Chapter Text
June 21st, 1994
Maddie wakes to the sound of hushed voices and Evan’s cries. Evan has always been a quiet baby and fear starts to churn in Maddie’s gut that maybe something is wrong. It’s hot in her room, even with the window open, her pajamas sticking to her uncomfortably, and she’s hoping that maybe Evan is just a little hot as well and feeling fussy. Mom used to joke, before, that Evan was an unusually sweaty baby and it used to make Maddie giggle. Mom doesn’t joke anymore and Maddie doesn’t remember the last time she giggled.
She pads across her room, lifting the hem of Daniel’s shirt, the only one she has, the one Mom and Dad don’t know about, the one that she’s almost too big for but wears anyway, to wipe at the sweat on her forehead. Her door is cracked, a thin line of light streaming in from the hallway with the whispers.
“You’re going to wake Maddie.” Mom is saying, probably to Evan who is still crying. Her voice is almost harsh, not soft and gentle the way it used to be when she would soothe Maddie after she woke from a nightmare. Mom repeats herself, sounding more annoyed. Too late , Maddie thinks. She’s grateful at least that it’s June, school is out, and she can sleep in tomorrow as late as she wants.
“Margaret, we need to go.” And that’s weird. Why is Dad awake too? It’s been ages since anyone other than Maddie attended to a crying Evan and now both her parents are awake with him in the middle of the night? And what does Dad mean by go? Go where?
Curiosity gets the better of her and she leaves the safety of her room, creeping quietly down the stairs because that’s where the voices are coming from and not from Evan’s room down the hall. She finds them by the front door. Evan is still crying in Mom’s arms, his stuffed polar bear, a gift from Maddie and Daniel when he’d been born, clutched in his fist. Dad is there too, Evan’s diaper bag slung over one shoulder and a duffel in his other hand.
“Where are you going?” Maddie blurts as she reaches the bottom step, before she can really think about the fact that her parents will hate that she’s awake in the middle of the night, will hate that she’s wearing Daniel’s old soccer jersey, will hate that she was eavesdropping on them.
“Maddie!” Mom jumps at the sight of her, eyes widening. “What are you doing awake?”
“I heard Evan crying.” She explains, which is when she notices that Evan, at the sight of Maddie, had stopped crying in Mom’s arms.
“Sissy!” He says, reaching both his arms out for her. Maddie moves to take him but Mom stops her, turning to put her body between Maddie and Evan.
“Maddie, go back to bed.” Mom’s voice is firm. Maddie’s arms drop to her side and she takes a step back, eyeing both of them suspiciously.
“Where are you going?” She repeats, louder this time. She glances at Dad who looks guilty but stays quiet, then back at her Mom who just looks annoyed. They share a silent conversation before it’s Dad that sets down the duffel bag and kneels in front of her.
“Maddie Bug.” He says gently, a name he hasn’t called in her years, raising even more alarms. “Your Mom and I, you know we’ve just been having a really hard time since Daniel died, and we think it might be better for Evan if he went to live with another family.”
“What?” Maddie blinks at him. He can’t mean what she thinks he means, can he? “What do you mean?”
“Well he’s a lot of work, needs a lot of attention because he’s little and Mom and I, we just don’t think we’re the best people to give that to him. Someone else could give him the life he deserves.”
“Like for just a little bit? Until he’s older?” Maddie asks, even though she feels like she already knows the answer.
“Forever Maddie Bug.” The cry that comes from Maddie after that feels like it comes from someone else. She shoves past her father and tries to pry Evan, now crying again, out of her Mom’s arms.
“You can’t! You can’t take him!” She sobs. “I can do more to take care of him. You won’t have to do anything. I can give him the life he deserves.”
“Maddie, stop being ridiculous.” Mom says, voice far less gentle than Dad’s. “You’re only a child. Evan is a lot of work and we will all be happier, Evan included, if he’s with another family.”
“Not me.” Maddie cries. “I won’t be happier. If you take him away, I will never forgive you.”
“Maddie-” Dad tries to place an arm on her shoulder but Maddie shakes him off.
“Never.” She repeats.
“We’ll talk about this more in the morning.” Dad tells her casually like he always does when Maddie wants to get her way. Like there’s anything to discuss. Like getting rid of her baby brother without even telling her is the same as sitting to talk about whether or not she can go to Emily's for a sleepover. Before Maddie can say anything else, he picks up the duffel and follows Mom out into the driveway.
