Chapter Text

Chapter One

If you were to ask Nancy how she felt rolling back into Hawkins after living in Boston for the past nine months, the first word that came to mind would be strange.

Not the ordinary strangeness of returning to a place after time away. This felt different - like something had shifted while she was gone and hadn’t bothered to shift back. Nancy could blame it on her own self being different. But then the streets felt familiar, yet skewed, as though they’d been slightly nudged out of alignment when no one was looking. The further she drove, the heavier the air seemed to get, pressing faintly against her chest.

Maybe it was the pressure of being back in the land of her nightmares. Or the gut wrenching thought of seeing everyone. Or nearly everyone she amended.

When she had left, it was with a bitter sense of defeat instead of triumph. Like she was running away from the horrors instead of celebrating it as she once had. Her mind drifted.

One Year Earlier

The days after the battle were… harder than anyone had prepared for. Not just for Mike. Not just for Hopper. The fracture ran deeper than that. The entire party - the children who had grown up together in basements and battlefields, who had faced monsters and somehow still found room for laughter - felt splintered. Like something essential had been knocked loose inside all of them.

Mike had regressed. Nancy had known he might. She just hadn’t expected the tears.

They came quietly at first - in the middle of conversations, over breakfast, in the space between sentences. He would stop speaking and simply… fold in on himself. Her little brother, who once burned so brightly with conviction and stubborn hope, seemed hollowed out. As if someone had reached inside him and scooped out the part that believed things could be fixed.

Will stayed close. Always close. A steady, silent presence at Mike’s side, like he was afraid that if he stepped away even for a second, Mike might drift off entirely. But even Will, who understood loss in ways no child should, couldn’t reach him. Nancy recognized that kind of emptiness. She had carried it once, in the space Barb left behind - that quiet, gnawing absence that nothing could quite fill. So she didn’t push. She offered gentle touches to his shoulder, cups of tea left by his bedside, soft reassurances in the dark. Never too much.

Never enough to overwhelm him.

Dustin had changed too - though in a way that was harder to name.

The anger that had consumed him in the first weeks had burned hot and reckless. At the world. At the Upside Down. At the unfairness of it all. But now the fire had cooled into something sharper. Controlled. He’d started boxing with Steve, channeling the fury into bruised knuckles and split lips instead of shouting matches. It helped. His movements were more deliberate now. His jaw set tighter. He was stronger - physically, yes - but there was something older in his eyes. A boy forced to grow up in the span of a single catastrophe. He smiled again, sometimes. But it didn’t quite reach the same way it used to.

Will remained steady - outwardly, at least. His quiet confidence had grown in the aftermath, as though surviving everything had stripped away his fear of being seen. He no longer shrank from himself. He stood taller. Spoke firmer.

But grief clung to him like a shadow.

There was a particular look in his eyes Nancy couldn’t ignore - a deep, private sorrow that never quite surfaced, but never disappeared either. He had spent his childhood being taken, hunted, changed. And now he had lost her too. Sometimes she would catch him staring at nothing, lips parted like he was about to say something to someone who wasn’t there. Then he would blink, straighten, and pretend he hadn’t drifted at all.

Lucas, unsurprisingly, became the glue that tried to hold them together in Mike’s absence. He organized movie nights. Dragged them out to the arcade. Insisted on ridiculous games and louder jokes than necessary. He carried the group’s morale on his back like it was his personal responsibility.

For a while, Nancy thought he was coping better than the rest.

Until one night, after a movie marathon sleepover, she came downstairs for water and found him alone in the kitchen. The house was dark. The TV static hummed faintly from the living room. Lucas stood frozen by the counter, staring into the unlit hallway like he expected something to step out of it.

He didn’t hear her at first.

When he finally blinked and noticed her, he forced a smile so quick and practiced it made her chest ache.

She began watching him more carefully after that.

And Max.

Apart from Mike, Max was the most visibly shattered by the fracture in their party. By the absence none of them said out loud.

Her physical recovery was progressing faster than anyone expected. The doctors called it resilience. The others called it a miracle. Nancy suspected it was sheer, unrelenting stubbornness - the kind that refused to let her body fail even when her heart felt like it already had.

Max hated being watched. Hated being helped.

She spent more time alone than with the group. When she did join them, her temper sat just beneath the surface, sharp and reactive. She would lash out over small things. Shut down without warning. Some days she seemed almost normal - sarcastic, dry, biting — and then something would flicker across her face and she would retreat so quickly it was like watching a door slam shut.

The worst was the way she kept turning to her right.

As if someone was still supposed to be there.

