Chapter Text

Stranger without You

Change is Scary - Season One Episode 7 & 8

"Carol, for once in your life, shut your damn mouth!" Steve released whatever pent up frustration his hair couldn't keep inside and Carol was done with it. She had been supportive for Nancy and then unsupportive of Nancy however the whiplash of Steve's mood was the last straw.

"What?" Her head tilted and her perfect curls fell in front of her shoulder but the most important part was her eyes hardening to ice. Even if they had been friends since elementary school, Steve was the nice one. He didn't yell. If Tommy was the shield and Carol was the sword then Steve was the heart.

She took the next few seconds while Tommy and Steve lost it at each other, not a new occurance but this felt different. This wasn't something silly, this wasn't Steve being mad. He was heartbroken. His voice sounded shattered and when he yelled at Tommy, Tommy sounded the same. Sure, Tommy's first reaction is pissed as hell but this is his best friend. They gave each other space and then one would show up at the other's house like nothing ever happened.

But this was different. Tommy was frustrated. Hell, Carol felt frustrated. Steve wanted some girl who was reaching. They had nothing in common and while the chick looked at Steve like he hung the moon, Steve was the one catching her. Then little Miss Perfect was cozying up with Jonathan Byers and blew off Steve. Lying to Steve.

Ridiculous and unacceptable. It was fine when Steve was so excited and so happy. Like a puppy. It was refreshing from all the silly groupies Steve had over the years but it mattered nothing when she smashed his heart.

It doesn't really matter. What matters is that Steve was already fragile from Nancy, got beat up by a loser, and now fought with Tommy. He was spiraling.

Carol broke out of her thoughts when the screech of tires faded and Tommy held her by the shoulders. "Babe," he caught her eyes and bent a bit to be on level with her. "What are you thinking?" He rubbed her shoulders and gave her a sweet smile.

She couldn't return the smile. This didn't feel right. Carol looked between his eyes and pursed her lips. "Something is wrong with Steve. Asshole comment aside, he relly liked Nancy. He seemed like he was getting over it but maybe this was the wrong route."

Tommy blinked a few times and let go of her shoulders before leaning back. "Where are you going with this, Care?"

She raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms, "I love both of you but that was a bit much. The guy just got cheated on and then her new boy toy beat him to a plup. Then he spazzes out. We've talked about this." Tommy scowls and shoves his hands in his pockets, looking at the sky before releasing a big sigh and meeting her eyes again for her to continue. "Can't get mad just because someone else is mad."

Tommy leans his head forward onto Carol's shoulder and wraps his arms around her waist. "It just isn't that easy." She holds him back for a moment before kissing his head.

"I know but this is Steve. His heart is bleeding all over his sleeve and onto the floor then he tried to stomp on it and we helped. I think he might have just needed a girlie cry on this one." She leaned further onto Tommy and they both hold each other up. She patted him on the back before leaning away. "Alright, take me home. I gotta grab my bike and hunt down Bambi."

"God, don't tempt me. They have been gone for ages, leaving him in that mausoleum." He put his arm around her shoulder as they started their trek.

"Exactly, so let's get a move on."

Tommy smiles as he watches Carol trade her tri-color windbreaker for a leather padded jean jacket and a biker helmet. She caught his staring and rolled her eyes. "Quit it. I gotta find him and you still haven't finished your paper for english. Which is due when again? On yeah, tomorrow." He raises his hands in an innocent gesture and backs up from her motor bike while she rolls it into place.

"Alright, alright. Don't worry, Mom, I'll finish my homework and get to bed to wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed. Pick you up for school tomorrow?"

She grins and leans forward for a kiss before she puts on her helmet. "Yeah, I'll let you know how it went with Stevie."

"See you."

"See you." Tommy watched as she sped away before locking up Carol's garage.

Carol had been all over town for hours looking for Steve and the last place she expected to find him was at the Byers' House. Of all places in the world. Maybe groveling at the Wheeler's but the beember sat at the Byers' driveway. Carol stared at it bewildered before she parked directly in front of it, perpendicular so Steve would have to smash her entire bike to leave without her.

