Through the Looking Glass

by bellamyblakesgirl (margoshansons)

Summary:

It starts, as most stories do, with a depressed twenty-something hating her life and wishing to be somewhere else.

Except Emma Foster's not twenty-something anymore, she’s sixteen. With acne and body issues and terrible BO, it's her worst nightmare. And the somewhere else she’s ended up in?
Hawkins, Indiana.
1983.

Notes:

Are we surprised I'm writing another transmigration story? No.

This is purely for my own self-indulgence, if y'all like it tho, lemme know!

Chapter 1: Fell into a Rabbit Hole

August 12th, 2025

It was a hot summer day in Montauk, New York and Emma Foster wanted to kill herself. 

This wasn’t an unusual occurrence, nor was it the first time she’d stared up at the large lighthouse on the edge of town wondering if anyone would catch her when she fell.

The sharp New York wind blew against her bare legs, running shorts under a large t-shirt the only thing keeping her from overheating as the bright sun beat down through a blue sky.

Sweat dotted the top of her brow, ponytail doing nothing to keep her cool as she stretched out in front of the start of her route. 

Usually when those kinds of thoughts started permeating the space inside her brain, she knew it was time to go for a run.

She hated running, but it was the only way she could truly get out of her head long enough to convince her mom and dad not to put her in a mental hospital. Again.

She’d barely survived the first time.

Her chucks took her through winding paths and endless roads, the crash of waves against the shore playing faintly in the back of her mind as Rilo Kiley blared through her headphones, loud enough to block out the chirps and sirens of the world around her.

If a car derailed or a fire broke out, the only thing she would hear is the soft synth in her ears and the chords of an electric guitar as the world collapsed. 

Her route took her through the backroads, places and areas her parents had always warned her about when she was little, including a patch of woods that swallowed up all the sunlight. 

She stopped for a brief moment and guzzled down some water, shoving the bottle back in her bag with her phone charger and pepper spray.

Most people thought she was crazy for running with a backpack, but honestly, the weight helped her, kept her grounded and steady as she continued further down the trail, well-worn paths disappearing, replaced by people who’d forged their own paths regardless of the danger ahead of them. 

She wished she could be one of them. 

But Emma knew she was a coward. After all, what kind of person couldn’t even kill themselves when given the chance? 

Her mind drifted back to the lighthouse, back to the dreary white walls and monotony of her time Upstate, and how when her parents had picked her up, she’d almost wished she’d told the doctor the truth so they could give her so much medication she overdosed. 

Instead, she was driven back to her messy apartment and even messier life, where all her friends had moved away and left her behind to go chase something better. 

Meanwhile, she was still stuck. Working a dead-end job at a motel with the vain hope that maybe someday she’d save enough money to get out.

She dreamed of Denver, Los Angeles, anywhere that would take her. 

But when her rent came due, all those dreams were crushed under the weight of her last paycheck disappearing in seconds. 

So she worked.

She cleaned. 

She ran.

And sometimes, she watched TV to take her mind off it.

It never worked though. She always ended up right back to where she started from. Alone, friendless, and without any money to bail herself out. 

She collapsed on the cool earth, staring up at the trees like they would swallow her whole. 

The sun had moved and before long it would be setting.

Her skin prickled at the thought of being out after nightfall and once again her brain whispered that horrible word in the back of her mind. 

Coward.

Pathetic.

Spineless.

She bit down on her cheek, tasting metal in her mouth as she drew blood. Her wrists itched.

She wasn’t a coward, Emma reminded herself. She was surviving.

Surviving what? That voice hissed, crawling up her spine and settling deep into the crevices of her brain. It hadn’t left her since her visit Upstate, and even the medications she was on couldn’t stop it from slithering in, unwanted.

Her backpack rattled and she pulled out the aforementioned pills and swallowed them down eagerly. It quieted the voice just for a moment, but she knew it was only a matter of time before it came back.

A few people jogged past her, and when she stared at her watch, she knew it was time to head home, even though she wished more than anything to let the earth devour her whole.

Nobody would miss her, she thought. She was a tiny dot in a large canvas and nobody had even bothered to text or call while she’d been out. 

Her life, ultimately, was meaningless.

Which made the next few events all the more confusing.

The first thing that happened was she tripped on the hike down, catching herself on a rock and wincing as her knee scraped the earth.

Blood dripped down her shin but she quickly wiped it up and sucked it off her hand, continuing her hike back down to the trail.

The second thing that happened was the sudden cut off of her music halfway down the trail. Not that unusual, considering there were a lot of dead spots in this part of town. She was certain she’d downloaded the entire playlist before she left, but maybe she’d forgotten one or two songs. Emma simply huffed and shoved her phone and headphones back in her bag. 

Now that the music was gone, the world seemed a lot scarier, especially with the trees closing in and the skies getting darker. 

The sun was disappearing, replaced by a soft summer wind that brushed against bare skin and left goosebumps in their wake.

Her stomach tightened and her footsteps quickened. 

She could almost see the end of the road when the last and strangest event happened. 

She fell.

Long and hard, through something that felt wet and not wet at the same time. Fleshy and skin-like, it bubbled in bright orange lights that danced before her eyes in a haze. It swallowed her whole, stealing the air from her lungs as she struggled for air. 

Her chest began to collapse in on itself, pressure building further and further until she was certain it was going to pop.

It was like drowning.

For the briefest of moments, Emma floated, orange bubbles blowing from her nose as she struggled against the pressured walls surrounding her. 

On instinct, she kicked, and that had been her mistake.

Fingers, slimy and spindled, wrapped around her ankle and pulled.

She screamed.

 

---

NOVEMBER 10, 1983

Emma broke the surface with a gasp. 

Water stuck to to her skin, arms and legs aching as she tread in the middle of what looked like a giant pond. She shivered, spots dancing before her vision as she began to swim.

Her arms cried out with each stroke, still feeling the phantom limbs grasping hold of her ankle as she kicked her way forward.

Cold air, colder than when she’d left, brushed over her soaked skin, hair raising and teeth chattering as she gasped for air, trying and failing to fill her lungs with as much oxygen as she could muster. 

Emma’s lungs ached with each breath, but she forced herself to continue forward.

Sheer cliffsides close to 200 ft tall surrounded the pond on all sides, except for a lone patch of gravel giving way to a lonely road. 

There was no way to describe the events in her head, no way to rationalize how she’d fallen into what felt like a vat of gelatine only to end up breaking the surface of a makeshift lake. 

And that wasn’t even tackling the fact that something had pulled her further down.

She surmised she must have kicked the creature or person free and then swam up when she finally regained control of her limbs. 

Her heart pounded in her ears, backpack still secured on her shoulders. She slammed it down into the gravel, her hand coming away with sticky tendrils of goo and slime. It smelled foul and made her want to gag. 

Miraculously, however, nothing inside was damaged. Her phone was probably shot, along with her headphones, but she forced herself to focus on pulling herself free. 

She coughed out a mouthful of water that tasted like sewage, knees and elbows scraping against the ground, stripping her skin until the tiny rocks lodged themselves deep into her wounds, agitating them further. 

Turning on her side, she coughed out a mouthful of water again, then another, until finally the wet sensation tickling her throat disappeared and she could breathe normally again.

Her stomach felt heavy, along with the rest of her, but she crawled to her knees and began to survey her surroundings. 

Stars shone brightly with no moon, Emma able to pick out the constellations from memory as she began to look for anything familiar. 

It was all strange to her. 

The jagged cliffs stood as imposing guardians of the night, blocking any and all light from all sides as she finally opened her bag to survey the damage. 

To her surprise, nothing inside was wet. Her phone even still worked, despite it being on half battery. Still enough to open up a map and figure out what was going on. 

Except it refused to work.

In fact, everything related to the internet did.

Google, Maps, even Lyft. 

Nothing seemed to work. She wasn’t even able to get more than one bar, which dashed her hopes of calling her parents fairly quick. It still told time though, and according to the device, she’d been in the damn lake for near three hours. 

Jesus, no wonder her body hurt so much.

Still, there seemed to be a renewed spring in her step as she stood on her feet, walking towards the empty road with her pepper spray clutched tightly in her hand.

Tall trees surrounded her on every side, chittering and growling erupting in the back of her mind as she forced herself to stay on the beaten path.

Her shoes sloshed and swished with every step, socks squishing uncomfortably against her skin as she continued her march forward.

Emma’s pace quickened as something snapped in the twigs behind her and then morphed into a full blown run as a growl, low and threatening, reached her ears. 

Her legs carried her farther, lungs gulping up air easier. Maybe the lake had actually helped her body recover from some of the damage being sick did a while back.

Spending your twenties drinking during a pandemic wasn’t exactly the smartest decision.

It didn’t mean her legs didn’t burn as the trees whipped by, or that her side wasn’t splitting in pain as she pushed through bushes and thistles and nearly tripped over gnarled tree roots. 

The stars provided little light to guide her, and her pulsing heartbeat drowned out any noise as she continued her sprint.

Thank god she’d taken up running as a hobby otherwise she probably never would have made it past the first mile. 

The world flew by in a flash, and as she crested the top of the hill, a familiar shape started to come into view.

“Hey!” Emma yells as a shadowed figure pauses right at the top of the hill, “Hey! Wait! I need help!”

She doesn’t say what from, but she hopes a disheveled girl drenched in sewer water and not dressed for the weather is enough for someone to reach out a hand. Her hope stops in her throat when she sees the figure is male.

Shit. 

She clutches her pepper spray tighter, legs running faster as she finally manages to scramble up the last few feet into the figure’s arms. 

Her lungs burn, lactic acid churning in her thighs as she clutches tightly to the man who’d caught her, praying he was a good one and not a creep.

“Holy shit, are you okay?” His voice sounds familiar, but she can’t quite place it. Emma shakes her head, still gasping for air as her eyes dart to the woods behind her. The trees mark a barrier between the animal and civilization, although she’s certain she’s never heard an animal make that kind of noise before. 

“Something was chasing me,” She wheezed, clutching tighter to the man’s forearms, “I think– I think I outran it but—”

Low chittering cut off her words. 

Her blood turns to ice.

“Jesus,” The figure says in disbelief. His voice is young, like a teenager’s, and she can’t figure out where she knows it from. It tickles the back of her mind, teasing the nerves as he steadies her. “Okay, look, my house is right down this way, you can stay there until this…thing disappears.”

Air burns as she gulps it into her lungs, nodding out her thanks as she finally finds her footing. 

Her heart slows and she finds herself staring into a pair of eerily familiar chocolate brown eyes.

It’s only when the rest of the figure comes into view of the porchlight her stomach jumps into her throat and her blood runs cold.

She’s going insane. 

She’s hit her head or is in a medically induced hallucination.

That’s the only logical explanation she can find. 

It’s the only one that would explain her situation right now. 

Because what other rational reason would there be for her to be shivering in a wet t-shirt and bike shorts, bleeding and bruised, in the arms of Steve fucking Harrington?

The teen blinked.

Emma wanted to throw up.

Chapter 2: Sit and Stay Awhile

Steve stared at the girl dripping water on her mother’s pristine wooden floors with wide eyes and a furrowed brow.

She was dressed in the worst outfit possible for the weather, legs bare while a too-big graphic t-shirt hung to her mid thigh, shorts peeking out from underneath the hem.

He averted his gaze and began to ruffle through his mother’s linen closet, finding a towel and a few blankets he tossed her way.

Before he’d met Nancy, he probably would be staring unabashedly, but he was actually trying with this relationship and he didn’t want to fuck it up by staring at some random girl.

Especially one who was apparently crazy.

Her dark hair was drenched, clinging to her shoulders as she shivered in the cool November air.

It wasn’t raining outside, which could only mean she’d gone swimming or accidentally wandering through the wrong yard as the neighbor’s sprinklers went off. 

One was more likely than the other. 

Another thought tickled the back of his mind, taking root before he could shake it away.

Something uncomfortable stirred in his chest, leaning against the kitchen island with crossed arms and a tight lip. 

