Her Perfect Mistake // Max Mayfield

10. The Gate

Eleven hugged pretty much everyone before she shifted her entire attention to the blonde girl laying on the couch.

"Is she going to be okay?" El asked with a worried expression.

"Yeah, yeah, don't worry about her." Max responded blandly. After Eleven refused to even look the Readhead in the face, Max decided to match her energy. She preferred helping her girlfriend instead of dealing with the other girl's bullshit.

Somewhere in-between Mike and Hopper's shouting, Max felt Bella regain her consciousness.

"M-Max?" Bella stuttered before she even managed to open her eyes "What happened?". El noticed her friend waking up so she sat down next to the couch.

"I helped." Eleven said, quietly so that only Bella could hear her. The blonde girl slowly got up, looking at Max and then at El.

"I missed you so much, El." Bella said and hugged the shorter girl, sobbing in the process.

"I missed you too, Bella." Eleven said, hugging her tighter. That gesture, although needed, made Bella squirm, which in turn made Max overprotective.

"She has a wound, you're hurting her!" Max said to Eleven. The shorter girl pulled away, looking at Bella up and down.

"Wound? Where?"

"Here." Bella said, slightly moving her shirt up so that El could see "It was demogorgons. Well, baby ones, but demogorgons nevertheless."

"Is that why... why we are the same?" Eleven asked, implying the fact that both girls had powers.

"No... I am not sure why I have powers, El. But I need training, because I have not been doing so well with them." Bella tried to smile, but the pain took over her.

El nodded as Joyce took her in the other room, leaving Max and Bella alone. Still with tears in her eyes, Bella hugged Max. The ginger girl didn't expect that, but wasn't complaining about the sudden contact.

"I am sorry, Max."

"What are you sorry for, Bella?"

"I am not good enough. If it wasn't for El, we would have been dead. She saved us." Bella said through sobs.

"Oh my god, baby, calm down." Max said while hugging her girlfriend "You just discovered your powers two days ago. And you saved Joyce and Will in the lab. You threw a Demo-Dog through the window. I bet El couldn't do that in two days, especially wounded."

"Yeah. Maybe..." Bella said, trying to control her breathing, but the wound on her body making this task extra hard.

After Joyce and El spent a couple of minutes in Will's room, they were finally near the table in the kitchen.

"You opened this gate before, right?" Joyce said, while pointing at the message Max and Bella deciphered.

"Yes." El said

"Do you think if we got you back there, that you could close it?"

El moved her head towards Joyce, looking her straight in the eyes.

~~~

Everyone, Bella included was standing up around the kitchen table as they were trying to figure out a way to close the gate.

"It's not like it was before. It's grown." Hopper said, sighing "A lot. And I mean, that's considering we can get in there. The place is crawling with those dogs."

"I can do it." El said, shifting her gaze to the Chief.

"You're not hearing me." he said in response.