THE GROUP VENTURED THROUGH THE WOODS, HEADING FOR THE WHEELER HOUSE.

After wrapping Carla's shoulder, the Wheeler was given a few minutes to relax and refocus herself before the group was off. Steve offered to stay at Skull Rock with Carla so she wouldn't exhaust herself, and for the group to come back to them with guns, but the Wheeler denied. She wanted to be a part of it, injured or not.

So, here Carla was, trudging through the Upside Down woods like there was no tomorrow. She's in the middle of the clump they've created, standing behind Nancy—who led the way to their house—but in front of Steve and Eddie, who silently walked in the back.

Her face is pale, and some of her breaths feel more labored than healthy, but she pushes forward without complaint. She wanted this. One arm crossed over her chest to hold her the injured one in place. Her shoulder still burned, but the wrap Nancy made seemed to help, keeping the true wound from anymore contact.

She hasn't checked to see if the veins have spread. Truly, she doesn't want to.

"Couldn't we have tried a road, or something slightly less creepy?" Robin asks. For majority of the walk, she's been at Nancy's hip, bugging her with questions and comments like a child to their mother on a road trip.

"I think we're getting close." Nancy reassures, though for the past fifteen minutes it's been nothing but the same bare trees and vine ground. Who knew how much wood was left? "We're almost out of here. Don't worry."

Carla hopes they're out soon. She still feels sick—she wants to go home.

A few feet back, Steve watches his girlfriend closely. His eyes flicker between her unsteady footing, or way the way she'll stop for a few seconds to catch her breath, and the path ahead. His hands itch to help her, but he knows she'll shoo him away and tell him she's fine. Like she always does.

He decides to distract himself by taking to the mullet headed boy in front of him.

"Eddie." Steve calls out, earning the attention of the Hellfire boy. At first, the Munson doesn't hear his name but at a second ringing of it, he slows his speed and looks back at the Harrington with furrowed brows. "Eddie. Hey, man. Uh....listen, I just, uh...I just wanna say thanks. For saving my ass back there."

Thanking Eddie Munson feels horribly wrong. Sure, he's bought weed from the boy a few times in his high-school years, but Steve was at the opposite end of the food chain from Eddie Munson. He was a king, and Eddie was a freak—one of the nicer terms, the Harrington could use. Despite not being 'King Steve' anymore, there was still something uncomfortable about speaking to the mullet-headed teen. He was breaking some kind of cliche rule.

Or maybe Steve was just slightly jealous of the fact that Eddie seemed to hang around Dustin much more than he did these days.

"Shit, you saved your own ass, man." Eddie replies briskly. He didn't do shit. In his voice, there's a hidden show of slight admiration. "I mean, that was a real Ozzy move you pulled back there."

"Ozzy?"

"When you took a bite out of that bat." Eddie shifts his wording, expecting the Harrington to understand. Steve's brows furrow even further—not cultured. He stares hard in Eddie's direction, leaving the Munson no choice but to clarify, "Ozzy Osbourne? Black Sabbath?" Both are a fat no from Steve and, awkwardly so, Eddie proceeds, "He...he bit a bat's head off onstage—"

"I don't—"

"You know?"

"No."

"Doesn't matter." Eddie gives up, unamused that his reference wasn't understood. How could people be so uncultured? "It's very metal, what you did. That's all I'm saying."

Was that a compliment? Steve had never been called 'pretty', 'sexy', a 'charmer' and lots of words to be associated with hot, but never had 'metal' been on that list. All he manages as a reply is a confused, "....Thanks."

Steve keeps walking, expecting the conversation to be over. After all, what more could Eddie Munson have to say to him?

"Henderson told me you were a badass." Eddie continues, unexpectedly. "Insisted on the matter, in fact."

Now that has Steve slightly surprised....and touched. He didn't know that Dustin spoke about him like that, let alone at all. Ever since he started his freshman year, he's stopped going to Steve for everything—he still carpooled the boy to D&D campaigns, and they talked, but it wasn't like it was. Steve doesn't even remember the last time he gave Dustin real advice, something the boy always came to him for ever since they met in '84.

Conversations were usually snappy, and if they did have a real conversation, Eddie was always named dropped. Always praised, or mentioned to some degree. Steve knew that it was simply Dustin growing up, but it did hurt. Just a little.