Steve didn’t recognize the girl at all. Not that he knew everyone in town, but she was old enough to be in Nancy’s class at least, and he couldn’t ever remember seeing her in the halls.

And she was pretty enough that he definitely would have remembered seeing her.

For a brief moment, he wondered if she might have had something to do with the latest rumors flying about town. 

Tina Walsh was an annoying priss most days, but the one thing she was good for was gossip. Apparently her dad worked at the mayor’s office and he’d heard endless reports from the police about all sorts of things. 

Will Byers’ disappearance and death, a spike in activity near Hawkins Lab, and several mentions of a girl no one had seen before wandering the woods.

Steve eyed the dark-haired girl standing in the middle of his living room, staring his furniture and family pictures like she couldn’t believe they were there.

“You gonna tell me what was chasing you?” The question left his mouth harshly, but honestly, Steve thought he was entitled to an answer if he was putting his life in danger.

Blood and bruises littered her body, a particularly nasty scratch peeking out from her bloodstained socks on her right ankle. It almost looked like…

Steve shook his head free of the thought. 

He was starting to sound like the Byers kid. 

The girl’s head snapped his direction, meeting his gaze for the briefest moment before moving somewhere else. “I think it was some kind of animal–look, I just need to use your phone and I’ll be on my way, okay?”

Her words were short, curt, and Steve recognized what she was doing.

He’d done it every time the cops came over when the noise levels at his house got too high. Quick answers, something believable, so they wouldn’t look past the surface and dig deeper. 

Steve sighed, “Fine, it’s over here.” 

He led her over to their untouched landline hanging next to the fridge, probably the most use the phone got since his dad left on his business trip and his mom caught the next flight out to chase him down.

The girl nodded her thanks and stared at the phone for a brief moment, eyes scanning the keypad like she’d never seen one before. 

Steve knew when he wasn’t wanted, and quickly moved back to the living room, scoffing at the scene in front of him with a half-smile. 

The blankets he’d given her laid untouched on the couch, towel now wet and dangling carelessly off the back of his dad’s chair. 

His parents would have killed him if they would’ve walked in at that exact moment, but he relished in the messiness before him. He could hear his mom yelling about the state of the floorboards, near hysterical while his dad would sneer at the dirty towel and carefully remove it with a turned up nose, all while making some backhanded comment about Steve’s choice of company.

Perhaps that was why he hadn’t kicked her out yet. 

He recognized the hunched shoulders, the darting eyes towards the door, the blood and bruises she refused to talk about. 

If the girl was running from something, he couldn’t quite blame her. 

“Hello?” Her voice gasped for air, hoarse and husky as she clutched the phone to her ear, “Yeah, hi, I’m looking for Ruth Fos-Martin–-no, I know this is coming from Indiana, I just need–-look, please, I’m trying–-it’s her daughter. Please, don’t hang up, I know it sounds crazy–-”

Click.

The girl’s forehead slammed against the fridge. 

Steve’s stomach sank.

Something uncomfortable sat deep in his chest, urging him forward with careful steps as guilt clawed his insides. 

“Parents suck, don’t they?” 

The girl’s blank stare never left the fridge, “Yeah.” 

Steve recognized the resigned tone lining her words, the low sigh that left her mouth as she ran her fingers through her half-dried curls, trying and failing to move her bangs out of the way. Something inside his chest twisted, and he almost couldn’t believe the next words that came out of his mouth. 

“Look, if you need somewhere to stay…”

She shot him a look, twisted and vitriolic as she grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulders. Steve almost flinched. “Don’t worry, I’m leaving and you can have your house back.” She spat, biting down on her nails as she moved towards the back porch, “This was a stupid idea anyway–” Steve beat her to the door with a knowing look and she shot a dirty one his way. “Steve, let me out.”

His brow furrowed. 

“You know my name.” Her whole face turned white. She tried to pull the door open, Steve’s hand kept it closed. Her eyes darted around his house, looking anywhere but his own. That nagging feeling in the back of his head was back. “How the hell do you know my name?”

The girl’s mouth flapped open and shut, eyes the color of honey still darting around like she was looking for any way out of the conversation. “It’s on the fridge,”  She nodded towards the appliance, where a small piece of paper in delicate handwriting hung from a magnet detailing the coastline of the Bahamas. 

His Christmas gift last year. 

The note was sparse and he’d woken up to it the morning he invited Nancy over, his mom’s explanation amounting to nothing more than ‘hey I’m off to stop your dad from cheating on me, again. There’s meatloaf in the fridge and money on the counter, have fun!'

But she was right, it did have his name written on it.

And if Steve was a more curious person, he would have pressed her further, knowing her answer was complete and total bullshit.

But Steve wasn’t a curious person, and the more time he spent with this girl, the more he was realizing that maybe the trouble she was in extended beyond her own shitty parents. 

“Okay, no bullshit,” He finally spat her direction, hand still pressed tightly to the door, “What the hell is going on? Are you running from something? In trouble with your parents?”

The girl’s lips pressed into a thin line, grip growing tight on his back door. Her forehead creased and contorted, like she wanted to say something but couldn’t.

Steve’s chest twinged. 

Clearly whatever it was, it was bad enough for her not to talk about it. It brought his mind back to the rumors, to the mentions of government agents and the disappearance of a twelve year old kid. Not for the first time, Steve wondered if this girl was somehow caught up in it.

She was clearly not the kidnapper, based on her current state of dress and the fact that he’d found her running from something in the woods with blood on her knees and bruises on her skin, but maybe something else was after her. 

Or someone else. 

Steve gulped. Whatever it was, he could NOT get caught up in it.

He should call the cops. He should call the hospital. He should call anyone else to deal with this except himself, because he was very obviously not equipped to handle a shivering half-naked teenage girl in his house who may or may not be involved with some bad shit. 

But Steve Harrington did not call the cops. 

He did not call the hospital. 

Instead, he simply looked at the frightened and terrified girl staring him down and did the only thing he could do. 

“Come on, I have some clothes you can borrow,” He gestured towards the staircase leading to his room. “You can stay the night–”

“No,” She shook her head, pupil’s dilating, “No, I can’t–I can’t do that, I can’t stay here–”

“I said no bullshit, alright?” Steve knew she wasn’t gonna come willingly, but he could see the fight raging in her face,  the tension of her jaw, the clench of her cheek. He rolled his eyes and grabbed her wrist, pulling her up the stairs before she could protest.

To his surprise, she didn’t put up a fight.

Maybe it all left her in the run up the hill.

He rummaged through his dressers until he managed to find a pair of Hawkins High sweats and an old t-shirt. His hands shook as he offered them to her, trying and failing to come up with any reason as to why he shouldn’t turn her into the cops. A nagging voice in the back of his head seemed to convince him otherwise. It was the same voice that told him to make sure Nancy got home safe after the party, the same voice that felt bad for Jonathan Byers as he put those posters of his missing brother up.

Steve Harrington, for as much as he liked to play pretend with Tommy and Carol, simply couldn’t leave another person out in the cold.

Especially when looking at her put the same ache in his stomach that his dad yelling at him and his mom nagging him did.

The girl surveyed the clothes in her hands before looking around the room. 

“Oh!” Steve pointed towards the connecting door, hands still crossed on his chest as he suddenly realized what she was looking for, “The uh, the bathroom’s right through there. You probably need a shower too, so feel free, I don’t…I don’t need it tonight.”

She pressed her lips together and nodded, untying and slipping off her dirtied chucks as she cast another gaze around the room. Steve suddenly felt his face grow hot. 

His room was not something he’d ever been embarrassed about.

He’d picked out everything, from the posters to the wallpaper to the navy blue sheets at the tender age of thirteen, when he was lonely and horny and wanted to prove to his dad that he could have just as good of taste as he did.

He’d never regretted the interior, until now.

The way the girl’s eyes swept over everything like it had personally insulted her, failing to hide the disgust creeping up on her face.

“Thanks,” She mumbled out, cheeks flushing as she stared down at his clothes again. “I uh, I should probably–”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve wiped his hands on his jeans, dusting the sweat off as she began to make her way towards the bathroom door. “Oh, hey, wait!” She turned around like a deer in headlights, wide-eyed like Bambi about to watch his mom get shot. It tugged at something in his chest, disappearing just as quickly. “I, uh, if you’re gonna be staying the night, I should probably know your name. Only fair seeing as you know mine already.”

Her body relaxed. “Emma,” She choked out.

“Emma,” Steve repeated.

He’d never met anyone with a name like that, but considering how strange everything else was about her, he wasn’t necessarily surprised. It definitely wasn’t a name you’d run into in Hawkins. Still, it fit her, he supposed.

“Alright, Emma, well, uh, everything should be in there, shampoo, conditioner, body wash,” Steve anxiously rubbed the back of his next, “I’ll uh, I’ll just be out here when you’re done.”
Her brow furrowed and it suddenly registered how creepy he sounded.

“Uh, not like waiting for you to finish or anything, just…” God, he wanted to smack himself. He let out a reluctant sigh, “I meant as like, a bodyguard. So you’re not alone.”
How did that come out sounding even worse than in his own head?
A bodyguard?

The most he would be able to do is throw a punch or swing a baseball bat. Not that he’d ever admit it out loud.

Tommy was always the one getting into fights and he was the one getting them out of it.

He could barely throw a punch, let alone save this girl from whatever was chasing her. 

God, what a stupid fucking thing to say. 

“I got it, Steve,” The corners of Emma’s mouth twitched up into what almost looked like a smile, although there was something far away in her eyes. Like he’d said something that reminded her of someone. 

A pause hung precariously between them.

“Thanks, again,” She murmured, expression softening as she stared down at his clothes, then back at his room, and then finally–for what felt like the first time that night–met his gaze. Her eyes were the color of freshly roasted coffee, large dark circles permeating the space underneath them while the rest of her face sank in on itself. “For everything, you know?”
He gave her a careless shrug and watched her form disappear into the bathroom.

When he finally heard the door click shut, Steve flopped down on his bed, staring at the popcorn ceiling.

What the hell had he gotten himself into?

Notes:

Thank you all so much for the love on this fic! I regrettably won't be able to watch the newest season until my sister gets home for Christmas, but I am doing a rewatch for this fic to satiate my hyperfixation until then hahaha.

For context, this is all happening the same night Hopper is breaking into the morgue and Hawkins Lab, so right between "The Body" and "The Flea and the Acrobat".

I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a comment if you did!

Chapter 3: Your Own Reflection

Steve Harrington’s bathroom was oddly pristine.

Not a sentence she’d ever thought she’d say, let alone think, especially since she now knew this wasn’t a dream. You can’t read in dreams, and Emma had been able to read the whole of that sad note Steve’s mom had left for him. 

You can’t tell time in dreams, and yet the clocks all remained the same. Ticking by the same speed as her phone, which she was sure wouldn’t have even worked in a dream anyway.

The last thing that assured her she wasn’t in a dream, was the taste of sewage still lining her mouth. It was foul and made her sick with nausea as she reached for Steve’s mouthwash and began to swish it away.

Her spit was green as it disappeared down the drain.

When she came back up, it was with the realization she hadn’t actually taken a good look at herself since she’d arrived. 

That was the other thing you couldn’t do in dreams. See your own reflection. But here hers was, staring back with wide, blinking eyes in a face she hadn’t seen in a very long time.

She was younger, obviously younger, with no forehead creases or smile lines. A small red dot was beginning to form on her chin. Since her stint on accutane, she’d been blessed with clear skin, except now that wasn’t the case. Emma popped the zit with a grimace and when she finally smelled herself, she gagged. 

Steve was right. She needed a shower. 

Her body was smaller, cheeks rounder, teeth whiter. 

She was a goddamn teenager.

It was her, same eyes, same hair, same brain, but shoved into her sixteen-year-old body which ached with post-pubescent growing pains and a baby face she hated. She saw some glimpses of her twenty-six year old self–most notably in her posture, jaw, and eyes–but the rest of her had been washed away, replaced by someone softer.

