Chapter Text
When El first heard the news that a movie crew from The States would be coming to the village her heart hammered in her chest and a cold sweat crept up on the back of her neck. This isn’t a new reaction for her. In the five years since she found this place there have been a handful of occasions in which there has been a group of American or even Russian tourists passing through, and each time she struggles to sleep for at least the first night. It’s gotten a little easier to breathe ever since news broke that The Soviet Union is no more, but still, the fear lingers.
Especially when there are cameras.
It’s been two days now since the crew arrived in town, and although they are staying at the inn where El has managed to hold down both her job as well as her living arrangement, she hasn’t seen much of them. She was busy doing the dishes in the kitchen of the inn’s first floor tavern when they first arrived on Friday. When two crew members ventured down into the bar for a late-night drink she learned that they’re only interested in filming out by the cliffs. They’re up early, out late, and they keep to themselves; she has nothing to be concerned about.
Or so she thought.
A laugh catches her ear and she stops dead in her tracks; her body whirling to face towards the road. She squints her eyes at the van dropping them off. It’s early; much earlier than the time they usually get back. The sun is only starting to set and she is just heading inside to start her shift behind the bar.
“Jonathan?” His name comes whispered off her lips, her eyes unblinking as she hones in on a figure standing at the side of the van in the distance.
It’s definitely him. He is wrapped in a big puffy coat and his hair is hidden underneath a blue knit hat to withstand the winter weather; but she knows she isn’t mistaken. She would know that face, that stance, that voice… she would know him anywhere. He is laughing and talking with another member of the crew. He has one of the large cases for a camera held in one hand. He walks around to the back of the van and his friend opens the large double doors and they begin sorting the equipment back there, and El feels her heart stutter.
Then, very carefully, she weighs her options.
He hasn’t seen her yet. She could hurry herself inside and – if she really needs to – she is confident she could talk someone into switching positions with her for the night. She could spend the whole night in the kitchen hiding. She would only be a room away he would never have any idea.
It would be safest. It would be the smart decision. There is a reason that she ended up all the way at the edge of the world and she has never gone back. There is a reason that not even her family could know the truth, and yes the war is over, and Kay is firmly off her scent and very likely in another underground bunker elsewhere, but she can’t – she shouldn’t – take the risk.
She won’t – she can’t – ever go back.
But he came here.
She’s weighed the pros and cons before of what she would do if any of them ever came here.
“Jonathan!”
She lets his name tear from her throat before she can think twice about it. He hears her loud and clear too; because he snaps his head up and she can’t help but to break out in a huge grin.
Screw it.
She starts running forward, her eyes set on his which hold the same instant recognition for her as she does for him. She watches his lips move in a silent exclamation to himself, and she laughs aloud again as he slowly sets down the case he is holding.
“Jonathan!” She shouts his name again, even though he very obviously sees her running right for him.
He takes a few steps, hurrying to try and meet her part of the way. Behind him his friend is watching on with his hands on his hips and confusion hilariously plastered across his face, but El doesn’t care. They can figure out how to explain this to him later, and to her friends here. In this moment El feels confident enough in her home here and in anyone he would trust that she leaps right into his arms. She locks her arms tight around his neck and her legs around his waist and he spins her around and around, and it’s only after she’s spun twice that El processes the fact that she isn’t a little kid anymore and jumping him may have been asking too much of him.
“Holy shit.” He gasps into the crook of her neck. “Oh my God. Holy shit. I am never letting you go.”
She laughs against him before she buries her face even deeper into his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.” She murmurs, and suddenly, she is fighting back tears. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t-”
“Hey, hey.” He interrupts her, and despite his promise to never let her go he encourages her back to her feet. He sets her down and he has the good sense to pull her over onto the sidewalk while he is at it.
He is smiling; despite himself and despite the tears shining in his eyes. He keeps his hands planted firm on her shoulders and his teary gaze never once strays from her.
“It’s ok.” He says through that delirious smile. “It’s ok. Mike, Mike told us everything.”
She laughs, sniffling and letting the relief wash through her. “He did?”
“Yeah.” Jonathan promises, “I mean, it took him couple years to figure it out, but once he did he told us.”
