Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

Ordinary World

"Ordinary World"

What has happened to it all?

Crazy, some'd say

Where is the life that I recognize?

Gone away

But I won't cry for yesterday

There's an ordinary world

Somehow I have to find

- Duran Duran

Joyce had to give credit to the people from Hawkins Lab—when she and Hopper arrived on the main floor in the elevator with Will limp and pale but alive and breathing in Hopper's arms, they had Will in an ambulance on the way to the hospital very quickly, and one of the representatives of the lab followed the ambulance and took Will's doctor aside, talking to him, in order to ensure Will's care would be appropriate.

At some point, Joyce would have to know what story was given so she could follow it as people asked her about Will, but for the moment, she was so glad to see Will back on this side of the world and being taken care of that she didn't care what Hawkins Lab had to say.

Hopper stayed with her, not saying much, for a while, then abruptly disappeared. Since Will was sedated and not likely to wake for some time yet, Joyce followed him outside the hospital where he was standing smoking a cigarette and looking up at the stars.

"I'm sorry," she told him, thinking of his daughter and what that must have been like for him. "This must be the last place in the world you want to be."

"Will's okay. That makes it the only place to be. I just ... needed a little air."

She took the cigarette from him, taking a deep drag, remembering all the times they had shared a cigarette back in high school. "Thank you, Hop. For ... believing me, and fighting for Will, and for—" Her voice cracked, her eyes welling with tears. "For bringing my boy back to me."

But Hopper shook his head. "You did that. You believed what you knew and you didn't let anyone tell you different. You stayed strong for the kid and you didn't stop until you got to him. You're a good mom, Joyce. That kid—that kid is lucky to have you." He reached out and squeezed her shoulder, then took his cigarette back. "Now, get back in there so you're there when he wakes up. You both deserve that."

She understood that he needed to be alone, so she didn't stop to tell him what his words meant to her. Hopefully he already knew.

Jonathan was just arriving as Joyce went back in the main entrance. "Mom. Is he—"

"He's okay. He's okay," she said again, reassuring him. "We got to him in time." Maybe some other time she could tell Jonathan about the thing that had been in Will's mouth, about the fact that he had stopped breathing and they had to bring him back ... but for now they were all better off if she was the only one with those images in her nightmares. "He's sleeping now, but we can sit with him."

Nancy stepped up next to Jonathan. "Did you see Barbara?"

Joyce's eyes filled with tears. "I'm sorry."

To her credit, Nancy took it well. Her face twisted with pain, but she nodded. "I'm glad Will is okay. Did you get back to the school?"

"No. We came straight here. That was you in the house, wasn't it?" she asked Jonathan.

He nodded. "We were trying to kill the thing."

"You wounded it, and its blood led us to Will, but then it was gone." They all looked at each other in horror. "You don't think it went after the kids, do you?"

Before Joyce could think what to do, she saw the Wheelers' station wagon pull up. The three boys piled out of it, looking shocked and exhausted. Karen Wheeler waved at Joyce and went off to look for a parking space, while the boys came up to Joyce and the others.

"Mrs. Byers, is Will okay?" Dustin asked.

"We think he's going to be fine." The absence of Eleven, and the naked pain in Mike's face, told Joyce too much and not enough. "Did the lab come?"

Lucas nodded. "They came. And then the demogorgon came, too, and it mowed them down. Their guns didn't matter." He looked sympathetically at Mike. "But Eleven did."

"She's ... gone?"

"Just disappeared," Dustin confirmed. "Like she never existed."

"She did too exist!" Mike shouted at him. "She existed, and she still does, and she's out there somewhere, and I'm going to find her."

"Hey. Kid." Hopper had come up in time to hear Mike's outburst. "Sometimes when people go out of our lives, they do it for a reason."

"There was no reason! There was no reason why the lab found us there, either. Do you think I'm stupid?"

Mike rushed inside, the other boys following him. Nancy gave them all an apologetic glance and went, too. Jonathan hesitated, but Joyce put a hand on his arm. "Go wait with Will. I'll be up in a minute."

When they were all gone, she looked at Hopper, whose face confirmed everything Mike had said. "You told them where the kids were?"

"It was the only way. They were never going to let us go. They were going to kill me—they said so. And then you would have been next, or they'd have done to you what they did to Terry Ives, and I—that was not going to happen. So I figured, I give them the girl back, and we go get Will, and then we go after the girl."

"And now she's gone."

"Yeah." But his eyes were looking at something over Joyce's head, and she wondered what he was guessing, or what he had already worked out, that she didn't know. But Will was what mattered right now, and she needed to get back to him.

"You coming?"

"In a minute."