"JESUS. HAVE YOU SEEN THEM?" Joyce Byers was searching frantically for her keys, like she did every morning.

"We're looking, Mom," Jonathan sighed.

Caroline glared at him. She was still pissed that he had left Olivia behind, drunk, at that party. She didn't dare talk about it in front of Joyce, though, because Olivia would get in trouble. So instead, she angrily threw up a couch cushion in search of the car keys.

Bob popped his head out of Joyce's bedroom, making Caroline and Will raise an eyebrow. "Ha! Found 'em."

Joyce gave a cry of relief, kissing Bob's cheek.

"Hiding under some jeans, sneaky little buggers," Bob said proudly.

"Thank you. Thank you. You're a lifesaver." She turned to Jonathan.  "Can you take the twins to school today? I cannot be late again."

Jonathan was staring at Bob, a small smirk on his face. "He's sleeping over now?"

Joyce's look darkened and she gritted her teeth at her son. "Can you just take them, please?"

Bob raised a cheery hand. "I can take him."

Joyce stared at her boyfriend, her children following. "Will... you make sure they get in okay? I don't want-"

Bob waved his hand dismissively. "Yeah, of course. What do you say, sir and lady? Wanna go for a ride in the Bobmobile?"

Caroline and Will looked at each other and shrugged.

"Was that you two I heard milling around last night, or was that a ghost?" Bob looked in the rear view mirror at Caroline and Will, who were staring out opposite windows.

"Yeah," WIll said quietly. "Us, probably."

"Another nightmare? You two really have a connection, huh? I wish my sister and I were like that."

Wil and Caroline exchanged a look. "Um... no..."

"Did I ever tell you about Mr. Baldo?" Bob asked. The twins looked up at him, confused.

"Mr. Baldo?" WIll repeated, looking skeptical.

"Yeah." Bob nodded. "I was a little younger than you, standing in line for the Ferris wheel at the Roane County fair. And suddenly, I feel this fat white glove tap me on the shoulder. I spin around, and there he is. Mr. Baldo."

Bob's voice changed to something much creepier. "'Hey, kiddo, would you like a balloon?'"

Caroline couldn't keep herself with snorting with laughter.

Bob chuckled. "Go ahead, laugh. It's funny. It wasn't funny back then, I can tell you that. I couldn't get him out of my head. Every night, he would come to me in my dreams. And every night when he came to me... I ran. It got so bad that I made my mom stay in the room with me until I could fall asleep every night."

Will looked up, brows furrowed. "Really?"

"Really. It went on like that for months. And then one day, the nightmares suddenly stopped. Wanna know how?"

Will was paying more attention that Caroline had ever seen. "How?"

"Well, I fell asleep... and just like always, Mr. Baldo came to me. Only this time, I didn't run. This time, I stood my ground. I just looked at Mr. Baldo in his stupid face, and I said, 'Go away. Go away!'"

Caroline was lost in thought. She imagined she was in the Upside Down, looking up at the monster. Telling it to just go away. Would it work? After all, it was just a nightmare, right? Just memories from Will's time in the Upside Down.

"Just like that, he was gone." Bob said.

Gone.

"Never saw him again." He looked directly at Will. "Easy-peasy, right?"

"Easy-peasy," Will echoed, his eyes blazing with determination. Caroline knew exactly what he was thinking, because it was the same thing as her.

"Just like that."

"The case of Phineas Gage is one of the great medical curiosities of all time." Any other time, Caroline and Will would have been glued to Mr. Clarke as he talked, but at the moment the twins sat in their thoughts. "At the time, this was known as the American Crowbar Case. Although it wasn't a-"

Dustin suddenly burst into the room, panting. The door swung into the wall dramatically. "I am so sorry, Mr. Clarke. Really, I'm so sorry. Please continue with the class. Don't mind me." He sat down at his desk, flinging his bagg on the floor. "Really, continue, please. Thanks."

"Although it wasn't a crowbar, it was a rod, as I said." Mr. Clarke continued slowly.

Dustin turned in his seat to the party, who were staring at him. "We have to meet. All of us. At lunch, AV Club."

Caroline's eyebrows dipped. "Why do you still have your proton blaster from last night? halloween was yesterday, Dustin."

Dustin was quivering with excitement. "Just trust me, Callie. I have something that you guys won't believe." He turned in his chair and whispered- yelled to Max at the back of the classroom. "AV Club. Lunch."

Mr. Clarke had had enough. "Dustin!"

Dustin spun back around immediately. "Yes, my lord?"

"Would you care to join the class now?"

"Please, yes."

Caroline's face was bright red from trying not to laugh as Dustin repeated Mr. Clarke's instructions for the next thirty seconds.

"Focusing. Focusing." Dustin muttered. As soon as Mr. Clarke turned his attention to the rest of the class, he shoved Caroline out of the way so he could see Max again.

"AV Club," he whispered.

