Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

Have You Ever Seen the Rain

"Have You Ever Seen the Rain"

Someone told me long ago

There's a calm before the storm

I know, it's been comin' for some time

- Creedence Clearwater Revival

It took hours. Hours for Joyce to figure out the right questions to ask, hours for the four of them to smoke their way through Hopper's entire carton of cigarettes, hours for Alexi to make drawings and try to explain through Murray what the hell the Russians were doing in Hawkins.

Alexi was patient with them, now that everyone understood that he had committed to help them, for good or ill.

"Tell me again," Joyce said at last, gesturing with one of Hopper's last cigarettes, "what it is that they're building."

Murray listened carefully to Alexi's stream of Russian, translating simultaneously. "He calls it 'the key', and this key emits great energy. It requires much strength. Power. Those houses like the one you found, they're located near transformers. They're stealing from your town's power grid."

"Why build this key here?" Hopper asked. It was more of a demand, really. Hopper wasn't yet on board with this cross-cultural liaison they had going. "Why are they not doing this in their own back yard, what are they trying to do, blow us to smithereens?"

Alexi smiled at the accusation.

"There are many of these, uh, keys before, in Russia," Murray translated, "but they turned out wrong. They had to come to where the ... the uh ..." He hesitated.

"Where the what?"

"I don't understand what he's saying."

Joyce frowned. "I thought you were fluent."

"Oh, I'm sorry, are my free translation services not good enough for you? Because you can just go ahead and file your complaint right up my ass!" Murray shouted at her.

She had given up being intimidated by his crankiness a long time ago. Now she was just wearied by it. She rolled her eyes.

Alexi had picked up a straw and an empty fry box, and he was waving them in Joyce and Hopper's faces.

Hopper sighed, his patience stretching even thinner than it already was. "What is Smirnoff doing?"

"Showing me," Murray told him, watching carefully as Alexi waved the straw as he tried to explain to them. "Uh, okay. Uh, he says, the straw, they're using it to penetrate a hole in ..." Murray frowned. "A box?"

That clearly wasn't right. Alexi tried again, still demonstrating trying to push the straw through the fry box.

"Okay, sorry, the straw represents the key, which emits a great energy." That seemed more on the right track. Alexi kept going, and Murray nodded along as he began to understand. "They're using this energy ... to break through a barrier—"

Hopper lifted his head, suddenly interested. Joyce's heart began to sink as she began to see where they were going.

Murray was still translating. "To ... open a doorway! A doorway between worlds." He looked at Joyce and Hopper, trying to see if they followed what Alexi was saying.

Unfortunately, they did. All too well. Joyce and Hopper looked at each other, and then away, as Alexi kept going.

"But it seems this key was only half the equation. Location. Location was the other half."

Alexi put down the fry box and picked up the Whopper wrapper, holding it open in front of Joyce, indicating that she should take it and hold it, stretched out flat. She did so, and Alexi pointed at it. She understood the word "Hawkins" amidst the rest of his flow of Russian.

"In Hawkins this door had been opened once," Murray translated, "it was still ... healing."

This time, when Alexi thrust with the straw, it burst through the paper. Just like their key was going to burst through the gate. Just like maybe it already had.

"Jesus Christ," Hopper whispered, turning away in his sudden fear for Eleven.

"So ... this door is open now?" Joyce asked. They couldn't be that stupid. They hadn't been that stupid. Please, let them not have been that stupid.

Murray asked, Alexi answered. "He says it is ... opening."

A chill settled on Joyce's shoulders, squeezing her heart. If the gate was open—opening—then the kids weren't safe. Will wasn't safe; Eleven wasn't safe.

She got to her feet, rushing for the nearest phone.

"Where are you going?" Murray asked.

"To call our children."

*****

While Joyce went for the phone, Hopper went for something more immediately comforting: the booze. Murray had a fair amount, but it was all frou-frou. Hopper needed something that would burn going down, that would shock his head clear.

"Can I help you with something?" Murray asked, following him into the kitchen.

"Whiskey. You have whiskey?"

"No, but I do have vodka."

Not as good, but it would do.

Murray grabbed a bottle out of the freezer and poured two generous glasses full. They leaned against the stove, clinked the glasses together, and downed the contents. Without hesitation, Murray poured them each a refill.

Hopper felt better already, more prepared to handle another catastrophe at the lab. "If there's a way to start this key, there's got to be a way to stop it, yeah? Turn it off?"

They looked at each other, downed the second glass, and said, "Right? Right," and returned to the living room, getting real close to Smirnoff so Murray could ask him the question.

"He says of course you can turn it off—could Edison not turn off the lamp, could Bell not hang up a phone? Cocky bastard. But—"

"But what?" Hopper demanded.

"But he is now ... naked. Sorry. Exposed. Compromised."

Hopper leaned forward, taking Alexi by the shoulders. "Hey," he whispered. "I will get you there." He saw Eleven in his memory, pouring every ounce of her strength into closing that damned gate and saving them all. He wasn't going to let her be put in that situation, put in danger like that, again. "I will get you to your key."

He was so focused on being determined that it startled him quite a bit when Alexi started to laugh as Murray translated.

"You want to ask him what the hell's so funny about that?"

"He says he likes your courage. You remind him of a—" Murray broke off and cleared his throat to make it clear he was translating exactly. "Fat Rambo." As Alexi spoke again, Murray continued, "But he says that even thin Rambo couldn't get there. This key is in an underground fortress, designed by the greatest Russian minds, guarded by their greatest warriors. Breaking in is ... impossible."

The two of them looked at Hopper, and he looked back at them. Impossible or not, it was what they were going to do, by God.