Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The water coming from the bathroom sink was brown.

Nancy let it run anyway.

It shuddered through the pipes in uneven bursts, coughing rust and sediment into the cracked porcelain basin before gradually clearing to something almost usable. 

Not clean, exactly. Nothing in the WSQK building was clean anymore. But clear enough that she could soak the corner of a towel beneath it and try to wipe the remnants of the laboratory from her skin.

The substance had dried along her throat and beneath the collar of her shirt. It clung to her hair in light, hardened strands and filled the creases of her palms. She had scrubbed until her skin turned red, but she could still smell it.

Burned plastic. Chemicals. Something sweet and rotten underneath. She had no idea what the melted substance had been and maybe was better off not knowing at all. 

The whole building smelled faintly of smoke, sweat, and fear.

Somewhere beyond the bathroom walls, people were moving through the station. Voices rose and fell in the hallway. Someone dragged a table across the floor. Dustin was arguing with Murray about radio frequencies. Steve had asked her twice whether she needed to sit down.

Nancy had told him she was fine. She had told everyone she was fine. It was becoming the only sentence she knew how to say.

She braced both hands against the sink and stared at herself in the fractured mirror.

Beneath the dirt and the bruising, her face looked strangely colourless. She looked exhausted.

Not ordinary exhaustion. Not something sleep could fix. She looked like someone who had reached the end of herself and had continued walking anyway.

Nancy lowered her head. She pressed the wet towel to her throat and scrubbed harder.

Suddenly, the door opened behind her.

Nancy’s hand immediately dropped toward the gun at her waist.

“Jesus- okay.” Robin froze in the doorway, raising both hands. “It’s just me. Definitely not a monster. Unless we’re counting my personality, which several people probably are.”

Nancy turned back to the sink. “You should learn how to knock, Robin.”

“I did,” Robin protested. 

Nancy just sighed, tired. “No, you didn’t.”

“I thought about knocking.”

“That isn’t the same thing.”

“No, but the intention was there,” Robin said, remaining near the door.

Nancy could see her in the mirror. Her hair was damp with sweat and plastered to her forehead. Her outfit looked strangely put together for Robin, the colour of the sweater she wore underneath the white graphic tee almost made her smile. It looked more like it would belong in Nancy’s wardrobe than Robin’s. 

What mattered most, though, was that her cheeks were rosy. Her eyes were focused on her, the sharp blue turning Nancy’s knees weak. Her chest rising and falling with calm breaths. 

She was alive.

The thought arrived with such force that Nancy had to look away.

Robin shifted her weight. “Steve said you’d been in here for a while.”

Nancy rolled her eyes. “Steve needs to learn how to mind his own business.”

“Yeah, he’s never been especially good at that.”

“I’m fine,” Nancy insisted.

Robin was silent.

Nancy soaked the towel again. She rubbed at a light patch beneath her jaw, but the residue only spread, staining the skin around it grey.

“Nance,” Robin pleaded under her breath.

“I said I’m fine.”

“Right. I heard you.”

“Then why are you still here?” The words left Nancy’s mouth with more force than she had intended. 

Robin didn’t seem to mind. Instead, she pushed back: “Because I don’t believe you.”

Nancy stopped scrubbing. Her shoulders tightened. “Everyone is waiting for you,” she said. “You should go.”

“They can survive without me for five minutes,” Robin reasoned. 

“We might not have five minutes.” The words came out sharper than Nancy intended.

Robin flinched almost imperceptibly.

Nancy closed her eyes. She was so tired of people flinching around her. So tired of having to decide which terrible thing had to happen next. So tired of being looked at as though she always had an answer.

She dipped the towel into the water once more.

Robin came closer. “Nancy.”

“I can do it myself.” Nancy knew she sounded childish, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

“I know,” Robin said, her voice so soft it made Nancy even angrier.

“Then let me,” she snapped.

Robin stopped beside her. For several seconds, neither of them moved.

Then Robin gently took hold of the towel. Nancy tightened her fingers around it.

“Let go,” Robin whispered.

Something inside Nancy began to tremble. “I said I can do it.”

“And I said I know.” Robin’s voice softened. “But you don’t have to.”

Nancy stared at their hands. Robin’s fingers were wrapped around the opposite end of the towel. Her nails were broken and dirty. There was a thin red line across one knuckle.

Nancy wondered when that had happened. She wondered how many times Robin had been hurt while Nancy was somewhere else.

She wondered how many details she had missed because there had always been another gate to close, another monster to kill, another person she could not save.

Robin tugged lightly. This time, Nancy released the towel.

Robin rinsed it beneath the tap. She wrung it out, folded it over, and turned toward her. “Can I?”

Nancy should have said no. Instead, she stood perfectly still.

Robin lifted the cloth to her face. Her touch was careful - so impossibly careful.

She wiped the dried substance from Nancy’s temple, then moved down along the edge of her cheek. Her other hand hovered near Nancy’s shoulder, as though she wanted to steady her but was afraid of touching without permission.

Nancy watched Robin’s face. The small crease between her eyebrows. The way she worried her bottom lip between her teeth when she was concentrating. The quick movements of her eyes as she searched Nancy’s skin for injuries.

Robin had always looked at the world as though it was moving too quickly for her to follow, but she looked at Nancy as though she had all the time in the world.

“There,” Robin murmured. “That’s slightly less apocalyptic.”

Nancy’s mouth twitched, but she could not quite smile.

Robin rinsed the towel again. When she returned it to Nancy’s throat, her fingers brushed the sensitive skin beneath Nancy’s ear.

Nancy’s breath caught.

Robin immediately pulled away. “Sorry. Did I hurt you?”

Nancy was quick to shake her head. “No.”

“Are you sure?” Robin didn’t seem convinced.

“Yes.”

Robin studied her. Nancy couldn't bear the softness in her expression. She turned her head, but the motion only brought her closer to Robin’s hand.

Robin touched her again, just the tips of her fingers against Nancy’s jaw.

“Nance,” she whispered. “What happened?”

Nancy looked down. “The lab started collapsing. We got out.”

“That isn’t what I meant.” Robin said, then waited. That was the terrible thing about her. She filled every silence until the moment someone actually needed one. Then, somehow, she knew how to wait.

Nancy’s eyes began to burn. She blinked quickly and looked toward the sink. “Jonathan and I broke up.”

Robin’s hand fell away. “Oh.” The word was quiet. Almost lost beneath the dripping tap.

Nancy laughed once, without humour. “That’s all you’re going to say?”

“No. No, definitely not. I have more words. I usually have too many words.” Robin drew a breath. “I’m just trying to locate the correct ones.”

“There probably aren’t any,” Nancy laughed, but there was no joy in the sound.

“Was it-” Robin hesitated. “Was it bad?”

“No.”

“That’s good.”

“It didn’t feel good,” Nancy argued quietly, biting her lip. 

“No. Of course not. Breakups are generally considered bad, even when they’re technically good. Which is an extremely confusing system, when you think about it,” Robin rambled, looking away. 

Nancy folded her arms across herself.

Robin leaned back against the sink beside her. “What happened?” she asked.

Nancy watched water drip from the cloth in Robin’s hand. “I told him I needed space,” she said. “When he was in California.”

Robin nodded slowly.

“And now he asked whether I meant space to be with someone else.”

The towel stilled in Robin’s hands. “What did you say?”

Nancy could still see Jonathan standing beneath the laboratory’s cold light. The walls had been softening around them, great drops of ceiling falling and joining the mess on the floor, threatening to drown them, and somehow he had looked more frightened of her answer than of the world collapsing above their heads.

“I told him that Steve was a great guy,” she said. “But that it had never been like that with him. You know, Steve knows exactly what he wants. He has this whole life planned in his head, and that’s…good. It’s just not mine.”

“The six nuggets,” Robin murmured.

Nancy glanced at her. “He told you about that too?”

“Unfortunately. Several times. I think he’s workshopping the speech,” Robin groaned.

Despite herself, Nancy’s mouth twitched. “He wants certainty,” she continued. “A wife. Children. A house full of noise. He can see the whole thing already.”

“And you can’t,” Robin finished for her. It wasn’t a question.

