Eleven didn’t have a lot of female connections in her life.
Joyce and Max had always been the biggest, but Joyce had never crossed the multiversal line into Vallo, and Vallo had given her Max just to take her away. Wednesday and Enid were gone. Robin, too. Nancy was the most feminine presence, but beyond that? She was lacking. All she had were boys.
(They were fine, except they took an hour to ‘poop’ in the bathroom sometimes, and they clogged the drains more than any of the girls living here ever had. Thanks, Steve and Eddie.)
So the idea of a sister who was currently her age was just–”
“Dad is getting the spare mattress,” Eleven began, all smiles and dimpled cheeks as she showed Oona her room. It was a quaint space with things that weren’t just hand-me-downs; the furniture was gently used, and the walls were pinned with posters and art. A photo collage was among all of that, too. Polaroids of friends that have come and gone, of friends that were still here (Katou was in a lot of them, of course). “But I think we should try to do a blanket fort too, maybe. We have lights from Christmas we can put up.”
It was just perfect.
“I am trying to see if I can do virtual school,” she added, whispering. “So I can stay here with you. Dad isn’t making you do school, is he? That would suck.”
Oona giggled, as she had been doing from the moment Hopper and El had found her eating a bowl of cereal at the table. She was just so tickled by everything! Having El, her beautiful confident, amazing older sister who Oona looked up to so much at her own age was just great! And their Dad may have had a little less gray in his facial hair, but his hugs made Oona feel the same as they always did: protected, safe, and loved. It had required a little bit of explanation (she had only turned into a chinchilla once, which was pretty good all things considered!) and maybe a little more, but Oona was just as open as she was curious.
“I hope you can!” Oona whispered back, and her tail curled around El’s waist for a squeeze, as it was somehow just as expressive as Oona herself was. “I don’t think I have to go. I don’t know how long I’ll be here.” because although this was fun, she would have to go back to her Dad and El, she’d curl up on El’s lap as a tabby cat, she’d talk to Hopper in her shed while she fiddled around with the lawnmower or something else that wouldn’t work. But she was concentrating on the here and now and wanted to soak up every moment. “He probably won’t make either one of us go, but if we have to,” Oona’s eyes danced with merriment and humor. “I bet we could talk him out of it.”
Jim Hopper did have a soft spot for his kids, after all.
Hopper's time in Vallo had helped soften him up even more. While it was missing some of the more important people in their lives, it was still relatively safe. El was allowed to live as a fairly regular teen. And now he was finding out, she was allowed to have a sibling. He'd panicked a little, when the horned girl at the breakfast table had explained who she was. Was he ready for another kid? Was he even doing a good job with the one he had? But then she's shapechanged changed out of nerves and he was quick to fall into dad-mode as far as making her comfortable. Safe.
He dragged a twin mattress into El's room and paused, trying to catch his breath. The stairs were a bitch. "I heard that," he smirked. "I don't want you to get behind Eleven. With all the weird crap that happens here. But we'll figure it out tomorrow." He patted the mattress. "Where do you girls want this?" He was watching Oona with soft eyes. Curious and maybe a little wary, but old habits died hard.
Oona had Eleven beaming. It was like having a partner in crime right now with trying to convince Hopper to cave into their requests – and she was looking forward to it. She was just so cool. The horns. The tail that touched her. “No one needs Algebra in the real world,” she told Hopper, all smiles despite that bit of protest, and she pointed at the space next to her bed. “Put it here, put it here. Please?”
In retrospect, she could have offered to move the mattress herself with her telekinetic brain muscles, but she didn’t want to step away from Oona for a second and it would be an absolute miracle if they got any sleep tonight. El was never all that chatty (words could be hard for someone who had spent most of her life non-verbal), but in the presence of a sibling? Something she never thought she’d have?
The verbal floodgates were opening.