He misses what they had in the summer, even if they were trapped in a Russian base and fighting monsters for most of it. Dustin was like the sibling he never had, stupid as it was. He liked the little shithead

most of the time, at least.

Steve reserved to hating on Dustin's new idol to make himself feel better, but hearing Eddie now, the Harrington can't help but question if he ever needed to hate the Munson at all.

"Henderson said that?" the Harrington asks, surprised.

"Oh yeah. Shit. Kid worships you, dude. Like, you have no idea. It's kinda annoying, to be honest." Eddie earns a chuckle from Steve at the admission, "I don't even know why I care what that little shrimp thinks but, uh, guess I got a little jealous, Steve. I guess I couldn't accept the fact that Steve Harrington was actually a good dude. Rich parents, popular, chicks love him—not a douche? No way, man. No way. That, like, flies in the face of all the laws in the universe and my own personal Munson doctrine." He pauses, and the two boys walk in silence for a moment before Eddie gets right up close to Steve. "Still super jealous as hell, by the way."

Steve lets out a real laugh—surprisingly—and elbows the mullet-headed boy away, "Right."

"Which is why I would never have jumped in that lake to save your ass." Eddie states bluntly, though Steve didn't take it personally after hearing what the boy had to say. The Munson glances around the Upside Down to ad, "Not under any, uh....normal circumstances."

A branch snapping interrupts the conversation and both boys stop, Steve shining his flashlight in the noises direction. Steve's feet stay locked into the ground as he watches carefully. However, Eddie only pauses for a moment before slowly padding away once more.

"Nope. Outside D&D, I am no hero." Eddie proceeds to speak once Steve continues to walk after him, more attentive to their surroundings. "I see danger and I just turn heel and run. Or at least that's what I've learned about myself this week."

Steve has never run from danger—in fact, the first chance he had to do it, he ran back into it. His martyr complex has never done him justice. But, stepping in front of danger with his fists is almost instinctual. That's who Steve is. Sometimes, it's all he feels he's good for.

He doesn't have Dustin or Nancy's smarts. Doesn't have Will or Carla's Upside Down connection to help warn. He doesn't have the power of Hopper or Joyce. He doesn't have Robin or Max's wit and sarcasm. But, he can protect. And he does a damn good job at it.

It's why he can't really criticize when Carla does the same thing. She's always throwing herself face first into danger, and while he wishes she didn't, in the end, he's doing it too—just in a different way. She jumps without thinking, headfirst into danger because she doesn't think she's worth the fight. He stands his ground, taking every blow like it's his job to shield the world.

He doesn't think Eddie running is a relatively bad thing.

Steve goes to nudge the Munson, "Give yourself a break, man."

"See?" Eddie slaps his arm away, stopping dead in his tracks. Steve stops too, and the two boys face one another. "The only reason I came in here was 'cause those ladies—" he points his pinky at the three girls walking far ahead. "—came in straight after you. Now, I was too ashamed to be the one who stayed behind."

Steve glances at the three girls, eyes softening when he looks at his girlfriend. She's still walking slower than Nancy and Robin, head moving to the side as she examined the Upside Down to its full extent.

"But Wheeler right there, she didn't waste a second." Eddie points to Carla, watching as Steve's eyes soften. God, he was whipped for her. "Not one second. She just dove right in. Just...boom, straight into danger, man."

What Eddie was saying added up in Steve's head. Carla was right with what she told him when he told her she shouldn't be in the Upside Down—she would have never just left him. But, he felt something, knowing that Carla didn't waste a second. That she didn't care how dangerous, or that she had no clue what she was diving into. Knowing that the Wheeler just followed him without another thought.

"Yeah..." Steve trails off, managing a faint smile. "That's Carla."

"Now, I don't know her well, but she seems to be real badass from what I've seen so far—I mean, she's still going after throwing up. She's already better than me." Eddie lowers his voice, but manages a light smile at the expression on Steve's face as he stares at his girl. "You're lucky to have her, Harrington. Not many girls would do that."

Steve manages a curt nod. He's always been lucky to have Carla Wheeler as his, for many reasons.

"Don't lose her. Ever, okay?" Eddie keeps going, placing a hand over his chest. "'Cause that was as unambiguous a sign of true love as these cynical eyes have ever seen."

Steve replies, "I wasn't planning on it."

