Stranger Things: Return to Normal?

Once again- yeah that's a no!

Chapter 20: The Mission

It was 2am the night before Mike and El would travel to Texas and make a plan with Kali to take out Brenner the following day.

El snuck out of her house leaving a note saying, "I'm sorry can't tell you what is going on but we will be back."

Mike and El met at Mirkwood and exchanged hugs.

Mike spoke first, "We can just walk away, when she see's we aren't here she'll know we aren't going to do this"

"I keep telling you I want to do this Mike"

"El I really want you to not do this, everything we have worked for to get you a normal life will be thrown away; the government will know you are back and you'll have to hide again and we won't be able to see each other again."

"We are doing this together Mike, if I have to hide again I want you to hide with me."

Tears started to form in Mike's eyes, "Please El we can't do this, please lets go back home; please do this for me"

El held his hands and kissed him, "Mike we will do this together and we will win and we will be together, I promise"

Right as El said this Kali soon and she brought a big van. Kali hopped out of the van and greeted El with a hug.

Mike started to cry and El walked over to him, "What's going on?"

"I'm sorry El, I'm really sorry, I can't let you do this! I won't let you!"

Out of the woods walked Hopper and Steve both armed with tranquilizing guns aimed at El and Kali.

Mike's continued voice extremely shaky, "I'm so sorry I asked them to give me time to talk you out of it but you wouldn't listen, we can't let this happen"

El was in complete shock and didn't know what to do. Kali was also not expecting this but then Kali's squad got out of the van armed and loaded but were quickly taken out with tranquilizing guns.

Dr. Owens walked out and joined Hopper and Steve.

"Thanks again for the backup doc" Hopper said, "El get your ass over here right now!"

"NO!" EL screamed blasting everybody back but immediately after this El and Kali were hit with the tranquilizer's.

36 hours before

Mike was pacing back and forth in his room. The time was fast approaching for when he and El were supposed to meet up with Kali. Could he make a plan that would beat Brenner? He went over scenario after scenario in his head and they all ended one way, El's death. No matter what he tried in his head all he could see was El losing the fight.

Mike couldn't take it anymore, he couldn't be responsible for anything bad happening to El. If something happens to her it's all my fault he thought to himself. It will all be on me and I just can't lose her, I just can't!

So what can i do? Mike thought to himself. If I tell Hopper I'll be breaking a promise, I can't break a promise. I promised her I wouldn't say anything about Kali, I promised her we would take out Brenner together. I told her I would never break a promise, no matter what I said. What the hell is wrong me! I shouldn't be promising all these things!

I'm responsible for all of this mess. It all started with me not being honest about my nightmares and now here we are about to run off and get ourselves killed by the government. I can't do it! I have to tell Hopper, El may never forgive me but I have to tell him.

Mike went down to the police station to talk to Hopper about all this. He walked through the door and was greeted by Steve.

"Hey shithead what are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to Hopper, like right now"

"Ok come on back"

Mike walked into Hoppers office and Hopper spoke first, "Hey kid what's up?"

Mike looked down, he couldn't look Hopper in the eye, "Chief I have something to tell you, something about me and El"

Hopper had a suspicious look hoping it was nothing serious, "Ok speak kid"

"El and I agreed to do something, something we should definitely not be doing; When El saved me she didn't do it alone, she called her sister Kali for help in exchange for El to help her take out Brenner"

"What the hell are you talking about?! What sister?"

"When she ran away before she didn't just go see her Aunt Becky, she found a sister and when she met her she found out that her sister used her powers to kill the bad men. She wanted El to stay with her and help her but this helped El see that she belonged here with us; El wasn't a killer"

"And how the hell am I just now hearing about this!"

"El had me promise her, I am betraying her right now and..." Mike started tearing up "and I can't believe I'm doing this"

Hopper got up from behind his desk and sat down in the chair next to Mike, "It's ok kid, we will keep her from doing this"

"How? she will just run away, it's not like we can stop her!"

"I don't know I'll come up with something"

Mike and Hopper spent the next thirty minutes coming up with a plan but nothing seemed like it would work. So Hopper called Dr. Owens for help. Doctor Owens agreed to help and agreeded on a plan to help Kali so she wouldn't have to be a criminal anymore.

Mike also disclosed to Dr. Owens what he knew about Brenner and Texas. Dr. Owens was furious that Brenner was alive and still operating and told Mike he would do everything in his power to shut down the project.

The Morning after Kali, El and Kalis gang got tranquilized

El woke up in her bed the next morning. She felt like she was just ran over by a truck and it took her a few minutes to get her bearings straight. Then she finally remembered the events of the night before and she was furious!

She marched out of her room where Hopper and Dr. Owens were talking as they had been waiting for her to wake up. '

"Where is Kali?!" El shouted

"Don't you take that tone with me young lady!" Hopper said.

Dr. Owens quickly spoke up, "Kali and her friends are fine, but they have done a lot of bad things. Fortunately for them putting them in jail isn't an option. I'm going to try and rehabilitate them at a safe place outside of the country, that is all I can tell you. But you are lucky you have people who care about you and stopped you from your suicide mission."

El slammed her hand on the table and screamed, "I have people who betray me, who lie!"

"No! you lied and betrayed me El; we agreed you would be my kid and then you hide this from me and tried to run away, you don't get to be mad!" Hopper said.