When she stepped into the steaming shower, she’d hoped the heat would have burned those parts of her away, adding back the weight she’d gained in college or the yellowing of teeth from too much coffee. Even her own acne scars from her teenaged years had melted away, replaced by smooth skin that repeatedly broke out. She could feel the mountains forming under her skin, too far down to pop but waiting to make their arrival known.

Skin care would be the first priority when she got out of here.

Emma rubbed the shampoo into her scalp, a soapy, honeyed smell reaching her nose as she rinsed it clean. Her mids and ends sighed in relief as she ran the conditioner through it, curls bouncing into shape almost immediately.

The second priority would be finding out what kind of shampoo and conditioner Steve Harrington used. 

The third, and obviously most important, would be returning back to her original body as soon as possible. Now that she knew she was in Hawkins, Indiana, she had a better idea of what could have possibly happened.

That was if she believed her own theory, which she didn’t. Not yet.

Something had grabbed her, that much she knew. And if she’d ended up in Hawkins, there was a good chance that something was a demogorgon or a piece of the Mind Flayer, or god forbid, Vecna.

And if one of those things had grabbed her, that meant the orange fleshy gelatine she’d fallen through was a gate. A gate to the Upside Down.

So why wasn’t she in the Upside Down?

Unless her whole theory was horseshit and she’d somehow managed to discover time travel and dimensional hopping in the same afternoon along with the secret of the fountain of youth.

She inhaled the sharp scent of cedar and vanilla as she squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself not to spiral. 

What can you control? Her therapist’s voice rang in the back of her mind.

Emma inhaled sharply.

Okay, her mind whispered to her, let’s start with what we know. 

She was in Hawkins, Indiana. Definitely in the 80s, probably early season one based on Steve’s hair. It hadn’t quite found its fluffy roots yet, instead still fairly flat against his head. He was also dressed like a kid who would threaten to call his lawyer if you looked at him wrong, so Emma supposed he wasn’t dating Nancy yet.

If he was, it was fairly early on.

She still couldn’t believe it was him. That he’d not only brought her to his house (his disgustingly big, cold and sterile house), but he’d offered her clothes and a place to stay. It made more sense now that she knew she looked like that and he’d overheard her disastrous conversation with her once grandmother.

Estella Martin had always been a hardass, and Emma was now realizing that hadn’t changed over the last thirty years. As soon as she’d said she was Ruth’s daughter, the other end of the phone was filled with screaming and shouting and tear-filled denials until the line finally cut.

Emma shivered as she shut the water off and proceeded to use the same fluffy white towel from before to wipe herself dry. The blood and rocks came free from her skin with ease, dabbing the areas clean so they wouldn’t be infected.

She winced at the thought of the nasty bruises and scabs she’d be sporting in a few days. Her bike shorts had dried quicker than her t-shirt, and she slid them on underneath Steve’s sweatpants, stomach flipping as the soft material hit her thighs.

The last time she’d worn another man’s clothes it had been her ex’s, and those weren’t nearly as comfy. The grey sweats sported a forest green HAWKINS TIGERS down the right leg and Emma resisted the urge to smirk at the phrase.

Gooooooo Tigers! A familiar refrain echoed in her mind, almost making her laugh. 

She shoved it down and peeled off her sports bra, hesitating slightly as she stared at the olive green long sleeve he’d given her. She tugged it over her head and tucked it into her pants, securing the clothes around her much smaller figure with a cinch of the drawstrings.

Her feet were still bare, socks discarded on the floor, one stained a dark crimson.

Despite the warmth, she shivered and wrapped her arms around her torso as she scrunched her dark curls and arranged her bangs the way she liked them. She blew out another sigh and unlocked the door, stepping out into the unfamiliar room.

It was an eyesore in every way.

The wallpaper reminded her of those hypnotist circles, while the posters were exactly what she would have pictured a teenage boy hanging in his room, right down to the faceless bikini girl hanging above his bed.

His bed with navy sheets and no comforter. 

He was a walking cliche at this point.

She scrunched her nose at the decor, before tensing at the sound of rustling and ruffling coming from just outside the bedroom door. Emma’s eyes widened when she saw Steve rushing in and out with what looked like quilts, comforters and a ton of pillows down the hallway.

Stepping out onto the cold hardwood floor, her feet paddled down the corridor until it reached another door, this one slightly ajar, revealing soft blue wallpaper and paisley printed sheets. 

Steve was placing several blankets and comforters on the mattress, stretching them out and fluffing the pillows as he muttered something unintelligible to himself.

Her chest twisted at the sight.

She’d been expecting a couch or a sleeping bag, not….this.

Steve’s mumbling stopped as he finally caught sight of her in the entry of the doorway, a sheepish look crossing his face as he rubbed the back of his neck and gestured towards the bed. “It’s not much, but I figured it’s better than a couch.”

“I can’t–”

“My parents won’t care. It’s a guest bedroom for a reason,” Steve cut her off with a shake of his head, “Just…don’t ruin the sheets and you’ll be good.”

Something welled in the back of her throat, but Emma shoved it down as quickly as it arrived. 

This wasn’t real. Right now, the boy standing in front of her was a jerk with ego issues and a deep desire to stay out of trouble so his parents didnt yell at him. He was a fictional character who’d go on his own arc and when she woke up the next day, this would all be a dream.

Except it wasn’t.

When she pinched her skin it hurt, she couldn’t pass her fingers through anything, and the clock still ticked by at the same pace it did before.

And if it was a dream, she certainly wouldn’t have chosen to look like her sixteen year old self again, acne scars and all.

She chalked up the lump in her throat to the fact her teenage hormones were raging again, because she knew for certain if she was in her original body, she definitely wouldn’t be on the verge of tears as someone made up a bed for her after promising her a place to stay.

“You got it,” She replied with a half-hearted thumbs up, a smirk tugging on the edge of her lips. 

Steve let out a deep sigh, surveying his work.

Emma resisted the urge to continue staring, suddenly aware of the fact that while her brain knew he was a fictional character, this new body she’d been placed into did not. Her stomach flip-flopped, an action she quickly put to bed as an awkward silence stretched over them.

“Right…so,” Steve’s hands landed on his hips, eyeing the entryway, “Um, I suppose I should probably…”

“Oh, yeah right,” Emma immediately moved out of the way, hating the way her blood rushed straight to her cheeks, insides growing warm as Steve passed her on the way out. He paused just as she moved to close the door, something in his eyes as they scanned her top to bottom. 

“Look, I don’t know what you’re running from, but…” His words floundered, red flushing up his neck as he looked from his room to the guest room. He sighed, “Nevermind, just…goodnight.”

There it was again.

Her stomach flip-flopping.

“Goodnight Steve.” She echoed, and once the door shut, the floodgates opened wide.

Footsteps went quiet, and the sudden betrayal of her own body brought her back to life.

The digital clock next to the bed flashed red, matching the one in Steve’s room.

This was real.

This was horrifyingly, frighteningly, real.

Tears sprang to her cheeks, biting down on her hand as she stifled her own cries and whimpers, sliding down the door exactly like she had in her own room back in Montauk, sixteen and lonely and wishing to be somewhere else.

Except now she had to live through it again.

And in a time and place that wasn’t nearly as accepting the first time around. Home was a lifetime away and she was a sixteen year old again. Oh god, she had to go to high school.

Again.

She could barely get through it the first time.

With no friends, no family, and no way out of this hellhole, Emma allowed herself to do the one thing she’d been postponing since she’d discovered where and when she was. 

She cried.

Saltwater stung her chapped lips and streamed down to her chin, shame curling in her gut as every awful teenage hormone began to make itself known. She tucked her knees under her chin, like she used to do when she was child, fresh tears staining the clean sweatpants as more guilt and shame swirled and churned in her stomach.

Vanilla and cedar wafted in her nose and she kicked the pants off with a grunt of frustration, tossing them aside as she stared at the freshly made bed, lights still on. The paisley quilts and sheets taunted her, reminding her of her grandmother’s house, of her small room in an even smaller house in Montauk, where she used to sit on the queen bed and listen to music to drown the world out when it got too loud.

Goosebumps traveled up her bare legs, disappearing underneath the soft knit shirt clinging to her freshly washed skin.

Maybe if she wished hard enough her world would take her back.

But did she really want to return? To where she was in a dead end job with parents who didn’t understand her, friends who’d all left her, and an endless mountain of bills to pay so she wouldn’t starve to death?

At least here her money would get her a lot further.

After all, she didn’t have to stay in Hawkins. She could head east, to actual New York City. She could head to Los Angeles, make her mark in Hollywood as a writer or production assistant, giving them ideas for movies thirty years too early that would make her rich and–

She suddenly remembered where she was.

She wasn’t twenty-six anymore. She was sixteen. With no diploma and no degree and no way out. 

Ten years of her life, just…gone.

Another tear slid down her face. All her hard work, all the money she’d put in, all those years she’d spent convincing herself it was worth it, and it was all gone with a pull of her leg.

How the hell was she supposed to make all that up?

Was she expected to stay long enough in this shithole town to graduate? Then do another four more years at some shitty college where she can experience the same shitty parties and professors and classes in the hopes of getting a job?

Just like she had previously?

The thought of going through it all over again was enough to banish her tears into thick anger in the back of her throat.

It sounded like hell.

Then a thought came to her. 

The gate was already open. She just needed to figure out a way to get close to Eleven and the gang and maybe she’d be able to head home.

Her mind raced, grasping her phone from her backpack only to see the red bar staring up at her. Shit. 

She unplugged the bird-shaped lamp and hoped to god her charger would work. 

By some miracle, her phone lit up. She opened the notes app and wrote down all she could remember about the show.

Her bullet points were short and sweet, fixed on certain moments she knew were going to happen. Will’s disappearance, El’s appearance, the government bugging Hopper and Joyce’s houses, the demogorgon hunt. And that was just the first season.

The note was five or six pages long by the time she finished, having written everything she knew up to the last season, although she knew it wasn’t the final one.

That, she hoped to be long gone for.

If the first plan didn’t work, then she could use the Russians below the mall and if that one didn’t work, well Vecna would be making his own gates soon enough.

And if that didn’t work, then…maybe she’d find luck with his curse.

One way or another, Emma Foster was going home.

Notes:

Thank you all so much for your kind words and comments! I honestly didn't think this fic would get this much attention, but y'all have kept me going for the last couple of days as I write!

I promise we'll get to the actual plot soon, but I wanted to focus on Emma's mental state and her slowly begrudging relationship with Steve that will sour pretty quickly. Her mind is all over the place and since she's been de-aged to a teenager, we're def gonna be seeing more volatile mood swings from her (if y'all have ever had a manic episode, you know what I'm talking about).

Let me know if you liked the chapter and please leave a comment so I can talk to y'all more!

Chapter 4: Waking up in (Vegas) Hawkins

Notes:

WOAH! Over 700 of you are reading this fic? I'm honored, honestly. I didn't think this would do so well, so thank you for reading!

I hope you enjoy this latest chapter!

Steve half expected the girl to be gone by the time he woke up.

If not for the converse and the faded Fleetwood Mac t-shirt scattered on his bathroom floor, he almost would have chalked up the whole experience to an alcohol induced fever dream. 

He probably shouldn’t have wandered over to Tommy’s last night for one of their binges, but after the events of the last few days, he needed to just feel normal.

Anger surged in his chest again at the memory of the night of the party, how the Byers creep was out there hiding in the woods taking pictures of Nancy and Steve and who knows what else. Something twisted in his stomach as he replayed breaking Jonathan’s camera over and over in his mind. He’d known he couldn’t afford a new one, especially with his brother missing, so he knew the lesson he was trying to teach would stick.

And yet there was still that twisty sensation deep in his gut, like taking a rollercoaster too fast after eating. Worse still was the fact that Nancy didn’t even seem that bothered by it.

He brushed his hands through his hair with a sigh.

Nancy. 

Who was growing more and more distant, especially with the recent disappearance of her friend, and in a town where nothing ever happened, Steve was beginning to wonder if the rumors were true.