Oona glanced out of the corner of her eye at El, out of instinct. She usually let El take the lead on things not only because El was the older sister but because El was just so cool that Oona just naturally listened to her. So she didn’t skip a beat, sliding right next to El’s argument with, “Plus, it’s Vallo! The teachers are used to weird things happening, and I bet some people in school will be the wrong age too! So it will balance out! But, Pop’s right, we’ll talk about it tomorrow!”
Oona herself wasn’t dead set against going to school even back home, she enjoyed it enough but had always liked working with her hands and the tangible things more. Putting together an involved science experiment about a motor that could double the mileage per gallon, absolutely, she would do that all day. Writing an essay about a piece of literature…not so much. But the promise of ‘tomorrow’ was a good compromise for now.
Because her main focus was on looking at El’s room, so different from the place she knew in her own time, but still familiar, and being in this place with two of her favorite people. She went over to tug the mattress into place (right next to El’s bed, a prime spot for 3AM giggling), and wrapped her arm and tail around Hopper in thanks for the work. “I thought, maybe, if you wanted, I could answer questions? I know you have some, and I don’t mind!”
Hopper was startled by the hug. He'd been off-balance, putting the bed in place and being distracted by El's obvious joy and how right that felt. He made a small oof sound - was she stronger than she looked or was he just getting old? Probably some of both. He hugged back after a moment of awkward hesitation, but the hug was no less solid than the ones he gave El.
"Kid, I don't even know where to start." Part of him wondered if it would just be better to disappear downstairs and let the girls have their fun. But the other part was deeply curious about this girl and how she entered their lives. He patted her on the head and gave El a soft glance. "I guess you could tell me how we met? So uh. I can keep an eye out for you?"
Eleven had an excess amount of blankets she didn’t need, clearly Oona could have like – three of them. She was pulling them off her bed, beginning to drape it over the mattress. Pillows? She only needed one! The extra two were always lagniappe (she’s lived in the woods twice now, she was very low maintenance in the scheme of things) so she tossed that onto the pile too.
“Yes, that is a very important question,” she pointed out, pausing in the making of her sister’s (she had a sister) bed to focus on them. “When do we meet you? Are you allowed to give us dates too? We do not want to miss you.”
Would she low-key (or high-key, let’s be real) start searching the Vallo void in the next several months looking for Oona? The next several years? The answer should be obvious.
“Well…” Oona started, looking unsure. Her tail came up to make an appearance over her shoulder, the bladed tip tick tocking back and forth as if echoing that indecision. “I don’t know how much I can and can’t say without messing everything up, but…” she squinted, and the cogs and wheels spinning in her brain were practically visible. Oona may have been full of giggles, but she was also analytical and liked to puzzle everything out.
When she had touched all of the if/thens, she bounced on her toes and grabbed the opposite side of the blanket El was fiddling with so they could parachute it up and down before it settled on the mattress. “I’m not from Vallo,” she started. “I came from–you know the game Mike likes to play? It sounded like that, sort of. I don’t remember what happened to my parents, but I lived in a home with other kids.” It hadn’t been bad either, Oona remembered sometimes there were more kids than adults, but even if the guardians were frazzled and overworked, they were kind.
“But then when I came to Vallo, I didn’t have anyone, and I lived in the woods because it was easier and I didn’t know what else to do. That didn’t last very long, don’t worry!” she added, quickly, because she didn’t really didn’t want Hopper or El to worry. Mostly that time had involved a lot of foraging and hiding out. “And then someone on Defense found me and brought me into the DOA and no one knew what to do until you guys volunteered! And we’ve been a family ever since!” Sure there had been some adjustments, Oona had to learn what electricity and running water were, in addition to figuring out how to not turn into different creatures at every emotional moment, but she had never doubted where she belonged.
“As to the when..” Oona trailed off, shrugging. “There’s still time. I’m not here now–I won’t be for a bit, so you haven’t missed me! And I’ll be an older kid, so maybe it won’t be a big adjustment?”
Hopper smiled at El as he watched her give up most of her own things for this new addition to her life. She had always been generous and it comforted him to know that losing people back to home wasn't stealing that kindness from her. He reached over to give her a quick head hug before he focused his attention back on Oona.
