Rachel Hopper, daughter of Jim Hopper, chief of police, friend of Jonathan Byers and Robin Buckley, founding member of the Hawkins High drill team. Her whole life gets thrown upside down so to speak when Will Byers is officially declared missing and...
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As summer and graduation rolled around, Rachel decide to quit working her job at the arcade. It was preceded by a conversation that she had with Steve about the future. To her surprise, the kids didn't seem too upset about the fact that she had left the arcade for a job at the mall, instead. She worked at the JC Penney's, which gave her quite the advantage of being able to see Steve and Robin more often. She always went to Scoops on her lunch break.
"Hey, Rachel, I'll finish your shift," one of her coworkers said.
"Thanks, you're the best!" She grabbed her stuff and ran to Scoops just so to could see Steve and get free ice cream for life. Robin let her in the back and Steve was sitting at the table.
"Hi," Rachel breathed. He got up and kissed her but their moment was cut short when Robin yelled from the front that "our children were here". They only really come by because they like to sneak into the movies. Rachel was about to pay for her ice cream when the power went out. Steve was aggressively flipping the lightswitch, and Rachel tried to refrain from laughing.
"That isn't gonna work, dingus," Robin said.
"Oh, really?" He only flicked the lightswitch faster and as Rachel started laughing, the power came back on. "Let there be light."
Everyone was confused, all for valid reasons. There wasn't a storm and it ddn't sound like any transformers blew. Steve took Rachel to the break room and put his forehead against hers. With his hands on her waist, they swayed back and forth, trying to savor the moment before it could be interrupted by someone.
"Do you want to come over tonight and meet my parents?" Steve asked. Rachel kind of backed away from the shock of hearing the question. It took her a minute to fully understand what he was asking, and she was nervous. Steve took note of her nerves and tried to calm her down.
"I told them not to be assholes and I showed a picture of you. It will be fine."
"Okay. Yeah, sure. I mean, as long as there's food, you know I'm down. But is there anything in particular I should wear? Like do you want me to dress nice because I can stop home on the way and get a dress."
"They wouldn't really care. I mean, in the picture that I showed them, you were wearing a Queen shirt."
"Okay. Keep an eye on my things. I'm gonna run out to my car and get my change of clothes. I think they're clean," she said. Steve nodded and she grabbed her keys and went out to her car. After taking her name tag off and searching the whole car for her change of clothes, she came up empty handed. With a sigh, she locked her car and went back to Scoops. Steve was sitting when she went back to the break room. She hugged him from behind and smelled his hair.
"I love you. Can I borrow 20 bucks?" She finally asked. He looked up at her and smiled a little.
"Mm, what for?"
"Well, I don't have a shirt in my car which means that one of the kids probably stole it, and I don't want to wear my work uniform in front of your parents, so can you buy me a new shirt?"
Steve sighed before pulling his wallett out of one of the pockets on his Scoops Ahoy uniform. He handed the twenty to Rachel and she gave him a kiss. She avoided her work place like the plague when she wasn't on the clock, so she went to The Gap. It took her a while to settle on a simple, solid colored v-neck before paying and leaving the store. She found a bathroom to change her shirt in before going back to Scoops and putting her work shirt in Steve's backpack. They decided to drive separately so that Rachel could leave if she wanted to. She was behind Steve on the drive to his house, but she didn't mind it.
As Steve struggled to unlock the door in the dark, Rachel laughed at him.
"If this was a scary movie, you would be the first to die. No questions asked. Let me do it," she said as she took the key out of Steve's hand and unlocked the door without any problems. Steve was dumbfounded.
"Mom, dad! I brought my girlfriend!" Steve yelled as they walked in. His parents came out of th kitchen and gave her a warm welcome. From all that she had heard about his parents, they were being uncomfortably nice to her.
One of the first things that she noticed about his parents was that his dad was really arrogant. Steve could tell that Rachel was noticing this, and he tried to subtly hold her hand to prevent her from yelling at his dad to "put him in his place". It would've been funny to watch, but he didn't want Rachel to do something that she would regret, especially in front of her boyfriends dad. She got along well with his mom, which was good. They talked about music for a while before dnner was actually ready. As everyone started to sit down, Rachel held Steve's hand under the table to get him to relax.
"So, Jim Hopper is your dad?" His dad asked.
"Yes, he is."
"He's a nice man. I like him. Good choice, Steve," Rachel chuckled a little bit but it was kind of awkward.
She helped his mom with the dishes when everyone was done eating and Steve took her up to his room. They both laid on the bed together before she looked at the time on her watch.
"Shit. It's almost 11. My dad is probably wondering where I am. I should go."
"Are you tired? Do you want to stay the night or something?"
"Thanks for asking, but I think I'm just gonna head out. It's only a 10 minute drive and I think I'll be fine."
"Okay. Here's your other shirt back. At least let me walk you to your car."
Rachel said ok to his offer and they told his parents that she was heading home.
"See you tomorrow," he said. They shared a quick kiss before Steve had to go back inside.
She made it back to the cabin and went straight to El's room to talk to her about her day.
"I met his parents," Rachel said. El got up and did a little dance, which made her laugh, before congratulating her. It looked like the dinner went well. They stayed up talking to each other until after midnight when Rachel decided that it was time to take a shower and go to bed. She had to open the store in the morning, and she was not looking forward to it.
Something told her to take the longer route to the mall in the morning. She drove by the old steel factory and got a bad feeling, but she was on time for work, so she couldn't quite figure it out.
She opened the store and it took about an hour for a few of her coworkers to come in and get to work. She decided not to tell anyone about her driving by the closed down steel factory. With everything that had happened, it still felt like most of the town didn't know about the lab and whatnot.
