Chapter Text
Joyce hated Thanksgiving.
She never talked about it, she felt like she may fall apart at the seams if she did, the failure threatening to swallow her whole.
But those old enough know why.
So when Will went missing in November 1983 Karen feared the worst.
There was no way Joyce would be able to survive two of her children being abducted in the same month fourteen years later.
And then they found a body.
And Karen knew that if it weren’t for Jonathan, Joyce would have killed herself.
She watched her childhood friend fray at the seams, losing herself in her desperation to find her third son.
Somehow, by some miracle, they found Will in the woods, half-daed but still there.
The week after he came home from the hospital was Thanksgiving week, and Karen and Joyce met up at the quarry to smoke a pack of cigarettes and down a bottle of whisky just like they have for the last eleven years,
“I wish…. I wish we could find him too. That I could find him somewhere, deep in the woods.”
Karen sighed as she laid her head on Joyce’s shoulder, wishing she could ease the pain that her dear friend felt, that she could fill the hole of her missing baby and know that she never could.
When she found out she was pregnant with Holly the first thing she wanted to do was call Joyce and tell her they matched again, three kids like they’d always talked about.
She ended up throwing up what little she had eaten that morning at the mere thought of bringing it up to Joyce.
Then Thanksgiving of ‘84 rolled around, and Joyce and Karen sat out under the stars at the quarry and split a whisky and a pack of cigarettes as Joyce cried about Bob, whispering a confession to Karen about NDAs and the government and how Bob had died due to something relating to this, and how Will’s disappearance had also been related,
“I wish it was the same… I looked everywhere, all the rooms, and demanded them to search files. They had nothing. There was nothing about my baby.”
Karen held her close as she fell apart over the only man that had ever treated her right, and the endless deadends that came with trying to find her lost baby.
“Well, this year will be a little different. Jim’s bringing his daughter to the house for the holidays, she’s friends with Will,”
Jim Hopper had adopted a girl, Joyce couldn’t talk much about her but she did know that it brought their old friend some peace to his troubled heart, greaving a daughter he had to bury far too early.
“That’s great Joy, I’m sure it will be amazing. Jon’s going to love being at the adult table this year,”
She teased easily, Joyce laughing as she shook her head,
“Well we’ll probably all be at the same table, but there’s another kid coming over too…. His family apparently can’t spare a minute for him so we’re watching him. Got a pretty serious brain injury trying to protect Will’s friends from an asshole.”
Karen gasped, sitting back and taking a sip from the bottle,
“Oh god, Mike told me about that… isn’t it Nancy’s ex-boyfriend? Steve?”
Joyce lit up at his name, nodding with a small smile,
“Yeah, that’s it. He’s such a sweet kid too… had a rough patch for a while but honestly Kar, he was reacting to neglect. It’s not his fault. And he’s worked so hard at trying to improve himself. Poor dear doesn’t credit himself enough for the good he does.”
It was there, the sadness deep in her brown eyes, something that no one but Karen saw,
“He reminds you of Norm, doesn’t he?”
Joyce laughed softly, a wet sound in her voice as she took a swig from the bottle,
“He’s got this little birthmark, on the side of his jaw, it looks just like Norman’s. And his eyes…. There’s something in his eyes that makes my heart twist Karen. And he’s so alone… and… all I can think of is, “why don’t his parents care?” because I’d do anything, I give up anything if it meant I could have one more minute with my boy… and they just disregard him like he’s a bad investment and it makes me want to scream.”
Karen was never a fan of the Harringtons, she had a bit of an issue with Nancy dating Steve at first because of this. But the minute she met him all her opinions changed.
And then she broke up with him and went with Jon.
“Jon’s ok with him being there?”
Joyce nodded, taking a drag out of her cigarette,
“He’s actually kinda happy about it. They both had a fight a year ago and it wasn’t pretty but Steve’s really tried to make up for it, and Jon will never admit it but he likes Steve, he said it’s nice to have a guy friend his age.”
These Byers and their big forgiving hearts.
It was a blessing and a curse. It was why Joyce stayed with Lonnie for so long.
But it was also why Jonathan and Steve have apparently become friendly.
“That’s good Joy, I’m glad you’ll have a distraction Thursday.”
Joyce smiled, snubbing out the leftovers of her cigarette, as Karen laid back on the blanket, Joyce following suit with a sigh,
“And between you and me? Smother him a little, that boy is too sweet for his own good, and I don’t think he’s ever been on the receiving end of a hug before.”
Joyce laughed, wiping the tears from her eyes as she bumped her shoulder against Karen’s,
“He won’t see it coming.”
Karen is standing in the middle of what used to be Starcourt Mall’s parking lot, fire burning the building down around her as she holds Mike close to her, her only son trembling in fear as tears streamed down her face.
