A/N: Diving just a bit more into Doc's roots

Warnings: none that i'm aware of

Word Count: 2386

"How much longer?" Lucas sighed as the Party walked the leaf-covered train tracks. On his left was Dustin and Doc, Mike and El walking a few feet behind them. Both Doc and Dustin had grown tired of the boy's whining and sighed.

"I don't know."

"It's not like they can tell us when we'll get there, Lucas."

"You really need to learn more about compasses."

Lucas sighed once again. "I'm just saying. How will we know when we get to the gate?"

"Uh, I think a portal to another dimension is gonna be pretty obvious."

Doc chuckled. "Yeah, so keep your eyes peeled." She smiled, staring down at her compass. As they walked, she had been trying to ignore the throbbing pain in her head, but in her defense, it came and went in waves. Doc figured that she felt this way because they were nearing the gate, since her coming in contact with anything that had to do with Will's disappearance resulted in her feeling some sort of discomfort. She couldn't help but wonder, though... She only got headaches when El was around, and they worsened when she used her powers. When they reached Will's house, his location within the Upside Down, she felt nauseous. She was going to hurl her guts up had they not been distracted by the police. So, if they were nearing the gate, the bridge between their world and the Upside Down, why had she not been feeling nauseous? Why did this only feel as if El was using her powers?

As if he read her mind, Lucas glanced over his shoulder at the two behind them before returning forward. "Do you think she's acting weird?"

The two looked back at El. "You're asking if the weirdo is acting weird?"

"Can you guys stop calling her that?" Doc snapped. "Seriously, guys, she isn't that much different than me. I was a missing kid, running from what probably was a dangerous past. I couldn't speak proper English until the sixth grade. It stings a bit to hear you call her that. And she may have powers, but at least they're helping us find Will."

The two boys blinked before quietly apologizing and staring down at their shoes. "Okay, well... Don't you think she's acting different?"

"Yeah," Doc sighed. "I think so... Maybe she's scared of the gate. Who knows?"

"Who cares?" Dustin irritably sighed before glancing down at his compass again. Doc gently grabbed him by the arm as another wave of pain rushed through her head, causing her to stumble. He quickly caught her with a worried look. "Doc? You okay?"

"I-I just tripped. I-I'm fine." She whispered. "Thanks..."

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    It had been a rough day for Doc. She had nearly broken her foot on her skates, gotten a scolding from her mother, and worse, Mike had really hurt her feelings just hours before. It was no doubt the reason she hadn't been focused while skating around the neighborhood. All she wanted was to sleep the night away and awake to a brand new day. It didn't take long for her to drift asleep. When she opened her eyes again, she was in what seemed to be a black void. Below her, she laid in a wet substance, but she was sure it was water. What perplexed her was that she didn't have her blankets on her, or her pillow under her head. In fact, she wasn't even in her bed. The only thing reassuring her was her own existence, proof enough that she was simply dreaming.

Rolling onto her back, Doc slowly sat up and pulled her knees up as close to her chest as she could, the ominous feeling of the void sending a chill down her spine. "Hello?" She called out. "Is anyone here?! Or... is this just a really boring dream...?"

The response she got was the rushing of water up ahead. The rush grew louder, but she couldn't see a thing other than tiny splashes of water up ahead. As if someone had been running towards her.

Splish. Splash. Splish. Splash.

"Help!"

Doc flinched at the scream right in front of her face.

"Help!"

It moved next to her ear. She jumped back and scooted away from the screaming, covering her ears with her hands. "Stop it!" Doc cried. Even with her hands muffling sound around her, she still could hear venomous growling ahead. Chest heaving, Doc fearfully kicked her feet out to scoot her even farther away. "Stop it! Go away!"

She blinked and was back in her bedroom. She could tell because when she tried standing, the blanket between her legs prevented her from stably doing so. Falling off her bed, she cried out and crawled all around, trying to navigate around her pitch-black room. Her door was closed. She never closed the door. "Mom?! Nancy?! Mike?! Mike! Mike!"

