my seat and facing forward again.
"I like that."
"See! Its not a bad thing to be labelled a freak, it just means that you don't fit into the mold of normal society, which is really easy to do when you live in Cookie-cutter suburbia. Different isn't bad, Will. It just scares people, because people are afraid of what they don't understand, so they lash out. Do you know how many jokes and rumors I heard about the fact that I didn't talk when I came back from the Upside Down? It was getting to the point that even I was starting to lose track of the truth. But I didn't let that get to me because I knew that I had been through more, and was capable of more than they could even dream of. And so are you." He smiled.
"I think I get it now." I nodded.
"Good. I'm glad-"
"No, not that. I mean, I get that too." He interrupted, causing me to furrow my eyebrows. "I get why our party likes you so much." I smiled.
"Well I like you guys too," I said, "One of these days you'll have to let me sit in on a D&D campaign so I can see what actually goes on down there." He shook his head.
"I don't think you wanna do that. Its kind of gross." We both burst out laughing as the door opened and Joyce and Hopper came out, the latter forcing the concerned look off of her face and giving Will a fake smile. Dad nodded for me to take Will and walk ahead.
"Come on, Bud." I wrapped an arm around him, just like I had earlier, and we made our way to our vehicles.
Once we got there, I stopped behind Dad's truck, shoving my hands in my coat pockets and waiting for them to get there.
"He's gonna be ok, alright? Riley was, he will be too." I heard Dad say. "How's Bob the Brain?"
"Don't call him that." Joyce scolded.
"Sorry. Old Habit."
"He's good. We're good."
"Good. I'm happy for you, really." I furrowed my eyebrows, getting the vibe that that statement wasn't exactly true. She walked over to the car, opening the door. "Hey," She stopped, turning to look at us, "If things get worse, you call me first. You call me." She nodded.
"Ok." She got in, shutting the door and I turned to look at Dad.
"Do you not trust Dr. Owens?" I questioned. We both turned, spotting him standing by the railing by the door. He raised a hand to wave at us. I waved back, but Dad didn't.
"I don't know yet." He said, looking back at me as he took out a cigarette and lit it.
"What did he say?" I questioned.
"He said it was Post-Traumatic stress, linked to the anniversary of you guys' disappearances, and that it'll probably get worse before it gets better."
"So he thinks it was just some kind of Flashback? It was just a coincidence that we had the same one at the same time?" I asked skeptically.
"That's what he's saying." I nodded, leaning against the truck.
"That doesn't really do a lot to soothe my mind."
"I'm sure its gonna be fine." He said. "Whatever happens, we can handle it. We've done it before." I nodded.
"Yeah..." I sighed. "I have to go to dinner with Steve, Nancy, and the Hollands tonight." he nodded.
"They still hate my guts?"
"Last I checked." I stated. "It won't be fun, I can tell you that much."
"Hey," He put a hand on my shoulder, causing me to look at him, "Don't be a hero, ok? From their point of view, Barb is still missing and I've failed to find her. They don't know the truth, I don't need you going in there and defending me and making things worse."
"So I'm just supposed to sit there and let them talk trash about you?" I asked.
"That's exactly what you're gonna do." He said, gesturing to me with his Cigarette. I sighed.
"Whoopee."