Regular People [Elmax]

Chapter 13 - Wonder Woman

[Song of the Chapter: She Keeps Me Warm by Mary Lambert]

After a few hours of searching, speeding around Hawkins in their drenched raincoats, their shoes filled with water, they finally reached a road with a promising set of numbers. 1432, 1434, 1436. Max pulled the bike to a halt outside 1438. The house number was hanging from the mailbox and the front door was red, it was promising.

"Is this it?", Max asked El as she turned to look at her for confirmation.

El nodded and looked back at Max. In all honesty, Max wanted to kiss her there and then. The way she looked at her made it almost impossible to not want to. But she had to put all that aside, they were trying to save a life. El wasn't even thinking about that. As hard as it was, she'd learned to push all personal feelings and attachments to the side when she was out on a mission. However, repressing these feelings always resulted in an overwhelming surge of them later. If she wasn't so focused on the moment she could almost imagine herself cuddled up in bed with Max later tonight. But of course, that was something deep down inside of her that she was able to repress for the sake of someone's life.

They approached the door and looked at it for a few seconds. Should they knock? That seemed ridiculous.

"How do we get in?"

El stared at the door, a concentrated look in her eye. Suddenly, the door was unlocked and slowly creaked open.

Max turned to look at El once again, "okay that works".

Max entered the house first with El following very closely behind. They noticed some family pictures on the wall, at a closer look they realized that they were pictures of Heather, her mom and her dad.

"This is her house", Max said in a whisper, slightly scared at this revelation.

"What?", El whispered back.

"Heather's house"

They heard a woman's laughter coming from down the hall and followed it to the dining room. There sat Heather's mom, Heather's dad...and Billy.

"Max", Billy said, almost unfazed by his younger step-sister stood before him.

"We didn't mean to barge in", Max tried to explain as Heather's parents were giving them very unsavory looks, "we tried to knock...but maybe you didn't hear us over the storm"

"I'm sorry, who is this dripping all over my living room right now?", Heather's father finally spoke up.

Billy chuckled, "I'm sorry. Janet, Tom, this...is my sister, Maxine"

"Oh!", said Janet almost with delight.

"What on earth are you doing here?", Billy walked over to them, "Is something wrong?"

"We just wanted to make sure everything was okay", Max was confused by the cheery state of her brother. It wasn't like him at all.

"Okay? Why wouldn't it be okay?"

"Where is she?", Eleven demanded.

Billy and El's eyes met in an intense glare.

"I'm sorry, where is who?"

"Well, they're a little burnt, I'm sorry-", as if on cue, Heather emerged from the kitchen with a plate of cookies.

"Heather!", Billy exclaimed, "This is my sister, Maxine. And, I'm sorry I did not quite catch your name"

"Jane", El said plainly.

"Jane.", Billy stared down at El in an attempt to intimidate her, of course, it didn't work, "Now, what is it you were saying, Jane? You were looking for somebody?"