"Good." Eddie says, beginning to walk again. Steve follows after him, and he gives the Harrington a few moments of silence before starting conversation once more. "So......" He leans in ever so slightly, a smirk on his face. "....when are you gonna put a ring on it, pretty boy?"

The question catches Steve off guard. "What?"

"You heard me." Eddie doesn't repeat himself, scuffing his shoes against the Upside Down ground. "Clearly she's it for you, and I doubt she's doing this for any other guys. What are you waiting for?"

What was Steve waiting for?

"Well, for starters, she's still in high school." Steve starts with the obvious. Why is he even opening up to Eddie about this?

"Yeah, for what? Two more months?" the Munson continues to push, smirk still on his face as he pressed. "No shame in marrying young. Plenty of folks do it."

"It's not that simple, Munson."

"Sure, it is." the Hellfire member counters. "Find a ring, get on one knee, and make it happen. Boom. Done."

Steve hesitates, his expression shifting to something more doubtful and serious. The thought of proposing isn't new—it's been in the back of his mind for a while now. But...

"I want to, one day." Steve admits. He can feel the doubt he's had inside of him ever since Carla started writing college acceptance essays creep right back into his head as he adds, "But not yet."

Eddie's brow furrows. He doesn't know shit about love, but he's curious now. "Why not? You think she's not ready?"

Steve sighs, "No, it's not her."

For a moment, he hesitates to tell Eddie—it feels odd being vulnerable in front of the Munson, someone who he didn't even tolerate until all of two seconds ago. Steve's felt weird being vulnerable for as long as he can remember, though. It's nothing new.

So, he admits, "It's me. Carla's...she's smart, you know? Too smart to stay here in Hawkins. She's got a future ahead of her—college, a real future. And after everything she has been through the past four years with this Upside Down bullshit, she deserves to go and do what she wants. I want her to have all of that."

Eddie's brows furrow, "What's that got to do with you?"

Carla had the future Steve never did. She was smart, she did her work and got good grades, had a hard work ethic that could get her somewhere. If she kept it up, she was guaranteed to end up in a college of some kind and get help to pursue her wanted career of a doctor of kinds. It was right in her grasp.

Steve never had that. He passed enough classes to graduate and didn't get accepted into any colleges whatsoever. He was working an easy paycheck job at Family Video and had stopped caring enough to try again at school. Unsatisfyingly enough, the Harrington knew this was it for him. A cozy job with easy money. He had no real future.....except Carla.

Carla was Steve's future to an extent. He wanted to marry her, have kids, grow old—the whole nine yards. He had nothing in life to look forward to except her, and she had everything to look forward too.

"Carla doesn't deserve to be stuck in this shitty town. Hell, she needs to get out—see something other than Hawkins." Steve continues to explain, glancing between Eddie and his girlfriend, who walked ahead, unaware of the conversation. "If I ask her to marry me, that's what will happen."

"She can't go to college and marry you?"

"If I ask her to marry me, she'll stay." Steve says, simply. He's played it out in his head a few times. "She'll forget about college, push everything back, just to make me happy. She'd do it without thinking twice because that's who she is. She'll think my 'dreams' —if you can even call them that—are more realistic, and she'll stay here with me." He shakes his head, "I can't let her do that."

Shit, he's actually spilling. Eddie really didn't expect such a deep answer, so he quickly fumbles for a not-asshole reply of, "You think she'd regret it?"

"Not necessarily." Steve knows Carla wouldn't openly admit it if she was unhappy with her life. She'd tell him she was happy, with a nice wedding ring around her figure and a few kids, because she's always happy with him. But he knows that deep down she'd be yearning to get out of Hawkins. Unsatisfied. "But I would. I'd regret being the reason she didn't go after what she deserves."

"Look," Eddie begins, his voice more measured now, "I don't know either of you well, but I've been watching. You and Carla? You two... you've got something. And I don't mean that in some cheesy way. I mean, the way she looks at you? The way you care about her?" He shakes his head, gesturing vaguely between them. "You don't just find that every day. Hell, I don't know if I even believe in that kind of thing, but what I've seen from you two? That's real."

He stops talking, and Steve is left figuring out his advice from what he's said.

"But, hey what do I know?" Eddie's tone returns to that of lighthearted and teasing, "I'm just—"

The world starts to shake again.

The rumbling echoes through the Upside Down, the entire ground moving just as it had earlier. Steve and Eddie both lower themselves onto the ground, annoyed with the sudden earthquake.