Receiving no answer, Doc laid down and covered her head, shaking uncontrollably on the ground. She was sure she was going to die here. Something was going to come and steal her away, just as she always feared. Until then, she would sob on the ground and try her best to calm her breathing.

The creaking of door hinges and the light pouring into the room had her uncurling from the ball her body molded into. Tilting her head up, she was met with a very disheveled Mike. "Doc? Why's your door closed?" He rasped, falling to his knees beside his sister. Without a word, she crawled over and fell against him, crying into his shoulder. Mike gently kissed her forehead and wrapped his arms around her. "No one's supposed to close your door. Everyone knows that..."

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The compasses' north eventually guided the five to a junkyard, scrapped cars littering the area around them. The longer they walked, the more Doc's headaches subsided, until they were no more. She thought this to be a relief, only to realize that they were no longer in the direction of the gate. "Oh, no." Dustin mumbled, having come to the same thought.

"'Oh, no'?" Lucas frowned. "What's 'Oh, no'?"

"We're headed back home."

"What?" Mike blinked.

"Are you sure?"

Doc pointed past their heads at the setting sun. "The sun's setting right there. We just got turned right back around..."

Lucas stared up at the sky behind him before turning back to his friends. "And you guys are just realizing this now?!"

"Why is this all on us?" Dustin defended.

"Because you're the compass geniuses!"

"What do yours say?"

"North." Lucas, Mike and Doc answered in unison.

Doc groaned and twisted her body around. "This doesn't make sense... Something's screwing with the compasses..."

"Maybe it's something here." Mike suggested, but Dustin shook his head.

"No, it has to be like a super magnet."

Lucas quietly spoke up from where he had been glaring daggers at El. "It's not a magnet. She's been acting weirder than normal. If she can slam doors with her mind, she can definitely screw up a compass."

"Why would she do that?" Mike looked to El as well.

"Because she's trying to sabotage our mission. Because she's a traitor!" Lucas hissed and threw his compass to the ground in anger. As he stalked closer to El, Doc quickly followed behind.

"Lucas, stop. We don't know if she-"

"Doc, stop it! I get it, okay? She went missing just like you, she reminds you of yourself. But we don't know this girl. And unlike her, you actually want to find Will! So, stop defending her!" Turning back to El, he got close to her face. "You did it, didn't you? You don't want us to reach the gate. You don't want us to find Will."

El didn't respond, her jaw clenched tight. Mike tried reasoning with Lucas, but the Sinclair boy wasn't hearing it.

"Admit it."

"No."

"Admit it!" He grabbed her arm, instantly smacking it away at the sight of red smeared on the jacket sleeves. "Fresh blood. I knew it."

"Lucas, come on!" Mike yelled.

"I saw her wiping her nose on the tracks! She was using her powers!"

Doc's heart sank. How could she have been so dense to dismiss something like that? She knew to trust her gut rather than her heart. She just didn't want to admit that her new friend, someone so much like her, was deceiving her.

"Bull! That's old blood. Right, El?" Mike asked the girl, whose lip trembled. "Right, El?"

Shakily inhaling, silver lined her dark eyes. "It's... not..." She swallowed. "It's not safe."

Lucas looked away and shook his head as Mike and Dustin stared at her in shock. Sharply exhaling, Doc grabbed El by the arm and pulled her away. She stopped at an abandoned bus and stared at the girl with teary eyes. "El... you didn't..."

"Doc..."

"Why...? You know how important finding Will is. You think we care about safety right now? If getting to the gate was safe, Will wouldn't be in trouble! Why did you lie?!"

When she didn't respond, Lucas humorlessly chuckled and turned to Mike. "What did I tell you? She's been playing us from the beginning!"

Mike hopefully looked to El and then to Lucas. "That's not true. She helped us find Will!"

"Find Will? Find Will?! Where is he, then?" Lucas turned around, sarcastically looking around for their lost friend. "Huh? I don't see him!"

"Yeah, you know what I mean."

"No, I actually don't. Just think about it, Mike. She could've just told us where the Upside Down was right away, but she didn't. She just made us run around like headless chickens!"

