talk to you later

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

            The first thing that went through Alina's mind as she watched the news about the murdered Hawkins High student was Upside Down. Which was completely and utterly ridiculous, but, honestly, could you blame her? Hawkins had been a quiet town with virtually no crime—seriously. The biggest case in a decade had been an owl that had attacked someone's wig—until El had opened the gate. That had been when everything had first gone wrong—when Will had disappeared, when Barbara had died, when the Demogorgon had killed her father. It had led to the rise of the Mind Flayer, Alina and Will's possession, the tunnels that branched out underneath Hawkins. And it had finished with the fleshy monster that sought to take over the world and the supposed mall fire that had killed thirty people.

Suddenly, the peace of Hawkins had been disrupted. To the average resident, it was now unsurprising when some sort of tragedy befell the town. They didn't know it was the Upside Down—to them, it was just a series of unfortunate events. But as someone aware of the true nature of these events, Alina couldn't help but be suspicious. Everything that had happened was because of the Upside Down. Why wouldn't this be, too?

But the Mind Flayer was gone. Really gone, this time. It was dead, and, even if pieces remained, they were securely locked within the Upside Down. There was no chance of its return. This had to just be a regular murder. The actions of some... some psychopath. Or maybe it was just some drug deal gone wrong. Something tragic but normal, something you wouldn't raise an eyebrow at.

The second thing that went through Alina's mind was that she needed to call her friends. The name of the murder's victim hadn't been released, and Alina couldn't bear the thought of it being a member of the party. Imagining Max or Dustin or Lucas shuttled away in a body bag was horrifying enough that she sprung to her feet immediately, heading for Dolores's telephone. Gabe's grandmother watched her go.

"I'm sure your friends are all right," she soothed. "We would have gotten a call if they weren't."

"Still," Alina said, already inputting Lucas's number. He lived too far away from Gabe to contact via walkie-talkie, which meant that she was going to have to do things the old-fashioned way. Her heart thudded as she held the phone up to her ear. "I need to see if everything's okay."

"Of course, dear. Oh, Lord, I can't believe this happened."

The phone rang.

And rang.

And rang.

On the fourth ring, though, someone picked up.

"Hello?"

It was a male voice—Mr. Sinclair's voice. So, it wasn't Lucas, but that didn't mean anything was wrong. Mr. Sinclair didn't sound upset, just shaken. It had to be because of the news. It was because of the news, right?

"Hi, Mr. Sinclair," Alina blurted. "Um... um... is Lucas around? Is Lucas okay?"

"Oh! Alina. Gosh, I haven't heard your voice in forever."

"Hi," Alina said again. "Is Lucas okay?"

"I'm guessing you saw the news? Well, it is playing on every channel. Lucas is okay, Alina. We don't know who the dead student is, but it isn't our boy. Thank God."

The sigh of relief that escaped Alina was so profound that she practically shrunk. "Oh, okay. Oh, God. Okay. Thank you."

"Of course, Alina. I should have known you called. You just got here, didn't you?"

"Yeah." Alina twirled the cord around her finger. "A couple of hours ago. I've just been helping Mrs. Burton with Nicole."

"How sweet you are."

"Um. Do you think I might be able to talk to Lucas? It's just—I haven't seen him in a really long time, and I kind of wanted to hang out with him today. Safely. Inside. Probably at someone's house."

Mr. Sinclair huffed over the phone. "I would, but he's not here. It's strange, because he had this whole plan to go to the airport and meet you there, but he never came home last night. After his basketball game, he called and told us he'd be staying over with some friends. I guess he's still with them."

Lucas had been planning on meeting her at the airport? Then, why hadn't he? Was he really okay?

"Are you sure?" Alina asked quickly. "Are you sure he's with them?"

"Alina. He's okay, I promise. Someone would have told us if he wasn't."

"Okay. Okay." Alina's cord-twirling grew a little less frantic. "Um, could you tell him that I called? I've just—I've just missed him an inordinate amount, and I really, really want to see him."

"Of course, sweetheart. He's missed you too."

"Thank you, Mr. Sinclair," Alina said. "I'll... I'll see you around—"

"Is that Alina on the phone?"

Another familiar voice on the other end of the line cut Alina off. It was a little bit tinny, signifying that the voice's owner was speaking a little way away from the phone, but Alina could still recognize it. It was not the voice of Lucas's mother, but his sister. Erica Sinclair.

"Uh, yes," Mr. Sinclair called out to his daughter. "Do you want to talk to her?"

"Absolutely, I do! Hand it over."

"Erica."

"Hand it over... please?"