He stared at the calendar hanging from his wall as he brushed his teeth.

Today was the Byers’ kid’s funeral, and Nancy had asked him to attend during their late night study-slash-make out session last night. He’d scoffed out a quick no, regretting it immediately when he caught sight of her fallen expression and the sudden way she kicked him out without kicking him out.

So he’d ended up at Tommy’s, who assured him she was overreacting and plied him with enough beer to make him forget about the guilt lingering in his chest.

They’d rewatched Risky Business, gulped down pizza until they were sick, all while Steve let Tommy insult and berate Jonathan Byers like they hadn’t once been boys who played in each other’s basements when they were little. 

The world returned to normal, and when Steve drank enough that Tommy’s serial killer jokes about Jonathan weren’t funny anymore, he began the long walk home. 

Then a strange girl with wild hair and even stranger clothes collided into him, claiming she was being chased by an animal, and all of a sudden his world was turned upside down again.

And then he’d invited her into his house and asked her to stay.

Out of what? That sense of responsibility his father was always bugging him to get? Or maybe it was another way to avoid the creeping sensation in his stomach.

Jesus Christ, if his parents ever found out they would kill him.

And if Nancy ever found out…

His eyes wandered back to the clothes littering his floor. A lump formed in the back of his mouth. Gathering the shirt, socks, and shoes in his arms, he grabbed a pair of jeans from his mom’s room, marched down the hall and opened the door to the guest room.

He threw on the light and tossed the clothes at the slowly moving figure on the bed, the shirt and jeans smacking her directly in the face. His sweats lay discarded on the floor.

“You need to leave.” He spoke firmly and directly, like his father did with his employees, and hoped it was enough to get her out of his life forever. “Now.”

“Good morning to you too,” The girl nodded, blinking the early morning sleep out of her eyes. Her brow furrowed at the clothes and shoes in her arms, gaze moving up to meet his. Steve wasn’t sure what he looked like, but he hoped it was serious enough for her to actually follow his instructions. She blinked, lips parting open in slight surprise. “You’re serious?”

Steve’s stomach clenched, the lump in his throat growing bigger, “Look, I don’t know what kind of shit you’re mixed up in, but I don’t want to be part of it, okay? I have a girlfriend, friends, a life, and I don’t need some random girl messing that all up.” Her expression was unreadable. Steve hated it. He cleared his throat and ran his hands through his hair. It did nothing to dislodge the clawing feeling in his chest. “I let you stay here, gave you some clothes…if you need money I can give you that too, just…” Steve sighed, meeting the girl’s gaze once more. Something hardened behind her irises, jaw clenched as pinched her lips and deepened her furrowed brow. “I need you to leave.”

The silence that followed was agonizing.

His chin dipped to his chest, eyes darting back and forth between the floor and the girl as the tightness in his chest expanded deeper into his stomach.

Those doe-like eyes stared back at him. “Yeah, sure,” Emma spoke flatly, removing the quilts to reveal the fresh bruises and scabs decorating her legs.

Steve inhaled sharply, skin prickling.

No, no! It didn’t matter if she was in trouble, Steve could not afford to get caught in the crossfire. Besides, there were cops and hospitals who could help her get to where she needed to go. He was a seventeen year old near high school flunk out with a too large house and a life he needed to get back to.

He was barely equipped to help her anyway.

“I mean, you were the one I insisted I stay,” Bitterness coated the girl’s words as she stood up, shoulders tense and rigid as she moved towards the adjoining bathroom, “Considering I have no family, no friends, and no way home, but sure, I’ll get out of your hair.”

She slammed the door and Steve collapsed against the frame with a sigh of frustration, pressing his palm against his face as he tried to think of where Nancy would be after the funeral. His watch told him it was starting in a few hours, and then maybe he could take her out to a movie to cheer her up.

If she asked him what he’d done once he left, he’d just say he hung out at Tommy’s. His mind wandered towards the girl changing just a few feet away from him. Oh god, what if she followed him? His dad used to say he never gave more than what was necessary, because then people would come crawling back for more.

Maybe he should’ve stopped at the clothes instead of offering her money.

What if Nancy ran into her? He needed to make sure she wouldn’t say anything, something he hoped she would understand considering her own need for secrecy.

She walked out looking a little bit better dressed for the weather, although her arms were still bare. Even though he’d been correct when he guessed her size, she still looked like she was drowning.

“There, happy?” She began to shove her belongings into her bag, winding up an unusual white cord and shoving what looked like pager deep into her back pocket. “In a few minutes, I’ll be back out on the street and you can go back to your perfect life with your perfect girlfriend and your perfect hair.” 

Steve bore the full brunt of her words with a grim click of his jaw, and blocked the way out to the hallway with his large wingspan. Emma’s jaw ticked and she tilted her head to look up at him. “You’re sending out a lot of mixed signals here, Steve.”

“I need to know you’re not gonna say anything.”

Her brow furrowed before suddenly smoothing over into a wide smirk, “What? Afraid your girlfriend’s gonna find out?” Something in his expression must have given him away, because the hard look in her eye was back. She scoffed and rolled her eyes, “Don’t worry Steve, in a few hours, I’ll be long gone and you and your girlfriend can go back to living your boring, empty lives in peace.”

Her biting tone dug deep under his skin, crawling and writhing through his veins to his chest, eyes dropping down to the floor. He dropped his arms and she shoved past him, backpack swinging over her shoulders as she rushed down the stairs and out the front door.

Steve flinched as the door slammed behind her.

 

---

 

Emma's anger simmered in her chest, hardening into a bubble refusing to pop. She definitely wasn’t expecting to stay in Steve Harrington’s house forever, but to be thrown out so unceremoniously, like a guy hiding his one night stand from his committed girlfriend, it brought back a taste in her mouth she’d tried for years to forget.

She shivered in the autumn winds, having left Steve’s with no jacket or anything to keep her warm. Her legs propelled her down the paved roads and cement sidewalks, following a sloped highway as cars raced past. Emma had no idea where she was going, but since she didn’t see anyone coming back, she had to assume she was headed the right direction.

Now that the sun was up and she wasn’t drenched in water and slime, the full weight of her decision hit her at a speed she wasn’t anticipating.

She was alone. 

Truly and utterly alone.

Her words to Steve had been meant to guilt trip him but she was right. Her parents were in Montauk with no idea of her existence. Her friends weren’t even born yet, she wasn’t born yet. She still wasn’t entirely convinced this wasn’t a dream, either. But considering when she went to bed last night she hadn’t woken up in her original body or her original bed and the fact that she still smelled of vanilla, honey and cedar…it wasn’t looking great.

So that meant if it wasn’t a dream, then it had to be real. And if it was real that meant she was totally, one hundred and ten percent, fucked three ways to Sunday.

Still, all she needed was to survive. 

Emma was good at surviving. She’d been doing it since she was little, compartmentalizing all the horror and emotions too big for her body deep in the recesses of her brain. She had to. With a too-busy mother and an emotionally absent father, it was up to her to step up and set a good example for her younger sisters.

Not that it mattered in the end. They’d moved away out west and left her behind just like everyone else. Still, it meant she was good at seeing the bigger picture. Better still at ignoring her emotions and tucking them away so she wasn’t affected in high pressure situations.

Her therapist said it made her numb. Emma thought it made her useful.

It was why she didn’t let her thoughts linger too long on the implications of her potential disappearance. After all, if it wasn’t a dream, that meant her parents had no idea where she was. It meant there could be people looking for her, or no one at all.

That was not a road she could allow her mind to go down.

No. Instead, she needed to keep her focus on the situation in front of her.

If it wasn’t a dream that meant she needed money, a place to live, and a way home.

As the highway turned down Main Street, she was relieved to see the town square unfolding before her. She traversed down sparse sidewalks and past lonely playgrounds where no children were playing. The wind blew up a small whirlwind of orange and yellow colored leaves as Emma surveyed her surroundings with a deep knot in her stomach.

There was an eerie emptiness to the town she’d only felt a few times in Montauk.

Mostly at funerals.

A closed sign hung above a large dilapidated building labeled MELVALD’S GENERAL STORE, although the rest of the surrounding businesses were lights on and bustling with customers. A few were dressed in suits and black dresses, grabbing lunch or buying flowers.

A newsstand just outside of the store seemed to hold the answer, black and white letters spelling out exactly where and when she was.

November 11th, 1983.

HAWKINS MIDDLE TO HOST MEMORIAL FOR WILL BYERS.

Shit.

Suddenly the melancholy air and sullen faces she’d seen on figures in town made sense.

To the rest of the world Will Byers was dead.

Only Emma and a girl with telepathic powers knew he was still alive. 

Something familiar tugged at her chest and she shoved it away with a shake of her head. Nope, she absolutely, positively, could not get involved. If she just left it alone, it would all happen exactly like they’d planned and she could go home.

No one would be the wiser.

Except Steve fucking Harrington.

Her chest tightened at the memory of her being thrown out and she shook her head. Steve reminded her too much of the boys in her old high school. Cocky, arrogant and rude, he was the exact kind of person she would have hated. 

Of course, she had the advantage of knowing he would improve with time, but it didn’t help with how she felt now. 

A chill brushed over her skin and she cursed under her breath as she wrapped her arms around her torso. 

Emma’s heart skipped when she caught sight of an ATM a few feet down the sidewalk, and she hoped the same miracle that happened to her phone happened to her bank account. Otherwise, she was going to have to find a way to make money and fast. Luck was not on her side though, because when she went to insert her debit card and pull money from her account, two words flashed in front of her, killing her spirits.

CARD INVALID.

Fuck. Nothing could be easy could it?

She palmed through her pockets and backpack, taking stock of everything she had and anything she could part with.

Phone, headphones, meds, wallet–which was now useless, keys–also useless, water bottle, electrolytes, some extra snacks and sunglasses.

Emma pursed her lips and turned her attention to the jewelry on her person.

Her watch could go, just a cheap thing her ex gave her before they’d broken up. For all his faults, he’d had good taste and it could get her more than a few bucks. 

She didn’t really want to give up her necklace or bracelets, so she decided on those as a last resort. Her rings too were also too valuable to give up, although there could be one or two if she was really strapped for cash.

Eyeing the pawn shop directly across the street, she snuck through the throngs of people dressed in funeral wear and stepped into the dingy lighting.

The shop was cluttered with things people had sold and given up, and a man with narrowed eyes and a balding head nodded her direction, “Hey there, what can I get started for you?”

Emma almost thought he looked like the guy on Pawn Stars. 

“I have some things I wanted to sell.”

She scattered the watch and sunglasses on the glass counter, ignoring the urge to window shop the jewelry on display beneath her.

The man’s nametag told her his name was Wayne and he stared at her measly pile with an arched brow. His eyes darted between her and the door. She was the only customer.

“You gonna tell me what you need the money for before I give it to you?”

Emma’s stomach clenched. 

Seriously? Could she not catch a break?

“Does it matter? I’m not gonna go out buying drugs or alcohol with it.” She snapped, causing the man to tilt his head in a way that made her realize he definitely thought she was gonna go out buying drugs and alcohol with it.

“You expect me to believe a sixteen year old girl like yourself would willingly sell her jewelry and sunglasses for some extra cash?” Wayne spoke in a tone that made it clear he wouldn’t believe a single word she said.

“Yes,” Emma crossed her arms, “Especially when said sixteen year old girl has no money of her own.”

He refused to back down. “Let me talk to your parents first.”

“Sure, let me just raise them from the grave for you.” The lie left her lips faster than she could stop it. Shit. Okay, now she had dead parents instead of just deadbeat ones. It wasn’t much further from the truth. Her parents might as well be dead, especially seeing as she wasn’t even a thought in their mind yet. “The necromancy does cost extra though.” She tacked on for good measure, trying not to cringe as her mouth moved faster than her brain. It was exactly the kind of thing she would have said to be funny, to try and bond with someone or make a friend through self-deprecating humor.