As if she had a comment ready, a joke half-formed, something to share — only to remember, a split second too late, that the space beside her was empty.

Every time, her expression would harden. And she would pull further inward.

They had survived.

But survival, Nancy was learning, did not mean they were whole.

It did get better. Slowly.

The grief didn’t disappear - it never could - but it softened into something more distant. A dull ache instead of a raw wound. The laughter, when it came, sounded less forced. Less like something they were performing for one another. It felt real again.

Mike started writing campaigns for D&D - entire worlds stitched together from ink and imagination. Nancy would sometimes pass his room and hear him muttering plot twists under his breath, arguing with himself about monster stats. It was a relief to see him creating magic again instead of being consumed by it. He still carried the sadness, but now he shaped it into stories where the heroes won.

Max’s recovery bordered on unbelievable. She had gone from being wheelchair-bound to walking cautiously, then steadily, and eventually reclaiming full movement with a stubborn determination that impressed even her physical therapist. With each milestone, more of her returned - the sharp wit, the dry sarcasm, the eye rolls that could cut glass. And eventually, she stopped glancing to her right when they sat together. She stopped searching for someone who wasn’t there. That, more than anything, told Nancy she was healing.

Nancy… avoided most of them.

Not the younger group. Never them. But the others were harder.

Her split with Jonathan had been amicable - or as amicable as it could be after the quiet, painful realization that he had donated her clothes without asking. It stung. Not because of the clothes themselves, but because of what it represented: an attempt to move on before she was ready. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to be angry. Not when the few times she ran into him, his eyes were bloodshot and shadowed, his shoulders permanently slumped beneath the weight of everything they’d survived. They were two people grieving differently, drifting in separate directions.

She’d seen Steve in passing too.

Things were… awkward. There was still the lingering discomfort from the way he and Jonathan had postured around each other, like she had been something to win rather than someone to choose. But Steve seemed lighter now. His grin came easier. He wasn’t constantly scanning the horizon like he expected another monster to crawl out of it and take another piece of him. For the first time in years, he looked almost like a normal twenty-something instead of a soldier waiting for the next war.

Robin, though, had been strangely absent.

Nancy knew she still hovered around the group. She spent most of her time with Steve, from what she gathered. Without the looming threat of Vecna, there wasn’t much reason for her to be at the Wheeler house anymore.

But Nancy heard things.

Robin took Will out for milkshakes once a week, just to check in. She visited Max during physical therapy sessions, offering sarcastic commentary that somehow made the exercises easier. She showed up at the boxing gym to watch Dustin and Steve spar, shouting wildly unhelpful advice from the sidelines. She would help Mike with plot points for the party’s latest adventure. She even dragged Lucas out to shoot hoops when Max had hospital appointments. Lucas later told Nancy — laughing — that watching Robin handle a basketball was like watching a toddler negotiate gravity. Still, he’d admitted he appreciated it.

Robin was there for all of them.

Just… not for Nancy.

And Nancy missed her more than she expected to.

After Vecna. After the mystery of Hearth and Homes. After Eddie. After Starcourt. Somewhere in the chaos, Robin had become a constant — a sharp voice at her shoulder, a steady presence who understood what it meant to survive things no one else their age could comprehend.

Nancy missed the easy camaraderie. The shared looks across a room. The teasing jokes — usually at the expense of whatever boy was circling Nancy that week. She missed having another girl her age who knew what it felt like to carry a gun one night and a schoolbook the next.

Without her, Nancy felt slightly unmoored.

Like something small but essential had shifted out of place.

The day Nancy left for Emerson felt bittersweet in a way she hadn’t prepared for.

She packed her car methodically, almost mechanically, focusing on angles and space and efficiency rather than the life waiting for her at the other end. It was easier that way. If she thought too hard about what she was stepping into — or what she was leaving behind — she might not step at all.

Jonathan had left the week before for NYU. The decision had surprised her; he’d always been so determined to stay close to his family. But they’d all shown up to see him off. Even

Robin had helped him pack. His goodbye had been warm — lingering hugs for Joyce and Will, a firm handshake with Steve, an awkward but earnest half-hug from Robin. He’d looked hopeful. Tired, but hopeful.

Now they were all gathered again. All except him.

Somewhere between months of careful avoidance and this morning, Nancy and Robin had decided to make the drive together. Robin was heading to Smith — practically on the way — and Nancy preferred the company to thirteen hours alone with her thoughts. Robin had filled the trunk with both their belongings, humming absentmindedly as she rearranged boxes like it was a game of Tetris.

Nancy stood back and looked at her family — at all of them — clustered in the driveway. The sight made her throat tighten. Tears stung, but she blinked them away. She didn’t cry in front of them. Not like this.

