{Will the Wise, Part I}

Alice spent the rest of the day inspecting the scar on her palm, wondering how Will's subconscious shock could cause such damage.

The jagged red scar, shaped a little bit like Orion's Belt, stung with a blistering pain. The longer she stared, the more it hurt, so Alice tried to distract herself: she painted, she listened to music, she even did her homework. Nothing worked. The scar was unabashedly there, taunting her and reminding her that she might not be invincible after all.

The next morning, Dustin slipped into his room with a Three Musketeers bar after breakfast, no doubt to feed his new pet. Alice shuddered imagining that slippery, reptilian bastard.

"Dustin, hurry up!" she said, pounding on his door. "We're going to be late."

Dustin opened the door just a crack.

"Give me a second!" he hissed. "I have to say goodbye."

Alice rolled her eyes and said, "Make it snappy."

She heard her brother coo at Dart as if he was a puppy or a kitten. She tried not to gag.

"Okay, now I'm ready," Dustin said, exiting his room and shouldering his backpack. "He should be fine alone today. He's got a candy bar to keep him full, and I turned off the heat lamp so he's not uncomfortable."

"Why do you think he doesn't like heat?" Alice asked. "Aren't reptiles all about warmth?"

"He's unique," Dustin said proudly.

"Did you show him to your friends?"

Dustin's expression darkened as he mounted his bike.

"They think he's from the Upside Down," he said. "They don't appreciate him like I do."

Alice raised an eyebrow.

"You don't think he's from the Upside Down, do you?"

"No!" Dustin said. "He's just a normal kind of lizard! And he's my discovery—no one is taking him from me."

"Okay," Alice said, pedaling past her brother so he didn't see the wary look on her face. "Whatever you say."

They biked along, enjoying the cool November air. Alice wondered if Will was feeling better, and if Nancy would return her call about coming over for movies. When she'd called the Wheeler's house last night, Mrs. Wheeler said she was busy doing homework at the library and would call Alice back soon.

Alice and Nancy hadn't been as close since Barb died, but they were still good friends. She didn't want their grief to drive them apart when it should bring them closer together.

Thoughts of Barb, and the Upside Down, and Will, and the scar Will caused burning on her palm haunted Alice, until Dustin interrupted her: "I'm worried my friends are right."

Alice slowed her pedaling.

"Right about what?" she asked.

"Right about Dart," Dustin said quietly. "But he's not bad! Even if he is from the Upside Down, he's good. He likes me. Maybe only the Demogorgon is evil, and everything else in the Upside Down is just gross."

Alice shuddered at the thought of the cold, musty dimension.

"Maybe," Alice said, not quite convinced.

They got to school and went their separate ways, Dart on their minds.

⚡️⚡️⚡️

After school that day, Alice, Maria, and Quincy painted sets for the fall play—Romeo and Juliet—when Steve burst into the drama room—and immediately tripped over a fake potted plant.

"Hey, Harrington," Alice said with a smirk, trying to suppress a laugh. "You good?"

"Just great," he muttered, standing and brushing himself off. "Can we talk?"

"Only if you grab a paintbrush," Maria said. "Samuel ran off with Tammy to practice their lines and ditched us to paint Juliet's tower ourselves."

"Are you even surprised?" Quincy asked with a scoff.

Steve shrugged and grabbed a brush, dipping it into gray paint.

"So, what's up?" Alice asked.

"Have you heard from Nancy?" he asked.

"No," Alice said sullenly. "I invited her to hang out this weekend, but she hasn't called me back. And she wasn't in any of her classes today."

Steve's heart clenched. Billy's smug face popped into his brain, and all Steve wanted to do was punch the Californian in the neck.

"Cool," Steve said. "Cool, cool, cool."

He brandished his brush and began painting the same cobblestone over and over and over again.

"Dude, chill," Quincy said once he noticed Steve's painting technique. "You're gripping the handle so hard you'll get a splinter."

"Yeah, that stone is gray enough," Alice added.

"I just don't get it," Steve mumbled. "What did I do wrong?"

Alice, Maria, and Quincy shared a look. Maria and Quincy both nodded and stood.

"We're going to go get some more paint," Maria said. "You two keep working."

They scurried into the hall, glancing over at Steve's borderline obsessive painting.

