Caesar's Palace Shipping Week Prompt: Soulmates. Also fulfills Caesar's Palace Emotions Challenge, Prompt 15: Déjà vu.


Disclaimer: Stranger Things is the property of the Duffer brothers. No copyright infringement is intended. The title of this piece is taken from the song of the same title by the band Yes.


Setting: December 14, 1984; Tag to the end of Ep. 2x9


Owner of a Lonely Heart

Joyce shivers, wondering if it's worth wasting the gas to get back inside her car and run the heat. The weather isn't bad for Indiana in mid-December—the Snow Ball has had to get along without any snow this year—but it isn't ideal for standing outside, either. She promised to give Will some space, though, and the parking lot outside the gym is exactly as far away from her son as she's willing to get.

The music from inside comes to her as a muted throbbing. She wonders if Will has found anyone to dance with, and she has to suppress the urge to go to one of the windows and check. Space, she reminds herself. He's fine. It's a school dance, not an encounter with a supernatural creature trying to kill him.

She remembers those days, though. The Snow Ball is a tradition that dates back to her time in school, and there was just as much pressure back then as there is now. To the middle school mind, if you didn't find your soulmate at the Snow Ball, you were pretty much doomed to be single for life.

Joyce doesn't believe in soulmates. She's seen enough of life to know that it's never that simple, that tidy. There's no one special person out there that the universe is guiding you towards; there's just you, struggling to make the right choice in a world where only the wrong choices are easy. Lonnie Byers had been an easy choice. She'd married him because he was there, and when he'd turned out to be an abusive drunk who ultimately ran out on her, he hadn't shattered any pretty illusions because she hadn't had any to begin with.

But Bob Newby had been different. Bob had kissed her in the dark and danced her around the kitchen to cheesy love songs. He'd showed up at work to take her "out to lunch" in the parking lot and made crazy plans to take her away to Maine. He'd awakened dreams in her she'd never thought she'd have, dreams that maybe she was meant for love after all, even if she had missed it the first time around.

Joyce lets out a soft moan of frustration as she realizes where her thoughts have taken her again. She rubs at her temples, trying to massage away the wistful thoughts and, most of all, the image that inevitably follows: Bob's torn, bleeding body, nearly obscured by the slimy gray monster dogs that had no faces, only hideous, gaping mouths tearing him to shreds. What might have been doesn't matter anymore.

"Hey."

She looks up. It's Hopper. She smiles wanly, hoping he didn't see her misery and knowing that he did. "Hey."

"Thought I might find you out here."

"Will wanted me to give him some space, so I'm giving him a few feet." She chuckles. It sounds ridiculous, but Hopper, of all people, understands.

He grins and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. "What do you say? I'm pretty sure that Mr. Cooper retired in the 70s, so…" He puts a cigarette in his mouth and lights it. "We might be okay."

He inhales deeply and passes the cigarette to her. She puts it in her mouth and immediately starts to cough; she's forgotten how strong he likes them. She's swept by a feeling of déjà vu; their strict old teacher's reprimands are the only thing missing from the picture. She smiles.

"How are you holding up?"

His gentle voice brings her crashing back into the real world. "You know," she answers.

"Yeah. That feeling never goes away," he replies, with the honesty she's really come to respect. He pauses. "It is true what they say, you know. Every day it does get a little easier."

Joyce looks up at him, unable to speak. After a moment, he wraps his arm around her, and she buries her head in his chest. She's not sure she's ready to believe him. How can it get easier to let go of hopes and dreams you'd only just started to allow yourself to believe in?

She should have known better. Should have known better than to believe she might get a fairytale ending. Life is never so easy, so perfect. She's no princess, and there's no prince out there waiting to ride in when she needs him most. There's just her, grieving and worried and exhausted and oh, so terribly alone.

She burrows deeper into Hopper's chest and cries.