christmas lights and real friends

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Alina still hadn't recovered fully by the time they arrived at the Byers household. As she finally stepped out of the car where she'd been jammed between Dustin and Eleven, the sound of crickets chirped all around her, and the night wind swept soothingly across her face. Her hand was safely within Lucas's once more, and she held it as hard as she could, as if it would ease the pain. She couldn't stop thinking of the photo, which now lay in pieces in the backseat of Hopper's car, her smiling face now ripped to shreds.

Just as Alina took a couple of steps forward, squinting at the house, three figures ran outside to greet them. Alina recognized Nancy, along with Joyce and Jonathan Byers, who she'd seen at the funeral. Before she could even take a breath, Nancy had swept her little brother into her arms, hugging him fiercely.

"I was so worried about you!" she cried, holding him out at arm's length as the others watched in confusion. This didn't sound like the Nancy Wheeler from the dinner, the girl who sucked up to her parents and lied about where she was going in order to hang out with her friends.

"Yeah." Mike sounded as confused as his friends looked. "Uh... me, too."

Nancy smiled at her brother, before her eyes glanced over his shoulder, taking in the rest of the fugitives. She seemed surprised to see Alina standing among them, still holding onto Lucas, but she didn't comment, only moved on to Eleven, who was beside her. Her eyes narrowed.

"Is that my dress?"

Eleven's cheeks flushed, and she looked at her fellow companions to be sure that Nancy was talking about her. Then she realized that nobody else was wearing a dress and stared back at her guiltily.

Joyce Byers stepped forward, chewing on her lip. "Why doesn't everyone come on in?" she asked. She was a small, nervous woman with heavy bags under her eyes from countless sleepless nights she'd spent without her son. Alina wondered what she and Jonathan had to do with this whole situation. Perhaps they, too, had found out about the Upside Down? Or the Demogorgon?

Regardless, Alina was just eager to be out of the cold, and so she followed Joyce Byers inside, the interior of her house giving her a shock. If not for the current circumstances, the house might've just been an average, slightly on the smaller side bungalow with three bedrooms and one bathroom, but it had been transformed. Right now, the walls and ceiling were lined with countless Christmas lights, the bulbs of which had been unscrewed. Over a saggy couch the alphabet was painted in thick black letters, the smell of paint wafting over to Alina, and one of the walls had been demolished, only a blue tarp covering it. It fluttered slightly in the wind.

"What's—" Alina began to ask, before Lucas tugged her forward into the dining room, where they all found space to sit. After they were all semi-comfortable, Nancy licked her lips and explained her situation—what she knew about the Demogorgon, which apparently, she and Jonathan both knew about, and how it had not only taken Will but Nancy's best friend Barbara as well. She also spoke of her theory about blood, and how the Demogorgon was attracted to it.

"They found Barb's car," Nancy finished, less than five minutes later. "They thought that she was a runaway."

"The lab." Alina shook her head, furious. "They're trying to cover it up, just like they covered up Will's disappearance by creating a fake body. I guess telling families that their children were taken into another dimension might raise a few eyebrows."

"Uh, sorry." Jonathan began to raise his hand before gesturing at Alina. "Who are you, exactly?"

"I'm Alina Fairgrieves. I've been trying to help Mike, Lucas, Dustin and Eleven find Will for the past week."

"She's a part of the party now," Dustin piped up. "She's totally badass. You should've seen what she did to James—"

"Alright, alright." Hopper raised his hands, signaling Dustin to stop. "We get it. Now, Joyce, can you explain what you've found out about Will?"

Joyce, who was biting her nails nervously, stood up, explaining how Will had managed to contact her in the lights, and then, after his funeral, talk to him in the wall, the same conversation Alina, Lucas, Dustin, Mike and Eleven all had listened in on. "He says it's..."

"Like home," Mike finished. "But dark, and empty." He cleared his throat, holding up a piece of paper he'd been doodling on during these explanations. "It's called the Upside Down. It's a parallel universe that's a dark echo of our home. And Will and Barbara are trapped there." He began to repeat the same flea and acrobat metaphor that Mr. Clarke had used. "Mr. Clarke said the only way to get there was through a rip in time and space."

"A gate," Dustin clarified.

"That we tracked to Hawkins Lab," said Lucas.

"With our compasses." At the blank looks on the faces of Nancy, Jonathan and Joyce, Dustin let out a sigh before elaborating. "Okay, so the gate has a really strong electromagnetic field, and that can change the directions of a compass needle."

"So, basically, all we had to do was follow the needles north," Alina added.

For a moment, everyone was quiet as they tried to process this information. Then Hopper spoke up. "Is this gate underground?"

"Yes," Eleven responded, speaking for the first time since they arrived inside the Byers house.

"Near a large water tank?"

Eleven nodded. "Yes," she repeated.

Dustin's eyes widened. "H-how do you know all that?"

Hopper didn't respond, simply pressing his lips together and shaking his head slightly, and Mike swallowed, coming up with the answer for him. "He's seen it."

