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There was honestly no telling which of you moved first; in the time it took you to inhale, you and Jim collided in the middle of Murray’s living room. The force and speed of the embrace has Jim lifting you off the ground, and his arms are squeezing around you so tightly it’s as though he is single-handedly pulling all of the broken pieces of you in and putting you back together. Your arms are flung around his neck, and your face is pressed against the familiar warmth of his shoulder; his face is buried in your hair, and you hear him chanting, “Thank god, thank god, thank god.”
You’re not sure exactly how long the two of you remain there, but it’s long enough that you hear Murray grumble and close the front door; a few more seconds - or minutes, you really can’t tell - later and you hear the sound of glass crunching before you recognize the sound of him eating the toast you just made. Jim’s grip on you hasn’t loosened though, and you aren’t quite ready to let go of him either.
Murray must grow tired of waiting, because he finally snaps at Hopper. “Can we wrap this little love-fest up, please? Her feet are bleeding on my carpet.”
Jim startles, and carefully maneuvers you onto the couch, putting your feet in his lap so he can check for any glass that might be stuck in them. “Got a first aid kit?” he asks, not taking his eyes off you for even a second.
Murray mumbles what sound like curses under his breath, but goes to fetch his supplies anyway. Hopper digs around in the kit for some tweezers, and pulls a few shards of glass from your feet; you try not to wince in pain, but he notices anyway, and grumbles something unintelligible. He carefully cleans the cuts and covers them with bandages before hooking his hands around your ankles and yanking until you’re half in his lap. He wraps his arms around you again, and you look up at him, eyes shining with tears.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper.
He lifts a hand to smooth back your hair and kiss your forehead and your eyes drift shut, the tears falling gently down your cheeks. “We don’t have to fight about that right now,” he murmurs. “Just let me hold you and prove to myself you’re really here for a minute.”
The ‘minute’ lasts about an hour before Murray gets restless and decides to throw the sense of peace out the window. “Okay, I’ve had about enough of this quiet family time,” he starts. “You,” he says, pointing at you, “are a fucking idiot and Jim needs to hear why you left town.”
“Hey!” you and Jim yell at Murray in unison.
“No, no, don’t you ‘hey’ me,” Murray argues. “Wait til you hear it, Hopper. You’re gonna be pissed too.”
You scoot away from Jim and sit with your legs crossed under you, back against the armrest of the couch; eyes cast downward, you start to fiddle with the hem of your shirt. “He’s probably right,” you say quietly.
You tell Hopper the story, all of it, leaving out no details. You lay out what you heard Carol say, you tell him how you were afraid that something could happen to Eleven and it would be your fault, you explain how your parents didn’t give a shit either way what you did as long as it didn’t interfere with their lives. You tell him how you got to Sessler, got your GED, got two part time jobs, rented an apartment, and forced yourself to pretend you weren’t slowly dying inside without the family you made for yourself in Hawkins.
He’s quiet the whole time you’re talking, and when you finish, he finally looks away from you; you start to cry again, sure that this means he agrees with Murray’s assessment, and he’s pissed. Before you can start to apologize again, he pulls you back to his side of the couch, heaving you all the way onto his lap this time, again, squeezing you so tightly you’re sure he’s the only thing holding you together.
“Well,” he says, a wry lilt to his voice. “Murray was right about one thing - you kind of are a fucking idiot.”
You rear your head back to look up at him and he laughs. “The second you skipped town that Carol went right to the superintendent and told her little story about us.” Your eyes widen comically, and Hopper nods. “Opened up a whole can of worms that almost led to a full investigation - the upside is, nobody got far enough into it to find El. The downside is I owe that shitbag Kline another favor.”
“I’m sorry,” you whisper, pressing your face against his chest. “I thought…I thought if I wasn’t around to be the apparent bane of her existence she’d let it go.”
“Yeah, well, some people just ain’t happy if they’re not watching the world burn,” Jim says. “Anyway, the kids all found out why you skipped town pretty quick and got themselves in a shitload of trouble. Dustin, Lucas, Max, Will, and Mike tagged the bitch’s car and literally got caught in the act, and Nancy and Robin assaulted Carol and her cronies. Broken noses all around.”
You can’t help but laugh at this, and Jim joins you. “Shit,” you say quietly.
You sit there in Jim’s lap for a few minutes, mind going about a million miles an hour trying to wrap itself around the idea that you leaving did nothing but create chaos and pain for everyone involved. Eventually, you get up the courage to ask the one question you’ve been dreading. “What about Steve?”
Jim squeezes you again before answering, seeming to consider his words carefully. “He’s…off the rails. He’s not himself, or, I guess, if you go back to before any of this shit with the Lab started up, he’s himself. Wheeler says she saw him at a party a few weeks ago, so wasted he could barely stand upright. His grades have fallen off, and apparently won’t be going to college.”
The tears are flowing freely down your face now, and you choke on a sob. “I never should have left,” you whisper. “This is all my fault.”
“Hey, now,” Jim says. “Harrington’s his own person and he makes his own decisions. I agree, you never should have left, not without telling me what was going on first, but that don’t make any of this your fault.”
You take a deep, shuddering breath, and look up at Hopper. “I can’t go back.”
For the first time since he got to Murray’s Hopper looks confused and a little bit angry. “The hell you mean you can’t go back? I didn’t come all this way to leave you behind.”
Shaking your head, you climb off his lap and walk to the counter where the bottle of vodka still rests from last night. Unscrewing the cap, you take a swig, and Jim looks at Murray angrily. Murray, unbothered, just throws up his hands. “What? You said find her, you didn’t say how I had to handle her.”
Emboldened by the small amount of liquor in your system, you look at Jim. “I’m not going back. If Steve handled me leaving this poorly…I’m not going to hurt him even worse by coming back like it’s not my fault he’s fucked up. He’ll never forgive me for leaving and ruining his life, and I sure as shit don’t expect him to. But I also can’t live my life acting like it doesn’t kill me that he’ll never hold me, kiss me, love me again while potentially running into him every day. If I stay here, I’m still going to have to live with the guilt of breaking his heart.” You pause, wrapping your arms around yourself and looking away from Jim. “If I go back…I have to face it every single day. I have to face the people who accused me of lying about being raped every single day. I have to go places that I used to go to with Steve knowing he’ll never go with me again. After everything, Jim…I can’t. I can’t do it.”
Hopper doesn’t say a word, and you’ve turned your back to where he’s sitting; you flinch at the sound of the front door slamming, and when you turn around, he’s gone.