Chapter Text
Friday March 9, 1990
Nancy woke with a start, the noise of the train screeching to a halt cutting through the sound of her usual travel companion’s soft snoring. She normally didn’t understand how Steve could sleep so soundly in the bustling commuter carriage of the Amtrak, but after one too many all-nighters that week, sleep had claimed her easily. Once her eyes had adjusted to the bright afternoon light coming in through the windows and the cool grey of 30th Street Station took shape before her, Nancy nudged him awake.
“Steve, we’re here,” she said quietly, watching his eyes flutter open and a look of confusion spread across his face as he remembered where he was.
“What time is it?” he asked, one eye squinting in the blinding sunlight.
As if he’d asked the whole carriage, the conductor came over the announcement system:
“We’ve arrived at 30th Street Station, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, local time 2:26 pm”.
The rest of the announcement was interrupted by the shuffle of passengers moving to gather their belongings. The pair didn’t care, they had heard it enough times already. The group of friends had ambitiously agreed to meet in Philly once a month, and while they had held true to their word for the first few hangouts, the eleven hour train ride from Hawkins to the city proved to be more daunting than they’d initially anticipated. Every month quickly turned into every other, and every other quickly turned into “there’s always the summer”, but this was the weekend of Robin’s twenty-first birthday and the three others would not miss it for the world.
“Nance! Steve!” Jonathan's voice rang out across the parking lot once they made their way out.
Nancy dropped her bags and ran right to him, feeling her feet lift from the ground as his arms wrapped around her. She loved him, she really did. The longer they spent apart the more easily the feeling came to her. The two broke apart as Steve hobbled over to them, weighed down by the bags Nancy ditched as well as his own.
“What the hell did you pack? This thing’s like a boulder.” Steve was hunched over now trying to catch his breath as Jonathan loaded their luggage into the car.
“I hate to say he’s right but this is kind of ridiculous, Nance.” Jonathan winced as he picked her bag up and hauled it into the trunk of his sedan.
“I don’t know Steve, maybe it’s the four cases of beer that didn’t fit into your suitcase.” She said it with just the right amount of sarcasm to mask the fact that she was actually rather upset that she’d sacrificed her hair dryer to ensure the group could get as inebriated as possible for the special occasion.
***
The drive to Robin’s uncle’s house was quiet and Nancy appreciated it. She ignored The Clash cassette that was playing just above the sound of the engine. She might have loved Jonathan but she still hated Joe Strummer’s voice. Her forehead gently hit the passenger window as they rolled over every small bump in the road. There was no telling if the damp chill of the window was waking her up or luring her back to sleep. She glanced down to the floor of the passenger seat and her eyes landed on a copy of The Boston Herald with her name printed in small letters behind a long list of others.
“Don’t tell me you read that.” She broke the silence.
“Fine, I didn’t read it,” Jonathan responded.
“That article was terrible, they had us following this bullshit story for weeks even though there are real stories that need to be told and I just—”
“Nance, it wasn’t that bad.”
“Well it wasn’t that good either.” She watched the tree line as it swirled past the window.
“Are you always going to be this hard on yourself?” She didn’t bother glancing in the direction of the driver’s seat.
“Yeah Nance! If you’re looking for bad writing you should see what some of these kids are writing about the reproductive system.” Steve patted her shoulder from his spot in the backseat and Nancy took a long breath in. Just for this weekend she didn’t want to think about her job, or whether or not she could still think hard enough to write a sentence, or what kind of fake sugar her boss wanted in his coffee.
When she took the trainee position last year she’d assumed that the ladder would’ve been easier to climb. She’d spent the greater part of the year holed up in her one bedroom Boston apartment, drowning in stacks of papers smothered in words that she hadn’t even cared about writing. By the time winter rolled around she’d found herself back home in Hawkins any chance she’d get. She’d say she was just checking in but everyone knew that wasn’t entirely true. Nancy made it a habit of going home right before every Philadelphia meet up, not wanting to travel alone. She had enough time to think in silence in the office, and she found that eleven hours on a train with Steve Harrington was much better than five hours alone with herself.
