Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

I Can See Clearly Now

"I Can See Clearly Now"

I can see clearly now the rain is gone

I can see all obstacles in my way

Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind

- Nash

It was a relief to get home and change out of the too-fancy funeral clothes, to feel normal again. To feel like Will's mom, and not like whatever unnatural creature had attended that funeral.

Joyce felt enough better that she was able to lie down and think about taking a nap, letting herself pretend everything was normal long enough to drift away.

But she was awakened all too soon by a banging from the living room. Wandering in there still half asleep, she found Lonnie, still in his dress shirt from the funeral, nailing boards over the hole in the wall. Well, apparently he felt right at home, then. This was new, Joyce thought. If he had spent more time at home fixing things up years ago, none of them might be in this situation now.

"What are you doing?" she asked him.

"What does it look like I'm doing? You want to freeze to death all winter?"

She didn't have anything to say to that. Not that she had entirely wanted to freeze, and she would have fixed the wall eventually, but his attitude seemed completely unnecessary.

Something else seemed off about the room. She looked around vaguely for a second before she realized: He had taken down all the lights. They lay neatly coiled in piles.

"I told you not to take these down!"

"They were in the way, babe. How long are you going to keep those up? I mean, really."

Joyce just glared at him and started putting the lights back up. She may not know exactly what had happened to Will, or where he had gone when she told him to run, or how it was that they had buried a body that looked exactly like him, but she knew that as long as there was any chance at all that her boy might need her again, those lights were staying right where they were.

She had forgotten what it was like to have someone else around who thought they were in charge ... and she didn't entirely like it. This had been her house too long for her to want someone else to come in and start messing with her things.

They worked for a moment in silence before Lonnie remarked, "You know, it's a shame what they've done to this family."

"What?"

"The Sattler Company. I went to the quarry on the way over here. I just wanted to look around, you know? Couldn't believe it. Just couldn't believe it." He positioned another nail in the board and started hammering. "No warning signs, no fence, no nothing. Ought to be held accountable, if you ask me."

Since she had never believed that body in the quarry was Will's, Joyce had never given that much thought. She supposed he was right, if some child had fallen in, it might have been better if there were signs.

"So, what, you want to talk to them, get them to put up signs and a fence, keep this from happening to some other kid?"

Lonnie glanced at her, placing another board. "Something like that, yeah."

"Huh." Joyce kept hanging the lights, glad Lonnie hadn't pulled out all the nails. That sounded surprisingly nice of him. She'd never known him to worry about other people. Maybe he was turning over a new leaf, strange as that sounded. But ... if Will really was—gone, then maybe that had shaken Lonnie up, made him think about what was really important. Stranger things had happened.