Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

It Don't Come Easy

"It Don't Come Easy"

I don't ask for much, I only want your trust

And you know it don't come easy

- Ringo Starr

The house was still silent when Hopper got up the next morning. Well, this wasn't going to continue. Yeah, he had screwed up, but there wasn't going to be any sulking. He was more than willing to apologize, but she had to talk to him.

In the kitchen, he built a three-layer Eggo sundae, with Hershey's Kisses and jelly beans and Reece's Pieces liberally scattered over it and stuck between the layers, setting it on the table before going to get her up.

He tapped on her door. "Rise and shine." When there was no response, he pushed the door open, seeing her huddled under her quilts with her back to him. "So that's it, huh? You're still not talking?"

Nothing.

"All right." He sighed in exasperation, turning away from the door. Then he turned back, playing his hole card. "I guess I'm just gonna have to, uh, enjoy this triple decker Eggo extravaganza on my own."

He hadn't even made it back to the table before her door closed—but only briefly, while she got dressed. She didn't speak when she came out, but she did come willingly to the table and sit down across from him. Hopper figured that was good enough for a start, and he stuck a fork and knife into the Eggo stack, cutting it in half.

As El picked up half an Eggo on her fork, Hopper licked whipped cream off the knife. Eggos weren't his favorite, but whipped cream was good stuff. He exaggerated his noises of enjoyment to try to get a rise out of her. "Good, right? You know the great thing about it? It's only eight thousand calories."

Silence. Not even a hint of a smile.

Cutting another wedge of Eggo, Hopper looked down, noticing the cord from the TV snaking across the floor and into El's room. That could mean that she had stayed up late watching movies, but it was more likely to mean that she'd used it as white noise to go looking for Mike in her mind.

Looking up, he saw her watching him, and he was sure of it. "You visited him again last night?"

Silence. Her eyes dropped, unable to meet his. After a moment, she spoke softly. "He says he needs me."

Hopper didn't doubt that he did. What Mike had been through—meeting Eleven, taking care of her, having her save his life not once but twice, and then losing her entirely—had been devastating for the kid. "You want me to go check on him?" He had done so, carefully, a couple of times, but Mike blamed him for Eleven's loss, and fair enough.

She shook her head.

"I know that you miss him, all right? But—it's too dangerous."

El looked up at him, her wide brown eyes worried and sad.

"You're the last thing he needs right now." The words felt inadequate. Worse, they felt harsh. Against his better judgement, Hopper added, "You're gonna see him. Soon." Just to see her smile, he kept going, making the kind of promises he had told himself not to make—not until he had a plan for dealing with the lab, which he was still far from having at this point. "And not just in that head of yours. You're gonna see him in real life. I feel like I'm making progress with these people."

She was too smart for him, though. She saw right through him. Leaning across the table, she said deliberately, "Friends. Don't. Lie."

"What?"

"You say 'soon' on Day 21. You say 'soon' on Day 205. You now say 'soon' on Day 326?"

He had known she was counting the days, but he hadn't known she was memorizing his words. He had meant to give her hope, to suggest the possibility, not to promise. He saw now that she had taken his words for promises, unused to the way parents sometimes made vague statements like 'soon' to push their kids' expectations off indefinitely. So he did what he did when he felt guilty—he went on the attack. "What is this, you're, like, counting the days now? Like you're some kind of prisoner?"

El would not be deflected. "When is 'soon'?" she demanded.

Hopper didn't know what to say. He didn't know when 'soon' would be—just that it wasn't now. "'Soon' is when ... it's not dangerous anymore," he told her, fiddling with the badge that he was trying, and failing, to pin on his shirt. His hands were shaking, his heart pounding. He couldn't lose her. He couldn't risk losing her. She was everything he had, his last chance.

"When?" Her voice was like a hammer's blow.

Hopper looked at her, then back at the badge. He couldn't bring himself to lie to her, but he couldn't bring himself to tell her the truth, either. He shrugged. "I don't know."

"On Day 500?"

"I don't know."

"On Day 600?" Her voice was rising, and now so did his.

"I don't know!"

"Day 700? On Day 800?"

"Jesus!" he shouted, while Eleven shouted back "I need to see him!"

With her mind, she shoved the plate across the table, whipped cream and Eggos spattering his lap. He stood up, looking down at his uniform. "Shit!" He didn't like to swear in front of her, but she had pissed him off, so he looked at her and said it again. "Shit!"

Eleven was on her feet as well. "Friends. Don't. Lie!" She stalked off into her room, closing the door with a contemptuous sweep of her hand, leaving him with the mess to clean up, his uniform to change and bundle off to the dry cleaner's, and a sense of guilt that made him even more angry than the rest of it. Why couldn't she just accept the situation and let him protect her?