"Goddamn it!"

"Here we go again!"

Ahead of the two boys, Carla stumbles, clutching her arm tightly as the ground trembles beneath her feet. The violent shaking sends a sharp jolt through her shoulder, and she grits her teeth, her face contorting in pain.

She grabs hold of a nearby tree to stay steady, looking forward to the two girls in front of her who do similar maneuvers to stay grounded.

"Okay, second on my list of least favorite things, earthquakes." Robin states, panicked, from the ground, nails digging into the Upside Down woods to stay steady. "Seriously, I'm unsteady enough as it is."

Unlike the other two girls, Nancy doesn't act bothered by the shaking world. She clings to a tree for a few seconds before pushing through the unsteadiness and continuing to dart through the woods, on a mission.

"Nancy!" Robin yells.

Carla watches her sister run off into the twisted and dense forest, mentally cursing herself. She had to follow—she couldn't just let Nancy run off. So, unsteady as hell, Carla pushes herself off of the tree and starts stumbling after her twin.

"Seriously, Carla!" Robin cries out. Steve is going to kill her. "Where are you going!?"

Carla realizes how bad of an idea running is in her condition after a few seconds, the sharp, inky pain radiating from the puncture wound threatening to sap what little strength she barely had. Walking for the last fifteen minutes has been enough on her body. But, she doesn't stop.

Not until she meets Nancy in a clearing.

By then, the world had slowed from rumbling. The sky reflects red onto the Wheeler's pale complexions. Carla glances at her sister, out of breath from the mad-dash she had done against her pain. Nancy is staring ahead, eyes locked on a ruined house in the near distance.

Carla meets her gaze and through the misty Upside Down haze recognizes the house as her own. It sits in the middle of nowhere, and the majority of the neighboring houses aren't even there, but it's her home nonetheless. Just the Upside Down's copy of it.

Robin, Steve, and Eddie all come sprinting to the twin's sides moments later, relieved when they see the two Wheeler's standing okay.

Steve's gaze flickers between Carla and Nancy before settling on Carla. His worry deepens as he notices how heavily she's breathing, the strain evident in the way she clutches her arm. He moves closer to her side, his hand hovering just shy of her good arm. "Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine." Carla murmurs, not wanting to focus on herself. She shouldn't have ran.

Nancy starts walking forward without warning. "Come on."

The group all trudges towards the Wheeler house, making quick work of the distance. Carefully stepping over vines, they walk through what should be green and freshly yards, but what is cracked and vine filled ground.

Nancy leads the way, determination in her every step. If Carla wasn't injured, she's sure she'd be at her side. Now, she strays slightly behind with Steve cautiously behind her, ready to catch her if she so happens to stumble.

The group walks up the chipped stairs to the front door. Nancy opens it, the door creaking rather eerily. Everyone is dead silent as they step inside the home—the smaller Wheeler first, then Carla and Steve, the latter holding a flashlight up so there's light in the otherwise dimmed out house.

Seeing the Upside Down version of her house feels odd to Carla. Looking around, everything is how it is. There's six chairs around the dining room table, her dad's rocking chair is where it's always been, there's pictures of the kids on the wall and mantle—one of them is an older one from when the kids were much younger, one Carla hasn't seen since they her mother put up another photo in place of it a few years ago, but maybe she just hasn't been home enough to notice it's reappearance.

However, everything is covered in vines. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, all covered in thick, black, vines; ropes almost, twisting and curving along every texture and surface, claiming this version of the house as Vecna's. They match the skinnier ones crawling up Carla's collar bone.

Dust and Upside Down particles filters the air instead of oxygen, dimming the home even further. The atmosphere in the house feels even darker and colder then it did outside. Somehow.

It's a pretty nightmarish version of the house. Carla hates that it looks like the place she calls home—this version is the furthest thing possible from her home.

"Might be time to get a maid, Wheeler." Robin tries to lighten the mood as she glances around. It doesn't do much to the tense atmosphere that's been created between the five teens.

Nancy doesn't find it too funny, instead whipping around to run up the stairs. "Come on. I don't want to stay here longer than we have too."

"Yeah, me neither." Carla mutters under her breath, moving towards the stairs. Eddie runs up ahead of her, while Robin strays back, hand hovering over the Wheeler's waist in case she wanted help. In the moment, neither girl realizes Steve isn't following.

