Chapter One-Hundred-And-Ten: Explanations And Nerd Theses

(E Pluribus Unum, Pt. 2)

***

Rowan can't breathe.

She can't move, she can't think, she can't function. Her mind, her body, was still there in that room, next to the open vent and watching Steve, Valerie and Robin barely hold the door closed, yelling at her to escape and leave them to the non-existent mercy of the Russians. And she did. She did because a part of her knew Steve was right, that if the Russians caught her she'd not only risk her secrets, but risk Alistair and her aunt and her family—her cousins who didn't even know what it was like to be in fear of being abducted by a government's mad scientists and treated as a weapon and experiment—but Rowan still felt guilt filling her up, acidic and scorching and tasting of shame, bitter and and corrosive, her mind a storm of I should have dragged them into the vent I shouldn't have left them I should have held the door I should have protected Robin and Valerie, I should have protected Steve.

Her fears—of Robin and Valerie being wrapped up in the inter-dimensional dangers of Hawkins and being hurt or even killed by them, of Steve being hurt or killed, because she couldn't protect them better, because she couldn't protect him better—had come true in the worst way possible.

And again, she did nothing but run.

Barb and Bob flashed before her, their faces mingling with Robin's, Valerie's, and Steve's. She needed to go back, she needed to rescue them, she needed to save them, she left them she left them she left them she left—

"Rowan!"

Rowan jumped, whipping around to see Dustin there. He was holding her arm. Behind him was Erica, the usually sassy girl looking worried and confused and scared. 

Dustin. Erica.

"Protect Dustin and Erica!" screamed into her mind. Rowan looked at Dustin and Erica, at their faces, at how even though they were doing a good job, they were both scared. And she was the oldest person in these vents—she had to make sure they got out safe, to protect them.

She can relearn to function for them.

"Are you okay?" Dustin asked, surprisingly considerate and soft. He was still holding her arm, and the touch was grounding—but it isn't Steve's touch, God, are they torturing Steve I need to go back I need to save him—

Rowan shook her head, dispelling the painful thoughts away. "I'm fine."

Even as she said the words, Rowan knew it was a lie—a lie that didn't convince Dustin Henderson. But Rowan had practice with masking her true feelings, of concealing her pain and fear, as she swallowed and made herself say, "Come on. We... we need to find a way out of here and back to that elevator, and get them help. You still have that keycard, Henderson?"

Dustin nodded. "Yeah, I do."

"Good. Let's go, then," Rowan said, her words sounding stronger, more like herself.

As she made to crawl down the vent—God, why did the Russians design these vents so fucking small?—Erica Sinclair's voice piped up.

"So you two are not gonna tell me what the hell that thing was the Commies were doing and what you did to that door?"

Dustin and Rowan shared an alarmed look, and Rowan muttered, "We can't."

"We have to. She saw it, too," Dustin argued.

"Yeah, but she doesn't need to know what it is," Rowan countered—Rowan refused to have another kid lose their innocence thanks to the Upside Down.

"She is still here and would very much like you two nerds to spill whatever secrets you're hiding," Erica piped up, shooting them both a glare Rowan would be proud of in different circumstances.

Rowan and Dustin shared another look. Dustin's eyebrows raised and Rowan sighed.

"Okay, fine. But you aren't using me as a shield when Lucas wants to kill us for dragging his sister into this shit, Henderson," Rowan warned before she rounded back to Erica.

"Erica, I have superpowers," Rowan revealed, her face void of expression.

Like she expected, the younger Sinclair was skeptical. "No you don't."

"Yes, I do. That's how I was able to keep the door closed," Rowan explained, banishing Steve, Robin and Valerie from her mind. "I have telekinesis, and I can also teleport and control and generate electricity."

"Prove it," Erica said.

"Prove it?" Rowan echoed.

"Yeah, prove it. Otherwise it sounds like you're making shit up," Erica argued, arms crossed.

"God, you and Lucas really are related," Rowan muttered before she huffed out a sigh and let some sparks fizz to life in her hand. Thanks to the machine's effects, her powers were still weak, so she could only bring a few sparks to life before they fizzled out. When they did, she lowered her hand, glaring at Erica. "There's your proof. Am I making shit up now?"