“Evan!” Maddie calls, scrambling to chase after them, the gravely pavement cutting into her bare feet. She trips over a loose brick in the walkway and hits the ground hard, knee scraping painfully against the ground but she can barely feel it.
“Sissy!” Evan cries back, squirming in Mom’s arms as she tries to wrestle him into his carseat. “Sissy now.”
Dad hesitates with the car door open. He looks at her, crumpled on the front walkway, and for a moment Maddie thinks he’s going to stop. That he’s going to walk over and make sure she’s alright before taking Evan back inside and telling her this is all a joke. But instead, he shoots her one last apologetic look, watches as she stands and brushes her knees, one of which is bleeding, and then climbs into the car. She takes a moment to look down and assess the damage and as she does, she hears the car start and peel out of the driveway. Thoughts of her scraped knees flee her mind as Maddie races down the driveway after it, following the car as long as she can, until it turns out of their neighborhood onto the main road and her lungs feel like they’re going to explode in her chest. She collapses down onto the pavement, her body shaking with her sobs as she struggles to catch her breath.
She doesn’t know what to do. Doesn’t think she can do anything other than cry. Her knees sting and her chest aches, and she already lost one brother and she can’t lose another. She’s not sure how long she’s there before she remembers the number, tucked safely into her locked jewelry box back in her room, handed to her by Aunt Robin at Daniel’s funeral last year.
“If you ever need anything, and I mean anything, please call. Anytime.” She had said tucking the paper into Maddie’s pocket when Mom and Dad weren’t looking because Mom and Dad don’t like Aunt Robin and Maddie isn’t really sure why. “New York is only a few hours away.”
It takes her a few minutes to get back to their house, and another to find the key and open the box with shaky hands. The clock on her bedside reads 2:00 am, and Maddie hesitates. Aunt Robin is surely asleep but she had said to call if Maddie ever needed anything, anytime . She punches the number in and listens to it ring once, twice, three times, before the line clicks.
“Hello?”
“Aunt Robin?” Maddie asks hesitantly, voice scratchy, throat dry from her cries. There’s a moment of silence on the other end of the line and then a bewildered,
“Maddie?” Maddie can’t help the relieved sob that escapes her and Aunt Robin instantly sounds more awake. “Maddie sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
“Evan.” She manages, tears pooling once again in her eyes. “They took Evan.”
“Someone took Evan?” Robin’s voice is filled with alarm. “Did you call the police? Who-”
“Mom and Dad.” Maddie gasps. “Mom and Dad took Evan.”
“Took him where?” Robin sounds less panicked and more confused.
“They said-” Maddie takes a shaky breath. “They said he’s too much, that he would be better with another family and they left.” Robin is silent on the other end of the line and Maddie continues. “They weren’t even going to tell me, they were just leaving and I caught them and they took him Aunt Robin! You have to get him back, please.”
“Maddie?” Another voice fills the line, a male voice that sounds vaguely familiar. “Maddie, it's Steve. Remember, your Aunt Robin’s friend?”
Maddie does. He’d come with Robin to the funeral and kicked a soccer ball with Maddie on the lawn when she’d felt like she was going to crawl out of her skin, when she couldn’t listen to one more person say ‘sorry for your loss’. Maddie had thought he was Aunt Robin’s husband and they both had laughed when she had asked.
“I remember.” She says quietly.
“Do you know where your parents were planning to take Evan?” His voice is calm and Maddie instantly feels calmer too.
She shakes her head before remembering he can’t see her. “No. They didn’t say. Just that he was going to go to another family.”
“How long ago did they leave?”
“I don’t know. Maybe 30 minutes.” She says, squeezing her eyes shut and trying to remember what time it had been when she first woke up. “I’m not sure Steve. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay Maddie. You’re doing great.” He reassures. “We’re going to leave right now. We’ll be in Hershey in about three hours. Will you be okay until then?”
“Yeah.” Maddie says even though she doesn’t feel like it's true.
After they hang up, Maddie sits in the living room, waiting for headlights to shine through the front windows. When they finally do, it's a car she doesn’t recognize and she finds herself relieved it’s not her parents. She flies out the door as soon as she recognizes Aunt Robin stepping out of the passenger seat, and doesn't even bother shutting it behind her as she races down the front walk for the second time that night. Robin accepts her hug, hugging her back just as tight and Maddie doesn’t remember the last time someone held her like this. Her 4th grade teacher, maybe, when she’d come back to school in August and Daniel hadn’t.
“Are your parents back yet?” Steve asks, and Maddie shakes her head, still buried against Robin’s chest. He nods, runs a hand across her hair and says, “I’m going to make a few calls.”
