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[eggos]

The bus rolls up to the stop outside of Starcourt, and Eleven turns from her conversation with Mike to look at it. It's time to go; she knows there's only a short window of time before they're not allowed on it anymore, and then they'll have to wait for the next one. She looks at Max, then at Mike again.

He lied. He's still lying. Nana isn't sick. Eleven squares her jaw and remembers what Max had said.

"If he doesn't fix this, if he doesn't explain himself? Dump his ass."

Eleven steps closer, her eyes trained on Mike's. He looks wary, and for a fleeting moment, she's glad. He should be wary. He treated her like garbage. He lied.

"I dump your ass," she declares.

Then she turns and walks towards the bus. Max follow, and when they collapse into the seats, they start laughing. It's a strange relief, she thinks as she claps her hand against Max's in a high five. She should be upset — maybe later, she will be. But right now, Mike is getting the medicine. Now he knows what it's like to feel like garbage.

For most of the ride, they talk and laugh some more. It's good.

Until something happens: the bus takes a turn too sharply, or the ice cream is bad. Eleven feels dizzy and she thinks she hears tires squeal. The bus stops abruptly, and she catches herself with her free hand against the seat ahead of her.

"What—" She stops, looking at the empty seat beside her. The seat Max had been in just a second ago. "Max?"

Eleven looks around, but the rest of the bus is just the same unfamiliar faces. No, not the same. Their clothes are different. Some of them are looking at her like she's the weird one.

She's always the weird one.

The bus doors hiss open, indicating they've reached a stop.

"Max?" she calls again. But she's still not there. She stands; does she feel unsteady because of the bus? Or because she's afraid?

It feels like a forever walk to the bus doors, and the driver is giving her a bored, impatient look by the time she reaches them.

"Sorry," she whispers.

She steps off the bus, and onto a cold, snow-trimmed sidewalk. It's winter again. She's not dressed for this, but for the moment, she doesn't notice the cold. All she notices is that this isn't Hawkins.

"Max?" she asks again, first a whisper, and then a scream. "Max!"

She doesn't know where she is. She doesn't know where Max is. This isn't the Void. This isn't Hawkins. Eleven turns around, breath starting to come quicker.

"Max! Mike! Mike!"

Comments

[juststrange]

"They can't hear you," Fraser said, taking up the space just behind her, seemingly out of nowhere.

"Your knees look cold," he observed, swimming in his own oversized puffer jacket, a frown creasing his brow.

"I'm assuming they can't hear you. You're new, right? I did the same thing, when I first got here. The yelling. It didn't do any good."

[eggos]

She whirls to face him, ice cream clenched in her white-knuckled grip. He isn't familiar. She looks around to see where he'd come from, but there are others, too. Strangers, looking at her again.

She frowns and turns her attention back to the boy.

"Where is here?" she asks. The cold is starting to sink in, and she shivers, but she holds her ground.

[juststrange]

"It's Darrow. Some kind of weird city in an alternate dimension for crazy people," he said. She'd started to shiver and he rolled his eyes impatiently, holding his hand out for her ice cream cone and saying, "Give me that."

Normally, he wouldn't just go up to strangers and talk to them, but something about her brightly colored romper and red splotchy knees made her seem vulnerable enough that it felt safe and less likely to end in his epic embarrassment. Plus, that scream... She'd sounded terrified, which sucked.

He knew exactly how that felt.

[eggos]

She draws her ice cream closer to herself, protectively, like he's trying to steal it, not help her.

But it's not summer anymore. It's cold enough, in fact, that the ice cream isn't even melting over her fingers. She frowns down at it, then holds it out to him.

"Who... are you?" she asks.

[juststrange]

Unwinding the scarf from his neck, he traded it for the ice cream cone. Then, after a moment of consideration, he took off his knit hat and handed it over, too.

"Fraser," he said, taking a lick of the ice cream cone. It was just the same generic vanilla that tasted exactly the same, no matter what food court you bought it in, and with a shrug, he tossed it into a nearby garbage can.

"I've been here less than a month. You just show up, and there's no way to leave. Which, I get it, I know that sounds insane, but I swear I'm not trying to kidnap you or anything."

[eggos]

She hands him a scarf, then a hat, and even though the smell like him — like a new person, with new, strange cologne — they're warm from being on him, so she winds the scarf around her neck and chin, then pulls the hat on.

She probably looks silly, but she's finding it hard to laugh.

You just show up, and there's no way to leave.

She thinks about the Upside Down, and how without the gate, there was no way in or out. Is that like this?

"...Now what?" she asks. If she can't leave, and her friends aren't here to hear her... Now what?

[juststrange]

"I can help you get your packet. It's your ID and stuff. Some money," he offered, chewing at a fleck of nail polish on his thumb.

"We should probably try and find you some clothes. Personally, I think the romper thing is sort of tired, but that one's not bad. You know, if you want to freeze to death."

[eggos]

Eleven looks down at herself, the cold of her legs starkly contrasted by the warmth of her head and neck. She likes her romper. But he's right. This isn't the weather for it. It'd been warm in Hawkins when she'd bought it.

When she'd bought it. She looks around, but the JC Penny's bag with the rest of her clothes isn't there. It'd been hooked on her elbow when she'd... When she'd...

