[COMPLETED UNTIL SEASON 5]
Ana Thompson always seems to wind up in the strangest predicaments...
A perpetual victim of Murphy's Law, Ana finds herself arriving in Hawkins, Indiana just prior to the events of November 6th, 1983.
And, just prior to f...
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ANA WAS TRAPPED next to Murray by the aisle, Joyce seated directly behind her as they waited for the plane to take off. Her fingers hadn't stopped trembling since climbing on board, the tremor an extension of her surmounting anticipation manifesting in physical form. They were so close now, minus a few formalities and a couple hundred miles, that she could almost taste success lingering on the tip of her tongue. However, she knew it was foolish to hope things could run smoothly and without incident. When had anything in their lives ever unfolded without descending into disarray?
Still, she tried to remain buoyant even as Joyce leaned between their conjoined seats and asked, "do you think I should've told them?"
Initially, they ignored her. Murray enthralled by his karate magazine and Ana pretending to be deaf, but when her hands gripped their headrests and violently shook, both parties finally gave her their attention.
"What? Told who?" Murray questioned in confusion, setting his reading carefully down in his lap to peer over his shoulder at her.
"The kids. About Hopper," Joyce sighed in regret. "It...it just felt so wrong to lie to them like that."
Murray hummed in consideration for a second, head tilted in thought. "Right, right, right," he drawled in moderate interest. "Well... I'm not exactly an expert in parenting." A gross understatement if Ana had ever heard one. "But, for what little it's worth, I think you did the right thing. The responsible thing. Your children, bless their mischievous souls...they like to get involved. This way, what? They play too much Nintendo, eat too much junk food, smoke some ganja, pound some beers," the more examples of disastrous scenarios he listed, the more horrified Joyce appeared. "Experiment sexually. I mean, really, what's the worst that can happen?"
Doubling down on the torment, Ana decided to add, "yeah, and I already told El what we were really doing." There probably would've been ample discourse over that little revelation if the stewardess hadn't come by, asking Joyce to sit back and buckle her seatbelt, silencing any intended disputes. Murray did offer her an unamused frown, though, as he shook his head in annoyance.
Five hours wasn't that long, less than a full work day, but the flight seemed to extend into forever, only landing after what felt like an eternity. The chill nipped at their exposed faces when they deboarded, flurries of snowflakes swirling through the air and catching in Ana's hair as the passengers uniformly descended the steps to the tarmac. "Welcome to Alaska," the same attendant shouted as they went, the surrounding darkness outside making it hard to see.
"Oh, God," Murray shouted over the whirling wind in alarm. "This is spring?"
Despite the frigid temperate and his persistent grumbling, the threesome collected their rental car quickly, quiet as they chronicled the next day's events over and over in their heads, even as they arrived at the motel, which would barely be seeing any use.
The night was filled with anxious tossing and turning, at least for Joyce and her. Murray was too busy snoring away like a buzz saw with seemingly not a care in the world. And, even if the couch she'd chosen to lie on hadn't already been uncomfortable, Ana figured she wouldn't have been able to sleep regardless. Silently praying for the sun to rise swiftly, so they could start the journey that would eventually lead them to freeing Hopper.
