"I swear, if I'm dying tonight because of you, I'm gonna haunt your ass so hard, Harrington!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! I'm gonna go full Poltergeist and shit!"
"Then bring it, Graveswood."
"Challenge accepted."
***
In which after years of suppressing their...
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Chapter Forty-Two: Happy Reunions And Government Contracts
(The Upside Down, Pt. 6)
***
The hospital smelled sterile.
Bleach and other cleaning products stung Rowan's nose, and the girl hunkered further down in her uncomfortable plastic chair. Beside her, Aunt Aco flipped through a generic magazine while Alistair sat curled up in his seat with his friends, his body tense and rigid, obviously uncomfortable being here but resolutely ignoring the death and ghosts permeating the hospital because, in the other room, was Will.
Her brother would endure days of ghosts if it meant he could be there when Will woke up.
Even still, Rowan herself felt uncomfortable in the hospital. She and Alistair rarely went to the hospital, as aside from how Alistair felt due to the aura of death and multitudes of ghosts lingering in the sterilised halls, there were other reasons. One, they were a trailer park family and therefore poor as fuck. Two, her aunt was a career criminal who firmly believed that unless it was life or death or would guarantee permanent damage if left untreated then hospitals and their ridiculously overpriced bills should be avoided like the metaphorical plague. And three, they just... made Rowan uncomfortable, being surrounded by walls leached of colour or life, to feel and smell sickness even under the bleach. It made Rowan's skin crawl, and she never more felt the urge to leave than she did now.
But she shoved down that urge and adjusted her position in her seat. She would endure the discomfort that the hospital exuded if it meant being here for Will, and letting him wake up to friendly faces—God knew he had seen enough to give him nightmares for years.
A snore hitched Rowan out of her thoughts and she looked over to the four boys. Lucas and Dustin were still asleep, conked out to the world around them. Mike and Alistair were the only ones awake, and Rowan could feel the tension between them, the distance in the shape of El and her death. Rowan winced. God, even thinking about the young girl—the girl Rowan watched via dreams, the girl who Rowan only knew for a brief amount of time but had found herself loving her anyway and silently swearing to protect her, the girl who was now gone, had sacrificed herself to destroy the Demogorgon and saved Alistair, Mike, Lucas and Dustin in the process—had Rowan want to spiral, had the guilt rise up, the guilt that if she had been there, she could have teleported them all out before the Man—Brenner, she now found out he was called—and his agents could have cornered them, before the Demogorgon showed up, before El sacrificed herself, that she could fought and killed the monster instead of El.
Nancy had been quick to remind her that if she hadn't been with them at the Byers house, Steve, Nancy and Jonathan could have been killed, and if they weren't, then the monster would have been in slightly better shape than it was after Rowan stabbed, punched and electrocuted it and could have killed the boys and El before any of them could have made a move against it. And Rowan knew that Nancy was right, but it still didn't make the guilt lessen.
