You Never Said Goodbye.

4: So I Assumed I'd Get to Say Goodbye.

Steve held himself together very well. After crying the first night, he held his composure. So well, Robin had corned him during the third day and asked if he remembered what had happened. He had nodded and kept his eyes away from Robin. He sidestepped away from her and smiled, "You and Vickie have fun on your date tonight, alright?"

"It's not a date, Harrington, we're going to dinner and driving to an outdoor theater!" She grumbled, then revising what she had said blinked, and glanced down, "I guess it is a date." She mumbled, and let Steve be.

Nancy and Jonathan had come up and Jonathan had thanked him for keeping Will's friends safe. Steve had then been roped into a conversation about Mike Wheeler, started by Jonathan commenting on how Mike was ignoring Will and asking Nancy if this was a recent development.

It turns out all Mike had talked about for months was getting to see Will in California, but the week of his vacation, it had stopped, and all Mike talked about was El, he hadn't mentioned Will. He had seemed to be cutting himself off. Nancy said since they got back, Mike refused to let Will share his room and Will slept in the basement, Jonathan and Nancy sharing a room. Both had winced when she let that slip and looked at Steve, knowing he sometimes didn't seem to enjoy things like that, but he hadn't cared and didn't even realize why they had looked at him like that until they left 20 minutes later.

Steve had thought he was doing okay. His suicidal thoughts had died down a little and he was doing so much better. He hadn't touched a blade since about a month after he and Nancy broke up and he was keeping it that way. He had thought he was holding himself strong and his friends needed someone to stay strong because of what had happened.