Chapter 36

Got some cute little Magcy moments for yall, shipname curtesy of @Avassreader, my biggest supporter and total queen 🙂

Hospital machines beep in slow, even intervals. The steady rhythm of a borrowed heartbeat. Tubes run from the IV stand into Maggie’s arm, and her chest rises and falls with the help of a ventilator. She looks small under the thin white sheets, too pale for her freckles to make sense against her skin.

Nancy hasn’t moved in hours. She sits beside the bed with her knees pulled to her chest, her hand wrapped tightly around Maggie’s limp one. The cheap plastic chair digs into her legs, but she doesn’t care. She’s been awake for nearly two days now, the circles under her eyes matching the hollowness in her chest.

Joyce keeps coming in to try and make her leave, bringing her coffee, begging her to get some sleep, but Nancy refuses.

“I’m not leaving her,” she says every time, soft but unmovable.

Now, in the dim light of the hospital room, Joyce stands at the foot of the bed, arms crossed and trembling.

“You can’t sit here forever, Nancy.”

Nancy looks up, her voice tight, “You think I can sleep while she’s like this?”

Joyce’s throat works around a lump, “She wouldn’t want you—”

“She wouldn’t want to be alone,” Nancy cuts in sharply.

The older woman exhales shakily, then nods. She can’t argue with that.

Out in the hallway, Jonathan leans against the wall, head in his hands. His chest heaves like he’s trying not to choke on the air. He’s the one who’s supposed to hold everyone together, but he’s unraveling now.

He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“She’s my sister,” he whispers to himsel, “She’s supposed to be—she’s supposed to be okay.”

He can still see her collapsing, the color draining from her face. He can still feel the way her pulse stuttered under his hand before disappearing altogether. And he can still hear the rasp of her first breath when she came back.

Joyce spends most of her time pacing. She’s convinced herself she’s the reason this happened.

“If I hadn’t agreed to that damn heater plan…” she mutters one night, her voice shaking as she stares at the linoleum floor, “If I’d just said no, if I’d waited—”

“Mom,” Jonathan says softly, but she keeps going.

“I almost lost both of them. Both my kids. Because I thought I could outsmart that thing.”

“You didn’t do this,” he says, “You didn’t put her there.”

But Joyce just shakes her head, unable to believe it. She sits on the couch in the waiting room, twisting a tissue until it disintegrates in her hands.

Will visits every morning. He brings her drawings, simple things, like flowers or stars, and tapes them to the wall above her bed. He sits on the edge of the chair Nancy doesn’t use and talks to her quietly.

“I know you can hear me, Mags,” he says one day, “You always hear me. You’re gonna wake up soon, right? You always wake up.”

He keeps saying it like a mantra: She always wakes up.

Sometimes Nancy has to leave the room to cry in the hallway when he says it, because she doesn’t have the heart to tell him she’s not sure.

And somewhere far away Maggie does hear them. But she’s not really here.

It’s cold where she is. Dark. Not quite the Upside Down, but close enough that she feels it in her bones.

When she opens her eyes in that place, there’s no light source, but everything glows faintly blue. The ground beneath her isn’t solid, but more like mist, shifting beneath her feet.

“Hello?” she calls out, her voice echoing into nothing.

No one answers.

Except… sometimes, faintly, she hears whispers. Joyce’s crying. Jonathan’s begging. Nancy’s whispering her name.

And one night, or what passes for night in that half-world, she hears another voice.

“Still here.”

Maggie freezes, “El?”

“Still here,” the voice repeats, a little stronger.

Maggie closes her eyes and focuses, reaching for that sound, “Yeah, me too, kid. Still here.”

The air vibrates, and for a moment, warmth spreads through her chest, a flicker of light that fades as quickly as it comes. But it’s enough to remind her that she’s not gone yet.

A month passes.

The doctors stop giving hopeful updates. They start talking in quiet tones when they think the family can’t hear. Joyce catches words like persistent vegetative state and no signs of cognitive function.

Nancy starts sleeping in the hospital chair every night, curled against the edge of the bed. She tells Maggie about her day — about Mike, about Steve, about stupid little things that don’t matter — just so her voice doesn’t disappear into the static.

She doesn’t even notice the dark circles under her eyes anymore.