Erica frowned, before she admitted, "Okay, you're not. But that was just some sparks. I thought you would shoot lightning from your fingers or something."

"I can, but I don't usually stand in close proximity to a machine breaking apart the fucking world that makes me feel like I'm falling fucking apart," Rowan fired back, the exhaustion and guilt and grief—not grief they're not dead they were just captured you can still help them you can still save them they're not dead he's not dead—making her snappy. She sighed. "Sorry, I'm just exhausted and frazzled. Let's just find a way out of here and help them, okay? Dustin, you explain to her the deal with the Upside Down and El."

She began crawling forward, as behind her Dustin started recounting the horrifying story.

"Okay, it started when Will went missing two years ago..."

***

"So when we set fire to the hub, we drew the Demodogs away, so El could close the gate. But now, for some insane reason, the Russians appear to be trying to reopen it, which just destroys everything we risked our lives for," Dustin said, ending the recount of everything with the Upside Down at last.

Rowan was leaning back against one side of the vent as Dustin fiddled with a panel box that controlled the fan blocking their path, while Erica sat next to him. The girl had been quiet with her occasional questions that even Rowan didn't know were genuine or sarcastic when Dustin had explained, and Rowan waited for what her verdict would be, as she stewed over what Dustin had just said. The Russians were destroying everything they had done to close the fucking thing in the first place—Rowan, Steve and the gremlins their lives to distract the Demodogs and burn the shit out of the tunnels, Joyce, Jonathan, Nancy and Alistair to drive the Mind Flayer's piece out of Will, El to close the gate and stop the Mind Flayer and return to the place that gave her so much trauma and pain and Hopper and Aunt Aco their lives to defend the telekinetic girl that had saved them all plus the world—and it made anger burn in Rowan, white-hot and familiar. All to use it as some weapon against America.

As if you could use the Upside Down and what's inside it as a weapon, Rowan thought bitterly—the Russians were only dooming them all if they successfully opened the gate. Rowan would bet all those scientists and soldiers would be the first to die at the toothy jaws of a Demogorgon or Demodog, as much it made her stomach crawl with revulsion as her mind flashed with the memory of those bodies, blood on white walls, Bob.

Rowan squeezed her eyes shut, banishing the memories, as Erica questioned, "By 'we', you're including Lucas?"

Rowan nodded as Dustin verbally answered, "Yes, of course."

"So all that shit you told me, Lucas was there?" Erica grilled.

"Yeah," Rowan and Dusty confirmed in exasperated unison.

"My brother, Lucas Charles Sinclair?"

"Yes!" Dustin exclaimed, irritation twisting his face as Rowan rolled her eyes.

"I don't believe you," the younger Sinclair said skeptically.

"Wait. So you believe everything about El and the gate and the Demodogs and the Mind Flayer," Dustin said as Erica nodded, "but your question your brother's involvement?"

"That's correct," Erica confirmed.

"Makes total sense," Dustin muttered as Rowan snorted.

"Typical siblings," she murmured.

"You need help with that?" Erica inquired to Dustin, who seemed to be having trouble with opening the panel with his screwdriver.

"No," was the terse reply.

Rowan frowned and whacked the back of Dustin's head. "Don't be rude, Henderson."

"Sorry," Dustin mumbled, both to her and to Erica.

"You should be," Rowan said.

"Well, I mean, it's taking a while, so—" Erica went on, and Dustin snapped, "Yeah, no shit, Sherlock."

"What did I just say, Dustin?!" Rowan exclaimed, whacking Dustin on the head again, harder this time.

"Ouch! Alright, geez! Sorry," Dustin groused out before he returned back to the panel as Rowan looked heavenward.

Erica, however, looked unperturbed as she said, "All right, so if we don't find a more efficient method to stop these fans, we're never gonna find help, and your ice cream buddies are screwed."

"Don't remind me," Rowan muttered under her breath as Dustin retorted back, "Yeah, with that attitude, they are. Jee-zus!"

"I'm just being realistic," Erica said with a shrug. She eyed Rowan and added, "Unless..."

