[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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FOR 352 DAYS, they were happy.
For 352 days, James 'Jim' Hopper and Ana Thompson constructed the best relationship two profoundly jaded people could.
For 352 days, they pretended that life could be normal again.
After the dust had settled over Hawkins, Indiana and the investigators had stopped coming around, Jim finally asked the school teacher on a proper first date to a fancy restaurant outside of town.
"I'm starting to think you don't know me at all," she'd remarked sarcastically without offering a legitimate answer.
Hopper was visibly confused, and his face fell into a look of bemusement. "Is that a no?" He asked with unrestrained surprise. Surely, after everything they'd gone through, she wouldn't be cruel enough to reject him now, right?
Ana sucked on her tongue and offered him a jesting roll of the eyes. "It is if you think small portions of overpriced food are the way to my heart." Maybe she could have been more gentle in her dismissal of the idea, it wasn't like Hopper did this sort of thing often, grand gestures or whatever he was attempting. Drinks at the bar and back to his place was more the polices chiefs mode of operating, but she could give him some credit for trying.
He'd cooked dinner for the two of them at her house instead. Spaghetti, nothing fancy, but at least he'd remembered her Italian heritage and attempted to make an homage to such. It was more private, an intimate affair, than any restaurant could hope to offer, and throughout the evening, over several bottles of wine, they shared the hard truths of their pasts.
"Tell me about Sara," Ana had eventually gotten the courage to ask further into the night. She didn't want to press him, it was obviously a sensitive topic, a constant pain he'd bare for the rest of his life, but one she needed to understand if they were going to move forward.
With a deep sigh, he'd divulged the tale of Sara's sickness. How the first symptoms had come out of seemingly nowhere while they played in the park. The endless hospital visits that followed, none appearing to provide any improvement nor answers as to what was stripping the life away from his daughter. And then, how all too quickly, the seven-year-old was gone. "Diane and I, our marriage didn't last long after that," he'd concluded with a voice that was choked by emotion.
"I'm sorry, Hop," was the only solace Ana could offer. That was often how marriages went after the loss of a child. Grief wasn't easily shared, and the space remaining after such a loss created a distance that no earlier, shared affection could hope to fill. It was just the way things were, and nothing could change that.
"It wasn't your fault, wasn't anyone's fault," he said, draining the glass in front of him before greedily refilling it. It is what it is. It's fine. She was sure he got tired of the condolences and intended sympathies that equated to absolutely nothing.
Well, since she'd made him drudge up the painful past, it seemed only fair that Ana should lay herself bare before him then.
"Before I came here, I dated this guy who lied and cheated," Ana started in on her own story of heartbreak. "Have you ever been with a real crazy person, Hopper? Not someone who you say is crazy after the breakup because you're mad or their mad, but a legitimate sociopath?" The question was obviously rhetorical, and so he stayed silent, studying her.
