Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

Help!

"Help!"

Help, I need somebody

Help, not just anybody

- The Beatles

Hopper's day had started the same as usual—woken from a stupor by the neighbor's dog while the TV babbled away to itself. A glance at his watch told him he was late for work, again. Lukewarm shower in his tiny bathroom, in which the showerhead was below the level of his head, involving his usual crouching and contortions to rinse the soap out of his hair. Brush the crud of last night's booze and cigarettes off his teeth, begin again with today's layer by washing his pills down with a can of Schlitz while starting on the day's first cigarette. Uniform on, gun in its holster, grab the keys, out the door.

Never changed. Always the same. What he loved and hated about Hawkins in equal measure.

*****

Joyce had lost track of how many times she had paced Hopper's office. She'd known it was bad, but she'd had no idea he showed up to work this late. She fumbled another cigarette from the pack, getting it between her lips with trembling fingers. Her whole body was shaking so badly it was a wonder she got the thing lit. And then it didn't help, because Will was gone.

Gone. It was almost impossible to believe. Joyce couldn't imagine what could possibly have happened to him in Hawkins. He had ridden his bike home from the Wheelers' hundreds of times, at least, over the last several years. There was no way he'd gotten lost, which meant he had to be hurt somewhere.

To think it had started off like any other morning, hunting for her perennially lost keys while Jonathan made breakfast. That seemed like so long ago, like her reality had been this nameless dread and fear, this holding of the breath waiting for Will to be found, for ... years. Decades.

*****

It still felt like any other morning to Hopper as he pulled into his parking spot in front of the police station—perks of the job, he always got the front spot, no matter how late he showed up. The snarky "Good of you to show" from his secretary, Flo, the lazy 'good mornings' exchanged with his cops, the card game they were in the midde of, feet propped up on their desks. Nothing ever happened in Hawkins, after all.

"Damn! You look like hell, Chief," Callahan said—also just like he did every other morning. The sameness was both comforting and infuriating.

Filling his favorite mug with coffee, Hopper tossed off a one-liner about Callahan's wife, getting the usual laugh.

Flo had followed him from the door. "While you were drinking, or sleeping, or whatever else you deemed so necessary on a Monday morning, Phil Larson called, said some kids were stealing the gnomes out of his garden again." As usual, she plucked the cigarette out of his mouth and stubbed it out in an ashtray kept on Callahan's desk just for that purpose, as far as Hopper could tell.

He chuckled at the idea of the Hawkins police on the trail of the Garden Gnome Gnapper, snagging a doughnut out of the box on the side table.

"Garden gnomes again. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna get right on that."

Flo ignored his sarcasm, proffering a pink slip with a telephone message. "On a more pressing matter, Joyce Byers can't find her son this morning."

Hopper changed around some cards in Powell's hand, ignoring the way his pulse leaped and refusing to consider whether it was because of Joyce or because of the idea of something happening to a kid. This was Hawkins—nothing ever happened in Hawkins. The kid was probably hiding, ran away, got lost, stayed over at a friend's and forgot to call. Joyce had probably found him already.