The problem, Steve decided, with revelations was that they were very rarely good.
He'd learned that, one very early morning, when he pieced together the shouted words of his parents downstairs. He'd learned that again, one dark night, when he walked in on Nancy in the Byers home, the smell of blood and gasoline thick in the air as the lights flickered and, not long after, the feel of a wooden bat in his hands. He'd learned it a third time, a very different dark night, in the back room of a party, alcohol clogging the air and "bullshit" biting its way into his head. He'd learned it again, and again, and again, and again, and again.
The declaration that maybe, just maybe, Eddie was alive was no different. How could it be? If it were true - and what a great, big if it was, too - then that meant they'd left him there, alone, for who knew how long? Had told themselves they'd done all they could, that he was dead and gone and there was no use worrying about it, had just up and… moved on. Had pinned their smiles on their faces like maybe that'd make them stick because pushing forward and not looking back was the way to go.
Steve should have known better, really. How many times had they thought people dead? Will, when he'd gone missing, when he'd flatlined in the Upside Down and come back anyway. El, way back during the first go-round. Hopper, way more recently. Brenner. Max. Too many others, over and over again. He never should have considered forging ahead when a few more seconds - a bit of battlefield triage, maybe, or just lugging Eddie the hell out of that place - might have changed things. The bats had collapsed and Vecna wasn't there and maybe if they'd just waited, maybe if they'd brought him back with them, maybe if they'd gone back for him, maybe, maybe, maybe…
Maybe it'd have changed something.
And maybe they hadn't needed to change anything anyway.
If that figure was Eddie - and Steve had the sickening, too-real sense that it very much was - then maybe things hadn't been as bad as they'd looked. Steve knew better than anyone that those bats were vicious, that the wounds looked bad and felt worse, but that they were damn well survivable sometimes. He still had the scars on his sides, both flanks covered in scar tissue, but they hadn't killed him. And maybe, just maybe, they hadn't killed Eddie either.
That was the thing about the Upside Down; half the shit that looked alive was probably already alive, and about 90% of anything dead… wasn't.
After his words died away, the room stayed silent. He was reasonably certain that none of the others wanted to follow the path his thoughts had taken. He was also unfortunately sure that all of them were thinking it anyway.
"If we're right…" Nancy began. "And Eddie is, somehow, alive right now, just in the Upside Down…" She shrugged. "How do we get to the other side? The gates are still closed. And the lab's got people guarding the seams anyway, right?"
Robin, still fiddling with one of the photos, shifted in place. "I mean, we wouldn't be seeing anything if they were all closed, right? And the earthquake - or, well, 'Earthquake' - or whatever we're calling it-" She paused. "What are we calling it?"
"Earthquake's fine," Nancy said. "Go on."
"Right. Well, the 'Earthquake'-" Her hands lifted, air-quotes accompanying the word. "Split the gates open, and then they suddenly closed, right? So, maybe the original ones closed - and maybe the lab is guarding those - but maybe they're still open somewhere else? Or maybe the lab's lying and the gates are still open, 'cause it's not like they've been that honest in the past. Or maybe they're actually closed, we don't know. Whatever, the point is…" She shrugged. "If the rifts let energy through but they'd closed completely, then there shouldn't be anything coming through. So, if something is, maybe there's a gap somewhere."
"A scar."
Robin looked over, and it took until then for him to realize he'd said it out loud. (Apparently, he had a bad habit of doing that during this conversation.) "What?"
"Noth-" She'd flicked his shoulder before he finished the word. "It's just… If it's a tear in between the dimensions, then maybe it acts like a wound. And, if the earthquake-"
"'Earthquake'," Robin echoed, repeating her air-quotes.
"-Tore that open again, then that'd be a pretty serious wound, right? So it wouldn't heal perfectly. Maybe it knits together badly." He didn't realize he'd tucked a hand against his side until the wrinkled feeling of his bat bites registered through the fabric of his shirt. "Maybe there are still ways to get through it. And maybe…" He ran a hand through his hair, pretending that he didn't feel awkward about how much he'd been talking and how little sense it probably made. "Maybe we can open it again."
"If we can find it," Nancy said. "Right? Because we don't know where it is?"
Steve nodded. "I got no clue."
"Anyone?"
Robin shook her head. "Nope. What say you, Mr. Photographer?"
He didn't answer immediately in the affirmative, but he didn't say no either. They waited, and the seconds stretched out from one, to two, to three. Eventually, he said… "I don't know if this would work, but maybe… Maybe a Polaroid."
Nancy nodded. "What about it?"
"If cameras can pick up the energy we think is coming through this scar, then maybe that's a way to find it. Look for stronger images, maybe. Something like that."
"But it's already showing up on the other camera, right?" Robin lifted the photo she was already holding. "Can't we just use that?"
Nancy nodded, "Keep the variables constant or something. That's, like, science fair 101."
"Yeah, but we don't know if it's an issue with this camera. Light on the negative. Development issues. And it takes too much time to run the developing process every time we take a photo. Polaroids, though… no negative. No way to fake it. And the photo develops instantly, so we can keep track of what's happening, when, where… so on."
"And that'll work?"
Jonathan shrugged. "Maybe. If we're right about what's happening, then probably. But I don't have one, so I don't know for sure. And I don't know if it will work, even if I did."
"I can get us some." That was an easy sacrifice to make. At least he could do something with the Harrington wealth he didn't want anyway. "If it'll work. Even if it doesn't, we have to try, right?" They nodded en masse, and Steve couldn't help but appreciate the synchronicity of the gesture. If only Eddie could see them now, he couldn't help but think, he'd never believe it. "Then, yeah, that's handled."
And when - not "if", very pointedly not "if" - Eddie came back… well, he'd never believe it then either, but they'd do their damndest to get him to.
