Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

Someone to Watch Over Me

"Someone to Watch Over Me"

Follow my lead

- George Gershwin

Joyce hurried to the door at the first ring of the bell. She felt like she'd been pacing all morning, waiting for Murray to hurry up and get here. She opened it to see him standing there on her doorstep, looking the same as always. Not that she would have imagined him changing, but he looked strange against the backdrop of her neighborhood. "Welcome to California."

"Uh-huh." He looked around him. "They've got you in the most generic place they could find, huh?"

"I think that was the point, yeah." Joyce couldn't wait another minute. "Come on in, you have to look at this."

"Hi, Murray. Nice to see you, Murray. How've you been, Murray?" he sneered at her, following her into the house.

Joyce turned around and glared right back at him. "Seriously? I've waited a whole day for you to get here and you want me to waste time on pleasantries? You're lucky I didn't meet you at the door with a shotgun and some weird space alien wand thingie."

He nodded, reminded of how they had met. "That's fair." Putting down his bags, he held out his hand. "Let's see this note, then."

Sinking down on the couch, he looked it over while Joyce hovered, bouncing on the balls of her feet in her impatience. Then he read it out loud, his tone making it clear that he wasn't buying any of it. "'Hop is alive. He looks ford to date. Pleeze to make resarvazion, call 741-52, blah, blah. Open 12 day P.E.T.T. No government, please. Kind regards, Enzo.'"

Joyce nodded at him, ignoring the sarcasm. Surely now he would see how important it was that they call immediately.

Murray sighed. "I like it even less in person."

"What do you mean, 'like it less'?"

"I don't trust it."

She should have expected that; Murray didn't trust anything or anyone.

He went on, "For starters, who the hell sent this?"

"A friend?"

"A friend."

"Of Hop's?"

"'Hop is alive. No government'? This looks and reads like a ransom note, and a bad one at that. There's no proof of life here."

"Yes, there is," Joyce argued. She sat down next to Murray and took the paper from his hands, stabbing at it with her finger for emphasis. "It's signed 'Enzo'."

"So?"

"So? There's only two people who knew about our date at Enzo's, and that's me and Hop. So whoever wrote this, Hop trusted him enough to make him sign it Enzo. He's sending me a message."

Murray turned to face her squarely, his eyes serious as he said, "You saw him die, Joyce."

"I didn't see a body," Joyce answered stubbornly. She had to hope that meant something.

"Because he evaporated."

"Or ... he survived." They could talk about—argue about—any other part of this note, but Joyce was going to believe there was a chance Hop was alive. That was not negotiable. Everyone had thought she was crazy when she'd said Will was in the lights, too, and if she hadn't stuck to her guns, her boy would be dead. She was going to believe in Hopper just that same way until there was a good reason not to.

Murray must have seen that determination in her face, because he took a deep breath and nodded. "Okay. Okay." He got to his feet, acting out his words with a broadness that told her just how far off the edge he thought she had gone. "Let's indulge this fantasy for a moment. He's Houdini. He's a cat man with nine lives. Whatever it is, he survives. What's he doing in Russia? He was captured, that's what. Then he probably met some new friends. And by friends, I mean the KGB. And believe me when I tell you, these people are the worst of the worst. I am talking torture, Joyce. And no matter how strong you think Jim is, they will break him. They will get his whole life story. And yes, that might very well include a planned date at Enzo's with you, his co-conspirator, making this all an elaborate ruse to capture you as well."

Joyce had two choices: She could believe Murray was right, imagine Hop tortured until he broke, or she could decide not to buy any of Murray's conspiracy nut nonsense. She picked the only option she could live with. "You just made all that up."

"Huh." Murray sat down on the coffee table in front of her. "It's a theory."

"I prefer mine," Joyce told him. She had to.

There was sympathy in his eyes as he answered, "So do I. Doesn't make it right."

"Well, either way, this could be real. Hopper could be alive."

"I suppose there's only one way to find out." He got up and went for his discarded suitcase.

"What are you doing?"

"We're gonna call that number," he told her, laying his suitcase down on the floor and unzipping the sides. "And you're going to find out who the hell sent you that letter. But we're doing it ... my way." He opened the suitcase to reveal a whole mass of electronic parts that Joyce couldn't make heads or tails of ... but she trusted that Murray could.

Still, even with trust, it seemed to take forever for him to set up the machine. He was focused, not wasting any time, which Joyce appreciated, but she was wearing out the carpet pacing while she waited for him to finish.