Steve stood staring into his pool, unable to look away from the red glint at the bottom. He knew he should be picking up the phone or the walkie, letting someone know a gate was opening up again, but it was calling to him. His mind whispered impossible things. He could hear the voice asking for his help, Eddie's voice.

It was so easy to step up to the edge and dive in, right down into the dark depths. Cold prickled across his skin, but it was like an afterthought. He could barely see without all the pool lights on, but the red glow drew him. There were no vines on this one, no remnants of Vecna, and he acted before he could change his mind. His arm disappeared into it right up to the shoulder until his flailing hand found something alive.

Acting on instinct rather than thought, he gripped it and pulled.

It was hard, ridiculously so, as if the gate did not want to give up what he was trying to pull through it, but he persisted. When a pale, limp hand finally appeared on his side, illuminated by the glow from the gate, he pulled even harder.

It didn't feel like just a physical thing, either. The pull on his mind he had felt in his dreams with Eddie was replicated, only worse, and he could sense the energy being leeched from him far faster.

All he could compare it to was a birth, as he pulled and pulled, until finally, Eddie's head and shoulders popped through the gate and the rest of him slid out like a baby from a birth canal, naked as the day he was born. Refusing to waste a second, Steve powered to the surface, treading water with Eddie's limp form in his arms as he gasped in precious air.

The water around him began to froth, but he couldn't look down to see what was happening. He also couldn't climb the ladder with Eddie, he just didn't have the strength left, so he swam to the side, using everything he had to push Eddie up and over it. He managed to get half of his burden up the first time and then boosted Eddie a second time, rolling him away from the edge.

All he could manage after that was clinging on to the side himself, eyes closed, panting with the exertion as the once still pool rippled and spluttered around him. It shouldn't have exhausted him like it had, but there was nothing he could do about it. He didn't even have enough strength to pull himself out of the water. He barely had enough to hang on, and that was fading. It was as if whatever was going on wasn't quite finished and it was taking everything he had left.

He began to slip, and he couldn't stop. There was blood in the water, he could just make it out under the lights from the house, and he was pretty sure it was his. To go through everything with the Upside Down and then drown in a pool would be a really shitty way to go.

Then, just when he thought he was going in, a hand came over the edge of the pool, snagging his wrist. It was his turn to be pulled as Eddie dragged him over the lip. He did his best to help, but it was more by luck than judgement that he ended up in a heap next to the other man.

"Thanks," he slurred, only to be answered by a slightly hysterical laugh, but he was passing out, so he didn't really care.

~*~

"Steve! Steve! Oh God, Steve, can you hear me?"

The frantic words and someone patting his face quite hard, dragged him back to consciousness. When he opened his eyes, it was way too bright, so he shut them again very quickly.

"Get him up," he heard Nancy's familiar voice instruct.

He didn't have much say in the matter as he was sat up and someone wrapped him in something nice and warm. That's when he realised, he was cold.

"Eddie?" he asked, opening his eyes again and squinting.

"Jon and Argyle are looking after Eddie," Robin said from just in front of his face. "What have you been up to this time, Steve?"

"He was in my pool," he said rather stupidly, but he couldn't really be blamed since his brain was not firing on all cylinders.

"Eddie was dead, Steve, remember?" Robin asked him.

"Not dead anymore," he replied.

"We noticed," Nancy commented. "Let's get them inside."

With Robin on one side and, as it turned out, now Argyle on the other, Steve found himself hauled to his feet. He discovered he could just about hold himself up with help and the pair slowly walked him back to the house, one under each arm. They sat him on one of the chairs in the pool room and wrapped him back up in what was a nice fluffy blanket.

"Thanks," he said, feeling a little more with it even though it was hard to keep his eyes open.

He watched as Nancy and Johnathan put Eddie on the other chair, also wrapped in a blanket and apparently mostly still out of it.

"Steve," Robin said, crouching down so they were at eye level, "what happened?"

