"so, nancy's a genius." robin said. "vecna's first victims date back all the way to 1959. her shot in the dark was a bullseye."

dustin nodded. "okay, that's totally bonkers, but i can't really talk right now."

"wait, what are you doing?"

"breaking and entering school properly." meadow replied, once again grabbing at the walkie talkie. "retrieving some confidential and extremely personal files of therapy sessions that children had with their trusted counselor. it isn't morally incorrect or illegal at all."

robin was silent for a moment. "can you repeat that?"

"just get your ass over here, stat!" dustin said. "we'll explain everything."

using the keys max had stolen, they unlocked the door to the counselors office. max quickly located chrissy's file, and pulled it out. "holy shit. fred was seeing ms kelley, too." they laid both files out to look for similarities in their noted issues.

"max?" meadow asked when she noticed how tense she was. "are you okay?" she didn't reply, and the older girl put her hands on her shoulders. when she looked down, she noticed that she was seemingly in a trance. "shit shit shit. max, wake up!" she shook her, and her eyes flew open.

after waking up, max insisted that she'd seen a grandfather clock stuck in the wall. "right here." she said, though it had seemingly disappeared. "it was so real. and then, when i got closer, suddenly i just.. i woke up."

"it was like she was in a trance or something." dustin explained to robin and nancy, who had just arrived. "exactly what eddie said happened to chrissy."

max turned around, shaking her head. "that's not even the bad part. fred and chrissy, they both came to ms kelley for help." she said, showing them the files. "they both were having headaches, bad headaches that just wouldn't go away. and then.. then the nightmares. trouble sleeping. they'd wake up in a cold sweat. and then they started seeing things. bad things. from their past. these visions, they just.. they kept on getting worse, and worse, until eventually.. everything ended."

"vecna's curse." meadow said.

"chrissy's headache started a week ago. fred's, six days ago." max looked around at the others. "i've been having them for five days."

meadow's head dropped to her hands. "shit."

"i don't know how long i have," max began, "all i know is that, for fred and chrissy, they both died less than twenty four hours after their first vision. and i just saw that goddamn clock, so-"

"hey, hey." meadow stood up, and max practically fell into her arms. the older girl put a hand on the back of her head, holding her close in a hug. "we're going to find a way to fix this, okay?"

she shook her head. "i'm gonna die tomorrow."

"no, you're not-" the older girl was about to come up with something inspirational or helpful when a distant sound startled the group.

"stay here." steve said, picking up a lamp that he held up as a weapon. of course, no one listened, and everyone almost immediately followed steve into the hallway. the noises got closer and closer, and steve was about to strike whatever it was when lucas rounded the corner screaming. "sinclair!! what is wrong with you?! i could've taken you out with this lamp!"

lucas panted. "sorry, guys. sorry. i was.. i was biking for eight miles. give me a second. shit." he groaned. "we've got a code red."

meadow nodded. "yeah, so do we. what's yours?"

"dustin," lucas said, walking over to him, "i've been with jason, patrick, and andy, and they've gone like totally off the rails. they're trying to capture eddie, and they think you know where he is. you're in terrible danger!"

the other boy seemed unimpressed, which was understandable given their much more severe news about max. "alright, yeah, that definitely sucks, but we've got bigger problems than jason right now."

"why are you guys always selling my brother out?" meadow groaned, recalling when steve had given his name to the russians.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

the group had all gathered in the wheeler's basement, and meadow, steve, dustin, and lucas were all on victor creel research duty. nancy and robin both believed that, whoever this guy was, he was connected to vecna and his first attack.

"okay, be honest." steve said as he read through a flyer. "uh.. you guys understand any of this?"

"no." lucas groaned.

"yeah." meadow said at the same time, not looking up from the article in her hands.

"pretty straightforward." her brother agreed.

steve looked over at him. "oh, straightforward, really?"

meadow looked up. "what's confusing you?"

"so far, everyone vecna has cursed has died, except for this old victor creel dude nancy found. he's the only known survivor. if anyone knows how to beat this curse, it's him!" dustin summarized.

"that's assuming he was cursed." steve argued. "we don't even know." he put his hand to his temple. "how can vecna have existed in the '50s? it doesn't make sense."

"as far as we know, eleven didn't create the upside down." dustin told him. "she opened a gate to it. the upside down has probably been around for thousands of years. millions. i wouldn't be surprised if it predated the dinosaurs."

steve was then completely lost. "dinosaurs? what are we-"

"okay," lucas cut him off, "but if a gate didn't exist in the '50s, how did vecna get through?"

"and how's he getting through now?" steve added.

"and why now?" the other boy agreed.

"and why then?" steve continued. "he just pops out in the '50s, kills one family, and he's like, 'i'm good', and poof he just disappears.. just.. gone? only to return thirty years later and start killing some random teens? no, i don't buy it." he shook his head.

meadow looked up from her article. "how many stephen king books have you guys read?"

steve turned back to her. ".. only the summaries you've given me. why?"

