AN/

So just finished watching stranger things last night for the 3rd time and I still can't get over how good this season was. I think it's my personal favorite out of the three. But something I was a little sad to see was the three-month jump. I know this is what they always do but can you imagine all of the things we missed? The pain and sadness everyone had to go through with the lost of Hopper? So this is a series of short stories taking place starting from the night at the mall when the Mind Flayer is killed, up to when the Byers move with El. I hope you enjoy angst and fluff because there's a lot of it. ;)

We can be heroes

Max's crying rang out around them as the world suddenly went quiet, though the booming of the fireworks still rang through El's ears as she held onto Max, her body shaking as she sobbed into El's blood-stained shirt.

"El are you alright?" Mike asked again, worry clear in his eyes as she looked away from the still body of billy, blood pooling around him now.

"I-I don't know..."

Mike nodded and without a word he wrapped his arms around them, the images of what just happened running over and over in their heads.

"Holy shit are you guys okay?!"

They looked up to see Lucas running towards them, Will behind him smiles on their faces, but it fell a moment later as they stopped a few feet away from them when they saw billy's body."

"Oh fuc-" Lucas started but his words were cut off as Nancy, Jonathan, Steve and Robin joined them.

Nancy went to her knees and grabbed Mike into a hug before quickly moving onto El, "Jesus Christ, I-I thought you were going to…"

"I know," El choked out letting the older girl embrace her even if it sent a wave of pain through her.

Jonathan kneeled down next to Billy and placed two fingers to his neck. But closed his eyes as a pained expression crossed his face a moment later and stood slowly. "He's gone."

They were all quiet a moment knowing that already given his wounds, but to have it confirmed made it into reality. Made this all a reality, because it had all happened too fast so it hadn't set in until it was over.

El looked up then as soft roaring sounded from somewhere above them and it seemed to be getting closer.

"Mike," she said softly but in the quiet it sounded like a shout.

"What's wrong?" he asked looking at her but El didn't look away from the ceiling as the sound got closer and closer as seconds passed.

Nancy looked up then as well and slowly stood up and carefully took out the gun she had taken from the guard earlier. Everyone seemed to hear the noise then and looked up to the sky looking for the source. El felt her breath pick up as it kept getting closer and closer knowing there was nothing she could do.

Mike grabbed onto her hand and El did the same to Max as suddenly the world was flooded with light, the sound deafening.

"Helicopters!" Will shouted over the noise.

El covered her ears trying to block out the sound, her head already spinning from the hits she had taken earlier. Moments later she heard footsteps as well and looked up to see men in uniforms running in all directions, guns in hand. Suddenly a few stopped and pointed their weapons at them, shouting for them to identify themselves.

"Hey, hey there you mind not pointing those fucking things at us!" Steve said hands out stepping in front of them, acting as a human shield.

"What he said," Robin added stepping up to stand next to him as Nancy and Jonathan moved to stand in front of the kids.

"Id yourselves!" the man shouted again.

"Really? we need to ID ourselves, we're the ones that killed that ugly bastard behind us!" Steve shouted back.

The men simply cocked their guns, their faces set, "We were told soviet spies were here, so we need to see your ID's," one of them said.

"Look we've seen some shit this past week, with the whole finding a secret underground base run by Russians, gotten stuck in an elevator for a good 12 hours, walked god knows how many miles only to have the living crap beaten out of us and drugged. So I'm sorry we must have forgotten them we were running for our lives!"

The room went quiet as everyone stopped and looked at him with surprise.

"Get those guns out of their faces right now," someone said from behind the men. They did as they were told and lowered their guns immediately and there stood a man in his 60s, hair grayer then the last time they had seen the man.

"Dr. Owens?" Will asked, confusion clear in his face as it was for the rest of them.

"You're mother gave as a message telling me to get my ass over here, so that's what I did. She said the gate was being reopened under this mall and I see it was..."

He looked behind them at the body of the Mind Flayer, small fires around it from the fireworks, then he saw the body of Billy and his eyes darken.

"Can one of you show us where the entrance is and then we'll deal with the rest."

"We can," Robin said and looked over at Steve who nodded.

El watched as Robin and Steve left a dozen men following after them as Dr. Owens turned back to them. "I need all of you to head outside can you do that?"

"Yes," Nancy said, "But what are you going to do with that….the Mind Flayer... it's made of...people, people from Hawkins."

Everyone seemed to make a face at that knowing there was nothing they could do for those people now.

"We're going to burn it. Burn it to ashes along with this mall," Dr. Owens said calmly and El smelled it then, the smell of gasoline.

She looked over and found men with red gasoline cans throwing the amber liquid on the monster that had been the embodiment of the Mind Flayer.

"You can't just burn the whole mall down," Lucas said, "That's crazy."

"It's the only way we can be sure that that thing can't come back, that none of this gets out. The people who turned into the Mind Flayer will be reported dead in the fire. The base will be sealed and built over. No one will ever know what happened tonight."

"What about Billy?" Max asked suddenly, her voice dry from her sobbing.

Dr. Owens looked down at her with a sorrowful face, "I'm sorry, but we can't take any chances of anything from the upside-down escaping."

Max let out a breath mixed with a sob but nodded as Dr. Owens looked away and started for the doors and followed after his men.

"We need to get out of here," Jonathan said and everyone nodded in agreement. Max and Mike stood and started to help El up, taking an arm and gently pulling her up to stand. But as she made it to her feet the world started to spin and the next thing she knew she was falling backward.

"El! El can you hear me?"

