Safe & Sound || Jim Hopper || Stranger Things

Chapter Two

'Back to Hawkins'

Dorothy and Gwen drove for over 10 hours, leaving New York around 4:30pm and arriving in Hawkins at around 3:40 am. Thankfully, Dorothy had a key to Joyce's house from when she lived there temporarily over 17 years ago. It still looked the same as the day she left, as did Hawkins. It was like nothing had changed, but of course, everything had changed. Gwen went straight to the sofa and collapsed, falling into a deep sleep whilst Dorothy went towards Joyce's bedroom. Carefully, she opened the door and tiptoed into her big sister's bedroom.

Joyce was barely sleeping, in a light sleep slumber and immediately awoke of the creaking door opening. "Hey J, it's Dottie, you should be sleeping," Dorothy said, Joyce turned on her bedside lamp and looked at her baby sister. They hadn't actually seen each other since Will was around 5 and they took a trip to New York, that was 8 years ago now. "Dottie? When did you get here?" Joyce asked quietly. Dorothy smiled and got into the otherwise of the bed. "Just got here, and I'm staying until Will is found and safe." The mention of Will had set Joyce off, "I heard him, on the phone. He breathed down the phone and there-there was another sound, he wasn't alone but I swear to god it was him, Dot." she sobbed and Dorothy pulled her in for a hug. 

"It's gonna be fine, Joy. Shhh," she hushed and comforted her big sister until the two of them fell asleep.

When the sun rose a few hours later, everyone in the house awoke and came together in the kitchen. "Jonathan! My! How you have grown!" Dorothy smiled and pulled Jonathan in for a hug. "You remember my daughter, Gwendolyn, the two of you played so much together when you came to New York, do you remember?" Dorothy asked the pair of them who awkwardly looked at each other and nodded. 

"Breakfast is ready," Jonathan said, dishing up everyones plates and placing them on the table that was covered with missing posters for Will.

"What? No, be careful of the poster." Joyce said holding her cigarette and moving the posters out of the way. Gwen sat down slowly. 

"You need to eat Joy," Dorothy said placing her hand on Joyce's back. "I can't eat," she replied. Jonathan and Dorothy shared a worried look, "I just need you to eat, mom,"

Joyce ignored him, "Listen, listen. The Xerox place opens in, like, 30 minutes..." she sniffled. "Yeah," Jonathan nodded. "And I don't want you to go alone..." she said. Dorothy shook her head, "It's fine, Gwen will go with him, won't you, Gwendolyn?" Dorothy looked to her daughter who smiled slightly. "Yeah, of course,"

"We need to make, what, 200, 300 copies?" Joyce was rambling. 

"Yeah, okay," Jonathan was just going to agree with him mom. "How much is a copy? Ten cents?"

"Mom, mom! Y-you can't get like this okay?" Jonathan said placing his hand on her shoulder. Dorothy looked sadly upon this situation. She couldnt imagine the pain and stress that her sister was going through. If it had been Gwen going missing, she would have been in bits and tearing up the town.


A knock at the door interrupted the moment at the breakfast table. They all got up and rushed to the door and on the other side was a police officer. Jim Hopper. Dorothy mentally cursed, she knew that coming back to Hawkins meant bumping into old faces but she thought Jim had gone to New York, despite never seeing him there. 

You see, even though Jim and Joyce were two years older than Dorothy, they all hung out together a lot. In fact, Dorothy and Jim had some history between them, when Dorothy was around 16, Jim was 18 and she had the biggest crush on him, and so when she heard he planned to go to Vietnam to fight, she confessed her feelings which led to the two of them spending the night together but when the morning came, he had disappeared and left for Vietnam earlier than planned. 


Joyce's voice snapped Dorothy out of her thoughts, "We've been waiting six hours." Hopped nodded, "I know, I came as soon as I could," he stepped in and closed the door. "Six hours!" Joyce shouted. Hopped focused on Joyce, not noticing the other people in the room.


"A little bit of trust here, all right? We've been searching all night, went all the way to Cartersville." Hopped explained, "And?"

"Nothing." Hopper said and everything went silent. "God," Joyce said and began to break down. "Joy, Joy, that doesn't mean anything, right? He could still be out there?" Dorothy rushed forward and held onto her sister who gripped on tightly. 

It was then Hopper realised that Dorothy was here, in Hawkins. He didn't say anything, he looked at her, the two of them made eye contact until Hopper blinked and broke that. "Flo says you got a phone call?" he asked making his way to the phone. 

He picked it up and inspected the phone, just as Dorothy had down a couple hours previously. "Storm barbecued this pretty good." He noted, looking at the burnt marks. Joyce frowned, "The storm?"