Chapter One-Hundred and Twenty-Eight: Don't Let It Happen Again

~~~Riley~~~

We stopped again once we got closer to the cave, Max trudging along beside me as Holly held the telescope to her eye again.

"You realize you don't need your spyglass anymore," Max said, "Thats my cave."

"Yup." Holly replied.

"Also the cap is still on."

"Yup. Look." She handed it off to Max, who moved to take the cap off. "Cap on."

She did so, and Holly glanced at me with a proud expression. I smiled at her, beginning to look around on the ground for something we might've missed.

"Ok, it's very dark." Max pointed out.

"But not totally. You see that cut out of light? It's in the same shape as the cave entrance. What are the chances it cracks in the same shape as the cave? The cave we know Henry visited? I think the cap is a map, a map Henry made when he was young, a map that'll lead us to some kind of secret location. We just have to get the shapes to line up."

Holly took the telescope back, looking through it again. I grabbed her shoulders, leading her backwards so she wouldn't trip on anything as she backed away from the cave entersnce.

"And you think in this secret location, we'll find what? Henry's traumatic memory?"

"That, and a way out of Camazots." Holly said. "At least...thats my theory."

"I like it." Max told her.

"Thanks."

"There's one tiny hole in your theory though," Max added, "We're near the secret location, amd I've got eyes, and I still see absolutely nothing but more goshdang sand-"

As she said this, I heard a crack, snd the ground gave out beneath my feet. I shoved Holly away from me, and she fell forward into the sand as I fell into a hole, catching myself on the edge at the last second.

"RILEY!" Holly and Max screamed in unison.

"It's ok! I'm ok!" I called, looking down into the hole to spot what looked like the entrance to an old mining tunnel. There was a ladder to my right, so I slid over, putting my feet on the rungs.

"Are you sure you're ok?!" Holly asked, guilt and concern clouding her face.

"I'm fine. Not even a scratch. To be honest, I was waiting for something like this to happen, so better me than you." I said. "Are you ok? I'm sorry I pushed you so hard, I just didn't sent you to fall in."

"I'm fine. You saved me life," she replied, "...again."

"Better get used to saying that," Max told her, "The rest of us have."

"It looks like an old mining tunnel," I reported, looking down again, "Why don't we go find out where it leads?"

~~~Robin~~~Once Lucas and I got to the hospital, I was immediately caught up by Vickie, who warned me that the MPs were looking for me as a direct result of the stolen drugs. She started raving about me being in drugs or having some kind if deep psychological issues, so I had no choice but to tell her everything.

She was pacing back and forth in an empty patient room, and I sat in the bed, fiddling with my bracelets as I waited for her to say something.

"Vick," I said after a while, "Do you wanna maybe verbalize something? It's just unclear what your face is trying to communicate here. I know that it's a lot to absorb, especially all in one go. Monster and alternate dimensions, and I realize the drugging of the Turnbows was a bit unethical and-"

"Ok, stop, Robin, please just stop!" She exclaimed.

"I tried to tell you like, a million times-"

"No, you lied. And then you kept lying over snd over and over again, and I knew something was wrong-"

"I know, I'm sorry!" I groaned, putting my hands over my face and falling over on the bed.

"-busy day at work, call you tomorrow. 'Sorry, there was another crisis at the Squawk, I mean who works all night at a radio station?! Who is stupid enough to believe that?! Apparently me, Vickie, who-who is sitting at home, waiting for the phone to ring while you're off with your friends getting high!"

"Getting High?" I questioned.

"Come on, Robin. You are going through withdrawl."

"You have the wrong idea, I am not on drugs." I told her.

"Right, sorry."

"Just look at me!"

"You have been busy with your friends, one of which was very pregnant last time I saw her, hunting monsters! Agh, no, alright! Maybe you even believe it yourself, either the amount that you were clearly on, if you go cold turkey it can cause confusion, paranoia, hallucinations -Is Riley on drugs too?! Is she on drugs while she's pregnant?!"

"No, no one is on drugs and these are not hallucinations!" I argued.

"Ok...so let's recap, there is a dark wizard..."

"...Uh-huh."

"...who is stealing children..."

"Yep."

"...and putting them in a dream world!"

"Right."Her jaw dropped snd she put her hands on her head. "Vickie, the earth has split in four, the military has taken over our town, is what I'm saying really so insane?!"

"Yes! Ok, you know what? You wanna know what my face is communicating right now?"

"Yes."

"Anger but with a dash, snd it is a very, very reluctant  dash...of worry," she said, her voice breaking, "became as furious as I am with you right now, you are not well, Robin. And you need help, you need serious help."

