"Aftermath" - Part Nine

 

Part Nine

            Si didn’t have much time left. The imminent regeneration was taking its toll on her body the longer that she prolonged it. Within any second, she could burst into the process, putting those around her in more danger than they already were. Joyce was shadowing her every minute, begging her to take a break, and taking her temperature by placing her hand over her sweat-drenched forehead (an obvious symptom of a developing fever). Si wanted to tell her to stop treating her like a child, but she could barely talk nor did she have the time to.

            She dematerialized the TARDIS out of the Infinite DC and back to the ground floor of the Hawkins Lab. There, they found Bob and Murray standing below a gate that had opened on the ceiling, a mattress placed directly below it. “Where are…they?” Si rasped to the two gentlemen guarding the gate.

            Bob looked on her in concern. “Are you alright? What happened?”

            “I’M FINE!” Si snapped, her patience declining along with her well-being. “Where are the kids?!”

            “They just went through the gate,” Murray told her.

            “I can hear them,” Jane said. “Mike and Dustin are baiting the bats.”

            “Bats?!” Jim reacted. “What bats?!”

            “Never mind that,” Si belayed. “Where are the others?”

            “They’re going to kill Henry,” Jane informed.

            Si groaned. “This is such a foolish plan!” She suddenly collapsed into the arms of Jim, as more regenerative energy began to seep out from her body.

            Seeing it and how warm Si felt in its glow, Jim asked, “What’s happenin’ to ya, kid? What’s this stuff comin’ outta ya?” He wasn’t the only concerned one. They all could see what Si was going through, none of them able to comprehend, unless Si offered some level of explanation.

            But she persisted in focusing on the situation at hand. “Jim…you, Joyce, and Jonathan go through the gate and catch up with that group before they get to Creel. Do whatever’s necessary to get those kids back home safe.”

            “We don’t even know where they are!” Joyce exclaimed.

            “If it’s Henry Creel, he’s gotta be at that old Creel house on Morehead,” Jim deduced. “That place always creeps me out – I can only imagine how much worse it is over there.” He nodded towards the gate.

            “That means it’s the same house in this world,” Will followed. “It must be where Lucas and Max are.”

            “And that’s…where we’re going,” Si declared, pushing herself out from Jim’s grasp and heading back in the TARDIS with Will and Jane. She wavered on her way to the control console, which had split into three in her disoriented vision.

            “Maybe you oughta slow down,” Will recommended to her. “You’re looking worse by the second.”

            Si knew he was right but was too stubborn to admit it.

            She dematerialized the TARDIS again, reemerging it at the Creel house in the regular Hawkins dimension.

            “Alright, let’s…” Once again, she collapsed, but no one caught her this time.

            Jane and Will immediately went to her aid. Will removed his shirt to bundle it as a makeshift pillow and position it under Si’s head. Just as his mother did earlier, he put a hand over Si’s forehead and retracted it as soon as he felt how scalding hot it was. “She’s on fire!” he cried. “Like a tea kettle ready to blow!”

            “It’s…starting,” Si coughed, her entire body blazing in golden energy. “You both have to…get out…before it starts…”

            “Rest,” Jane urged her. “Everything will be O.K.”

            Si weakly chuckled. “Don’t lie to me, hon.”

            “Friends don’t lie,” Jane reminded her. It would be Jane’s departing message before she and Will rushed out of the TARDIS, leaving Si to lie there on the console platform, right beside the control console, all alone with the still-unconscious and recovering Eddie.

            At least, she thought it was just the two of them, before a certain house elf manifested near her.

            “Harry Potter’s friend Si does not look well,” he observed. “Is she dying?”

            “Kinda,” Si responded.

            “Is there anything Dobby can do? Si must live! Si must live to stop the danger that still threatens Hogwarts and all the other realms!”

            “Dobby…” Si began, but she was too weak to say any more.

            She could hear Dobby crying out to her over the sound of the cloister bell chiming – even her own TARDIS cried for her to live. Soon, they both drifted from Si’s senses, as she fell into a comatose state.

            Before she knew it, she was standing onstage in a large concert hall and wearing a different set of clothes – a pair of bellbottom jeans and a red flannel shirt opened to show off a blue top. She was in a much healthier state than her physical self, a clue that she was in a fever-induced dream…that or she was teetering between life and death.