With her helmet under her arm, she approached the door with her hand raised to knock. She would have knocked if Steve's voice wasn't hysterically yelling "This is crazy." over and over. Yet he was so Carol opened the door and examined the scene in front of her.

Steve darted to the phone and Nancy, who has a gun in her hand, yanks it out of his hand to scold him. Jonathan, who has a bat with NAILS in it, turns to her and the both have the same expression. Bewildered as if they never imagined seeing each other in this...situation.

"What the hell is going on?" she yells into the room at large and normally, she wouldn't mean it as much as she does right now. In what world is this real? Before today, she wouldn't have guessed this in her wildest trips.

Princess spins abruptly and points the gun at Carol. Points a gun. A GUN. If she was going to die, it wasn't going to be by this bitch. Carol clenched her jaw and ran at her, jumping at the last moment to not be in the sightlines. Her arm pins Nancy's wrist to the ground before her other hand pulls back to punch Nancy in her fucking face.

Except her fist is caught by her favorite idiot and he uses it to pull her off the ground. Both stared at Nancy as she scrambled to stand and backs up to Jonathan and point to the door. "You both need to leave, right now."

Carol tugs on Steve's sleeve to the outside and she whisper yells, "What happened?" He is hurrying to the car before he stares at her bike and then at the house with his keys in his hands. "Steve, what happened?!"

He spins to look at her with a wild, crazed look in her eye. "A monster. A real life monster." And he looks back at the house, with multi-colored lights flickering inside. "And they are about to face it alone." He glances at her one more time before he runs back into the house.

She can't fucking believe it but she trusts Steve. It doesn't matter if it is a zombie or a psycho man, she wasn't leaving Steve to be protected by only Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers. Practically leaving him to die.

Carol slaps her helmet on and the visor up before hopping and running back into the fray.

The fray where Byers is on the ground and Nancy is firing her gun at some twisted, no-faced naked man. Steve snatches up the bat to smack the thing but it was advancing on them to Carol's left. On the right, Carol spots a tall floor lamp and she yanks it to also pull it from the wall before bashing the lamp into the towering, pale whatever-it-was. It was advancing on Steve into the hallway and Carol remembered when Steve, Tommy, and Carol had been in her backyard and found a den of bunnies. They had pulled out the little guys and cooed over how precious they were before Carol's older sister had come to check on them. She informed the trio that the mom bunny would reject the babies and the babies could die just because they wanted to cuddle a real life thumper. Steve immediately had tears running down his face while Tommy stared in horror and Carol bawled her eyes out, asking her sister what they could do. That same Steve and Carol were flanking this creature with force that would have smashed those bunnies to bits.

Steve pushed back the creature with one large impact of the bat and Carol shoved her body weight into the bottom of the lamp like it was a spear to get it the fuck away from them. The creature stepped into a bear trap that was just randomly in Byers' house and Byers and Wheeler joined them in the hallway, staring that the grotesque thing. Jonathan immediately threw a lighter and the thing erupted into flames. Like a forest fire in California. Just blazing in the dark of night.

Carol was almost in a trance until the fire extinguisher blasted the fire and the creature disappeared out of existence. They continued to cough their lungs out and the dread of where the hell that thing came from made Carol grip the lamp tighter.

The lamp that is now less of a lamp and more of a malformed metal.

Carol leans it against the wall and looks back at the other three. They are still shell shocked, exchanging looks, and she breaks the tension with an attempt at casual "Sorry about the lamp, Byers, but I'd say it isn't my fault."

It did break the stupor but it also made Steve sigh and rub his face, hand on his hip. "Carol, why are you even here?"

"Can we talk? Outside?" She shoves her hands in her pockets and gestures with her head out the door. Steve looks at the room and the fear fueled fury leaves his posture.

"Yeah, sure." Steve leads her outside and he leans on the hood of his car. "You wanted to talk, so... talk."