The exact kind of offputting statement kids and teachers used to stare at her for.

The pawn shop man was wearing the same stare.

His mouth dropped into a frown and he sighed, “Alright, lemme see what I can do.”

Wayne disappeared into the back with both her watch and sunglasses, leaving her alone in the shop for what was probably thirty or forty minutes.

When he came back, it was with a wad of cash and a grim look on his face. “Here you are kid,” Emma pocketed the cash with a grateful look. When she opened her mouth to thank him, he cut her off, “Look, uh, I know it’s not my place but uh, I hear the school has a good counselor. If you need someone to talk to about that kind of thing.”

Her shoulders tensed and Emma clenched her jaw. She knew he probably meant well and certainly didn’t know better since the only information she’d given him was that she was alone and didn’t have any parents to report back to, but it was times like these she hated the fact that she was now in a sixteen year old body instead of her original one.

The infantilization, the coddling–it was why she’d always wanted to grow up. 

Now she was dealing with it again.

“Thanks.” She snapped out, the words sounding angrier than she’d meant them to. Fucking teenage hormones. Emma nodded at the man before rolling her eyes and pushing the door open. The chime of the bell rattled her ears, and she cursed once more as the November cold settled in. Jesus, it was like it’d gotten colder since she’d crossed the street.

It probably had.

Her eyes found a brown leather jacket draped over a metal chair and before her conscience could argue with her, she slipped it over her shoulders and began to walk towards the library. Emma slipped her hands in the pockets, pulling out a thick leather wallet filled with several credit cards and at least fifty dollars in cash.

A bitter laugh left her lips when she saw who it belonged to.

Lonnie Byers.

The amount of cash Wayne had given her was enough for some food and some necessities, but she supposed it was pure luck she’d picked up the jacket of the shittiest person in Hawkins.

Made it easy to double back to the ATM, put in his cards and take out as much as she wanted. He’d probably shut down his account as soon as he realized what was happening, but she kept the wallet just in case and stuffed the cash in her pockets and the bottoms of her shoes, looking back and forth to make sure no one had seen what had happened.

When Emma was sure she was in the clear, she took a step out onto the street, only to pull back out of the way of an elongated car dressed in black driving right past her, catching sight of a worn down woman and a sixteen year old leaning on each other’s shoulders in the backseat. 

Her heart sank. 

Following it were a group of three twelve-year-old boys, all of whom were dressed in freshly bought and pressed black suits. Her stomach caught in her throat at the sight of them.

Mike. Lucas. Dustin. 

No Eleven.

The world went quiet, and Emma watched, frozen, as the funeral procession of Will Byers marched right by her, shoulders slumping as the realization she’d fought so hard against slithered and curled through her veins, almost choking the life out of her.

Her mouth turned to ash.

Oh toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.

Notes:

And so the plot begins....

Finally, we are getting into the events of the season, and we're also starting to see how Emma operates. This was kind of more of a character building chapter than something super plot heavy, but I liked writing it haha.

ALSO! I started a Tumblr for this fic and Stranger Things in general. If you wanna talk to me about my fic or learn more about Emma and her relationship with Steve, feel free to follow me @shock-jock!

Thank you all so much for reading and please leave a comment so I can continue talking with y'all!

Chapter 5: It's a Bad Idea, Right?

This is a bad idea this is a bad idea this is a bad idea this is a bad idea this is a bad idea–

The refrain cycled through Emma’s head as her feet carried her through Will’s procession all the way to the funeral, where she stood hidden in the trees until she saw a pair of familiar figures walk behind the church near the entrance of the cemetery.

Halfway through the ceremony, she’d realized there was a much faster way home than encountering Eleven, especially at this point in the story. She needed a gate, and if she was right, one would be opening tonight.

Following Jonathan and Nancy to their hiding spot, she lingered behind one of the trees, close enough to listen in to their conversation, but far enough away they couldn’t spot her. 

She felt like a creep, squeezing her eyes shut as she tried to banish the feeling from her veins without success. If she wasn’t sure she’d be told off for approaching them, Emma would talk to the kids, tell them their theory was correct. But that wasn’t possible. At least not without some heavy introductions and a lot of lying.

Plus, Eleven would make sure they wouldn’t find the gate, and that was what Emma needed.

Jonathan and Nancy would hopefully take less convincing, although not without her fair share of lies to gain their trust.

In normal circumstances, Emma would always tell the truth. She’d do it using as little information as possible, but it would still be the truth. 

These were not normal circumstances, and she was–for better or worse–stuck here for the time being. Besides, she wasn’t someone who could get away with telling the truth anymore.

She’d already crossed the moral line by stealing money and the leather jacket from Jonathan’s dad, surely whatever entity had trapped her here wouldn’t mind a few white lies to help her get home.

“This is where we know for sure where it’s been right?” Jonathan’s soft tone hung precariously in the chilly mid-morning air, Nancy huddled close to him as she hunched over his shoulder. Emma had seen this scene before, she knew it by heart, and yet she still held her breath.

“So that’s…”

“Steve’s house,” Her breath hitched at the mention of the place she’d woken up in this morning. She now knew what had been chasing her last night. “And that’s the woods where they found Will’s bike and…” Jonathan inhaled deeply, “That’s my house.”

“It’s all so close,” Nancy thought aloud, the wheels of her mind beginning to turn.

“Whatever this thing is, it’s not traveling far,” Jonathan finished for her.

The two teens sat in the quiet, looking at the map with curious gazes and minds that were trying and failing to put together a plan.

Emma’s stomach twisted and churned as the pause lingered. Squeezing her eyes tight and  taking advantage of the silence, she choked out a quick, “You need to lure it.”

Nancy and Jonathan’s heads snapped her direction. “What?” He asked at the same time Nancy asked “Who’s there?”

Biting down on her cheek and swallowing her embarrassment, Emma crept out from behind the tree trunk, nervously tucking her hair behind her ears as she approached the two teens.

“You’re talking about the monster in the woods right?”

Nancy and Jonathan looked like someone slapped them across the face.

“How did you–”

“We weren’t–”

“Cut the bullshit, okay?” Emma’s words were harsh, but she really did not feel like playing along with the two of them. “I know it’s there, because I was almost fucking eaten by it.” Lifting up her pant leg, she showed the pair her bloodied socks and scratched up ankle, thin spindles working their way up her calf.

Nancy’s jaw clenched at the sight. 

“How did you escape?” Jonathan asked, eyes wide as they scanned the wound.

Emma shrugged, “Luck, I guess,” Her first lie, “I fought like hell to get it off, but it just kept dragging me further. It wasn’t until it heard the screams that it finally let me go.”

Her second lie, but one that would give both of them hope.

“Screams?” The Wheeler girl’s eyes lit up, “What kind of screams?” 

Emma’s chest twinged as her eyes drifted towards Nancy. She should tell her about Barb. But if she told Nancy, then the girl would never investigate the woods, meaning everything she knew about Nancy Wheeler would evaporate with a snap of her fingers.

Besides, Emma, at her core, was an inherently selfish person.

Without Nancy’s hope that Barb was still alive, Emma had no way home. 

She gulped, failing to swallow the lump in her throat as she met Nancy’s gaze and said, “I don’t know, they sounded high pitched. Like a girl’s or a small child’s.” Her eyes moved to Jonathan as she finished her statement. 

Something snuffed out returned to life. “When did this happen?” Jonathan’s eyes brightened, as if renewed by the promise of something Emma knew she could deliver on. For a moment his dark circles disappeared, skin gaining some color as his gaze remained fixated on hers.

She choked down the guilt threatening to strangle her, “Last night.”

Jonathan and Nancy shared a look.

Emma’s insides wanted to crawl out of her.

“We might not find anything,” Jonathan answered Nancy’s unspoken wish, but the girl’s jaw was clenched, shoulders tight as her hands balled themselves into fists.

She’d already made up her mind. 

“I found something.” Her voice was low, trembling with unspoken anger. Her gaze met Emma’s and something dark and determined flashed through her. “You said you saw it last night?”

She nodded, ignoring the knot forming in the back of her throat.

“Where?”

It wasn’t a question.

“By the quarry. It followed me up to the woods, though.” Finally, the truth. Her body almost slumped in relief. 

“Mirkwood. That’s where Will saw it too.” Jonathan muttered under his breath. His eyes glazed over for a moment, like he’d suddenly realized something, “I think it likes it there.” 

Nancy was stewing, her mind no doubt a cesspool of thoughts about Barb, Mike, Will, and anyone else she was worried about. Emma bit down hard on her cheek. Jonathan was staring unabashedly, trying and failing to hide his own interest as he looked between the two girls. 

“So, let’s say we see this thing, what do we do once we find it?”

“We kill it.”

Nancy’s order hung over their heads, a proverbial sword of damocles sealing Emma’s fate as the knot sank deep into her stomach.

Jonathan pushed himself off the ground and began his stride over towards a sleek dark car that looked to be on its last legs. Nancy hurried after him, reverting back to the small and scared girl for a brief moment as Emma trailed both teens.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.” Her words were innocent enough, but there was a hint of suspicion and distrust in her tone. No doubt placed there by years of paranoia and subliminal messaging from her moderate to conservative parents.

“I just moved here,” Emma was impressed how quickly and easily the lie came to her, “Parents picked up everything from Montauk and dropped me off here to teach me a lesson.”

Nancy went silent. She shifted uncomfortably on her feet.

God, she was making her parents out to be real assholes with that kind of comment. Still, it fit the genre, she supposed. Everyone in this show had shitty parents, except for Jonathan, Will, and Eleven. Still, it was easier than telling the truth.

“Hell of a welcoming party,” Emma muttered under her breath.

A beat passed between the two girls, both huddling inside of themselves as Jonathan rooted through the glove box of the car, clearly looking for something. Emma already knew what he was going to pull out.

“I’m Nancy, by the way, and that’s Jonathan.”

She returned the girl’s half-smile with one of her own, “Emma.”

The moment died when Jonathan pulled out his dad’s revolver with a small grin.

Nancy’s eyes widened, “Are you serious?”

“What?” He turned to face her with raised brows, “You want to find this thing and take another photo? Yell at it? She just told us it tried to eat her.”

Nancy’s mouth flapped open and shut like a fish, looking for an excuse. Emma resisted the urge to laugh. God, she’d forgotten how uptight Nancy really was before everything went down. It would almost be funny if her own chances of getting home weren’t riding on her becoming the Nancy Wheeler everyone knew and loved.

“This is a terrible idea.” She whisper-shouted, looking over her shoulder as Jonathan pocketed several bullets and loaded more into the chamber. 

“Yeah well it’s the best we got.”

“He’s right,” Emma interjected, hoping she could hurry things along so she didn’t have to sit through more of their bickering, “No one would believe us if we told them, especially not the police.”

Nancy crossed her arms and shot a look Jonathan’s way, “Your mom would.”

Jonathan froze. 

“She’s been through enough–”

“She deserves to know–”

“Wait,” Emma played dumb, knowing it was essential to gaining their trust, “What’s going on with his mom?”

Jonathan slammed the door and tucked the revolver into his waistband. “Nothing,” He snapped, “And I’ll tell her when this thing is dead.”

Her jaw ticked. Two can play at that game. 

Tapping into a skill set she’d long forced herself to leave behind, Emma creased her brow and stared at Jonathan, like she was thinking hard about something. The boy shifted under her gaze while she crossed her arms before acting like she’d put the final pieces of a puzzle together.

Her old acting coach would have been proud.

“Wait a minute, you’re Jonathan Byers, as in…” She gulped for dramatic tension, expression fading into something soft and sympathetic as she looked at the cemetery behind them. Jonathan’s gaze hardened. Emma arched her brow, “And you still don’t want to tell your mom?”

“I told you, she’s been through enough–”

“And is going to go through more if her second son also ends up dead–”

Jonathan whirled on her with wild eyes, “You want to tell her? Be my guest, and see how long it takes her to go from mildly crazy to full blown lunatic.”

Emma snapped her mouth shut, stomach twisting uncontrollably at his words. It wasn’t his fault, especially considering the information he had.

