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[eggos]

El has been a little out of sorts since her memories dropped into her mind. It’s hard, remembering so much, when so much of it is so sad and makes her so angry. Shopping with Max had been one of her favorite things in Hawkins, before everything had gone bad again. It won’t be the same without her here, but maybe she can pretend, for a little while. So she goes out now. She assures Hop and Beverly that she’ll be okay — she’s just going to get a few things for Dustin the Cat — and heads out to Darrow’s mall.

It isn’t like Starcourt at all, but it’s becoming familiar and comforting in its own right. She heads to a clothing store first, to get herself a new shirt. She pretends it doesn’t hurt to see a small photo studio between two shops, and frowns at a clothing rack, quiet and introspective.

She’s still browsing the clothes half an hour later, no closer to buying anything as she combs through her memories of shopping with one of her best friends, when she sees Chrissy. It feels sudden and impossible, but of course it isn’t either of those things. Chrissy would naturally be out at the mall, along with the hundreds of other people wandering through the corridors. Just as natural would be to see her in a clothing store for young women. But for some reason, it feels like a surprise to see her now.

There she is, smiling, expectant, open. Pretty. El’s always thought Chrissy is so pretty. But now, a new face flashes in front of her.

This one is not pretty.

This one is contorted into permanent terror. Her empty eye sockets drip blood like tears, and she is slack-jawed in the most literal and horrific sense of the word. For a heartstopping moment, Eleven sees Chrissy as she looked in the photograph that she didn’t remember the first time they met, and a sob wrenches from her throat.

“Chrissy,” she whimpers, and lunges for her, clutching her in a tight hug.

Does she know? Does she remember, too? Like everyone else from Hawkins, has she been three steps ahead of Eleven the entire time? Or is this going to be a nightmarish shock to her, just like it was to El? She isn’t sure how to ask. So she just holds her, and cries for this friend she’d never had the chance to save.

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[eggos]

El doesn't know how to answer. Nothing is technically wrong. Chrissy is here, alive and vital in El's arms, and Henry is not here to hurt anyone. Nothing is wrong — except that Eleven failed to protect anyone in Hawkins after she lost her powers and moved to Lenora Hills with the Byerses.

And how is she supposed to tell Chrissy any of that? Chrissy doesn't even know about El's powers. Eleven shouldn't even know Chrissy died, or how, but she does.

Eleven leans back to look at Chrissy's face, whole and unharmed, expression no worse than worried and confused, unblemished by blood or fear. She hugs her again, sinking into relief, now.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, because it's easier than the truth. She feels a hot tear slide down her cheek and squeezes her eyes shut. "Chrissy, I'm sorry."

[queenofhawkinshigh]

The response doesn't really offer any clarity, or an answer to her question. Still, despite her growing confusion, Chrissy is concerned more so than anything else. Something has El upset enough to be holding her and crying in the middle of the mall, apologizing with obvious fervency. Whatever it is, it doesn't seem small. Something in her stomach twists with worry and uncertainty, but she keeps her arms around her friend. For one of the first times in her life, she doesn't care who might be looking and what they might think. This is unquestionably more important.

"It's okay," she says inanely, though her voice is gentle and earnest. Clearly something is very much not okay, but when she can't think of any reason why El would be apologizing to her like this, she can't imagine that it's anything all that significant. "Whatever's going on, I promise it'll be okay."

[eggos]

She shakes her head. Maybe it will be now that they're in Darrow, but she knows that in Hawkins, nothing is alright, and it's all her fault.

"It's my fault," El whispers. She leans back and looks at Chrissy, meeting her gaze. Friends don't lie. If Chrissy doesn't know, then she won't tell her everything — not the horrific details El wishes she herself could forget — but she deserves to know at least most of it. "Something awful happened to you, and it's my fault."

[queenofhawkinshigh]

That, at least, cuts through a little of Chrissy's confusion. It still doesn't entirely make sense, but something terrible did happen to her before she showed up here, something she's barely talked about in that time. She doesn't think there's anything else El could be referring to, and definitely not that would have prompted such a strong reaction from her.

It's the rest that she doesn't understand. Even now, she only knows a little of what actually happened beyond the nightmare she was living through that left her dead in Eddie's trailer. He explained it to her the best he could when she arrived, but she wasn't in much of a state to process it, and she's not sure there's really any comprehending something so insane anyway. Still, she knows enough to know that it certainly isn't El's fault. They didn't even know each other before this place, and she's a sweet girl, about as far from the monsters in her head as it's possible to get.

"It's not," she says, still quiet, though unintentionally a little shaky now. It's hard to stay entirely calm with a subject like that at hand. "I... I know. What happened. To me. You didn't do that."

[eggos]

Eleven feels her chin tremble and she sniffles. "No," she agrees — or rejects, she isn't sure. "But I made Henry like that. I made him Vecna." It feels too real, now that she's said it out loud. If she hadn't sent One into the Upside Down after he'd killed all of her brothers and sisters, he never would have been warped into Vecna. He never would have become the Mind Flayer, and he never would have begun hunting the people of Hawkins to try to come back.

He never would have killed Chrissy, or the boys she'd never met. Or Max.

"I didn't do it to you, but it's my fault that he could."

[queenofhawkinshigh]

It takes Chrissy a moment to even try to process that — not because this new information makes her direct any blame in El's direction, but simply because she knows so little about what happened to her other than the fact that it did. She knows the name Vecna from Eddie, but it isn't as if they've spent a lot of time talking about it. From Robin she's gathered a few snippets more, and still it isn't much. She probably could have asked more, if she wanted to. She hasn't wanted to. It's strange enough to be so aware of her own death, to have such vivid memories of something that was simultaneously real and not, that she had believed only to be her own mind splintering rather than the result of someone tangible.

