Chapter Text
"It's going to be negative. It's just- early menopause. It's stress. It isn't a baby," Joyce whispers to herself as she paces the cramped little upstairs bathroom.
The kids were all at school, and she'd used her half day at work to pull out the tests she'd bought two weeks ago, but hadn't been brave enough to take yet. Only now she was nearly six full weeks late, not even a sign that her period was on the horizon, and anxiety gnawed at her belly every waking moment.
The egg timer dings, and Joyce looks at the two tests lined up on the counter before she can talk herself out of it. Her stomach plummets at the sight of two undeniable plus signs, lightheaded as her heart thrums hard in her chest.
"Joyce."
Hopper murmurs her name into her hair, the rhythm of his hips never slowing their pace against her, and Joyce wishes they were somewhere more comfortable than the front seat of a stolen car. But this stolen moment was all they had, and she forces herself to focus on how she feels. Hopper is hot and hard inside her, his hands gripping her waist tightly and helping her move over his hips, her thighs splayed wide to accommodate the sheer size of him. His mouth presses soft kisses in quick succession to her neck, her jaw, her cheek- lingers at the corner of her mouth until she turned her head to kiss him fully.
When he spills inside her, a tidal wave of emotion smashes into her, and she trips over her own climax, a gasp of his name leaving her. He kisses her with a sort of quiet violence, hands tangled in her hair and lips harsh against her own. Like this would be his only chance. Like they'd captured lightning in a bottle, only to know it would inevitably set them ablaze.
Joyce kisses back just as fiercely.
Joyce throws the tests out, changes the trash, tosses the bag in the bins in the garage, and then proceeds to deep clean the entire two story house. By the time the three kids get home, she's vacuumed, dusted, made three different loaves of fresh bread that were currently cooling on the kitchen counter, put a casserole in the oven for dinner, and fixed the squeaky hinge on the back door into the yard.
"Mom?" Jonathan asks, something cautious in his tone as he shut the door behind him. Will and El had already gone upstairs with their backpacks, and her eldest watched as she continued to stir the cinnamon butter she'd made to go with the cinnamon raisin bread. "Everything…okay?"
She looks up, blinking, and offers her son a small half-smile of reassurance.
"Everything's fine, Jonathan. Just had some extra free time this afternoon," she tells him, and his brows furrow together, but he nods before following the other two kids upstairs. Joyce goes through the motions of transferring the butter to a clear glass container before storing it in the fridge. If she just kept herself busy enough, she could outrun the positive pregnancy tests sitting in the garbage bin. She could outrun the simple truth that even though Hopper was gone, his child grew within her despite all the odds, despite everything that had happened two months ago.
She could outrun the hollow, aching loneliness that had grown in her chest since she'd opened her eyes to see Hopper gone. Since she'd planned his funeral. Since she'd buried an empty casket beneath a headstone with his name and run as far and as fast as she could away from Hawkins, Indiana.
Joyce buries her head in her hands and fights against the tears that build against the backs of her eyes, stinging and sharp.
I love you.
It pounds against the back of her throat, threatening to choke her as her arms shake against the strain. Hopper stares up at her from the platform below. His eyes are damp, but he's smiling at her reassuringly. Like he knows this is the end. Like he knows this is goodbye.
I love you.
It sits against the backs of her teeth, stuck in her gums like a lone popcorn kernel. Aching and unreachable, she cannot dislodge it. The words won't come, and tears spill down her cheeks, dripping against the collar of the stolen Russian military uniform. She longs to set them free- Hopper deserved to hear them, more than anyone. But she cannot tell him and then lose him, so she swallows them down until they sink in her belly like watermelon seeds she'd forgotten to spit out.
I love you.
Joyce turns the keys, shutting her eyes against the blinding light of the machine, and breaks what remained of her own heart in the process.