(no subject)

[eggos]

Hopper had warned her, before they'd come here. There's another girl. Not like her in the way that she had powers, but like her in the way she'd needed a family. Eleven tries to keep that in mind when she meets her.

She'd needed a family, too. Just like Eleven.

She doesn't expect the red hair, or the freckles. She doesn't expect her to look like she could be Max's sister. Not like Max, not exactly. But like her the way that Nancy looks like Mike.

And just like Max, it's hard not to feel jealous when she sees her. This girl she doesn't know has crept into the hole of El's absence, and it stings to see her. No matter how much she knows the words Hopper has said, it stings, and she frowns at the girl when they're finally face to face.

"...Hi," she says.

Comments

[runtowardsomething]

There's always something around here. As soon as she's thought so, Beverly only feels guilty for it. This is a good thing, unlike most of the shit that's happened over the past year and a half or so. She knows how much Eleven means to Hopper, or at least she has some idea of it; she still remembers when he found her birth certificate, the things he told her. At the time, he even told her, in response to her joking question about it, that he wouldn't kick her out if Eleven ever did show up.

She believes that, and yet she feels oddly like an intruder in her own home now, uneasy tension simmering within her. Of all things, she tries to think of what her therapist would say, but considering how bad she still is at actually talking to her therapist, that doesn't get her very far. She just has to try to quiet the insecurities that have followed her since childhood, that make her wonder if this, here, now, is going to be when she proves to be more trouble than she's worth.

She wants not to be. She wants to be wrong. And she wants to be friendly, too, so she pushes it down as best she can, summons up a hint of a smile. This is an awkward situation to be in regardless, she can't get around that, but she doesn't have to make it even more of one. "Hi," she replies. "I'm Beverly."