Carol stares at him. Stve who is obviously trying to make her mad by both drawing a line in the sand and treating her like the enemy. She needed to remember that she needed to be the voice of reason. Forgetting that utter nonsense from inside the Byers' for a moment while they focus on them. "What was that earlier, Steve?"

There was a solid minute where Steve and Carol just stared at each other. The almost staring content didn't have the right feeling so she snatched the helmet off her head and hugged it to her chest, looking at it for a moment. Collecting her thoughts on the purpose, that Steve was trying to pull away right now and that Tommy and her just had wanted to help.

She looks back up when he responds and his gaze is less resolute and more like the resigned acceptance from when her sister said they could bring the bunnies to the vet and the vet could try to find them new homes. That the bunnies could never go back to how it was before they got involved in their lives. Carol just could decide if Wheeler and Byers were the bunnies or if their trio was.

"We are terrible people, Carol." Hard not to take that personally though. "Jonathan's brother is missing and he went looking for him and took some photos. Invasive, yeah, but he also had mostly photos of random forest. And we smashed the literally poor guy's camera. And we laughed. We laughed, Carol, and," He shoved his head in his hands and breathed deep and slow. She gave him a minute. He didn't seem like he was done and it wasn't like this was something new. The possible dead kid was but Steve mattered more to Tommy and Carol than any normal propriety and peeping Tom would. When he looked back at her, he almost pleaded, "I want to be more than that, better than that."

She didn't respond right away. This deserved the extra time. He wanted to change their whole way of life and they were in their junior year. They had been doing this for 3 years and now he wanted to bend over backwards for some losers to protect their feelings. It wasn't really an issue but "why?"

"What do you mean why?"

"Why the sudden change?"

"Being with Nancy made me see it differently. People are just trying so hard and popularity comes naturally to us and we use it to put people down. Nancy made me wanted to be happier. Stop making others miserable just to make myself feel better. Just feels pathetic."

Carol moves to sit next to Steve on the car hood. "Yeah, okay. You could have just told us though. You're our friend first before you're King Steve." She bumps him with her shoulder and he gives her a small smile. "You're such a sap."

She expected something witty but he looked vulnerable when he said, "Yeah." he moved his head to stare at the Byers' house. "Didn't really think Tommy would suddenly go along with that considering, well, everything."

Carol let out a slow breath, holding her helmet on her thighs and looking at her own reflection in the black mirror. "It isn't going to be an easy transition but it isn't impossible." Steve gives her a side smirk and huffs a laugh. "What? I can stop the verbal assaults and Tommy can cut the physical. He might need to join a hockey team though. Pity, I like his teeth."

A real laugh escapes him and he wraps an arm around her shoulders.

Carol lets herself feel the warmth of his side hug for a moment before she remembers what really started this all. "I had actually tried to like Nancy though. You know, because you liked her so much. That's why it was so easy to be such a bitch. She was growing on me and then she ditched you out of no where. I was being nice and then you get back in the car looking crushed." She leans her head on Steve's shoulder. "No one gets to crush you."

"...thanks."

"Anytime, Stevie."

After the weirdest explanation of her life from Nancy once she exited the house, Carol realized what she thought was a pretty crucial detail.

"Wait a fucking minute. There are a bunch of 11 year olds you were supposed to watch and just left at the school. And we still don't have any proof that thing is actually dead." It was a single heartbeat before they all scrambled to their respective vehicles. Gunning it to the school, Carol beat the cars there by cutting through the backyards she knew didn't have fences.

She spotted 2 policemen enter the school and she kept out of view until she could shadow their path in. She could wait for the others but no one was here and she might not know the kids but they were still just kids against random government goons. And neither of those officers were Hopper.

She dogged their steps until they began to walk away from what was the second freakiest thing she had seen that night. A glowing red hole in the wall covered in black webs that reeked of rot.

That then had a hand pop out of.

"Oh holy shit, what the fuck?" A young, shaved head popped out followed by the rest of a body for what looked like a normal kid. From Princess's description, this could only be one out of the 5 kids she could have possibly seen tonight. "Eleven?"