"Yeah, it's still not happening," Rowan shot down—when they arrived at the blocked-off intersection, Rowan had tried to teleport, but aside from the edges of her body and the world around her warping, nothing happened. Her powers still too tapped out, so there was nothing to do but wait till they recovered. Fortunately, they were doing so quickly, but not enough that Rowan could risk teleporting herself, much less Dustin and Erica, past a fan whose blades could dice them up like choice beef.

"Okay then," the ten-year-old muttered, before she went on, "I mean, we've made it about point-three miles in nine hours. Then we had to walk three hours down that tunnel, so I'd estimate ten miles back to the elevator—if this nerd here isn't lying about teleporting—which should take us approximately twelve-and-a-half days."

Dustin and Rowan stared at Erica in shock—not even the jab at her teleportation was enough to erase Rowan's shock at what Erica had just said.

"Did you just do all of that in your head?" Dustin questioned.

"I'm good with numbers," Erica answered nonchalantly.

"Yeah, there's good with numbers and there's what you just did, Erica," Rowan said, still staring at Erica in shock.

"Holy shit. You're a nerd," Dustin realised, making Erica blink at Dustin in her own baffled shock.

"Come again?"

"You. Are. A. Nerd," Dustin said, emphasising each word.

"Okay, you better take that back, nerd," Erica retorted.

"Can't put the truth back in the box," Dustin fired back immediately after.

"But it's not the truth," Erica argued.

Rowan smirked. "Live in denial all you want, Erica. It's easier to accept it."

"Yeah, let's examine the facts, shall we?" Dustin said. "Fact number one, you're a math whiz, apparently."

"That was a pretty straightforward equation," Erica reasoned.

"Fact number two, you're a political junkie."

"Just because I don't agree with communism as an ideology—"

"Fact number three, you love My Little Pony," Dustin capped off as he showed off the cartoon ponies on Erica's backpack.

"And what does My Little Pony have to do with this?" Erica questioned sharply as Rowan looked at Dustin, eager to hear his reasoning why My Little Pony was proof of Erica's nerdiness.

"Ah, let's recall the ponies' latest adventure, shall we?" Dustin mused, before he did just that. "The evil centaur demon Tirek turns Applejack into a dragon at Midnight Castle, and then Megan and the other ponies have to use Moochick's magic to defeat his rainbow of darkness, saving them from a lifetime of enslavement. All the pink in the world can't disguise the irrefutable fact that centaurs and castles and dragons and magic are all standard nerd tropes. Ergo, My Little Pony is nerdy. Ergo, you, Erica, are a nerd."

Rowan stared at Dustin, unable to believe what she heard—and apparently, Erica couldn't, either—but Rowan couldn't deny what he said—centaurs and dragons and shit were all considered nerdy, she'd learned that long ago. If My Little Pony had those in them, it would be secretly nerdy. 

"And how do you know so much about My Little Pony?" Erica questioned.

"I'd like to know that as well," Rowan concurred.

"Because I'm... a nerd," Dustin answered, as he finally lifted the panel off, exposing what was inside. Dustin pulled the switch to turn the fans off and they watched as they slowed down before stopping. Rowan grinned and patted Dustin on the back.

"Good job, menace," she complimented.

Dustin grinned, before he looked at Erica. "Let's go, nerd."

"You..." Erica hissed as she crawled behind Dustin, who was behind Rowan, as they continued crawling through the vents—toward, hopefully, an exit.

And toward help for Steve, Robin and Valerie.

***

Yeah, Rowan... Rowan's not doing great.

Her worst fear is losing her loved ones/friends, and what happened to Steve, Robin and Valerie was it come to life (even if there was nothing she could do and it would be worse for her, Alistair and her wider family if she was captured too) Still, she blames herself for it, but she's being strong for Dustin and Erica, who need her :(

Also, I'm loving writing Rowan, Erica and Dustin's interactions. You have no idea how excited I am to write them these next few chapters >:)

The nerd scene is one of my fave scenes. Like, yes, Dustin, expose Erica's inner nerdiness and let her begin accepting it (also, that math equation. I could never 😖)

Next chapter will be soon! And it will be chaotic >;)

Please read, comment and vote!

GhostWriterGirl out!