chapter fifteen
a rip in the universe

       Alex escapes from the rest of her family in the funeral home.  It's quiet and packed and Alex just wants to scream some more.  The door beside her is wide open and the urge to run far away overtakes her, but the thought of her parents' disapproving expressions is enough to keep her cemented in place.  Her parents in question, are coupled together with Karen and Ted Wheeler in the far corner with Lonnie Byers, still exchanging pleasantries as if they actually knew Will.  Steve sits at a table alone, arms crossed over his chest as he stares wistfully over at Nancy, who sits across the room from him hunched over in a whispered conversation with Jonathan Byers.  Her eyes travel over to Dustin, Lucas, and Mike who have congregated at one end of the snack table.  She moves to join them but then her eyes land on Joyce Byers and Alex remembers the book still clutched tightly to her chest.

She thinks Joyce Byers wants to scream too as she approaches the woman from across the room.  She's still isolated, alone at a table, angled away from everybody else.  Still hunched over, still distant.  Alex has never been good at understanding feelings, and there are no words she could use to express her grievances to Joyce.  And that is partly because she has none.  Joyce Byers has not lost anything yet.  Not if Alex can help it.  

"Mrs. Byers?" she asks softly.

Joyce snaps out of whatever daze she is to meet eyes with Alex who hovers near her uncertainly.  Her eyebrows are knitted together in confusion as she scrutinizes Alex under her gaze.  They've never met face-to-face, the closest that Alex has ever gotten to meeting Joyce Byers was through the phone call only three days before (oh what a year those days have been). 

"Um," Alex fumbles and shifts her weight on her feet.  "I'm Alex?  Um, Harrington."

Dawning realization spreads across Joyce's face and she nods with a small smile.  "Will told me about you."

Alex thinks that on most days, Joyce Byers would be warm.  But today, Joyce Byers is anything but warm.  She's hollow and cold.  Her hair frames a pale face and vacant eyes.  The smile that she gives Alex has faded away quickly and never quite reaches her eyes.  Her lips are chapped and other fingernails are rough and jagged from hours and hours of anxiously tearing at them.  Dark circles have settled under her eyes and Alex doubts that she's going to get any more rest anytime soon.  

None of this seems fair.  It isn't fair to Joyce that she slowly slips away from humanity until she becomes a husk of the person she used to be (Alex can already see this transition starting).  It isn't fair that Will has probably spent the last three days running from a monster.  It isn't fair that she and the boys have to face this problem alone.  But, since when has life ever been fair?

"I have one of Will's books.  He, uh, let me borrow it," Alex tells her softly.  "I thought you might want it back."

She places the book on the table and slides it toward Joyce, but the woman only pushes it back to her.  The same well-meaning smile that does not quite reach her eyes returns.  "Keep it.  I think...I think Will would've wanted you to keep it."

Alex nods and takes the book back in her arms.  There are so many things that she wishes she could say to Joyce so that she may rest easy, to assure her that they will fight with tooth and nail to make sure that Will comes home.  Maybe she should tell her about all the kind things that Will has done before to make Joyce smile.  Because what is grief if not love preserving?

And then Alex is faced with the question: where does that love go?  Where does the love you have for someone go when they are gone?  Do you keep it inside of you, or do they take it all with them?  Alex doesn't remember grieving much.  She was seven when her grandmother died, and even then she didn't grieve much because she didn't really know her grandmother.  So, really, where do you put all the love that you once had for someone?  Or is that love grief?  Is grief simply love with no place to go?  

Alex doesn't know what to say, and for some reason, this frustrates her more than it probably should.  It'll be okay, sounds too hollow, and I'm sorry for your loss, is a lie because Joyce hasn't lost anything just yet.  So she settles for a soft smile and hopes that it is enough for Joyce.  In her head, Alex does everything right.  If only the inside reflected the outside.

Dustin is loading his plate with Nilla Wafers when Alex joins the boys at the food table. Dustin tries to smack her hand away as she takes one off of his plate, but she manages to secure one before he can. He playfully sticks his tongue out at her and Alex only rolls her eyes, but that doesn't stop the grin from spreading across her face.

"Mr. Clarke?" Mike calls, and Alex turns to see their science teacher who stands at the other end of the snack table.  Something about Mr. Clarke being there warms Alex's chest and maybe it's because this is his way of proving that he does care—and not just because he's paid to.  The world would be a far better place with more people like Mr. Clarke, Alex thinks.  The world would be a better place if people cared and loved as deeply as Mr. Clarke does.

"Oh, hey there," he greets softly.  "How are you guys holding up?"

"We're...in...mourning," Lucas answers choppily, more robotic than dismal with an expression that Alex assumes is supposed to resemble grief.

"Man," Dustin sighs with a mouth full of food, "these aren't real Nilla Wafers."

Alex rolls her eyes and jabs him in the ribs and suddenly, he remembers that they're supposed to be in mourning.

Mike lets out a small sigh.   "We were wondering if you had time to talk?"

Lucas nods.  "We have some questions."

"A lot of questions."

Mr. Clarke fixes them with a fond, tired smile and nods.  "Of course."

He allows them to lead him over to a table in the far corner away from prying ears and eyes.  He folds his hands on the table and leans forward as Alex steals a doughnut hole from Dustin's plate.  Mr. Clarke was their best option, Dustin had explained.  He's a lot more than just a science teacher, science is more than just his profession, it's his passion.  And that's the thing about Mr. Clarke, he does something that he enjoys and he encourages his students to do the same.