The two Wheelers, Buckley, and the Munson all maneuver past vines to get to the top, Nancy leading them to her bedroom once they do. The owner of the room makes a beeline for her closet, grabbing a small box on the top shelf.

Nancy walks to her dresser and sets the box down to grab her guns, Eddie and Robin following after her. However, Carla stays in front of the closet as her eyes catch hold of an oddity amongst her sister's clothing.

Hanging in her closet is a white cover up, to go over swim suits. One Carla is awfully familiar with, as of last fall.

It's the same cover up that she had borrowed from Nancy last Halloween to wear to Tina's party to cover up her Fast Times costume. The one that Billy Hargrove had ruined by throwing cheap, red punch all over it in a fit of anger. The one that Carla had gotten rid of after realizing there was no point in trying to clean out a week old stain.

Yet, here it was, hanging in Nancy's closet. It was a pristine white—even in the dim and blue tinted Upside Down lighting, Carla can see that. It looks brand new and untouched, and the Wheeler's brows furrow heavily.

She got rid of that cover-up. So why was it back in her sister's closet? Why was there no stain on it?

"Those aren't guns."

"These heels are a bit pointy, but I was hoping for something along the lines of a deadly projectile?"

Carla blinks away from the cover-up, looking over her shoulder at the the teens at Nancy's dresser. Her brows furrow even harder at the sight of a pair of heels sitting in the shoe box that should be holding guns. That had been holding guns for the past few years—untouched most of the time, and when used, always put back in place. Nancy didn't use the guns when she didn't have too, and certainly wouldn't leave them out with Karen or Holly around.

"I...." Nancy shakes her head, "I don't understand."

Eddie offers, "Maybe you left them somewhere else."

"Holly is six. She wouldn't leave them out." Carla denies, taking the white cover-up off the rack. She had to show Nancy.

"I know where I keep my guns." Nancy says defensively, staring at Eddie heated for a moment before returning to the heels sitting in the box with a sudden realization. "And also, I threw these away years ago."

"That makes two of us." Carla steps forward, holding up the cover-up. "This? This was mine—or yours, I guess. You lent it to me last fall for Tina's party. Billy spilled punch on it, and I had to throw it out." Her gestures to it, watching as Nancy's eyes narrow. "It's...clean. Perfect. Like it never happened."

Nancy glances back down at her dresser, picking up a stack of flash cards. Carla throws the cover-up on the ground and joins her sister, scanning over the cursive writing—What defines the identity of an element?

That was a question on one of Carla's sophomore chemistry tests.

"I get that grades are important to you, but perhaps studying can wait until we get out of here?" Robin cuts in, mind not working as hard as the two Wheelers' were. She hadn't been in Nancy's room until two days ago.

"These are from sophomore chemistry." Nancy throws, detail after detail about her room hitting her like a freight train. Her eyes take hold of the wallpaper hidden behind thick vines and she jabs a finger at it. "And this....this wallpaper, this is old wallpaper." She pointed to a dusty mirror, "And this mirror, this went to a yard sale." She grabs out a sweater from her closet, holding it out to her sisters face. "Carla, I gave this to you last summer for your job at the library."

She's not wrong—Carla knows that the sweater is sitting in her own closet as they speak. Not in Nancy's.

"And you..." the Wheeler picks up a charred stuffed animal, staring at it as if it was attacking her personally. "No, I gave you to cousin Joanna two years ago."

Carla eyes lock on the pink journal sitting on Nancy's bedside table and she walks as quickly as she can, holding it with her good arm. She skims through the pages, landing on the most recent entry, written in Nancy's familiar cursive.

Okay! So, Steve and I....um....we made up today. And Barb definitely knows now—

Steve and Nancy. Barb.

Carla looks up at the top corner and can't help but read the date aloud, "November 6th, '83."

Nancy shakes her head, knowing. "No."

"Your last entry in this is from November 6th of '83." Carla repeats herself, handing over the journal to her sister with an eerie feeling. Nancy roughly grabs the pink book and starts reading through her own writing, in disbelief. "You're talking about you and Steve, you're talking about Barb—"

"What are you two talking about?" Eddie hesitantly steps forward.

"Uh, Wheelers?" Robin is cautious, not wanting to interpret whatever is happening, but growing slightly concerned. "You're freaking me out."