The others make the hospital room feel less like a morgue and more like a messy, rotating sleepover. Hopper drops by with coffee frequently and gives Nancy his gruff, fatherly “you need rest” speech that she ignores every single time. Dustin, being Dustin, stands at Maggie’s bedside every other afternoon and declares to the room that he’s “pretty sure” he’s in love with her, because no one else has ever called him “Dustbucket” and made it sound like a compliment. It always gets a weak laugh out of everyone, even Nancy. Mike and Lucas argue over whose new D&D character Maggie would have liked best (Lucas insists it’s his, because “she had taste”). Max rolls her eyes at all of them but paints Maggie’s nails anyway, bright red like it’ll keep her tethered here. El sometimes just sits quietly, holding Maggie’s hand, eyes far away, like she’s trying to reach her in the dark.

It’s late on the thirty-second day when Joyce’s voice starts to crack.

She’s standing in the hallway with a doctor, her hands shaking.

“We’re not— we’re not pulling the plug,” she says.

“Mrs. Byers,” the doctor says gently, “It’s been over a month with no neurological response. I think we need to at least consider—”

“No,” Jonathan says firmly, stepping between them, “You don’t get to decide that.”

“Mr. Byers—”

“She’s still in there!” he snaps, “You don’t know her like we do!”

Inside the room, Nancy jerks awake at the sound of their raised voices. She sits up and leans over Maggie, brushing a strand of hair off her forehead.

“Don’t listen to them, okay? You’re coming back. I know you are,” she whispers.

Will stands by the window, tears in his eyes, “Why are they talking about her like she’s already gone?”

Nancy shakes her head, “Because they don’t get it. She’s fighting.“

Outside, the doctor’s voice rises again, weary but calm, “We just have to be realistic—”

“Realistic?” Joyce chokes, “You call giving up realistic?”

The sound echoes through the room and that’s when Maggie moves.

At first it’s small. A twitch of her fingers against the bedsheet.

Then her breathing hitches. The monitor spikes once, twice, and steadies again.

Nancy freezes, “Maggie?”

Her hand tightens around Maggie’s and this time, Maggie squeezes back.

“Maggie!” Nancy cries, standing so fast her chair topples over, “She moved!”

Joyce and Jonathan rush into the room. Will’s eyes are wide and wet with disbelief.

Maggie’s lips part. Her voice comes out broken, rasping from a throat that hasn’t worked in a month.

“—the hell… are you all yelling about?”

The room explodes in sobs and laughter at once. Nancy grabs her hand. Joyce’s knees give out and she falls against the bed, crying so hard she can’t breathe. Jonathan keeps saying her name like he’s afraid she’ll vanish again.

Maggie blinks blearily at the chaos, “Did I… miss something?”

Nancy laughs through her tears, “Just a month-long nap, you menace.”

Maggie groans softly, “Figures. Leave it to me to sleep through the apocalypse.”

The next few hours are chaos. Beautiful, delirious chaos.

Doctors swarm in, checking vitals and shining flashlights into Maggie’s pupils. Joyce can’t stop crying. Will keeps hovering near her elbow. Jonathan hasn’t said much, just stands at her bedside, trembling with quiet relief.

Nancy, though… Nancy hasn’t moved an inch. She’s still there, Maggie’s hand clutched in hers.

The doctor finishes a quick exam, muttering something about “remarkable neural recovery” and “spontaneous reactivation.” No one’s really listening. Joyce keeps thanking him through tears, and the moment he leaves, she pulls Maggie into the gentlest hug imaginable.

“Don’t ever do that to me again,” Joyce says, voice breaking.

Maggie’s laugh comes out like a croak, “Yeah, I’ll try to pencil ‘dying’ out of my schedule.”

Jonathan wipes his face on his sleeve, sniffling hard, “You scared the hell out of us.”

“Yeah, well, that makes two of us,” Maggie says weakly, “I could hear you guys, you know. All that time. You’re really bad at whispering.”

Joyce chokes out a half-sob, half-laugh, pressing a hand to her chest, “You heard us?”

“Bits and pieces.” Maggie says, “It was like… underwater. Or… like you were on the other side of the wall.”

Nancy’s thumb brushes over her knuckles, “But you came back.”

“Guess I couldn’t let you idiots handle the world without me,” Maggie says softly, smiling.

For the first time in weeks, the Byers family smiles together.