He leaves them both clinging to each other in the headlights. When they turn off, darkness surrounding them, Robin lifts Maddie into her arms, carrying her inside like she’s still just a little kid and not 10 years old. Normally, Maddie hates being treated like a kid, but right now, she finds she doesn’t mind.
Steve is on the phone in the kitchen and Robin takes a seat at the kitchen table, settling Maddie into her lap and Maddie clings, focusing on Steve’s conversation and not on the fact that Mom would berate her for acting like a baby if she saw her right now.
“We don’t know Hop.” Steve is saying. “They didn’t tell Maddie. But they just left her here and took him. They’ve been gone for hours, that can't be legal, can it?”
Steve listens as whoever ‘Hop’ is responds on the other end. He lets out a sigh, pushes a hand through his hair. “Yeah okay.” He finally says, and digs out a notebook from a nearby drawer, jotting some things down before he thanks Hop and hangs up the phone. He turns to Robin.
“Hopper gave me some numbers to call. He’s going to call around too.” He squats down in front of Maddie. “We’re going to find Evan, okay?”
“Promise?”
“Yeah kid. I promise.” Steve nods. “Think you can try to get some sleep?”
“I don’t know.” Maddie answers honestly, but even as she says it she has to stifle back a yawn. “Maybe if Aunt Robin comes with me.”
“Sure thing Mads.” She brushes her hand through Maddie’s hand just like Steve had earlier and Maddie leads her down the hallway to her bedroom. It’s still hot, and Maddie feels even grosser than she had earlier, knees still bloody, feet dirty, sweat coating her face.
“How about a shower?” Aunt Robin asks, clearly taking sight of Maddie’s pinched expression. Maddie nods, disappears into the bathroom to take a quick shower and then Robin cleans and bandages her knees and braids her long brown hair into two pigtails before settling in beside her on the bed.
“Why don’t Mom and Dad like you?” Maddie asks around a yawn, snuggled up to Robin’s side. She thinks it might be a rude question but she’s too curious not to ask. “You’re nice.”
“Well your Dad and I were never close.” Robin starts hesitantly. “He’s a lot older than me and since we have different Moms we never even lived in the same house. He moved to Pennsylvania when I was just a little girl.”
“That explains why he doesn’t really know you, but why doesn’t he like you?” Maddie questions. “I heard him fighting with Grandpa at the funeral. He didn’t even want you to stay.”
“Were you snooping?” Robin asks but she’s smiling and Maddie just shrugs. She hadn’t tried to listen but Dad had been loud. “Yeah okay, kid. Do you know what it means to be queer?”
“Um, I think so.” Maddie wracks her brain, remembers hearing the word on the news, remembers Melanie P mentioning it at school. “That’s when a boy loves a boy or a girl loves a girl, right?”
“Right.” Robin taps her nose. “Smart kid. You see, I’m queer, and some people, people like your Dad, they don’t really like people who are.”
“Why?”
“Lots of reasons.” Robin answers vaguely. “But in my opinion, none of them are good ones.”
Maddie considers this. “That’s why you laughed when I asked if you were married to Steve.”
“Yeah.” Robin chuckles at that. “Yeah that’s why.”
“Are you married to a girl then?”
“Well, at the moment girls aren’t allowed to marry other girls.” Robin sounds sad and Maddie snuggles a little closer. “But maybe one day.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Okay 20 questions, time for bed.” Robin laughs again and Maddie smiles.
“I’ll take that as a no.” She teases and Robin pinches her side.
“Bed.” She repeats, so Maddie closes her eyes and sleeps.
When she wakes it’s to the sound of voices once again. These one’s less hushed. She can make out Mom and Dad and Steve and Robin too. That’s when Maddie notices that Aunt Robin is no longer in bed beside her and the clock now reads 9:00 am. Maddie thinks it had been around 6 when she’d crawled into bed for the second time that night.
“What are you going to do?” That’s Dad, sounding way harsher than Maddie has ever heard him. “Raise him yourself? Grow up Robin. You’re a dyke living with a fag in a one bedroom apartment in New York. What judge is going to give you custody?”
Maddie doesn’t know what those words mean but Dad spits them like they mean something terrible. She wonders if it has something to do with Robin being queer, wonders if that means Steve is too.
“Wouldn’t you rather him be with family?” Robin’s voice is firm but not loud and scary like Dad’s.
“You are not my family.” Dad says and Maddie flinches at the venom in his voice.
“Well neither is Evan anymore, apparently, because you just gave up on him when things got a little tough.”
