Ally Harrington, the adoptive little sister of the famous Steve Harrington, wasn't anything like her brother.
Other than the small tattoo on her wrist that she'd somehow managed to hide since the day she was adopted, unlike Steve, Ally was not at al...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Hopper sighed, taking his hand off the steering wheel of his cruiser and running it down his face in hopes that he could rub away the exhaustion coupled with the memories of Joyce Byers' disturbed stammers that haunted him every time he let his mind wander. It was late. A mere few hours after they'd pulled that poor boy's body from the quarry and Hopper was in desperate need of a six pack of beer and a goodnight's sleep. Hence, why he now sat in the empty parking lot of the 24-hour general store in town.
Only when he worked up the courage to climb out of the car, did he realise that the lot was, in fact, not empty at all. Sat alone on the sidewalk outside the store, hunched over a tub of ice cream that she clutched in her hands, was Ally Harrington.
The girl looked like she'd been through hell and back. And to her, she probably had. If the use of her powers and the walk through the woods hadn't tired her out enough, the emotional stress of the past few hours definitely had. Every movement made her joints cry and her muscles scream in agony and it seemed that her brain was just permanently hammering against her skull. In her pained, fatigued and rundown state, the only thought that wormed its way into her head was of food. She needed food.
Now, after devouring an entire box of Eggos in the span of a few short - yet impressive - minutes, she needed comfort food. And what better kind of comfort food was there than ice cream?
Ally's icy blue gaze never strayed from the tub of ice cream she was slowly finishing, not even when she felt the familiar presence of Jim Hopper lowering himself onto the sidewalk beside her. She didn't need to look up to know it was him. The smell of cigarettes and the faint, yet still-lingering, scent of his deodorant was enough for her to know that it was him. After all, it wasn't the first time they'd met like this.
"You look like shit," Hopper remarked after a beat of silence.
Ally snorted humourlessly as she observed him out of the corner of her eyes.
"Yeah, well, you're no prize either, old man," her retort was sarcastic but the underlying tone of her voice was dull, defeated almost.
Hopper chuckled dryly nonetheless.
"So, I take it you heard what happened, then?"
Whatever tiny remnants of a smile that were on Ally's face vanished instantaneously, prompting her to comply with the need to shovel more ice cream into her mouth. Hopper took this as a yes.
"I'm sorry, kid," he said sincerely.
Ally nodded in thanks, pushing aside the nauseous feeling that emerged whenever she pictured that thing that looked like Will being pulled out of the quarry.
Hopper sighed once more, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit up, knowing that Ally wouldn't really mind.
"Smoking... why?" She asked, scrunching up her nose as he exhaled a cloud of smoke.
