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At first, the scar was just a painful reminder of what happened.
Everyone else had scars too: Their parents, all of them, didn’t let them go out as often, and they had to be home way earlier than before or they would get nervous about losing them again. Will’s eyes sometimes stopped shining, looking like he was in a horrible, terrified haze, until someone snapped him out of it. Dustin and Lucas called more frequently, always making sure Will and Mike got home safe. Even Mike had changed, as he went down to the basement everyday to just look at Eleven’s forth (There was nothing else she dared to call it, because the intent was so fierce in her brother’s eyes that it almost seemed like she was actually there).
All of them were scarred, but mental scars, even if painful, could be pushed away. Nancy couldn’t escape the nightmares, the night terrors, the hallucinations of another world so different and yet so similar to hers. She couldn’t stop herself from jumping when someone touched her, from avoiding dark places like the plague, from walking a little bit too fast on her way home. Not when the reminder of all that had happened was right there, on her palm. A thin, red line that meant so much more than her usual Oh, it was just a cooking accident! Silly me.
It was almost a metaphor for her life. She used to love writing, now writing hurt. She used to doodle away in class, now she could barely keep up with her notes without flinching. Whatever she was, whoever she used to be, was changed forever. And she knew she would never be the same.
The fact that she didn’t know if she wanted to go back to being Old Nancy was concerning, at least.
The scar was so bothering because of that, because it meant she changed, because she couldn’t go back. And the only one who seemed to understand that was herself.
Well, and Jonathan, too.
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He’s so cute when he does that She thinks as she sees Jonathan crunching on the ground, trying to get the perfect angle for the picture he’s apparently taking.
She would usually announce her coming, knowing oh so well how uncomfortable it was to get scared by everyday things now that everything was over. She was wearing heels today, however, as she had been doing a presentation for class, and so Jonathan had heard her approach.
He turned around and waved, she waved back. And then he snapped a picture of her.
Why did you do that? Would have been what someone else would have said, but Nancy liked to think she knew better.
“What was I saying?” It was a vague question, but he understood just like he always seemed to do. With a shrug, he stood up.
“You waved with your left palm. You have avoided doing that since, well, you know.” He blew some hair out of his face to lighten up a little. No one who knew what happened talked about it. “You seemed open, and not frightened, for once. Not since before.”´
Nancy gave a quick nod, a bit uncomfortable he noticed that and she didn’t, but mostly just to destroy her own hopes. She had given up on going back to her old self on some time ago.
She decided to not comment on the fact that Jonathan only started waving at her after what happened, and never before it.
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With time, she started to miss her scar. It was fading way quicker than she would like.
It was strange, just how fond of it she had grown to be. Now, every time she felt nervous, or had any sort of flashbacks, she would drift her fingers along it, feeling it’s irregular edges, and remembering how it not only marked her as different, but as a heroe, even.
Once, when she and Jonathan were studying together, he saw her drawing circles along it, and smirked to himself.
“What’s so funny?” She said, with eyebrows raised in what Jonathan would call a Nancy signature expression.
“Nothing, it’s just- You look like a survivor of war, almost like a soldier.”
“Well, I don’t know if what we went through could be called a war, but I know for a fact I could be considered a soldier.” She put her hand up, as if swearing to the sky. “You know, fighting for my motherland and getting rid of the bad people and all that.”
“Eh, I don’t know. I would say we’re more like citizens who, at lack of soldiers, ended the war themselves.”
Nancy couldn’t help but agree, except- “More like the soldiers turned down on us and we had to fight off the monster they created.”
A simple yeah, a quick nod, and any conversation of the supernatural, the Upside-Down, Will, the monster- all of that was left, and Nancy and Jonathan were just your regular students who were studying for a test.
Well, that is if all your regular students had matching marks on their hands as proof of having gone through hell and back, that is.
Not like Nancy and Jonathan had ever been regular, anyway.
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It wasn’t until weeks later that Nancy woke up one day, her right hand searching for the cut, and found nothing.
She bolted up, turned off the lamp before realizing she slept with the lamp on, like always, and turning it back on to look.
It was still there, but barely visible. It’s not that she hadn’t noticed it healing; it was just that she had decided to ignore it. She tried to feel for it again, but it was soft, smooth. Her own body was pretending like nothing had happened, but she knew the truth.
Too tired to think about it for long, as this was one of the rarer nights where the nightmares hadn’t been as strong (Just regular stuff, like staring at a weird tree who opened at another dimension), so she went back to sleep and decided she would deal with it later.
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Today was a thoughtful day, apparently.
She had been staring at a spot on the wall for straight 5 minutes now, and if she was right, people were talking about how much she had changed while they whispered the words freak and lonely over and over. Or just how much she hadn’t changed at all, and that the potential to go from a shy straight A’s girl to a social pariah had always been within her- and that no amount of Steve’s loves could change that.
But oh well. Shy, straight A’s would probably have cared. Monster hunter Nancy didn’t. Whether this was good or bad, she didn’t know. Whether good or bad exists, she didn’t know either.
Life seemed like endless questions with not enough answers. Why was the government doing what they do? How did they discover The Upside-Down? Why do they let people die in order to solve their experiments?
Nancy groaned and flopped down on the table, covering her face with her arms and wanting the dark. Straight A’s Nancy would have probably wanted to stay in the dark about this all. She would think it didn’t concern her, she would think it was somebody else’s business, maybe Hopper’s.
Monster Hunter Nancy wanted answers. She wanted to know what’s going on, wanted to protect her loved ones just how she couldn’t do with Barb.
Suddenly the dark flashed to The Upside-Down and Barb dead and- Nancy didn’t know which Nancy spoke, but she thought she was just a tired teenager that just needed a break.
It flashed again and she saw the monster. No breaks allowed, then.
She unconsciously stared drawing circles against her palm to calm down. She did it especially when she would think of “The Demogorgon”, drawing strength from it and remembering how they had all faced their fears and teamed up to put an end to it all- wished she could do the same with her memories, then wished she could just stop thinking for a while.
A click sounds and Nancy knew that it was Jonathan and she had the urge to ask him what she was saying in that moment, but decided that this was their thing, apparently. She doesn’t really need to ask him every time he does it.
Weeks later he shows her the picture and she doesn’t need to ask.
“You look like the Nancy I always saw within you. Brave, wise, maybe a bit tired, but overall good.”
Nancy responded with something witty and sarcastic, but she felt just a little bit warmer. Maybe the Old Nancy, the one who could be swoon away by just the right kind of guy, wasn't so lost after all.