Summer 1985 - Mileven/Jopper/Lumax

Chapter 11: Strong

Max woke up to what sounded like strangled cries, scaring her half to death at the thought it was some sort of wild animal outside of the tent. She sits up in a daze and peers over to El's side when she realizes the noises are coming from her. Crawling over, she sees her friend's short brown hair sticking to her clammy forehead, body jerking, and eyelids twitching.

"No! No! Please, stop it!" the sleeping girl screams. Frantically, Max shakes the small girl, "El! El! Hey, it's okay, wake up!" Max gives her one more good shove with another shout of her full name, "Eleven! Wake up!"

Frantically sitting up, she looks around and feels embarrassed when she realizes Max just witnessed one of her nightmares. "I'm...I'm sorry, Max," she says breathlessly.

"Don't even, what happened? Are you okay?" her friend asks, still a little freaked out by the agony El appeared to be in while sleeping.

Her answer gets cut off by the sound of their tent's zipper being unfastened, Hopper's big frame taking up the opening.

"You girls all right in here?" he asks, eyes zooming in on his daughter. Both nodding, El gives him what she thinks is a reassuring nod, "sorry, yeah...bad dream."

Hopper knew her nightmares, while certainly lessened within the past two years, were still existent. There was one month, in the beginning, he swore she woke up every night screaming, his heart breaking more and more each time. Slowly, but surely, they were happening only once every few months. The worst part seemed to be that there were no apparent triggers for these awful relapse of memories; they just happened out of nowhere, when it seemed like things were getting better and almost normal, only for the poor girl to be tormented again in her sleep.

Giving her a short nod, he shoots her a knowing look. "Try to go back to sleep ladies," he says reluctantly before zipping the tent back up. After hearing his retreating footsteps, Max turns her head to her friend, "holy shit El, that was no bad dream!" she yells in a hushed tone, "you looked so fucking terrified, I've never seen you like that,"

Looking at her friend with a sad face, she gives her a helpless shrug before turning around to face the wall of the tent. She lays there in the dark, tears brimming her eyes, counting silently in her head.

'One..

two..

three..'

~

In the next tent over, Mike's eyes open and he looks around the dark tent before leaning up on his elbows. He hears footsteps outside the tent and curiously goes over to unzip the scratchy zipper, peaking out to see the Chief sitting on a log by the dead fire, lighting a cigarette.

His lanky body quietly slips out of the opening and goes to sit across from Jim. The older man doesn't even have to look up to know who sat in front of him, barely making out the boy's features when he looks up in the dark Indiana night.

There's a comfortable silence between them for a few minutes, the pair surrounded by the cold air and smell of pine. Shockingly, it's Hopper who breaks the silence, "she had a nightmare tonight," he states simply, "she hadn't had one for a few months now."

Feeling his heart drop, Mike looks towards the purple tent occupied by the girls and runs his hand through his hair, suddenly so full of anger. "It's so fucked up," the boy says darkly, "those assholes still get to her, even when she tries so hard to forget about them."

Hop hears the pure anger in the young boy's voice, still shocked by the connection between two 14-year-olds. He saw how withdrawn and depressed the Wheeler kid seemed when his bald-headed friend disappeared back in 1983. He also saw the look on both of their faces when they eventually reunited at the Byers home almost a full year later.