Jonathan thought his brother was dead. 

The hunt for the demogorgon wasn’t a way to rescue Barb or Will, it was a way to avenge them.

Still, the words rankled the back of her mind, tensing her shoulders and clicking her jaw. He probably didn’t mean anything by it–considering it was the eighties and political correctness wasn’t a thing yet–but the phrases itched under her skin, settling over her bones like a shroud.

It brought her back to four plain walls and a single bed with nothing but herself for company.

The silence didn’t last long.

Nancy and Jonathan quickly put together a plan to tackle the monster in the area just behind the Byers’ house near the quarry, weapons training and all, just a few hours after the wake.

They hadn’t officially invited her, but Nancy made it clear she expected Emma to show up in some capacity, especially because they needed someone to help track the monster in the first place. At least, that was what the girl told her.

Emma was never the best at reading social cues, so all she could do was take her at her word.

When the teens finally split up, Emma found herself lingering outside the cemetery, alone once again.

It was insane, what she was attempting, and it would probably get her killed, but what other choice did she have? One instance of being swallowed up by the Upside Down was not enough to build a working theory off of, and even if it did work the way she hoped, there was no guarantee it would spit her back out where she disappeared.

Not for the first time, her mind wandered to her life in Montauk.

Was anybody looking for her? Did her parents even know she was gone? Or maybe it was a Narnia situation where no time had passed and they were as clueless as a chicken with its head cut off.

She knew her friends wouldn’t be looking. The closest one lived three hours away and was currently planning her wedding. The others had moved out right after high school, cutting off contact except through occasional instagram and snapchat messages.

They probably didn’t even know she’d disappeared.

Shoving the pressure in her chest further down into her stomach, Emma huffed a cloud out into the cold November air and walked back towards Main Street.

---

After picking up a map and a new backpack from the Hunting and Camping Store–they refused to give her gun unless she showed them ID, but were more than happy to sell her an axe–Emma stopped by the only grocery store in town, Bradley’s Big Buy.

Her stomach grumbled as she picked up several snacks and drinks, stealing a couple bottles of wine and whiskey from the shelves when the manager wasn’t looking. 

Rather difficult considering he’d been following her around since she’d walked in.

People didn’t trust new faces, she was learning.

The automatic doors hissed open, a gaggle of teenagers stomping into the store with laughter and giggles on their lips. Emma’s smile dropped when she saw who it was.

Steve Harrington.

And friends.

He looked the exact same as when he’d kicked her out, although a little bit better dressed since he wasn’t in pajama pants and basketball t-shirts anymore.

His eyes locked onto hers like magnets. He froze.

Emma sent him a sarcastic smile before returning to her shopping spree. 

She plopped a swiss army knife in the jacket of her coat, hoping to preserve as much of her cash as possible. They say you can’t take it with you, but Emma hopes tonight she can.

Thankfully, Steve’s group seemed to have gathered the full attention of the beady eyed manager, who was now following them around instead of her.

“I still don’t understand what you see in Wheeler,” One of the redheads said with a curled lip, blowing out a gum bubble that popped with a disgusting squelch. Emma crinkled her nose at the sound. “She’s such a prude.”

“Not anymore,” The other boy, who Emma assumed could only be Tommy H, said with a teasing smile, “Ol’ Stevie made sure of that, didn’t ya?” He clapped Steve’s shoulder with a crude laugh, causing the other redhead to burst out laughing.

Steve’s own laugh sounded forced, choking on the sound as his eyes kept wandering back to Emma on the other end of the store. She simply rolled her eyes and ignored the foursome as they continued to wander the store.

“I honestly thought it’d be harder to get in her pants,” The other redhead chimed in with a nasty smirk. “‘Oh Steve, don’t you know I’m saving myself for marriage?’” She moaned in a crude imitation of Nancy.

It twisted something in Emma’s chest.

Three of them broke out into stuttered, broken laughter while Steve remained quiet, pressing his lips into a hard line as he shoved Tommy off his shoulder. 

“Shut up, Carol,” He finally snapped back, “She’s not like that.”

“Aww, is poor Stevie Boy’s catching feelings?" Tommy moved in to squeeze his cheek only for Steve to bat his friend’s hands away with a snarl.

“God, you two are insufferable.” 

“Oooh, that’s a big word Stevie,” Carol snapped back with a cackle, “Your girlfriend teach you that between quickies?” The redheaded girl stopped with a gag, “Ugh, I’m imagining her bringing flashcards to the bedroom like the nerd she is and quizzing you every time you co–”

“Carol–” Steve’s eyes flashed dangerously, jaw clicking at the girl’s continuous bullying, “Seriously, shut up.”

A tense silence hung over the foursome in the Big Buy, Emma’s eyes darting back and forth between her haul and the teenagers near the register. For a moment, it almost looked like Tommy was going to square up.

“Ugh, fine,” Carol scoffed, wandering off with the other redhead towards the liquor section. Tommy shot one final look at Steve before heading back with his girlfriend. Steve, however, lingered, suddenly becoming very interested in a single bag of chips. 

Emma wanted to believe it was only coincidence he happened to be in the aisle directly across from her. 

“I thought you were headed out of here.” Steve’s voice was low, but she could still hear the nervous tremble in his words. He refused to look at her. 

Emma grabbed some rubbing alcohol and moved over to his side, carefully positioning herself so Tommy and Carol wouldn’t see her. She didn’t need to deal with them too on top of everything else. Steve tensed. “I was, but it’s kind of hard when you don’t have money, a place to stay, a ride–”

“Okay, Jesus, I get it.” Steve shook his head and placed the chips back on the shelf. She could tell something was eating him up.

Emma narrowed her eyes. “No, Steve, you don’t,” Her words were short, curt and to the point, “My nearest family is miles away, my parents have all but forgotten I exist, and you threw me out when I needed a place to land on my feet.” It wasn’t a lie, she realized. It was the truth. Suddenly the bubble in her chest popped, simmering and boiling under her skin as the events of the morning came back to her. “All because what? You were worried about your girlfriend finding out?” Emma ignored the way the word sounded exactly like the way Carol said it. 

Steve’s jaw clenched. He said nothing.

Emma scoffed. “Look, it doesn’t matter anyway,” She shrugged, picking up a small box of candy and turning it over in her hands. “Clearly, you’ve got more important things to do.” She gestured over to his friends, who were lighting up a cigarette and playing with several bottles of liquor near the back of the store. 

All she could do was stare in disgust. She didn’t remember the popular kids being that dumb and annoying when she was in high school, but back then she’d been too obsessed with getting their approval. Now that she was technically older and had seen what peaking in high school looked like, she could practically smell it on the three of them.

Steve’s shoulders slumped. 

“You really know how to pick ‘em, Harrington,” Emma smacked the box of M&M’s into his chest with a smirk. “Say hi to Nancy for me.”

It was almost worth it to see the look of panic on his face.

She placed her haul on the counter, leaning towards the manager and muttering something about seeing one of them slip something into their pockets before checking out.

The uptight man marched to the back of the store, redfaced and bursting at the seams.

A cacophony of screams, accusations, and threats of calling the police filled the air behind her.

Emma smirked as she popped a candy in her mouth and began her hike towards the woods.

Notes:

Let me know how you're finding Steve this chapter, I always get a bit worried with his characterization, especially in season one where he's in his asshole era, so any feedback about him would be appreciated!

Emma is starting to really become her own character this chapter, lying to Nancy and Jonathan, poking fun at Steve, but really she's super single minded on trying to get home. I hope it all makes sense. This was mainly to progress the plot, so I hope you enjoyed it!

Somehow, over a thousand of you decided to click on this fic and read it so thank you all so much! I love y'all and as always, leave a comment so I can talk to you!

Tumblr: @shock-jock

Chapter 6: Girl vs Monster

Notes:

Trigger warning: violence against animals, general horror, implications of self harm

By the time Emma met up with Nancy and Jonathan again, the sun had set and the November chill frosted her bones. Even the jacket wasn’t enough to stop her from shivering. She envied Nancy’s layers and sherpa coat, but said nothing as she finally joined up with the couple.

“There you guys are,” She shuffled down the hill towards the edge of the quarry, their designated meeting spot so she could retrace her steps, “For a minute I thought you were kidding and this was all an elaborate prank.”

Her attempt to break the tension was met with awkward stares and the knowledge she’d probably rolled up right after they’d had their big fight about Steve Harrington.

Jesus, she could not escape that boy could she?

She stared between the two with a soft grimace, failing to hide her own awkwardness among their own. “Is everything okay? You guys seem–”

“Fine!” Jonathan and Nancy both snapped back at the same time, clearly not fine. 

Emma’s eyes widened at the sudden display of emotion, lifting her hands in mock surrender as she pulled the axe from her backpack, “Jesus, okay, no need to get snappy.” She tossed both of them a granola bar and a bottle of water, “I should have picked up a Snickers if I knew you two were gonna be brats about it.”

“We’re not–that’s not–” The words died in Nancy’s mouth, developing into a stutter as she flapped her mouth open and shut. Emma raised her brows, challenging her to refute her statement, but the girl remained silent. “Whatever, let’s just find this monster and get it over with.” Nancy scoffed, grasping tight to the gun while Jonathan held the baseball bat over his shoulder like he was going up to hit.

Emma rolled her eyes and marched forward, retracing her path from the quarry. 

It was going to be a long night.

---

After an hour of combing the woods, she heard it.

The whimpering.

Her hand tightened around the handle of her axe, whole body stiffening as the sound cut through the quiet of the night. Her stomach coiled into a hard knot at the bottom of her gut.

Nancy came to a stop, freezing right in the middle of the woods.

Her eyes turned to meet Emma’s, wide and terrified.

She’d heard it too.

“What? You guys get tired?” Jonathan’s exasperation landed poorly, his snark dying as soon as he caught sight of the look on both of their faces. 

Emma and Nancy both shushed him at the same time. “I heard something,” Nancy muttered. 

Her eyes peered through the tree trunks and foliage, the last of the sun’s dying rays illuminating their path as the chittering and chattering of the forest continued to rage around them.

Bird calls and owl hoots and somewhere in the back of her mind, Emma knew exactly what she was looking for.

A moment passed, then she heard it again.

The whimpering.

“There it is!” Emma interjected, stopping in place.

Nancy and Jonathan strained beside her.

She marched forward, leading the charge as Nancy and Jonathan rushed to keep pace with her.

Emma’s chest fluttered. She was so close. She could feel it. The earth beneath her feet moving as it spun on its axis, trying to find the perfect moment to connect.

Any moment now her flashlight would find…her lips stretched into a smile as the yellowing light flickered. There it was.

“Oh my god…” Nancy gasped.

Jonathan sighed and kneeled beside her.

There lay the freshly desecrated deer corpse, barely breathing as it whimpered and whined in pain, its neck slit open with something thin and sharp. 

Emma choked on her own breath.

It looked exactly like the wound she sported on her leg.

The demogorgon was hunting.

She shoved the splitting feeling in her gut aside and pulled out the swiss army knife, flicking the switchblade up.

“What are you doing?!” Nancy whisper-shouted, eyes glassy as her hand grabbed Emma’s wrist, stopping it in its tracks.

“It’s in pain, Nancy,” Her voice shook, body betraying her once again as her fingers clutched the handle of the knife, “We can’t just leave it.”

The deer whimpered again.

Nancy’s gaze remained fixated on the wounded animal in front of her, clearly conflicted about the choice being presented. Jonathan fidgeted beside her, his eyes landing on the gun before moving to the deer.

But unlike the show, this time he didn’t offer to kill the animal.

Instead, he remained silent.

Something twisted in her chest. But she had no one to blame but herself. It was why she’d brought the axe after all. More blood to lure the demogorgon right to her, and then if that didn’t work, there was always the rest of her skin too.

Knowing neither of them would have the strength to do it, Emma inhaled deeply and knelt down beside the deer’s neck, gently brushing its fur with a soft smile.

