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Cassiopeia Turner had been numb. She'd been so numb that her fingers turned purple and her skin morphed from a warm honey brown to grey and extraterrestrial-like. She'd felt blood rushing through to her heart to supply it with uneasy pumps; not sure if it was worth doing so much work to keep someone so self-destructive alive. She'd been unresponsive in the back of an alleyway for thirty minutes and she'd felt her own mother's steady hands hold a revolver to her creased forehead, unseeing eyes staring blankly ahead. She'd lost people right in front of her at the peak of a high, but this, this was different.
This was the pain of losing someone who had truly wanted her to get better. Somebody who supplied her with a home when her own was overrun by armies of people who wanted the worst from her.
Her hands weren't purple; her skin wasn't grey. She had no physical evidence of loss, but it was everywhere she went. The numbness was suffocating her, it's hands around her neck and screaming at her with a nasty, throaty growl; demanding to be satisfied.
And she almost did. She knew the cure, she knew how to obtain it and she had gotten as far as the driveway until she vomited. Pure, burning bile that had clawed it's way up her throat as her only release. Truthfully, she wasn't sure why she had glanced over the dark windows, beckoning her to swing open the door and have a fucking party filled with whatever she could pop, inject or swallow and decided to numbly turn back around.
Steve Harrington? Max Mayfield? Eleven? Dustin Henderson?
She didn't know why or when she started caring. All she knew was as soon as their faces popped into her head, the thought of Steve sleeping soundly in his bed with the presumption that she's safe, Max mourning the loss of her brother and El dealing with once again being an orphan, another bought of bile rose guiltily up her throat.
Cassie had always been a selfish person. She'd had to raise herself, stealing and lying to get the necessities that a mother or father are expected to provide. So, raising her middle finger at the dark outline of her mother's home, she trudged back to the Byers' home.
After Will had disappeared she'd been wary of walking the dark, dirt road, but now she slumped down it with unseeing eyes, not necessarily fearless but simply uncaring.
The porch light was still on for her, she'd guessed Joyce had left it on to soothe her nerves after her 'late-night walk'. There was a lamp glowing, reflecting on the window through the curtains. Momentarily, her mind went to Billy Hargrove. He had been awful to her; he was racist, abusive and overall nasty. But did he deserve the fate he got? He had sacrificed himself for them, he was a broken person who traded his fear for anger. He was in a similar situation as she had been; same feeling, different way of coping.
She hadn't realized how long she'd been staring at the steps up to the door until a creak forced her eyes to snap up. "Cass?" Joyce Byers' voice was hoarse, eyes red and skin pale. Cassie couldn't imagine the pain she was in. After Bob, it was clear that Joyce was terrified of the consequences of love, but you'd have to be blind to not notice that Hopper and her had a deep love for each other.
Cassie trudged up the stairs, Joyce unmoving from her spot in the doorway. When she reached the mother, cold hands uneasily gripped her face, forcing her head up, eyes meeting with uncertainty. What Joyce was searching for, Cass wasn't sure, but she let out a sigh of relief over what she had found, covering it up with a genuine, albeit small and broken, smile.
"I'm glad you're alright."
Cass wasn't completely sure how she had the strength to be glad about anything, but she assumed it was a normal motherly instinct to put others before yourself. Without realizing it, her bottom lip had started quivering, the older woman's facade fading slowly, gently leading her inside and into her arms. The top of the younger girl's head was tucked under Joyce's chin, arms tight and shaky. Long, slender fingers ran through Cassie's hair, her eyes were screwed up so tight that she saw stars, hot tears streaming down her cheeks, as sobs raked over her body.
"I know, baby," Joyce's shaking whispers did nothing to soothe her, her own tears falling for the first time since the parking lot. "I know."
They stayed like that until Joyce forced her to sleep, sniffles retreating down the hallway with her, leaving her in the dimly lit living room. A pile of covers on a makeshift bed on the floor hid El's body, but the small shudders from the small girl underneath confirmed that she was, indeed, awake. Without a word, Cass slumped to the floor beside her, staring unblinking at the small speckles of brown on the ceiling. She wondered if it was her blood, Steve's, or Billy's.
A small arm shifted to rest on top of her stomach, the body under the blankets shifting closer until El's head lay on her abdomen next to it. Cass's right hand lifted, repeating Joyce's action of soothing out the younger girl's hair, but she didn't really know who was comforting ho in that moment.
"What happens when our mission here is over, Cass?" El's soft question caused the older girl's bottom lip to wobble again. But, she didn't allow herself to cry, Eleven needed her to be strong and Cassie needed to be better than her mother. A small smile flinched its way onto her lips, thinning them out slightly.
"My mom used to tell me that we became stars again." Cass answered softly and truthfully. Before her mother became sick with addiction, she had told Cassie wonderful stories about how all life comes from the galaxies, and when you die you return home. The people you knew and love are just stars in your connected constellation and when you return back to Earth again, your one mission is to find each other once more.
"Stars?" El whispered faintly, her breath fanning out over Cass's hand. The small amount of hope in her voice was enough to keep Cass going.
"Yeah, El," Cass hoped the younger girl didn't hear the break in her small words, emotion flooding through her system once more. "We started out as stars, way before we were born. All of us must've been in the same constellation, creating a beautiful picture to light up the sky with the people we love. We'll return there again, once we've all finished our jobs here. Me, you, Will, Mike, Lucas, Steve, Joyce, Dustin, Max," Cass hesitated, afraid she'd breakdown just saying it. "Hopper, too. He's up there waiting for us to be done here, shining up there just for you."
Eleven's sniffles had stopped, her eyes intent on the small crack in the curtains, staring at what she could see of the night sky. "Where?"
"The brightest star you can see. That's where he is right now. He'll shine so bright for you, El, just to let you know that he's alright."
El seemed to like this whole concept, her body relaxing considerably, letting her fatigue take over. "Everyone's up there?"
Cassie smiled fondly, "That's why there's so many stars." Eleven spoke softly, her eyes still sleepily focused on the sliver over moonlight through the drapes. "Will you look for him with me? When it's not cloudy?"
Cassie felt tears well in her eyes, but her mouth struggled to smile despite it, happy she could allow some sort of relief into Eleven's life. The small girl had been through so much as such a young age and if the least she could do was provide her with even a small bit of hope then she'd look up at the stars with her until her neck aches.
