Chapter Text
December 26th 1991
The patrol car was still a piece of shit. That was the main thought that ran through Hopper's mind as the aforementioned piece of shit slid and drifted to a shaky halt in front of the guard hut at Hawkins National Laboratory.
“Name?”
“Jim Hopper. I should be on the permanent guest list”
The guard lazily flipped through the pages of his information binder, looking over at the man in front of him.
“Police?” he asked, nodding his head towards the insignia on the side of the car.
“Yeah”
The guard whistled. “It’s the day after Christmas. You think they’d give you guys some time off”
“Well, you know, crime never sleeps and all that”
“No crime here in the Lab, though, right?” the guard asked as he located the chief’s name and opened the gate for him.
Hopper shrugged at the man before driving off. “Let’s hope not”
The pathway from the gate to the main entrance of the Lab was thankfully impeccably shoveled and the car had no trouble as it chugged along. Hopper couldn’t remember the last time that he had been in the Lab. Well, that was a lie. He could clearly remember the last time he had been here, but it had been 8 years and what seemed like lifetimes ago. The feeling of the place hadn't changed a bit. The ugly grey cement building still gave him the creeps.
Hopper parked the car in the empty front lot, making sure his gun was securely holstered to his side before getting out. The guard in the front shack had obviously warned the people inside the Lab of his arrival because no sooner had he stepped into the lobby of the building did a familiar lady rush out to meet him, high heels click clacking on the tile floor.
She had the same bright red hair that she had 8 years before, but now it was shot through with a few too many grays. Her eyes were still cold. Hopper racked his brains, trying to remember her name.
Priest…Prestle…he never had been good at remembering people who didn’t matter.
~~~~~
November 25th, 1983
“My name is Eleanor Preston. I work with the US Department of Energy”
“Jim Hopper. Mind telling me what the hell I’m doing here?”
To say Hopper had been less than enthusiastic about being picked up by two men in suits in front of the hospital would have been an overstatement. That un-enthusiasm had only grown tenfold when he realized where those men in suits were taking him. Hawkins Labs was not exactly his favorite place in the world at the moment. Or at any time, really.
“Well, Mr. Hopper…we at Hawkins Laboratory were hoping that we could strike a deal with you concerning our project”
Jim was silent, causing the woman to continue on.
“We were successful at locating and reclaiming the project in the Nether, but ever since she was brought back she has been rather…apathetic. Refuses to regain her energy or communicate. We know that you were acquainted with the project during her little indiscretion, so we wanted you to convince her to work with us again.”
“I’m sorry…what project are you talking about?”
Eleanor looked a little surprised, hand tucking a lock of bright red hair behind her ear nervously. “Project Eleven, of course”
“Eleven? El?…like the little girl? She’s alive?”
“Yes” Eleanor said with a slight sigh. She looked extremely tired. “As I said before, our team managed to reclaim her from the Nether. She is highly weakened, but alive”
“And you want me to convince her to let you guys use her as a science experiment again?”
“That is a crude way of stating it, but essentially yes”
Hopper looked at the woman in front of him as though she was crazy, which he was starting to become convinced she might actually be. “And why the hell do you think I would do that?”
“We need the project to help aid us in the Cold War, Mr. Hopper…”
“If you think for a moment that I give a damn about the Cold War and what you need then…”
“As I was saying” Eleanor continued “we need the project to help aid us during the Cold War, as a matter of national security. After we are no longer in a war state, then we will grant her freedom and she can leave if she pleases.”
Hopper snorted. “You’ve got four boys out there who think this little girl is gone; and once she realizes that they’re still out there looking for her she could easily kill every goddamn person in this nuthouse and leave herself.”
“Yes, we are aware of that. That is why if you cannot convince her to stay and help us, we must be forced to decommission her”
“Decommission?”
Eleanor raised both eyebrows. “It means to put her down, Mr. Hopper. She is too great of a threat for us to keep as a prisoner. That is why she either needs to be convinced to stay here and help us willingly until the end of the war, or else she will be put down permanently.”
“Let me get this straight. If I don’t help convince this girl to stay here and become a little weapon for you, you’ll kill her?”
“Yes. Though we do hope it doesn’t come down to that. She could be a wonderful asset to the US Government”
Hopper stared at the lady in front of him. Stared at the table. His hands. The floor. He didn’t want to get caught up in this; had hoped that giving Brenner Eleven’s location would have been the last he heard of the Labs and human experiments. Even now he knew he should just walk away. This didn’t concern him. As far as Hawkins knew, Will was just a boy who had been miraculously found. They didn't need to be swept up in what the Labs did anymore than they already had.
