Detective Byers (English Vers.)

6) A place to earn

"Good morning, kids." Joyce greeted, seeing the two youngsters still half asleep come into the kitchen. "Did you sleep well, El?"

"More than well," El said, stifling a yawn that spoke for itself. "Thank you for welcoming me."

"No need to thank me!" Joyce replied while taking the toast out of the toaster. "That was more convenient for your father. I'm happy to be of service..." She turned to her son. You didn't stay up too late last night?"

The two exchanged a guilty look under Joyce's reproving but not really displeased look.

"Well, you'll go to bed early in that case. Hopper's coming back tomorrow afternoon, I don't want him to find you exhausted. There," she said, putting two jars on the table. "Toast with butter or jam. Is that all right?"

"No worries, Madam."

Joyce flinched.

"You can call me by my first name... If you want to, of course", she finished, very quietly."

Joyce left the house shortly after the children left for school. Since Hopper had dropped the teenager off the day before, she hadn't stopped wondering how much progress she had made in two years. Hopper had helped the fearful, withdrawn and sometimes aggressive little girl to become a happy and polite teenager. She hadn't realised how much she had grown attached to the little girl with the strange powers, who had come into her life when her son had disappeared, and without whom she would never have found him. She felt like a guarantor of the teenager's safety. She knew that she would do everything in her power to make sure that El was never alone again. That she would be there in her time of need... as a second family.

It was always this compelling need to protect... To keep the whole world safe, so that no one, let alone a child, would ever again have to suffer what their son and the girl in her care had experienced.

She arrived at the police station about 10 minutes early. However, a few people were already there. The day before, after the shooting training session, Powell had shown Joyce around the neighborhood. She did not have an office yet, being here on a trial; the temporary chief had then offered her to take his until Wednesday, while he would go to Hopper's office for the next few days. In the tone of confession he had added that he had always dreamt of sitting in the Chief's chair to see what it would be like. He did everything he could to make her feel comfortable, and Joyce could see that. She didn't know if this was due to a request from his superior (which, by the way, was more than likely) or if it was because he too had been brought in to work on Will's case, and therefore knew a little more than his colleagues about Joyce's "investment" in the case.

She took her place in the office, which had been emptied and where only a few supplies were left: a pad of lined pages, two sets of sticky notes and a few pencils in a mug, as well as a computer, of course. As she settled in, she recapitulated what Powell had told her the day before. At 8 o'clock, he was going to bring her files on cases that had already been classified. She would spend a few days studying the processes and methods for working on a case. "Protocol," as he called it himself. He then told her that in the afternoon, a team member would come and work with her for an hour or so. He would show her the study of a current case, and the different ways of thinking, of planning an investigation...

She took advantage of the last few minutes of respite to take a quick look around her. Powell's office was located in the corner of a medium-sized room with four other desks. The desk in front of hers, whose seat was still vacant, was arranged as if the slightest disordered accessory would have had the possibility of making the sky fall on the head of its occupant. Papers were piled up in a neatly, pencils lined up and arranged by colour. Joyce even came to wonder if the person who was working even had time to work after they had finished their meticulous tidying up.