Chapter Nineteen: Merry Christmas

Cops, fire trucks, and ambulances filled the middle school parking lot. I sat in the back of one such ambulance with a blanket around my shoulders, and an ice pack against my eye. I watched from across the parking lot as Mike's mother hugged him, and I instantly wondered about my Dad, Joyce, and Will. Did they find him? Did they get out ok, was he alive? Are they still alive?

"Riley?" My head snapped up and I looked up to see none other than Steve 'the Hair' Harrington walking across the parking lot towards me. I furrowed my eyebrows, getting up and walking over to him.

"Where are Jonathan and Nancy?" I asked.

"They went to the hospital, they dropped me off to bring you back in Jonathan's car." He said. I raised my eyebrows. "Your Dad and Joyce are back. They found Will. He's ok."

I put a hand over my mouth, and it was as if at that point, all of the exhaustion, and stress, and emotion of everything that's happend over the past few days came crashing down at me all at once, and I stumbled towards the ground as I began to cry.

"He's ok..." I said quietly.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey!" Steve caught me with his arms under mine, holding me up as I sobbed into the blanket. "Riley...Riley, its ok." He wrapped his arms around me, tangling a hand in my ponytail as I continued to weep into his shoulder. It was really strange.

I didn't like Steve Harrington, plain and simple. He annoyed me, but in that moment, it didn't really matter if it was Steve Harrington, or the Demogorgan himself, I just need someone to comfort me, and tell that everything was going to be ok...even if it wasn't.

So I wrapped my arms around his neck and let him hug me, ignoring the fact that I would probably dry heave later thinking of this moment.

"Come on...I'll take you to the hospital."

~~~

Steve and I walked into the waiting room, and Dad stood up upon seeing me. I started crying all over again as he rushed over to me and pulled me against his chest, hugging me tightly.

"She's gone...she died killing the Demogorgan." I whispered.

"Shh, shh..." He pulled away, lightly grabbing my chin and turning my face to look at my injuries. "Are you ok?" 

"What do you mean? Do I not look ok?" I asked, turning around to look at Steve, who was the only other person in the waiting room at the moment. "I thought I looked prettier than ever, I'm ready to accept my prom queen nomination-"

"Shut up." He pulled my into a hug again, combing through my hair just as Steve had. "I saw it, Riles. I saw that place...the place you were trapped in for an entire year, I saw it and...you have no idea how proud I am to call you my daughter." I laughed tearfully, pulling away from him again and wiping my eyes before turning back to Steve.

"Thank you, for the ride." I said. "And the help earlier." He nodded.

"Yeah, it um...it was the least I could do. Look, about everything that's happened...in the alley and what I said to you in class the other day...I'm really sorry." I shook my head.

"Don't worry about it. You came through when it mattered. Consider your slate wiped clean." He smiled.

~~~

More and more people filtered into the waiting room until the thing was full of people just here to see what happened to Will.

The door opened and Jonathan came in, causing everyone to perk up. His eyes searched the room until they came to land on Mike, Dustin, and Lucas, two of which were laying on top of each other completely unconscious.

