Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

Strong, Strong Wind

"Strong, Strong Wind"

This time I'm holding on with everything

This time I won't let go for anything

- Heart

Hopper and Joyce stared at each other across the few feet of space that separated them. Having convinced himself that sending for her had gotten her killed, Hopper was equally convinced now that he was either dead and had gone to the kind of screwed-up heaven that was reserved for the likes of him or had completely lost his mind. 

Joyce stood frozen. After everything she'd been through in the last few days, it was hard to believe she was really here, in front of him. And then she launched herself across the concrete floor and wrapped her arms around him. He was thin, and he smelled pretty bad, and the cloth next to her face was scratchy, but ... he was alive.

Hopper's arms went around her automatically, but he still didn't believe it. He looked over her head, recognizing Murray, to his surprise. Okay, so he wasn't hallucinating, because he would never have hallucinated Murray. And no afterlife would be cruel enough to stick him with Murray, of all people. He was sure of that.

He could feel Joyce there against his chest, her arms around him, her head pressing into his shoulder. The smell of her—after months of prison uniforms and unwashed men, her shampoo smelled unbelievably good. Could it be? Could it really be that she was here?

He drew her back so he could look at her. Her dark eyes, so huge in her little face.

Joyce searched his face for a sign of recognition, of happiness, but he looked blank. She thought of what she had just watched him go through, imagining that tenfold over the months he had been here. So maybe it would take a while for him to get used to the idea that she was here, and he was free. She could wait. She could hold steady for the both of them.

She held him again, wrapping her arms more tightly around his shoulders, nuzzling her head into his shoulder. Whatever happened, she wasn't letting him go. Not again. Not ever again.

Hopper rested his cheek against the wool of her hat, closing his eyes and breathing her in. He had underestimated her again. All her life, people had been underestimating Joyce, him included. He knew now that while he had sent that message, he hadn't actually believed she could save him. And now here she was, Joyce Byers in a Siberian prison. She was the person who had opened the doors and saved him from the Demogorgon, he was sure of it. Whatever happened, he was never doubting her again.

Holding her close, he finally let himself believe. And he smiled.

There wasn't time to stand here forever. A clearing of the throat from Murray reminded them both of that. They drew apart. "You're here."

"You're alive." She lifted a hand to touch his face.

"I can't believe you came to save me."

"Ahem." Murray had drawn closer.

"And you, too. Thanks, man."

"Anytime."

Behind Hopper, Antonov had drawn closer. "This is ..."

"I am Dmitri Antonov. But you may call me Enzo. And you are Joyce, of course."

"Oh! Enzo. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much."

"It is perhaps early for thanks." Antonov glanced nervously over his shoulder. "That ... thing is still out there. And ... many soldiers and guards are in here."

"We need to get out of here," Murray agreed. "This way."

Hopper didn't ask how Murray had become so familiar with the interior of the prison. There was time for all the explanations later. He held Joyce's hand and let her lead him.

Murray led them all back into the guardroom, where a walkie-talkie lay on the floor screaming into the room in Russian. He picked it up and held it near the mouth of the young board operator, who was lying on the floor, handcuffed to the bars that surrounded the room. Murray spoke to him in Russian.

Antonov was talking to a man in a white coat, in the meantime. Yuri, still gagged, wandered over to the two of them. Antonov was clearly irritated by whatever answer he had gotten, slamming his hand against the wall over the white coat's shoulder.

Joyce pulled Hopper into a corner of the room and sat him down in a chair. "Where are you hurt?"

"I'm fine."

"You are not. I just watched you out there. We're not getting anywhere with you injured, and I'm not taking you home with an infection. Now. Where are you hurt?"

Hopper stared at her for a minute. He'd forgotten how much determination was contained in one small body. "My arm," he said at last, shrugging off the coat.

She winced when she saw the wound there, but immediately set about cleaning it off as best she could and then tying it up with a piece of his shirt. Hopper let her, trying to adjust to this new reality where she was alive and she was here and she was taking care of him and maybe there was a future after all. "Guess you got my message, huh?"

"Oh, no, I just have always wanted to visit the Soviet Union. With Murray."

"You two getting along?" He had to admit, he wouldn't have expected her to bring Murray, but he was a pretty good choice as a partner to infiltrate a Russian prison.

She glanced in Murray's direction, smiling a little. "He's the Starsky to my Hutch."

Hopper looked into her beautiful face, the face he'd been picturing in his dreams all these months, and couldn't help remembering what it felt like to think he had lost her forever. "I thought you were dead. Thought I lost you," he whispered.

Joyce was near tears, thinking of all those months when he was gone, and she had to accept that maybe it was forever. "I did lose you. For eight months. We had a funeral."

He tried to imagine that. "Anybody show?"

"Are you kidding? You're the hero of Hawkins."

Well, how about that. The screw-up Hopper kid grew up to be somebody in his tiny little hometown. He laughed.

"It's true," Joyce insisted.

"Yeah, I always felt I'd be easier to like when I was dead."

Joyce tutted at him.

"How about El?" Seeing Joyce, being with her, filled him with a longing to be with his girl, too, to see her smile and know she was okay.

"She's good. She misses her dad. We all do."

Hopper held his breath. There was so much he wanted to tell her, so much ...

But Murray's voice came loudly across the room before he could even contemplate where to start. "Uh, I hate to interrupt, but apparently, they can climb, too."

On the screens in front of him, they could all see the Demogorgon climbing up the side of the pit.

So. It wasn't over, and they might still die today after all.