El sniffles and smiles despite herself. There is a pang in her chest that she can’t help but to feel when she hears his words. Years. God, she supposes that’s only fair. It took her well over two years herself to be able to go to sleep without playing that moment back in her mind every night.
Mike was the only goodbye she could afford to say, and she couldn’t even tell him the truth; not in that moment. He had to believe she was dead the same as everyone else, at least until the dust settled. After that… She wasn’t sure how long it would take for him to figure it out. He’d held out hope for three-hundred and fifty-three days the last time. This time, she supposes she had hoped he would decipher the truth much sooner, and hopefully be able to move on with his life.
Jonathan brings her from her thoughts and back to the moment with the touch of his hand on her cheek. He thumbs away her tears, the rough texture of his glove slightly scratchy over her skin and helping to ground her back in the moment.
“Hey, hey.” He whispers again, “It’s ok. Look, um…” He licks his lips, and looks around, like he is surveying for enemies who they can’t have overhearing their words.
“I’ll tell you everything.” She promises him, trying not to outright laugh at the surprise in his eyes.
Again, she supposes that’s fair.
Still, the opening of the inn’s back door grabs her attention, and she looks past him. It’s only Nils – one of the boys who works in the kitchen – taking out the trash. He meets her eyes, but returns to his business just as easily.
She’s already about to be late; but in theory, he’ll likely go back in, and tell the others she’s just outside and caught up talking to one of the cameramen. It’s been the excitement of the town village all week; no one will fault her. In fact, they’ve all been needling her to go and socialize with the other Americans.
They’re really going to be relentless now.
And to think, Jonathan didn’t even want to come on this shoot.
Well, not that he didn’t want to come. He’s never been anywhere as far north as Newfoundland. He would never want to pass up the opportunity to see something like that. Still, their crew was just coming off a doc shoot out in the Arizona desert, the traveling for that already made him miss Thanksgiving, and they are set to land back stateside on Christmas Eve if everything here stays on schedule. He was tired and really not in the mood to set himself up for a lecture about missing another holiday. But he’s under contract, and even if he weren’t, this job could actually lead him somewhere. Some of the crew on this doc have connections to Columbia and they’ve been talking about some openings coming up at TriStar. So, he came to Newfoundland without complaint, fueled by the hope that he might find a real opportunity along the way.
He doesn’t give a crap about any opportunity right now.
A part of him is still convinced he’s dreaming; that he never actually woke up this morning and he is still upstairs in his room here in the inn, with Jamie – one of the two PA’s – about to wake him with that brutal alarm clock of his and pull him from this dream.
If that happens, he just might tear this inn apart just to be sure.
That won’t be necessary, he reminds himself of that. This is very real, and after five years El is promising him she will be right back, she just needs to take care of the group of four customers who just walked in.
He watches her go, still a little afraid that if he takes his eyes off her for one second she might disappear again. After she explained to him that she works in the tavern on the bottom floor of the inn – he’d been under the same roof as her for four days, and he didn’t even know – she had disappeared into the back to relieve the daytime bartender. When she’d returned her winter coat was gone, and he could see that she is still a fan of flannel shirts two-sizes too big for her.
She wears jeans now; light wash and a little baggy on her frame, but not baggy in the same way any jeans she’d ever borrowed from Will or Mike were. This is more purposeful; as is the fitted t-shirt underneath her unbuttoned flannel, and the way she’d gathered her long hair into a low bun, but with some pieces still around her face measured out equally, because she wants them there.
She smiles at the group of customers settling in at the end of the bar, opening the fridge and pulling out three bottles before one of them as even ordered.
“And what are you having tonight, Aldur?” She asks the oldest of the group; a man whom Jonathan would guess is pushing ninety and very slowly hanging his cane on the edge of the bar top.
“I’m going to start with a rum and diet coke tonight.” The old man says, and while Jonathan is still trying to process that he hears her make a tutting sound as she pulls out a glass.
“Aldur...” She trails with a sigh, though she grabs for a dark colored bottle Jonathan assumes is rum. “If I have to call someone to bring you home tonight-”
“No, no, just one tonight, Sara.” He says, “I promise.”