"You've been in the lab?" Alina didn't mean to speak out loud, but as soon as the words left her lips, all heads turned to her, a blush spreading across her cheeks. "It's just—my dad works there, and I know it's maximum security, with soldiers out front and cameras everywhere and—"

"I got caught." Hopper's eyes bored into hers. "They bugged my house."

"Wait," Jonathan held up a hand. "Your dad works in Hawkins Lab?"

"Yeah, Department of Energy," said Alina. "He used to take me there, for field trips and stuff, but I didn't get to see much. I was told it was all top secret."

Joyce, meanwhile, was turning to Eleven and leaning forward in her seat. "I-is there any way that you could... that you could reach Will? That you could talk to him in this—"

"The Upside Down," Eleven finished.

"Down... yeah." Eleven nodded at this, and Joyce let out a sigh of relief, thankful that she'd be able to speak to her son again.

"And my friend Barbara?" Nancy asked. "Can you find her, too?"

Yet again, Eleven nodded, more confidently this time, and stood up, instructing them on what to bring for her. She needed photos of Will and Barb, along with Mike's walkie talkie. While Joyce and Jonathan went off to go look for a picture of Will, Nancy pulling out a black and white picture of Barb that seemed to have been taken from afar, Alina slumped at the table, tears running down her face.

This was a home. It might have been a dishevelled home, with paint on the walls, peeling wallpaper, and hundreds of Christmas lights, but it still was a home. A home with a family, a real family, who spent their days together and happy. Even though one boy was not here, the smell of homeliness still remained, something that must've disappeared from her own home as soon as she'd left it.

She couldn't help it. The tears were falling again. She missed her dad. She missed the dad that made her pancakes with smiley faces, watched Star Wars with her, who picked her up from the treehouse on nights he worked late. She missed the Brandon Fairgrieves who defended her to Linda, who told her that she was beautiful just the way she was, who didn't blame her for anything.

Perhaps she would've wallowed in her sorrows for a little longer, her tears dripping onto the table, if not for the fact that at that moment, Lucas Sinclair threw his arms around her. Alina startled. She'd forgotten he was even there.

Without even knowing the cause of her tears, Dustin joined the embrace, and so did Mike, and Eleven, who was a little confused, put her hand on Alina's shoulder. Alina sobbed within the comfort of her friends, before sitting up and drying her tears just as Joyce and Jonathan returned, a school photo of Will in hand.

"Thank you," she told her friends. "Thank you."

Everyone then gathered around Eleven as she studied the two pictures and closed her eyes. Alina wondered what it was like to channel them, to have their faces bloom in her mind. She wondered if it was scary.

The walkie talkie crackled, Eleven's eyes moving rapidly under her eyelids, total concentration on her face. None of the others dared to say a word, barely even moving when the lights above them flickered. They waited with bated breath as Eleven opened her eyes, regret on her face.

Her bottom lip quivered. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"What?" Joyce, who had been holding Jonathan's hand for support, spoke up. "Wh-what's wrong? What happened?"

Eleven shook her head miserably. "I can't find them." Tears were brimming in the corner of her eyes, and after a moment, she stood up, running into the bathroom.

Alina frowned. What were they supposed to do now? Go running around wildly in the Upside Down, hoping to find Will or Barbara? Try and contact them through the lights? She let out a sigh. It seemed that they'd reached another dead end.

Mike seemed to realize that Nancy, Jonathan, Hopper and Joyce were all looking for an explanation. "Whenever she uses her powers," he explained, "she gets weak."

"The more energy she uses, the more tired she gets," added Dustin.

"Like, she flipped the van earlier," said Lucas.

"It was awesome."

"But she's drained now," said Alina.

"Like a bad battery."

"Well..." Joyce bit her lip. "How do we make her better?"

"We don't," said Mike. "We just have to wait and try again."

"Sleep sometimes helps," said Alina, chewing on the inside of her cheek, "but not always. We just... we just have to wait until she regains her strength."

"Well," said Nancy, "how long?"

"I don't know," sighed Mike.

Dustin's eyes lit up. "What if we don't have to wait?" he suggested. "What if we don't use Eleven?" And when everyone looked at him with confusion, he turned to Alina excitedly. "Al, couldn't you do it? Find Will and Barbara? Then we wouldn't have to wait until El feels better?"

All eyes went to Alina, who was already shaking her head. "No. No way. First of all, we have no idea if I can actually do it, and second, even if I can, you saw what happened with James in the gym. I was out for a while, and considering how tired Eleven got when she contacted Will..."

"That wouldn't go well," Dustin sighed. "But still, can't you try? Just to see if you're able to?"

"No." Before Alina could even get a word out, Lucas was already shaking his head firmly. "No way. It's too dangerous."

"Well, what are we supposed to do, then? We don't exactly have a lot of options!"

"We could just wait!" Lucas threw his hands into the air. "If Will can hide from the Demogorgon for almost a week, I think he can wait for an extra half-hour!"

What might've escalated into a full-blown argument, Dustin already opening his mouth to retort, was mercifully cut short by Eleven's voice ringing through the room. None of them had noticed her return from the bathroom, her face glistening with water she'd used to wipe away her tears. "Bath."

"What?"

"I can find them," said Eleven confidentially. "In the bath."

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