“I don’t know what I see,” Nancy admitted quietly, almost ashamed. 

Robin gave her a soft smile, a reassuring gesture. “That’s allowed.”

“It doesn’t feel allowed.”

Robin shifted beside her, leaning one hip against the sink. She did not crowd Nancy, but she did not retreat either.

“I told Jonathan I thought I would have more time to figure it out,” Nancy mumbled, staring at the tiles underneath them. 

Robin watched her reflection in the mirror. “To figure out whether you wanted Steve?”

“No.” The answer came too quickly. Nancy looked down into the basin. The water beneath the dripping tap had taken on a faint reddish tint. Blood or rust. She could no longer tell which.

“Jonathan assumed it was Steve,” she continued. “Everyone always assumes it’s Steve.”

Robin had to suppress a grin. “He does have a habit of appearing whenever your relationships become emotionally complicated.”

“There was nothing happening between us,” Nancy said. It almost sounded like a promise.

“I believe you,” Robin was quick to say.

Nancy nodded faintly. When she spoke again, it was barely above a whisper: “But Jonathan wasn’t entirely wrong.”

Robin’s expression changed. Only slightly - a small tightening around her eyes, the quick intake of breath she tried to hide.

Nancy immediately wished she could pull the words back.

There were dozens of easier explanations available to her. She could say Jonathan had been right that she had changed while he was gone. That she had become tired of waiting for him. That too much had happened and the distance between them had simply grown too wide.

All of those things were true. None of them were the truth she had nearly confessed in the lab.

“When he was in California,” Nancy said carefully, “there was someone else who made me question things.”

Robin stared at her. “Someone else.”

Nancy nodded.

“Did something happen?”

“No.”

“But you wanted it to?” Robin asked tentatively.

Nancy’s fingers curled around the edge of the sink. “I didn’t let myself think that far.”

Robin was silent for a moment. “Was it someone here?”

“Yes.”

“Someone I know?”

Nancy hesitated. “Yes.”

Robin looked past her, as though the answer might be hidden somewhere in the cracked mirror. “Was it someone from school?”

“No.”

“The newspaper?”

“No.”

“Was it someone involved in all of this?”

Nancy worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “Yes.”

Robin’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

Nancy’s stomach tightened. She had the sudden, nauseating certainty that Robin had understood.

Then Robin’s face fell. “Oh, God.”

“What?”

“Nancy, I am so sorry.”

Nancy stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Eddie.”

There was a moment of absolute silence.

“Eddie?” Nancy repeated.

“I should’ve realised.” Robin began speaking faster as the theory assembled itself in her mind. “You were both intense. You both had the whole charging-into-danger-without-a-plan thing, although your lack of a plan usually looks like a plan, and his looked more like he had recently suffered a head injury.”

“Robin-”

“And he was charismatic. In a rabid-raccoon sort of way,” Robin went on. 

“Eddie?” Nancy asked again, confused.

“There is one fairly significant problem, though,” Robin said. 

Nancy could only look at her.

“Eddie was gay.”

Nancy just blinked.

“I’m almost certain,” Robin continued solemnly. “Ninety-seven percent. Steve disagreed, but Steve has the observational abilities of a concussed golden retriever when it comes to other men.”

“Robin.”

“And now Eddie is dead,” she added, her expression turning genuinely mournful. “Which is obviously the much larger obstacle. So that’s- God, Nancy. That’s really unfortunate.”

A laugh tore out of Nancy before she could stop it. She covered her mouth, but the sound had already escaped, breathless and frayed at the edges. 

Another followed it, so close to a sob that she could not tell which it was.

Robin frowned. “I don’t understand why you’re laughing. This is objectively tragic.”

“It wasn’t Eddie,” Nancy laughed. 

Robin frowned. “It wasn’t?”

“No.”

“Then why did you let me keep talking?”

Nancy snorted. “I couldn’t stop you at the speed you were going.”

“You absolutely could have.”

For one brief moment, the crushing pressure inside Nancy loosened.

Robin was absurd. Robin was standing before her at the end of the world, sincerely grieving an imaginary romance between Nancy and a dead gay metalhead, and Nancy loved her so fiercely that it made her chest ache.

The laughter faded. Its absence left the room painfully quiet again.

“It wasn’t a man,” Nancy said, voice barely above a whisper.

Robin stopped moving.

Nancy watched the realisation travel across her face - not recognition of who it was, but of what Nancy was trying to say.

“Oh.” There was that word again. This time, it was barely audible.

Nancy turned back toward the sink. “I think I might be…” She swallowed. “I don’t know.”

Robin waited.

Nancy pressed the heels of her hands against the porcelain. 

“I think I’m into women.”

The confession came out thin and frightened, nothing like the certainty with which Nancy usually spoke. She hated that. She hated that the words trembled. She hated that saying them aloud made her feel younger than she had in years.

Robin did not recoil. She did not look startled or uncomfortable. Her expression just softened. “Nancy, that’s okay.”

“You don’t know that,” Nancy whispered, fighting back tears. 

“I do,” Robin told her quietly. 

“You don’t even know what it means.”

“Neither do you,” Robin argued. “Not yet.”

Nancy gave a brittle laugh. “That’s reassuring.”

“I mean you don’t have to know yet.” Robin placed the towel on the edge of the sink. “You don’t have to decide on a word tonight. You don’t have to decide whether it means you only like women, or women and men, or one particular woman, or whether everything before now was real or wasn’t real.”

Nancy looked at her. “Jonathan was real,” she said quickly.

“I know.”

“I loved him,” she whispered. 

Robin’s smile looked sad. “I know that too.”

“This doesn’t mean I was lying to him.”

“No.”

“Then why does it feel like I was?” Nancy asked, actually not having the answer to that question. 

“Because you’re trying to judge your past using something you only just allowed yourself to understand.” Robin’s voice was gentler now, stripped of its usual frantic edges.

Nancy lowered her eyes. “I spent my entire life thinking I knew what everything was supposed to look like,” she said. “I thought I was supposed to find someone good and build a life with him, and that eventually I would stop feeling like there was some part of me he couldn’t reach.”

“You aren’t broken because that didn’t happen,” Robin reassured her gently.

Nancy balled her hands into fists. “You don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“There is nothing wrong with you,” Robin insisted.

“You can’t know that.”

Robin stepped closer. “I can know that.”

Nancy shook her head.

“Being afraid of it doesn’t make it bad,” Robin said. “And it doesn’t make you bad. I know it feels like the ground is moving underneath you, but you’re still you.”

“What if it changes everything?”

“It might.”

Nancy’s eyes lifted sharply.

Robin grimaced. “That sounded less comforting than it did in my head.”

“A little.”

“I mean that understanding yourself can change things. But changing them isn’t the same as destroying them.”

Nancy looked away again. “You don’t understand.”

Robin’s face tightened. “I might understand more than most people.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Then tell me.”

Nancy stared at the fracture running through the mirror. Robin was reflected in several separate pieces. Her shoulder in one shard. Her eyes in another. Her mouth divided by a thin black line.

The girl Nancy loved, broken into fragments because Nancy still could not force herself to look directly at her.

“It isn’t just that she was a woman,” Nancy said.

Robin went still. “The girl.”

“Yes.”

“What about her?”

Nancy’s hands had begun to shake again. She didn’t dare to open her fists. “She made everything harder.”

“Did she hurt you?”

“No.” Nancy answered so quickly that Robin blinked. “Never.”

“Did she know?”

“No.”

“Then how did she make anything harder?” Robin asked, genuine confusion spreading across her face.

Because after you, nothing fit the way it had before.

Because you came into my life while everything was ending, and somehow you made me want a future again.

Because I could pretend Steve was an old mistake and Jonathan was a love I had outgrown, but I could not find any harmless explanation for the way I felt about you.

Nancy drew a careful breath. “When she talked, I wanted her to keep talking,” she said. “Even when she thought she was being annoying.”

Robin’s brow furrowed.

“When she made me laugh, I would remember it later. Hours later. Sometimes days.” Nancy kept her eyes fixed on the sink. “I started noticing things. The way she moved her hands when she became nervous. The way her voice changed when she was pretending not to be afraid. I knew when she wanted to leave a room before she said anything.”

