MARLEY // Max Mayfield

Act 4 Epilogue A 2/2 Good Ending

Newborns on the end, kids in the middle, teens on the far right and adults she'd toss to Steve to sort. Folding was at least therapeutic, or so Marley's government-assigned shrink had said, no doubt trying to convince Marley that the monotonous task of folding donations at the High School was anything but mind-flayingly dull. She wanted to make sandwiches with Robin and Nancy, which would be the only time she'd ever admit to wanting to do anything as patriarchal and non-feminist as working in the kitchen. Steve was a great partner, of course, but he had a set way of folding that Marley's damaged fingers just didn't get along with.

She wanted to go back to the hospital. She'd been itching to take up her spot at Max's side for the past week, but Steve had put her on a hospital ban after receiving a few complaints from the hospital. They had been lenient in the beginning, but since the initial haze of the 'earthquake', they'd grown stricter with their policies, i.e. no sleeping in Max's hospital room anymore.

She hated it.

"I'm taking a break," Marley announced before ditching her pile of baby grows and walking over to Nancy and Robin. Steve sputtered. The girls looked up at her approach. Robin was on her third jar of peanut butter whilst Nancy jammed the other halves, the two of them working in tandem. "Hey."

"Hola, one-eyed Willie," Robin saluted, and Marley rolled her eye. Erika had decorated an eyepatch to look like the one from The Goonies. Marley had worn it, of course, though she was pretty sure it was Lucas's idea to have Marley's nickname synonymous with the male genitalia.

"Hi, Mars," Nancy smiled, her saving grace stuck with the ol'faithful planet.

"Can I have one?" Marley asked and didn't wait, swiping one of Robin's peanut butter halves and folding it to eat.

"Hey! Now I'm going to have an uneven amount of bread and an uneven amount of peanut butter to go with Nance's jam," Robin complained, looking around at her workstation. She was waving around her peanut butter knife like a madwoman. "Nance, throw away a piece of jammed bread."

"That's wasteful," Nancy frowned.

"Eat it then."

"How's Jonathan?" Marley interrupted as Nancy reluctantly began to chew on a jammy piece of bread for the sake of Robin's fragile mental fortitude. Robin turned and began preparing more slices whilst Nancy glanced at Marley, swallowed and coughed to clear her throat.

"Uhm, we're taking a break, it was mutual since we're both going to different universities...trauma bonding can only take you so far," Nancy said and laughed awkwardly. Marley stared at her, eyes wide and curious, before she nodded slowly and shifted the topic again.

"Do either of you want to take me to the hospital later?" She smiled.

"And break Steve's ban?" Nancy frowned whilst Robin grinned, jumping at the chance.

"Hell yes, I will take you to the hospital!" She slammed her peanut butter knife down and grabbed her jacket. "Say the word, captain."

"You can drive?" Nancy asked, and Robin looked at her, nodding as if it were common knowledge. To be fair, even Marley knew, and she had locked herself up in Max's hospital room for three weeks. It was after everything had cooled, Robin had been offered lessons from the state, some sort of perk for defeating an otherworldly entity. Casually, as you do. Robin had jumped at the chance.

"Yes, I can, keep up. Shall we go now?" Robin smiled as she walked around the table and tugged on her jacket.

Hawkins was on the mend. The open fissures had been sealed and parts of the town had been blocked off in the name of 'Seismic Testing', every one of the crew knew the real reason. It was a cover-up; they were trying to hide the real reason behind the Earthquakes, spewing some scientific jargon to discredit the tin-foil heads and their ludicrous, unbelievable theories that were too close to the truth than the government liked.