"I think the reason that my guns aren't here is because they don't exist yet." Gaunt faced, Nancy finally reveals what her and Carla are so frantic over to the other two teens. Robin and Eddie both furrow their brows because what did that mean?

Robin looks back at Eddie, almost expecting him to get it. The Munson repeats, "They don't......exist?"

"This diary should be full of entries. It's not." Nancy whips around, holding the diary out towards them. "The last entry is November 6th, 1983."

Eddie and Robin don't seem to understand the significance behind the date, given they weren't anyone close to Will Byers on that fateful day—nor were they now. Carla remembers the day more than she wanted too.

From behind her sister, Carla voices, "That's the day Will went missing."

"The day the gate opened." Nancy reveals, "We're in the past."

Carla doesn't like the sound of it, but she knows it's true. Everything about Nancy's room didn't correlate to what was happening in it now, and if she stepped into her own, Carla's sure she'd agree. It's why the picture in the living room is outdated, too. The Wheeler wasn't not home enough to not notice, it was just never there to begin with.

The Upside Down is stuck on November 6th, 1983. The day, as far as they know, the Upside Down was truly shown to human kind and opened up to Hawkins by Eleven. This place was supposed to be a carbon copy of Hawkins so why was it stuck in the past—Carla doubts it can mean anything good.

"Dustin! Dustin!"

Carla recognizes her boyfriend's calls instantly, and suddenly realizes he's not in the room with them. A small swell of panic rises in her chest—she didn't like hearing him yell down here, especially not after he was almost killed—and she heads right out of Nancy's room, going down then stairs as fast as her body allows her.

"Dustin! Can you hear me?"

Robin, Eddie, and Nancy are sliding down right after Carla, confused and concerned at Steve's yelling.

Carla makes it to the foyer first, chest rising and falling heavily. Her eyes catch hold of Steve, spinning in circles with his flashlight, the light darting in every direction. His eyes are wide and crazed, staring at the ceiling as he turns. He looks fucking crazy.

"Dustin! Dust—hello?! Hel...hello!?"

Calling for Dustin, who wasn't here. Spinning in circles like a fool. Screaming like a lunatic. Carla can't even try and think of a reason behind this.

"Maybe he really does have rabies." Robin murmurs under her breath, slightly amused by the situation as confusing as it was. She looks at Carla beside her, adding, "Carla, please, tell me if you start feeling like doing this. He kissed you and you're probably next—"

"Hello?! Hello?!"

Wearing a tired expression, Carla rings, "Steve."

"Hello!"

Steve whips around to face his friends, flashlight blinding them as he shines it right in their eyes. Eddie and Nancy both put out hands to shield their eyes, Robin cringing back while Carla shrinks back slightly, eyes narrowing.

"Steve, what the hell are you doing?" Carla asks again, refocusing as her boyfriend points the flashlight down to the ground. "Do you feel okay?"

"Baby, he's here. Henderson. That little shit, he's here. He's like....he's in the walls or something." Steve pants, eyes darting all around the room as he tries to emphasize his crazy point. Carla let's out a sigh—in the walls? "Just listen. Listen."

There's nothing for a few seconds.

"Dustin." Steve points to the ceiling, before breaking out into rough and crazed screams again, "Dustin! Dustin! Dustin! Dustin—can you hear me?!"

"And we lost him—" Carla opens her mouth, but it quickly falls shut as muffled voices start to come from—ironically enough—the walls. It's quiet and jumbled, but the Wheeler has heard Dustin Henderson talk her ear off enough to recognize his voice. "—oh."

"Oh? What does 'oh' mean?" Eddie asks, watching as Carla starts to pace after her boyfriend, who has disappeared with his screams to another room of the house.

Sounding just as foolish as Steve, Carla calls out, "Dustin?!"

"Do you guys ever explain anything?"

"You just have to catch on." Nancy offers lightly, before beginning to walk around the house. "Dustin!"

"Carla, I think the rabies spread." Robin comes up beside her friend, who's looking behind a curtain—like Dustin Henderson is going to pop out from there. "Oh, wait! I hear him!" She grabs onto Carla's hands and starts jumping like a lunatic, "I hear him!"

The group continuously call for the Henderson, but are met with no answer. His muffled voice keeps echoing, almost taunting them.

After a few moments, Steve stops searching and deadpans, "Alright, either this kid can't hear us or he's being a total douchebag."

