Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

Lyin' Eyes

"Lyin' Eyes"

My oh, my, you sure know how to arrange things

You set it up so well, so carefully

- The Eagles

It was hard to let Joyce go when Bob came out of the room to find her. She was in so much pain, pain that Hopper remembered so clearly, and he wanted to be the one to make that pain go away. He wanted to see her smile again, like she had begun to do last summer, before Will's episodes got worse, to fix all of this for her.

But he couldn't. He couldn't fix things for Joyce; he hadn't been able to fix them for Sara, or for Diane. And when he tried to fix things for Eleven, he had only made them worse.

Eleven!

He stopped stockstill, trying to do the math in his head. How long had he been gone? And with no word to her? She must be terrified, especially after they had left things in such a disaster.

Hopper rushed out of the hospital and out to his car, snatching the CB off its cradle and tuning it to their channel. He pressed the call button in their Morse code signal, waiting for a response.

There was nothing. God, she must be so pissed at him. She must think he had just gone away and left her there. This whole mess was all his fault, because he hadn't been able to keep one simple promise.

He had to apologize. He had to tell her how sorry he was, how much she meant to him. He had never been good at this, but he had to try.

Leaning forward over the steering wheel, Hopper pressed the talk button. "Hey, it's, uh ... it's me. I know that I've been gone too long and, uh, it's, I just—I want you to know that it's not about you and it's not about our fight. Okay?" He waited a second, but there was no response. Obviously he couldn't tell her what had happened, not sitting here in his car in the parking lot of the lab, no matter how much he wished he could. "Something came up and I will—I will explain it all when I see you. I just, I want you to know that I'm not mad. I'm just sorry. About—everything." Tears were stinging his eyes now, and he closed them, trying to hold the tears back. There was no time to cry. Not now. He had to explain, so she would know. "I don't want you to get hurt. At all. And I don't want to lose you." There was more, there was so much more, but he didn't know how to say any more. "Just make sure you heat up some real food, okay, not just Eggos, and I want you to eat all the peas, even if they're mushy and gross, and ... I will be home. Soon," he promised.

He let go of the talk button and sat there for a long time, thinking about all the ways he had gone wrong, the ways he had hurt people, hurt her, and how he could make it up to her.

*****

Owens had gone to a meeting; Hopper had gone outside, probably for a cigarette. Joyce envied him. She could have used one right now.

Sitting with Will and Mike and Bob, the minutes seemed to go on for hours. "What the hell is taking so long?" she asked at last.

"Hey," Bob said encouragingly, "doctors take forever, always. Just try and relax." He reached for her hand. "Just be patient."

She couldn't hold his hand. She was too nervous, too angry, too frightened. She wanted to get up and scream and throw things, but she didn't want to freak Will out. Will had to be so scared.

Glancing at him, Joyce wished he was scared. This Will was too calm, too expressionless. Her boy was fading, she could see it.

Throwing off the blanket, she jumped out of the chair. She couldn't stand to sit there one more second.