I heard voices outside the door, and I told Vickie to hold on as I walked over to the door, cracking it open to see an MP talking to a nurse.

"Robin Buckley?" She asked. "Yes, shes here. I just saw her go into that room, right there."

She pointed toward me, prompting me to shut the door and lean back against it, turning to look at Vickie.

"Vickie, I'm so sorry..." I said.

"Don't-"

"But I gotta go."

"Robin!"

I rushed out the door, walking down the hallway as quickly, yet causally as I could.

"Hey! Hey, I'm tossing to you." A man's voice called. "BUCKLEY STOP!"

I was about to break into a run when another MP rounded the corner, cutting me off. I turned, looking at the one behind me.

"Where do you think you're going?"

~~~Steve~~~

I ducked into a supply closet on a lower floor, finding a ladder snd carrying it back to the hole in the stairs.

I was trying to keep a level hesd, trying to keep it together long enough to find the others...but in reality, I was terrified. ,y heart was beating so hard it hurt, and tears were burning behind my eyes at the idea of losing Riley again along with Nancy, Jonathan, Eddie, and Amber. I had just gotten her back, no thanks to me, and now she might be dead for real.

"What the hell are you doing, thats never gonna work!" Dustin said.

"Take Sara and go back downstairs. If you don't hear from us in twenty minutes, go back to the Cemetary and try to find Hopper and El." I told him, laying the ladder across the gap.

"What, no! Stop! Stop, Steve! Stop!" He shouted. "I'm serious, it's not safe! You're gonna fall!"

"It's unstable, I got it already!" I replied, grabbing the rungs of the ladder to try and stop my hands from shaking. I went to start climbing.

"Don't, don't! STOP!" He grabbed my jacket, pulling me off the ladder. "STOP BEING AN IDIOT!"

"I'M NOT BEING AN IDIOT, I'M TRYING TO GET TO HER!" I screamed.

"YOU'RE ALWAYS TRYING TO GET YOURSELF KILLED, AND I CAN'T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN!" He screamed, tears streaming down his face. I froze, not realizing the full extent of his emotions until thst moment. "Stop being so selfish, please if you go on there, you're gonna die, and I can't deal with it again! You can't die because I can't deal with it again! Don't let it happen again! Please! I felt it, with Eddie, and again with Riley, please don't let it happen again. Not you."

He wrapped his arms around my waist, burying his face in my chest, and I suddenly felt like the biggest idiot in the world. Everything Riley and Amber hsve been saying to me about him hurting snd trying to push me away, it was all true. He was angry at me because he was trying to protect himself if I die.

I hugged him back, careful to avoid squeezing Sara and putting a hand on the back of his head, over his hat.

"I'm sorry." He sobbed into my sweater.

"No, no, no." I said, hugging him a little tighter.

I heard a crash behind us, and I turned around as the stairs beneath the ladder gave out, the ladder falling through and crashing against the floors below.

"I know how important she is to you," he cried, "I know what you went through when we lost her, snd I'm sorry I wasn't there for you...but you can't keep putting yourself at risk for her. Not all the time. And I'm not even saying this because if me, it's because of Sara, she can't lose you. If Riley dies, you're gonna be all she has, she can't loose you too. You have to think about her now, you can't leave her alone-"

"I won't," I said, keeping my voice steady, "No, you're right, man, you're right. I wasn't thinking straight. I'm sorry."

This made him cry even harder, hugging me tighter. I felt SARS oit a hand over mine from where it rested on Dustin's back.

He was right. I was being selfish...because I don't know how I would survive if I lost Riley but...there are other people who wouldn't survive if they lost me. I never thought I'd be one of those people, so it never even occurred to me what I do to him every single time I throw myself into danger.

But that's a dilemma in itself...one that the past year and a half has proven to be true. If I don't at least try to save Riley...who will?

~~~Amber~~~

Nancy and Jonathan were standing on the table, yelling for help when it began to sink, forcing them to sit down in an attempt to evenly distribute their weight.

"We can barely hear each other in here, what are the chances they would hear us anyway?" Eddie asked. I shook my head, looking down at Riley. I began wiping the goo off of her cheeks as it dripped from the ceiling.

"What if she isn't ok?" I asked, meeting his eyes. "What if she doesn't come back this time?"

"Well, shes breathing, isnt she?" He asked. I put a hand under her nose, feeling her breath blow on my hand.

"Yeah." I confirmed.

"Then she's coming back." He said matter-of-factly. I furrowed my eyebrows at him.

