Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue

"Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue"

I'll be fine when you're gone

I'll just cry all night long

Say it isn't true and

Don't it make my brown eyes blue

- Crystal Gayle

On the surface at last, accompanied by her guard of armed soldiers, Joyce looked through the chaos of emergency vehicles, the mall on fire somehow, searching for familiar faces. Her boys. El. Nancy and Mike. Max and Lucas. Where were they?

At last she caught sight of Will, sitting wrapped in a blanket in the back of an ambulance. He looked fine. She repeated that thought to herself—he looked fine. Whatever had happened up here, whatever had caused the urgent screams through the walkie-talkie, it hadn't hurt him.

He looked up and saw her, and relief dawned on his face. Throwing the blanket off, he ran to her, and Joyce wept into the shoulder of her tall son, who had made it through so much and was still standing here holding her. "Thank God," she sobbed. "Thank God!"

She thought she might never let him go ... until, over his shoulder, she saw the other child who had gone through hell and back, the one whose happy ending was never coming now. Eleven was making her way through the crowd, searching, and Joyce knew exactly the face she was looking for.

She should let go of Will, she thought. She should cross the space between them and go to Eleven, tell her what had happened, but she couldn't seem to move. All she could do was stand here and hold on to Will and think about what this moment should have been like, Hopper's strong arms around them all, Eleven, too, all of them a family, and how that would never be.

Her eyes met Eleven's, and she could see that Eleven didn't need powers to know what had happened—she could read it in Joyce's face. Joyce closed her eyes so she couldn't see the life go out of Eleven's, the tears beginning to form. For just this moment, this little bit longer, Joyce needed to mourn him, before she could have the strength to be there for the other person who had loved him.

And then she knew that she couldn't take even this moment. Eleven had lost everything—her friends were all she had left. Joyce was all she had left. And it would be false to Hopper's memory not to care for his girl the way he would have.

Gently she disentangled herself from Will and closed the space between herself and Eleven. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, trying to hold it together, but she lost control entirely. "Hop!"

And then they were holding each other, comforting each other.

"You'll never be alone," Joyce whispered fiercely. "I've got you. He would have wanted it that way."

Eleven was weeping so that she could barely catch her breath, but she managed to nod.

"I couldn't save him. I tried. But the keys—the machine—I couldn't wait. I had to."

"I know."

"I want him back!" Joyce sobbed.

"Me, too."

As they cried in each other's arms, Joyce could feel the others closing around them. First Will, then Mike, then Jonathan and Nancy. The Harrington kid hovered nearby with the blonde girl who had been with him. Only Lucas and Max were missing.

When she realized they weren't there, Joyce managed to pull back and call their names, looking from face to face.

"Billy," Mike explained. "He was— He's gone."

"He saved us," Eleven said, fresh tears rolling down her cheeks.

Will's arms tightened around Joyce's shoulders. "He sacrificed himself."

"Let me—are her parents here?" Joyce tried to see over the tall kids surrounding her, but couldn't.

"Not yet," Jonathan said.

With a final squeeze for Eleven, Joyce made her way through the group, with the others following her, approaching the ambulance where Max sat staring blankly into space, with Lucas sitting next to her looking concerned and helpless. Joyce sat on the girl's other side and took her hand. Max was the one she knew the least, the newest member of the group, but she was suffering and alone, and Joyce knew a lot about that.

"I'm sorry," she said to the girl.

Max nodded.

"What about— Where's the Chief?" Lucas asked.

"Not coming. He—" Fighting back more tears, Joyce remembered what Will had said. "He sacrificed himself so the gate wouldn't open."

"They were really doing that, opening the gate?" Mike asked.

She nodded. "It was already opening. We had to—there was no time."

All the kids were silent, a moment of respect for Hopper, who hadn't understood them but had accepted them. If they only knew, he had trusted them more than he trusted most people, Joyce thought, thinking again of what this could have been like if he had lived, the two of them together, these brave and intelligent children, the wonderful party they could have had ...

"What—what's going to happen to El?" Max asked, her voice thin but growing stronger.

Joyce reached out her free hand to Eleven. "She's going to come live with us. If you want to," she added. "We don't have to decide right now."

"No, I—I think that's okay. If ..." Eleven looked at Will, silently asking for his approval.

"Of course." He managed a smile. "I always wanted a sister."

"You did not." Jonathan also smiled, his shy tentative smile, at Eleven. "I did, though."

And Nancy took Eleven's other hand, squeezing it in silent support.

"So it's settled, then?"

Eleven gave one of her slow, serious nods. Hopper was gone, but the family he left behind would stay together. Joyce would see to it. I'll take care of her, Hop, she said silently to him, and in her mind's eye she could see him smile.