Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

Babe

"Babe"

You know it's you, babe,

Giving me the courage and the strength I need

- Styx

After seeing Murray to the top level of the arena, and making sure he knew how to work the flamethrower, Joyce and Hopper went back into the control room. Given the mass destruction all over the prison, the thorough way the Upside Down had taken the place, Joyce was grateful the lights were still on, and the cameras, and the monitors.

Hopper bent over, studying the images, looking for the right demodog to go after. "Too close and the others won't fall into the trap. Too far away and—" He didn't finish, but he didn't need to. Joyce knew the end of that sentence. She had seen it already. Hopper tapped on one of the screens. "That one there. See him? In the laundry room? It's not far from here."

Joyce would have liked to be home doing her own laundry right now. Home and safe with her family around her, and with the knowledge that the Upside Down was gone for good. Having it come back now ... she could no longer imagine life without it, without this terrible fear of loss and horror that had hung over her ever since Will hadn't come home that night.

"He's all alone," Hopper muttered. "He's our target."

She could sense that he was all in—he had a plan, and the plan was going to work, and he was completely focused on it. But all Joyce could focus on was the way Bob's hand had fallen to the ground. One moment he'd been reaching for her, and the next— She closed her eyes, but the sounds were still in her ears. The screams and—and the other sounds, the ones she couldn't even bear to think about. She had barely gotten over Bob. Maybe she hadn't; maybe she never would. But Hopper—Hopper was part of her. They'd been partners in crime in high school, and that connection had never really gone away. To lose him now, again ...

"Hey."

Joyce jerked out of the memory, looking up at Hopper.

"I'm going to die, someday."

She supposed there were less helpful things he could have said right now, but she couldn't think what they might be.

He wasn't finished. He held her gaze with those intense blue eyes of his. "But not today. I've still got a date to make, remember?" Hopper whispered the last sentence.

"I don't know, Hop." Joyce wanted to cry. She wanted to fling herself into his arms, to scream at the unfairness, to hold him here so she couldn't lose him again. But she had to be strong—for Will, she reminded herself. And for El. And for all the others.

He stayed calm. Joyce hadn't realized how much she had missed how steady he was, how sure of himself, and of her. "This time it's going to be different."

"It better be," she told him. If they were doing this, he needed to know that she expected him to survive it. "I am not having another funeral." She never wanted to go to another funeral as long as she lived.

Gently his hand cupped the side of her face and he leaned down to kiss her. This kiss was less passionate than the last, but firmer, softer, sweeter. A promise of things to come.

He drew away slowly, holding her gaze, and then swiftly turned and was gone, as though if he lingered for another moment he might not be able to go.

Joyce watched him leave, trying to be as strong as they all needed her to be. She was so tired—so tired of thinking they were free, and safe, and then being sucked back into this. And she was trying not to think of Will and Jonathan and El and Nancy and Mike and all the others back there in Hawkins—and how had her sons gotten to Hawkins anyway?—without anyone there to help them.

The lights were blinking, and buzzing with every blink. It was very annoying. Joyce wished they would stop, then hastily took it back, since all of this would be impossible if the lights went out, and they would all certainly die.

On the monitors, she watched Hopper move deliberately down the halls. She could imagine how carefully he was stepping, determined to make no noise until he needed to. Her heart was in her throat as she saw him approach the door to the laundry room, step quickly to the other side, then use the barrel of the rifle to ease the door open.

Then the demodog turned, and its face opened as it leaped for him. Joyce gasped loud enough to hear herself over the buzzing of the lights as Hopper slammed the door in the thing's face and started sprinting back down the hall.

The closed metal door only stopped it for a few moments, then the door blew off its hinges and the demodog was in the hall, chasing after Hopper.

"Hurry," Joyce whispered. "Hurry."

Hopper slammed into a wall coming around a corner, quickly course-corrected, and continued pounding his way down the hall, but he had lost precious seconds in the process, and the demodog was catching up.

Joyce stared at the monitor, seeing it all happen in her mind's eye—the thing catching up, tearing into Hopper, his hand reaching out—

No. No, that was not going to happen. Not today. This time was going to be different; she would see to it. She was not standing helplessly by while the Upside Down took someone else she loved.

Wildly, she looked around the room for a weapon, and her eye fell on several long black rods with metal at the tips. They were attached to the wall. Cattle prods, she thought. On a charging station. Live ones.

Yes. That would do.