"I've been dreaming," he said quietly, "of the Void. That's where I saw Eddie."

"Steve," Nancy said, joining Robin and blocking his view of Eddie, which he didn't really like, "you've been going to the Void, by yourself?"

"They were dreams," he protested.

"The Void isn't a dream," Nancy said, studying him with one of her pinched little frowns, "it's something else."

"Felt like a dream," he replied.

"What did you do when you found Eddie there?" Robin asked in a much gentler tone than Nancy.

"Vecna brought him back, but he was dying again," Steve told her, "so I healed him."

"You healed him?" Robin asked.

He nodded.

"How?"

"It was a dream. I wanted to so I did," he replied. "I don't know how. But then ..." he trailed off for a moment, "then he was in my pool, and it wasn't a dream anymore."

"Holy fuck," Nancy said, and he couldn't help agreeing.

A dream was one thing, finding out that it was reality was completely another.

"How did I do that?" he asked, suddenly afraid of what it might mean.

"I'm calling Hopper and getting El over here," Nancy decided while Steve had a mini-meltdown. "She's the closest thing to an expert we have."

"I think this situation is screaming for delicious chocolaty goodness," Argyle decided. "Lovely and warm deliciousness in a mug."

"Good idea," Jonathan agreed.

"Everything you'll need is in the first cupboard on the left and in the refrigerator," Robin told their pot loving friend.

Steve was very glad when she didn't offer to show him, because right at the moment, Robin was his anchor.

"How long were you out there?" she asked, perching on the chair next to him.

"Went out there about three, I think," he replied vaguely forcing his brain to recall the numbers on the clock as he burrowed down into his blanket a bit more.

"Jesus, Steve, we're not even in May yet. Now is not the weather to be lying outside half naked and drenched for seven hours," Robin scolded him, even as she threw an arm around him and began rubbing his back. "If I hadn't panicked and called Nancy when you didn't answer the walkie, you'd still be out there."

"Not like I planned that part," he complained.

"Did you plan any part at all, Dingus?" Robin said, giving him one of her looks.

"Thought it was a dream, remember," he said somewhat petulantly.

He was much happier now he could see Eddie again.

"Yeah, well all this is making me think all my cuts and bruises going away so quickly was more than a coincidence now," she said, leaning into his side.

He didn't know what to say to that, so he kept his mouth shut. The warmth from the blanket was helping him to wake up more, but it didn't help with explanations. Some of the ideas floating around in the back of his brain scared him. When Eddie made a noise and finally lifted his head, Steve was very glad to have something else to focus on.

"Jesus Christ, Harrington Manor," Eddie whispered, staring around in wonder.

"Hey, Eddie," Johnathan said, putting a steadying hand on Eddie's shoulder, "remember me from school? It's Jon."

"Byers," Eddie said, "course I remember you. Did I really die, or have I been having an incredibly bad trip for what feels like weeks?"

"You really died," Johnathan said in a sympathetic tone.

"And that means, Steve really put me back together and pulled me from there to here through a hole in reality in his pool and then nearly drowned," Eddie said. "Holy fuck."

Steve could see Robin glaring at him from the corner of his eye. He shrunk down a bit more into his blanket and hoped she wasn't about to scold him again. Luckily for him, Argyle chose that moment to reappear with steaming mugs.

"Eddie, my dude," Argyle said, "it's nice to finally meet you. The gang told me so much about you after the pre-apocalypse apocalypse. You missed an awesome end of days."

"Yeah, no, I was kind of on the other side for that," Eddie said. "Don't really remember much of it though, so I have that to be thankful for."

"Yeah, I imagine that would have been a real bummer," Argyle agreed and simply handed him a mug of hot chocolate.

Steve accepted his a few moments later and tried not to think too hard for a while.

"Hopper is bringing El, Joyce and Will," Nancy said when she came back a few minutes after that.

Steve went back to not thinking.