"cicadas disappear, right. sometimes in horror movies, in.. in some books and stuff, sometimes the villains disappear for an extended period after they've had enough feeding. maybe vecna has to pop out every now and then to keep himself strong enough to be alive. but he's still.. he's still waiting to reach his full strength or something."

dustin shrugged. "it's a good idea."

"best one we have so far." steve agreed. "straightforward my ass. you know, henderson, some humility? every now and then? it wouldn't hurt you." he complained about dustin as he sat next to meadow, who was focused on a new article now.

"any idea what she's writing?" dustin asked, making everyone look at max. she was huddled in the corner, as she had been all morning, completely focused on her pen and paper. "did she sleep?"

lucas looked at him. "i mean.. would you?"

the door opened, and everyone turned again as nancy and robin walked downstairs. "okay, so, we have a plan."

"thanks to nancy's newspaper minions, we are now rock-star psychology students at the university of notre dame." robin said, handing steve and meadow one of their new fake files.

"notre dame? nice." the girl said, smiling at robin.

"i'm now ruth." nancy said.

"and i'm rose."

"so, we called pennhurst asylum, told them we'd like to speak with victor creel for a thesis we're co-writing on paranoid schizophrenics-" nancy began.

"-to which they said no." robin frowned.

nancy nodded. "but, we landed a three o'clock with the director."

"now all we have to do is charm him and convince him to let us talk to victor."

"and then maybe we can rid max of this curse."

steve looked at her over his shoulder. "about that. we've been doing our victor creel homework, and, uh.. we got some questions."

"lots of questions." meadow agreed.

"so do we." nancy said. "maybe victor has some answers."

steve thought for a second. "wait, wait, wait a second. uh.. where's me and meadow.. our fake files?"

meadow looked up at him. "we're not going."

"what?"

"we don't have fake files because we're not going." she explained. "back on the bench."

steve, who didn't want to be stuck on house arrest with the kids anymore, followed nancy and robin upstairs. "why is it always me and meadow who are always watching them? it can be fun, yeah, sometimes, but i want to get to do something for once-"

"oh, you wanna wear a cute little schoolgirl costume? i'm sure that would really impress the director." meadow replied sarcastically, following them into nancy's bedroom, where she was attempting to craft an outfit for robin.

she had zoned out most of the conversation, but meadow looked up as robin grabbed a jewelry box, gasping at the spinning ballerina inside. "true academic scholars, right? won't be so hard."

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

"i know you guys are staring at me." max said after nancy and robin had left. the others, called out, diverted their attention.

"what, sorry? no."

"just hanging out." steve argued, putting an arm over meadow's shoulder and pretending to read the random book she'd grabbed while tossing a baseball with his free hand.

max chuckled. "how you think your eyes boring into the back of my head is protecting me from vecna, i don't know." she then stood from her seat, her letters seemingly finished. when she walked over to the others, she rolled her eyes as they continued to pretend they weren't looking at her. "you can look at me now."

"thank you. sorry."

she then handed an envelope to each of them, and all four quickly made a move to open them before she stopped them. "hey, what are you doing? no, don't, that's not for now, don't open it now."

they all quickly closed the envelopes, and dustin held his up. "i'm sorry, what is this?"

max cleared her throat. "it's, um.. it's a fail-safe. for after. if things don't work out."

lucas shook his head. "wait, woah, max, things are gonna work out."

"no!" she argued. "no, i don't need you to reassure me right now and tell me it's all gonna work out, because people have been telling me that my entire life and it's almost never true. it's never true." she repeated. "i mean, of course this asshole curses me. should've seen that one coming." wordlessly, she grabbed dustin's walkie talkie. "if we go to east hawkins, will this thing still reach pennhurst?"

dustin nodded. "of course, yeah."

"wait, why are we talking about east hawkins?" steve asked before getting struck with realization. "no. no. no!" as usual, no one listened to steve, and max walked outside, fully prepared to walk to east hawkins if she had to. "max. max, seriously. seriously, i'm not joking, okay? i'm not driving you anywhere."

she kept walking. "steve, if you think i'm going to spend what is likely the last day of my life in the armpit that is mike wheeler's basement, then you're out of your mind. so either take me where i need to go or tie me down, which is technically kidnapping of a minor- and if i live to see another day, steve, i swear to god, i will prosecute." max tugged at the car door, and groaned when she found it to be locked. "open the door."

he gave her a look. "uh, no."

"i know a good lawyer." she threatened.

from behind steve, meadow reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his keys, using them to unlock the car. "hey!" he complained, watching as she climbed into the passenger seat.

"come on, steve. since when were we ever good babysitters?"