Robin was watching her now with a strange, focused intensity, but she still did not understand. Nancy could feel it.

“She made me feel like I could say things I couldn’t say to anyone else,” Nancy continued. “And that terrified me, because I didn’t want to need anybody that much.”

“Did you love her?” The question was so quiet that Nancy nearly pretended she had not heard it.

Her throat closed. “I think so.”

Robin inhaled slowly.

Nancy corrected herself before fear could stop her. “I know so.” The words altered something in the room.

Robin glanced toward the closed door, then back at Nancy. “Does she know how you feel?”

“No.”

“Why didn’t you tell her?”

Nancy laughed once, bitterly. “Because it could destroy everything.”

“If she cares about you-” Robin started, but Nancy interrupted her. 

“You don’t know that she does.”

“You said she never hurt you.”

“That doesn’t mean she wants me.”

Robin opened her mouth, but Nancy continued before she could answer. “She could be uncomfortable. She could think I misunderstood her. She could start watching everything she says around me because she’s afraid I’ll take it the wrong way.” Nancy’s voice trembled. “She could step back, and I could lose the only part of her I was allowed to have.”

Robin’s expression softened with sympathy. The sight of it almost broke Nancy. Robin thought she was comforting her about someone else. She still did not know.

“She has a girlfriend now,” Nancy said.

“Oh.”

“So it doesn’t matter.”

Robin bit her lip. “It matters to you.”

“That isn’t enough,” Nancy said, voice trembling.

“No,” Robin admitted. “But it doesn’t mean you were wrong to feel it.”

Nancy finally turned toward her. Robin stood close enough that Nancy could see the tiny flecks of darker blue around her pupils. There was dried blood near the corner of her mouth. A shallow cut beneath her chin.

Alive. Still alive - for now.

“You really don’t understand,” Nancy whispered.

Robin looked confused. “I’m trying.”

“I know.”

“Then help me,” Robin asked. The way she spoke almost resembled begging. 

Nancy’s courage began to abandon her. She had brought the conversation too far. She had stripped away every safe explanation, and Robin was still looking at her with open concern, still believing the girl was somewhere outside this room.

Nancy could stop. She could tell Robin that it did not matter who it was. That the girl had never known and never would. They could leave the bathroom and return to the others. Robin might wonder, but Nancy would still have her friendship.

She would still have whatever was left of them. But there might not be much left. The certainty returned, cold and quiet.

The laboratory collapsing. Jonathan’s hand opening the cassette case and revealing that horrible ring. Holly falling from the sky. Vecna’s voice inside her head.

Nancy had survived so many things that she had begun to feel as if survival itself were a debt she would soon be forced to repay.

Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps in an hour. She might die with Robin never knowing.

That seemed suddenly more unbearable than losing her.

“Nancy?” Robin’s voice cut through her thoughts.

Nancy looked at her. She allowed herself to see all of Robin at once. The dirt across her cheek. The damp hair clinging to her forehead. The worried crease between her eyebrows. The way her body leaned toward Nancy even while she waited.

She tried to speak, but nothing came out.

Robin stepped closer. “What is it?”

Nancy’s heart beat so violently that it hurt. Once she said it, there would be no taking it back. 

No pretending Robin had misunderstood. No returning to the safe shape of their friendship as though it had never contained this hidden, impossible thing.

It could destroy everything between them. But Nancy was so tired of building her life around things she was afraid to lose. And she was so certain she would lose everything soon anyway.

“It was you,” she whispered.

Robin did not react.

For one dreadful second, Nancy wondered whether she had managed to say the words only inside her own head.

Then, finally, Robin’s voice: “What?”

Nancy’s eyes filled. She could not soften it now. She could not disguise it as admiration or confusion or some fleeting attraction born from the end of the world.

“You,” she repeated. “The girl was you.”

Robin stared at her. Every trace of movement vanished from her face.

Nancy felt herself coming apart beneath that silence. “I was talking about you,” she said.

Robin took one small step backwards. It was instinctive. Barely more than a shift of balance.

Nancy felt it like a wound. “I’m sorry.”

“Nancy-”

“I shouldn’t have told you.”

“No, wait,” Robin pleaded, reaching for her but not touching without permission.

“You don’t have to say anything.”

“I’m trying to understand.”

“There’s nothing to understand.” Nancy reached for the towel because she needed something to do, somewhere else to look. “Forget it.”

Robin caught the towel first. “Don’t do that.”

Nancy’s humiliation was already hardening into anger. “Do what?”

“Decide what I’m thinking before I’ve even had the chance to think it,” Robin clarified.

“You stepped away.”

“Because you just told me that the girl you’re in love with is me.”

Nancy flinched at hearing it said aloud. Robin saw. Her grip on the towel loosened. “I didn’t mean that badly,” she said.

“There isn’t a good way to mean it.”

“Nancy.”

“You have Vickie. I know you have Vickie. I wasn’t trying to interfere with that,” Nancy said. 

“Then why did you tell me?” The question came out sharper than Robin intended.

Nancy saw the regret arrive immediately, but it was too late. “Because… I think that- I… I think I’m going to die.”

The colour drained from Robin’s face. “No.”

Nancy’s voice became strangely calm. “I think this is it.”

“No.”

“I’ve felt it since we got out of the lab.”

“You’re exhausted. You’re hurt. You just went through something horrible,” Robin tried to reason.

“I know what fear feels like,” Nancy said quietly.

“Then you know it lies.”

“This isn’t fear.”

“What is it?”

“Certainty.”

Robin shook her head. “No. I’m not listening to this.”

“I need you to,” Nancy pleaded.

“No, you don’t. You need to sleep and eat something and let someone check whether you have a concussion.”

“Robin.”

“You do not need to stand here and deliver some ominous final confession because you’ve decided you won’t survive.”

“There might not be another chance,” Nancy said, voice rising.

“There will be,” Robin responded immediately, not leaving any space for doubt.

It crept into Nancy’s mind anyway. “You cannot promise that.”

“I can promise whatever I need to promise right now.” Robin turned away, dragging one hand over her face. “There’s so many things I still want to do with you, I-”

Nancy watched her shoulders rise and fall. She had already told her. She had already broken the one thing she had been desperate to preserve. 

The words were loose between them now, and Nancy could not bear for Robin to turn them into something smaller simply because the truth frightened her.

“I think I’ve been in love with you since I met you,” she said.

Robin went still.

Nancy’s voice shook. “I didn’t know what it was then. Or maybe I did know, and I was too afraid to look at it directly.”

“Nance…”

“You were strange and loud, and you kept saying exactly the wrong thing, and somehow I always wanted you beside me.”

Robin bowed her head.

“I wanted you to think I was brave,” Nancy continued. “I wanted to impress you. I kept pretending I was irritated because I didn’t know what else to do with the fact that your opinion mattered to me.”

“Please,” Robin whispered.

“You made me feel like I could breathe again. You looked at me and saw something besides the person who was supposed to have a plan,” Nancy said, her voice breaking at the end. 

Robin turned back toward her. Tears shone in her eyes.

“You saw me when I was afraid,” Nancy whispered. “You saw me when I was wrong. And you stayed.”

A tear slid down Robin’s cheek.

Nancy’s own vision blurred. “I had so many chances to tell you. But every time, I thought about everything I could lose. And then you found Vickie, and I told myself I had missed it.”

“Missed what?”

“My chance.”

Robin just stared at her.

“I thought I had more time,” Nancy said. “I thought maybe one day I would become brave enough to tell you without making it sound like a disaster.” Her voice dropped. “But I don’t think I have enough time left to be careful.”

Robin crossed the space between them and grabbed Nancy’s wrists. “Do not say that.”

Her hands were trembling.

Nancy looked down at them. “Why?”

“Because you don’t get to tell me all of this and then talk like you’re already dead.”

“I’m not asking you to do anything,” Nancy told her quietly.

Robin shook her head. “That’s the problem.”

“What do you want me to ask?”

“I don’t know!” Robin’s voice cracked against the walls.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then Nancy said, very softly, “I only wanted you to know.”

“Why?”

