Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

Bye-Bye Love

"Bye-Bye Love"

Bye-bye love

Bye-bye happiness

Hello loneliness

I think I'm gonna cry

- Everly Brothers

The kids came in the morning. Mike and Lucas and Dustin and Erica, all on their bikes, showed up early, while El and the boys were still sleeping. Joyce had given up on sleep after a fitful few hours, as had Murray, and Nancy had just gotten up and started coffee when the knock came.

With the inevitable noise of all the kids in the house, Will and El both came stumbling out of their respective rooms, still half-asleep.

Steve Harrington and the blonde girl Joyce remembered from last night arrived next. They had stopped for doughnuts, and the hungry kids dug in. Jonathan came out of his room with the arrival of the food, and they were all together. Or, at least, mostly.

Joyce found a moment to quietly ask Lucas about Max. He looked worried, and said she had been with her family, and no one had answered when he'd thrown some pebbles at her window. Joyce made him promise to call Max later and make sure she was okay.

It was funny how the biggest presence in the room was the one who wasn't there. Joyce could see Hopper everywhere: sitting next to El, pacing the kitchen with a cigarette, yelling at Murray, glaring at Mike ... standing with her and holding her hand. She remembered reaching for his hand on the spinny ride at the carnival, and she closed her eyes, feeling dizzy and sick all over again.

Jonathan came to her and put his arms around her. "I'm so sorry, Mom." His voice broke. "So sorry."

"I ..." She had to tell them. To make it real. Looking over Jonathan's shoulder at El, she said, "It was my fault. If ... if I had found a way to turn the keys sooner, I—"

"Mom, what—what happened?" Will asked.

"Oh." She had forgotten that none of them had been in the basement bunker. It suddenly occurred to her that none of them were supposed to be at the mall, either. "What happened to you? Why didn't you go to Murray's?"

"Billy. Max's brother. He—the Mind Flayer took him, used him. He ... he broke the car. We couldn't leave." Nancy's hands were wrapped tightly around her cup of coffee, as though trying to warm herself.

"But he came back at the end," El said softly. "He saved us. Billy saved us all."

Joyce wished Max was there, to hear that.

But El sat down next to her and took her hand, her brown eyes looking intently into Joyce's. "Tell me. Tell me ... everything."

"Well ..." Joyce cleared her throat. "You know we were getting the keys to turn off the machine that was opening the gate. There were two keys, and we had to turn them at the same time. Only, just as we were about to, this Russian guy who had been chasing us attacked. He and Hopper were fighting on the catwalk, next to the machine. Hopper—" Joyce's voice broke, and she took a few deep breaths to calm herself. Nancy knelt next to her and took her other hand. "Hopper fought so hard. So hard," she emphasized to El. "And he won ... but by that time it was too late. I had to turn the keys; I couldn't wait. Dustin was screaming through the walkie, and you guys—I didn't know what was happening to you."

As Joyce dissolved in sobs, remembering that last moment, she felt Will's hands on her shoulders. Will was alive; he was safe. El was alive; she was safe. That was what she and Hopper had been down there for. That was why they had fought. Hopper would be okay with this; he had been.

Pulling herself together, she said, "He—he smiled, and he nodded. He knew what I had to do. For you," she said to El. "And for Will. And ... and for all of us."

Tears were rolling down El's cheeks, and several of the kids turned away, wiping their arms across their eyes.

"I can't," El said suddenly. "I—I can't."

"Can't what, sweetheart?" Joyce asked her.

"My—my powers. I ..."

"They don't work." Mike was there next to El now, his arm around her shoulders. "After she had to take that piece of the Mindflayer out of her leg ... it's like she's run out of juice."

"What if—what if he's not—?"

They were all looking at Joyce now, sharing the thought she'd had last night, that maybe he'd found a way. But without Eleven's powers to go looking for him in the Upside Down, they had to assume he was gone ... although Joyce felt a chill in her heart at the idea of Hopper, lost in the Upside Down, waiting for Eleven to find him so they could come and get him. "He's gone," she said, holding El's hand tightly. "We have to—we have to go on with our lives, the way he would want us to."

"And the Mindflayer is gone," Will said. "I don't feel him anymore."

"So the gate is closed? For good?" Dustin asked.

"It better be." Murray had been uncharacteristically quiet, but now he was on his feet. "Those agents of the government had better keep that thing closed from now on."

Nancy looked up at him. "Or we'll come after them."

"You're scary," he told her. "I wouldn't want you to come after me."

Joyce looked at El again. "So what we're saying is: You're free. We're free."

Eleven was silent, but her brown eyes spoke for her. They said she wasn't sure she wanted freedom at this price. Joyce wasn't sure, either. But Hopper had wanted it for them, and they would have to accept his last gift and learn to live with it.