Everybody Wants To Rule The World

030

TWO MONTHS LATER....

Marie woke screaming, and Steve was quick to grab her. She was breathing heavily, and crying in his arms.

It had been a new normal for the two of them, or more for Marie then Steve. She had been having nightmares for weeks now, and she didn't want to go and get help for it.

Steve could feel her calming down in his arms, and he kissed the side of her head, and she coughed a bit. Steve pulled away slightly, and looked at her.

Her hair was sticking to her forehead because she had been sweating because of the nightmares. So he pushed it out of her face, and she turned to look at him, her face was tear stained.

"I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere." Steve says as he holds her face in his hands, and she leans into his touch. 

She hadn't really talked about what she went through much, and Steve never pushed her to. So when she looked into his eyes and opened her mouth, he was shocked.

"I keep seeing him laying there on the floor, covered in blood. He stood there and made sure the El and I were safe, he died protecting us." She said to him, and Steve nodded his head.

"He died doing something good." Steve says to her, and she nods her head.

"Then I keep seeing Hopper, he's fighting one of those damn dogs, which I know weren't there, but he ends up on the ground and those things are tearing him apart." She says, and Steve kissed her forehead.

She had a scar right at the hairline, from where Billy had smacked her head into the wall. She tried covering it up with her hair whenever she could, but he could see it right now, and kissed it.

"Then I see you," she continues and he pulls back to look at her, "being beaten by some Russian, and I'm in the corner of the room and can't move, can't help you. I felt so helpless, and like I wasn't doing anything of use." She says to him, and Steve meets her eyes.

"Well, I'm here. Okay? No Russian has me, no demodogs are roaming around, and that flesh monster is gone. Everything is gone, and we made it out alive." He says to her, and Marie stared at him.

She tried to understand that he meant good by telling her this stuff, but Marie couldn't bring herself to believe. She tried her hardest too, but she just couldn't.

So when she leaned into his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her, and they fell back into the bed, she closed her eyes. But the nightmares were still continuing to flash before her eyes.

-

Marie sat next to Dustin in the Byers home piling stuff into boxes, when the singing started.

"Turn around" Max and Lucas started singing Neverending Story, making fun of Dustin and his girlfriend Suzie, who had apparently sang the song to one another while Marie was getting beaten by Billy.

"Look at what you see" The two continued with the song as Dustin just stared at them angerily, and Marie luaghed.

"In her face" The two looked at one another at this point, and sang to one another. Marie laughed as she continued to pile stuff into boxes for Joyce.

"The mirror of you dreams" Dustin kept glancing at his sister, and tried not to break a smile as he looked at her smiling and laughing.

"Rhymes that keep their secrets" 

"Will unfold behind the clouds." They finished the song as Marie stood up to take one of the boxes out to the U-Haul truck, and she smiled as she walked out the front door just as Joyce was walking back to the house.