Max gave him an exasperated thumbs up. Caroline smacked Dustin upside the head for shoving her and the party turned back to Mr. Clarke.

"His name is d'Artagnan," Dustin explained to the party. He looked around at everyone, who's facing were green with disgust. "Cute, right?"

"It looks like Will when he was a baby," Caroline smirked as she shoved her brother.

"D'Artagnan?" Mike repeated, scrunching up his nose.

"Dart for short." Dustin held up the fat slug-like thing, looking at it like it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

"And he was in your trash?" Max clarified.

"Foraging for food." Dustin agreed. He looked at Max. "You wanna hold him?"

Max shook her head violently. "No, no, no no!"

"He doesn't bite," Dustin grinned.

"Read the room, dipshit!" Caroline hid behind Lucas as the thing- Dart- looked at her.

"I don't want to-" Max squealed when Dustin stuck dart in her cupped hands. "Oh, God, he's slimy !"

Lucas took it from her before flinging it to Caroline, "Ugh, he's like a living booger."

Caroline barely caught the thing. She swallowed back the bile in her throat, feeling nauseous. "Oh, Jesus, take it, please-"

Will took Dart from his sister. "Ugh, oh, God!"

"What is he?" Mike caught the slug before, instead of recoiling in disgust, holding it up to get a closer look.

"My question exactly," Dustin nodded. He looked around the room importantly. "At first, I thought it was some type of pollywog."

"Pollywog?" Max  looked confused, not having been part of their nerdery before.

"It's another word for tadpole," Dustin explained eagerly. "A tadpole is the larval stage of a toad-"

"I know what a tadpole is," Max cut in.

"All right, then you know that most tadpoles are aquatic, right? Well, Dart, he isn't. He doesn't need water."

Lucas shook his head, his chin brushing the top of Caroline's head as she lay on his shoulder. "Yeah, but aren't there non aquatic pollywogs?"

"Terrestrial pollywogs? Yep. Two to be exact. Indirana semipalmata. And the Adenomera andreae. One's from India, one's from South America. So how did one end up in my trash?"

Max looked up in thought. "Maybe... some scientists brought it here, and it escaped?"

Mike held up a hand to silence her. "Do you guys see that? Looks like something is moving inside of it." He moved the light on top of it to see better, but Dart screeched, like it was in pain.

The party gasped as Dart jumped out of the line of light and nearly fell off the table. Dustin caught it.

"Whoa. It's okay. It's okay. I got you, little guy."

Max and Caroline exchanged looks as Dustin cooed at the slimy creature like it was a newborn baby.

Dustin realized how the other were looking at him and sighed. "And there's another thing. Reptiles, they're cold-blooded. Ectothermic, right? They love heat, the sun. Dart hates it. It hurts him."

Caroline stood straight up, like she had been electrocuted.

Cold.

"So, if he's not a pollywog or a reptile..." Lucas hadn't noticed Caroline yet.

"Then I've discovered a new species," Dustin grinned.

Dart chittered and, this time, Will froze, meeting Caroline's eyes. That sound was far too familiar, from their episodes.

The Upside Down.

Without even speaking, their Twintuition made them realize they were thinking the exact same thing.

The slug that Will had thrown up on Christmas, nearly a year ago.

It looked an awful lot like Dart.

The bell rang suddenly, making Caroline jump as Lucas put his arm around her as her ears rang disorientingly. His big dark eyes narrowed in concern, but Caroline waved him off.

"We gotta show him to Mr. Clarke," Mike said, staring at Dart as Dustin shoved the thing back into his proton blaster in his backpack.

Dustin frowned. "What if he steals my discovery?"

Mike rolled his eyes. "He's not gonna steal your discovery."

"You know," Dustin said to Max as the two of them walked side by side out the door. "I'm thinking about calling it Dustonious pollywogus. What do you think?"

Max was blushing adorably. "I think you're an idiot."

Dustin rolled his eyes, but he was smiling too. "When I become rich and famous for this one day, don't come crawling back, saying, 'Oh, my God, Dustin, I'm so sorry for being mean to you back in 8th grade. Oh, my God.'"

Caroline and Will hung back as if in a trance, terrified out of their minds. Without even realizing it, Caroline slipped her hand into Will's.

Caroline stood at her locker, getting out her textbooks slowly when the bell rang for the end of the school day. Will stood next to her silently, deep in thought.

Mike approached them and ignored Caroline, still awkward about their fight last night. "Will, you coming? Let's go show Mr. Clarke."

Will just stared at him, holding his twin's hand.

"What?" Mike's face darkened with concern, finally looking at Caroline. "What?"

"It's about d'Artagnan..." Will said quietly.

Mike slammed open the door to the science classroom far more dramatically than he needed to, like a supervillain making an entrance.

"Stop!" he screeched. His audience looked up in surprise. "I'm sorry, Mr. Clarke. It was just a stupid prank."

