Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

Never Surrender

"Never Surrender"

So if you're lost and on your own

You can never surrender

And if your path won't lead you home

You can never surrender

- Corey Hart

The cot was narrow—too narrow for his bulk, although admittedly there was a lot less of that bulk now. Hopper was pretty sure he wouldn't recommend the Russian gulag diet program to his friends, but it had certainly been effective for him. Amazing how being separated from his recliner, his TV, and his endless supply of snacks—not to mention his cigarettes and beer—did away with all that accumulated pudge. Let's see someone call him "Fat Rambo" now, he thought, wincing at the memory of poor, doomed Alexi.

He shifted restlessly on the cot, trying not to tip it over. It barely held him as it was. One night he was going to jerk awake from a nightmare and bring the whole thing crashing down onto the stone floor of the cell, he was sure of it. Of course, it had already held him for ... how many nights was it now? Too many, that was for sure.

It had been a pleasant surprise when the Russians who had found him in the Upside Down didn't kill him. And Siberia, although it lived up to its reputation in stark cold and hopelessness, was an improvement over the literal hell that was the Upside Down. No demogorgons, for one thing. No demodogs. No Mindflayer.

God, he missed those kids and their stupid monster names. He could almost hear Dustin going on and on about some stupid detail that didn't matter. What were they doing now? It was ... midsummer there, he was pretty sure, although it was hard to keep track of the passage of time when every day felt the same as every other. They were putting their lives back together, they were being kids in the summer time, they were—

Well, that was the real hell of it. He didn't know. He didn't actually know if Joyce had survived the explosion of the machine. He didn't know if the Mindflayer's meat monster had been defeated, if El—if any of the kids had been ... harmed by it. He didn't know anything, and he would have given every beat of his living heart to know for sure that the people he loved were safe and well and something approaching happy.

In the daytime, when he was on his feet and working on the chain gang and watching everything going on around him, filing away every movement of the guards and every detail of the camp for his eventual escape, it was easy to be positive, to be sure that they were all right. But here in the cold dark of his cell, lying alone on this tiny rickety cot, fear snuck up on him and whispered in his ear that it had been too late, that he had failed, that he had been the reason they all died, just like he was the reason Sara had died. Because he wasn't strong enough or smart enough or fast enough. Because everyone he loved came to a bad end.

To combat that insidious demon, more dangerous than anything on a Dungeons and Dragons board, he talked to El. "I'm okay, kid," he whispered into the dark. "I'm okay. I'm strong. I'm going to get out of here. Do not come looking for me. Do not let Joyce come looking for me. You two take care of each other, take care of Mike and Will and Dustin and Nancy and Lucas and that Harrington kid and Jonathan and the red-haired girl."

He imagined El, cross-legged on the floor with a tie over her eyes, listening to static, seeking him in her mind, and he smiled, for her sake. "I am going to get out of here. Somehow, some way. I promise you that. And I will find you. Nothing will keep me from you. Or Joyce. Tell her that. Tell her I—" He stopped himself. When he told Joyce he loved her, he wanted it to be in person, when he could hold her and kiss her and never let her go. "Tell her I'm okay. And you be safe, and be smart. And be happy."

Beginning to get warm enough to sleep, he pulled the thin blanket more tightly around his shoulders and turned carefully onto his side. "Be happy," he whispered again.

He imagined dinner at Joyce's, all the kids eating pizza, talking over each other, arguing, laughing, making stupid jokes. He imagined catching Joyce's eye over their heads, both of them smiling. He imagined all the kids in bed, just him and Joyce together on the couch, a bottle of wine, kissing ... Farther than that his imagination dared not go. Some imagined moments were too much to endure in a Russian jail cell.

Slipping closer toward sleep, he imagined all the kids on their bikes, El smiling and laughing freely, no darkness in her face, no hesitation, just like a normal girl. She could go to school this year. What would she wear for her first day? What classes would she take? She'd ace them, of course, because his girl was smart. And Will and Mike and Dustin and Lucas and the red-haired girl would help her. She had friends who loved her. They would watch over her and take care of her and make her laugh, and when he got back to Hawkins she would be there, so beautiful, waiting for him. His girl. His strong, powerful, sensitive, intelligent girl.

Smiling, Hopper drifted into a fitful sleep, the blanket pulled tightly around him, dreaming of being home.