[COMPLETED UNTIL SEASON 5]
Ana Thompson always seems to wind up in the strangest predicaments...
A perpetual victim of Murphy's Law, Ana finds herself arriving in Hawkins, Indiana just prior to the events of November 6th, 1983.
And, just prior to f...
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"WHICH ONE?" Hopper questioned incredulously past the cigarette positioned between his lips. The cherry flashed red from the hasty words leaving his lips around it.
Ana took a swig of her second beer and hummed in contemplation before answering. "Tall dude, horn-rimmed glasses. God, I'm terrible with names." To be honest, she hadn't given the man a second thought beyond brushing off his unexpected advance. What would have been the point in remembering his name after the rushed and fumbled introduction?
"Callahan?" Hopper queried aloud, removing the cigarette from his lips, holding it expertly between his right fore and middle fingers. "First names Phil?"
"That's the one," she confirmed with a snap and point of the finger, but offered up nothing more as an explanation. The only other Phil she knew was one of her father's old college buddies and she probably could have remembered the correlation if she'd tried, which she hadn't.
"Well, what did you say?" He asked, making no attempt to hide how taken aback he was. When did those two even have time to cross paths, he wondered.
She briefly hesitated, thumb running along the condensation collecting on the surface of her glass. "Depends, what should I know about him?" Was that barely concealed agitation gracing the chief's face? Ana decided she liked the look of irritation on him.
'He's an idiot,' is what immediately came to Hopper's mind, but he didn't dare say that out loud. Instead, he settled with, "he's...age-appropriate."
Ana nearly spit back out the large quaff she had just taken, and quickly put a hand over her mouth in an attempt to keep it in. That hadn't been anywhere close to the kind of response she had been expecting, and the surprise showed in her widened eyes.
Hopper chuckled, his face now holding a self-satisfied smirk, glad to have finally one-upped her in this game of banter they seemed to be playing. One for him and two for her. It still wasn't even, but at least he was drawing closer.
"Really reaching for some positivity with that one, aren't you? Jesus, age-appropriate," she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand to remove any drink that had escaped in her shock. "Probably a good thing I'm on sabbatical from men then, if that's the best you have to offer. Mind if I bum a smoke from you?" She asked.
Ana wasn't a regular smoker and, therefore, never took the effort to buy a pack to carry with her. Sometimes though, usually after a drink or two, the desire for one struck her like an itch that needed to be scratched. She could always rely on the kindness of strangers to satiate her in these times of need, and, tonight, Hopper would have to be her supplier.
"Yeah," he replied shortly while pulling one of the white, offending sticks out of his pack and handing it to her. Ana took it gratefully between her fingers and leaned forward when Hopper struck out his lighter, offering it to her.
As she inhaled that first breath, the smoke wafting around them and mingling with the already existing haze, he returned to their previous stream of conversation. "You becoming a nun or something?"
She chortled at this, finding the idea of her in a tunic and veil humorous. "Call me Sister Thompson," she joked. "I was really into The Sound of Music as a child, you know." Of course, he didn't know. He hardly knew anything about her, but Hopper listened intently for any morsel of knowledge that would explain her practiced ease and sudden presence in his life, in his town.
They shared a smile before Hopper's face became serious once again. "What happened?"
Ana's eyes cast downward at the question, watching her thumb flick the cigarette between her fingers, knocking the ash off one end and into the waiting tray. "Some shit. Isn't that what always happens?" Was her murmured reply, seeming further away now than sitting right next to him. Lost in some thought, some memory he wasn't privy to yet.
Just as quickly as the melancholy mood came on, Ana was pushing it away with a shake of the head. "Enough about me though, I'm boring," she said, taking another puff from her borrowed cigarette. "What about you?" She asked with a wave of the hand in his general direction.
"What about me?" He returned, mimicking her flippant gesture with one of his own.
"Being a big city cop, what's the craziest shit you've seen?" She queried back, all seriousness lost from the earlier moment of reveling.
Hopper scoffed at her use of the term 'big city cop,' but he seemed to consider the comment for a moment. Then, settled on, "since I've been back, the worst thing that's happened was when an owl attacked Eleanor Gillespie's head because it thought her hair was a nest."
The image was enough to coax a hearty laugh out of both parties, the idea of some winged creature trying to settle atop a poor woman's head, but Ana latched on to something else. "Since you've been back? Where were you before?"
"In the city," he responded, no longer looking at her. "Been back four years." And that was it, Hopper made no attempts in offering any further explanation for the departure nor return to his hometown. Just like she didn't go into detail about the 'shit' that had driven her to the same small town.
So, that's how a friendship between the Chief of Police and the middle school teacher developed and progressed. They shared enough to become familiar, but both were always dancing around pieces of their past neither were quite ready to share with the world or each other just yet.
