010 / Billy Hargrove

Six - Home

Ten looked at the house that stood before her, it was small yet it reminded her of a word she would soon be familiar with: home. The party disbursed after ordering pizza and catching each other up on life. They'd ask Ten to use her powers but she still felt weak, she'd always feel weak after coming down from the shots the lab gave her. Jonathan and Nancy dropped off the rest of the gang and went their separate ways. It was only Jon, Will, and Ten now. It was now dusk, a whisper of a wind picked up and the sky was an orange shade.

The kids got out of the car, "Well this is home," Jonathan spoke with a genuine smile on his face, "it's not a lot, but it's ours." He continued, pride laced in his voice. "What's home?" Ten wondered. The boys looked at each other with confusion until Will spoke up, "It's where you live, you know? It's where you feel protected and where your family is?" He tried his best to explain it, but found difficulty doing so with such a simple word. Ten got the basic gist of it though and nodded. She liked that word, home.

"This is home now." She stated as both boys smiled. "Yeah, it is." Will nodded. The group walked inside of the house, Jonathan announcing their arrival. "Okay honey! Do you thin-" a small woman entered the living room, she stopped and stared at Ten. She suddenly felt shy from her gaze and hid behind Jonathan, who smiled. "Uhh mom, this is Ten. Ten, this is our mom and her name is Joyce. You don't need to hide from her." Ten poked her head out and looked at Joyce, she had a confused, yet ecstatic look on her face. "Is she- is she like..." Joyce trailed off. She walked closer to Jon and Ten, who felt less defensive. "Yeah, she's her sister Mom." Will smiled. "Oh my gosh honey! Please don't feel scared, I won't bite!" Joyce laughed at her own joke, "Are you hungry sweetie? You can sleep on my bed tonight and I'll give you a pair of my pajamas. Oh my gosh, we have a girl in the house!" Ten's cheeks blushed a dark red. She wasn't used to such kindness, all of this added to the feeling of home. Joyce pulled Ten into a hug, Ten didn't know what to do with her arms at first, but she understood that this was a sign of affection. Joyce pulled away and walked towards the couch, motioning Ten and her boys to sit as well. As the group sat down Joyce began asking questions, "So you're from the Hawkins Lab I assume? I didn't know they still had experiments there..."

"Yes and no. I lived there before base." Ten revealed. The group looked at each other, then back at Ten. "Where was the base? Why were you taken there?" Jonathan asked. "Base called Area 5-1. Better powers there." Wills mouth dropped, "Dude! You lived at Area 51?! Did they have aliens there?" He chirped, his excitement showing. Ten gave them a puzzled look, "No aliens? Only humans and no-nose men. And shithead General Cooper, he is evil man." She shuddered at the thought of Cooper, his boring green eyes at the back of her mind. "Okay, we'll get back to the noiseless men part, what did they do to you there?" Will continued as Ten shifted uncomfortably. "Bad things..." she murmured, "I killed men with mind powers, I hurt them. But bad men hurt me too. They gave shots with "LSD" to help powers, but it hurt me. They put me in isolation, no powers for months. I hurt myself there..." a tear rolled down her cheek. She brought her knees to her face and Joyce put an arm around her, "It's okay sweetie, we won't ever do those things to you, okay?" She reassured the small girl. "Yeah, and If they come looking for you we'll fight them off! Will assured while making a finger gun. She giggled at his protectiveness and smiled. "So if you're from the labs, how do you have hair?" Jonathan asked, "I do not!" Ten said as she took off the wig, all of their eyebrows raised collectively. Joyce's mouth went to an 'O' shape. She laughed at their expressions and put her wig back on, the 010 tattoo noticeable to the Byers.

"So Ten, what were you saying about the noseless men?" Will asked excitedly.

_______

Ten

"So sweetie, do you want us to call you Ten or do you wanna choose a new name?" Joyce asked me as she tucked me into her bed. I liked that she called me sweetie a lot, it made me feel like I had an actual mom. I thought about it, I didn't know any girl names besides Joyce and Nancy, and Farrah Fawcett of course.

"I don't know names." I said sheepishly, I felt embarrassed that I didn't know something basic. She pursed her lips together and thought for a second. "You know, when I was pregnant with Jonathan and Will I secretly wanted it to be a girl, I've always liked the name Crystal, or Nina, Jade, Opal, Heather, Veronica..." Joyce trailed off. "Veronica, I like that name!" I beamed. "Okay, your name is Veronica Byers. If anyone ask you, you're visiting from Chicago and you're my niece." She explained to me. "What's Chicago, and what's niece?"

A/N: okuuur so I made a playlist for this on Spotify! It's mainly music from the show, synthwave, and lofi hehe. Im gonna make another one but it's gonna have more various artist in it? Billy's in the next chapter!