Steve and Robin’s goodbye was dramatic, tearful, and entirely on brand. Steve buried his face into Robin’s shoulder, shoulders shaking, while she patted his head and murmured promises of weekend visits and frequent calls. His tears flowed freely; hers were suspiciously shiny but contained.

Caught in the orbit of their goodbye, Nancy barely registered her mother pulling her into a fierce hug. Karen’s grip was tight, proud and trembling all at once. Nancy held on carefully, mindful of injuries still healing beneath sweaters and cardigans. Holly wedged herself between them, and Nancy scooped her up, pressing kisses into her hair until Holly giggled and squirmed.

“It’s only a few months,” Nancy murmured into the tangle of them. “I’ll be back for Mike’s graduation.”

She set Holly down and turned to her brother.

Mike stood slightly apart, jaw set, eyes bright but determined. They had never been particularly affectionate unless death was imminent. Today, Nancy ignored that precedent and pulled him into a crushing hug.

For a moment, he froze.

Then he clung.

“Try to stay out of trouble while I’m gone?” she asked softly.

He let out a wet, shaky laugh and pulled back just enough to pat her head in a gesture so uncharacteristically gentle it nearly undid her.
“If I get into trouble, I’ve got a sister with an armory on speed dial.”

His smile was small. His eyes were rimmed red.

After prying themselves away from the Wheelers, they made their rounds. Karen whispered something to Robin before hugging her — something that made Robin’s ears flare bright red and laugh awkwardly. The kids were tearful but brief, as if lingering would make it worse. Robin promised weekly phone calls to each of them. Nancy suspected Robin would spend half her college experience attached to a receiver.

Finally, they climbed into the car.

Robin sank into the passenger seat and watched their family shrink in the rearview mirror until they became indistinct shapes, then shadows.

The drive was mostly quiet.

Not tense — just thoughtful. Comfortable. They stopped once at a slightly run-down highway diner where the coffee tasted burnt and the pie was surprisingly good. Later, as dusk bled into night, they checked into a shabby roadside motel instead of finishing the last stretch.

They could have done the drive in one day.

But neither of them suggested it.

The room was a tired double with a thin film of dust on the dresser and bedspreads patterned in something aggressively floral. Their conversation was light, easy — teasing commentary about the décor, exaggerated horror at the bathroom tiles. Nancy felt herself relax in a way she hadn’t in months.

It wasn’t exactly the same as before. They were both altered in ways that didn’t fit neatly into words.

But it was good.

Later, they lay on opposite sides of the bed, staring at the ceiling. The room was dim, lit only by the weak spill of streetlight through thin curtains.

Something shifted in the quiet.

Robin turned onto her side to face her.

Nancy felt it before she saw it — the weight of her gaze — and rolled onto her own side. The space between them suddenly felt smaller than it had any right to be.

“Nance?” Robin’s voice was softer now, stripped of performance.

“Yeah?” Nancy searched her outline in the dark, trying to read what her tone wouldn’t say.

“Is it wrong that I’m kind of scared? Like… more scared than excited? We’ve fought inter-dimensional monsters. We’ve almost died. Multiple times.” She huffed a breath. “But this?

College? Real life? It feels more terrifying than any of that. Is that stupid?”

The words tumbled out quickly, familiar and endearing. Nancy felt a quiet fondness at the return of Robin’s rambling honesty.

She shifted closer without thinking — just an inch.

“No,” she admitted after a moment. “I’m terrified too.”

The confession slipped out easier in the dark.

“In Hawkins, we were always reacting. Surviving. We never really had to think about… ordinary life. I feel strange without it. Without something to fight. I almost miss having a gun in my hand.” She let out a quiet, self-conscious breath. “Which is ridiculous. I was never that person before. But now I just feel… exposed and weak.”

Vulnerable.

Robin let out a soft, incredulous laugh.

“Nancy Wheeler. Weak is not a word that has ever applied to you. In any universe.”

Nancy rolled her eyes, though the gesture was lost in shadow.

“I’m serious,” Robin continued. “Before all of this — before the Upside Down, before any of it — you were the bravest person I’d ever seen. You stood up for people when it wasn’t convenient. When it didn’t make you popular. You knew exactly what you wanted and you never let anyone — not teachers, not boyfriends, not the entire town — tell you otherwise.”

Nancy felt heat creep up her neck.

Robin inhaled slowly.

“You know… before we were friends, I used to be kind of in awe of you.” She laughed softly. “You had this presence. Even without a shotgun. You just… commanded space. People gravitated toward you. Wanted to be your friend. Or date you.” Her voice tilted teasingly.

