Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

Break It to Me Gently

"Break It to Me Gently"

Break it to me gently

Let me down the easy way

- Juice Newton

Eleven had already gone to bed by the time Hopper worked up the courage to have the talk they needed to have. He'd been trying to figure out how to approach it all night, but it never seemed to be the right time.

"Hey, kid," he called now.

The springs of the bed creaked as she got up and came to the door, opening it enough to poke her head out.

"Come on out, I have to talk to you."

She raised her eyebrows in surprise—he usually was a stickler for bedtime—but she came out into the main room in her plaid pajamas and stood waiting to see what he had to say. The habit of silence was still deeply ingrained in her. Maybe more than ever now that she had spent months living essentially alone in the cabin.

"I, uh ... I have to go out of town for a few days."

The eyebrows went up again, and he thought he could see some fear in the widening of her eyes.

"It's only a few days. I'll leave plenty of food, and you'll be fine."

"Where?"

"I ... have to go to Chicago."

"Chicago," Eleven repeated.

"Yeah." He dug out the atlas, flipping it open to the relevant page. She drew closer, although she carefully didn't touch him, leaning over his shoulder to look at the page. "Hawkins is right about here, and Chicago is there. So I'll drive from here to there, stay over for the night, have the appointment I need to have the next day, and drive back. Three days, or a little less."

But she had been struck by part of his explanation. "Appointment? Doctor?"

"No! I mean, yes, but not me." Hopper hadn't been sure he wanted to tell her where he was going and why, but now he didn't feel like he had much of a choice. "It's Will. You remember him?"

"Yes." She said it like he was some kind of an idiot, which he probably was. How could she forget Will after she'd gone into the Upside Down to find him?

"He's having ... spells, I guess. Where he sees the—that place. Like he's there, only he's not."

Eleven shivered, and he reached to put his arm around her, but she stepped aside.

"That ever happen to you?" Hopper turned to look at her. "Hey, really. You can tell me."

"No." She shook her head.

"Good. All right, then. So we're taking Will to see a specialist, a doctor trained in a certain kind of medicine, to see why he's not getting healthier. You see why I have to go. Joyce—Mrs. Byers—she needs someone with her."

Slowly, Eleven nodded. Then she said, "Mike."

"Mike couldn't go, he's just a kid. And what does he know about doctors?" Hopper knew too much about doctors, more than he'd ever wanted to. But he didn't want to tell Eleven about any of that, and he was glad she didn't ask.

"No, me. To stay. With Mike." She cleared her throat and put the sentence together more carefully. "I could stay with Mike, while you're gone."

"Oh. No. Definitely not."

It was like a thundercloud came down over her face. "Why?"

"Because Hawkins Lab would like nothing more than to get their hands on you. They're staying away from Mike and the others because they think—you're gone, and if they had any idea at all that you were—back, they wouldn't stop until they got it out of them. You think Mike could hold out if someone like that Brenner guy was asking him questions? Because you know they wouldn't be gentle."

He was being harsher than he needed to, but panic filled him every time she suggested going out into the world. He couldn't lose her, too. She was ... everything he had.

Eleven's face crumpled, and she fought to hold back her tears. "I miss him."

"Hey, I know you do. I want you to be able to see him, too," Hopper told her. "And as soon as it's safe, you will. I promise."

"When—when will that be?"

"I don't know. If Will can get better and we can stop having to go to the lab all the time ..." This part he wasn't lying about. As long as he and Joyce and Will were regular visitors over there, no one in Will's circle could know anything about Eleven.

"So ... after Chicago?"

"I hope so. I really do." Joyce's worry about Will was bad enough, but Hopper was worried about him, too, about his paleness and his lack of growth. The other boys were all shooting up, but Will seemed frozen at the same place he was when he disappeared. "Okay? You going to be all right while I'm gone?"

She looked at him, thinking it over, then she nodded. "Okay."

"Good. Now you should get to bed."

Eleven started to return to her bedroom, then stopped and turned to look at him. "Mike's not okay."

So she'd been hunting the kid in her mind again. "No." Mike had been fighting, and his grades were slipping. Missing Eleven was doing a number on the kid, which Hopper genuinely felt bad about. Much as he wanted to keep her to himself, he'd have thought about telling Mike something, anything, if he had thought it would be safe for her. But it wasn't yet—and what he didn't tell her was that he wondered if it ever would be. "Will's good for Mike. He's the only one who gets him."

"I know."

"So we cure Will, Mike gets better, we can let you see him. Deal?"

"Deal." She gave him one of her rare smiles and disappeared into her bedroom, shutting the door behind her. He heard the springs creak as she climbed back into bed.

Eleven. Mike. Will. Hopper wanted to heal them all, just as he had wanted to heal Sara, but again it all felt like it was just out of his grasp, and he was afraid if he made the wrong move he would lose every one of them. And maybe himself.

Staring at the closed bedroom door, he was as afraid as he had ever been in his life.