"Wait, wait, wait." Carla's eyes widen in a sudden realization. She's taken back to '83, after they killed the Demogorgan and watched as the lights flickered one by one, leading them outside—which Jonathan had assumed to be his mother, from the Upside Down.

This had to be like that, right? There was an understanding that someone was there, but no way to contact....unless.

"Are you okay?" Steve turns around, concerned at her wide eyes and sudden statement.

"Will spoke with lights. He found a way to speak from the Upside Down through the Christmas lights. Why can't we? Dustin clearly can't understand our voices, so maybe if we use lights instead—" Carla knows she probably sounds a little crazy as she dashes to the lamp, tugging down on the beaded cord to turn it on. No light. She tugs a little harder, and once more is met with a dull click without any illumination. Frustratedly, she huffs, "—fuck. Seriously?"

"Flip the switch." Steve comes to her side, "Try the switch."

Carla flips the light switch on and off multiple times, hand growing rougher as nothing happened. "Are you kidding me? Will is able to successfully do it and warn us he was alive, but the one time we try, it doesn't fucking—"

"—work?" Steve finishes her sentence. Carla drops her hand from the switch and looks up at her boyfriend, gaze settling on the chandelier that his flashlight is focused on. "Baby, look."

Carla's eyes soften as she dulls out the flashlight, taking in the orange ambiance that was glowing from the chandelier. A low shimmering hue is emitted from the light, just noticeable, if looking hard enough. Oddly enough, the Wheeler thinks it's almost pretty.

The group all circles around, in an almost awe.

Nancy is the first to put her hand within the particles, the glitter turning a deeper orange at the contact. She moved her fingers around, the sparkle following her every move, satisfyingly. Her pink nails play around with the odd sensation, eyes glowing with the reflection of the orange light.

"Whoa." Eddie scoffs.

One by one, the group all put their hands into the orange glow, eyes widening in awe of the sensation tingling against their skin. Carla can't help but laugh as her hand touches the particles, moving her fingers around against them. It feels wrong, but somehow right all together.

Unsure on how to feel, Steve lets out, "It....tickles."

"It kinda feels good." Robin admits.

Nancy drops her hand, mind working quickly to wrack up a way to contact. They didn't have the alphabet like Joyce did, nor did they have anyone on the other side who knew they were here. But they did have one way that could work, if Dustin noticed—which he had too, given he was always looking deeper into things that he had too.

"Does anyone know Morse code?" Nancy asks, hoping that someone did. When Will had used it to speak through his possessed self, it had been the Party who recognized the dots and dashes, and they had used Hopper to translate. They didn't have any of that now.

"No," Steve and Robin both utter in unison.

"Not really." Carla admits, shaking her head.

Eddie goes to shake his head, but quickly recalls the two letters he does know. "Wait, does SOS count?" Robin and Nancy stare bug-eyed at him at the question, and Carla smiles. "Is that....is that good?"

They had a chance at getting out.

mara's misc!

quick update look at me go???

this chapter was really fun to write, especially adding on to steve and eddie's conversation!!! since steve and carla are already together, i didn't like how short it ends up being and semi pointless? but by adding my own shit it added i hope???

we love eddie giving advice to steve just for shits and giggles.

it was different getting to write steve's perspective, and i've loved getting to do it more in this book! getting to really focus on what steve and carla both want has been fun, because carla is focused on herself and college as her future, but steve knows that she is his future. but, steve would never keep carla locked down in hawkins with him when he knows she has so much ahead of her so he's definitely a little self conscious about settling down???? I LOVE STARLA????

pretty sure the guy who played eric in my little mermaid show still likes me. if you aren't caught up, basically he admitted to having liked me at the beginning of the show and then my friend made a funny post on snap that was a photo of us titled "couple goals" AND PEOPLE BELIEVED IT?? so then everyone was asking us but ofc we aren't together. from there, he was extremely flirty when he texted me and he still is a bit..... guys, he remembers what shoes i was wearing at callbacks. NO ONE remembers that bs.

anywho i have an audition today!! i'm trying out for teen fiona in a production of Shrek BUT i'm really busy so idk.....as someone with major major audition anxiety who will be feeling so sick at auds, PLEASE wish me luck i need it <3

hope you enjoyed <3 see you back next chapter (i have plans...)!!