"Mike betrayed me, he lied to me!"

"As much as I hate to say it he loves you El, if he didn't he never would have told me about your plans. You should have told me about how you saved Mike and I could have helped you!"

"No! I want to kill Brenner, I need to kill Brenner!"

Dr. Owens interjected himself into the conversation, "I tried to intercept Brenner on his way back to Texas but unfortunately your information was bad, I won't tell you where he is now but the lab in Texas has been quarantined by the government for a thirty mile radius. I'm still trying to figure out what happened there. After the events of the Hawkins lab I transferred to an internal affair department with the Department of Energy to try and bring accountability to the program but unfortunately I have not had much luck. I do know the government thinks you are with Kali but last night I reported an explosion of Kali's van and charred bodies so hopefully they think you are dead now."

El gave Hopper a defeated look but now her thoughts turned to one thing. Mike. For the first time ever she had nothing but anger towards him. She needed to see him. She needed to ask him how he could do that her, how could he break his promises to her. Not one promise but three broken promises all at once. She was absolutely furious with him.

"Take me to Mike, now!"

"I don't think so young lady you are grounded for 6 weeks! School and Home only. You will have to talk to him at school"

Right as Hopper was saying this Mrs. Byers and Will came through the door. Will saw that El was awake and ran over to her and hugged her, El didn't reciprocate the hug.

"I'm glad your ok El, I was so worried" Will said and right after that Joyce came over and hugged her, again El just stood there.

"What were you thinking?!" Mrs. Byers said.

"I'm sorry" El mumbled looking at the ground.

El turned to Will and asked, "Is Mike home?"

"Yeah Mike's at his house I stayed with him last night, he wouldn't talk to me he was so sad"

For a second El felt bad but then she immediately went back to being angry, he better be sad she thought to herself.

She turned to Hopper again, "I need to see him, I need to tell him how mad I am!"

Joyce spoke up, "Take her to see him Hop, she needs to get this out of her system, she won't be able to from just seeing Mike at school"

Hopper said, "Fine I'll take you to see him for 15 minutes"

She and Hopper got his truck and didn't speak a word until they got to the Wheelers and she got out of the truck and went to the door.

Mrs. Wheeler answered the door, completely oblivious to what happened the night before, "Oh hi El come on in, can I get you anything?"

"No, where is Mike at?" El asked with a harsh tone that took Karen by surprise, oh no Karen thought what has my son done now.

"He is in his room sweetie"

"Thanks"

El went up to his room and slammed the door close. Mike turned around and jumped out of his seat. Without saying a word El marched up to him and slapped him across the face as hard as she could.

"You broke three promises! Three promises and you told me no matter what you would always keep your promises, no matter what!" El slapped him again as hard as she could on the other cheek.

"I'm so sorry El, I thought about what I should do day and night for a long time and I just couldn't see how this ended any way other than you being killed. I couldn't let you do it, I just couldn't. I know I broke my promises and I never want to break another promise ever again!"

"We said we would decide things together, instead you did all this yourself; you got Kali taken away all your decision, you told Dad about her all your decision, everything you did was all you! How can I trust you again?!"

Mike was in tears, "I love you! I know we didn't decide this together but I told you many times we shouldn't do this and you just said you wanted to! I couldn't lose you again. I couldn't go on without you!"

"You are gunna have to now, I don't want to see you anymore!" El turned around quickly to hide her emotion which suddenly changed from mad to sad the second the she said that.

"No! El don't do this! I love you! I love you more than anyone else and don't think I could ever stop!"

"You have to stop, I can't love you anymore" El said quietly trying to keep her voice from revealing she was in tears. She ran out of Mike's room slamming the door with her powers and ran out of the House.

Mike was sobbing uncontrollably but he saw El out of his bedroom window and so he ran and opened up the window and leaned out and yelled, "Wait! El come back!"

Mrs. Wheeler marched up the stairs to see what all the fuss was about and opened Mike's door and yelled, "Mike what are you doing?" This startled Mike so much that he fell out of the window, because he was already leaning very far out of the window to get El's attention, and was holding on from the outside of the window with one hand.

Mike yelled, "Help!"

El turned around to see Mike hanging from the window. Mrs. Wheeler ran over to grab him and pull him up but the window closed shut causing Mike to lose his grip.

"Mike!" El screamed and caught him with her powers and ran over to him.

"El, please don't leave me!" Mike said and then El looked at Mike and started crying and came over and started hugging him.

"I don't want to leave you, ever" El replied.

Suddenly everything went dark.

A/N I hated making them fight but the circumstances kinda forced it. I think it more unrealistic that Mike would run off with her. Mike doesn't want El to go fight Brenner because it means going up against the government and then they would learn El is alive and she would lose her cover, it is completely in character for Mike to do what he did. El has been forced to do things against her will her whole life so it is completely in character for her to be upset about Mike making a decision for her. Plus he broke a promise. Three promises.

Teaser for The next chapter:

Chapter 21: Evil

As Mike and El were engulfed in darkness they found themselves in the void together.

"What's going on El? Why are we here?" Mike said while holding her hand.

"I don't know Mike"

A dark voice spoke from the distance, "Found you!"

"What? Who the hell are you? Why are we here?" Mike yelled into the empty void.