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𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐇𝐒 that had passed since the gate was closed, much had changed. Molly had moved in with Eleven and Hopper and had put her name down along with Eleven to get a birth certificate from Doc Owens. Tension had subdued in the Hargrove-Mayfield house thanks to Max and Molly. Jonathan and Nancy were officially dating, Steve and Dustin were basically best friends, Lucas was still struggling to make a move on Max, Mike and Eleven still missed each other but thanks to a small favour Hopper called in for her, she'd be able to go to the Hawkins Middle Snow Ball that was coming up.
Molly hadn't experienced anything like this. She wasn't able to go to Junior prom the previous year (thank you again Soviets), so all the rituals of asking someone to go as your date, buying formalwear and learning dance moves seemed very strange but exciting to the freak of nature.
In addition, over the past few months, Billy had expected his feelings for Molly to fizzle out. He had found out that Molly and Steve had absolutely no chemistry, not even with Jonathan, so he anticipated growing bored of her and looking for some other girl to go after, but after everything they had experienced together, he still couldn't help but remain hung up on her. Only now, it wasn't some raging inferno of passion, it was more so just a little game between them, a knowing smile, passing words between classes, helping him cheat, joining her team. He felt no rage with this love. Oh... Love. It had been a while. Is that really what he felt for her? He had only known her for about four months, there's no way he could really be in love just yet? This paired with ceaseless fantasies of her confessing her deep and passionate desire for him, there was no denying what Billy and Molly had between them.
Though they tried being supportive, most of Molly's friends didn't do much to hide their disdain for Billy and lack of support for her growing closer to him. The only one who didn't really object was Max, and that was because she was growing to like Molly as she brought out the best in Billy. But Molly simply ignored her friends disapproval. She couldn't entirely blame them for not liking Billy but it was none of their business to tell her what (or even who) not to do. Over the passing months, their disapproval basically boiled down to teasing her, which she could very much handle.
On the night of the Snow Ball, it had been arranged that Hopper would drop off Eleven, along with Molly so she could hang around in case there were any emergencies (and hopefully get to spend some time with Billy since he was dropping off Max), and then she would take Eleven home afterwards.
The afternoon beforehand, Molly had gone over to the Wheelers' to rob Nancy of a lot of her makeup so she could help Eleven glamour herself up.
She and Hopper had already gone through all the nearby stores to get pictures of whatever dress Eleven might like and ended up buying a blue dress with a thick pink belt. When she put it on that evening, Molly was in awe of how sweet she looked. She was so happy that Eleven got to experience such a sweet and innocent evening after everything she had been through.