However, he couldn’t get the image of that little girl out of his mind. How scared she had been in that tub, how small she had looked in that oversized dress. And he knew that beyond anything else, there was no way he would let another little girl die.
He looked up at the redheaded lady. “Only until the war is over?”
“You have our word”
Hopper nodded. “Fine. I’ll help convince her. But I have a condition too”
Eleanor looked wary. “What?”
“You’ll allow me to send her small packages every now and then”
“If you think we’re naive enough to allow you send her weapons or….”
“No weapons” Hopper said quickly. “No messages or anything, even. Just some small gifts or food every couple of months”
“I assure you that we’ll be feeding the project” Eleanor deadpanned.
Hopper rolled his eyes. “Sure. I don’t know what slop you people here call food, but that poor girl was malnourished and starving last time she escaped”
“Fine. You can bring her food every so often. We’ll set out a drop box in the woods outside of the facility for you to place it in. And in return, you must keep Project Eleven’s return a secret until she is released. We do not want those boys coming by the Labs while we are performing any tests. It is not safe for them.”
“Okay” Hopper said. He shook hands with the woman and both of them stood up, ready to walk out of the room.
“Oh, and one last thing” the police chief said, looking over at Eleanor. “Don’t shave her head again. She’s not a prisoner so don’t treat her like one”
~~~~~~
“Mr. Hopper! This is a surprise! What do I owe this visit to?”
Hopper didn’t say anything. Just reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled newspaper. The front page was crinkled and distorted but the headline was clear as was the picture above it. A proud Russian Federation Flag flew over the Kremlin; the words “Soviet Union Dissolved” written in bold below.
“A deal is a deal”
Eleanor pursed her lips. “Yes, well…”
“You said she was free when the war ended”
“Just because the war is over does not mean that our country is out of danger. I think it would be wise to…”
There was a loud click and Eleanor found herself face to face with the muzzle of Hopper’s gun. “You said she was free when the war ended”
Eleanor swallowed hard, turning on her heels. “It was only a suggestion. But it seems you’re not in the mood for negotiations. Fine. Follow me.”
“You’ve become a lot more accommodating in the past 8 years” Hopper said with a slight smile as he lowered the gun, not holstering it again though.
“And you are still as charming as ever” the redheaded lady sniffed as she led the police chief down a maze of hallways, swiping her ID card every now and then to open doors along the way. “I must warn you, the project has kept herself in almost near isolation since the time that she was relocated to the Labs. She may not be what you remember from the past”
“Like any of us are”
They reached a room at the end of a pristine, white hallway. Eleanor placed her card against a small metal reader and after a few seconds, the door to the room wooshed open, revealing the contents inside.
It was a large enough room—much larger than the one Hopper had seen years back when he had snuck into the Labs for the first time. The floors were white tile, but the walls were painted a pale yellow. They were bare and the only piece of furniture was a bed that had a matching sunny sheet set.
However it wasn’t the room or the bed that caught Hopper’s attention, but rather the young woman that sat cross-legged on top of the yellow comforter. She was lanky; navy sweatpants and t-shirt hanging loose on her body. Her face had shadows of familiarity: huge hazel eyes shining from amidst delicate, almost elfin features. Her skin had an even olive tinge and her hair...her hair! It was long: dry and dull from lack of natural light, but a pretty chestnut color and fell nearly to her waist.
The difference between a 12 and 20 year old was of course stark, but there was enough of that scrawny little girl left in her to be recognizable, to be familiar. After all these years she was still the same little girl.
And Eleven seemed to think the same thing about Hopper, recognition immediately filling those too-large eyes.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. Her voice was a little deeper, a little hoarse. Hopper handed her the newspaper, letting the girl read the headline and whatever else she wanted.
A ghost of a smile crossed Eleven’s lips. “You promised”
“That I did. We’re leaving here now”
Eleven just nodded and stood up. She was taller than Hopper expected her to be, with the malnutrition and lack of sunlight hindering her growth, but he remembered that she had been born with unique DNA after all. There was nothing about the girl that should still surprise him.
“Project Eleven” Eleanor said, stepping towards the girl, “you know that you can come back here whenever you want”
Eleven nodded.
“Remember the rules that we went over. They are for everyone’s safety and we will not hesitate to take action if any of them are broken”
Another nod.
“And I should remind you that he would still like to see you often if you can spare some time out of your new life”
This time Eleven nodded much more reluctantly and Hopper decided that it was high time that both of them get out of there. He placed an arm around the girl’s slight shoulders and led them both down out of the room and down the hallway.
“Not even out of the building and already laying a guilt trip on you. What are we going to do with these government fucks?”
Eleven just smiled. Hopper looked down at her and knitted his eyebrows.