Joyce insists on calling Hopper and the kids. Within an hour, the hospital room is flooded. Dustin, Lucas, and Max nearly tackle Will with excitement, El beams quietly from behind Hopper’s shoulder, and Mike just stands there, eyes wide, like he can’t believe it’s real.

Dustin grins ear to ear, “You know, I knew you couldn’t die. You’re way too annoying.”

“Love you too, Dusty,” Maggie rasps.

“Don’t call me that,” he mutters, even as his eyes glisten.

Max, hovering near the foot of the bed, crosses her arms, “You’re seriously the toughest person I’ve ever met.”

Maggie smirks, “Takes one to know one, Red.”

Lucas just shakes his head, smiling, “You’re unbelievable.”

“Yeah,” she murmurs, eyes softening, “That’s what Nancy said.”

Nancy blushes instantly, earning a round of teasing looks from the younger kids.

“Wait, what?” Dustin demands.

“Nothing,” Nancy says quickly, glaring at him, “Absolutely nothing.”

Maggie’s grin turns lazy and smug, “We’ll unpack that later.”

Later that night, when everyone’s gone and the room has gone quiet again, Nancy stays. Of course she does.

The only light comes from the monitors and the soft hum of the machines. Maggie lies half propped up, still weak but more alert now. Her voice is scratchy, but her eyes have that same spark.

Nancy sits on the edge of the bed, fiddling with the hem of her sleeve.

“You remember… what you said? Before— before you collapsed?”

Maggie raises a brow, trying to look innocent, “You mean when I admitted I’m a raging homosexual?”

Nancy’s eyes widen, a startled laugh escaping before she can stop it, “Maggie.”

“What?” she teases, voice hoarse but playful, “Too soon?”

Nancy shakes her head, “I just— you scared me half to death. And now you’re sitting here, joking about it.”

“Still me,” Maggie says quietly, “Still the idiot who flirts with you in mortal danger.”

Nancy exhales, the tension in her shoulders softening. She reaches out, brushing a strand of hair from Maggie’s forehead, fingers lingering for a second too long.

“I meant what I said,” Maggie murmurs, “About you. About everything.”

Nancy hesitates, eyes darting down to where their hands almost touch.

“I know.”

Maggie swallows, “Do you… hate me for it?”

Nancy shakes her head.

“No. I—” Her voice catches. She bites her lip, searching for the courage to say what’s been clawing at her chest for days.

“I couldn’t hate you. Even if I wanted to.”

Maggie studies her face, hardly daring to breathe.

Nancy looks up then, meeting her gaze fully for the first time.

“When you… when you stopped breathing, I realized I didn’t just care about you.”

Her voice trembles, but she doesn’t look away, “I need you, Maggie. And that scared me more than anything else.”

The air between them stills tenderly.

Maggie’s throat feels tight, “You mean that?”

Nancy’s eyes flicker down to her lips, then back up.

“Yeah,” she whispers, “I do.”

For a long moment, neither of them moves. The monitor beeps softly in rhythm with Maggie’s racing heart. Then Nancy leans forward, just enough that her forehead rests against Maggie’s.

Maggie exhales shakily, “Guess I’m not the only idiot, then.”

Nancy laughs, “Guess not.”

The first thing Maggie notices when she gets home is how quiet everything is.

No beeping machines. No antiseptic smell. Just the creak of the floorboards and the sound of Joyce crying in the kitchen because she’s “just so damn happy” to have her kids under one roof again.

Maggie tries to smile through the awkwardness of being carried inside. Jonathan insists, even though she keeps telling him she can walk. Her legs are weak, sure, but she’s fine. She’s alive.

She ends up in her room, propped up on her bed with more pillows than she needs. Will sits cross-legged at her feet, fiddling with his sweater. He hasn’t left her side since she got home.

“You don’t have to babysit me, sunshine,” Maggie teases softly.

Will shakes his head, “You watched me when I was sick. I’m just returning the favor.”

That makes her smile, “That’s different. I was way cooler about it.”

He grins, “You’re still bossy, so not much has changed.”

Joyce pokes her head in, tearful and smiling all at once, “Dinner’s almost ready, sweetheart. Chicken noodle soup, your favorite.”

Maggie groans, “Mom, you can’t just emotionally blackmail me with soup.”

Jonathan leans in the doorway, arms crossed but eyes soft, “She absolutely can.”

