true north

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

Rip! Mike punctured a hole through a folded piece of lined paper with his pencil as a demonstration to Eleven. The funeral was over, and Alina, Lucas, Dustin, and Mike, had returned to the basement of the Wheeler household, where Mike demonstrated the Flea and the Acrobat metaphor Mr. Clarke had used for the girl who'd been absent. Alina sat on the couch beside Eleven, noticing how her friend was still wearing her wig and pink dress. She herself had put a pair of jeans on under her dress (they were Mike's, as the two of them were surprisingly the same size) and washed the makeup off her face, exchanging her sandals for sneakers.

Lucas sat on the chair, still wearing his dress shirt, and Dustin paced the room. Alina was exhausted. The funeral hadn't been fun, not at all, and although her friends may have found it amusing, given that Will was still out there, she didn't. The body in the coffin wasn't Will's, sure, but the air of mourning made it impossible for her to even crack a smile. She felt so, so bad for Joyce and Jonathan Byers, and the secrets she was keeping from them. Both of them, she'd seen, had sat through the funeral without a single tear, too numb and in shock to do anything.

And the revelations Alina hadn't gotten over had made her mood, if possible, even worse. She kept looking down at her hands, as if expecting them to engulf into flames, or whatever it was that made her palms itch.

"It would take a lot of energy to build a gate like this," Mike was saying to Eleven. "But that's got to be what happened. Otherwise, how'd Will get there, right?"

"Right." Eleven nodded, but she seemed unsure. Alina leaned back, thinking of what Mr. Clarke had said about the gate, about the massive amount of energy. How was it possible that there had been no disruptions yet? If what Mr. Clarke was saying was true, how come they hadn't been swallowed up yet?

"What we want to know is," began Lucas, his tie dangling around his neck, "do you know where the gate is?"

"Or how it opened?" Alina added.

Eleven just shook her head, causing them all to let out a sigh, Alina slumping in her seat. But Lucas was still confused. "Then how do you know about the Upside Down?" he asked.

"He's got a point," said Alina, before staring at Eleven, trying to catch any tells for lying in her expression. "El, do you know where the gate is? Seriously?"

Eleven looked away from Alina before shaking her head again. "No," she said quickly, but she didn't meet her eyes. Alina leaned forward, her brow furrowed. Was Eleven lying to them? She had no reason to do that, especially since it involved Will. But she didn't seem truthful. She seemed like she was hiding something, and that something might just be the gate's location.

The room fell silent again, the peace only interrupted by the sound of Dustin's shoes clomping on the wooden floor. The sound might as well have been as loud as a gunshot for all the stares he was getting, holding out a compass in front of him with narrowed eyes.

"Dustin, what are you doing?" Mike asked, but the curly-haired boy didn't respond. "Dustin? Dustin?"

"Dustin!" Alina and Lucas called his name at the same time, and Dustin finally turned towards them.

"I-I need to see your compasses," he told them, but nobody moved, all of them confused as to what he was doing and what he was talking about. "Your compasses!" he repeated, louder this time. "All of your compasses, right now!"

Alina, Lucas and Mike exchanged confused glances before dumping their compasses on the table. Alina was now relieved that she'd brought her bag with her, which still contained Eleven's file, as well as all of the supplies for Operation Mirkwood. She stared now at the compasses on the table. They all looked normal, their needles pointing North, as usual.

"What's exciting about this?" Mike asked.

"Well, they're all facing north, right?"

"Yeah," said Lucas, "so?"

"Well, that's not true north," said Dustin patiently.

"What do you mean?" Alina asked, studying the compasses on the table again. Even she was confused, and Dustin was glaring at them like it was obvious, like she should just know what he was talking about. But even the part of her brain that loved to solve mysteries didn't have a clue of what was going on. Her brain was fuzzy, the events of the past days whirling around her head, blocking out any logical thought.

Dustin let out an annoyed sigh. "I mean exactly what I just said. That's not true north. Are you three seriously this dense? The sun rises in the east, and it sets in the west. Right? Which means that's true north." He pointed at a different direction than what the compass needles were facing, and Alina felt a rush of embarrassment. Surely, she should've figured that out. Surely, she should've known what he was talking about.

But she hadn't.

"So what you're saying is the compasses are broken," said Mike, making Dustin let out another sigh. Alina was beginning to understand what he was saying, but she still listened intently, trying to get completely on his page.

"Do you even understand how a compass works?" Dustin asked. "Do you see a battery pack on this?" He held out the compass for Mike with an eye roll.

"No," said Mike slowly.

"No," agreed Dustin, "you don't. Because it doesn't need one. The needle's naturally drawn to the Earth's magnetic North Pole."

Alina stood up straight, turning to Eleven, who was still on the couch. "Magnet," she said, echoing Eleven's term for the strange feeling in their stomachs, pulling them together. This was getting weird. If Eleven didn't know about the gate, then how did she know that term? It wasn't something you'd pick up easily, especially growing up in isolation.

"So, what's wrong with them?" asked Lucas, eyeing the pile of compasses on the table with some remaining confusion.

"Well, that's what I couldn't figure out, but then I remembered. You can change the direction of a compass with a magnet. If there's the presence of a more powerful magnetic field, the needle deflects to that power. And then I remembered what Mr. Clarke said. The gate would have so much power—"

"—it could disrupt the electromagnetic field," Mike finished, eyes widening.

