Important A/N; I am so, so sorry for taking a month to upload this. My school has been very, very hectic with the pandemic. I hope everyone is safe, if you need someone to talk to please don't hesitate to message me, as with the situations we are in, your mental health can suffer, I know I personally have been affected with the pandemic and my mental health. I also apologise if my writing is very bad in this, or not as good as usual, I was struggling to write it a bit. I try to update as often as I can and although I write little bits here and there, it still takes me a while.
I would also like to thank you guys endlessly for 11K reads on 'Fears' and 2K reads on this. I cannot explain how thankful I am. I also am so thankful for every comment I get on the books, I try to respond to as many as I can and it makes me so happy getting the notifs for them.
You all are so kind and amazing. Don't be afraid to message me if you wanna be friends or need a chat!! :) 🖤
Mike grabbed ahold of Lydia's hand, helping pull her up the last step of the bunker. As she stood up, wiping her hands on her jacket with a grossed out face due to the webs on them, Eddie spoke up
"Okay, Mike, so where do we find our tokens?"
"Yeah, I gotta be honest man, all due respect, this is fucking stupid. All right? Why do we need tokens?! We already remember everything, saving Ben, defeating IT, I mean- we're caught up!" Richie spoke
"That's not everything..." Mike began, holding his hands up to stop Richie from talking any more "We fought. But what happened after that? Before the house on Neibolt? Think."
Everyone stood silent for a minute, thinking to themselves, although Lydia was just growing frustrated as everything was a big cloud and she couldn't think
"W-w-we c-c-can't remember can we?" Bill asked, looking around at everyone
"See, there's more to our story, what happened that summer, and those blank spaces, like pages torn out of a book, that's what you need to find. We need to split up. You each need to find your artifact. Alone. That's important. When you do, meet me at the library tonight." Mike told them, watching as Ben and Stan nodded slightly, showing they knew what they were going to do.
"I gotta- I gotta say, statistically speaking, you look at survival scenarios we're going to do a lot better as a group." Eddie spoke
"Yeah, splitting up would be dumb, man. We gotta go together, all right? We were together that whole summer right!" Richie argued
Mike went to argue back with him, but Bill cut in before he could
"No. Not that w-w-whole summer." he told them, referring to when he and Richie had their argument, causing most of the losers club to be alone for a bit.
"What about those of us who weren't alone at that time?" Lydia began, looking at Mike. When he looked at her confused, she continued, "I don't think I was alone for like- any of that. I was with Bev or Stan most of the time.."
Stan decided to speak up, after staying quiet most of the day "Me neither, I spent most of my time with Lyds... how are we supposed to find something alone..?"
Mike shook his head "I'm sorry but.. you have to do it alone."
~~~~~~~
The losers club all parted ways, all having rough ideas of where they wanted to go, and although Lydia had a few ideas of where she could go, she still found herself aimlessly walking around the town and watching as people slowly started to crowd the town, and shops began to open.
She looked around at all the families, watching as they all laughed with each other and had fun. Were a real family. Lydia had obviously always wanted that, and she was jealous of those who were given the chance. She was thankful she had gotten the family of Maggie and Richie, however she always wished her mom had loved her just as much. That her father was still around.
Lydia had always believed she was destined for failure, she hadn't been given the chance to grow up with a loving family from an early age, she lost her father, lost her mom to alcohol and was abused for years, she spent a whole summer escaping a murdering clown, she wasn't smart enough to do brilliantly in school and pass with no worries.
However, she was thankful for the good things she had got out of Derry. Of course without the clown or having grown up in Derry she wouldn't have met Richie, Beverley, Eddie, Ben, Bill, Mike and of course Stanley...although it seemed all of that good didn't last forever, after they all had stopped talking.
Once Lydia looked around her again, she realized she had walked away from the town, and down a street.
But not just any street, the street where the house she grew up in had sat.
The house she had gone through most of her life in. Both the good and bad. She had lots of memories with her dad there, and then of course a lot of not so great ones with her mom, after her dads death.
