Chapter Text
“Shut up, Hop! What are you going to do, give me the talk?” She says into the phone, resting her forehead on her hand as she leans to the side slightly. Her elbows are pressing into her wooden desk and she juggles the telephone against her ear with her right hand. She can’t even type in this position.
“No, but listen—Harrington, really?” His bear-voice rasps into the phone in a questioning, unsure tone.
“Hopper!” She hisses.
“I mean, he’s, he's—he’s a goof! A total dork!”
“So? I’ve been with him for quite some time, Hop, why are you suddenly bothered by him?” She asks. She has a few ideas about the reasons behind Hopper’s irritation towards her and Steve. It could be because he’s been so busy with El and settling everything down, it could be his over-all busy police-man life, and it could also be because of the hot weather—it’s getting to everyone and making them more irritable and tired.
“I’m not bothered, I’m just—“
“Looking out for me?” She finishes his thought.
“Took the words out of my mouth there!”
Maggie laughs. “I know you are, but please… Don’t call him that. He’s amazing, really.” She tells him and blushes at the thought of Steve. He makes her dreamy whenever she thinks about him.
“I’m gonna have to hang up the phone—“ Hopper warns and imitates throwing-up noises. Maggie sighs, closing her eyes. She takes the phone away from her face. “Wait, did you actually hang up?” She hears from the receiver and puts the phone back against the side of her face.
“You’re annoying, you know that?” Maggie asks him.
Hopper laughs. “Love you too, kid. Please, enjoy your summer and don’t spend it all in that stupid ice-cream place at the mall.” He tells her.
“I won’t, Hop, okay? I hate the mall. No fresh air.”
To that, Hopper has a bigger laugh. Maggie’s joking, of course, but behind her joke is a bit of truth. She isn’t used to big shops, much more malls like Starcourt, and would much rather spend her time in the woods or at the hills. No matter what season or mood, and no matter how many people tell her to do the opposite.
She loves fresh air, she loves taking photographs of everything she sees in the wilderness, listening to music in the middle of the forest on her speaker or radio… She once wandered off alone into what the Party now calls Mirkwood, when she was only three years old. She wasn’t panicking, she wasn’t scared, unlike her parents, she was simply hypnotised by the wonders of nature - tall trees, colorful leaves, moss, bugs, puddles. Somehow she found it all so mesmerising that she managed to stay lost in the woods for two hours.
“I won’t spend too much time outside as well, alright? I know it’s dangerous.” She adds, knowing what’s to come next from Hopper.
“No, no, no, Maggie. They’re gone, okay? They won’t come back, they’re gone for good.” She sighs into the phone. “And I admire your bravery, as well stupidity, for going out into the woods even when it was dangerous.” Maggie sighs, and wants to say something back already. “But it’s not anymore. And I know you’re scared.”
What made Jim care about Maggie Byers more than any regular Hawkins resident was her baby-sitting Sara, when she was still… around. Hopper was already a police-man then, his wife was working, as well, and mostly they needed somebody to spend time with Sara on working days, take her home from kindergarden, make her dinner, play with her, all of that.
Hopper ‘hired’ his high school friend's—Joyce Byers'—daughter for the job, which seemed the most fitting. Maggie Byers was thirteen at the time and, thankfully, wasn’t the regular angry and rebellious teenager everyone was at age thirteen, including both her older and younger brother. She was calm and understanding and so kind, Joyce couldn’t be happier with bringing her up, it was like a break after Jonathan’s roughest year.
Jonathan is only a year older than Maggie, but everyone, including Joyce and Will see them as the same age. Jonathan is very overprotective of Maggie, as much as he is of Will, and he’s always looked at her as his little sister. As if Maggie was as young as Will’s age. She’s always been a bit spoiled in the brother department, but she doesn’t wanna scare all the perks away, so she’s kept silent about Jonathan’s protective nature.
“Yeah, you know me best. And I’m sorry for being reckless.” Maggie admits. “Does Eleven need some baby-sitting, maybe?” She asks and adds a chuckle.
“Oh, she does. Please, come and stop her and Mike’s hormones from exchanging.”
Maggie laughs out loud. “Oh, my God, what is happening over there?”
“They’re having too much of a private relationship! She doesn’t open the door three inches, they're—God, I don’t even want to know…” Jim says. Maggie chuckles at Hopper’s words, realising the old man really has no idea how teenage relationships work anymore. Makes her think he hasn’t been a teenager in his life at all, or has forgot that period.
“Well, I diagnose you with zero understanding of teenagers.” Maggie tells him.
“What are you talking about? I understand them perfectly, they don’t understand me. That’s what it is!” Maggie groans.
“Calm down, Hop. It’s going to be okay. Just… talk to them. Calmly, down to earth. Make them a dinner or somethin’.”