"When did you start trusting her so easily?" I asked. "Back in High School it was like pulling teeth to convince you to hang out with us."

"Yeah well...I underestimated her back in High School," he replied, "She was friends with King Steve...and I underestimated him too."

"So what changed?" I questioned, pushing my hair out of my face.

"When they found me...back when everyone thought I killed Chrissy...I was so scared they were coming to turn me into the cops," he explained, "I was hiding in this boat, and I jumped out and held this broken beer bottle against Harrington's throat and...I mean I was gonna kill him, if I had to. Everyone thought I'd done it anyway, so who cares, right? So I'm standing there, on the verge of murdering her fiancé and Riley starts talking to me, and shes just...gentle. She was talking so quietly, snd...she believed me, which I didn't think was possible at the time. And then I let him go, and she made sure he was ok, but once she knew he was, she...she sat down beside me, she put her arm around me, snd...she made me feel like everything was gonna be ok."

I smiled at this.

"I'm glad she was there for you." I said. He nodded.

"I know saving my life should be the obvious answer, but it definitely happened before that," he told me, "She was the first person other than my friends who had ever been gentle with me...who wasn't scared of the person she was told that I was. Well, the first person since that red-headed girl I found crying on the side of the road."

I chuckled at this.

"You know, I hate to say I told you so, but I didn't tell you she wasn't like everyone else." I pointed out.

"Yeah, yeah. Well admittedly I was pretty selfish back then. High school hadn't exactly been kind to either of us, so...I wanted to keep you to myself in the hopes that it wouldn't try and screw everything up." He replied.

"Right...so much for that," I said, "Remember Halloween?"

"Ugh, don't remind me!" He said, causing me to laugh.

"So um...say we do somehow survive this," I spoke up, "Then say, by some miracle, we kill Vecna, end the quarantine, and we get to go back to our lives...what happens to us?"

He sighed, thinking about this for a moment.

"That depends," he said, "What do you want to do?"

"I would like to go back to art school...assuming they'll take me back after my hiatus." I answered.

"I mean, stuck in a mu,Italy quarantine is pretty good as far as excuses go," he said, "But if you're going to New York, then I guess I'm going with you."

"Do you want that?" I asked. "To go to New York, I mean?"

He reached up, putting a hand on my face.

"I want to go wherever you are," he said, "I've tried living without you, and I've gotta admit...I would not recommend it. As long as we're together...I have everything I could possibly want."

I smiled, when all of a sudden, a small object flew across the room, hitting Eddie in the eye.

"Ow! What the-"

I picked it up off the table, my eyes widening as I saw that it was an engagement ring. I looked up to see Nancy and Jonathan, their foreheads pressed together as tears ran down their faces.

"Are they...breaking up right now?" Eddie whispered.

"Apparently." I said, holding up the ring. He took it, turning it over in his fingers.

"I wonder..." he trailed off, causing me to furrow my eyebrows. He took my hand in his, sliding the ring onto my left ring finger, "Perfect fit. You and Wheeler are the same ring size, apparently."

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked. He smiled.

"What does it look like I'm doing, Sweetwater?" He replied. "I'm asking you to marry me...assuming we survive this."

"You're asking me to marry you with someone else's ring?" I replied.

"It's not like they're using it!" He exclaimed. "If we live, I'll get you your own, but if we don't...I would really like to say that, just for a few hours...there was a potential future in which Amber Sweetwater would eventually become my wife."

I smiled, grabbing his face and leaning my forehead against his.

"I think I would like that too." I whispered. He laughed, leaning in and pressing his lips against mine.

"Guys?!"

We pulled back, realizing we could hear Nancy's voice with perfect clarity. We looked around, the goo now to the level of our table tops, except instead of liquid, it had gone completely solid. The gushing had stopped.

Nancy stood up, placing her foot tentatively on the substance. It didn't budge, causing us all to laugh with relief. Jonathan looked at Eddie, gesturing to me.

"Did you just-"

"Yeah..." Eddie replied. "Is that cool? Was that a not cool thing to do? It just, it hit me in the face, so..."

"No, that's fine. At least someone will get some use out of it." He said, sounding oddly optimistic about the whole thing.

"Did you just-"

"Yeah," Jonathan said, "Mutually though. On good terms."

I stood up, walking over to Nancy.

"Are you ok?" I asked quietly. She nodded, wrapping an arm around me. I wrapped one around her shoulders, leaning my head against hers. Eddie and Jonathan crowded around us, all of us hugging each other oit of the joy of being alive.