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IT WAS morning by the time they returned to the Squawk. Jackie had nodded off several times during the night, her and Jonathan taking turns in attempting to find the signal for Hopper, but they'd come up short—every time.
Steve offered both his hands as the back doors of the van swung open, and Jackie took them as she hopped onto the dusty road. Meeting his gaze, she rubbed his arm. "You okay?" She asked.
"Fine," he said, shortly. Then, he raised one of his hands to scrub it over his face. "Are.. you?"
It felt harder to ignore the more he asked, so she shot him a look. "I'm fine."
"Looks like Robin sent up the Bat-Signal," Dustin mused, and the pair of them turned their heads to see Nancy's wagon approaching, dust turning up from the wheels and trailing behind the car.
Jackie sighed, shifting on her feet and brushing Steve's jacket. "Does it ever end?"
Jonathan rushed to Nancy as she exited from the drivers side, Lucas and Mike approached Dustin warily. She and Steve remained standing close by, gazes trained on them.
"Holy shit," Mike mused, gesturing to Dustin's beat-up face.
"Yep," he replied, casually. "Bike crash. Head first into a light post."
Steve stiffened from next to her, and all Jackie could do was stare at Dustin. She didn't know why he wouldn't just admit it, maybe he was embarrassed. But they'd all looked like that at one point, tortured, attacked by something much stronger.
"Look, I'm sorry about missing the crawl," Dustin went on. "About everything."
"It's not your fault," Mike assured him. "Don't beat yourself up."
"Yeah, looks like he already did," Lucas stated. Jackie shared a look with Steve. "Is that broken?"
"I dunno," Dustin shrugged, prompting Lucas to reach his hand out and making Dustin smack it away. "Don't touch it. Why-"
"I wasn't gonna-"
"You were going to."
"I wanted to see if you had-"
"Hey!" Robin interrupted from the doorway of the Squawk. Jackie turned at the sound of her voice, as did the others. "This isn't a social call, kiddos. Let's go."
The group followed her in, Steve in the lead and propping the door open until everyone was safely inside. Jackie mounted herself onto one of the tables as they all found a place to sit, listening to Robin explain everything that had went down in their separation.
The working theory was that the demogorgan was choosing random children to take to.. well, wherever they were going. That Will could channel their perspectives and see exactly what child was going to be next. He'd seen it with Holly, he just hadn't known what it was then. Now, however.. they were prepared. Or had some idea, at least.