But she did have the good ones with her mom, before everything went wrong. Her mom used to be kind, used to love Lydia. It sometimes shocked Lydia how much her mom had changed. Lydia sometimes even hated calling her mom- much rather calling Maggie Tozier her mom.
Lydia hated holidays after her dads death, which was probably normal after a death but that hatred didn't stop for a very long time. Slowly, the losers club and living with Richie helped make holidays a bit better for her.
Lydia had honestly thought she'd never be back in the town of Derry again, let alone on this street, or at this house.
~~~~~~
"Lydia." Richie spoke, tapping the girls shoulder lightly to get her attention
The two were standing in front Lydia's childhood home, although it looked a lot less ruined and they were both only eighteen. A car sat at the end of the street, the rest of the losers club - minus Mike sat in it, some listening to music from the radio and the others watching Lydia and Rich.
Lydia stopped staring at the house and turned to look at him "We have to go, everyone's waiting in the car.. we don't wanna be late." He continued
"I know...just-" Lydia began, turning back to look at the house
"It's weird." She finished
Richie looked up at the house in front of her "You didn't deserve to live here with your mom. You deserved a lot better, Lyds. And hey, at least we won't see it ever again. We won't be back."
"Hopefully... but still, it was my home for a long time. I hate this house and what I had to live through in it the last few years, but I also lived so much of my life here. I can't explain it. A lot of my memories with my dad are in there. What if... what if I forget the memories..?" She spoke, her voice shaking slightly at the end as she held her tears in
"Lydia, you won't forget. I won't let you, I remember stories with your dad, I know the stuff you have told me and I will make sure to let you remember them. Getting out of this fucked up town is going to be good for all of us, for you. You won't have to have the bad memory's here coming up every time you turn a corner. We all are going to be with you, forever. Sorry to say you aren't getting rid of me Lyd's." He told her, laughing a bit at the end.
Lydia smiled, nodding a bit as she looked away from the house and back at him "Yeah. You're right. I'm thankful to be getting away... I don't want to see this town or house ever again."
"You won't." Richie told her "come on, we gotta go. Eddie's gonna start complaining about being in the car with the germs"
Lydia laughed as the two walked back to the car. Lydia opened the door to the back, where Stanley and Ben were sitting. Thankfully, they had managed to get a seven seater, making it easier for them all as Mike was staying behind in Derry.
Bill was sat in the passenger side at the front, Richie in the drivers seat as Bev and Eddie sat in the very back.
"You know, this shit is disgusting. Can you imagine how many germs are in this car. There's seven of us in here. Seven. Seven!" Eddie spoke
"Thank you for that information Eddie, however I'm pretty sure we can all count." Beverly spoke from beside him
"That's- shut up. It's gross. It's probably got hundreds of diseases everywhere." He continued
Richie turned around to Lydia, giving her a knowing look "I told you" he spoke, laughing as he turned back to the front and started the car.
"Wait told her what? Were you guys talking about me? Were you making fun of me again? Seriously man?" Eddie spoke quickly
Neither Lydia or Rich answered him, just quietly laughing.
"Their laughing means yes." Beverly told Eddie, laughing at his annoyed expression
As Eddie began to complain to Richie for talking about him, Stanley leaned in slightly to Lydia so he could whisper to her, "are you okay?"
Lydia nodded, resting her head on his shoulder "Yeah.."
He smiled down at her slightly, kissing the top of her head
"Okay, you guys need to stop being so cute. You make me feel very single." Beverly spoke, causing everyone to laugh.
~~~~~~
Lydia stood at the end of the driveway, staring up at the abandoned, rotten house, just like she had before leaving with The losers club many years back. But this time she was alone. And the clown was back.
Lydia took a deep breath and began to walk towards the house.
"I'm going to kill that fucker for making me come back here.." Lydia whispered to herself before very slowly turning the door knob and pushing the door open..
(^ that will look familiar if you remember the first book ;) )