El opened her eyes back up to see Mike over her, fear and worry across his whole face as she lay on the floor, her head in his lap from where he must have caught her. "F-Fine," she tried but her voice only came out in a whisper.

"Shit," she heard someone say and looked up to see everyone looking down at her leg and saw then that the bandages were soaked in red with her own blood.

"Let's get her outside," Jonathan said, "I think I heard sirens so maybe an ambulance is out there. El I'm going to pick you up now okay?"

El nodded, her whole body hurt to the point she didn't care anymore what happened.

She felt Jonathan slide an arm under her knees and the other around her back and she did her best to wrap her arms around his neck as he lifted her up into the air.

She bit down on her lip to keep the pained scream in as they walked but a hiss escaped her lips all the same.

"Sorry," Jonathan said quietly as they made their way towards the front door.

"It's fine," El said as red and blue lights cast over them. Will ran forward and opened the door and they stepped out into the summer heat of the night.

Fire trucks and firemen stood waiting around and El wondered just how much power Dr. Owens had. He never seemed as cruel as Papa but in return, he could end this town with only a few words said to the right people.

"Hey over here."

They all turned to see Steve and Robin standing by a line of ambulances.

They hurried over and Jonathan sat her down on the end of one of the trucks as Steve and Robin joined them.

"Jesus, what happen to your shirt?" Steve asked Jonathan. They all looked down to see blood coating his front where her leg had bleed.

EMT's jumped into action than pulling him, Will and Nancy into one of the trucks. Max and Lucas into another.

"Sir, I can help you over here," one of the male EMT's said gesturing for Mike to follow him into another ambulance.

"I'm not going anywhere," Mike said and sat down next to her and took her hand as one of the EMT's started cleaning her leg.

The guy nodded and simply grabbed what he needed and started to clean the blood from his face.

El watched as Russians were led out of the building in handcuffs by the army men one after another as EMT's handed out blankets and someone patched up her forehead.

Soon smoked filled the air as all around the mall fires were started and with the gasoline it didn't take long for it to burn to the point that the fireman could get to "saving" the mall.

"Miss I believe you're going to have to go to the hospital. The bleeding won't stop without stitches."

El looked down at the man who had just finished applying another bandage and saw that it was already red. "No."

"Miss you don't understand you have to go to the hospital and have stitches done or you could bleed to death."

"No doctors."

"El," Mike started from where he sat next to her, a blanket wrapped around them, but his words were cut off as Will got up, running pass them.

El watched as he ran and met Mrs. Byers in a hug.

El felt her heart lift and stood up then not caring about the EMT's objections and the pain it caused her leg and started looking around for hopper, wanting to hear what had happened. Lights flashed all around her bathing the world in purple as mist from the water hoses rained down around them.

As seconds turned to minutes she felt her heart speed up and a cold feeling started to creep into her. Where was he, where was he, where was he. El felt her breathing pick up as she met Mrs. Byers eyes, a silent question in her own. Where is he?

Mrs. Byers shook her head slowly, tears in her eyes as she shook with a sob and El knew why.

She stood there frozen, tears finding a way to her cheeks in seconds as her heart stopped. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. She stayed safe like he had asked the best she could, stayed alive but he wasn't here to see that. Why hadn't he stayed safe, why wasn't he here!

"No!" she said out loud now, her voice thin and small. Her eyes burned with tears as her chest started to hurt, as if someone was crushing her heart from the inside. She started for the building, she didn't care what she had to do she was going to find him. With or without her powers

But she didn't even make it even a quarter of the way when her leg gave out and she fell to the ground hard.

"El!"

Mike was at her side instantly helping her to sit up. "El what's wrong, you're crying. Is it you're leg?"

She shook her head, tears blurring her vision as she pulled him into a hug her body shaking. "He told me to stay safe, he told me to stay safe and I did!"

Mike held her as she repeated her words over and over again her voice getting smaller and smaller. He ran a hand through her hair as he looked up to see Will talking to Mrs. Byers, as she confirmed what El already knew.

The world seemed to slow down in that moment as he looked around and took in the scene. Everyone seemed to catch on to what happened to Hopper in seconds as they all heard Mrs. Byers, say those words. "He didn't make it out."

No one looked at them and he saw the tears in the eyes of the other as the light caught them and he knew he was the same. Hopper had been a lying piece of shit a few times, keeping El locked away and threatened him but he done it because he loved El and wanted to protect her, loved her even more than him maybe.

"El?" Mike whispered noticing that she had stopped moving now. "El can you hear me?" he asked moving her so he could see her face and found her eyes closed and blood running from her nose.

"El!" Mike shouted shaking her a little to wake her up but it was no use. She had gone so pale, to pale, like a ghost.

"Help!" Mike said his eyes going wide as fear made his veins go cold the way it had when he watched her turn that Demogorgon to ash and she disappeared with it and he believed she was dead. "Someone help!" Mike shouted looking around as panic started to take over.

Suddenly EMT's were all around them and the next thing Mike knew they were lifting her onto a stretcher and into an ambulance.

"Do you know where her family is?" one of the EMTs asked as he placed a blanket over her pale frame.

"Right here."

Mike turned to see Mrs. Byers standing there, Will, Jonathan, Nancy, Max, Lucas even Steve behind her.

The EMT looked over them all, an eyebrow raised but he shook his head and when on. "Only two other people can ride in the ambulance."

Mike looked over at them all and met Mrs. Byers eyes and without a word they got in.

"We'll meet you there," Max said, her own eyes filled with worry matching the rest of them.

Mike nodded as the EMT closed the door and a second later they were off.