“Because if I die, I couldn’t stand the thought that you might never know someone loved every part of you that you thought was too much.”

Robin’s face crumpled.

“And maybe somewhere else I’ll do it differently,” Nancy continued. “Maybe in another life, I’ll meet you and understand it immediately.”

“Nancy, stop.” Robin’s voice trembled dangerously.

But Nancy continued. “I won’t waste years pretending it’s something else.”

“Please.”

“I’ll be brave,” she promised. Robin’s fingers tightened around her wrists at that.

“And the first time you make my heart do that,” Nancy whispered, “I’ll just kiss you.”

“I don’t want another life,” Robin sobbed.

Nancy stopped.

Robin was crying openly now. “I want this one,” she said.

Nancy stared at her. For a moment, the words seemed to belong to another conversation. Something Nancy had imagined during one of those restless nights when sleep would not come and her mind wandered toward impossible versions of her life.

A version in which she had understood herself sooner. A version in which Robin had looked back.

But Robin was standing in front of her now, crying, her hands still wrapped around Nancy’s wrists as though letting go might allow her to disappear.

Nancy could feel every point where their bodies almost touched. “Robin,” she whispered.

“I mean it.” Robin’s voice was unsteady, but there was no uncertainty in it.

“You can’t say things like that because you’re frightened,” Nancy murmured, looking at their hands.

“I’m not,” Robin insisted.

“You are.”

“Yes, obviously I’m frightened. You just told me you think you’re going to die. I’m terrified.” Robin drew in a shaking breath. “But that isn’t why I said it.”

Nancy searched her face. Robin had always been easy to read until she wasn’t. Every nervous thought usually passed openly across her features, spilling into her hands, her posture, the frantic movement of her mouth. 

But there were parts of herself she guarded with unexpected skill. Things she could bury beneath a joke or a rush of unnecessary words until no one thought to look for them. Nancy wondered how much she had missed.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Robin’s grip loosened, though she did not release her. “I mean I don’t want some other life where we finally get everything right. I don’t want to meet you again as different people and hope we’re somehow smarter the second time.”

Her thumbs moved once against Nancy’s pulse. “I want you here. Annoying and stubborn and covered in whatever disgusting sludge you dragged out of that lab.”

Nancy’s mouth trembled.

Robin swallowed. “I want the version of you who terrifies everyone by having three plans before the rest of us have understood the problem. I want the version who pretends she doesn’t need to sleep and gets angry when anyone notices her hands are shaking.”

Nancy glanced down. Robin’s fingers were resting directly over the trembling she had tried so hard to hide.

“I want the person standing in front of me,” Robin continued. “Not some improved version of you in another universe. You. Now.”

Nancy could not make sense of it. Hope was more frightening than rejection had been. She had prepared for Robin’s discomfort. She had prepared to be pitied, gently refused, perhaps forgiven. She had even prepared for anger.

She had not prepared for this.

“What about Vickie?” she asked quietly, already afraid of the answer.

Robin’s face changed. The question seemed to bring the rest of the world back into the bathroom with them. Everything outside the narrow space they had made around themselves. Other people. Other promises. Consequences that could not simply be ignored because Hawkins might end tomorrow.

Robin looked down at their hands. “I care about her.”

Nancy had known the answer before Robin gave it, but the words still found somewhere tender to land. She nodded stiffly. “I know.”

“No, wait.” Robin tightened her hold when Nancy tried to draw away. “You asked, and I’m telling you the truth. I care about her. I don’t want to pretend I don’t, because she doesn’t deserve that.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Nancy agreed.

“But it isn’t-” Robin stopped.

Nancy waited, though every instinct told her to pull free and put distance between them before Robin could complete the sentence.

“It isn’t what I thought it would be,” Robin said.

Nancy looked at her.

Robin’s eyes flickered toward the cracked mirror rather than meet Nancy’s directly. “For so long, I thought the only reason things never worked for me was because no one could know. Or because the girl was straight. Or because I was in Hawkins, Indiana, and statistically my choices were limited to about four women, two of whom were related to me.”

Nancy almost smiled, but Robin’s expression remained too serious.

“And then Vickie liked me,” she continued. “She actually liked me. I didn’t have to imagine it or try to find hidden meanings in everything she said. It was right there.”

“That must have felt good,” Nancy said.

“It did.”

Nancy’s heart sank further. Robin saw it.

“But I kept waiting,” she said quickly.

Nancy frowned. “For what?”

“For it to become enough.”

Nancy’s breath caught at that. 

Robin finally looked at her. “I thought if I spent enough time with her, I would stop wanting to find you every time something happened. That eventually she would become the person I needed to tell everything to.”

“Robin…”

“I would be sitting with her and think of something you said. Or she would laugh, and I would wonder whether you would have laughed too. I kept comparing the way I felt around her to the way I feel when I’m with you, and that wasn’t fair to either of us.”

Nancy shook her head slowly. “You never said anything.”

Robin shrugged. “Neither did you.”

“I had Jonathan,” Nancy reminded her. 

“And I had no reason to think you could ever want me,” Robin told her quietly. 

“You could have asked.”

Robin gave a disbelieving laugh. “Asked what? Hey, Nancy, I know you’ve had two handsome boyfriends and are currently giving Steve confusing signals that could power a small city, but have you ever considered completely restructuring your understanding of your sexuality for me?”

“I wasn’t giving Steve signals,” Nancy protested.

Robin snorted. “You were spending a lot of time together.”

“We were trying to stop the world from ending,” Nancy clarified.

“That is basically foreplay for everyone in this group,” Robin said.

A startled laugh escaped Nancy.

Robin smiled through her tears. It vanished almost immediately. “I didn’t think I had a chance,” she said. “Not a real one.”

“Why?”

Robin looked at her as though the answer should have been obvious. “Because you’re you.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means everything.”

Nancy frowned. Robin released one of her wrists, lifting her hand as though she might touch Nancy’s face. She hesitated before making contact. The backs of her fingers brushed lightly along Nancy’s cheek.

“You walk into a room and everything changes,” Robin whispered. “People listen to you. Even when they disagree, they listen. You know how to make things happen. You know how to look at something impossible and make everyone else believe it can be done.”

Nancy’s eyes stung. “That isn’t always a good thing.”

“I know.” Robin’s fingertips reached the edge of the cut above Nancy’s eyebrow. She carefully avoided it. “You can be terrifying. And bossy. And sometimes you decide what everyone else is going to do before you’ve actually told them there’s a plan.”

“I don’t do that.”

“You absolutely do.”

Nancy gave her a warning look.

Robin’s smile trembled. “But you’re also the bravest person I’ve ever met. And not because you have guns or because you run toward monsters. You keep caring even though caring has hurt you over and over again.”

Nancy’s composure began to fracture. Robin’s hand settled against her cheek. “You loved Barb so much that you refused to let the world forget her. You kept looking for Will when everyone said he was dead. You went after Vecna knowing exactly what he could show you.” Her thumb moved beneath Nancy’s eye, catching a tear before it could fall. “And you made room for me when you didn’t have to.”

“I needed you,” Nancy whimpered.

Robin inhaled sharply.

“I still do,” Nancy breathed.

The words seemed to move through Robin slowly. Her mouth opened, but she did not speak.

Nancy looked down at the hand still encircling her wrist. “I thought you only stayed close to me because of everything happening,” she admitted. “Because we worked well together.”

“We do work well together,” Robin murmured.

“I know.”

“You have excellent aim. I have excellent moral support.”

“You threw a Molotov cocktail at Vecna,” Nancy reminded her softly.

“Yes, but emotionally, I was providing support.”

Nancy’s laugh emerged through another tear.

Robin watched her with such naked affection that the laughter faded inside Nancy’s throat.

“You really didn’t know?” Robin asked.

“Know what?”

“That I was in love with you.” The word landed differently now that Robin had said it herself.

Nancy’s heartbeat stumbled. “You never acted like you were.”

Robin stared at her. “Nancy.”

“What?”

“I could barely speak around you when we first met.”

“You never stopped speaking,” Nancy said with a frown.

“Exactly. That was the problem.”

Nancy thought of Pennhurst. Robin talking without pause, stumbling through invented credentials and elaborate lies while Nancy watched her in bewilderment. “You said you were trying to impress the professor.”

