They’re in hospital recovering. Heather woke up from her coma before Billy and then insists on moving her bed to his room. She doesn’t want him to wake up alone. When Billy does wake up from his coma, some 3 weeks after Heather, it’s a long road to recovery from there. He is consumed by guilt. Once he gets the tube out of his throat, the first thing he tries to do is apologise and beg for Heather’s forgiveness. She’s like “no”. “It wasn’t your fault Bill.” “But-“ “No.”They recover together, supporting each other since they don’t get many visitors, if any. Heather’s parents are goo, and she doesn’t actually want to see her friends yet. Billy’s dad… well he requested to get updates over the phone. Max can’t come without a ride.The party feels weird about visiting them so they don’t. The unspoken guilt of what happened to them and unwillingness to acknowledge it makes it hard for them to face Billy and Heather. Despite all that, Billy and Heather get very close. They do their physical therapy together, they share a bed when nightmares get really bad, they both deal with being tube fed since their stomachs recover very slowly from the chemicals. Heather holds Billy’s hand when his bandages need to be changed. Billy paints Heather’s nails to get his motor functions back. They do each others hair.Billy can finally walk around without help from another person for the most part. He’s not constantly on oxygen anymore and neither is Heather.Maybe Will takes the first step to go and talk to them after being there for his own upside down related check up. He finally feels seen and understood when discussing the possession. They understand the terror, the darkness and the violation in a way that no one in the party or any of the adults could understand. On Christmas Eve, they’re both still in hospital, but almost ready to leave. They have their own clothes and some of their stuff is in the room, including Billy’s Metallica poster and Heather’s Blondie poster. The room feels more homey and less bleak. On his nightly rounds, Dr. Owens passes their rooms and has to stop for a moment. Heaven by Bryan Adams is blasting on the cassette player one of them had brought and his two patients are dancing around their shared room. Heather leads Billy, both smiling the biggest smiles, giggling and laughing together without a care in the world. They’re singing along loudly and Owens notices all the nurses watching along fondly too. They still have a long road of recovery ahead of them, but this is better than Owens could have hoped for.
