Say Something I'm Giving Up On You

How It Could've Been

Mike and Nancy eyed Hopper curiously. The chief sat down at the table and gestures for the siblings to sit down beside him. They walked over to him and sat down at the table, still with suspicious and curious looks. Nancy remembered that he knew this cabin before when they were looking for Mike. How did he know about the cabin and why was he there now making them food?

Finally, Mike broke the silence. "What is this about chief? What do you want to talk to us about?" He asked. He couldn't take it anymore, he needed to know and the suspense was killing him.

Hopper sighed. "This was my grandfather's cabin. It's been abandoned for a while with no one really knowing about it. So when El came along and then disappeared, I decided to try and find her by leaving her Eggos in a box in the woods. Everytime I went there, they were gone, but I saw no sign of her. I was planning on, if I ever found her, to keep her here where she would stay and be hidden from the bad men and to protect you guys from getting in danger. Since she never came, I decided to fix the place up myself if she ever did come. But of course, that never happened. You guys found her in the Upside Down and then she 'died' on the night of the Snowball. Then you discovered the cabin by running away and now you want to live here too," he explained.

The siblings let that information sink in for a minute before Nancy responded, "So if you were to have found her, you would've been like a father to her or something, but not reunite her with us?" She said, summing up everything the policeman said. Hopper nodded and looked over at Mike, who seemed a little mad at that information.

"You would've kept her a secret?! You were going to not tell me or anyone?! How could you have done that?! Protecting her by keeping her in a cabin?! She's been locked up Her whole life! If you did that, I bet she would've been upset and probably lose control of her powers! You are so lucky you didn't do that!" He yelled. Then he sighed and looked down. "You really are lucky that never happened. I know El, so that means I know that she could get upset at that. I'm sorry that I yelled like that. I'm just so moody these days since El... and... I just need her," Mike added in a calmer tone of voice.

Hopper nodded, not really seeming to be affected by Mike's outburst at him. "I was expecting a worse reaction, really. I thought you were going to try and beat me up and then burst out crying or something. This is better," he said. 

Mike couldn't help but chuckle at that statement, making that be the first time he chuckled in a while. "So are we allowed to stay here?" He asked. "Because there's no way in hell I'm ever going home to my useless parents."

Hopper raised his eyebrows, looking a little surprised. It looked as if he didn't even know that the Wheeler parents were bad parents. But the siblings weren't that shocked that he didn't know that their family was the fakest family in town. Nancy figured it out years ago and then she told Mike when he got older to be able to understand. They were the only ones who knew that secret about their family. At first, they wanted it to stay that way, but now they wanted to let as many people as they wanted to know, starting with the chief.

"They are really useless. Our dad just naps all day on a chair and watches the most boring channels on TV. And he never helps us out with anything. All he does is tell us to watch our language or to eat our dinner before he eats it. Our mom isn't any better. She is oblivious to what we're up to. She never noticed that Mike was hiding El in the basement and she never noticed that we were clearly lying about what we've been up to. She also pretends to be the perfect mom by signing up to be a part of the PTA or other shit like that, but she never participates or shows up to meetings. She also never went to any of our stuff, like Mike's science fairs or my plays when I used to be into theater. She liked to make up shitty excuses, saying that she had to go to a meeting or some other bullshit. Then when we came hone, she'd be at the dinner table with a glass of wine. Our parents never loved each other either, they married for money, Don't believe anything they say about being the perfect family, when really we're a nuclear family," Nancy explained.

Mike nodded. "They could've at least tried to be parents, actually help us out. But nope, they be useless piles of shits," he added. He was still angry about his mother ruining his only two memories of Eleven that was left. The blanket fort was likely still destroyed and he still had the pieces of the photo in his bag. That was when he spoke up again. "Hey, you don't happen to have any tape in here, right?"

Hopper gave him a curious look, "What do you need tape for?"

...

Mike was in the bedroom of the cabin on his bed. Nancy was in another room while Hopper was sleeping on the couch. They were both asleep, but Mike couldn't fall asleep, not after what happened previously. He sighed and looked down at what was in his hands. It was the fixed photo of him and El. He had used the tape to put the pieces of the photo back together again so he could still have one memory of El.

The boy sighed and started to tear up a little. He couldn't imagine what kind of torture the doctors were putting El through. Mike felt like the worst friend in the world for failing her like that, getting her away from him in just one minute. He should have done more to help her, he should've stayed in there to help her and get her away from Brenner and Owens. But nope, he ran and let her be taken away.

Mike held the picture close to his chest and closed his eyes, just thinking about El. His thoughts were her and only her. After a few minutes, he opened his eyes and what he saw made him confused. He was no longer in the cabin, but he was standing on a wet floor and it was pitch black. He was really confused and worried about where he was. Was this where El went whenever she was in the bath?

After looking around a bit, Mike turned his head to see what made his eyes widened. There was El, sitting in a chair and struggling to get out. He could see the pain on her face and how upset she looked, which made him tear up. He slowly walked up to her, breathing heavily. He could hear her echoing voice yelling his name, which just made him tear up more.

"MIKE! MIKE! MIKE!" El kept on shouting while struggling to get out of the chair. Mike kneeled down beside the chair and looked at her with a sad look with tears streaming down his face. El happened to turn her head and she looked like she noticed him. "Mike?" She said in a small voice.

"El?" Mike said. The two just kept looking at each other deep into each other's eyes. He reached his hand out to smooth her hair, but when he touched her, she disappeared into a cloud of smoke. Mike shot up to his feet and he started crying more. "EL?! EL! ELEVEN?! WHERE ARE YOU?! DON'T GO!" He shouted. "PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME! COME BACK!"

That was when Mike's eyes shot open and he was in the real world again. He breathed heavily and felt tears streaming down his face. But he also felt something else on his face. He reached up to his nose and put his finger against a liquid of some sort. When he looked down at his finger, there was blood. He started breathing more heavily and freaked out a bit. He quickly wiped the rest of the blood away, put the picture down, then buried his face into his hands.

Mike was just in the void, El was being tortured, and he had no idea what was going on anymore.