“I was trying to impress you.”

Nancy’s lips parted at that. Robin’s eyes widened slightly, as though she had not intended to reveal that.

“I thought you were irritated with me,” Nancy said.

“I was terrified of you.”

“That isn’t better.”

“It was a romantic kind of terror,” Robin tried.

“There is no romantic kind of terror,” Nancy huffed.

“There is when you’re gay in Indiana.”

Nancy looked away, but she could not hide the smile that pulled briefly at her mouth.

Robin’s hand remained against her face. The smile faded as Nancy became aware of it again.

The warmth of Robin’s palm. The softness of her thumb near the corner of Nancy’s mouth. The way Robin was looking at her.

Not confused now. Not with sympathy.

Nancy had spent years imagining what it might feel like to be looked at by someone who knew everything she was trying to hide and wanted her anyway. She had never understood how terrifying it would be.

“I don’t know what happens now,” Nancy said.

Robin’s expression softened. “We don’t have to know.”

“You have Vickie.”

“I need to talk to her.”

Nancy’s stomach tightened. “I’m not asking you to leave her for me.”

“I know.”

“I mean it,” Nancy said quietly.

Robin briefly closed her eyes. “I know, Nancy.”

“I don’t want you to hurt her because you’re afraid I’m going to die.”

“That isn’t what this is.”

“How can you be sure?” Nancy asked.

Robin’s hand slid from Nancy’s cheek. For one awful moment, Nancy thought she had pushed too hard. Then Robin took both of Nancy’s hands in hers.

“Because I loved you yesterday,” she said. “Before you went into that lab. Before Jonathan broke up with you. Before you decided to scare ten years off my life by giving what sounded suspiciously like a deathbed confession.”

Nancy stared down at their intertwined fingers.

“I loved you when I thought you were going to marry Jonathan someday. I loved you when Steve started looking at you like that again. And I still loved you when Vickie kissed me.”

Nancy’s eyes lifted. “Then why did you stay with her?”

Robin’s face twisted with pain. “Because I thought loving you was something I had to survive.”

The answer emptied the air from Nancy’s lungs.

Robin looked down. “And because Vickie was there,” she continued quietly. “She was kind and funny, and she wanted me. I thought maybe wanting the person who wanted me was the sensible thing to do.”

Nancy knew something about choosing the life that appeared sensible. The person who fit. The future that could be explained to other people without first dismantling everything they believed about her.

“Did it work?” she asked.

Robin laughed faintly, without humour. “I’m standing in a bathroom confessing my love to you while another dimension leaks out of your hair.”

Nancy looked toward the mirror. A light strand had adhered to her temple. “Is it still in my hair?”

“A little,” Robin answered truthfully.

“You could have told me.”

“I became distracted.”

“By what?”

Robin’s gaze dropped to Nancy’s mouth.

“Oh.” The sound escaped Nancy before she could stop it.

Robin laughed shakily. “Now you’re doing it.”

Nancy’s pulse accelerated. The room seemed to contract around them.

Robin was close. Closer than she had been a moment before, although Nancy could not remember either of them moving.

Perhaps Nancy had leaned forward. Perhaps Robin had.

Their joined hands hung between them, pressed lightly against Nancy’s stomach. “Robin,” she whispered. 

“Yes?”

Nancy had no idea what she had intended to say.

Robin’s eyes were still fixed on her mouth. Nancy watched her swallow. “You said there were things you still wanted to do with me.”

A flush spread slowly across Robin’s face. “I said that?”

“You did.”

“That was a very broad, deliberately non-specific statement.”

“What kinds of things?” Nancy asked softly. 

Robin’s eyes widened. “Nancy.”

“What?”

“You cannot ask me that while standing this close,” Robin breathed shakily. 

“Why not?”

“Because my brain is currently experiencing a complete system failure.”

Nancy’s mouth curved faintly. She could feel some small part of herself returning. Not the old certainty. Something less rigid. Something newly willing to step into the unknown without first demanding a map.

“Tell me anyway. Please,” she asked, voice breaking at the end.

Robin looked at her for a long time. “I want to take you somewhere that doesn’t have vandalism on the walls.”

Nancy glanced at the stained tile. “That would be nice.”

“I want to see you leave Hawkins.”

“I’ve left Hawkins,” Nancy corrected with a frown.

“No, I mean really leave. Go somewhere because you want to be there, not because you’re chasing a story or escaping something.”

Nancy’s throat tightened.

“I want you to show me Boston,” Robin continued. “Even if you’ll hate it. I want to see all the places you pretend to like because you think you’re supposed to.”

“I won’t pretend to like all of it.”

“Then you can show me the parts that are real.” Robin’s thumbs brushed across Nancy’s knuckles. “I want to sit beside you in a movie theatre and make comments until you threaten to move seats.”

“I would move seats,” Nancy agreed with a smile.

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“I might.”

“You’d glare at me, but you’d stay.”

Nancy knew she was right.

“I want to wake up next to you,” Robin whispered. All traces of humour vanished.

Nancy’s breath caught.

Robin’s cheeks darkened, but she continued. “Not- not necessarily in a sexual way. Although I’m not saying never in a sexual way, obviously, because that would be a strange thing to declare right now, and this sentence has already become a catastrophe.” She forced herself to take a deep breath.

“Robin.”

“I mean I want mornings. Ordinary ones. I want to know whether you’re one of those people who wakes up looking exactly the same, which feels unfair but statistically possible,” she continued. 

“I don’t.”

“I want proof.”

Nancy could barely breathe.

“I want to make coffee for you,” Robin said. “And probably make it wrong the first several times because you have very exacting standards.”

“I drink it black.”

“See? Terrifying.”

Nancy’s eyes filled again.

Robin’s voice softened. “I want to ask you questions when we have enough time for the answers.”

“What questions?” Nancy wanted to know.

“Everything.”

“That isn’t a question.”

“I want to know what you wanted to be before you decided you had to become someone important. I want to know what happened the first time you realised your parents were unhappy. I want to know which parts of your life you chose and which ones you just kept because no one told you that you could put them down.”

Nancy looked at her helplessly. There were people who had known her longer than Robin had. People who knew her favourite books, the foods she disliked, the exact way she took her coffee.

No one had ever asked to know her like this.

“I want to know what makes you happy,” Robin said. “Not what makes you useful. Not what makes you proud. Happy.”

“I don’t know,” Nancy answered truthfully. 

“Then we can figure it out.” Robin’s words were so simple. They felt like a promise.

Nancy lowered her gaze to their hands. “There’s so much I haven’t done,” she whispered.

“Then don’t die.” Robin said it fiercely.

Nancy looked up.

Robin’s eyes had filled again. “Don’t say you’ll try,” she continued. “Don’t tell me you can’t promise anything. Just- don’t.”

“I can’t control everything that happens.”

“I know.”

“We might not all get out,” Nancy whispered. 

“I know.”

“Holly is still-”

“I know, Nancy.” Robin lifted their joined hands and pressed them against her own chest. Beneath Nancy’s palm, her heart was racing.

“I know all of that,” Robin said. “But you keep talking like your death is already decided, and it isn’t. Vecna doesn’t get to decide it. That place doesn’t get to decide it. And you don’t get to decide it just because believing the worst makes you feel more prepared.”

Nancy flinched. Robin’s expression softened, but she did not take the words back. “You’re allowed to want to live,” she whispered. “Even when other people are in danger. Even when you don’t know how to save everyone.”

“I do want to live,” Nancy breathed. 

“Then say it.”

Nancy stared at her. The answer should have been easy. But for so long, survival had felt like a duty. Something she owed Barb, her family, Hawkins. She had not considered whether she wanted it for herself.

She looked at Robin. At the tears on her face. At the hope she was trying and failing to conceal. “I want to live,” Nancy said eventually. 

Robin’s eyes closed briefly. Nancy felt her exhale against her fingers.

“I want to find Holly,” Nancy continued. “I want to stop Vecna.”

“Yes.”

“I want my family to be safe.”

“Yes.”

Nancy’s voice trembled. “And I want to know what happens after.”

