the vanishing act of barbara holland

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

Almost immediately after Eleven submerged herself into their makeshift sensory deprivation tank, the lights began to flicker from above. Alina's pulse skyrocketed, immediately thinking Demogorgon! before she remembered that this was what Eleven did—the AV Room was proof. Still, she didn't hesitate to squeeze when she felt a warm hand in hers, and shifted closer to Lucas Sinclair. After a second, he put his arm around her. And even though there had been scarier things—much, much scarier things—that had happened today, this still made her shiver. But she liked it.

Nobody dared to move a muscle as they studied the blinded Eleven. Her head was turning slightly, her mouth parted, but she didn't appear to have found anything yet. Her breathing was even, and she floated calmly in the water, sending small ripples across the surface. Then a single name slipped out of her mouth.

"Barbara?"

Nancy let out a small gasp at the sound of her best friend's name, leaning forward as if she could see what Eleven was seeing. After a few seconds of silence, Eleven's breathing began to get heavier, and she twitched in the water, a cry leaving her throat. Yet again, the lights flickered, all of their eyes darting up at the sudden surge in electricity, and then... well, Alina didn't really know how to describe it.

She vanished.

One minute she was in the gym with Lucas, watching the lights above her turn on and off, and the next she was kneeling in a puddle of water, staring at a face, if you could call it that. The head was encased in slime, strands of it dripping off ears and the nose, and the eyes were half-open, staring blankly into the air, glittering. Veins popped out of the face, and blackened lips, which were open, revealed a strange creature crawling out of them. It resembled a slug, pockmarked with yellow spots, and it bubbled as it exited the mouth of whatever this was.

Alina saw all of this in a second, before she was thrust back into her own body in the darkened gym. She let out a sharp gasp, looking around wildly, but there was no sign of a slug or a deadened face with two obsidians for eyes. No slime oozing off of ears. Nothing except the occasional lap of water against the side of the kiddie pool and Eleven's panicked breaths.

Do you see? Do you see what we've done?

"What's going on?" Nancy asked quickly.

"I don't know," said Mike, and his voice, though barely above a whisper, seemed to carry for miles in the near-silent gym. Alina, the image of the grotesque face still in her mind, brought herself even closer to Lucas, as if the presence of her friend was all she needed to will it away. She didn't want to throw up in front of everyone, but every time she blinked, the slug oozed its way out of that dead mouth.

"Is Barb okay?" Nancy asked urgently, her face panicked. "Is she okay?"

Eleven began to whimper, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone." Her voice got louder now, and she began to sob. "Gone! Gone! Gone!"

Joyce grabbed onto Eleven's hand, muttering soothing words to the distraught girl. Nancy began to sob into her hands, and Alina's heart seemed to break. Barbara was dead. Someone had died in the Upside Down. Gone.

The slug oozing out of blackened lips...

Her stomach lurched, and Lucas held her tighter, screwing his eyes up. Eleven calmed after a moment, her breathing steadying again, her frantic twitching stopping. "Castle Byers," she said abruptly. Alina had no idea what that was, but by the way everyone's faces lit up, she assumed it was something about Will. This was it, she realized. The moment when they realized if Will's breaths had been silenced. If he had gone the way Barbara had. If he was gone, too.

Eleven was quiet for a moment, before she took a deep, steady breath. "Will?"

The others exchanged glances, happy to hear that Will Byers still drew breath, and Joyce let out a relieved gasp, leaning closer to the surface of the water. Alina noticed that she was shaking. "You tell him..." she breathed, "t-tell him I'm coming. M-mom is coming."

"Your mom," Eleven whispered, "she's coming for you."

That was when another voice began to crackle out of the walkie-talkie. A voice that, before, when Alina had heard it on the radio, had sounded panicked, terrified even. But Will Byers' voice now was weak. It was if he barely had the energy to speak. To move. "Hurry."

He was running out of time.

Lucas, Dustin and Alina exchanged looks of relief and horror. Relief that Will was still alive, that he was okay, but horror that he sounded as if he was on his final breaths.

"O-okay." Alina was surprised Joyce hadn't burst into tears yet. "Listen, you tell him to... to stay where he is. We're coming. We're coming, okay? We're coming, honey."

"Just... just hold on a little longer," said Eleven to the boy none of them could see. "Will. Will. Will?"

Whimpers began to echo out of the radio, and Alina shot to her feet, as if she could somehow reach the boy trapped in the Upside Down. But before she could do anything, Eleven let out a large gasp, sitting up straight and letting her goggles fall off of her. A sob at her throat, Eleven curled into Joyce's waiting arms, clutching at them with shaky fingers.

"It's okay," Joyce whispered. "I got you. I got you. I got you, honey. You did so good."

Alina wondered if that was what having a real mother was like. The way Joyce held onto Eleven was more than Linda Fairgrieves had done for her in a long time. She knew that when she was a baby, Linda would rock her for hours, kissing Alina's curls. But that was a long time ago, before she knew what Alina was really like. Before she realized that Alina was not the daughter she wanted.