"Exactly."

"Meaning, if we follow the compasses north..." began Lucas.

"They should lead us to the gate," Dustin confirmed. At that, Alina turned back to Eleven again. The girl's eyes were wide, and she looked down at her feet when she caught onto Alina's stares. There was a guilty pink of embarrassment colouring her cheeks, which made Alina all the more suspicious, before the anticipation of what they were about to do finally caught up to her.

The five of them were going to enter another dimension. Armed with nothing but their slingshots and knives—as well as Eleven's superpowers, which always helped—they were going to attempt to take down a monster from this other dimension and rescue the boy who had been kidnapped by this monster. This was something Alina thought only happened in movies, but here she was, right in the thick of things. Almost like a superhero. Or a super freak. It depended on who you asked.

As they were getting ready to leave, Alina shedding her funeral dress in favor of more practical clothing—jeans and a blue hoodie, her switchblade nestled safely in her belt loop—Dustin came up to her. Alina was standing in front of the mirror, taking her hair out of its braid, letting her curls free once more, finally Alina instead of Ally.

"You okay, Al?" he asked, and Alina whirled to face him. "I mean, you seem kind of out of it. You're pretty clever, you should've understood the true north thing. I'm just... I'm just asking, given that we're about to go into another dimension and all, and we need to all be our best."

"I'm... I'm fine," said Alina, zipping up her hoodie. The zipper got stuck halfway up, and she yanked on it so hard it was nearly ripped off. Blushing, Alina fixed it and managed to pull it up all the way. "See? Perfectly fine." She blew a lock of curly hair out of her face and wiped sweat off her forehead.

"You're not okay," said Dustin. "It's okay, Al, I get it. It's nerve-wracking. You don't have to come through the gate with us if you don't want to. You can just—"

"If you're about to suggest I keep watch outside, you'll find yourself with my foot so far up your ass you'll be picking shoelaces out of your teeth, Dustin Henderson," Alina growled, poking him on the chest. "I'm not going to sit around and wait while my f...while my friends go into another dimension without me. I'm involved in this as much as you guys are."

"I know," said Dustin. "I didn't mean to... assume anything. I just... you're worried about your powers, aren't you?"

"Well, they aren't showing up right now, so no, actually, I'm not. I'm more worried about the fact that we don't even have a plan once we get into the Upside Down. What if it's like, toxic in there? And we're just barging in with no protection other than our clothes—"

"Al, if it was toxic, Will wouldn't be alive right now," Dustin said rationally. "See, this is what I'm talking about. You're off your game. So it's not your powers you're worried about, is it." He glanced up at the ceiling for a second before his eyes snapped back to her, a sudden revelation coming to him. "It's your dad. You're worried about your dad."

Alina bit her lip. "So what?" she snapped, unnecessary anger going through her. She closed her eyes, realizing how she sounded, and took a deep breath before speaking in a much calmer tone. "Yeah. I guess I am worried about him. How he's going to react when he finds out I'm going against him." She took out the file from her bag. "I didn't get a chance to show you or Mike this yet, but I stole it from my dad's office. It's about Eleven. He's really involved, apparently."

Dustin took the file, and for a couple of minutes, it was quiet while he read. Finally, he looked up. "He's not going to find out. He's not," he added for emphasis, when Alina looked skeptical. "We're going to keep this quiet. When we find Will, you can head back to your old life. Pretend you never met us. If you want."

"Of course I don't want that," said Alina. "I'm not heading back to my old, friendless life. Like it or not, Henderson, but you're stuck with me. It's just... I don't know how I'm supposed to look at him from now on. To pretend like everything's normal, when I know it's not."

Dustin swallowed. "Well..." he said. "You could always... you're not going to like this, but you can always have him arrested. Show the police some proof that he's involved in something sketchy like this, and then he'll, you know..." he trailed off at the look on her face, halfway between amusement and considering. "It's just an idea."

Alina let out a small chuckle. "You, Dustin Henderson, are full of some weird ideas. But... I know I should hate him. But I don't. And I don't really want to see him locked up, either. So I don't know what to do."

"Well, if you want..." Dustin smiled at her. "You could stay with one of us for a while. I'm sure Lucas would be glad to have you. But yeah, you can stay there until you work things out with your dad."

"That's... a good idea, Dustin," Alina smiled. "Thank you."

Dustin smiled back at her. "I'm glad to have you as my friend, Al. Sorry I didn't realize that sooner."

"Me too," said Alina, then went upstairs to join Mike, Eleven, and Lucas, all the while wondering why Dustin had said Lucas's name like that. Was he, like Mike, implying that he liked her? Or that she liked him? Even though Alina sometimes felt shivers down her spine, a queasy feeling inside her stomach whenever she talked to Lucas, it didn't mean anything, right? She was just getting used to making friends.

And it wasn't like Lucas would ever, not in a million years, like her. She wasn't pretty, or unique, or witty, or smart, or funny. She had a bad man for a father and powers she couldn't control.

She was just... Alina, and who could fall in love with that?

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

a/n: these chapters are taking me so long to edit because wattpad decides to put everything i copy and paste into italics :/ it's really annoying

anyway, i hope you all enjoyed this chapter! i wanted to add more dustin/alina interaction because i love their friendship so much and i feel like in a lot of stranger things fics they don't talk to him that much??? so idk.

'till next time!