“You got a jacket, kid? It's the middle of winter out there”
“I can handle cold”
“Not like an Indiana winter, you can’t” Hopper said, taking off his jacket and placing it on her shoulders. “You don’t have any clothes to bring with you?”
The girl shook her head and Hopper couldn’t stop himself from sending a baleful glare at Eleanor. The woman ignored everything, just swiping them through the series of doors before they reached the main lobby. She hesitated one last time as she turned towards the police chief.
“Mr. Hopper, I must urge you once again to rethink this situation. There are many things which…”
“Which you can stick up your ass. A deal is a deal. The girl is going with me”
“Yes, well…when you bring her back, don’t say I didn’t try to warn you” Eleanor sniffed.
“Yeah, I’ll try to contain myself”
Hopper and Eleven stepped outside of the Labs into the cold. Immediately, Eleven shirked back. She hadn’t been outside in 8 years, and even before then had never really experienced the full blast of winter. It was daytime but the wind blew harshly and she felt chilled straight to her bones, almost as if she was back in the Upside Down.
“I told you that you weren’t used to this. It’ll get better once we get the car heater running.” Hopper said, opening the passenger side door to let he girl in. Eleven slipped into the seat, holding the man’s jacket tighter against her body. The heater slowly started to crank to life as Hopper started the car.
“It’ll take a few minutes for this piece of junk heater to work. But we don’t have that long of a ride anyways, so it won’t be uncomfortable for long”
They started to drive down the long roadway and Eleven looked at the slowly disappearing Lab behind her. They passed through the security gate with no problem at all, the guard waving them through with a smile and a 'Happy Holidays'.
“I cannot believe they are just letting me go”
“You talk a lot better then I remember” Hopper noted. The girl just gave him a look as though to say that it was obvious a 20 year old would be able to talk better than the awkward 12 year old he had known. But he just ignored it and went on. “Plus I’m sure that it wasn’t as easy as that. They’ll probably be stalking you for awhile”
“Stalking?”
“Yeah, like following you around. Creepy stuff. They’re that kind of people”
Eleven nodded. “You mean government fucks”
Hopper groaned. “You’re too young to be saying things like that”
“I am 20”
“Still way too young. Do me a favor and don’t let Joyce know that I taught you that phrase, okay?”
Eleven looked up, suddenly nervous all over again. “Joyce?”
“Yeah, you remember Joyce. Will Byers' mom. I talked to her yesterday and we decided it would be best for you to stay with her for awhile.”
“Not with you?”
Hopper sighed as he turned off the main road onto the small dirt path that would lead to the Byers’ place, thankful that they lived so close to the Labs “I haven’t had someone live with me in a really long time. Plus, I thought it would be good for you to stay with a woman. You know, in case you have…woman problems”
Eleven stayed silent for a moment. “If you mean menstruation, I already know how to take care of that”
Hopper sputtered, hitting the breaks a little too hard as they pulled up in front of the house. Eleven jerked in her seat like a rag doll but her face stayed impassive. “Christ, kid, we got to work on that mouth of yours. And no, I don’t mean things like that. I’m just…I don’t think I’d be a very good parental figure. Joyce did right by her two boys, even with the way everything turned out. She’ll be good for you. And I think having you around will be good for her too.”
Eleven played with her seatbelt a little, looking out the car window at the Byers’ house before turning back to Hopper. “You will come visit sometimes?”
“Yeah. I can come visit whenever you want. Joyce has the numbers for my place plus my office at the station. You call and I’ll come over”
The door to the house opened and both Hopper and Eleven watched as Joyce stepped out, wearing a large wool sweater over some festive christmas pajamas. She craned her head, mouth widening in a smile as she saw the two of them sitting in the car.
“Looks like she’s eager to see you” Hopper grinned. He leaned over and undid Eleven’s seatbelt before opening her door.
“I could have opened it”
“You’re going to be living with Joyce from now on, get used to being spoiled sometimes.”
The girl nodded. She moved to leave the car but then hesitated for a second, turing back to the man next to her. “Hopper…”
“Yeah, kid?”
“All these years...you...thank you for the eggos”
Eleven stepped out of the patrol car and was almost immediately engulfed by an overeager Joyce. The older woman loosened her embrace and took a few seconds to observe the young girl’s features. She laughed as she ran a shaky hand through Eleven’s long hair.
“Welcome home, El”
~~~~~~
“Mike! Phone call for you!”
Mike groaned as he got up from the sofa: already feeling a little too stuffed after breakfast. He had only been home for winter break for five days now and his mother was determined to fatten him up a little bit. Not that it would really work. Mike thought he was just doomed to forever be the guy who was too awkwardly scrawny for his own body.
“It’s Joyce” Karen said as she passed the phone to her son.
