Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

I Want to Believe It's You

"I Want to Believe It's You"

So many days in blue

Thinking that life maybe passed me by

- Quarterflash

The first time she called, Joyce assumed Murray wasn't answering out of some paranoia, so she called back right away. And then one more time for good measure, before deciding he wasn't home—which was weird—and waiting for the beep on his answering machine. "Murray, it's Joyce. I got this weird package in the mail. Someone sent me a doll. A creepy doll. From Russia. And I don't know why, or who, or what, or anything. So you need to call me, right now. Immediately."

And then she waited, staring at the Russian doll, racking her brains to figure out what it meant that someone had sent it to her, and glaring at the silent phone.

Finally, it rang. Joyce pounced on it, hitting the button to connect the call. "Where the hell have you been?" she demanded.

"I have karate from one to three on Fridays," Murray explained, in that annoying tone that said she ought to have his whole schedule memorized. "So, let me see if I have this right," he continued. "You received a doll in the mail."

"Yes."

"And it's creepy."

"Oh, yes," Joyce confirmed.

"And you believe it's from Russia, huh?"

"I know it is."

"Hmm."

"The ... the stamps on the package have that hammer with that hook thingamajig," Joyce explained.

"Sickle."

"Whatever."

"Sounds like it came from Russia."

Joyce glared at him over the phone. She'd told him that already. "Wow, I am so glad I called you." He laughed, and she shook her head. Did he not see how weird this was? "Should I be worried?"

"I would be. Could be a threat. After all, you did sabotage their U.S. operation and killed about two dozen comrades."

Well, that wasn't exactly reassuring. But it was pretty much what Joyce had been thinking. "But how would they know my name?"

"If it's the KGB, Joyce, and they want to find out who you are, they will." There was a pause, then he added, in a more interested and less conspiracy-theory tone, "Wait, can you undress her?"

"What?"

"The creepy doll. Can you remove her dress?"

"I don't know ..." Joyce tucked the phone into her shoulder and picked up the doll. "Okay." She pushed up the doll's shirt. "Jesus."

"What?"

"She has nipples."

"Ah! Yeah!" Murray said.

Joyce frowned at him. Men were strange.

In a calmer tone, he added, "Okay, now, do you see anything taped to her? Wires or a bug or something?"

Investigating further, Joyce pulled down the doll's skirt. The china body had a crack in it. Someone had sent her a broken doll? "I don't know," she told Murray. "It's cracked."

"Cracked?"

"Yeah, like the porcelain's cracked and they tried to glue it back together."

"Okay, okay. Uh ... do you have rope and and something heavy?"

"What for?"

"Smashing."

"Why am I smashing it?"

"Because you don't know what's inside it, Joyce. And whatever it is, you probably don't want to know."

"So, you want me to drop something heavy on this thing? Why can't I just use a hammer?" Joyce asked.

"Because you don't want to be standing in front of it when it breaks. Just in case."

It occurred to Joyce, as she hunted in her garage for rope and something heavy—and safety goggles and gloves, because Murray seemed to think those were important—that she needed new friends. People who were normal.

Then again, a normal person probably wouldn't be willing to help her figure out what was going on with her creepy package from Russia, so maybe it was good that her best friend at the moment was a paranoid conspiracy nut.

She stayed on the phone with Murray while she tossed the rope over a tree branch, tying one end of it to a paint can they'd had in the garage, holding the phone in her shoulder while she used the rope to haul the paint can up until it hovered high in the air above the doll.

Across the street, one of her less-friendly neighbors was getting her groceries out of her car, while her two kids stared at Joyce as if dropping a paint can on a creepy Russian doll wasn't a normal thing to do. Joyce gave them a friendly wave and a "hi", but the neighbor rushed her kids inside. California or Hawkins, the Byers family was the same to the neighbors, apparently.

"Was this really necessary?" she asked Murray.

"If that porcelain belly is pregnant with an explosive device, you will soon be thanking me. And remember, you are not lowering this bucket. You are ..."

"Releasing it. Got it."

"We want to make sure that we destroy that doll with as much force as possible."

"Yep. Got it." And she let go, dropping the phone in the process.

Just as she did so, Murray shouted, "One more thing! Joyce. Are you there? Talk to me. Joyce! Joyce!"

She picked the phone up. "Yeah."

"What happened?"

"It broke."

"Do you see a bug? Anything with wires? Or anything that ... doesn't look like the insides of a doll."

Joyce approached the doll, kneeling next to her and moving the clothes aside. Inside the broken stomach, she found a folded piece of paper. Opening it up, she nearly fell over. If she'd thought the sight of those Russian stamps had taken her breath away, the first words on the paper nearly stopped her heart.

"Hop is alive!" it said.

Alive. Hopper. Hopper was alive. And in Russia.

She picked up the phone, cutting off Murray's worried stream of questions. "Hopper," she said, trying to find her voice.

"Jim? What about him?"

"He's alive."

There was a long silence, and then Murray's voice, calm and reassuring for once. "I'm on my way."

But Joyce wasn't listening to him. "Hop is alive!" the message said, in letters cut from magazines. "He looks ford too date. Pleeze make resarvation." It gave a number, and went on to say, "No govt pls. Kind regards. Enzo."

"Hopper," she whispered. "Oh, Hop."