Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

These Boots Are Made for Walkin'

"These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"

You keep losin' when you oughta not bet

You keep samin' when you oughta be a-changin'

What's right is right and you ain't been right yet

These boots are made for walkin'

And that's just what they'll do

- Nancy Sinatra

Joyce dropped her keys on the hall table. Jonathan's car was out front, but his door was closed and music was playing—certain enough signs that he had a visitor that she didn't need the old sock on the door to tell her Nancy was here. Smiling, Joyce sorted through the mail, mostly bills, before wandering into the kitchen to see what was for dinner. There was evidence from the plates in the sink that Jonathan and Nancy had already eaten.

As she studied the refrigerator, looking for leftovers, she heard the front door slam behind her and Will came through the house looking like a thundercloud.

"Hey, sweetheart, you want something to eat?"

"Not hungry!" he shouted, just before he went into his room, slamming that door, too, for good measure.

The guys again, Joyce guessed. The divide between them was growing. Will wanted to keep doing the things they had always done, but the others were distracted by girls, by growing up. Joyce understood, but her heart hurt for her sweet boy who had lost so much time ... and might not have been ready to grow up anyway.

She found some leftover meat loaf and mashed potatoes and stuck them in the microwave, settling down in front of the TV. Alone. Again.

Not that she had to be eating dinner alone. Hopper was making it increasingly clear that he was just waiting for a signal from her to move their relationship forward. And he had his own frustrations at home, with Mike there as often as he could be. But Joyce wasn't ready. If she was ready—yes, she might well choose Hopper, who had never let her down, who had always been there for her when she needed him. Who else would have listened to her tell him that Will was in the wall and not bundled her off to the nearest loony bin? And instead, Hopper had believed the impossible for her and he had saved Will.

Yes, Joyce could remember those hot and heavy clinches from high school. Hop had been a good kisser—as well as other things—then, and he'd had plenty of experience, with half the single and divorced women of Hawkins, to improve in the years since. And it would be nice to let him hold her, to know she was safe and protected.

But Joyce wasn't sure that was what she wanted so much anymore. After everything ... she wanted to stand on her own. She wanted to keep herself and her boys safe without needing to run to someone else. It was hard not to think that if she had been more independent, Bob might still be alive.

The music turned off in both the boys' rooms. Joyce noticed that no one emerged from Jonathan's room. So Nancy was staying the night again, was she? As she so often did, Joyce wondered how much Karen Wheeler knew. Was she aware of how many nights Nancy stayed over, how much time the kids were spending together? Joyce didn't mind—Jonathan was so much happier, so much more sure of himself, than he had ever been before—but she doubted Nancy's parents would see things the same way if they knew what was going on.

Joyce picked up her plate and put it in the sink, pouring herself a glass of wine. Maybe she'd take a long bath. Except if she did, someone else was going to want to use the bathroom. For a moment, she allowed herself to imagine what it would be like to live in a house with two bathrooms.

Well, why not? Who said she had to live in this place on the edge of nowhere for the rest of her life? It had been great when the boys were little—so much room for them to roam and play, no nosy neighbors—but now it was starting to feel a bit remote. Certainly it had last fall ... and the fall before ...

She thought of the demodogs and shivered. Sometimes the nights out here got awfully dark, and she couldn't help but remember that there really were scary things that lurked in the dark, worse than any horror movie.

What if they sold this place, and kept moving until they left Hawkins behind altogether? Surely somewhere else wouldn't come with a mystical gate to a nightmare world.

Joyce thought it through, standing in front of the window and sipping her wine. Will would have to find new friends, but the way things were going, he seemed like he'd have to do that anyway, and how could he when everyone in Hawkins remembered that they'd had a funeral for him and still called him Zombie Boy? And Jonathan would miss Nancy, but they were old enough to find a way, if what they had was real. Joyce herself would miss Hopper, but ... she wasn't sure if she would ever be ready for what he wanted, and he was edging closer and closer to his characteristic impatience, which might spoil everything.

Maybe that was it. Maybe that was the answer. Tomorrow she would call a real estate broker, and start asking questions about what it would take to sell her house, and then—well, she'd never really been out of Hawkins, so she didn't know where she would go, but it sounded so nice to just be able to go ... anywhere.

Anywhere but here.