Healing ||mileven||

The return, part 2

3 weeks later El was discharged by the doctor, Hopper had been insistent that she leave the hospital as soon as safe to do so. The doctor would have preferred she stay longer, to ensure her body was stronger, her malnutrition completely cured, but she was well enough, and in some way he was relieved to rid himself and his staff from the burden of Hopper's constant scrutiny.

Hopper and Joyce knew that El had to be kept secret, the scientists at the lab mustn't find out about her return, for her sake, and the others too. They decided that El would be safest at Hopper's, knowing that they'd have no chance of keeping her secret at Joyce's. El trusted Joyce, so when Joyce told her what was going to happen she reluctantly agreed, fighting her instinct to run from him. Even though she knew the chief had been the one providing her with food, and had been the one to find her and get her treatment, she knew what he had done, she knew that he had told Papa where to find her.

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El grew stronger under their care. With Hopper, she was quiet, saying the bare minimum only when necessary, but when Joyce was there she slowly started to communicate more, to let them in, to trust them both. They encouraged her to speak more, use full sentences, and start to express herself. Under Hopper's care she'd never eaten such good food, having been given the bare minimum at the lab, carefully calculated calories, vitamins, minerals, tasteless sustenance to keep her alive. Her body started to heal and the infection subside. Her cast was removed after 6 weeks, her ribs and bruises healed, the stitches in her back came out. Physically she healed, mentally was a completely different matter. In the upside down she'd had a goal, something to focus on, keeping alive. Thinking about her next meal, the next attack, a place to hide, to gamble sleeping, all served to keep her mind busy. Her body healing and her weakness gave her a focus, something to improve, something to get better, to get stronger. Once she'd accomplished that...there was nothing. Nothing to keep her mind focussed on, nothing to occupy her, and something else took over, thought. Thought focussed on her life, on everything that had happened, neatly compartmentalised into her life at the lab, her life with Mike, her life in the upside down. Everything that had been denied to her, taken from her, and forced upon her, every painful, joyless, abusive minute spent at Hawkin's lab plagued her mind. A childhood spent without parents, friends, fun, compassion, comfort...love. A week of beautiful memories, of Mike, ripped away from her by the same bad men. A year of constant fear, pain, loneliness, of pure survival in the upside down. Every day El retreated further into those memories, unable to escape, she was drowning in them as if they were quicksand, the more she struggled the harder it became to escape them. Hopper and Joyce weren't blind to it, but they had no idea how bad it was.

Then one day she broke.

Hopper came home late afternoon, his first indication something was wrong being the broken glass surrounding his cabin, all his windows had been broken...outwards. His tv was lying some 20 feet away from the cabin, the front door hanging off its hinges. El...fuck. "El! El!"

He ran inside and his face dropped in shock, pretty much everything was destroyed, broken, smashed, what the fuck?! "El! El where are you? EL!" he yelled, searching the place. He returned to the lounge and his eyes fell upon her, she was sitting in the corner half hidden by the couch, leaning against the wall and hugging her knees, staring into space, blood running from her nose and ears. "El? El what happened? Are you ok? El!? Shit." He found his phone and managed to put it back together and ring Joyce.

Joyce arrived only 20 minutes later and found El still in the same position, she wouldn't let Hopper near her. Joyce approached and could feel the power emanating from the vulnerable girl, but El let her through and she wrapped her arms around her slender frame. "El, what happened?" she whispered softly. El buried her head in Joyce's embrace and sobbed. Every tear representing a bad memory she cried for a long time, and Joyce felt it, she felt every heart-breaking emotion washing over her, and she held her tighter until it ebbed away.

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Later, after Hopper had tossed out the worst of the damage, they sat in an uncomfortable silence. Joyce still had her arms wrapped around El, Hopper just sat, not knowing what to do or say, where to even begin.

"El, what happ..." Joyce started

"I can't stay here...I don't want to hurt you" said El hoarsely, interrupting. She had clearly been thinking about it the whole time, watching Hopper throw out his possessions, ones that she'd destroyed, not on purpose, not out of malice, but instead total loss of control. Joyce shook her head. "If you had been here..." said El, her voice cracking.

"No, no, no" said Joyce, gently lifting El's face and looking into her eyes, "you wouldn't have hurt us, I know it, I know it". She sounded so sure, but El knew, deep down, that she could have easily hurt them, or worse, and not even noticed, such was her loss of control.

Hopper sighed, "there's a cabin, a safe house, in the woods, you could stay there, just...while we sort things out".

"No Hop, we can't just send her away, she needs us, she needs a family".

"I'm not giving up Joyce, but I can't force her to stay here, I'd be as bad as them, as him, if I did" said Hopper. El looked at him gratefully.

And so they made their plans. El would stay at the cabin over summer, while the weather was good, Hopper would supply her with food and anything else she needed, they would visit her once a week to make sure she was ok. And she would have things she'd never had before, unlimited space, time to heal, and autonomy to make her own decisions. In the meantime, Hopper would work to get her papers in order, organise Joyce to be her foster-mom, create a real life that El could start leading.

For the first couple of weeks Hopper stayed at the cabin with her every night. In his own house, he'd heard her nightmares, every single night, and he was always there when she woke, drenched in sweat, always crying, sometimes screaming. At the cabin, he noticed a change. She slept more soundly, the nightmares began to come less often, he and Joyce could both see that she had become calmer, she found the place peaceful. They gradually left her alone for longer, first 2 days, then 3, until they only saw her once a week.

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One evening when Hopper was leaving for the week, "Hopper?" whispered El.

"Yeah?"

"I forgive you".

Those 3 words took away a year of guilt, a year of punishing himself for choosing Will over her.

"Thank you" he said, not looking at her, instead wiping away a tear as he shut the door behind him.

Flashback End

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