“Mrs. Byers?” Mike asked as he took the phone. It wasn’t unusual for the older lady to call every now and then to make sure that the boys were okay, but they had just seen each other yesterday when Mike went by her house to drop off Christmas gifts. Though that interaction had been weird too, now that he thought back on it. Jim Hopper had been there for some reason and him and Joyce were in deep conversation about something to do with Russia.
“Mike! How are you?”
“I’m doing okay, Mrs. Byers. Did you need something?”
“Yes…well…I was wondering if you could come to my house today. You and the rest of the boys. It’s …well, just come over if you can”
Mike felt his stomach drop hard. “Is it Will? Did something happen?”
“No! Maybe…it’s complicated. If you boys could just drop by sometime, it would be great. I’ll phone the others”
“Yeah. Of course. Dustin is staying over at Lucas’ place. We’ll get there as soon as we can” Mike said as he hung up. He just stared at the phone for a few seconds, wondering what was going on. Even though Mrs. Byers had said it wasn’t about Will, Mike had a sinking feeling that it was.
“Everything okay?” Karen asked, looking at her son. It amazed her that no matter how much Mike had grown, he still looked like the same little boy that she raised. Sure he was taller now, his hair grown out more in some sort of rebellious phase; but he still had that same slight build, same pale skin, same sharp features that earned him a multitude of not so pleasant nicknames back in his school days. Karen had always secretly hoped that her boy would grow into his features, but she did admit that they had sort of became his charm over all these years.
“Everything’s fine” Mike said quickly. “Mrs. Byers just wanted me and the boys to come over today. I think she has something for us”
“Why couldn’t she just give it to you yesterday when you went by her place? It's a shame that you’ll have to leave Amanda home by herself again. Not very good behavior for a host.”
Mike glanced over at the living room where the pretty blonde girl was sitting on the sofa he had just left. He felt that sinking feeling in his stomach all over again.
“It probably won’t be for long. You know this time of year is hard on Mrs. Byers”
Karen’s eyes softened. “I know. Here, take this cake with you okay? A christmas cake aways cheers people up”
“Thanks mom” Mike said, going back to the living room as Karen started to wrap the prettily decorated cake that she had made the day before. He walked over the the sofa and placed his hand on Amanda’s shoulder.
“Hey, I have to run out real quick. Mrs. Byers wanted us to swing by her place for a minute”
“Oh again?” the girl said, looking up at him. “You want me to come along?”
“No, just stay here. It’ll be really quick”
Amanda nodded, sitting up a bit to give him a quick kiss before diverting her attention back to the program that was playing on the TV.
Mike nodded as he went back into the kitchen, waiting a few minutes for his mom to finish wrapping the cake before grabbing it and heading out. He didn’t know how to deal with a lot of things and right now Amanda was at the top of his list.
It wasn’t something that he liked to talk about much because honestly, it made him seem a little (or a lot) pathetic. The grand tragedy of Mike Wheeler. Lost the love of his life at the ripe old age of 12 and became hopeless afterwards.
Well, to blame it all on El’s disappearance wasn’t fair. Of course that had hit him hard, but everything that came afterwards was just as bad. It was difficult growing up in the aftermath. Sure, they all tried to be normal and there were days where they were. But there were also days when flashes of the Demogorgon kept them up all night, driving them insane. The fact that any sort of flickering lights would send them into panic. There was walking past the freezer aisle in a grocery store and seeing eggos. There was never being able to listen to The Clash without instantly feeling cold. There was watching Will close himself up more and more: haunted by memories of his time in the Upside Down.
None of that had led to being able to have much in the form of proper interactions with other people. Amanda was Mike’s first real girlfriend and he still wasn’t sure what to do with her. She had latched onto him during their freshman year at Purdue and on the surface, she really was perfect for him. Just yesterday she had figured out how to simultaneously hook up the VCR, stereo, and Super Nintendo to the TV in order to let Dustin record himself playing Super Mario World for half an hour onto a VHS tape, complete with a background soundtrack of Metallica’s Enter Sandman. His family loved her, the whole town of Hawkins already loved her even though this had been the first time he had ever brought her home during break.
Mike really did like Amanda. Maybe even loved her, too.
But he couldn’t help to notice the fact that her hair was blonde, cut in a way that closely resembled a certain wig that was engrained in his memories. That her eyes were large and pretty and hazel. That he wasn’t sure if he had ever gotten over a girl who had been dead for 8 years and how pathetic could he even get?
He stopped his car in front of Mrs. Byers’ house just in time to see Dustin and Lucas pull up in Lucas’ dad’s old beater. They all got out and looked at each other.
“You know anything we don’t?” Lucas asked.
Mike shook his head as they walked up to front door. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough”