Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

The Future Never Dies

"The Future Never Dies"

We're alive

And the future never dies

- Scorpions

Jonathan and Nancy agreed to drive Murray home. Someday Joyce was going to need to hear that story, but she felt she could wait a while for the details. Steve Harrington and the blonde girl offered to drive Dustin and Erica home. That was a weird grouping, but after what they had told her about the way the girl, Robin, had figured out the Russian code, and how the four of them had mistakenly found themselves in the Russian bunker and survived, Joyce could see how they might not be ready to let each other go just yet. Lucas hitched a ride with the four of them so he could go to Max's house and check on her.

Which left Joyce at home with Will and Mike and Eleven.

The kids were silent for a while, sitting with cups of hot chocolate, while Joyce tried to think what to do next. She should go into town, she should talk to the police about Hopper. Flo. Flo should know the truth, or some of the truth, or something about the way he had died. But Joyce wasn't ready to talk to outsiders about Hopper yet. She still didn't feel like he was gone. When Bob had died, she had felt his absence like a hole in the world. But Hopper was supposed to be here. He belonged here. And she couldn't find in herself any way to feel that he was really gone.

"Mrs. Byers," Mike said abruptly.

"What is it, Mike?"

"The Chief. I know you said ... well, the others are different. But—you don't really think he's dead, do you? You think he survived somehow." He was looking at her, his eyes fixed on her face.

She shouldn't let them believe. She shouldn't let herself believe. But she couldn't help it. "I ... didn't see his body," she said cautiously. "There were—well, there were piles of clothes where some of the Russians had been, but where Hopper had been standing ... there was nothing. Not a button or a hair or a scrap of fabric. Like he had just vanished out of the world."

"You didn't see what happened?" El asked. There was criticism in her tone, and Joyce bristled at it, fair though it was.

"I couldn't look. Could you look? If it had been someone you l—" She caught herself before using the word. She had never said it to Hopper, it wasn't fair to anyone if she used it in front of the kids. "I've known Jim Hopper since I was ten years old. I know all the ways he screwed up and all the ways he got things right. And I knew I didn't have any choice but to turn those keys and let those machines kill him. But I also knew—" A sob caught in her throat and she turned away. "I knew I had to. For Will. And for you. For all of us."

Joyce put a hand over her face, trying to control her tears. She felt a gentle touch on her shoulders, and turned around to see Eleven standing in front of her. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too. I wish it had been different. And if I were you, I'd be angry with me, too. But please know I wouldn't have let anything happen to him if I had had any other choice."

"I do know. I'm trying."

Joyce reached out and pulled the girl close and they held each other for a long time.

"If—when my powers come back, I will look for him," Eleven promised, but she didn't sound optimistic.

"Just ... live your life. That's what he would have wanted for you. If ... if he's still out there, it's what he does want."

"What if he's waiting for us?"

"To find him? To save him?" Joyce felt a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, the first one since she'd lost him. "Jim Hopper has never been able to wait for someone else in his whole life. He's come a long way, he's learned a lot, but I think you can safely be sure that if he's out there somewhere, Jim Hopper is not waiting to be saved. He's trying to figure out a way to get back to us. And if he can, he will. And if he can let us know he's there, he will." As she spoke, Joyce felt more and more sure that was the way it was.

"So what now?" Will asked.

"Now ... I guess we go to the cabin and get El's clothes and things and we make a space for her here while we figure things out." To El she added, "You can have my room and I'll sleep on the couch. I doubt I'll sleep well again for a long time, anyway. And a girl your age should have her privacy."

Eleven nodded solemnly. "Thank you."

Joyce was already thinking ahead to the end of summer, to Hawkins High School and all the questions the kids were going to face, and realizing that she didn't think she wanted them to have to go through that. They'd been through enough. Maybe what they needed was a new life, a fresh start. Somewhere warm, maybe, where you didn't have to deal with snowdrifts and ice and the spring mud.

But there was time enough to think of that later, when the kids had had a chance to heal, to get past what had happened and start thinking about their futures. For now ... "Who wants pizza?" she asked, and all three kids raised their hands.

"I'll order, you guys go hit the Atari or something." They looked at each other, and then at her, and they took their hot chocolate into the living room.

Joyce watched them fondly. These three kids had been through way more in their short adolescence than most people went through in their whole lives. Her job from now on was to let them be kids, to try to make them happy.