Having enough, Dustin went to break up the fight. "Alright, calm down-"

"No! She used us, all of us! She helped just enough so she could get what she wants. Food and a bed! She's like a stray dog!"

At this, both El and Doc grabbed hands. While Doc knew Lucas had absolutely no intention of hurting her, the comment struck her just as much as it did El. After all, that was her only hope before meeting the Wheelers. Food and shelter. She may have been upset with El, but she also knew what it was like to feel like a charity.

"Screw you, Lucas!" Mike screamed, defending both El and his sister.

"No! Screw you, Mike. You're blind... Blind because you like a girl that's not grossed out by you! But wake up, man! Wake the hell up! She knows where Will is, and now she's just letting him die in the Upside Down."

"Shut up!"

"For all we know, it's her fault."

"Shut up!"

"We're looking for some stupid monster," Doc's eye twitched when Lucas shoved Mike back. "But did you ever stop to think that maybe she's the monster?"

El's hold on Doc tightened significantly as high pitched ringing sang in their ears. Doc knew that El's powers were activated, but she didn't think to calm her down. Not when her own hand was balling into a fist, the backs of her eyes burning within their sockets.

"I said shut up!" Mike screamed and lunged forward, the two grunting as they fell to the ground.

"Stop it!"

"Guys, lay off!"

"Knock it off, you idiots!"

From behind the two girls, the bumper and windshields of the bus fell off, Doc's black veins pulsing through her skin as she tried to keep herself from dismantling the entire thing. But it was hard when her brother and friend were currently harming each other.

"Stop it!"

"Mike, get off!"

"Get off of him!"

Just as Lucas had gained dominance to hit Mike, El's high-pitched screaming broke through everyone's yelling. Lucas was flown back across the entire junkyard. He hit the ground and skid back until he hit a large scrap of a car, the boy going unconscious.

The world seemed to stop as Doc let go of El's hand, rushing towards Lucas with the other two boys right behind her. "Lucas!" She slid to her knees in front of him.

"Lucas! Lucas, are you alright?"

"Lucas, come on!"

Doc felt tears prick her eyes as she tried to check the back of his head. Dustin and Mike desperately shook his body and called out to him. When she felt a bump on the back of his head, she pulled him up the best she could and pressed his forehead to her shoulder. Whipping her blood-shot eyes to El, she hissed, "What the hell was that for?! You see any of us knocking him unconscious?!"

Mike snapped at her as well. "Why would you do that? What's wrong with you?! What is wrong with you?!"

The Wheelers gave up on the crying girl and turned back to their friend, who Dustin was still shaking in Doc's arms. "Come on, man!"

"Lucas, you gotta wake up. Come on." Doc whispered and gently patted his face. After a few more seconds of this, his eyes fluttered open. "Lucas!"

"You okay?" Mike gently asked as the boy pulled away from Doc, in a daze. When he wasn't giving a response or focusing his vision, Dustin held up three fingers in front of his face.

"Lucas... Lucas, how many fingers am I holding up? Lucas, how many fingers?!"

Doc slowly reached behind his head. "You've got a knot back there. I'm sure I've got some cream for-"

"Get off of me!" He swiped her hand away.

"Lucas... Lucas, she's trying to help. We need to see." Mike tried, but he only stood to his feet and shoved him away.

"Get off of me!" He repeated, a fearful tremor in his voice this time. Slowly, Doc rose to her feet and watched him go. Mike went to follow, but Dustin held him back.

"Let him go. Man, let him go..."

Doc heavily exhaled and crossed her arms, turning her head in the direction of El, stuttering in her steps when no one was to be found. "Guys? Where's..." She walked a few steps forward. "Where's El?"

Realizing she was gone as well, Mike's breathing quickened. "El!"

"Eleven!" Dustin called, the three splitting up to look for her.

Doc ran towards the bus, circling the entire thing in search of her. "I shouldn't have yelled... I shouldn't have yelled at you. I'm sorry... El! Eleven, where are you?!"