She'd been on the bus. She'd stood up when it'd stopped and she couldn't find Max. It must have slid off her arm — she hadn't noticed because she'd been focused on trying to find Max.

But there's something else he'd said that seems important. Her packet. ID and stuff. What did that mean?

"What is ID?" she asks. She moves closer, indicating as well as she can right now that she'll follow him.

[juststrange]

"Uh..."

Okay, so. She was weird. Weird was okay, he could handle weird.

"Identification? Like this," he said, fumbling in his wallet and pulling out the Darrow issue ID he'd been given weeks before. It, inexplicably, had the same picture as his ID card from the base.

"You didn't have one for school?"

[eggos]

She has an answer prepared for this, and for once, Eleven's relieved for that.

"I did school from home," she says. If it explains why she's weird, then that's fine, too.

She takes the ID card so she can look at it. It has his name, and his picture. Is she supposed to have one of these? Does she already, and she just doesn't know, because Hop had never felt the need to give it to her? She hands it back, still frowning lightly.

[juststrange]

"Oh, cool," he said, taking his ID back and shoving it into his pocket. "Did you like it? School sucks, but I can't imagine being stuck at home with my mom all day."

For someone who hated his mom so much, he sure did mention her a lot, but that was definitely not something he wanted to think about.

[eggos]

Eleven wonders, immediately, if she shouldn't have said that. How is she supposed to explain that she lives in Hopper's cabin, and when Hopper isn't there, she's alone? She doesn't go to school. Hopper teaches her what he can, but he can only do so much. She isn't sure how to explain that he's not really her papa, and that she's a secret, and has been for awhile.

So she goes with the easier explanation.

"Yes, I like it."

It's not a lie, even as it is. She hates being alone all day. Hopper works, and she can't go to school, so that can be... challenging. Her day out with Max had been one of the best days she's ever had. But she likes learning — she likes feeling like she's catching up with her friends, and like she might understand the things they talk about.

Some of the things.

[juststrange]

"They're going to make you go," Fraser said, with brief but sympathetic wince. "It's not, like, the worst school I've ever been to. We might be in the same classes."

He cut her a sideways look. The truth was, he hadn't made a single friend in the weeks he'd been at Darrow High. There was that kid from his first day, and his roommate, but he hadn't really figured out how he felt about either of them, yet.

[eggos]

She recognizes the sympathy on his face. Mike had looked at her like that, when they'd first met. It's meant to be a good thing, and the fact that he says they might be in the same classes confirms that for her. She offers him a small, shy smile, the first one since she'd stepped off the wrong bus into the wrong city.

"I would... like that," she admits. She almost surprises herself to find it's true. She would like to have someone familiar in her classes, even if she's only known him for a few minutes.

[juststrange]

"Cool," Fraser said, affecting casual indifference. Before he could let his brain spiral too badly, he grasped for a new subject. "Oh, hey, what year are you from? I'm from twenty-sixteen, but I met this guy who, like, died during the French Revolution or something."

And was maybe fictional, but Fraser wasn't so inept that he'd spring that on her after she'd only been in Darrow for like five minutes.

[eggos]

"Year? Um... 1985." And he's from twenty-sixteen. That's after. That's much, much after. It makes her stop walking, even with the cold pressing in around her knees and legs. She tuns a frown on him. "What... year is it now?" she asks. She doesn't know if it matters. But suddenly, she's afraid that it does.

[juststrange]

"2021," he said, his eyes going a bit wide. "Wow, you barely even had computers, when you're from. Wait—" He said, pulling his phone out of his pocket, along with his earbuds.

"You'll get one of these, too. It's a phone," he explained, pulling up his music player app and then handing her one of the earbuds. "But it does all kinds of other stuff, too. Like this," he said, sticking the bud one into his ear. He pressed play.

[eggos]

El wants to ask about her friends, if they're still alive, if they'll be okay, in twenty-twenty-one, but he's moving fast, now, showing her a small brick that lights up on one side, and has the strangest, smallest headphones she's ever seen.

He says it's a phone, but then it's playing music. She puts the small earphone into her ear like he had, and she frowns as she listens.

It's different. It makes her think of the music Mike listens to. It's not exactly the same, but it feels similar to her, and she closes her eyes. She's not sure if she likes it, but she doesn't hate it.

"The phone is a radio?" she asks, voice lifted so she can hear herself over the music.

[juststrange]

"Sort of?"

It didn't use radio waves, but it was the closest analogy he could think of for streaming music.

"It's more like a really small computer, I guess," he said, biting back a smile at the way she'd shouted over the music.

[eggos]

That isn't much of an explanation for Eleven, but she decides not to push it. For now, she's willing to let it be. She pulls the earbud away and lets him take it back before tucking her fingers up under the scarf to warm up. She remembers a time she'd been out in the snow, in the Hawkins woods, learning how to light a fire and how to cook squirrels for eating. It'd been much colder, then, but that doesn't mean she doesn't still feel it now.

She lets Fraser lead her on, to wherever this 'packet' that he'd mentioned is. Right now, at least, she trusts him, and the sooner she gets out of the cold, the better.