The newbie's head suddenly looked up at her and stared into her freaking soul with those dark eyes of hers. Freakish as hell. Wait, new leaf, new Carol, nice Carol.

"I know Jonathan, Nancy, uh, Mike, and-"

"Mike?"

"Yeah, Mike. Come on, we gotta go. There are cops and not the good kind." Carol started walking back from where she came but noticed that the kid wasn't following. "Let's go! Chop chop to stay off the chopping block." She started to walk faster and the girl raced to keep pace with her. When she grabbed Carol's hand, Carol froze mentally for a moment before she returned the hold. They increased their pace again and burst through the door to race to where she parked her bike.

Carol took the helmet from the back and secured it on the kid's head. She got onto the back before gesturing for the kid to also hop on. Her hands tentatively wrapped around Carol's waist but Carol grabbed both and pulled her tight against her and left her arms in a tight hold. She tied her own hair back with a hair tie before she took to the road again, heading straight home.

She checked the street and didn't see anything she could count as weird or suspicious. She brought them to the garage and quickly unlocked it to hide them both away inside.

Carol turns back to the kid who, she assumed since the helmet is reflective, stared back.

Carol got off the phone with Tommy after clueing him in on the ... everything that went down. Then she turned back to the kid that just got out of her bathroom in new clothes after a fresh shower. She looked less like an asylum escapee and more like a stupid kid with a stupid haircut.

"Alright," she started. "Police are on your tail and staying in one place is the surefire way to get caught." They kept solid eye contact but it seemed like any thought in there is starving for life. Not kind. Right. What would Steve do? "We can have this as home base and during the day, you could hide in the woods. Winter is coming soon though so we could probably hide you at Stevie's whenever his parents are out of town. What do you think?"

"Not Mike's?"

"It just wouldn't be safe." Carol squatted down on the ground in front of the kid with the nicest smile she could muster. It probably looked a bit sad though. She couldn't imagine not having her parents, her sister, her Tommy and Steve, or even her room. And Eleven never had that. "You guys got found at Mike's before and had to run, right?" She continued at Eleven's nod. "That'd be the first place they'd look. It'd put them in danger, you in danger, and, well, everyone in danger. Do you get it?"

She looked heartbroken and Carol felt guilty, she really did but it didn't help for the goal. If the kid wanted to live a relatively normal life, she'd need to hide first until it died down. Lay low.

Her phone rang.

"Perkins residence."

"Carol? Where did you go? You weren't at the school." Steve's distraught voice came through and she almost smacked her head with the damn phone out of frustration. She loved him but come on, he has seen spy movies.

She used her happiest, preppiest voice to reply back to hopefully clue him in. "Oh hey! Yeah, sorry. I meant to tell you I couldn't make it. Mom doesn't want me leaving the house, even just to do the project. What with the missing child and all. Do you want to come over to work on it?"

"Yeah." he hesitated a bit but as slow as he was, Steve wasn't dumb. "Sure, that's no problem. I'll be over in a bit."

Carol didn't have much experience with younger kids but it was safe to say she got acquainted with it quick.

Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan had shown up and they discussed that Eleven needed aa place to stay but it needed to be more like joint custody. Steve got her whenever his folks weren't home, Carol got her when they were but she had to stay in the woods during the day and crawl up the life ladder instant fire escape she kept in her room. The other kids also had to be kept out of the loop since they didn't know what the term silence meant. Sure, Will could keep a secret according to Jonathan but the kids don't lie to each other. Overall, it was decided Nancy and Jonathan could never host the little lab rat.

She couldn't in good conscience just leave the kid alone when she was over but they couldn't do nothing. She read magazines with her and then when she ran out, they read what books she had, and then textbooks. The kid was a hungry, hungry learner. A sponge for information and while it was kind of annoying at first, it was hard not to be happy for her. The kid lit up like a christmas tree every time she made a connection in logic.