"There you go." Mr. Sinclair's voice came out more clearly now, signifying that he was speaking to Alina again. "Um, if you don't mind... Erica would like to talk to you."

"Sure," said Alina. Mr. Sinclair voiced his assent, and then there was a moment of static as, presumably, he handed the phone over. When that moment ended, a young, loud voice immediately cut into Alina's ears, bright with excitement.

"Alina! You're back!"

Alina managed a smile. For some reason, Erica had a real soft spot for her—which, considering she called every other one of Lucas's friends 'nerds', was impressive. In fact, the only thing she didn't like about Alina was the fact that she was dating her brother, and even that was because she thought she was too good for him. "Hey, Erica."

"I'm so glad you're back! Hawkins has been so boring without you, and Lucas has been a real mope. I mean, yeah, he's got his new basketball thing, but he won't shut up about how much he misses you. It's actually quite pathetic."

Alina thought it was sweet, but she didn't say that. "Huh."

"I have so much to catch you up on. I mean, there was this awesome D&D campaign last night that I totally won for everyone. Plus, Steve and Robin are making it up to me for what happened at Scoops Ahoy by letting me rent movies for as long as I want. I mean, it's not the same, but as long as I'm getting something out of last year's deal, I'm satisfied."

"That's really cool, Erica. I haven't played D&D since I moved. What's your character's name?"

"Lady Applejack. I'm a chaotic good half-elf rogue, level fourteen. I had to replace Lucas since he bailed for his game."

First of all: Lady Applejack sounded super cool. Second of all, there was something she couldn't resist asking, even with the circumstances: "How was the game, by the way?"

"Oh. Hawkins High won. My brother apparently got the buzzer beater or something. I wasn't really paying attention."

Holy shit. When Alina saw Lucas again—and gave him a stern talking-to for ditching her—she was certainly going to celebrate that.

...And she was already getting off-track. She had more important things to worry about than Lucas's basketball game.

"Erica," she began, "I'm going to have to call you back, okay? We can hang out later this week, but for now, I'm going to check on my friends. Is that all right?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. You better keep your word, though."

"Don't worry, I will. See you around."

"Bye!"

Alina hung up. She was just about to put in Dustin's number—the only other number she had memorized; Max had moved to the trailer park near the edge of town, and Alina still hadn't gotten her phone number from there—when the doorbell rang.

"Oh, could you get that, Alina?" Dolores asked. "I have to go check on George. Come on, Nicole."

"Yeah." Alina nodded. She would have gone even if Dolores hadn't asked her—what if it was one of her friends on the other side? Or, to make matters worse, what if it was the police? Either way, she couldn't miss it. She strode to the door and pulled it open.

As luck would have it, it wasn't the police.

Instead, it was Dustin and Max.

For a moment, Alina could do nothing but stare. It had been too long since she'd seen her friends that she'd almost forgotten the little details—the freckles that splashed across Max's face, the curve of Dustin's mouth, the way the two of them were very nearly the same height. She had a fairly good imagination, but there were some things your mind just couldn't replicate. These were the features of Dustin and Max that Alina struggled with.

A grin stretched across her face, because this meant that they were actually here, not dancing around in the videos she had on her camera or occasionally making appearances in her dreams. And then she was pushing her way forward, flinging herself into her friends' arms, because she hadn't seen them since she moved away, and she damn well deserved a hug.

"You're here!" she cheered, holding them tight. Two pairs of arms came to hold her back, and she basked in it, because the last time she had embraced them was because she was saying goodbye. "Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You're here."

"Hey, Al," Dustin said, and God, he sounded exactly the same. Plus, there was the nickname! Will, Jonathan, and El called her that, sometimes, but Dustin had been the one that had coined it. It signified the moment she'd really joined the party, when she'd really made friends.

God, she loved being Al.

"Hi! Hi, Dustin. Hi, Max."

"It's good to see you, Alina," Max said. "I missed you."

"I missed you too, Oh my God."

It took a while—mainly because Alina kept holding on—but, eventually, the trio broke apart. Alina did so with her grin still on her face—her friends were here! She was finally seeing them again! But while her friends were smiling, too, there seemed to be something strained about it.

Was there something wrong?

"Hey," she said. "Are you guys, um, okay?"

"No!" Dustin blurted. Then, panicking, realizing what he'd said: "I mean, yes! We're totally stoked to see you Al, seriously. I know we've exchanged a boatload of letters, but it's not the same as seeing you in person. It's way nicer this way."

Max stepped on his foot. He jumped, then glared at her.

"Thanks?" Alina said. Her grin had completely faded, now.

Max slumped. "You can tell that something's wrong, can't you."