            Sitting in front of her was a packed crowd, an audience of her family and friends.

            Among them she saw her parents (Steven and Kristin Curtsinger), Craig Williams, Yvette Dwonch, Gumball and Darwin Watterson, Billy Peltzer (with Gizmo sitting on his lap), Clarence Wendle, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Lord Raiden, Harry Noble and the Fix-Its, Max and the Grinch, Mordecai, Benson, Rigby, Wirt and Greg, Rick Sanchez, Morty Smith, Joanie Navarro-Thomas, Mickey Mouse, the Incredibles, and just about every incarnation of the Doctor.

            And sitting front and center of them all was Steve Harrington, who smiled and shouted, “You got this, babe!”

            Si wasn’t sure what he meant until she saw the mic stand in front of her.

            “This is your swan song,” Steve told her. “You’ve earned it.”

            Tears streaming down her face, Si went up to the mic and sang:

I completely called it
I've said it before
What a pessimistic outlook towards someone that I adored
Dew drops still when winter stays

Here I am thinking about you (Oh)
There's no use in trying not to (Oh)
Why'd you call on the rain to put me down?
Why do you call out my name to see if I'm around?
Here I am thinking about
Thinking about you

Unspoken words mean the most
When they're all I want to say
Sometimes I miss you
But it's not enough to me
For me to make things change
Ice clears out as winter fades

But…
Here I am thinking about you (Oh!)
There's no use in trying not to (Oh!)
Why'd you call on the rain to put me down?
Why do you call out my name though I'm not around?
Here I am thinking about…
Thinking about you

How could I feel so much for a boy
That will never be a man
Somehow you had a chance
You hurt me
But I still tried to keep you
So I'll do as you do

Oooh!
Here you are thinking about me too
There's no use in trying not to (Oh!)
So I'll call on the rain to wash you down
You call out my name hoping I'm around
Here you are trynna forget me
I am thinking about…
About you

            There was no applause that followed after her heartwarming performance, just peaceful and respectful silence. The sea of familiar faces looked on her with satisfied smiles. Steve, among them, got up from his seat and joined her onstage. “That was beautiful,” he told her.

            Si couldn’t stop herself from becoming a blubbering mess. “I don’t wanna leave you,” she told Steve.

            “You’re not leaving me,” Steve lovingly caressed her face in comfort.

            “But I won’t be the same. I never got to tell you that.”

            “I know. And I’ll probably be a jerk about it, as I always am. But…just know that, no matter what, I’ve always loved you, Si.”

            “Sierra. That’s what ‘Si’ is short for.”

            As the concert hall around her suddenly glowed brighter and brighter, she overcame the hesitation to give one last passionate kiss to Steve. Although she wished it could have been with the real thing, she would have to settle on this version formed from the world of her subconscious, as it turned blinding white and faded out of existence.

            When she finally regained consciousness, she was amazed to feel a lot better – a whole lot better. All the pain in her bandaged torso was gone, and so had her fever. And yet, as well as she felt, she also felt different. Her clothes seemed a bit more constricted on her frame.

            “Oh, man,” she groaned, although the voice that came out wasn’t hers. This one sounded more masculine but also feminine at the same time, as if it were still caught somewhere in the stage of prepubescence.

            One thing was for sure, she was no longer a “she.”

            To his left, he saw Dobby cowering at the bottom of the control console. “Hey, Dobbs,” he gingerly said to the house elf. He knew why Dobby was so frightened, having just witnessed the full-fledged regeneration of a Time Lord. “It’s still me. Everything’s O.K.” Just as he said that, the cloister bell tolled again, and the TARDIS engines hummed and grinded.

            Neas wasn’t certain as to why the ship was still acting up.

            He dashed to the controls before it could’ve completely dematerialized away from Hawkins. “We’re not done yet!” he yelled to his ship. “There’s still work to be done!” With the takeoff aborted, Neas headed back outside to join Will and Jane in helping Lucas and Max at the Creel house.

            However, it wasn’t the Creel house that waited for him on the other side.

            Stepping foot onto a field that ran along the outskirts of Hawkins, Neas saw pillars of dark clouds rising from a scorched landscape, red lightning erupting from each cloud. Half of the field was slowly dying. It quickly dawned on the Gladiator of Gallifrey that the Upside Down had begun its invasion on Hawkins.

            “We’re only just getting started.”

NEXT WEEK...