There's No Place Like Hawkins//Stranger Things. SH

THIRTY ONE

Will The Wise

Cat's eyes slowly blinked open, her nose scrunching slightly at the smell of breakfast cooking. "Morning, sleepyhead." Steve called to her from where he was stood in the kitchen. He glanced up from the eggs and bacon he was making to look over at where she was sprawled out on the couch, the blanket falling onto the floor as she slowly sat up.

"Wha- what time is it?" Cat yawned as she wiped the sleep from her eyes.

Steve looked over to the clock that hung on the wall of the kitchen. "Almost seven." He began to pile the fried eggs and bacon onto the two plates that sat on the kitchen counter. "You hungry?" He asked as he carried the plates to the table.

Cat stood up from the couch, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders. She couldn't help but feel cold, much colder than usual. Although she put it down to the fact that it was now November and it usually got quite cold at this time of year. She yawned again as she made her way over to the dining table, taking a seat opposite Steve. "You cooked eggs and bacon?" She asked him, one of her eyebrows raising.

"Uh huh." Steve replied, shovelling some of the bacon into his mouth.

"I've gotta tell ya, Stevie, shovelling food into your mouth isn't attractive. No wonder Nancy stopped loving you." She joked, taking a bite of her egg. "Okay, this is good." She pointed her fork at her plate of food. "It's surprisingly good."

"What do you mean, 'surprisingly good'?"

"Well, I just didn't think that you could cook."

Steve raised an eyebrow at her. "And why would you think that?"

Cat swallowed some of her bacon. "Because, when we were kids and we tried baking cupcakes, you messed it up. Every time. You'd either burn them or mess up the ingredients or something."

"Yeah, but we were kids." He paused to take a sip from his glass of orange juice. "Besides, you'd mess up to. You'd get the flour everywhere." He chuckled. "Your parents used to get so mad at you."

Cat let out a small chuckle. "Yeah... God, life was so much easier back then." She sighed. "I miss it, y'know? I miss being small and carefree and not having to worry about some multi-dimensional monster attacking us and the kids." Steve reached his hand across the table to hold Cat's own hand reassuringly. Cat let out a short chuckle. "Oh, who am I kidding, I'm still small."

Steve laughed. "That you are, Kit-Cat. That you are. But you know what?" Cat's gaze moved from the table and their intertwined hands to Steve's face. "Sometimes, the best things come in small packages. And you're the best thing to have ever happened to me."

A smile grew over Cat's face and she leaned over the table to give Steve a huge hug, not caring that her hair was dangling over the plates. "You're the best thing to have ever happened to me too, Stevie."