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Sunlight streamed through the windows of the cluttered trailer. Birds chirped. Jim Hopper, who had passed out only a few hours ago on the busted couch with cushions that sagged under his weight, groaned. His head pounded, his stomach churned, and as he fumbled for his watch to check the time, he knocked over a half-empty beer can. He watched it spill onto the carpet for a few seconds, before tipping it back up onto the table. It was time to start his day.
He had become an expert on navigating mornings like these. First, a shower with water as hot as he could stand. A few swigs of lukewarm beer. Aspirin for the headache, a cigarette just because. One last look in the mirror to make sure he was reasonably presentable, and he was out the door.
He’d be late (again), but he hoped Flo wouldn’t comment on it today.
He was doing the best he could.
--
Something was wrong with the Pinto.
Sometimes it took a few tries before it started. Sometimes it stuttered a little as she drove, mostly as she was speeding to make sure she got to work on time. But it still worked. Maybe it was her desperate pleas or her uttered expletives, but somehow, her beloved Pinto always ended up getting her where she needed to go.
But she knew this luck wouldn’t last forever. After all, Joyce Byers had never been particularly lucky. She’d have to bring it to the mechanic’s sooner rather than later.
It was currently four a.m., and she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Mechanics, obviously, cost money, and she didn’t have any extra lying around. And certainly not enough for a new car.
Her shifts at Melvald’s just covered the basics, and every week it felt like there was something new she had to buy. Will needed new shoes, Jonathan a warmer jacket. She was fine going without, but she’d be damned if her boys suffered.
Goddamn you, Lonnie. Goddamn you straight to hell.
It was now four-thirty, and no magical solutions had suddenly appeared. She tried to breathe slow, in and out, but it didn’t stop her mind from racing. She needed to sleep or she’d be useless at work. That thought just made her whole body tense up even more.
She would figure something out, she thought as the sky began to lighten. She always did. She would ask for more shifts and hope that her car would tough it out until she could save some more money.
But it was damn near impossible to have a rainy day fund when your life was just one storm after another.
--
At night, he dreamed of warmth.
First, it was chicken noodle soup. The canned kind with crushed crackers on top that he ate when he was a kid. Then there were stews, long-simmered, murky-colored, lovingly prepared by his grandmother.
One night, he dreamed of a chili cookoff he attended with Powell and Callahan a few years ago. That wimp Callahan had managed two whole bites before coughing and chugging a glass of milk.
He remembered other kinds of warmth. Diane’s sunshine smile at their wedding. Sara’s grin when her first tooth fell out. The first hug he received from El.
Joyce. Everything about Joyce was warm. The fondness of a shared look and smile. An eyeroll at his behavior. Her fingers touching his when they passed a cigarette back and forth.
When she was angry, when the comforting warmth turned to fire, that was another kind of heat, and he dreamed of that too.
Awake, he was in a living nightmare, starving and tortured in Russia, with little to no hope of ever getting home again. Awake, he was always so cold.
But at night, as his large body, battered and broken in more places he could count, tried to adjust to an almost-not-uncomfortable position on a small flimsy cot, sometimes his mind was able to give him a temporary escape.
And then every morning, he woke up cold.
--
Joyce’s new bed was bigger than the one in Hawkins. There was more than enough room for two people to comfortably sleep. Most nights it was just her of course, but tonight El had a nightmare.
Joyce had been tossing and turning like most nights and was still awake when she heard footsteps, her door being opened, and El whimpering her name.
She had immediately welcomed a sniffly El into her bed and had smoothed her hair and told her stories until El was able to fall asleep. This poor, traumatized girl had already suffered so much, and Joyce would do anything in her power to comfort her when she needed it.
The California night was quiet. Will and Jonathan were safe in their rooms, and El was snoring softly next to her, clutching her stuffed unicorn. Joyce remained awake.
She tried not to torture herself with what-ifs, but on some sleepless nights she couldn’t help it. What if there had been another option? What if she hadn’t needed to turn the keys that terrible summer night that somehow felt both like yesterday and a hundred years ago?
And now as she focused on the sleeping girl beside her, she couldn’t help but think about who was missing. And she couldn’t help but think, as she often did, about this big stupid bed of hers and how if she and El scooted over a little bit to one side, there’d be just enough room for him too.