The room fills with a quiet, comfortable laughter. It’s the first real sound of peace they’ve had in months.

Days pass.

Maggie’s strength comes back slowly. She starts walking around the house again, at first using the walls for balance, then without needing to. Her appetite returns. The color in her cheeks does too.

The nightmares don’t stop entirely, sometimes she wakes up drenched in sweat, the echo of the Upside Down still whispering at the edge of her dreams, but she never tells Joyce. Or Jonathan. Or Will. She’s tired of worrying them.

What she does tell them, though, is that she wants to help Will get ready for the Snowball.

Joyce nearly bursts into tears again.

The night of the dance, the Byers house is a flurry of activity. Will’s trying on ties. Jonathan’s attempting to use the old Polaroid camera to take pictures. Maggie’s perched on the arm of the couch, giving unsolicited fashion advice.

“Blue tie,” she says, pointing at the one draped over the back of a chair.

Will groans, “Why?”

“Because it brings out your eyes,” she says with a mock sigh, “You’re welcome.”

Jonathan snorts from behind the camera, “You sound like Mom.”

“Tragic,” Maggie replies, grinning.

Will looks at his reflection in the mirror, adjusting the tie with an uncertain smile, “Do you think… they’ll like me?”

Maggie’s heart softens. She gets up and fixes the knot for him, careful and gentle.

“They already do, sunshine. You’re gonna break hearts.”

Will looks up at her, “You’re coming, right?”

Maggie hesitates, “I wasn’t planning to. I’m not exactly Snowball material.”

“Please?” he asks, voice small, “You’ve missed so much already.”

And that’s all it takes.

Later that night, after the Byers boys have gone, Maggie stands in front of the mirror in her room, staring at her reflection. She hasn’t worn anything nice since before everything went to hell.

Nancy’s words echo in her head. You scared me half to death.

Maggie smiles faintly, “Guess it’s time to make it up to her.”

She pulls her hair into soft curls, applies a bit of lip gloss, and puts on a pale blue dress Joyce had hidden away in the closet for “someday.” It fits perfectly. She throws on a denim jacket to make it feel a little more her, and grabs the Polaroid from Jonathan’s desk on her way out.

The gym at Hawkins Middle glows with soft string lights and the sound of a slow song playing over the speakers. The air smells like punch and floor wax, and the kids, all dressed up and awkwardly swaying, fill the floor.

Nancy stands near the punch table, clipboard in hand, doing her best to look like a responsible chaperone. She’s beautiful. Her hair is curled, her dress is neat, her expression is soft but distracted. Every few minutes, her gaze flicks toward the door.

Then she sees her.

Maggie stands there, framed by the gym doors like something out of a movie, hair curled, eyes bright, a mischievous grin tugging at her lips.

Nancy forgets to breathe for a second.

“You clean up nice, Wheeler,” Maggie calls, sauntering in.

Nancy shakes her head, smiling in disbelief, “You weren’t supposed to come.”

Maggie shrugs, leaning against the wall beside her, “What can I say? I got bored of dying.”

Nancy lets out a breathy laugh, “God, you’re crazy.”

“Yeah,” Maggie says softly, eyes catching the light, “But you’re still here.”

They fall into a quiet, comfortable silence, watching Will across the room laughing with his friends, dancing like he’s finally free.

Maggie’s chest swells with pride, “He looks happy.”

Nancy nods, “You all deserve to be.”

Maggie glances at her, teasing grin softening, “Does this count as a date? Because if so, I’m really underdressed.”

Nancy laughs, shaking her head, “You’re perfect.”

The words hang in the air, heavier than either of them expect.

Maggie steps closer, her voice barely a whisper, “Careful, Wheeler. I might think you mean that.”

Nancy smiles, eyes glinting with something warm and sure, “Maybe I do.”

Before Maggie can respond, the song changes to a slow, sweet tune that fills the air with something almost nostalgic.

Nancy hesitates, then holds out her hand, “Dance with me?”

Maggie gapes, “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

And just like that, they’re swaying beneath the fairy lights, surrounded by laughter and soft music, the world finally at peace.

For the first time in a long time, Maggie isn’t fighting, or running, or dying. She’s just living.

And in that moment, with Nancy’s hand in hers and the warmth of home in her chest, she realizes that surviving wasn’t the hard part.

It’s learning how to stay.