Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

Hold on My Heart

"Hold on My Heart"

Oh, I will be there

Yes, I will be there

Be there for you

Whenever you want me to

Whenever you call I will be there

Yes, I will be there

- Genesis

They drove back to Joyce's house, Will and Joyce in Jonathan's car with him and Nancy, the three boys, some red-haired girl, and the Harrington kid in Hopper's truck.

At the house, they unloaded the car. Jonathan got his brother settled on the couch and made a cup of coffee for his mom while the rest of them milled around aimlessly. Once Joyce had the mug in her hands, although she was too shocked to think about drinking the coffee, Jonathan faced Hopper. "You want to tell me what the hell happened in there? What's wrong with Will? And my mom?"

"Bob was killed," Hopper told him. "He saved our asses, got us out of there, but—he didn't make it. Your mom had to watch that happen. She—" He looked at Joyce, hoping to hell this wouldn't break her. She had been through so much, and even though she was one of the strongest people he had ever met, she had never believed that about herself. He didn't know if she could make it through this. He thought of Eleven's mother, sitting there blank-faced in front of the TV for the rest of her life, and he shuddered at the idea that that could be Joyce.

"And Will? What happened to my brother?"

Mike stepped in, his eyes big and wide and nearly as shocked as Joyce's. "The Upside Down. It—it got him. It—it took him over." Those big eyes filled with tears that Mike was too old and too young to shed. He swiped at his face angrily. "He betrayed us. He—"

Jonathan glared at the kid. "He wouldn't do that!"

"It wasn't him! Don't you see? He's—Will isn't in there anymore. He didn't want to! It made him!"

Nancy stepped in between the boys, one hand protectively on each of their arms. "Okay. It's okay, Mike."

"It's not okay." He turned away so they couldn't see him crying.

"Look, guys, I have to call this in. What happened in that building—those people have families. Someone has to know." Hopper had tried not to think about that, but he couldn't help it, now, seeing those still faces in his mind's eye.

He hadn't imagined it would be easy, but getting the woman on the other end of the phone line to understand what had happened was nearly impossible. She kept asking questions like she was reading off a script. Did he know how many people were there, how many people were still alive, had he called the police ... Clearly he had completely failed to get across the terror of those moments, the scramble just to get out of there alive. There would be questions later as to how a man, two children, and an unarmed woman were the only ones to get out alive despite the number of highly trained MPs the lab had employed—but he didn't have time to deal with those questions now.

Hopper gave the woman Joyce's number and slammed the phone back on the hook.

Jonathan was crouched down next to the couch, stroking his brother's hair. He felt guilty for not being there, although Hopper hoped he didn't beat himself up too much. He doubted Jonathan could have prevented anything that happened today.

The rest of the kids were sitting around the kitchen table, Joyce having withdrawn silently to her bedroom.

"They didn't believe you, did they?" Dustin asked him as he turned away from the phone, boiling mad at the stupid woman on the other end.

But the kids didn't need to see that anger, so he kept calm with an effort. "We'll see."

"We'll see?" Mike echoed in disbelief. "We can't just sit here while those things are loose!"

Mike had seen what Hopper had seen—that men with automatic weapons had barely managed to slow those things down. So what he thought they were going to do against them, Hopper couldn't imagine. The kid was in shock, barely holding it together, though, and Hopper sympathized with the desire to want to do something. Anything. He hated just sitting here and waiting himself. But there came a time when you had to suck it up and let someone else handle things, no matter how little you liked it.

"We stay here, and we wait for help," he said firmly, knowing Mike didn't want to hear it, and hoping he would listen anyway.

Leaving the kids to manage Mike, Hopper moved slowly down the hall and stood in front of Joyce's closed door. He could only imagine how she must be feeling right now, and he wanted so badly to be able to fix this for her, to make it right somehow. He knew he couldn't, and he felt so helpless.

He hated feeling helpless.

Approaching the door, he knocked lightly, but there was no answer, so he pushed it open anyway.

Joyce was sitting there on the end of her bed, a blanket draped over her shoulders, those drawings of Will's all over her walls. She didn't turn when Hopper came in, didn't indicate she knew he was there.

Nothing he could say was going to help—but he couldn't leave her, either. And he didn't want to. Out of all the places in the world he could have gone right now, this was where he wanted to be. Even his desire to go check on Eleven was less strong than his need to be here with Joyce, to help somehow by just being here.

He sat down on the floor, leaning against the desk on the wall across from her bed.

She didn't speak, or look at him, but she turned her head in his general direction, as though it helped to know he was with her.

That was enough for Hopper. He took a deep breath, leaning his head back, and looked up at her. Remembering high school, and all those times sitting around talking about the future and what they wanted ... thinking of being with her last winter, the strength in her as she fought for Will, the courage she had finally found within herself. The courage he had always known was there.

He was in love with her, Hopper realized. Maybe he always had been, maybe ever since high school. Maybe it had always been Joyce, hiding there in a corner of his heart.

Figuring that out as she was mourning the death of another man was the worst kind of timing, he knew, but it didn't matter, because he didn't need her to love him back. Not now. He just needed her to be okay, and he was going to sit here as long as he needed to in order to make sure she was.