Alex wishes her parents could be more like Mr. Clarke, but her life had been planned before she was even born.  After she graduates high school, she works under her dad (why go to college when she has the perfect future right in front of her?  She should be lucky that she even has a chance) and then under Steve when her dad dies.  Always in Hawkins' grasp.  She wishes she could live in a world where what she wanted actually mattered, where her opinion isn't thrown away and discarded and left to rot for weeks until her opinions decay into fickle hopes and dreams. 

Alex doesn't know a lot, but she knows this: the future that she wants does not lie in Hawkins.  But she also knows that what she wants doesn't matter.  Why should it matter what she wants when her parents are giving her a bigger chance than the rest of the world does?  What is normal for women in this world is to give up their dreams in order to settle down with a husband and two children.  What is normal for a woman in this world is to carry baggage that she never wanted in the first place.  What is normal for a woman is to be stripped of your autonomy because suddenly, your body is not your own.  In this world, womanhood is being turned into a hollow vessel for another life.  Alex hopes to cling to girlhood just a little longer.

"So, you know how in Cosmos, Carl Sagan talks about other dimensions?" Mike asks, dragging Alex out of her wandering thoughts.  "Like, beyond our world?"

"Yeah, sure," Mr. Clarke answers with a nod.  "Theoretically."

"Right, theoretically," Mike agrees.

"So, theoretically, how do we travel there?" Lucas asks.

"Is it even possible?" Alex wonders.

"Theoretically," Dustin adds.

"Right. Silly me. Thank you, Dustin," Alex says rolling her eyes.  "Is it even theoretically possible?"

"You guys have been thinking about Hugh Everett's Many-Worlds Interpretations, haven't you?" Mr. Clarke asks softly.  Off of the blank stares that he receives in response, he clears his throat.  "Well, basically, there are parallel universes.  Just like our world, but just infinite variations of it.  Which means there is a world out there where none of this tragic stuff ever happened."

Dustin's eyes light up.  "Like Alex's theory!"

"Ah," says Mr. Clarke with a grin, "it's an interesting concept, huh?"

"Yeah," Alex agrees with a nod.  "But that's not what we're talking about."

"Oh."

"We were thinking of more of an evil dimension, like the Vale of Shadows," Dustin pipes up.  "You know the Vale of Shadows?"

"An echo of the Material Plane," Mr. Clarke responds with a nod, earning a grin from Dustin who nods eagerly, "where necrotic and shadow magic—"

"Yeah, exactly," Mike interrupts, "if that did exist, a place like the Vale of Shadows, how would we travel there?"

"Theoretically," Lucas adds.

"Well..." Mr. Clarke muses for a few moments and then slides the nearest paper plate toward him and then digs in his jacket pocket for a pen.  Holding the plate up for them, he starts by drawing two lines, parallel to each other across the plate.  "Picture an acrobat," he narrates, drawing a shaky stick figure on top of the top line, "standing on a tightrope.  Now, the tightrope is our dimension.  And our dimension has rules.  You can move forwards, or backwards."  He draws two arrows on either side of the stick figure, each pointing in opposite directions.  The children watch with rapt attention.  "But, what if...right next to our acrobat, there is a flea?"

A small dot with six legs is added beside the acrobat.  Alex rests her chin in the palms of her hands as Mr. Clarke continues, "Now, the flea can also travel back and forth, just like the acrobat.  Right?"

"Right," Mike affirms.

"Here's where things get really interesting," Mr. Clarke says with a wide grin, "the flea can also travel this way, along the side of the rope.  He can even go..." Mr. Clarke draws an arrow pointing to the underside of the tightrope, "underneath the rope."

"Upside Down," the four murmur unanimously.

"Exactly."

"But we're not the flea.  We're the acrobat," Mike points out.

"In this metaphor, yes, we are the acrobat," Mr. Clarke confirms. 

"So, we can't go upside down?" Lucas asks.

Mr. Clarke shakes his head.  "No."

"Well, is there any way for the acrobat to get to the Upside Down?" Dustin asks. 

"Like if the flea takes the acrobat there?" Alex adds.

"Theoretically," Dustin adds with a grin.  Alex sends him a scathing look.

"Well...you'd have to create a massive amount of energy," Mr. Clarke explains.  "More than humans are currently capable of creating, mind you, to open up some kind of tear in time and space, and then..." He folds the paper plate in half down the middle and punctures it with his pen creating a rip in the small universe of his paper plate, "you create a doorway."

"Like a gate?" Dustin asks enthusiastically.

"Sure.  Like a gate.  But again, this is all—"

"Theoretical," Lucas finishes.

But just how theoretical is this anymore?  How theoretical is anything anymore?  After all, Will had done the impossible and slipped through a crack in reality.  Alex can make a diagram of everything the things that she thought she knew.  They've been staring at the world through a keyhole, and the light that pours through only illuminates so much.  But now that they've widened the keyhole, there's a labyrinth of possibility. 

"But...what if this gate already existed?" Mike implores. 

"Well, if it did, I...I think we'd know," Mr. Clarke replies.  "It would disrupt gravity, the magnetic field, our environment.  Heck, it might even swallow us up whole.  Science is neat.  But it isn't very forgiving."

author's note: hi my name is theo and i detest dialogue-based scenes.  i was literally stuck on this chapter for two days.

also i'd just like to say that steve is very much a jackass in season one and though it's not really shown in this because alex isn't there for his jackassery, this is also told from alex's point of view meaning that she idolizes him and looks up to him and is kinda not going to not fully acknowledge it or try to justify it because he is her brother and her entire support system.  obviously, how he acts in season 1 is not okay.  steve is very much a jackass.