Could This Be Love...? {COMPLETE}

(part 9) Silver

Friday , 5:41 pm,
3 months went by, nothing really bad happened in Hawkins, the news channel actually only started producing weather and updates on animal shelters. Hopper had never seen the crime rate so dead. Both him and Joyce knew that at any minute something was bound to happen, to strike. "hey Joyce..," Hopper said, waiting for her response. "Yes chief?" She smirked. Hoppers face flashed red at the nickname, "uh- what do you eat for dinner? I-..I mean what do you want to eat for dinner? It's 5 o'clock, we need to.." "hey hop it's Flo" Flo interrupted Hopper's stutters. "Whats up Flo?" Joyce asked, "A Lady reported that a silver haired man broke into her home and kidnapped her son. Callahan and Powell are off duty today and we need someone to go check out the scene." Flo answered. "Alright Flo we will be right there, Hey can you save me a cookie please?" Hopper asked. "Fine hopper I'll save you a snickerdoodle." Flo laughed. At this point in the conversation, Joyce was lost in her thoughts, back to the day they found Will where she was sitting in that interrogation room. Yelling and screaming for that bastard to let her out, and to find her son. She remembered the horror of how startling that creepy man that tried to lie to her and convince her to help him looked. She remembered that right when he walked into the room, if she hadn't have known any better she would've thought he was a creep, a criminal. While yes., he was both of those, he had kidnapped children, abused them and tested them, she didn't know that for sure at that time all she knew was staring into the eyes of a cold hearted man, desperate to cover up his tracks. .Could Brenner be alive? No! He isn't alive.., the kids and El had said that they saw him get attacked.., by that.. THING. That demogorgon it's not possib- "JOYCE! Are you okay? I've been yelling for you for like 5 minutes. What's wrong?" Hopper yelled, snatching Joyce out of her usual trance. They occurred pretty often when she was scared or stressed. "I'm okay.., I was just thinking, what if this silver haired man is Brenner, I mean the guy kidnapped a child.. that's what Brenner does.." Joyce trailed on, "I thought Brenner died..?" Hopper questioned, kind of looking at Joyce like she was insane. "but what if he just got injured?" Joyce added, growing more suspicious by the minute. Hoppers face grew pale "HOLY SHIT WHERE IS ELEVEN RIGHT NOW?" Hopper started freaking out. "Hopper.., Shes at Maxes with the party.. she's safe." Joyce said, calming him down. "okay babe, let's just go check out this crime scene, find a little DNA and then we can have some proof before freaking out." Hopper said, driving off. "hey hop? you were the one freaking out. Not me." Joyce smirked. "yeah yeah yeah.. okay." Hopper said, leaning over to plant a kiss on Joyce's forehead. "WOAHHH EYES ON THE ROAD BUDDY." Joyce yelled at Hopper before he almost hit a vehicle. He had to swerve like a maniac to avoid the accident. "that kiss was worth almost dying" Hop joked, and Joyce just rolled her eyes in response, smiling at Hopper.

The kids sat at Maxes, all playing DND. "THE DEMOGORGON!" Will growled "Mannnn.. I thought that thing was gone!" Mike whined. "I guess not.." El laughed "why can't I have powers in DND??" El then jokingly complained. "Yeah! El should be able to use her powers in the game" Max laughed

The two adults pulled up to the petite brick home on the corner of the street, not too far from Melvads. While exiting the vehicle, Joyce had a sudden gut feeling to grab her gun, so they walked inside, to find a relatively quiet home. TOO QUIET, Hopper thought to himself. Then he heard a noise. Joyce was breathing very heavily, which could definitely be heard over the pen drop silence of the home. Hopper covered her mouth as he guided them towards the noise. The hardwood floors creaked at each step they took, they soon walked towards a door. Hopper jiggled the door handle a few times and then growled "Hawkins Police Open up!" no response. Both him and Joyce nodded at the same time to silently contemplate when to bust through the door.
"1.. 2..3.." Hopper mouthed, then they both kicked the door at the same time, causing it to fall to the ground with a loud Bang! The room was almost pitch black, but they were guided to the corner of the room by muffled screams. They tiptoed to find a tied up blonde woman,  she wasn't much older than Joyce, but definitely didn't age as well as Joyce. They approached her and she started freaking out, but not at them.., the older lady's eyes grew wide as she saw a figure approach behind Joyce. The tried screaming something inaudible before the figure grabbed Joyce and held her with a knife to her throat. The sight of the knife made Joyce's heart drop, the glare beaming off of the metal from the slight light of the window in the room terrified her. She wanted to scream, to run, to kick her captors ass, but she was frozen. "Don't come another step closer Jim..or your little partner isn't going to see daylight ever again" the man growled. Joyce set back into reality after hearing his voice, "Brenner", she thought to herself. She then quickly noticed that his grip on the knife was very loose., so carefully, she moved her head down and snatched the knife with her teeth, and threw it across the room, catching Brenner off guard. She stomped on his foot, making him move to the other side out of instinct and then elbowed him in the stomach, making him crouch down in pain. Hopper then threw the taller man into the wall, knocking him out cold. He jumped on him and proceeded to handcuff Brenner as Joyce went and untied the woman. Out of the corner of Joyce's eye she saw movement, and there at the door was the little boy that Brenner has held captive. After realizing that his mom was okay, he ran to her and gave her a big hug. Joyce watched as the two embraced and teared up a little at their reunion. Then the little boy ran to Joyce, catching her off guard and gave her a big hug, barely reaching her torso. "Thank you for saving my mommy strong lady!" The little boy said through cries. "Your welcome buddy.." Joyce said, fighting the urge to cry. Hopper came up behind Joyce, and gave her a big kiss on the cheek. boy did she love her job..

After the reunion and loving embrace, Joyce and Hopper dragged Brenner to the back of the Tan Blazer. As they buckled up and drove off they heard the whimpers of Brenner awakening. After a minute or two Hopper turned off his mic and started to talk to Brenner. "hey sonofabiscuit, DONT EVEN think about messing with me or my family again. Or actually, don't mess with anybody In Hawkins again. I don't want to see YOU in my town ever again. Or I'll make sure you don't see daylight. Me and my badass wife here will beat the shit out of you. You understand douche?" Hopper growled, threatening Brenner. Brenner was so beat up from his encounter with Hopper that all he could manage was a nod. Brenner was so bruised and swollen, his silver hair was bloodied and he was so cut and beat he didn't even look the same. But that's what happens when you mess with The Party, You pay for it because they are a team, Even when separated. Joyce leaned over and laid her head on Hoppers shoulder, and fell asleep on the way to the station. But Hopper let her sleep until even after they got home. She was in a peaceful sleep and Hop didn't want to ruin that.

Hopper laid Joyce onto the couch as they entered the peaceful home. He got his snickerdoodle, cut it in half and heated up some milk. He woke up Joyce and handed her a warm glass of milk and half of the cookie. She ate the cookie pretty slowly but once she drank the milk she was out of her sleepy state. Hopper ate his half and then they snuggled on the couch, watching Miami Vice until they dozed off, not even caring about dinner or that the fell asleep in their work uniforms. Just the peacefulness and reassurance that the Silver Haired Man was in custody and unable to hurt their family anymore. They had an amazing story to tell El when they saw her at lunch the next morning.