What she does know, though, is that it's no one's fault but the person — thing — who did it. And maybe a little bit hers, too, for the ways in which she was such an easy target. Definitely not El's, even if she did somehow have some hand in that monster's existence.

"You didn't make him do what he did," she finally says, the only way she can think to put it. She wants to say something more, to try to reassure her friend. What comes out instead, unsteadier than she'd like, is, "Do you maybe wanna go somewhere quieter?"

[eggos]

Eleven looks around and seems to realize that they're still in the mall, still very much in public, and that people are glancing at them with equal parts concern and nosiness as they walk nearby. She looks back at Chrissy and nods, embarrassed.

"Yes," she says softly. She wants that more than anything, so she can apologize properly, and try to explain her part in all of this. Just like the day Jamie had lost his hand, El feels fully responsible for the havoc that Vecna had caused in Hawkins since she first rediscovered him, tearing that Gate open — back open — with her own fear. It was all a terrible accident, but that doesn't make her feel any less responsible.

And Chrissy... Chrissy deserves so much better.

[queenofhawkinshigh]

Chrissy nods in turn, trying to ignore the way her chest feels tight, a lump in her throat. The mall isn't the best place to find any sort of privacy, but at least figuring out where they can go gives her something to preoccupy herself with, something to think about that isn't the creature that haunted her, both awake and in sleep, until it killed her. No matter what El says, Chrissy knows she'll never blame her for it at all. She can't reconcile her friend with that monster, the fear, the waking nightmares. El didn't do that, and she's not responsible for what someone else does.

"Come on," she says, quiet and hopefully reassuring, reaching for her friend's hand before she starts for the store's exit. "We can get out of here and then talk some more."

[eggos]

El nods and holds onto Chrissy's hand, warm and vital and alive in hers as they go. It's a strange feeling to leave a store without buying anything, but that's distant this time as she reaches up to wipe her face with her free hand.

"I should not have started talking about it in the store," she says, as much acknowledgement of the facts as an apology for it. "I was not expecting to... remember."

[queenofhawkinshigh]

"No, it's okay," Chrissy says with a gentle shake of her head. "I don't think anyone could expect..." She trails off, unsure how to end that sentence, and punctuates it with a shrug instead. What happened to her, El remembering things from back in Hawkins, none of it should really make sense. It's just the way things are here. Were there, too, maybe.

"Besides. It's not like I didn't already know."

[eggos]

Amidst El's own nearly inane rambling apologies, she'd barely caught that Chrissy had admitting to knowing — but she'd still caught it. Chrissy knows she'd died. She even seems to know that Henry had killed her. El would never want that for her. That's a terrible burden to bear.

"How long have you known?" she asks, voice softer, now, less tearful. "Did you... remember?"

[queenofhawkinshigh]

Chrissy shakes her head again, mouth curved into a frown. "No, I've known since I got here," she explains. "I came from... well." From her death, but even now it's still surreal and horrifying to think about it like that. She's not dead now, after all. But she did die, and she remembers the terror of that night with awful clarity, haunted by it all this time later.

"I didn't know what was happening, then. I still thought it was just me. In my head. Eddie explained more about it. He came from later than me."

[eggos]

She nods. "I remember when he came to Darrow," she says. "I did not know him in Hawkins. Even in the memories Darrow gave me." She hadn't known either of them — only seen Chrissy in that photograph, in that file — and she's glad she gets to know them now, where they are both safe. Where she can keep them safe.

"Chrissy, I will not let him do that again," she promises. She couldn't save Max, but it will be different, here. She's stronger, has more love in her than she had before. If Henry ever tries to come here the way others from Hawkins have, Eleven will stop him.

[queenofhawkinshigh]

Chrissy doesn't know how that would work, how anyone could stop something so seemingly unstoppable. Right now, though, it's enough — almost too much — to know that if it did happen again, if he did come back like she so often has nightmares that he does, someone would even try to help her. Back in Hawkins, she always felt so, so alone, even when she was surrounded by people and smiling her practiced cheerleader's smile. It's been different here, since the first day she showed up with Eddie kneeling over her, but sometimes the weight of it still catches up to her.

"That's not your job," she says quietly. "But... thank you."

[eggos]

El doesn't insist that it is her job. She doesn't explain that she may not have made Henry the way he'd been born, but if she hadn't banished him to the Upside Down, even accidentally, he wouldn't have become Vecna. Eleven doesn't entirely understand how all of it works, but she knows that much. She's responsible for Vecna, if not for Henry — and she feels responsible for Henry, too. He'd manipulated her into removing Soteria, and that had allowed him to…

She swallows and nods when Chrissy thanks her.

“You're welcome,” she murmurs. “You are my friend. Friends look out for each other.” She smiles small, as encouraging as she can manage.

[queenofhawkinshigh]

Chrissy blinks when she hears that, as if it's something that's never occurred to her before. The truth is, before Darrow, she doesn't think she ever had friends, not really. There were people she was friendly with, socialized with, surrounded herself with, but she never had much more than a surface connection with any of them. It's only while being in Darrow that that's changed. She has Eddie, yes, but others, too; it's sort of staggering when she lets herself think about it. And El is right. That is what friends do for each other. It's just a relatively new aspect of her life.

"Yeah," she agrees, her voice soft. "They do. Still. It's..." She takes a deep breath. "I think just that helps. Having people. I don't really feel here like I felt back there."