--
Hopper should be asleep right now.
The rundown motel in some remote corner of Alaska had simple luxuries he had been dreaming about. Central heating. A working shower with hot water and a bar of soap that he used to scrub off months of caked-on dirt, sweat, blood, and various monster fluids that he didn’t want to think about.
And best of all…a little store with actual food. Granola bars. Jerky. Dried packets of soup that tasted like heaven. His stomach was full for the first time in months.
He was full and he was warm. And it wasn’t a dream.
But he couldn’t sleep. He wanted to. He wanted to curl up against Joyce and hold her tight, for warmth, for security, for comfort. As a way of thanking her for risking her life to rescue his sorry ass and as a way to make sure she was real, that all this was real, and she wouldn’t be vanishing into thin air once the sun came up.
Joyce had fallen asleep pretty quickly. He had assumed he would as well, but it just wasn’t happening. The painkillers were wearing off, and the various cuts and bruises and sprains he had accumulated over the past few months were making themselves known. He thought there might be more painkillers in one of the bags on the table, but he didn’t want to risk waking Joyce up. He had dealt with worse; he could deal with this now.
If he were being completely honest with himself, it wasn’t just the pain keeping him up. It was all the noise. The steady hum of the heater, the creaking pipes in the bathroom, and the soft laughter of people walking past their door. Logically, he knew these noises were nothing, that they were safe, but what if they weren’t?
An actual bed (let alone a bed shared with Joyce) was something he had yearned for, but instead he chose to sit in the chair facing the bed. Just in case something happened. Just in case an innocent noise wasn’t so innocent.
Someday soon, he hoped, he would be able to share a bed with her. To hold her tight, to kiss her awake. But for tonight, he would stay vigilant, watching out to make sure nothing happened to her. He would not let anything happen to her ever again.
This he knew he could do.
--
There were moments in the cabin when Joyce could almost pretend that normalcy had returned to Hawkins and to her life. Moments when Hopper and El bickered good-naturedly over what to have for lunch or what to watch on TV made Joyce smile. Father and daughter were reunited and it was heartwarming.
These little moments could almost make her forget about the helicopters patrolling the sky and the armed military just a few blocks over. The cabin was a sanctuary for a man who was dead and a girl who was wanted and, occasionally for her, a woman who loved them both and savored every second with them.
But she couldn’t stay. She made rules for herself; she could only stay in the cabin during daylight, only for a couple of hours at a time, and with absolutely no one else knowing where she went. This meant lying to Karen, which she hated doing, but it felt like one wrong move, one small slip, could lead to someone finding out about Hop and El, and she couldn’t compromise their safety.
And she was careful about letting Jonathan and especially Will visit the cabin because she needed her boys to be safe as well.
Her afternoons at the cabin usually meant lunch and maybe a quick board game, but today Hop and El, who had been up late practicing night missions, were exhausted. Hop was stifling yawns, and El was practically falling asleep at the table.
Hop told El to take a nap so she’d be ready for another session tonight, and then, reluctantly went into his room to do the same. Joyce followed him, kissed his scarred cheek, and told him she’d be back as soon as she could. After a quick kiss goodbye, he closed his eyes.
On the way back to the Wheelers, Joyce kept an eye out for any possible threat, even as some hopeful part of her thought of the future.
Soon, she thought. Soon.
-
Somewhere in the distance, a few seagulls squawked. Early morning light filled the master bedroom of a small house in Montauk.
The clock on the bedside table displayed six and then seven a.m. Neither of them had to be up early for work, and it wasn’t until a little after eight that they both began to stir awake.
They blinked sleepily at each other. He smiled at her cloud of tangled hair, and then, as if he couldn’t resist, reached out to twirl a few brown strands around his finger.
In turn, she reached out to touch his face, stroke his stubble, and lean in for a kiss.
She thought about the laundry she had to finish before the kids arrived later this afternoon; he briefly considered getting coffee and breakfast started, before they both decided that it could wait. Everything could wait a little bit longer.
Another slow kiss as they eased into the morning. When he finally spoke, his voice was still a little raspy. “Sleep well?”
“Yeah,” she said. “You?”
He grinned at her, blue eyes shining. “Yeah. I did.”