She whispered out a soft “I’m sorry,” before standing back up, grabbing the axe and holding it high above her head. 

Her eyes pricked with unshed tears. She forced them closed.

A sharp growl pierced the air and when Emma brought the axe down with the full force of her strength, it crackled like thunder. She opened her eyes to see the blade lodged deep in the animal’s wounded neck, blood and sinew splattering her face and shirt as she pulled it free.

She hacked again, this time going deeper. Nancy and Jonathan turned away as the weapon found purchase once more, but this time, before she could dislodge it, something moved.

It happened in the blink of an eye, but all three of them saw it.

The lower body of the deer disappeared, dragged into the foliage with a snarl so low and deep it vibrated in her skull. 

Jonathan gasped. Nancy screamed. Emma looked on with barely concealed fear, blood still warm against her skin.

The monster had ripped the body clean off, leaving a perfectly decapitated deer head at her feet like an offering to a god long dead and forgotten.

Her breath hung in the air, eyes the size of saucers against her face, staring after the trail of blood open-mouthed as goosebumps traveled up her skin.

For once, they weren’t caused by the cold.

With the drawing of blood, she kickstarted a game of cat and mouse with this monster and now she was one giving chase.

She ripped the axe from the ground and strode forward, feet carrying her forward down a drag path of crimson staining the leaves and the dirt beneath her feet, crunching them under her converse.

Nancy and Jonathan followed behind her, wildly searching for the deer and what possibly could have taken it, but Emma was single-minded. Once the trail went cold, she searched the base of every tree, looking for the pulsating heartbeat of the gate that would take her home.

She froze when she finally caught sight of it.

Nancy got there first.

Cold gripped her heart, squeezed it tightly as Emma fell to her knees beside the other girl. Nancy’s hand fell through the slimy film with laughable ease.

The two girls shared a look, determination wrought with fear swirling in the reflections of each other’s eyes. Without speaking a word, both of them knew what they were going to do.

Nancy shed her backpack and dropped the baseball bat to her side.

Emma followed suit, keeping the switchblade tucked in her pocket as she moved to all fours. Closing her eyes and inhaling deeply, she stared down the pulsating piece of flesh, orange light drumming out a heartbeat in time with her own.

God, she hoped she was right.

Squeezing her body through the hole, a familiar pressure gripped her chest, shoulders scraping against the tree bark as she wiggled her way through the small hole. Slime coated every inch of her, just as it had on arrival. It was almost as though she was being birthed, erupting through the canal fully formed and dressed in the afterbirth.

It clung to every orifice, the familiar foul taste dancing on her tongue as darkness enveloped each of her senses. 

When she opened her nose to breathe, spores and particles slid up her nostrils, clogging the pathway and forcing a cough from her lungs. Her hand grasped tight to a bundle of something sticky and she pulled herself free, now knowing it was safe to open her eyes.

When she did, her heart plummeted into her stomach.

Shadowed trees towered high above her into a sky with no stars, spores and ash dancing in the air, all while accompanied by a smell so foul she couldn’t even name it. Thick membranes hung from branches and trunks in place of leaves and foliage, and the only sound was the sickening squelch of the vines beneath her. 

Stay far away from them, her mind warned. 

Through it all, something rotten and sulfuric hung in the air, marking this place as one of death and decay.

A flash of red echoed across the skies, the only light in the whole area.

Emma gulped, the lump in the back of her throat growing larger with each passing moment. 

The Upside Down.

It was real. And she was there.

Another body shifted beside her and Emma turned to help Nancy up from the ground, careful not to step on any vines. Her lungs shrieked with each breath, pressure still building in her chest as the two girls surveyed their surroundings.

Nancy looked as awful as she felt, but lacing her features was something beyond general disgust. 

It was horror. 

Terror at the world unfolding before her.

Disbelief eroding itself into something she now couldn’t deny.

Emma froze when she finally caught sight of what was only a few feet in front of her. Her veins turned to ice, grip white-knuckled on the hilt of the switchblade, which she’d slid from her pocket to her hand with ease, nearly dropping it.

“Do you think–” Nancy’s question died with a squeak when she finally saw what Emma saw. Her hand snuck into Emma’s free one, gripping it tightly as the sky flashed red again.

Both girls tensed up, frozen in place as they stared at the figure in abject horror. Its skin glistened even in the dark, a pale milky white against the desaturated world before them.

Worse still were the sounds it was making.

It squelched and gnashed at the decapitated body of its prey, thousands of teeth moving across the skin of the animal with little care. Emma never understood the meaning of the word predator until that moment.

It devoured every inch of the deer, a bloodied carcass and the pearly white of bone left in its wake.

Nancy pulled her backwards.

Emma’s hand slid free, slick with sweat as fear coiled around her heart and throat, choking the courage from her without so much as a breath. Where once there’d been determination there was now nothing but a horrid emptiness and a pit digging itself deeper into her stomach.

She wasn’t even sure if her heart was beating until Nancy grasped her hand and snapped her free of her trance.

The girl nodded back towards the now closing gate, but Emma knew that one only led to Hawkins. She needed to find the one that led home.

Instead of falling back, she ripped her jacket free and grasped the switchblade tight in her hands. 

“Emma, what the hell are you doing?” Nancy’s voice was hushed, eyes darting between her and the monster. 

“When I tell you to run,” Emma choked out, breath catching in her throat, “Run.”

She tied the leather jacket around her waist and dragged the blade down her forearm.

Emma winced, trying not to grimace as blood pulsed free from her veins, warm and fresh and exactly what the demogorgon was looking for. 

Nancy was looking at her like she’d gone crazy.

Tugging on the gauze and wrappings she’d bought from Bradley’s, she wrapped the wound and stemmed the blood as best she could, but already the pristine white fabric was stained red, a tinge of metal hanging in the air.

The monster froze.

Her breath crystallized.

It whirled around with a snarl so loud it shook the earth. Rows and rows of bloodstained, slick teeth lined its unfurled flower-petal like mouth, dripping blood and spittle as it fixed its faceless attention on its next piece of prey.

Rising to its full height, it stood a good seven or eight feet above her, or maybe that was the terror in her veins exaggerating its features.

Emma gulped.

It shrieked.

“Run!” 

The monster bounded towards her on all fours, Nancy splitting off back towards the direction of the hole they’d come through. Emma meanwhile, sprinted towards the quarry, weaving through dead trees and playing hopscotch with the vines, hoping and praying she didn’t attract anything else while she was in here. 

The monster didn’t even bother with Nancy, its speed making it impossible for Emma to gain enough ground to outrun it. She had to hope she reached the other gate before it did.

Her feet came to a screeching halt seconds before she barreled over the side of a 200ft cliff. Where there’d once been water there was nothing but an empty dried out husk.

Vines slithered on the ground and up the cliffside, but there was no sign of the gate she’d fallen through, nor any other.

Her stomach sank, a boulder thudding into her gut with a force strong enough to bring her to her knees. The growl was moving closer. 

Something smooth and strong wrapped around her wrist. Emma turned to meet the bright blue eyes of Nancy Wheeler.

“Come on! We don’t have much time!”

Nancy dragged her through the shadowed forest and thick mass of deadened trees, adrenaline the only thing keeping Emma’s muscles moving as her side split in pain, legs crying out each time they hit the ground. Something orange pulsated in her periphery, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it before Nancy pushed her way through the tree, calling out for Jonathan on the other side. The Wheeler girl disappeared with a squelch, and Emma was next.

Two hands grasped tightly to hers, pulling her through slime and decay until the cool air of Hawkins, Indiana scrubbed her lungs clean.

It was like breathing for the very first time.

Nancy curled up against Jonathan while Emma landed clumsily on the hard, frosted ground beneath her. She twisted over onto her back, staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed as the bark of the tree stitched itself back together.

The lump in the back of her throat returned.

Quiet sobs filled the air.

Notes:

A bit of a short one, but oooooh boy it needed to be written.

The plot is happening now and poor Emma is just...going through it. Don't worry, she'll get a break soon enough. I honestly can't believe we're moving this fast through the season, I'm genuinely floored by the love you guys have been showing this fic. one thousand of you? Over a hundred kudos?

Thank you all so much guys, I love y'all. As always, if you enjoyed the fic, please leave a comment below!

Chapter 7: I am Bound to These Shores

Notes:

Trigger Warning: blood, implied self-harm, mentions of harming animals, suicidal ideation.

The world was spinning. 

Visions of dust and dirt and grass and trees danced before her, eyes unfocused as this world blurred into the next. Blue skies replaced with red ones, green grass melting into orange liquid, and through it all, the slow steady beat of footsteps against concrete.

Of rubber soles digging into the earth.

It pounded a heartbeat in her ears and thudded against her chest. Alive, she was alive. But was she really? Something moved out of her periphery, her eyes remained fixated on the dull bark of the dead tree, waiting for something that would never come.

It was gone, disappeared and stitched together like one of her mom’s quilts. The seam between worlds was closed, her way home blocked.

Okay, okay, so that one was closed, but there were others still open.

All she needed to do was find Eleven and convince her to lead her to the gate, reopen it, and then she’d be safe right? 

Her arm throbbed in perfect time with her heartbeat.

Better still, she could cut herself again, drawing it to her location and forcing it to take her. Then she’d scramble to the quarry, throw herself down the cliffs and swim home.

A series of images cycled in her vision, a viewmaster of moments making her chest tighten, trapping her breath.

Rocks tumbling down a cliffside, feet skidding to a halt. She was peering into a drop so long and dark and deep she had no idea what awaited her on the other side.

An empty pool, slithering vines, a growl chittering in the back of her mind.

Weight crushed her lungs. She choked on glass with each breath, blood rushing to her head.

The world was spinning.

A muffled sound tried to pierce through the noise.

She almost thought it sounded like her name. 

“Emma?” 

There it was again. Far and away, like someone was calling for her. But that couldn’t be the case. Nobody knew she was here. Nobody knew she existed. She was a blip in the fabric of life, a misplaced stitch in the tapestry of time, needing to be plucked and cut and thrown away.

She was alone here.

She was alone everywhere.

Thin fingers grasped her own, soft and delicate. She stiffened, a cold hand slithering through her chest. It found her heart and squeezed. 

Another series of images entered the viewmaster.

Bright blue eyes, a pale hand wrapping around her wrist, the force of her knees hitting the ground as she was pushed into the rabbit hole once more.

Her eyes came back into focus.

Nancy Wheeler was staring at her with concern.

Emma’s jaw clicked. 

Nancy. Wheeler. 

A girl with too-wide eyes and curiosity too big for this small town. A girl Emma had once found herself admiring. Now, all she saw was the girl who’d stopped her from getting home. It was her fault she was still here. It was her fault the gate was closed. It was her fault she was covered in blood and guts and slime and bleeding from her forearm instead of safe in her apartment bed with a cup of cocoa where this was all a bad dream concocted by her meds.

She was conveniently ignoring the fact that she had been the one to go after the demogorgon in the first place. Ignoring the fact there was no gate to go back through. It was much easier to lay the blame at the person who’d pulled her free, who’d brought her back to Hawkins.

“Hey,” A voice, soft and concerned, cut through the barrage of thoughts swirling in her head. Jonathan Byers was staring at her with the same worried look. “We should get going before that thing comes back.”

“Come on,” Nancy’s voice trembled, her hand moving from Emma’s fingers to her wrist.

She snatched it away with a snarl. The sound was guttural, scratching her throat as it flew through her vocal chords. “Get off me!”

Nancy blinked.

Jonathan stepped in front of her. 

Emma scrambled back, the cold grip of death still crushing her chest as she stumbled to her feet, axe and backpack abandoned on the forest floor. Her eyes found the Wheeler girl and her eyes narrowed. 

“Emma, I–”

“I was almost there,” She growled through gritted teeth, “I almost had him and he would have taken me back and if you–”

“Hey, Nancy just saved your life–”

“Oh, of course, the great big Jonathan Byers to the rescue!” Sarcasm dripped like venom from her lips, it slipped out of her faster than a kid down a waterslide, “Just a quick little piece of advice, white knighting won’t get you in her pants any faster.”

