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[ She has not talked about Kali yet, despite how fresh that is, and how much it informs her current state of mind. Perhaps it is too fresh to her, like a wound that needs to heal first. Perhaps Eleven is still grappling with who she could have been, had she stuck with Kali. Who she chose not to become.

For now, she looks up at Erik with a strange mixture of doubt and hope. ]

If you're different. People see a monster.

[ A beat. ]

I am a monster. I scare people. But... Mike says. I'm a superhero.

[ This conversation takes him back to the time Laura insisted that she was nothing but a weapon, and Erik wants to react now the way he did then. Implore with El not to call herself that, make her promise that she will do no such thing again. She is a child. Erik wants to put his hands around the throat of whoever drilled that belief into her mind. ]

There is nothing wrong with being different. If other people see you as a monster, then that is their problem. Not yours. They don't get to tell you what you are.

[ And she should definitely not believe them on it, but he knows from personal experience how that is easier said than done. ]

You don't need to be a superhero either. You don't need to be anything. You are a person, you deserve to decide what you want to be.

[ It would shock him, perhaps, the degree to which she truly grapples with believing she is the monster, that everything bad that has happened in Hawkins is her fault. She lacks the wider capacity to understand that the monster was the man who made her call him 'Papa', as if he had any right to the word.

His words... she listens, she understands them. But she doesn't understand them, not in the way she should. Eleven defines herself by what she learns from others. The concept that nobody else gets to tell her who she is feels... strange. She doesn't even feel like she has a name, not really. One on a paper that feels like it belongs to a dead child. A number that was all she knew herself to be for 12 years. A nickname given to her by her first friend. What else is there?

You are a person, he says.

Eleven doesn't understand what that means. ]

How do I know? [ A beat, then she specifies: ] How do I know. What I want?

[ The question is earnest, and it's small. It spans the entirety of her lived experience - it encompasses her identity, her sense of self. It also encompasses the lack of decorations on her side of the room, the fact that she still wears the clothes she arrived in that were so clearly given to her. The fact that she eats what others make, learns what others share, mimics what others do. ]

[ No, it would not shock him, because Erik felt just as dehumanized while he was under Shaw's control, and he was in that situation for much less time than El. A life under control is all she's known for the vast majority of her life. She was born into it. Erik wasn't. And he still felt that same difficulty in rediscovering who he was.

He knew what he wanted, though. Or he thought he did. Revenge.

He was wrong.

So her question doesn't surprise him. It does make him smile, though it's a little sad, knowing what she's struggling with right now. ]

It's difficult. It takes time. [ Patience, and giving even herself grace. ] But you try new things. Hobbies, clothes, food. You will know when it's something you want to do again, not because someone else told you.

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