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Joan shot up gasping for air while chaos neared her. Screaming and yelling with familiar awful shrieks and growls in the air. Carefully she felt around her body and relaxed at the lack of bites and holes in her flesh, but there was blood on the back of her head that was tender to the touch.
Her moment didn't last long before the door to the theatre side door burst open and her dad ran through. Not the child-brother she had been living with, but her adult a-little-shorter-than-most-adults. and childish, amazing grown-up dad.
Tears filled her eyes at the familiar man, because it had been too fucking long with out him. Immediately, she felt exhausted and the sobs came out as soon as his eyes locked onto her, and they got stronger as he tugged her into her arms.
"Jesus Christ, Jo. I thought you were gone."
And she tugged him closer because she should be.
"Dustin? We don't have a lot of time." Uncle Lucas appeared at the door letting loose a few expert shots from his gun before slamming the door shut behind him. "Max had Brynnyn and the other at the safe house, but we have to go. El should be here soon from Chicago to close—"
"How the hell did a portal open in the school?!" Dustin interrupted as he helped his daughter up, looking over at his best friend with a hint of despair on his features. "We've been monitoring singularities for decades and nothing has shown since the eighties."
"....what about that weird blip you were talking about a month ago." Joan spoke up quietly, both adults looking over to her in surprise. She cracked her hands and swallowed. "Y-you we're using me a sounding board, but you were talking about the half of, half of a second change in radiation around the suburbs."
"Joan... I feel like you know something we don't." Lucas began slowly, stepping over to the father and daughter duo with suspicion in his eyes. "What do you know?"
Joan let out a laugh, because her aunt actually did it.
No one remembered her.
⧖⧗
Joan sat in her room quietly.
Her room.
Her real room without crappy pink wallpaper, Tolkien quotes, Johnny cash posters, or a pretty white desk. Grey walls, a desk littered with DnD notes, and metal posters filled it's spot. She let out a shaky breath, clenching the dark green comforter underneath her.
There was no ironed cheerleading uniform waiting for her, but a computer plugged into an old hard drive she had ordered to work on her hacking. Instead of taped Polaroids of her and her friends she had framed awards from competitions. Johnny cash was replaced by metal and punk bands.
She was home.
And they had won.
The dark Aevum had tried to stop them, but a quick explanation had her dad and Uncle Lucas speeding to her grandmothers house where by some chance from God she used the same thermostat since the 70's. The key was there and so was the piano.
Agatha had made an appearance, but only as a final act of defiance. She was able to make her real goodbye to her little brother and ex-boyfriend Steve with a watery smile, before finally vanishing for good to hopefully rest.
But not before Aevum tried so hard to win for Vecna.
Aunt El came at the right time, bursting down the door to the old home with her husband and Will behind her. Joan held onto the journal with a white-knuckles grip, frozen at the whispers to give it to me and I can bring him to you.
She thought she could do it.
Joan had thought she could destroy it and finally be the hero.
But alas, as great of a DM as she was, she had forgotten the objects could only be destroyed by the Sword of Kas.
Lucas had been quick to wrestle the journal from her grip, throwing it onto the ground of the living room while her dad held her back even as she kicked and screamed her lungs out to get to it. Her body was on fire and she was positive she was being electrocuted as the electricity in her veins grew to a dangerous degree, they didn't understand.
She needed it,
it needed her,
she would die without it.
While Agatha held her own against Aevum in Kaleigh's body, Aunt El threw an arm up, grabbing the book and sent it to Will Byers who wasted no time grabbing it from the air and tearing it apart quickly.
Aevum let out a screech and she fell.
And Agatha said goodbye to her family.
A reunion and memories.
Max had destroyed the mirror at the Thompson trailer home, which left Aevum no where to seek shelter and fully killed her without any more power to siphon. El closed the gate in the school for good and time went back to where it should be.
The only memories she had of her time travel were scattered in front of her. Polaroids she had stored left untouched for decades of her and so many others, small trinkets, and a guitar pick that had her heart squeezing painfully. Joan managed a smirk at one where Steve stood with hands on his hips looking surprised while wearing his ice scream uniform.
Mission accomplished.
Joan looked around her room, wondering if anything changed because of her... her brothers were all present, Kaleigh lived, Brynnyn was still a cheerleader... and her room was still grey. But as soon as Aevum was destroyed, the electricity had left her body and Joan could sit still.
She could breathe.
She could exist.
She could cry.
Joan was in her room.
⧗⧖
What happened to Joan Agatha Henderson?
' ' '
I think you already know.
⧖⧗
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