She’s searching the parking lot to find familiar faces, and she can see the Sinclairs car pulling up, Sue barreling out of the passenger's seat before Charlie’s even parked it to book it to Erica and Lucas, screaming out as they ran to her hysterically sobbing.
Claudia is attached to Dustin, the boy sobbing into her chest as she sits on the asphalt crying with him.
The new girl, Max is being dragged out by her mother, the woman is also hysterically crying as she holds the girl back from a body bag and Karen feels her stomach drop for them.
Nancy is sitting in the back of an ambulance with Jonathan, so close they could be one and Will and Jim’s girl are holding onto each other like they’ll disappear.
The gruff chief didn’t come out of the burning building.
Her heart spiked, not seeing her favorite brunette’s tiny frame anywhere looking around and finding her on the ground in front of a prone frame.
Oh god…
“Mike honey I need to go see Joyce,”
Mike nodded, taking her hand,
“Can I follow?”
He was terrified of whatever had happened and Karen would never deny her child comfort. She took his hand and led him over to her best friend who was crying as she pulled the boy up into her arms,
“SOMEONE COME HELP ME!”
She screamed and as she got closer she could hear the boy trying to say something to her but nothing he was saying made any sense,
“Joyce, Joy what’s going on?”
“Steve?”
Mike broke away from her and rounded the body and Joyce with a look of panic, Karen dropped next to her friend to assess the situation, her blood spiking with fear.
Steve looked mutilated, his uniform was torn and bloody to a point that look intentional as he gasped for breath in Joyce’s lap, but what terrified her was what he kept saying, over and over in a broken voice,
“Help… I- I can’t see… I can’t hear… someone help me please… ”
Joyce screamed in frustration, taking his face in her hands as she brushed the tears out of his eyes,
“It’s alright baby, Mom’s gonna fix it. Don’t cry Norm, Mama’s here,”
Karen felt her heart stop at Joyce’s slip up, Mike looking at her in the confusion about the name but clearly too worried about his babysitter to think more than standing and running in the direction of the crowd, yelling profanities to get someone to help.
Steve flinched hard at the feeling of hands on his face, a terrified whine breaking past his throat as she shushed him, brushing his blood-matted0 hair out of his eyes with a trembling hand,
“M- Mom? Mom is that you?”
Joyce sobbed, leaning down and kissing his head, not acknowledging the dirt and blood there as she tried to soothe him,
“It’s all ok. Mom’s here now,”
She could see it now, what Joyce had said in the last year,
He did have the mole, on the side of his jaw, and he had the same eye shape that Joyce had his eyes were clouded over and unfocused but she could see it, the bright hazel color that looked almost identical to Joyce’s lost four-year-old son.
It was eerie.
The reaction to her touch after feeling her kiss him was instantaneous, he stopped fighting away from her and tried to scramble into her arms, sobbing in broken breaths as she held him into her,
“Joyce there on their way over,”
She said softly to her friend, the brunette nodding in response as she kissed a welting bruise on the boy’s dirty neck whispering to him even though he kept repeating that he could hear her or see her.
It made Karen feel sick.
Something was wrong, terribly horribly wrong.
The second the EMTs tried to pull him off of her he rebelled, grasping to her like a lifeline as Joyce yelled at them for scaring him,
“He can’t see or hear! Be gentle damnit!”
The only way they could detach the two was to sedate him, panic spiking in him as he screamed in protest at being drugged again, begging them to leave him alone and screaming that he worked for Scoops Ahoy as his grip loosened on Joyce against his will.
Karen pulled Joyce back, the woman now fully sobbing as they pulled his limp frame back and started working on him, moving to leave as Joyce jolted off the ground towards them,
“Wait! He’s- he can’t go alone-”
One of the EMTs turned around nodding at her,
“You mom? Are you driving with us then?”
“I- my other kids-”
“Joyce I’ll take your kids home with me.”
Joyce spun around and hugged her tightly with a whispered thanks before nodding and taking off after the moving stretcher.
Karen felt Ted come to stand by her, his hand on her arm in comfort as he nodded once, Holly still on his hip.
“I’ll collect the kids, we’ll meet you at the car,”
Why…. why had she wanted to cheat on this man?
She nodded, spinning around to kiss his cheek as she went to go get Nancy and Jonathan both just finishing their check over.
Joyce would contact her once she got settled in, but for now, she’d try to watch after what was left of her family as she tried to block the memory of the lonely boy and the broken mother clinging to each other for grounding, calling out to each other in a whispering of the past that she’d never thought she’d hear again.
And something in her gut twisted.
Because there it was that instinct.
And she was hoping to god that there was a reason for it.