“I lost my son .”
“I know Philip. And I can’t even begin to imagine how that felt.” Robin’s voice is softer now. “But Maddie lost her brother and you just made her lose another one. She’s devastated.”
“She’s just a kid, she’ll get over it.”
“She won’t.” Robin says firmly. “At least if he’s with me she can still see him sometimes.”
“Like I would let her see you.” Dad scoffs. “After you went behind my back and gave her your number after I specifically told you to stay away from her. I will not have my daughter growing up to be a queer like the two of you.”
“It’s not contagious.” Robin barks out with a slightly hysterical laugh. Then she takes a shaky breath so loud that Maddie can hear it from her perch on the top of the steps. “Please Phillip. Just tell me where he is.”
“We left him at a fire station.” That’s Mom, her voice so quiet Maddie almost can’t hear it. “In Philadelphia.”
“Margaret!”
“Would it be so bad?” She asks. “To know where he is, and-”
“I thought we agreed a clean break would be best.”
“He’s my son.” Mom’s voice is wobbly.
“Not anymore.” That’s Steve. Voice cold and so much harsher than it had been earlier that night. “Which station?”
“43.” Maddie hears footsteps and has just enough time to scramble back to her room when Robin and Steve push the door open.
“Maddie, are you awake?” Steve’s voice is gentle once more.
“You found him?” She sits up in bed and tries to blink at him sleepily, like she’s just waking up and didn’t hear the whole conversation.
“Yeah kid, we found him. We’re going to go get him now.”
“Can I come?”
“Sorry kiddo, not now.” Robin sits beside her on the bed. “But we’ll call as soon as we’ve got Evan and then you can talk to him.”
“Is he going to live with you?”
“Yeah, we hope so.”
Maddie considers this. It’s better than Evan being with a stranger but she still wants him with her. “Can I live with you too?”
“Maddie-” Robin starts and Maddie knows from the tone it’s going to be a no. Her shoulders slump.
“Ever since Daniel died, it’s like Mom and Dad aren’t even here. They don’t care about me and they clearly didn’t care about Evan. You barely know us and you care about us more than they do! If Evan gets to live with you, I want to too.”
“Maddie, your Mom and Dad, they love you. They’re just grieving.”
“Please.” Maddie whispers.
“I-” Robin starts and Steve lays a hand on her shoulder.
“We’ll see what we can do.” Robin’s head whips to him, eyebrows raising, and Steve shrugs sheepishly. Robin turns back to Maddie and smiles sadly.
“Yeah, okay, Maddie. We’ll see what we can do.” Maddie hugs them both tight.
After she hears their car pull away, hears Mom and Dad moving around the kitchen, she creeps down the hall to Evan’s room. His crib is still there but his closet is empty, his favorite toys missing, except for one lone dog stuffed animal laying in his crib. Maddie picks it up, slips out of his room, and returns to hers. She digs Daniel’s shirt out of the hamper, cradles both close to her chest and cries.
Robin is running on three hours of sleep when Steve pulls onto 76 to drive them into Philadelphia. They’d spent the night out at a comedy club where a friend of theirs was performing, and had only crawled into bed two hours before Maddie’s call had woken them. She’d managed another hour lying beside Maddie, but she woke feeling, if possible, more than tired than before, when Steve had come in to tell her that a car had pulled into the driveway.
“Steve?” Robin asks, breaking the silence they’ve been sitting in for the last 30 minutes. “Do you really think they’re going to give us custody of Evan?”
“They usually like to keep the kids with family, right?” Steve looks thoughtful but not as confident as he’d been earlier when they’d been talking to Maddie.
“I mean, Phillip was right.” Robin says, heart clenching. “We’re gay, we’re unmarried, we share a one bedroom. I mean, Steve, you sleep on a pull out couch in the living room. They’d be crazy to give us custody.”
“We could be married.”
“Steve-” Robin sighs. It’s not the first time he’s brought it up. When Robin’s parents were bugging her about living with a man she’s not married to, when Steve had gotten in a car accident and the hospital staff wouldn’t let her see him right away. Robin always says no.
“Hear me out.” He says. “You really want to do this? Take in a two year old?”
“Yes.” Robin says firmly, surprised that she means it. She’d never thought children were really in the cards for her, partly because she was gay, and partly because she wasn't ever really sure she wanted them. But the thought of letting Evan, her nephew, just go to some strange family, unwanted by Phillip, just like her, she can’t stomach it.