When they had finally made it up the winding driveway, Robin was waiting for them with a smile plastered across her face. She practically tackled Steve to the ground when he stepped out of the car only pulling back to hand him a bottle of mystery alcohol that she had been holding in anticipation for her friend’s arrival.
“Happy birthday Robin.” Jonathan pulled her into a quick hug.
“Nope! Not my birthday yet. I would like to savor these last few hours of underage drinking, thank you.” The blush that appeared across the bridge of Robin’s nose revealed that she hadn’t wasted any time trying to complete her goal.
“Cheers to that.” Nancy stole the bottle from Steve and took a long sip before pulling Robin into a hug herself.
“Nancy Wheeler, jeans on the train again? Just when I thought you started letting loose in Boston.” Robin teased her. Nancy rolled her eyes but it didn’t hide her smile. She had missed this. All of her people in one place.
When Robin had offered her uncle’s house as their monthly rendezvous point she had drastically understated the true size of the place. The house was situated right on a lake with a driveway surely long enough to be considered a marathon, Nancy thought. The massive white house looked almost comically large in comparison to the four of them standing outside of it. Its brick accents and perfectly shaped bushes that lined its perimeter gave it a certain charm. Robin’s uncle was rarely ever home, always away on whatever business funded such a house. Of course this was the most perfect set of conditions that their monthly hangout could occur under, if you asked any of the group lingering in the driveway.
They made their way inside, dropping their bags in their respective rooms. There were enough spare bedrooms for each of them to have their own space for the weekend, but they found there was nothing like ending up asleep in the basement all together. It was to Jonathan’s greatest dismay that Robin’s uncle had recently gotten his basement finished, meaning he’d have to find another location to kill off the victims in his anti-capitalist film. The rest of the group found it exciting. The walls of the basement were panelled with dark wood, electric guitars adorned the walls—some signed, some not—and a pool table took center stage right in the middle of the room. There was a bar in the far corner of the room and a pull out couch really only meant to fit two in the other, but they were fantastic at improvising. Steve had only passed out on the pool table on a handful of occasions.
“I want to hear everything, what’s everyone been up to?” Robin inquired cheerfully as she passed drinks out to her friends that were now all situated around the bartop. She pressed play on the radio while she waited for an answer, letting Tom Petty fill the room.
“Henderson told me that he almos—” Steve started.
“You guys, Harrington, I mean you guys” Robin interrupted him.
“I’m almost done with my script for The Consumer.” Jonathan chimed in.
“Did you scrap the boiler room idea?” Nancy asked, glancing around the basement.
“Not entirely but I am going to have to rework it.”
“Well maybe it would make more sense for her to have a rich person's basement, anyway” Steve added. “You know, since she’s a consumer and everything.” They all broke into laughter at his ridiculous suggestion.
“Yes! And then the end credits can roll and “Material Girl” should play!” Robin made herself laugh harder.
“No, no, no, hear me out….What if you had Madonna play the consumer?” Steve and Robin both doubled over at this.
“You two should just rewrite the script, save me the work.” Jonathan joked as he sipped his drink.
“Well I’ve personally been stuck in the group project from hell with not one but two girls who I’m not entirely convinced know how to read or write.” Robin started her own story.
Nancy’s mind wandered off. She realized that she didn’t necessarily have anything to report on. What was there to mention? The field research that had left her so burnt out each week that she spent her weekends alone in her bed or the money she’s blown on plane tickets back to Indiana when her apartment gets too quiet?
“Little league is starting back up next week, I think it might be our year, those kids work so hard and they deserve the win.” Steve was beaming. He always was when his students were mentioned. The rest of the group caught his infectious smile, it was impossible not to.
“Are they old enough to start tackling each other this season?”