"What the hell are you doing?" Dustin hissed.

"I told him to stop," Mike continued to Clarke. "We need to go."

"Mike!" Lucas said.

"Right now," Mike grabbed the trap and screamed again. "Right now!"

"Hello? Hello? Guys, come on. Can I come in yet?" Poor Max banged on the door from outside of the AV club.

"No!" Mike called to her, annoyed.

Lucas was shaking his head. "I don't understand."

"What do you not understand?" Caroline held up her hands in exasperation.

"You both saw something that looked like Dart last year?" Lucas was clearly skeptical.

"Kind of," WIll exchanged a glance with his sister, who nodded in encouragement, "but there was no tail."

"But then he heard it yesterday,"  Mike nudged Will. "The exact same sound."

Dustin turned to Will. "Why didn't you tell us before?"

"We weren't sure," Caroline spoke for the both of them.

"So it's a coincidence." Dustin seemed to be begging as he looked at Dart.

"Or not. What if when Will was stuck in the Upside Down, he somehow acquired True Sight?" Mike glanced around the room.

Lucas looked at his girl, whose hands were resting on the table in front of her, blue eyes determined as hell. "True Sight?"

"It gives you the power to see into the ethereal plane," Dustin explained.

Lucas sighed in exasperation. "Elaborate."

"Maybe these episodes that Will and Callie keep having aren't really flashbacks at all. Maybe they're real. Maybe Will can somehow see into the Upside Down. Which means, the Twintuition would allow Caroline to too."

"So that would mean..." Lucas looked uneasy.

"Dart is from the Upside Down," Mike nodded in confirmation.

Caroline finally spoke, her voice cracking. "We have to take him to Hopper."

"No way. If we take him to Hopper, Dart's good as dead." Dustin stared at his little friend with

sadness.

"Maybe he should be dead," Mike said bitterly.

Dustin looked personally offended. "How can you say that?"

"How can you not ?" Caroline snarled, glaring at the slimy creature.  "It's from the Upside Down."

"Maybe. But even if he is, it doesn't automatically mean that he's bad." Dustin pleaded.

"That's like saying just because someone's from the Death Star it doesn't make them bad," Mike said, annoyed. Caroline gave him a brief nod of thanks, and suddenly all was forgiven between them.

"We have a bond," Dustin said.

"A bond?" Mike rolled his eyes. "Just because he likes nougat?"

"No, because he trusts me!" Dustin shouted.

"He trusts you?" Lucas raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, I promised I would take care of him." Dustin looked at Dart just as the thing screeched and the trap it sat in began to shake violently.

Max was banging on the door again. "Guys, what's going on? Come on."

Caroline was about to respond to her when suddenly the trap flipped onto it's side, shaking. Dart was screeching loudly inside.

"Don't hurt him," Dustin begged.

"Only if he attacks," MIke promised quietly. He grabbed the nearest microphone for the radio, holding it up in defense.

"Just open it already," Lucas said, holding out and arm, blocking Caroline from view without even realizing it.

Dustin opened the trap and Dart came stumbling out, bigger than he was when they last saw him. Lucas cursed as Dart began to screech even more, making Caroline clamp her hands on the side of her temples and cry out, the noise ten times as loud in her head.

Suddenly two more legs broke through Dart's slimy skin and the pain in Caroline's head doubled, until her vision turned white and she gripped the side of the table.

"What the hell is going on?" Lucas shouted, watching in fear as Caroline broke down.

Mike had had enough of his friend's suffering and he darted forward towards the pollywog, ready to bash it with the microphone.

"No!" Dustin shouted. He shoved Mike out of the way.

Dart leaped off the table and started running just as the door opened and Max stuck her head in the room, letting Dart run past her into the school hallway.

"What the..." Max gaped as the tiny monster took off.

"Oh, shit!" Mike cursed, shoving past Max.

Dustin fell on top of Max in his hurry to go after Dart, the two of them freezing and staring at each other.

"What was that?" Max gasped, red in the face. Dustin quickly climbed off of her.

"Dart!" Mike bellowed. "You let him escape!"

"Why did you attack him?" Dustin shouted at his friend, shoving him backwards.

"Come on," Mike sprinted down the hallway where Dart had run off.

"Don't hurt him," Dustin shouted. "Don't you hurt him!"

Caroline groaned in pain as Dart screeched his way through the hall. "Jesus Christ. Is it not hurting you?"

Will shook his head. "Must be manifesting differently for you. It just makes me feel nauseous, like i'm gonna throw up more of them."

"Guess this is what my Twin-tuition has for me now," Caroline muttered bitterly. Lucas grabbed her hand and he and the twins ran down the hallway after the party.

Hello beautiful people! I am publishing this way too late than can possibly be healthy, but here I am, cause I love you guys. As you could see a little bit, the way the Upside Down affects Will manifests differently in Caroline. That will show up in the next chapter!