Alice the Amazing ⇒ STRANGER THINGS

[Part One Epilogue] The End?

{The Upside Down, Part IV}

Alice didn't trust Dr. Owens, not for a second.

Sure, he gave her a serum to stop her body temperature from getting any hotter, and he believed her when she babbled about the Demogorgon, but he was from Hawkins Lab—the bad place Eleven had escaped from.

"Are you going to take me away?" Alice asked bitterly a few hours after her episode. Dr. Owens and two of his nurses were running some blood tests, but Alice wanted nothing more than to just go home.

"Take you where?"

"To live in the lab. Torture me, like you did to Eleven."

Dr. Owens wrote a few notes on his clipboard and ushered the nurses out with the vials of Alice's blood to test.

"I know you don't like us very much, Miss Henderson," Dr. Owens said calmly, "but I'm not like the people who were running Hawkins Lab before. We're a whole new staff, and we plan to do things a little differently."

Alice jutted out her chin defiantly.

"How am I supposed to trust you?" she said.

Dr. Owens sat in a chair next to her hospital bed and pulled a folder out of his medical bag. 

"I don't know if you'll ever be able to trust me, Miss Henderson," he admitted. "But I do hope you'll give me a chance. I need to ask a few questions."

Alice stared straight ahead.

"I'll take that as permission to start asking," Dr. Owens quipped. "When did you realize you had these healing abilities?"

Silence.

"Alice, please. Answer the question. We're trying to help you."

"A few days ago. I burned my hand and it healed almost immediately."

Dr. Owens nodded, adding more notes to his folder on Alice.

"What is the extent of your power?" he pressed. "Can you heal others, or just yourself?"

Alice fidgeted with the corner of her blanket.

"Others too," she said. "I think I've always been able to do it, I just...didn't realize."

"Do you know the identity of your birth mother?"

Alice gripped the edges of the blanket.

"Wait," she asked, "do you know who my mom is?"

"We have some theories," Dr. Owens said. "I take it you don't?"

Alice shook her head.

Dr. Owens wrote a few more notes and closed the folder. He tucked it away and unclipped something from his clipboard.

"Here is your confidentiality agreement," Dr. Owens said, standing from his chair. "Sign this to ensure us you won't tell anyone about what happened in Hawkins this month—that includes the nature of Will's disappearance, the passing of Barb Holland, Subject 011, and your own abilities."

He paused as Alice flipped through the pages.

"It also says," he continued, "that you'll agree to come into Hawkins Lab twice a week for the foreseeable future so we can run some more tests—"

"You want to turn me into a lab rat?" Alice exploded, slamming the folder shut. "No fucking way!"

"Miss Henderson—"

"I'm not a science experiment, I'm a person. I have a life—I have school! I'm not going to be a test subject!"

"Alice," Dr. Owens said, "the reason you fell into a comatose state is because you overused your abilities. You don't understand them, and neither do we. We want to observe you for the time being and help you learn how to control them. Please, it's in your best interest—"