If Tommy happened to be over, she'd work on her homework and he'd explain sports from the TV to her. That it was crucial culture information. It also didn't hurt that the people who did get caught by Hawkins lab (Steve, Nancy, Jonathan) didn't also rat them out. Carol and Tommy got to escape the silly NDAs but more importantly, they just didn't get watched like ants in an ant farm. They wouldn't say a word and get caught but the lack of lawful paperwork made it much less stressful.

They made it a solid 2 months before getting caught. A week or so after Christmas and Chief of Police himself found El. They almost didn't get found out but the group of teens had agreed once Eleven didn't go back to Carol's or Steve's that something must be really wrong. They had been calling constantly to see if she showed up at any of their houses but by morning she was still no where to be found and the lack of sleep was draining on all of them.

A final round of phone calls decided in an almost unanimous vote (Tommy thought no adults should be trusted) to visit the police station in the morning to ask for help.

They weren't happy about it but Hopper had been on their side to get Will back. However, no one could figure out how the lab figured out the kids were at the school. Nancy and Jonathan had both been so sure it had been safe yet the labs knew anyway. That left Hopper and Joyce. As much as Jonathan loved him mom, no one else was swearing her innocence so both were suspects.

It was both helpful and terrible that Hopper had immediately interrupted them in the beginning of their explanation. He was either shocked or incredibly frustrated that they hadn't told him right when it happened but he also was relieved.

Turns out he took her in but she was keeping tight lipped on where exactly she had been. Just that she was safe. They kind of screwed that up but if Hopper was hosting her and the lab hadn't already taken her away, it was a point in his column. Not there there were many since Carol had quite a few memories of running into the woods behind Steve's house to hide during house parties that had gotten too loud. According the neighbors anyway.

It left almost an empty spot in her room that she wasn't breaking out the futon every once in a while to sleep on and didn't need to pick up where she left off in the book she was reading with El. El had a home now.

Then Hopper saw Tommy and Carol at the market and casually mentioned that if they wanted to visit his cabin in the woods, they'd be more than welcome. Sounded honestly creepy as hell to any eavesdropper but he was trying to be sneaky. It didn't matter since Tommy and Carol immediately swung by the cabin before Hopper even got back from his own errands.

El had peeped out the shades of the house the tiniest bit before the door slammed open and she sprinted out to hug Carol.

Carol never thought she'd get a younger sister but she thought it could be something like this. The quiet, awkward weirdo that grew on her until she was their weirdo.

They stopped by again after that to drop off all of El's favorite things they had been hoarding at their houses. Books, clothes, stuffed animals that had been donated to the cause of keeping El happy. Even a few magazines. They never realized how much they started to prioritize her in their lives.

Honestly, it made it easier to transition into the not-so-terrible people Steve wanted them to become. They couldn't focus on what kid was staring at them too long in the hallway or what girl went sobbing out of class because her boyfriend dumped her since they had better things to do. Like plan who would have El the following week but now was when they were next going to the cabin and what they would bring.

One of those days where they didn't head to the cabin, Tommy and Carol had been on the swing set in his back yard. They were old and creaked like no one's business but they loved them as kids, and now. They were also perfect to watch the snow fall while under the shade of a big red oak.

It felt like the perfect day and Tommy had admit really out of the blue something he noticed. The flinches certain students gave as he just walked by, even if he didn't even look at them. That their flinch made him look at them and then it was even worse because they'd stand still in terror of what he was going to do. It made him feel like a rabid dog. While it felt great that he wasn't a rabid dog that was going to attack, it didn't change that he had been.

Tommy had perpetual bandages on his knuckles because he couldn't break the urge to punch something when upset but it changed from people and other people's possessions to lockers and walls. Still frightening the populous but not directly hurting anyone.

The wild thing to Carol was the shift it caused in Steve. Before, he'd have these cruel little smirks before they'd tear some freshmeat to shreds for thinking they could try out for the basketball team even though they were absolute horseshit. Now, he apologized to the same guy and offered to shoot hoops and help him practice after school.