Robin opened her eyes. “With us?” she asked.

Nancy nodded.

Something luminous and unbearably vulnerable crossed Robin’s face. “Good,” she whispered. “Because I can’t imagine an after without you in it.”

Nancy felt the words settle inside her. 

Robin loosened her hold, allowing Nancy’s hands to slip away from her chest. But her fingers remained around Nancy’s wrists, light now, almost questioning.

Nancy became aware of the gesture. Robin was not pulling her closer. She was waiting.

Nancy’s gaze dropped to her mouth.

The small cut beside it had begun bleeding again. Barely. A thin line of red against her skin.

Nancy thought of the confession she had made moments before. Another life. Another chance. A braver version of herself who would recognise love as soon as it appeared and act before fear could bury it.

She had spoken as though that girl existed somewhere else, as though courage belonged to a future Nancy she would never become.

But Robin was here, and Nancy was not dead yet. She raised her eyes.

Robin watched her with an expression so open it nearly made Nancy retreat. Hope and fear tangled together, neither strong enough to overcome the other. “Nancy,” she whispered.

Nancy leaned closer. Robin’s grip tightened instinctively around her wrists, then immediately softened.

Their noses nearly brushed. Nancy could feel Robin’s breath against her lips.

She stopped. It was only an inch. Perhaps less. The distance felt vast.

This was the last moment in which they could pretend nothing had changed. The last moment Nancy could step back and preserve the shape their friendship had held before she spoke the truth.

Robin did not move. She did not close the distance for her, but she did not look away.

Nancy understood. The choice was hers. For once, that did not feel like a burden.

She drew in a trembling breath and kissed her.

Robin went completely still.

The first touch of their mouths was barely there. Soft and uncertain, more question than kiss.

Nancy’s heart dropped. She had made a mistake. 

She began to pull away. Then Robin made a broken little sound and released Nancy’s wrists.

Her hands rose to Nancy’s face. She held her with astonishing gentleness, palms warm against Nancy’s cheeks, fingers slipping carefully into her hair.

And Robin kissed her back.

The force of it was not physical. Robin did not push or demand. Her mouth moved against Nancy’s with a tenderness so profound that something inside Nancy came undone.

She caught the front of Robin’s shirt in both hands. Robin’s lips trembled.

Nancy kissed her again.

The second kiss was surer, although neither of them had stopped shaking. Robin tilted her head, and Nancy felt the soft pressure of her mouth change and deepen - not into anything frantic, but into recognition.

This was Robin.

Robin’s mouth. Robin’s hands. Robin holding her as though Nancy was not something hard or frightening or impossible to love.

Robin broke the kiss first, but only by an inch. Their foreheads rested together. “You kissed me,” she whispered.

Nancy’s breath became something close to a laugh. “I was there.”

“I know. I just- I have imagined that an embarrassing number of times, and it was never in a filthy bathroom during an apocalypse.”

“Where was it?” Nancy asked, curious.

“What?”

“When you imagined it.”

Robin’s face flushed. “Nancy.”

“You said we had time for questions.”

“Not every question.”

Nancy should have let it go. Instead, she watched the colour rise higher in Robin’s cheeks, watched her teeth catch nervously at her lower lip, and felt something hot and reckless uncoil beneath all the fear still lodged inside her chest.

They might die tomorrow. They might walk through the bathroom door and never be alone together again.

The thought stripped the last of Nancy’s caution away. She pulled Robin close by the collar of her tee and kissed her again, harder this time.

Robin gasped into her mouth, the startled sound turning soft and hungry as she surged closer. One hand slid into Nancy’s hair while the other found her waist and pulled until their bodies met.

Nancy felt Robin everywhere at once. The heat of her palm even through the double layer of her tops. The frantic rise of her chest. The small noises she seemed unable to contain whenever Nancy kissed her more deeply.

Nancy’s hands wandered too, over Robin’s shoulders and down the curve of her back, learning her shape with an urgency that made her ache. As though touching her now could somehow make up for every year Nancy denied herself this.

Robin’s fingers slipped beneath the hem of her shirt and skimmed the bare skin at her waist.

Nancy made a broken sound against her lips and pressed closer.

The touch sent a shiver through her - not only desire, but wonder. Relief. The dizzying shock of finally being wanted by the person she had wanted in secret for so long.

Robin kissed her as though she feared Nancy might vanish if she stopped.

Nancy answered with equal desperation, holding her tighter and thinking, wildly and helplessly, that if the world truly intended to end, then at least she would meet it knowing exactly what Robin felt like in her arms.

Something in Robin changed when Nancy stopped merely holding on and began asking for more.

The uncertainty left her hands first. The palm at Nancy’s waist spread wider against her skin, warm and confident, while the hand in her hair tightened just enough to tilt Nancy’s head and deepen the kiss.

Nancy followed without knowing how, opening beneath the slow pressure of Robin’s mouth.

Robin made a low sound of approval. It seemed to travel straight through her.

There was experience in the way Robin touched her - not cold expertise or comparison, but quiet certainty. She knew when to press closer and when to pause. She knew how to drag her mouth from Nancy’s lips to the corner of her jaw without losing the rhythm between them.

She knew how to kiss the sensitive place beneath Nancy’s ear until her fingers clenched helplessly in the back of Robin’s shirt.

Nancy had never understood how much could be asked with a mouth alone.

Whether this was all right. Whether she wanted more. Whether Robin should stop.

Her answer escaped as a breathless sound when Robin’s lips found her throat. The noise seemed to undo whatever restraint Robin still possessed.

She pressed Nancy carefully back against the wall, one hand cushioning the impact before it could hurt. The instinctive protectiveness of the gesture almost made Nancy cry.

Robin kissed her before the emotion could surface. This time, she took control of the rhythm, holding Nancy where she wanted her and kissing her with patient, devastating certainty. Her mouth moved from Nancy’s lips to the sensitive line beneath her jaw, then lower along her throat, lingering wherever Nancy’s breathing changed.

Nancy’s head fell back against the wall. A small sound escaped her.

Robin paused only long enough to hear it. Then she did the same thing again.

Nancy’s knees weakened. Robin’s arm tightened around her waist, supporting her without interrupting the slow path of her mouth.

“There,” Robin whispered against her skin.

Nancy’s fingers clenched in her shirt. “What?”

“That.” Robin kissed the place once more. “The sound you make when you finally stop trying to control everything.”

Heat rushed into Nancy’s face. “I don’t-”

Robin lifted her head. Nancy lost the denial beneath the look she gave her.

Robin was flushed and breathless, her pupils wide, but beneath the desire was an almost unbearable affection.

No mockery. No impatience with Nancy’s uncertainty. Only wonder.

“You’re allowed,” Robin said quietly.

“Allowed to what?”

“To want something.”

Nancy looked away.

Robin caught her chin and turned her back. “No.”

Nancy’s pulse jumped. “No what?”

“No hiding from me.”

“I’m not hiding.”

“Then stay here.” The command was soft. Nancy obeyed it anyway.

Robin’s hand returned beneath her shirt and travelled slowly over bare skin. Her touch moved downward this time, fingertips following the line of Nancy’s side before settling at her hip.

Nancy inhaled sharply.

Robin watched her face. “Okay?”

Nancy nodded.

“Say it,” Robin demanded. 

“Yes.” The word emerged breathlessly.

Robin’s thumb swept once across her skin. “Yes, what?”

Nancy stared at her. There was something almost playful in Robin’s expression, but it remained tempered by care. She was not trying to humiliate her. She was keeping Nancy inside the moment, making her acknowledge that this was something she had chosen.

“Yes, I want you to keep touching me,” Nancy whimpered softly.

Robin’s eyes darkened. “Good.”

The praise moved through Nancy like warmth.

Robin kissed her again, and her hand continued its unhurried exploration, gliding over Nancy’s hip and along the outside of her thigh. Every movement was purposeful.

Robin seemed to know that confidence would make Nancy feel safer than hesitation, but she never mistook confidence for permission. Whenever her touch shifted, she gave Nancy a heartbeat in which to refuse.

Nancy answered by pulling her closer. Robin made a low, startled sound against her lips.