Alina gritted her teeth and walked over to Eleven, kneeling beside her and reaching out her hand. Eleven looked up at her with red eyes, and took it. "You..." it seemed like a struggle for Alina's friend to speak. "You saw... gone."

"El, it's alright. You're alright now." Mike had come over to join them. "You're safe."

"Okay," said Joyce. "Okay, I've got to go now. I've got to find Will. Will you be alright with your friends?" she was addressing Eleven, who was shivering, a thin stream of blood rushing out of her nose. Eleven closed her eyes and nodded, gripping onto Alina's hand tighter.

"Good." Joyce's voice was shaky, and she slowly let go of Eleven and got to her feet. "Thank you," she told Alina and Mike, before heading over to talk to Hopper and Jonathan. It seemed to Alina that it was decided that the adults would be going into the Upside Down, while the rest of them remained here.

But Alina wanted to help. She was practically tearing her hair out, Will's sickly voice replaying in her mind over and over again. He was dying. He was dying.

You can help, she told herself firmly. You can help Eleven. She's drained now. Help her regain her strength.

And so Alina watched Joyce and Hopper talk to Jonathan, asking him instructions on where to find Castle Byers. She prayed that they would all come back alive. That Will Byers was okay. And then she picked up the fluffy towel they'd prepared for Eleven and wrapped it around the shivering girl's shoulders, Mike using a damp cloth to wipe the blood from her face.

The gentleness in which Mike Wheeler did anything with Eleven was easy to see. He liked her a lot. He'd give her the world if he could, provide her with the sky and all of its constellations, hand her the sun but shield her from being burnt. Mike Wheeler would do anything for Eleven.

Alina wondered if anyone would ever feel the same about her, unaware of the boy with the bandanna watching her, with three words he could never say on the tip of his tongue.

As Mike held the towel over Eleven's shoulders, Alina found herself, almost in a trance, walking to where Joyce, Hopper, and Jonathan were finishing up their conversation. Something to do. Mindless conversation. Words of goodbye and good luck that don't really do anything. Something to hide the slime and the dead face with coal-black eyes.

They all turned when she saw she was coming, their conversation drawing to halt.

"I—I just wanted to say good luck," said Alina, her voice shaking a little. "I hope you guys—I hope you can bring him back."

Joyce smiled fondly down at her. "Thank you, sweetie," she said softly. "And thank you for helping to find my boy."

Alina gave Joyce a shy smile of her own before joining her friends, who were now on the bleachers. She sat down beside Lucas, who was straightening the towel on Eleven's shoulders, who was leaning against Mike, exhausted. Alina felt a surge of fondness go through her at Lucas's simple action. He'd definitely come to his senses, going from calling Eleven a traitor to making sure she was comfortable.

The past week had changed them all, and when Alina leaned her head on Lucas's shoulder, she realized that she might have changed most of all.

"You did great," she said abruptly to Eleven. "You're a Rockstar, you know that?"

Eleven's voice was almost as weak as Will's. "...Rockstar?"

"Well... I'm just saying that you're amazing. Don't worry. After all of this shit is behind us, I'll teach you all the stuff you need to know. D&D... comics... just you wait."

"Yeah," said Mike. "It'll be cool."

Alina closed her eyes and enjoyed the feeling of her head on Lucas's shoulder. She was worried about Will, all alone in the Upside Down. She remembered him talking to her a week ago, hands in his pockets, annoyed at the fact that Lucas had made him come over to her. Tears slid down her cheeks as she remembered his frustrated expression. And then it happened again.

"So, come on and let me know... should I stay or should I go now?"

An image of a shivering Will Byers blossomed in Alina's brain. He was curled in on himself, shaking, singing with numb lips. Just something to distract himself from the biting cold.

"Will?" Alina reached forward, but Will Byers dissolved into shadows.

The slug. The void. And now this.

What was happening to her?

"What?"

Alina's eyes shot open to find herself in the gym, with four heads turned to hers. Mike's eyebrows were raised. "What did you say, Alina?"

"Nothing." Alina waved him off. "I didn't say anything."

She didn't close her eyes this time, instead staring up at the ceiling, the tune of the song still stuck in her head. Should I stay or should I go now?

"Your nose." Lucas used his sleeve to wipe it, his jacket coming away covered in blood. "Alina, what happened? I didn't see any energy or anything. Did you do something?"

"I—" for once, Alina was out of words. "I don't know. I don't—" She closed her eyes. That wasn't what she was supposed to say. She was supposed to assure them that everything was fine, but her world was crumbling in on her now, worry lancing itself into her bones. Her eyelids were heavy. Her head was on Lucas's shoulder. Her breathing shaky.

What she was supposed to say was I'm fine. It's just a regular nosebleed. I totally didn't just see Will, or some freaky dead person's head that I'm beginning to believe was Barbara's. I didn't see a slug thing crawling out of her mouth. I'm fine.

I'm not seeing the image of it every time I close my eyes. I'm not terrified of what just happened.

I don't have Will's song still rattling in my head.

"So, come on and let me know... should I stay or should I go now?"

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

a/n: and alina is figuring out that the energy might not be the only thing she can do! it may seem confusing right now, but everything about her abilities will be explained eventually lmao

'till next time!