Three weeks passed, and Mike's condition wasn't improving. El spent every single day in that hospital room, laying beside him on his bed and trying to coax him to wake up, since one of the nurses said that even thought he can't respond, he can still hear her. Even when his family was at work, she was there.
"Mike...please wake up...I'm right here..." she whimpered, caressing his arm. She looked up and saw Karen and Nancy stepped in the door with Jonathan and Joyce. Will and Holly were at school.
"Hey honey," Joyce said softly.
"Hi..." El mumbled, still looking at Mike.
"How long have you been here? You need to eat take care of yourself," Joyce said and pulled a chair up behind her.
"No. I can't leave. The nurses say he can hear me and if I'm here it could motivate him to wake up," El said and wiped tears from her eyes.
"But you're going to hurt yourself by not eating or sleeping," Nancy chimed in.
"I don't care!" She shouted with tears pouring down her face. Suddenly there was a beeping and the machines were flashing red.
"Hey we need a doctor!" Jonathan shouted. They ran in and El jumped up off the bed.
"His pressure and heart rate are dropping! Check for signs of bleeding!" A nurse shouted. They laid him flat on his back lifted his shirt up. His abdomen was bruised and it was dark purple.
"He has internal bleeding! Get him to an OR stat!" The doctor shouted. They quickly rolled his bed from the room, several nurses and doctors joining. Nancy started crying and put her arms around her mother, who cried as she held her daughter.
"Mike!" El cried. Jonathan took his arms from around Nancy and grabbed El, holding her back as she screamed and cried, sinking to the floor.
"El! El it's gonna be okay!" Jonathan said. She fought against his grip until she just broke down crying and sank back against his chest. Nancy walked over and sank down beside her and Jonathan held both of them while they cried. They forced everyone out to the waiting room and El paced back and forth.
"Hey, now would be a good time to get some food in your system honey," Joyce said.
"No...no...no. If I eat I will throw up," she said, chewing anxiously on her lip. She sat down in a chair and tucked her knees to her chest and when she finally hide her face, she sobbed again. She felt like a fountain. She had an endless supply of tears.
"Please...please let him live..." she cried. After a while, the doctor came out, blood on her hands and her down. Karen and Nancy jumped up front their chairs and El clung to Nancy's arm like she was a child clinging to her sister.
"We were able to stop the bleeding, but he did lose a lot of blood, so we'll have to get him a transfusion. And unfortunately, he's still comatose," she said.
"Is he ever going to wake up?" El asked.
"I wish I had good news. But right now, we really still don't know. His condition is stable. No change in his brain activity," she said. El dropped her hands to her sides. She felt her entire body to turn to jelly.
"You don't know...if he's...oh my god..." El breathed, putting a hand on her chest. She suddenly felt short of breath; like the room was closing in on her.
"Mrs. Wheeler are you okay?" The doctor asked.
Mrs. Wheeler? What? El thought. Oh, right, she was acting as Mike's wife.
"He has to wake up..." El said.
"El, take a deep breath please," Nancy said.
"No...he can't...he has to..." El said. Suddenly her eyes rolled back and she fell backwards. Jonathan lunged out of his chair and caught her before her head hit a chair and he lowered her to the ground. A nurse ran over and put a blood pressure monitor around her arm and squeezed the ball until she got a pressure measurement.
"Her blood pressure is low," the nurse said. The doctor got a cotton ball and put some sort of smelling salt on it and put it under El's nose. Her head shot up and Joyce caught her so she didn't sit up to fast.
"It's been days since she's eaten anything. She's too worried to eat," Joyce said as she and Jonathan pulled El to her feet.
"Mrs. Wheeler can you hear me?" The nurse said, checking her eyes with a light. El nodded slowly.
"Okay. You need to take her home to eat. Or at least get her something from the cafeteria. You need to take care of yourself dear. You're no use to your husband if you're sick," the doctor said gently.
"Fine..." she said and walked off.
"I'll go with you," Joyce said.
"No, let me," Nancy said softly. She put her arm around El and they walked to the elevator.
"So the nurses told you he can still hear you, even when he's comatose?" Nancy questioned. It amazed her how Mike being in suck critical condition affected El more than her. But she understood, and she adored El. That was all there was to it.
"Yes. I never leave. Since they think I'm his wife, I'm allowed here, like, all the time. I talk to him and lay with him and tell him stories to try and get him to wake up. He never does," El said and bit her lip so she didn't cry.
"It helps, they say. It helps stimulate brain activity or something like that. Just...don't give up on him. If the time comes where we have to unplug him then...we'll deal with it when we get there. But we aren't there, so don't lose faith in him. I know he's in there fighting to get back to all of us. To you," Nancy said. El nodded and wiped her eyes as they walked to the cafe. El got a smoothie and a sandwich, but she could barely eat.
"We can save the sandwich for later. Will you at least drink the smoothie? For me? For Mike?" Nancy asked, taking El's hand. El felt bad that all of the attention was on her when Karen and Nancy could lose their son/brother.
"You guys are worrying too much about me. He's your family. You should be sadder than me," El said, sipping the smoothie.
"I am sad. I'm sad and terrified and heartbroken. My dad is too, but you wouldn't notice. And Holly doesn't fully understand. But you want to know part of why I'm heartbroken? Because of you. You need him. And you guys are so in love. So I worry about you a lot, because you two make each other so happy, and you need each other," Nancy said. El didn't realize she had started crying while Nancy talked.
"Cmon, finish that smoothie and let's go see him," Nancy said gently. El nodded and quickly drank up the smoothie so they could go back to Mike. When they got back to his floor, El took a deep shaky breath before stepping into his room. Everyone was sitting in there around Mike's bed, making small talk. El walked over to his bed and laid down beside him on the side that they didn't do the surgery on. She grabbed his hand-which thankfully was the one that didn't have the IV in it- and held it up to her lips. She was crying yet again.
"Mike...it's El...I'm right here holding your hand...just hold it back..." she cried. It was a heartbreaking sight. El felt her body go stiff when she felt Mike's fingers twitch in her hand.
"Guys! Guys his fingers just moved!" She said.
"El..." Nancy said and put a hand on her shoulder.
"No I swear I felt it! He moved his hand! Mike?" She said. She brought her other hand up to his cheek. Then his hand moved up his body lazily until it rested on top of El's hand on his face, making everyone gasp.
"Mike! Oh my god...get the doctor!" El said. Mike's eyes moved behind his eyelids for a few seconds and then they slowly fluttered open. He looked at his family standing in the room and his head turned in El's direction, a weak smile already on his face when he realized she was there.
"El..." he whispered.
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Mileven One-Shots
FanfictionJust a collection of {probably terrible} one shots about Mike and Eleven from Stranger Things (and maybe some Lucas/Max and Nancy/Jonathan). 🏅HIGHEST RANK - #3 in #mileven 11/1/21