SATELLITE [STEVE HARRINGTON]

aftermath & the new pact

double update! make sure you've read "in good company" before you read this one!

ELEVEN HAD DONE IT. They discovered this when everyone met at the Byers' house at the end of the night. Will was Mind-Flyer free, El closed the gate, and no one had died this time.

Eleven collapsed into Mike's arms the second they saw each other, making Ginny smile. Their love was cute and innocent, still. Not confusing, complicated.

Hopper had one of the guys at the station bring Steve's car to the Byers house. He wandered the nearly silent house, looking for Ginny. He found her on the couch, Lucas' head on one leg, Max's on the other, both of them fast asleep. He smiled when they met eyes.

"Come on," he said softly. "I'll take you home."

Ginny smiled gratefully, before they gently shook Lucas and Max awake. Steve helped Ginny to her feet, letting her lean on him like they did before.

Joyce, Jonathan, and Nancy met them at the door. Hopper was gone already, entrusting Joyce to look after El for the night. No telling how much paperwork he'd have waiting in his office tomorrow...

"Thank you all, so much," Joyce whispered, careful not to wake Will, Mike, Eleven, and Dustin, who had collapsed in a tired heap on the bed in Will's room. Joyce captured them all in a grateful hug as they headed out the door.

Nancy stood with Jonathan to the side, holding his hand. She smiled at Ginny and Steve at her side.

"C'mon," she said to Lucas and Max, ushering them out the door. She smiled at Nancy in return, and then to herself, as Steve helped her to his car.

They dropped Max off first, making sure she snuck back into her bedroom window. Lucas was asleep again by the time they reached the Sinclair household.

Ginny was scared to face her parents in the morning, looking like she did, but it was a problem for the morning.

Twisting in her seat, Ginny shook Lucas' leg gently waking him. He blinks himself sleepily back to consciousness. "Hey... We're home, Lucas." She patted his leg as he opened the door.

Steve stole glances at her the whole way home, and he was doing so now, too— watching as she urged her little brother inside. He expected to watch her fo the same, to look at him with that glittery smile and disappear inside after her brother, but she doesn't.

After Lucas gets out and runs up the steps, Ginny turns around to watch him, facing the dashboard as Lucas shut the front door to their house behind him.

A thick, tired silence enveloped them. Steve wondered how crazy they looked at the moment— him, with his face bruised and battered — her, hair a mess framing her cheeks, ankle shattered..

After the craziness of the last few days, it felt odd that the adventure was just... over, now. Ginny wasn't sad that it was over, per say. She was more so scared, that things would be normal again, that she and Steve would return to acquaintances.

She didn't want that.

She really didn't want that.

"Hey, Steve?" she said abruptly.

"Yeah—?"

Just as Steve turns his head to look at her, Ginny slides a hand along his bruised jaw and kissed him. It was less-than-graceful, hard and very sudden— in fact, so sudden that Steve flinched and their teeth clashed.

Ginny didn't stop kissing him, and thank God for that. Once the ciruits in Steve's brain started working again, he furrowed his brow into the kiss, melting against her.