The noise gave Nancy a sudden flash of courage. She slid both hands beneath Robin’s sweater, finding the warmth of her waist, and felt Robin’s composure falter - only briefly.

Then Robin caught both of Nancy’s wrists and lifted them above her head, pressing them gently against the wall. 

Nancy went still. Robin stopped immediately. Their breathing filled the small room.

Nancy looked at their hands - Robin’s fingers wrapped around her wrists, firm but not painful - and felt the strangest, most profound relief.

She did not have to hold Robin. She did not have to guide her. She did not have to do anything at all.

Robin was holding her up.

Robin was deciding what happened next. Robin was watching closely enough that Nancy could finally close her eyes without fearing what she might miss.

“Is this all right?” Robin asked.

Nancy nodded.

Robin’s grip remained still. “Nancy.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Please.”

Robin exhaled shakily. The sound betrayed how much control she was exercising, how deeply Nancy affected her despite the confidence of her hands.

Then Robin kissed her.

With Nancy’s wrists held safely above her, there was nothing Nancy could do except receive each touch as it came. She could not direct Robin’s hands or distract herself by learning Robin’s body. She could not transform the moment into another task she needed to perform correctly.

Robin did not need her to perform.

Her mouth moved slowly along Nancy’s throat while her free hand travelled down her body again, more intimately now. Fingers traced the line where Nancy’s shirt met her waistband, then slipped beneath it only far enough to touch the skin below.

Nancy’s stomach tightened.

Robin’s hand stopped. “Look at me.”

Nancy opened her eyes.

Robin watched her closely. “Do you want my hand here?”

“Yes.”

“Lower?” The word sent heat rushing through Nancy. She hesitated.

Robin’s grip around her wrists immediately loosened. Nancy felt the change and realised Robin was prepared to release her before she even asked.

She turned her hands within Robin’s grasp and caught her fingers. “Don’t let go.”

Robin’s breath broke. “I won’t.”

Nancy swallowed. “Lower.”

Robin’s expression changed. Desire sharpened it, but something tender remained beneath the hunger - a kind of astonishment that Nancy trusted her with this.

Her hand descended.

Nancy’s body tensed instinctively when Robin’s touch slipped beneath the fabric at her hips. Robin paused, giving her time to adjust, her thumb moving in one slow, soothing line over her skin. “You’re all right,” she murmured.

Nancy nodded.

“You don’t need to be quiet for me,” Robin mumbled, voice low.

“We’re not alone in the building.”

“That isn’t what I said.” 

Robin’s fingers moved. Nancy’s answer vanished. Her head fell back against the wall, a broken breath escaping before she could contain it.

Robin’s mouth curved against her throat. “Yes.”

Nancy’s cheeks burned. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” Robin asked, acting innocent.

“Sound pleased.”

“I am pleased.”

“Robin,” Nancy warned her, but there was no seriousness behind it.

“You’re beautiful.” The words were spoken against Nancy’s skin with such certainty that she could not dismiss them.

Robin’s hand moved again and Nancy’s knees weakened immediately.

Robin felt it and stepped more firmly between them, supporting her weight. The hand around Nancy’s wrists held steady while the other continued with slow, confident purpose.

There was no fumbling in the touch. Robin listened to her body as though it were speaking.

When Nancy tensed, Robin eased back. When Nancy pressed helplessly closer, Robin repeated the movement that caused it. She seemed to understand which sounds meant surprise, which meant uncertainty and which meant Nancy had forgotten everything beyond the small locked room.

Nancy hated how quickly Robin learned her. She loved it too. “Robin.”

“I’m here.”

Nancy’s fingers tightened around hers above their heads.

Robin kissed her. Her hand continued moving, drawing sensation through Nancy in deliberate, controlled waves. 

Nancy tried to follow the rhythm, but Robin altered it whenever she began to anticipate, refusing to let her seize control even over this. A frustrated sound escaped her.

Robin drew back. “What?”

“You keep changing it.”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Nancy whined.

“Because you’ve started analysing me.”

“I have not.”

“You have.” Robin kissed the corner of her mouth. “You’re trying to understand exactly what I’m doing.”

Nancy’s breathing hitched as Robin’s touch became firmer.

“So you can stay ahead of it,” Robin continued.

Another deliberate movement. Nancy’s eyes closed.

Robin grinned. “And I told you not to think.”

“I can’t help it,” Nancy whimpered.

“Yes, you can.” Robin’s voice lowered. “Give it to me.”

Nancy opened her eyes. “What?”

“All of it.” Robin’s forehead touched hers. “The decisions. The timing. Whatever happens next.”

Her hand became still against Nancy. “Let me carry it for a minute.”

Nancy stared at her. The request reached somewhere the physical touch had not.

Her entire life was built around keeping hold. Hold of herself. Hold of the people she loved. Hold of every situation that threatened to collapse if Nancy loosened her grip for even a moment.

She had thought she wanted Robin to make her forget. What she wanted was permission to stop holding everything together.

Nancy’s face crumpled.

Robin’s grip softened. “Nance?”

“I’m so tired,” Nancy breathed, trembling.

“I know,” Robin soothed her quietly.

“I can’t keep-”

“You don’t have to.”

“Everyone needs something,” Nancy continued.

“I know.”

“Holly needs me.”

“Yes.”

“My mother and Mike and-”

“Not in here,” Robin assured her.

Nancy’s breath trembled. Robin released her wrists only to interlace their fingers and press Nancy’s hands back against the wall. “Here, I need you to do one thing.”

“What?”

“Let me take care of you,” Robin said quietly.

Nancy shut her eyes. The first tear slipped down her cheek.

Robin kissed it. “Can you do that?”

Nancy nodded.

“Say it,” Robin asked of her.

“Yes.” Nancy’s voice broke. “Yes, Robin.”

Robin kissed her again, and Nancy surrendered.

Not passively, or because there was nothing left in her - because she trusted Robin enough to place every guarded part of herself into her hands.

Robin took control without turning that trust into something frightening. Her grip remained steady. Her body held Nancy upright. Her mouth moved against hers with confidence, swallowing the sounds Nancy could no longer keep inside.

Her touch resumed, stronger now, steadier.

Robin no longer hesitated over each response because Nancy had given her permission to lead, but she continued watching her face, measuring every change.

“Stay with me,” Robin whispered.

Nancy’s eyes had fallen shut again. “I am.”

“Look at me.”

Nancy forced them open. Robin’s expression was almost unbearably intent.

She was flushed and breathing hard, her hair disordered where Nancy had gripped it earlier, but her attention never left Nancy. She looked as though nothing outside the room could reach them while she held her. Nancy wanted to believe it.

Robin’s touch moved with firmer purpose. Nancy’s breath broke into a moan.

“There,” Robin murmured. “Let me hear you.”

The embarrassment flared and disappeared beneath the next wave of sensation.

Nancy’s hips shifted. Robin followed the movement, supporting rather than restraining her. “You can move.”

Nancy did. The rhythm became something they shared, but Robin still controlled it, adjusting whenever Nancy’s body began to falter. Her mouth returned to Nancy’s neck, kissing the places that made her tremble.

The sounds in the room changed. Robin’s breathing. The faint movement of fabric. Nancy’s helpless gasps and the soft, involuntary cries she could no longer swallow. “Robin.”

“I’ve got you.”

Nancy shook her head, though she did not know what she was denying.

Robin tightened her hold. “I’ve got you.”

The words sank into her. The laboratory disappeared first. Then the vision of Hawkins in flames. Then Jonathan’s face and Holly’s absence and the terrible certainty that Nancy had already reached the end of her life.

There was only Robin.

Robin’s mouth against her skin. Robin’s hands holding and guiding her. Robin saying her name as though it meant something more than a demand for another plan.

The pressure building inside Nancy frightened her. Her body tightened.

Robin noticed immediately. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No.” The answer came desperately.

Robin’s eyes darkened. “Then what?”

“It’s too much,” Nancy whined.

Robin slowed.

Nancy caught her shoulder. “No.”

Robin became completely still. Nancy struggled to breathe.

“You said it was too much,” Robin repeated carefully.

“Not wrong,” Nancy clarified, breathless.

Understanding softened Robin’s face. “Too intense?”

