"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 One-Hundred-And-Sixty-Four: A Miracle
(The Piggyback, Pt. 4)
***
Rowan was dying.
She could feel it in each choked breath, each squeeze of the vine strangling her. She could hear the choked breaths of Steve, Robin, Valerie and Nancy dying, they were dying, and Alistair was dead, and Vecna was going to kill Max and Eddie was outrunning Demobats but not for long—but why didn't he keep that promise to her, why didn't he go through the gate, why Eddie, why?!—they were all dying.
They were losing. The plan had failed. Vecna was going to win.
They'd lost.
They were dying, they'd survived this long and now they were dying. Steve was dying. Her friends were dying. Max was going to die, Eddie was going to to die, Rowan was going to die.
Alistair...
Alistair was dead.
He was dead, he died again, and he wasn't coming back. And that fact caved something out in Rowan, made her want to cry, yell, scream. But all she could do was try to breathe even as the vine constricting her neck denied her, her thoughts growing fuzzier as her vision darkened further, pain shooting up her arms, around her middle, as her wrists and torso were slowly crushed, as her death inched closer and closer.
And maybe that was for the best. Maybe Rowan deserved to die, right here and now after fighting for so long, after cheating death so many times before. Maybe when she died, she could scream at whoever was in control to let Alistair live again, to let her take his place in the afterlife or Heaven or whatever the fuck waited beyond and let him live a third time. Maybe she and Steve could find each other and they could rest, after fighting for so fucking long, after all the pain and trauma and near-deaths. Maybe she could yell at Eddie and then hug him.
Maybe she could find Chrissy and tell her everything like she should have instead of waiting until it had been too late. Maybe she could find Barb and Bob. Maybe she could find all the ghosts of the people she couldn't save, the ghosts of her guilt, and tell them just how fucking sorry she was that she couldn't save them from the Upside Down.
Maybe she could even find her parents.
Rowan gasped out, nothing more than a slip of air as the vine around her neck strangled her even more, a band of steel around her throat. Her lungs spasmed for oxygen and everything was growing dark and fuzzy and all Rowan could think of was how they'd lost, how Max was going to die, how Alistair was dead and she couldn't protect him again, how even though it had been years, it had been years since that fight, since the first time they'd gone up against the creatures of the Upside Down, she felt just like she had when she stared down the Demogorgon in the Byers house as the Christmas lights flashed dizzily, how they were in over their heads, how no matter how good the plan was, it had failed and Vecna had the upper hand, how could they have hoped to win or at least make it out unscathed, and this time she didn't have Steve to save her like she'd saved him, they couldn't save each other this time, and holy God, she was going to die, she was going to die and Rowan wanted to cry and scream, she wanted to live and she wanted to give up so she could have her stopped heart make Alistair's beat again, she was going to die—
And then she was falling.
Rowan crashed to the ground, stars exploding in her vision as everywhere the vines had crushed her—her wrists, her torso, her neck—bloomed with pain and her lungs spasmed and she was hacking and coughing, breathing in toxic air but she was breathing.
Around her, she heard more coughing, and Rowan realised that was her friends, that was Steve, they were all on the ground with her, coughing, but breathing and alive.
The vines, for some reason, had released them, and they were all alive.
Rowan turned to Steve, as he turned to her, and they both asked at the same time between coughs and voices hoarse from being strangled, "Are you okay?"
Then Rowan was holding Steve and he was holding her as their bodies trembled, trying to remember to breathe, holding each other like if they let go, the other would be back in those vines and they would see each other be strangled to death, and Rowan wanted to sob and Steve shook under her arms, they were both so fucking relieved the other was alive.
"I don't believe in a higher power," Robin croaked and Steve and Rowan turned to her, Nancy and Valerie, still holding each other and seeing the vines slither away from the stairs as Robin went on, "or divine intervention. But that was a miracle."
Rowan agreed. Whatever just happened, whatever caused the vines to let them go and then retreat, that had been a fucking miracle.
Slowly, she got to her feet after grabbing her sword and sheathing it, as Steve, Nancy, Valerie and Robin did the same, turning to the attic door as Nancy said, "Then we better not waste it."
Rowan looked at the attic door, where Vecna was, remembering what he'd shown her in the belief she would die—Dustin, Max, Eddie, Hopper, Alistair.
They had to get in there and end this, before anyone else died, before those Vecna had shown Rowan died. They hadn't lost yet.
They could still win.
Rowan's hands and eyes sparked with lightning as Nancy picked up the shotgun and Valerie grabbed a Molotov, Steve saying, "Phase four."
"Flambé," Robin said.
"And fry," Rowan finished.
And they were walking toward that door. A second later, Rowan had opened it with a thought.
And they were in the attic.
***
It's happening... *grins*
Yeah, this chapter was short, but I hope you all still liked it even with the angst! With Rowan thinking she's going to die and that they lost... I want to give her a hug. And yeah, if she died, she wanted that to have Alistair live again, along with the bits of her and Steve, if they died, finally resting and if she saw Chrissy and Bob and Barb and her parents again, and how she doesn't want to die but she knows she will, and that it parallels to how she felt years ago in the Byers house up against the Demogorgon except Steve won't save her this time... yeah, it's just pain 😢
Fortunately, thanks to Joyce, Hopper, Aco and Murray in Russia, Rowan, Valerie, Steve, Nancy and Robin don't die! And Steve and Rowan have a moment where they're just so relieved the other is alive and breathing. That is, until they move on to phase four and, hopefully, win
Next chapter will be soon, especially since it is that moment and I've been looking so freaking forward to writing it since the BEGINNING of this fic...