It made people literally stop and stare as they walked past the gym during lunch to see Steve passing a ball with some rando as Carol and Tommy ate lunch on the bleachers. It wasn't a bad feeling but it was definitely new.

It apparently also made Carol more approachable. She wasn't sure where they had Gotten the courage but when she stopped going out of her way to mock losers in the hall, she somehow gotten even more popular.

Before, people would timidly invite her to parties since if she was going then Tommy was going then Steve was going then the basketball and the swim team were going and then everyone in school would want to be going. Now she was invited to study groups and band sessions and just to hang out.

She didn't really take them up on that but she was nice in the rejection. Nothing degrading even though it came so easy. She could taste the snipe on her tongue but swallowed it down. It felt nice to get so many smiles in the hall but also kind of disturbing.

She had been in the theater class since it was an easy art credit and the teacher actually encouraged her to audtion for the spring musical. Carol never really got attention from teachers. At least not good attention.

When she brought it up to Tommy, Steve, and Nancy when they next hung out at Steve's, Nancy was the first to pipe up. Under Steve's arm curled on the couch since they were giving things another go, Princess gave her outsider perspective on the trio's new attitude.

"Well, yeah. They didn't know what to do with you guys before since you were busy being terrors to society but now, you're like normal students." She shurgged as if that wasn't mildly offensive yet also true. "It has been all anyone could talk about that you guys are actually talking to people who aren't each other with real words. Not just passing conversation and not with just jocks or that crows but with whoever."

A bit mistifying.

They each branched out a bit with the relevation that coming down from the pedestal they were on wasn't going to knock them down. Tommy had been prepared for them to become prey to those that were once close acquaintances but other than the odd look, not much changed.

Sure, other people still messed around but it didn't happen around the trio anymore. If Steve caught sight of it, he stopped it. And if anyone tried to stop Steve, then Carol and Tommy stopped them first. The only time the old them came back out was then. They weren't going to start anything but no one else would either. It was almost peaceful if it didn't make it so crowded near their lunch table.

No one had the guts to sit at their table but they did overfill the tables around them since being caught bullying at lunch was a sure fire way to have the entire trio confronting you in front of the whole grade and then the whole school would know before the day was out that the royal court exacted judgement.

It wasn't the only change but the rest were more physical. Steve started getting nervous anytime a light flickered, radio static popped, or if he saw blood. He took up track and field onto his already tight sports schedule in the hopes to get out some nervous energy.

Tommy wasn't much better since if Steve got nervous, it was practically trained into Tommy to go on the offensive. He did get into a new hobby but Carol had been wrong when she thought it would be hockey. He convinced his parents to get a punching bag and had been practicing what he could from stances and some type of fighting moves he found either in the library or online.

Carol joined Steve on his morning runs since it wasn't a bad idea and it helped easse her worry about him being outsdie alone every day without any back up. Carol did also get into the spring musical where she had to, almost against her will, get to know at least 15 new people. Not just her cast mates but also all the techies when they were doing rehearsals to move sets and practicing blocking.

No one screamed louder than Tommy when she was doing her bows for their performance even though it was wholely unnecessary since Tommy and Steve went to every show. Steve's whistle was ingrained in her brain and she'd know it anywhere but she also could hear Nancy's laugh from the couple times she joined the boys and saw their ridiculous antics.

She also out of the loop on new self defense training but it seemed like it unlocked some otherworldly side out of her own father. She learned that not only had he done karate but also some sort of peasant eastern martial arts that used some sort of wood baton thing. He had been ecstatic when she broached the topic at dinner that she wanted to get some sort of training after what happened with Will Byers.

Her mom had been against it but caved as soon as her dad showed enthusiasm to the idea. He suggested Bojutsu even though it sounded crazy. It was just martial arts but it focused on using a stick with it since she was smaller that most.

Thus began their summers with crazy schedules full of visiting each other, visiting El, their own new hobbies, and late phone calls reminding each other that they were alive and fine.

Didn't matter much but before they knew it, the school year and summer had ended and it was a new year as seniors.