Nancy nodded.

“Do you want less?”

Nancy’s fingernails dug into Robin’s sweater. “No.”

Robin kissed her slowly. “Then let it happen.”

“I don’t know how,” Nancy whimpered helplessly.

“You don’t have to.” Robin’s touch began again, gentler for several seconds before gradually returning to the intensity that had made Nancy panic. “I know how.”

Nancy looked at her. The confidence in Robin’s voice might once have unsettled her. Now it made Nancy want to cry with relief.

“Trust me,” Robin whispered.

“I do.”

Robin kissed her. 

Nancy’s body began to tremble. She tried to turn her face away, overwhelmed by the intimacy of being watched so closely, but Robin caught her jaw with her free hand. “No hiding.”

“Robin-”

“I want to see you.”

The words broke what remained of Nancy’s restraint. Her eyes found Robin’s.

Robin held her gaze as sensation overtook her - as Nancy’s body arched helplessly into Robin and the cry that left her broke around Robin’s name.

Robin closed an arm around her before her knees could give way. 

She did not abandon her at the height of it. She carried Nancy through the first hard tremor and the smaller ones that followed, easing slowly whenever the intensity became too sharp.

Nancy’s mouth fell open against Robin’s shoulder, breathless sounds escaping with every aftershock. “Robin.”

“I’m here,” Robin whispered reassuringly.

“I can’t-” Nancy gasped, her whole body shaking in the aftermath of her orgasm.

“You don’t have to do anything.” Robin kissed her temple. “Just breathe.”

Nancy’s fingers closed weakly around her wrist. Robin stopped at once.

Her hand remained still until Nancy’s grip loosened. Then she withdrew carefully and wrapped both arms around her.

Nancy collapsed against her fully. For several moments, there was nothing but their breathing.

Nancy’s face rested against Robin’s neck. Robin held the back of her head with one hand and moved the other slowly over her spine, tracing a soothing path through the thick layers of her tops.

The world returned by degrees.

A door closing somewhere in the station. Someone speaking through a radio. Footsteps passing the bathroom and continuing down the corridor.

Nancy tensed. Robin’s arms tightened instinctively. “Not yet.”

“They might need us,” Nancy tried to argue. 

“They can survive another minute.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Nancy.” There was enough warning in Robin’s voice that Nancy went quiet.

Robin kissed her hair. “Was that all right?”

Nancy nodded against her shoulder.

“Words,” Robin asked again.

“Yes.”

Robin’s hand continued moving over her back. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

“Did anything frighten you?”

Nancy considered it. “Wanting it that much.”

Robin’s mouth touched her temple. “That frightened me too.”

Nancy lifted her head. “Why?”

Robin looked almost shy now, the authority she carried through the moment giving way to something vulnerable. “Because I wanted to give you everything you asked for.”

Nancy touched her face. “You did.”

“No.” Robin leaned into her palm. “I mean everything.”

The weight of the answer settled between them. 

Not only pleasure.

Robin meant mornings, questions, a future neither of them believed they were permitted to want.

Nancy kissed her. The contact was tired and soft, their mouths meeting without the hunger that consumed them moments before. Robin held her waist, supporting her while Nancy’s body gradually stopped trembling.

When they separated, Nancy kept her forehead against Robin’s. “I forgot,” she whispered.

Robin’s thumb moved across her cheek. “What?”

“All of it.”

A small smile touched Robin’s mouth. “For how long?”

“I don’t know.”

“Good.”

“It’s coming back,” Nancy murmured. 

“I know.”

Holly. Vecna. The collapsing laboratory. The battle still waiting beyond the locked door.

All of it returned, but differently now. Nancy could still feel its weight. She simply no longer felt as though she stood beneath it alone.

Robin straightened Nancy’s clothing with careful hands. The tenderness of the gesture made Nancy’s throat ache more than anything that came before it.

“Better?” Robin asked.

Nancy looked at her. Her hair was dishevelled. Her mouth was swollen. There was a mark forming near her collar where Nancy must have caught her skin without realising it. “You look terrible.”

Robin glanced at the mirror. “Interesting response after what just happened.”

“You looked terrible before,” Nancy said immediately.

“There she is.”

“Who?”

“Nancy Wheeler.”

Nancy’s smile faded. “I was here the whole time.”

Robin touched her cheek. “No. You weren’t.”

Nancy lowered her eyes.

Robin waited until she looked up again. “Where are you now?”

Nancy listened to the building around them. The danger had not gone anywhere. Neither had her fear.

But Robin’s arms remained around her, and for several minutes Nancy had placed the entire world into someone else’s hands. It had not fallen.

“Here, with you,” she said. Robin kissed her once, gently.

A knock struck the bathroom door. They both froze.

“Robin?” Steve called from the other side. “Nancy? You guys alive in there?”

Robin looked at Nancy. Nancy looked back. For the first time that night, the question did not feel impossible to answer.

“Yeah,” Robin called, her eyes never leaving Nancy’s. “We’re alive.”

Steve remained silent for a moment. “Okay. Well, we need you whenever you’re- uh, done doing whatever you’re doing.” His footsteps retreated.

Robin covered her face with one hand. “Oh, God.”

Nancy almost laughed. “He doesn’t know.”

“He absolutely knows something,” Robin groaned.

“He thinks we were talking.”

“We were talking.” Robin looked around the bathroom. “Some of the talking just became fairly nonverbal.”

Nancy touched the mark beside Robin’s collar. “You’ll need to cover that.”

Robin stared down at it. “You did that?”

Nancy’s face warmed. “Apparently.”

Robin looked unbearably pleased.

Nancy narrowed her eyes. “Do not.”

“Do not what?”

“Look like that.”

“Like what?” Robin asked.

“Pleased,” Nancy said with a frown.

“I am pleased.”

Nancy tried to look irritated. She failed.

Robin’s expression softened. “This was real, right?” 

The vulnerability in her voice hurt more than Nancy expected.

Nancy took her hand. “It was real.”

“And you aren’t going to walk out there and decide you only said it because you were upset?” Robin whispered, fear creeping into her voice.

“No.”

“You aren’t going to avoid me for the next three days?”

“We might not have three days,” Nancy reminded her. 

Robin’s face fell.

Nancy immediately regretted it. “But no,” she added. “I’m not going to avoid you.”

Robin searched her expression.

Nancy brought their joined hands to her mouth and pressed a kiss to Robin’s knuckles. “I meant everything I said.”

Robin’s eyes flooded again. “You can’t keep doing things like that,” she whispered.

“Why?”

“Because we actually need to leave this bathroom eventually, and I’m not emotionally equipped.”

Nancy smiled.

Robin reached for the door, but Nancy held her back. “What?”

Nancy kissed her one final time. It was brief now. Not desperate.

A promise rather than a confession.

Robin smiled against her mouth. When they separated, she rested her forehead against Nancy’s.

“You have to come back with me,” she whispered.

“From where?”

“All of it. Whatever happens next.”

Nancy closed her eyes. “I’ll do everything I can.”

Robin seemed ready to argue.

Nancy tightened her hold on her. “And I won’t do anything stupid without telling you first.”

“That is an appallingly low standard,” Robin complained. 

“It’s what I can offer.”

Robin considered it. “I want veto power.”

“You’re not getting veto power,” Nancy shut it down immediately.

“Then consultation rights.”

“Fine.”

“Written notice?”

“Robin.”

“Twenty-four hours?”

Nancy kissed her to stop her. It worked. When she drew back, Robin looked dazed.

“That,” Nancy said, “is how much notice you’re getting.”

“I accept these terms.”

Nancy smiled.

They still had to find Holly. They still had to return to the others and face whatever waited beyond the door. 

There would be difficult conversations later. Choices neither of them was prepared to make. Jonathan and Vickie did not stop existing because Nancy and Robin finally told each other the truth.

They had not stepped into a simple future. Only an honest one.

Robin opened the door. Before they crossed the threshold, Nancy tightened her fingers around hers.

Robin looked down at their joined hands and then back at Nancy. Neither of them let go.

Nancy had told the truth, and the world had not ended. Not yet.

Together, they stepped into what was going to remain of their life.