“Robin, he coaches baseball.” Nancy looked at her, puzzled.
“Hey, the saying only mentions ‘crying’, they never said anything about no tackling, plus I want to know if it’s worth showing up to a game.” Robin answered, chasing her sentence with a sip of her drink. Her hair was half pulled back and her sweater was practically swallowing her whole. Nancy always admired the way clothes hung off of Robin like they were made for her.
“What about you Wheeler?” She asked Nancy.
“Nothing new, really.” she looked down at her feet.
“Come on, there can’t be nothing.” Jonathan prodded.
“Boston had that huge molasses flood, what about that?” Steve asked.
“I fucking knew it! You’re seeing the new history teacher!” Robin exclaimed. Sometimes it was scary how close the two of them were.
“I am not ‘seeing’ the history teacher, it was a one time thing and I—” There was no use.
“One time and she was so bored that she brought up the Boston Molasses Flood? God Steve, you've lost your charm.” Robin teased him.
"Even if I started another flood myself I doubt they’d let me be the one to write about it.” Nancy finally added.
“Nance, what about that article you were working on last time? Something about the Governor?” Jonathan asked her, hopefully.
“They gave the story to someone else, it ended up being a really big deal.” Nancy chewed on her lip and hoped someone else would take over the conversation again.
“Nancy, you hate that job.” Robin said bluntly.
“I don’t hate it, I’m just…just—” Nancy struggled to find the right words because there were none. She did hate her job.
“You know, Smith has a journalism program, and I have an empty room in my apartment next year.” Robin was searching Nancy’s eyes for any indication that she was truly hearing her.
“I don’t know, I don’t want to give up so easily and the opportunities at the Herald are incredible, really I should just be lucky I got the position.”
“We have taken down evil Russians, and interdimensional monsters, and collapsed a wormhole in on itself but change is where you draw your line?” Robin’s speech was becoming just a little slurred, and a lot more honest.
“I’m not scared of change, I just think that I should stick it out for a little while longer and—”
“And be miserable and alone in Boston instead of coming with me to the magical town of North Hampton, Massachusetts?” Robin was right, Nancy knew she was.
“Maybe.” She replied.
“That’s not a no! I will take a maybe!”
Nancy knew Robin would take a maybe.
***
They spent the rest of the day catching up and playing rounds upon rounds of beer pong in the massive dining room. Each round someone new had claimed Nancy as their partner. She went undefeated the whole night, as she always did. It wasn’t long before they ended up in the living room reminiscing on their days in Hawkins. They often danced around the obvious, all too scared to fully bring up what happened on that final night when they closed the gate.
By the end of the night everyone had consumed their fair share of whatever alcohol Robin continued to hand them. Music still played loudly over the stereo in the living room, but it only served as a background for their quiet conversation. Nancy’s head felt light and her face felt warm. Jonathan and Steve had taken to drunkenly wrestling in the large open space next to the couch and Nancy sat down beside Robin. She too was only half awake, but didn’t want the evening to end. Nancy laid her head on Robin’s shoulder, as the room spun ever so slightly. She closed her eyes and hoped the spinning would stop.
“Nance?” Robin whispered to her.
“Robin?” She whispered back, eyes still closed.
“I meant what I said earlier.”
Nancy was silent for a moment. She opened her eyes and turned to Robin.
“Come to Smith, Nance.”
“Don’t stay in Boston, come with me.” She pleaded.
“Maybe.” Nancy maintained, even as the world spun around her.
“Give me a month, I can be very persuasive.” Robin promised her.
Nancy let her head fall back onto Robin’s shoulder, hoping someone would suggest heading to bed soon.
***
When Nancy woke up again she was still on the couch, and Robin was still beside her. The boys were nowhere in sight and the lights had been turned off. She didn’t bother to move, they’d fallen asleep like this often on their monthly meetups. Nancy glanced at the clock and read 12:16.
“Happy birthday, Robin.” She whispered into the dark before she fell back asleep.