"Oh. Well I suppose that's not a surprise. I haven't heard Tieflings mentioned by the locals." It was disappointing not having a date, but he also didn't want to push, for her sake or theirs. He would just have to be vigilant and help out the DOA more often. "I think we're pretty good at adjusting on the fly though. What do you think, kid?" he asked El with a knowing smirk. "You can make some changes for a sister, right?"
Eleven was nodding along in understanding. The game – Dungeons and Dragons, obviously, did she come from one of those places? Like how there were superheroes from comics walking around and living normally here? It was odd but cool, and a lot of her life had also been odd but cool, so she was taking the information dump with stride.
They had time, which was also good to know, but Eleven was also very impatient and wanted Oona to be permanently with them yesterday. The numbers in their house were dwindling, and she desperately wanted it to go back up again.
“Yep,” was her breezy reply to Hopper, grinning up at him. “I’ll save my stuff for her. Clothes and things. If –” She then looked back to Oona. “That is okay? Is it wrong to ask how old you are when we find you? That way we can get ready. That would be more safe to know than the when we find you, right?”
“There aren’t that many Tieflings,” Oona confirmed, shrugging. “A few are around now and then, but for the most part, it’s me as the representation!” It didn’t bother her. She had fuzzy memories of having to wear a hooded cape when she went out in the city so that her horns and tail didn’t give her away and being confused when someone once hissed demon at her, but in Vallo everyone was so much more open and accepting that no one so much as blinked twice at her now. And certainly her own family had never made her feel anything less than loved–not accepted, not tolerated, but loved and wanted, so even if Oona was the only Tiefling that ever showed up in Vallo, it wouldn’t have mattered to her.
She was flooded yet again with another wave of love for her dad and sister, because this was an entirely different look at them. Oona got to see how much she was wanted, and although Oona had never doubted that, it was something else to see just how excited El was at the prospect of having a sister, how Hopper was already carving out the space in their lives for her. Oona wanted it to be now, wanted to be in the family all the sooner because she knew what joy was coming. Even though logically she knew that was impossible because she was literally not in Vallo at the moment, that didn’t make it any easier.
El’s question had her bouncing on her toes again in delight. “I’ll be eleven,” she said, just so pleased with the coincidence of sharing an age with her sister’s name. “I’m sixteen now, so it hasn’t really been all that long, but,” she squeezed them both in a hug again because Oona couldn’t not. “It felt right from the beginning. You guys have been the best family I could have ever asked for. I love our dinners, and going over to El’s house for movie night, or tinkering around with you, Pops. Which, by the way, I’m going to fix the air conditioning and that rattle in the fridge before I go,” she added. “Just so you have something to remember me by until I come home for good.”
Hopper stored away every piece of information like the cop he was. He didn't doubt that he'd adopt another lonely little outcast kid; if anything, he was surprised it hadn't happened already. Only, it made sense. He wasn't quite ready yet. Most of him still desperately wanted to go home, to Joyce, to Hawkins even if it was probably about to be sucked underground forever. Reaching the point where he'd been willing to take on the lifelong commitment of a kid here was a different story. But looking at this charming girl and her clear adoration for Eleven, it was easy to see how he eventually did.
"I'm glad. I mean, that you've been happy with us. Not that you intend to fix something. Well, no, I'm glad for that too, I just meant…" He made a face at himself. "You know what. I'm gonna pop you guys some popcorn. Get out of your hair." He ruffled El's hair lovingly and after a second of hesitation, did the same between Oona's horns. It felt right. That had to count for something. "If you promise not to get us ants in here, I'll drizzle some caramel on the bowl."
“I do not want to be a ‘this is how we get ants’ story,” El vowed seriously. She wouldn’t argue that she was getting too old for hair ruffles – yet. She’d give Hopper this win, knowing he must be in his feelings about everything. In a good way!
Because he was the best dad, and she loved the idea of being able to share him with someone who needed someone like him too.