"Guys, guys he's up, Will's up!" Mike shook them awake and Lucas pushed Dustin off in disgust as all three of them rushed out of the waiting room.

~~~

I sat in Nancy Wheeler's living room a month later, my eye finally healed. There was a Christmas movie on the TV that, quite frankly, I wasn't even attempting to pay attention to. Nancy's Dad sat in his lazy boy, snoring like a chainsaw, while Nancy and Steve were curled up on the couch.

My eyes wandered to the empty space at the end, and thought about how if things had been different, Barb would be occupying that seat right now, making silent sarcastic remarks with her eyes. Nancy would tell her to stop before Steve saw her and Barb would smirk, turning her attention back to the TV.

Eleven would be downstairs with the boys, no doubt overwhelmed by all of the screaming and terrible smells that came with a 10 hour Dungeons and Dragons campaign. It would start to get late and I would take her home and probably start teaching her how to make Christmas cookies.

But unfortunately, none of this was true, because Barb was dead, and Eleven was...

The thought of this prompted me to look at the clock, realizing that Dad would be picking me up any minute. I stood up just as Jonathan entered the house. He made his way towards the basememt to pick up Will,  and Nancy crept upstairs to get the camera that Steve had bought to replace Jonathan's old one.

"Well HAIR-ington, I'm headed out." I said, smirking at the use of my new favorite nickname.

Over the past month, there had been an incredible change in Steve, and our relationship with each other had become a lot more civil...friendly even. Did that mean that I was going to stop ridiculing him though?

Of course not.

"Ha-Ha. You know, that gets funnier every time you say it." He said.

"I know, right? It just snowballs, and gets funnier and funnier the longer it goes. I swear, one of these days my sides are literally gonna split." He rolled his eyes, standing up.

"Before you go, I have a present for you." I furrowed my eyebrows.

"You got me a present?" I asked. "Why?"

"Because...I wanted to say sorry...again. For how I acted before."

"You know you don't have to keep apologizing. Jonathan's not even mad at you anymore. Heck, I would even go as far as to say that I don't want to punch you in the face again every time I see you. Its only every other time now." He shook his head.

"Shut up and open it." I smiled, tearing the paper off of the box. My smile fell when I saw what was inside.

"Steve, what the heck is this?" I asked, holding up the pink Barbie box.

"That my friend...is you." I raised my eyebrows. "Come on, she looks just like you! I saw her the other day and I thought, 'Oh my gosh, what is Riley doing here'."

"Oh my gosh, you really are a moron." I said, smiling in amusement. "I'm actually going to punch you in the face a second time."

"Do it, Barbie. I dare you." I shook my head.

"No...don't, don't start calling me Barbie."

"Its only fair, Barbie. If you're gonna call me HAIRington, I'm gonna call you Barbie." I rolled my eyes.

"That it, its official." He raised his eyebrows. "I hate you."

"No you don't," He said, "You know, I think, I'd even go as far as saying that you and I are friends now."

"In your dreams, maybe." I said, starting towards the door. He ran over, standing in front of me as I grabbed my coat, pulling it on.

"But seriously though, Riley...I really want to be friends." I furrowed my eyebrows. "For real this time, and not...not just because I want to get in good with Nancy, which if you'll recall, you called me out for the day I invited you to my party, and you were right. "

"I know. Its not hard to be right when it comes to you." I said, smirking at him.

"Seriously though, can we be real for a second?" I nodded, letting the smirk fall.

"Yeah, Steve, we can be friends." I said, meeting his eyes again. "Believe it or not...I actually don't totally hate hanging out with you." he smiled.

"I'm gonna hold you to that, Barbie."

"I know you will." I said, pushing past him towards the door.

"Merry Christmas, Barbie!" I sighed, pulling the door open and turning around to look at him again. He leaned against the door frame, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, smiling at me. I replaced my jokingly annoyed smile with a genuine one.

"Merry Christmas, Steve."I walked outside, snow falling from the sky in sheets just as Dad's truck pulled up in front of the house. I ran over, climbing into the passenger seat and grabbing the Tupperware container that resided there."What'd you get?"

"A little bit of everything." I opened the lid, surveying the contents.

"And you got the-"

"Yes, I got 'em. You only reminded me a thousand times." Dad said, shooting me a pointed look as he pulled out of the Cul-De-Sac. "How was the movie? Did you have fun?"

"Yeah..." I said, trailing off. He gave me a questioning look. "Its just...I got the thinking about Barb and Eleven and how they should've been there."

"You can't do that to yourself, Kid." I nodded.

"I know, its just...its almost like I don't know how to function now like...I don't know how to be happy or...normal  I guess, is the word."

"Well a word of advice?" I looked over at him and he reached over, tapping the box in my hand. "Seventeen-year-old girls typically don't play with Dolls." I rolled my eyes.

"Ignore that. It was a stupid present from Steve." He nodded.

"You two have been spending an awful lot of time together lately," He said, pulling to a stop on the side of the road and turning the car off. He turned fully in his seat to look at me. "Should I be worried?"

"What? No, Steve and I don't even know each other. I mean, we're just now becoming friends, and besides, he's dating Nancy still, remember."

"Right...because that's gonna last."

"Dad." I shot him a look, getting out of the car.

"Hey, don't look at me. Those are your words."

"I didn't say that, I just said that I think Nancy and Jonathan like each other, that's all."

"Well, newsflash kiddo, relationships usually don't work out if one person has feelings for someone else." I rolled my eyes, leading my way into the woods.

We walked a few feet in, weaving through the trees to make our footsteps difficult to follow before we finally came to the wooden box we'd left stuck in the ground with a stake. I wiped the snow off of it with my coat sleeve, opening the box and putting in the tupperware container full of food from the Police Station Christmas party. I looked up at Dad, holding my hand out and he placed the plastic wrapped bundle into it.

I placed the stack of Eggo waffles on top of the container before slowly closing the box and standing up, staring at it for a few moments. Dad wrapped and arm around my shoulders.

"She's a tough kid." He told me. "If she's out there...we'll find her." I nodded.

"She's out there." I answered, looking up into the woods. "I can feel it."

~~~END OF PART ONE~~~

So...I know we're nineteen chapters into a Steve Harrington fan-fiction that has like...no Steve Harrington content whatsoever, but I promise that's all gonna change in season two, so bare with me! Relationship development is coming, I swear!