/ "and i have to speculate that god himself did make us into corresponding shapes like puzzle pieces from the clay" /
Michelle "Mickey" Hopper has a lot of problems. An alcoholic father ignoring the loss of his youngest daughter, her sister, Sarah...
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...Thursday, July 4, 1985... heroes - david bowie
Mickey sat in the back of one of the assembled ambulances in front of Starcourt Mall. Eleven was beside her, leaned over into her chest as the older girl stroked her messy, brown hair. Steve stood at the edge of the door, watching Mickey's detached expression worriedly.
The Hopper girls saw Joyce's return, saw Will run into her arms tearfully. Eleven stood up, almost without thinking, and wandered away from the back of the ambulance, looking for their father.
Mickey caught the look on Joyce's face before Eleven did and stood up beside her. Joyce looked between the two, her head still buried in Will's shoulder. Her eyes squeezed shut as she shook her head.
Eleven silently processed the realization while Mickey's cheeks almost immediately grew damp with tears. She stormed towards Joyce as she said, "No. Where is he? Where is he?!"
Steve ran up to her side, but she again threw him off. Joyce approached slowly. "Sweetheart," she choked out through tears of her own.
"No!" Mickey shrieked, her hands shaking as she weaved them through her hair. "Dad! Where are you?! Where... Where are you?" It wasn't long before her knees buckled beneath her, Steve and Joyce jolting forward to catch her before she fell to the cement. Her sobs grew heavy, body-wracking, and hysterical as if her limbs forgot how to function as she pounded her fists against the parking lot cement.
Eleven slowly came in front of her, tears streaming down her cheeks as she kneeled in front of her sister and dropped her head down into the older girl's lap. Mickey curled her fingers into El's hair and pressed her lips together, squeezing her eyes shut in an attempt to muster some semblance of sanity for her little sister's sake. But moments later, she'd given up, only clutching tight to the girl for any source of comfort she could latch on to, if only for a moment.
...
...Three Months Later...
Three weeks of rehab to restore Mickey's sobriety, though she came out of it looking worse than ever. Two months of reporters hounding them for interviews, grilling Mickey about her father's "tragic passing" as if she needed the daily reminder. The lingering death threat in the mail rambling about Satanism. And yet, life went on. Not that Mickey was too happy about it.
Steve's car pulled into the Family Video parking lot that afternoon just as Mickey was finishing her last shift. She traded her green vest for her last paycheck from Keith just as Steve and Robin came inside.
"Uh, just to be clear," Robin said once their informal interview had begun, "we weren't fired, ya know. The mall burned down and, like..." Robin held off on the second part of her sentence as her eyes darted over to Mickey. She was still visibly fragile even months later. Her sarcasm was less frequent, she always looked exhausted, and she spent most days at the Byers' packing up her things in quiet isolation.
