Kate Hopper's life had finally gone back to normal.
With the summer after her senior year in session, she'd soon be leaving behind the horrors of Hawkins behind, returning to New York City in the fall.
Kate only tried to live in the moment as Steve...
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THE NEXT MORNING, Steve had been the first to wake up.
Steve had found himself, since his first time encountering the Upside Down, to have trouble sleeping. Before that night, he'd been fine. He could've slept forever if he truly wanted to. It had only gotten worse the second time around. Every night seemed to be filled with the most terrible nightmares. While some were just memories of what happened that night, most of the time, he had the same reoccurring nightmare: the one where he didn't save her. It had been something that had haunted him still now, but not near as often. Whenever Kate had told him about having the same type of problem, they'd both decided they would stay with each other at night, hopefully bringing comfort to each other. When it seemed to help Kate's nightmares go away, his seemed to disappear too, or at least for the most part. Even after all they'd done to try to protect themselves from their own thoughts, he still seemed to have immense trouble sleeping.
As Kate still lay in bed asleep, Steve only watched her. She had always seemed so peaceful when she was sleeping. She'd worn a tank top to sleep in, her scars showing on her shoulder that peeked out from the top of the sheets. He only found himself staring at them whenever she couldn't see him staring—he didn't think it changed the way she looked, but it was only his way of checking the scars on her skin without asking her about them. While they had healed over, the markings had left physical scars on her, the two most prominent being on her right shoulder and on the left side of her stomach, the emotional ones they had left still hadn't quite healed.