“Okay. So, we tell the judge, the social worker, whoever, that we’re a couple. We can get married for real if you want even.” Steve explains. “Then suddenly we’re a nice stable family with a mom and dad, what judge could say no to that?”
Robin admits it’s not a terrible idea. They would only have to be married in the eyes of the law, could still be free to date whoever they wanted. It’s not like Robin could actually get married, even she wanted to. But there was still the issue of their apartment. They’d only recently been able to upgrade from a studio to a one bedroom now that Robin is done with school and they aren’t trying to pay those bills anymore. But Robin still hasn’t found a job in her field, instead working nights as a bartender at a local gay bar with Steve, who also has a day job as a high school basketball coach. Neither of which pay very much.
“We can’t afford a bigger apartment.” Robin says. “And our schedules aren’t exactly conducive to raising a toddler.”
“We could go back to Hawkins.” Steve offers hesitantly. “I know that it’s not ideal but there we could probably afford a two bedroom at least, maybe even three. We’d have Hopper and Joyce around to help us babysit, El too. And Hop says they’re hiring at the high school for a gym teacher for next year. I’d make more than I do as a coach and I probably wouldn’t have to have two jobs. If you kept working nights, there’d always be someone to be home with Evan.”
Robin considers this. Real estate in Hawkins is much more affordable and they would have some family around. She’d never imagined herself living in Hawkins, had thought she’d left for good when she and Steve moved to New York in ‘88.
“I’ll think about it.”
Steve makes it to the station in under two hours. Hopper had tracked down the number and called while Steve and Robin were on the road, so a firefighter is waiting outside with a woman in a suit that Robin assumes is the social worker, Evan on her hip. He’s so much bigger than he’d been a year ago, head full of blonde curls and toothy grin as the fire fighter tickles his belly. Robin can’t believe her brother was just going to leave him. Did just leave him.
“You must be Aunt Robin.” The social worker says with a smile when they step out of the car. “And is this your husband?” She nods to Steve.
“Fiance.” Robin replies, shuffling a little closer to Steve. He takes it in stride, not even phased as he slings an arm around her back. So they’re really doing this then.
“How lovely.” The social worker smiles. “When’s the wedding?”
“We only just got engaged.” Steve answers so casually, that Robin doesn’t even think it sounds like he’s lying. “We’re still figuring it out.”
“Well congratulations.” She smiles again. “I’m Miranda Kelly, I work for the Department of Child Services in Philadelphia.”
They both shake her hands and introduce themselves. The firefighter, Nick, does as well, and it turns out he’s the one that found Evan this morning in their truck bay. Margaret and Phillip hadn’t even bothered to leave him with an actual human being and Robin feels sick. He’s not a baby, he can walk, what if he hadn’t stayed in the station? What if he had wandered into the road? She has to shake those thoughts away, looking at Evan safe and sound in Miranda’s arms.
“Well I’m not going to lie, this is a bit of an unprecedented circumstance.” Miranda says. “I spoke to a Jim Hopper, believe you know him, who explained a bit of the situation but perhaps you can just clarify some details for me.”
“Of course.” Robin nods. So she explains the story, everything they know at least. From the moment Maddie had called them, to right now, Steve jumping in every now and then to add something.
“And you’d like custody? Is that correct?”
“Yes.” Robin nods again. “Is that possible?”
“Since you are family, and this child would otherwise have nowhere else to go, you can be granted emergency guardianship but we will have to do a full investigation and go before a judge before we can grant you permanent custody. Or adoption if you’d like.”
“What does that entail?” Steve questions, arm tightening comfortingly around Robin’s back.
“We just need to prove that you are able to provide for this child. As long as you have jobs, a stable income, and a roof to put over his head, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“We live in a one bedroom.” Robin tells her. “Is that okay?”
“That’s perfectly alright for now.” Miranda nods. “But you might want to look into other housing. Is that something that’s possible?”
“Yeah.” Robin nods. She glances at Steve who smiles at her encouragingly. “We’re actually, uh, in the process of moving back home to Hawkins, where we grew up. You know, to be closer to family, get a house with a yard, all that.”
“That’s great Ms. Buckley.”
“And what about my niece, Maddie? Could we petition for custody of her as well?”
“It’ll be a bit trickier, but it’s certainly possible if you can prove that the home she’s currently in his unfit. In my opinion you have ground to stand on based solely on the fact that they abandoned their other child, which is technically a felony, but I’m not a judge.”
Robin knows that they’re going to have a long fight ahead of them, but as Miranda hands Evan over to her, as he buries his head in her neck and sighs contentedly, she knows it’s going to be worth it.