The stack is "built up" in a sense, so new items are added on top of the stack. When a function returns, the stack essentially (theres a bit more to it if you want to do some research) gets rid of everything that was added on top during the functioncall's time Which is why yes, depending on how long the function lasted for, the point that we return back down to in the stack might not be super close to the things we were accessing during the function call. So I suppose I'm referring to the data in the stack (that we are getting) and it's location (in that related data will typically be close together!), and yes you are correct that a function call could make you go back to something further away.