“Hmm, hmm… Maybe, yeah.”
“Or ask my mom. She knows how it is raising teenagers better than me.” She admits, and Hopper laughs. “And, ask her on a date.”
“I’m not gonna—”
“I know you want to, so come on, get it over with. When you’ve done that, and talked to Eleven and Mike, and you’ll live better.”
“I’m living quite good, thank you very much.” Hopper says. “Sometimes I feel like you’re the father figure in this situation.” Maggie chuckles. I might just be more grown up than you in some cases.
“Oh, I’m sorry, you think you’re like a father to me?”
To be honest, he is. Maggie’s father Ronnie is a junkie and a drunk, and he wasn’t always nice. He left the family a long time ago, when she was quite young, so she never really had anyone father-like in her life. Until Hopper. She sort of became a part of the Hoppers’ family while being with Sara, and she didn’t mind. They treated her like a sister of Sara’s. Maggie and she had a wonderful friendship for a whole two and a half years, you could say they were as close as sisters. Till the very end of the little girl’s life. But it was too hard for Maggie to visit little Sara sometimes, at the hospital.
When the Hoppers lost their little angel, it broke the family apart. The death broke Maggie, as well. She had never been so close with someone who died. When Sara died, Maggie didn’t really know who would understand her pain and her hurt and her sadness. But the Hoppers did. Though Jim’s wife left him after Sara died, moved to another city. And that was sad for both Jim and Maggie. So they stuck together.
And Sara, a young girl, dying, that was… That was too cruel on a child, she shouldn’t have… No child should die young. And what it does to their parents… That’s just something you can’t go back from. No parent can ready themselves for the weight and consequences of losing their child.
She would often get Jim home—with the help of her brother—after a heavy drinking night. They’d help him go to sleep and would take any alcohol in his house with them, not for their own use, but so Hopper wouldn’t get more trashed. Maggie would visit him on the weekends, watching TV and eating take-out.
Hopper bought a new house a while after Sara died, living in the family house was too expensive now and too painful. Sometimes Joyce would come over, joining Maggie, even Jonathan, but that was rare. Jim wanted to be alone, or at least alone with Maggie. She’d truly understand him and he wouldn’t have to put up a fake mood or personality.
She didn’t mind at any point being around Jim, even when he was drunk and crying and angry. Well, when he got a bit more out of control, his colleagues would take care of him. That wasn’t a scene a young girl needed to see, that would remind her of her biological father.
“When did I stop being one? Have you got a new one?”
Maggie laughs. Now, now she can laugh about it. Earlier it was a serious topic she or Jim would never address, but now it’s just a soft joke between the two. A heart-warming and flattering joke to each other.
“Don’t get jealous. You’re the best father figure I could wish for.”
“Good to hear.” She can hear the smile in Hopper’s words. She smiles too.
“Listen, I’ve got to end the call, unfortunately, I really want to finish at least a chapter tonight.”
“Yes, yes, yes, of course, Mags. I’ve got a… thing to do, as well. At what chapter are you now?”
“In the middle of the fifteenth. Luckily, if the goofy Steve Harrington doesn’t bother me till the end of the night, I’ll finish it by… one or two am.” She speaks with a bit of theatricality, looking at the clock on the wall. It helps her keep track of time.
“Let’s hope he doesn’t, then. And don’t stay up that late!” Hop scolds and Maggie laughs.
“Alright, Hop. I’ll see you around. Maybe I can come by tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow… So your day isn’t as boring.”
“Oh, and I’ll be much delighted if you do. Bring some trouble in!”
Maggie laughs, a true smile on her face. “Will do. But it’ll be more likely in lunch form. Goodbye now.”
“Alright, kid. Take care. Behave!” He playfully scolds.
“I will. Bye, bye.” Maggie says and puts the telephone down, ending the call with Hopper. She smiles wide and then looks down at her type-writer. There’s still an unfinished sentence that she doesn’t know how to phrase correctly staring at her from the inked paper, and it’s been bugging her for a while.
Hopper and her own family and their disasters are the things inspiring Maggie to write. Especially when she’s scared or paranoid or in a panic, she either writes and writes all night and day. Sometimes she chooses to go to the woods, but only if there’s still light outside, and she prefers to express her terrors. The dark makes her a bit anxious, because most monsters showed up in the dark, and the lights in her room were always on for a period of time. All of them. She didn’t even know what time it was in reality, when she slept in that light-filled room.
Maggie shakes her head. Gotta finish the sentence, if not the chapter, tonight. Concentrate. Maggie puts her fingers on the letters she plans to use, and pushes down in the needed order. She’s got a thought. She finishes the difficult sentence and starts a new line. And suddenly, words and sentences seem to invade her mind like a very welcomed plague. She smiles. Her inspiration is back, and this time it’s not coming from pain.