"Yeah," Alina said. Her eyes darted between the two of them. "It's kind of... um, obvious."

"We are terrible at being subtle," Dustin admitted.

"I'm sorry," Max added. "We really are excited to see you, Al. I was planning on coming over today, anyway, but, um..." she trailed off, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

Alina furrowed her eyebrows. "Is this about the murder that happened last night?" she asked. "Is it, like, freaking you guys out, or something? Because it was definitely freaking me out. I mean, I was about to call all of your houses to make sure you were okay, and—"

"We need to talk to you," Dustin interrupted. "Like, alone."

Alina risked a glance back inside the house. Dolores was now in the kitchen, getting out a bowl of crackers for Nicole. "Yeah," she said, though internally, her heart was sinking a little at their tones. "Sure. You can come to Gabe's room."

"I know," Max said. "I really am sorry. This is obviously not what you expected. It's just—it's just bad timing. We'll explain in Gabe's room."

"Okay," Alina said, swallowing. "Let's go."

It took Max around twenty minutes to explain what she knew about the events of last night, which, admittedly, wasn't much. First, she identified the murder victim, a girl named Chrissy Cunningham. Alina actually knew of her—she'd had two months of school here before leaving for California, after all, and Chrissy was one of the most popular girls at Hawkins High—so to hear that she was dead came as a bit of a shock. Whether it was in the cafeteria or in the hallways, Chrissy had always seemed so alive. Practically invincible. So, hearing that she'd been the one apparently too horrific for even the police to look at was a difficult pill for Alina to swallow.

The only way Max knew about this at all, though, was because the murder had occurred in the trailer right across from her. Max had actually caught a glimpse of the body this morning, when curiosity had taken a hold of her and sent her to the scene of the crime. She'd seen that flash of blondish hair, that cheerleader uniform. This, plus the fact that she'd seen Chrissy enter that trailer the night before, solidified her identity.

"So... this Eddie guy killed her," Alina said, sitting cross-legged on Gabe's bed. She'd heard of Eddie Munson only through the letters Gabe and Dustin sent her, so she didn't really know his true personality, but he had to have been the murderer. The trailer had been his. Max had seen the two of them together. He'd run away from the scene of the crime.

But Dustin was shaking his head. "No. There's no way. You don't know him, Al. If you did, you wouldn't be saying this."

"Yeah, Dustin is completely unconvinced," Max said. "He trusts Eddie with, like, his life. Which is why he's... um. Which is why he's for my other theory."

"Other theory?" Alina asked. She didn't like Max's tone.

Max drew in a breath. "Yeah. Um. When this all happened, my lights started... you know, flickering and shit. Which isn't, like, abnormal, since the power is a piece of shit where I live, but the TV was going all weird, too, and... I don't know. I just felt like something was wrong. Like, I swear my whole body went cold."

"No," Alina said. "No way."

"Plus, apparently Eddie was, like, super terrified," Dustin added. "She heard him scream and everything."

"No," Alina repeated. "No way. No goddamn way."

It was obvious what they were implying. Flickering lights, unexplained deaths, that sinking feeling? It was all textbook Upside Down shenanigans, which wasn't possible. Even if that had been her initial theory, it was wrong. It was definitely wrong.

"We're not confirming anything yet," Max said. "Maybe it was Eddie. But... the only way to know for sure is to talk to him."

Alina almost toppled over at that. "Talk to him?" she repeated. "You want to talk to the guy that might have murdered somebody?"

"He didn't do it!" Dustin insisted. "Eddie wouldn't."

"You don't know that. Killers can act one way to you and be a complete psychopath to someone else. Just think of Ted Bundy."

"I did tell him that," Max said. "But... he's got a point. I think we should at least try to talk to him. I mean, we'll prepare ourselves. If he ends up crazy, you can do your energy thing, and I can, I don't know, punch him in the throat. But if he didn't do it, and something weirder is going on... well. We need to know."

Alina slumped. Damn it. She was right. Even if it was just some other run-of-the-mill killer, it would be good to know. And if it wasn't, and the Upside Down had somehow made a reappearance...

Well. They needed to know that, too.

She did have one question, though. "How are we supposed to find Eddie? I mean, he's not just going to be chilling at home like nothing is wrong. You told me he ran away."

Dustin raised his chin. "Don't worry about that, Al," he said. "I think we have a way."

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

A/N: LET'S GOOOO ALINA, MAX, DUSTIN REUNION!! they're an iconic trio and i'm so excited to write more of them this season <333 i love them sm

(i know, i know. you guys want lucas. but you're gonna have to be PATIENT! you have to EARN it!!!!!)

'till next time!