“Hey!” 

“Whoa!”

“Don’t talk to him like that!” Nancy’s face was turning red and Emma’s stomach clenched in victory as the brunette got in her face, “Look, I don’t know why you’re being such a bitch all of a sudden, but Jonathan is right. I saved your life back there, that thing would have killed you! It would have killed all of us!”

Exactly.

Emma didn’t say that part out loud. Since the gates didn’t take her home, that left only one other theory. One she’d been hoping wasn’t real. Of course, the only way to test it was to die, a prospect that looked more and more inviting by the minute.

“I would have been fine,” Emma lied, picking up her backpack and slinging it around her shoulder. Her axe was still covered in blood, dripping with a wet trail as she held it in her grip.

That bubble of anger still lingered in her chest, waiting for just the right moment to pop. It had hardened into glass over the day, from the slow realization she wasn’t dreaming to the condescending looks and tones adults used with her at the pawn shop, the diner, the Big Buy, and finally it cracked when she pushed her way through the gate only to find her worst fears confirmed.

There truly was no way home.

No clicks of her heels, no door to open and shout at herself to awaken, just the cold reality settling over her like a shroud. But while the logical part of her brain was beginning to accept that conclusion, the rest of her refused to.

So she’d latched onto Nancy as the culprit. Nancy as the reason she was still here instead of looking at the evidence before her. Because if she didn’t, then that bubble would finally pop and she’d have nothing but the harsh emptiness festering inside her.

Anger was easy. It was quick. It was an old friend providing her with a scapegoat and a reliable way to avoid the hollow of her own heart, the constant exhaustion seeping through her bones as she watched the world spin behind a glass wall.

Forever separated, never able to join in. Perpetually frozen in time.

Anger gave her purpose. It gave her action. It forced her lips open and allowed her to spew out a string of words directed at someone else instead of her. 

Easy. Familiar. Reliable. 

Nancy scoffed. “Seriously?” 

“You two wanna run on home, fine,” Emma gulped, gripping the axe tight in her hand and shouldering her pack with the other, “But I’m taking this thing down.” And finding a way back. She whirled on her feet, ignoring the two teenagers calling her name as she marched further into the woods.

The images played on repeat, palm clutching the wood so tight she was sure to get splinters.

The monster’s head flashed and flickered, followed by her mother, her sister, her father. 

Red lightning danced across her vision, then the sound of rain against pavement, of waves on shores, of shoes padding against dirt roads. 

Blue eyes, then brown, then green, all mixing together into a painting of what she’d lost. Of what she’d been taken from.

Her breath shook, catching in the back of her throat as her legs finally gave out, crashing against a lone tree as if it were her lifeline.

It remained trapped in her chest, inhaling deeply but unable to exhale. Glass choked her, sharp and quick as her breathing shallowed, fingernails digging themselves deeper into her slick palms until she cried out in pain.

They left small crescent shaped marks behind, drawing even more blood from her cells. 

Good. Maybe the demogorgon wasn’t done hunting.

Her lip trembled. Saltwater dripped onto her tongue.

She wiped them away with the sleeves of her jacket. Blood, slime, and tears came free from her cheek, and Emma was grateful there wasn’t a mirror in sight.

Her eyes burned and she clenched her jaw, vision blurring as she tried to force the tears back through sheer will alone, choking on her anger as they sizzled down her cheeks.

God, why couldn’t she just be angry?

Why did she have to go and cry about it like a baby instead of actually putting it to good use? It was humiliating, embarrassing, and utterly pathetic. A scream ripped through her as she slammed her fist against the tree trunk, wincing as pain shot up her already bruised and cut forearm.

The forest went quiet. Birds stopped chirping, animals stopped chittering, and no matter how hard she strained, Emma couldn’t hear any sign of the growl she’d been searching for.

She brought her now bruised fist up to her mouth, stemming her sobs as they wracked her chest, huffing and heaving with each gasp of air.

Fuck, she was a mess.

A pathetic, shriveling mess. 

It all washed over her at once, a wave crashing down and swallowing her out to sea in a riptide.

Just yesterday she’d been twenty-six, with an apartment and a credit card and a pair of emotionally absent but well-meaning parents, running by herself to forget about the loneliness aching in her bones.

Now, she was sixteen, with no money, no family, and stuck in a hellscape filled with horrors beyond her imagination. She was covered in blood and guts and her own sweat after decapitating a deer, chasing after a monster, and entering an entirely new dimension.

Worse, the loneliness hadn’t disappeared.

It still lingered, a weight sitting in her chest like an anchor. A constant reminder of the nights she’d fallen on her knees, praying for someone to stay in her life instead of walking out the moment she revealed too much of herself. Of course that was back when she still believed in a god. Now, she was as empty as the Upside Down, devoid of anything except a persistent numbness present within her since early childhood.

Adrenaline faded into the cold tingle of numbness stretching through her fingers and down her skin. The pain, once dulled, now lit every nerve aflame, her arm still throbbing.

Painkillers were next on the list, she didn’t know why she’d forgotten to pick them up.

Probably because she assumed she would be rescued by whoever was waiting on the other side. Emma assumed she’d be home, safe and sound without thought of a demogorgon or a girl with telekinetic powers or the fact that her favorite characters were living breathing people with thoughts and wants and traumas so bad they probably couldn’t even be solved with therapy.

Instead, she was here, bleeding from a cut the length of a knifeblade, after performing an action she swore she would never do again after willingly cutting her inner thigh in the seventh grade.

Her body ached, but not the way it did as an adult, with crackly knees and a slumped posture. It ached like she’d been running for hours, like all the energy was gone from her muscles and replaced with jello. Her knees throbbed, arms burning each time she moved them. 

She felt like she’d been hit by a truck.

A crack of a twig and a crunch of leaves made her flinch. She whirled on her heels and nearly took off someone’s head with a fireaxe.

“HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT!” 

Her mouth dropped open when she saw whose head she almost took off. 

Steve fucking Harrington.

Emma dropped the axe with a huff. Her jaw clenched and her posture went rigid. Of course, of fucking course of all the people she had to run into in the woods again, it would be Steve Harrington. 

“Jesus, Foster, you’re gonna take someone’s head off!” 

She leaned against the tree, grinding her teeth together as she glared at the teen. “That’s kind of the point, Harrington.”

They’d evolved to last names, a far cry from that morning when they’d been calling each other by name before he’d kicked her out.

The moment felt like a lifetime ago, but it didn’t stop the annoyance surging in her chest every time she caught sight of the boy. Unfortunately, she had to admit he was as infuriatingly attractive in real life as he was onscreen, with a flop of hair she was jealous of.

It only served to make her more annoyed.

Steve’s whole body was hunched, hands shoved in his pants pockets like he was trying to hide them. Tension hugged every inch of him, rigid and clenched as his jaw ticked.

Realization washed over Emma. He’d just come from Nancy Wheeler’s house.

Shit.

His expression softened slightly when he caught sight of her in the sliver of moonlight. She didn’t want to think about what she looked like, if she was honest. Steve scanned her body with shock, mouth parted open as his eyes widened slightly.

“Jesus, you look like hell.” 

Emma glared, “Thanks, just got back actually.”

Steve rolled his eyes, all concern disappearing as he crossed his arms and shook his head, “Come on, you can stay at my place again tonight–”

He reached out to grab her arm but the last thing she wanted was to be touched. 

“No, Steve, stop–just stop!” 

Steve flinched at her sudden change in tone. Emma huffed, ducking out of the way of his touch. His face shifted into something resembling a wounded puppy. It wasn’t as though she hated him–she couldn’t really, he was one of her favorite characters–but there was something about the flatness of his voice, about the way she’d already been exposed to the parts of him she didn’t like, that tugged at the back of her brain. 

It wasn’t fair to him, to compare him to a version of himself he wasn’t yet, but she couldn’t help it. And after everything with the demogorgon, the gate, her own mental break at the realization she could never go home, the argument with Jonathan and Nancy…

Her hand hovered over her wounded arm, thankfully covered by the jacket so he wouldn’t ask questions. And Steve asked too many questions. Questions she didn’t have an answer for.

She couldn’t do this again. Not tonight. Not when she was exhausted and overstimulated and in need of a break from Hawkins entirely. Not when she was certain Steve was only doing it to use her and soothe whatever wounded hole in his chest seeing Nancy with Jonathan had left. 

He’d kicked her out. He’d forced her to leave.

He didn’t get to invite her back because he felt bad about himself.

“Stop pretending to care, stop acting like you’re doing me a favor because you’re not!” Emma’s chest twisted as Steve blinked, unable to hide the hurt crossing his face.

“Well excuse me for trying to help.”

Emma’s laughter was bitter and sour, “Help? You haven’t helped at all! In fact, you are the worst person in the world to come to when someone’s in crisis. You just kick them out when things get too hard.”  Her words were coming faster than she could stop them, knowing most of them were lies, knowing she didn’t believe a single word headed his way, but needing something, anything to distract from the pang in her chest and the weight in her stomach. Her breakdown earlier had made things worse, and now all of the emotion inside of her was getting too big for her body and needed a new direction to explode into.

“And then you stand there with your stupid hair and your stupid smile acting like you solved all the world’s problems because you did one good thing, when in fact, you just made things worse! That’s all you do Steve, you make things worse.” 

A hushed moment fell over both of them. Steve blinked, his hands falling into fists at his sides. He was angry, angry enough to humiliate his girlfriend in front of the whole town, but still he didn’t even bother to yell. Instead, he stewed, letting the emotions fester inside of him as he glared. 

Emma ignored the churning in her gut, a gnawing sense of guilt and regret replacing the initial annoyance in her chest. The loneliness still lingered, only this time, it was her own fault.

Steve scoffed and shook his head, “I should have left you out there to die in the woods.”

His words stung, a pointed spear hitting directly where it needed to.

His tone was measured, calm, and nothing like she’d expected. “Hell, you’re probably the reason Nancy’s cozying up to Byers right now.”

Emma scoffed and shook her head, “I can’t believe this.”

“What did you tell her, huh?” Steve’s accusation hung in the air, an invisible string begging to be cut in two, “I mean, obviously you told her something, otherwise–”

“Otherwise what? You and Nancy would be cuddled up all happy and healthy while her best friend’s disappearance remained unsolved?” She tongued her cheek, jaw clenching, “Who cares if the world’s burning as long as Steve Harrington’s life is working out for him?”

Steve’s face turned red, knuckles white as he flexed his wrist back and forth like he was getting ready to swing. Emma knew he didn’t have it in him.

In fact, she knew a lot more about Steve Harrington than she ever expected to. The character she’d fallen in love with back home was nothing like the insecure teenager standing in front of her. That Steve Harrington had gone through hell and back, adjusted and changed off screen so when he returned he was more palatable, easier to love. 

Here, in the darkness of the woods, she saw all of him. Every human flaw and instinct and behavior. It was good, it reminded her that she was no longer dreaming. 

That this was, in fact, real. 

His shoulders slumped, eyes red and shining with something she couldn't quite place, “I was just trying to help.”

“Do me a favor,” Emma stooped down to pick up the axe, pressing close to Steve until they were almost touching noses. Her stomach flip-flopped. “Stop trying.”

Steve’s eyes remained fixated on hers. His jaw ticked. 

Emma whirled on her feet and stomped further into the forest.

Notes:

We're getting there folks!! I'm debating about updating weekly because I've almost written the entirety of season one, but also I'm nervous the fandom will fall apart once the show finally ends hahaha.

Let me know which you would prefer in the comments, updates every few days so we're as caught up as can be before the finale, or weekly updates so it's a bit slower but more digestible. Thank you to everybody who's been commenting and liking the fic! They really motivate me to continue writing it, even if I haven't seen the new season yet, so please continue leaving them!

The next few chapters are gonna be more character oriented than plot oriented, but don't worry, we're getting close. Thank you all so much! Love y'all!