Nancy smiled. “Used to?”

“Oh, shut up. I still am.” A beat. Softer now. “But I know you now. You’re not this untouchable force anymore. You’re just… Nancy freaking Wheeler. And that’s better.”

There was something unguarded in the way she said it.

“I’m really glad you’re my best friend,” Robin finished.

Nancy’s chest tightened in a way that felt different from earlier — lighter, but deeper.

“Is Steve aware he’s been demoted?” she asked gently.

Robin snorted. “Steve Harrington is my platonic soulmate. Capital P. Non-negotiable.” She hesitated just slightly. “But you, Nancy Wheeler, are my best friend.”

She nudged Nancy’s shoulder under the blanket. The contact lingered a fraction longer than necessary.

“I’m glad we won’t be far from each other,” Robin added quietly. “I’m going to bother you constantly. You won’t get rid of me.”
Nancy held her gaze in the dim light.

“Good,” she said. “I don’t want to.”

The words hung there — simple, honest.

After a moment, Nancy reached across the small space between them and squeezed Robin’s hand. It was meant to be brief.

Neither of them let go right away.

“You’re my best friend too, Robin Buckley,” Nancy said softly.

And in the quiet motel room, with the world ahead of them and Hawkins finally behind, that felt like enough.

Despite all the promises they’d made, keeping in touch proved harder than Nancy expected. Harder than she wanted it to be.

Everyone else seemed to be moving forward at a speed that left her slightly breathless. They were building new routines, new circles, new versions of themselves. Nancy felt as though she were watching it happen from a step behind.

Her courses were… fine.

That was the word she used most. Fine.

College itself passed in a strange blur. Days folded into one another with little distinction — lecture halls, notebooks, dorm rooms, repeat. She attended everything she was meant to attend. Took notes. Turned in assignments. Sat in the right seats. It all felt orderly, structured.

Just slightly out of reach.

Robin called once a week at first, just like she’d promised. Her voice would spill through the receiver bright and animated, stories tumbling over one another — professors she adored, late-night debates, themed parties, new friends with eccentric majors. She sounded alive in a way that made Nancy smile.
But as weeks turned into months, the calls shortened. Then shifted to occasional voicemails. Eventually, silence — not intentional, just absorbed into the current of everything else.

Nancy couldn’t blame her. Robin was exactly where she was meant to be.

The kids were consumed by senior year - electives, prom chatter, college applications. For once, they were living something that resembled an ordinary teenage life. Nancy couldn’t fault them for being busy with it.

Her mom called often, filling in the spaces Mike’s brief updates left behind. From what Nancy gathered, everyone was doing well. Healing. Laughing again. Moving forward.
The relief of that knowledge sometimes hit her so sharply she had to sit down.

Steve, unexpectedly, became the most consistent voice in her week. Without the shadow of what they had once been - or what they hadn’t managed to be - their conversations felt easy. Natural. He had taken on the very adult responsibility of coaching little league baseball, which Nancy found endlessly amusing. She pictured him surrounded by a new swarm of children - his “nuggets,” reborn in smaller, grass-stained form — and teased him relentlessly about finally accepting his fate.

They talked for hours some nights. About Hawkins gossip. About the absurd things his players said. About nothing in particular.
When it came to her own life, though, Nancy rarely had much to offer.

She stayed in her own quiet orbit. Classes. Homework. The walk back to her dorm. Meals she couldn’t quite remember choosing. It was fine. Truly. There was comfort in monotony. No monsters. No emergencies. No guns.

Just routine.

Steve had asked her once what her classmates were like — whether she’d met anyone interesting. Whether there was someone she liked.
Nancy had opened her mouth to answer and found… nothing.

She could picture the lecture hall itself - the slope of the seats, the scratch of pen on paper, the hum of fluorescent lights - but the people inside it felt indistinct. Blurred at the edges. If she tried to recall a face, it slipped away before she could fix it in place.

“They’re nice,” she’d said finally. It sounded reasonable enough.

When her mom asked about classes, Nancy gave the same steady answers. The material was good. Professors were knowledgeable. Her grades were solid. All technically true. If pressed for specifics - what unit they were on, what topic had been assigned that week — her thoughts seemed to scatter. It was probably just the workload. Adjustment took time.

Everyone said so.

It was normal.

It had to be.

Months passed. The seasons shifted. The air changed.

Nancy Wheeler lived in a different state now, miles and miles from Hawkins.

And yet, in some quiet, indefinable way, nothing around her seemed to leave an imprint at all.