"Steve," Alice said, "what exactly happened with you and Nancy?"

Steve's paintbrush slowed.

"I don't want to talk about it," Steve muttered. "You'll just take her side."

Alice shrugged.

"How do you know that until you tell me what's going on?" she said.

Steve sighed. He threw the paintbrush down and put his head in his hands, mumbling something Alice couldn't quite hear.

"What was that?" she asked.

"She said I was bullshit," Steve said louder, looking up at Alice. "That our relationship was bullshit. And she didn't even remember saying it, because she was drunk. That doesn't mean she didn't say it, or mean it."

Pain and sorrow were etched across Steve's features. His jaw was clenched, and it looked like any second he would burst into tears.

Alice started to sweat. She wasn't great with dealing with her own emotions, and wasn't sure how to properly deal with anyone else's. She panicked, placing her hand on Steve's shoulder and weakly patting it. "There, there."

Steve looked at her. He looked at her hand on his shoulder. Then, he surprised her by laughing.

"What did you just say?"

"I said, 'There, there,'" Alice said, face burning. "Isn't that what people say when they're comforting people?"

Steve rolled his eyes.

"No, it isn't," he said.

"Oh."

He smiled despite himself.

"Thanks for trying to cheer me up," he said.

"Anytime."

Steve sighed.

"Maybe I should've expected this," he said. "I was a shithead when Nancy and I started dating."

"Yes, but you're significantly less of a shithead now," Alice pointed out. "You've improved."

"Have I?" Steve asked with a grimace.

"Yes!" Alice said. "You don't hang out with Tommy and Carol anymore, you're nice to people, you've apologized for being shitty—you also saved my life last year, if you remember, and that automatically makes you an improved person in my book."

Steve smiled once more, but it didn't reach his eyes.

"Yeah, okay."

He picked up his paintbrush and continued painting, not in the mood to continue discussing his morality and/or relationship troubles.

Alice felt bad for Steve, and for Nancy, and for herself for having to be in the middle of the relationship drama—as if she didn't have enough on her plate.

The scar on her palm prickled with pain, but when she touched it, it felt cold as ice.

"Are scars cold?" she blurted out, startling Steve and causing him to smear paint.

"What?"

"Are they supposed to feel cold?" she asked again. "Here. See?"

She held up her palm, and Steve's eyes widened at the sight of a scar.

"I thought you couldn't get scars!" he asked.

"Me too," she said grimly. "Feel it."

He tentatively reached out to touch the impossible scar, bracing himself. Sure enough, the sliver of hardened, red skin felt cool to the touch.

Steve's brow creased with concern.

"That's...not normal, Al," he said.

"Yeah," she said, poking the scar once more. "Nothing about me is 'normal' these days."

"What are you going to do about it?"

Alice eyed the scar with disdain.

"Nothing."

Steve's eyes widened.

"Aren't you supposed to tell your doctors?" he asked.

Alice curled up her fist.

"Yep," she said. "But I'm not going to. I think they're hiding something. Something big. I don't trust them."

She thought about her mood swings, the tightening in her chest, and her recently developed hot temper. She thought about Will, and Dart, and about the sense of foreboding that hung over her head like a storm cloud in April on the day before a beach trip.

"I don't trust them one bit."

{Posted Oct. 27, 2019}

{Edited July 11, 2020; Republished December 25, 2024}

A/N [from 2019] Lol what IS this ending?! I'm trying to hurry up and get to the real meat and potatoes of the season, but I don't want to skip exposition and/or put Alice in scenes where she wouldn't fit. So I'm writing a bunch of new, extraneous stuff that follows the plot (and is hopefully entertaining, if not the most exciting, high-stakes content that Stranger Things is known for).

Here's a hint at upcoming chapter names:

[25] Mews

[26] Wild Dart Chase

[27] Sympathy for the Devil

[28] Alice and Steve

I'm most excited about season 3...I've got some ideas that heavily feature Maria and Quincy...

Question of the Day! Of Alice's friends, who is your favorite: (Excluding Robin because I snatched her from Season 3)

-Maria

-Quincy

-Samuel

Vote, Comment, and see you next time!

xo rachel

A/N [from 2024] Merry Christmas :)