She says something else to the old man with a humoring smile, something about keeping his promises. Jonathan has honestly stopped listening to the actual words of the exchange; too caught up in the friendly way she serves the group who – aside from Aldur – are probably in their fifties. She jokes with them, and it occurs to Jonathan in that moment that in all the time he’d ever known her, he’d never seen her actually talk to an adult.
Everything, even with his mom and with Hopper, was always a matter of the rules.
She starts making her way back to him, and he chuckles around the rim of his beer as she digs her fingers into the bowl of stale popcorn which she’d made and set in front of him.
“Sara?” He asks, and while her movements slow bringing the popcorn to her mouth, he sees the smile ticking at the corners of her lips.
“I needed a name.” She explains, quietly. “Especially at the start. I figured if anyone heard the name Jane-”
“Too dangerous.” Jonathan finishes for her, not liking the rigidness beginning to creep into her shoulders. “And there a million Saras in the world.”
That isn’t why she chose it, they both know it, but she nods anyway.
He sighs, leaning on his forearms over the bar.
“So, does Sara have a last name?”
This time she chuckles. “She does.” She answers, “Sara Ellen Murray.”
He snorts with laughter to the point the crowd down at the end of the bar glances his way, but El waves them off with a comment about “reconnecting with the Americans like they wanted”, and soon they’re back to the local gossip.
“They’re harmless.” She shrugs off their curiosity, something she never had the luxury of back home.
Jonathan smiles, this time at the group down at the end. They seem friendly enough, if nothing else. In the few days that he’s been here this whole village has been so welcoming. He remembers the first night when they all got in two hours past their official check in time. The innkeeper had ushered them all in here to the tavern for a late-night dinner and he had excitedly given them the whole history of this building and the town.
“They seem like good people.” He says, and she smiles.
Over the next few hours they pass the time catching up. She does most of the talking at first; telling him her whole “life” story.
Sara Ellen Murray: she spent most of her childhood in a hospital, and the reasons why aren’t something she likes to talk about. When she was twelve she went to live with her dad, and he was great, but then he went to prison. When asked about those reasons, all she knows is it had something to do with the military, and he had been over in Vietnam before she was born.
“After my dad went to prison, I moved with my mom and brothers to a new town. To start over.” She says, her voice and eyes dropping lower. “There were too many Saras at my new school.” She tells him, and it’s the first outright lie she has hit him with, maybe ever. “So, I went by ‘Ellen’ while we lived there, which got shortened to ‘El’.”
Jonathan knits his brows together as she watches him, like she is waiting for something to click in his mind.
“Why does that matter?” He eventually asks, because really, why? Why would she bother weaving that detail into her backstory? Sentiment he can understand, but still, what’s the point in telling him?
“Because my brothers’ liked it. It stuck.” She says, popping another piece of popcorn into her mouth and still looking at him like he should understand.
Which, unfortunately, is not happening.
“Jonathan.” She says after he’s silently stared at her for more than a long minute, still trying to unravel the riddle she is writing for him.
“Yeah?”
She levels a look with him. “It was just in case.”
“In case what?” He asks, worrying beginning to swirl in his chest.
She, however, seems completely unconcerned.
“People saw me jump you out there.”
His heart hammers faster, the worry now coursing through him that he thinks maybe he’s screwed this all up for her, just by being here. If he had known then he never would have come, he would never have put her and her new life in jeopardy like this. But, how was he supposed to know? And besides, she called out to him on the street. She didn’t have to.
Finally, he swears his heart stops; the answer to his question of why dawning over him.
It was in case they ever found her.
In case – by some miracle – this day came.
He glances again to the group at the end of the bar and sees El follow his gaze. He now realizes the group is trying to hide the fact that they are periodically sneaking glances at the two of them with fond smiles. He’d noticed it before, as they’d watched El return to him, but he’d assumed they were just teasing her for hanging out with another American, as she said.
He swears the smile splitting across his face is a watery one. How could it not be? She’s found a life here where she’s felt safe enough to find a way to keep them in mind; a way that they could fit even if they called her name before she’d have a chance to stop them.
All these years, and she kept hope this day might come.