Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

Twist of Fate

"Twist of Fate"

This is a new beginning

I'm back in the land of the living

- Olivia Newton-John

Joyce almost had all the lights back up when someone knocked at the door. Banged on it, more like, obnoxiously on the glass, so she couldn't possibly miss it. It could only be Lonnie, back with some new way to pitch his greed, and when was he ever going to learn that when she said no, when she said get out, she meant it?

"Go away, Lonnie."

He didn't. He banged on the door some more. Furious, she threw the lights she was untangling on the floor and marched to the door. "Seriously! I am gonna murd—" The words died on her lips when she opened the door to find Jim Hopper standing there, holding a finger to his lips and a sign that said "DON'T SAY ANYTHING". "What?" she mouthed, taking the sign as he pushed his way into the house.

Hopper looked around, seeing all the lights hanging from the ceilings. Damn it, he had forgotten those. "Oh, Jesus," he muttered. This was going to take them all night. He reached up and unscrewed the nearest bulb, looking at the socket carefully. Then he pointed to Joyce, and to the bulb, and to the rest of the lights.

Her eyes widened, and she mouthed, "Seriously?"

He nodded, and kept unscrewing light bulbs. Joyce grabbed a crayon that lay on a table nearby and followed him, scribbling on the other side of the paper. She held it up to him. "What are we looking for?"

Taking the crayon, he scrawled "Bugs" on the paper.

"Bugs?" she mouthed. Then she shrugged, climbed on top of the coffee table, and started unscrewing light bulbs.

At last Hopper took out the last bulb. He was breathing hard—it had been a damned long day, and he hadn't stopped for so much as a cigarette in hours. But it looked like they were clear. There was no sign anyone had bugged Joyce's house. "Okay," he said, sinking into the nearest chair. "Should be okay. I mean ... I can't guarantee it, but it should be okay."

"What the hell's going on, Hopper?"

"They bugged my place."

"What?"

"They bugged my place," he repeated. "They put a microphone in the light." He sighed, sinking further back into his chair, feeling a strange sort of safety for the first time all day, here with her. "It's because I'm onto them and they know it. I don't know ..."

"Who?" Joyce broke in.

"I thought they might be watching you, too. I don't know, the CIA, the NSA, Department of Energy, I don't know."

"You've got to explain this to me, 'cause I am not—"

"I went to the morgue last night, Joyce."

She froze, terrified of what he might say. All day she had managed to push thoughts of that body away, of what it might mean, and here was Hopper with this crazy story saying he'd been to the morgue. "What?"

"It wasn't him."

For a second, she wasn't sure she had heard him right. She had known it, in her heart, but to hear Hopper confirm it was a whole different thing. "What?" she repeated, needing to hear it again.