El had never felt anything quite like what she was feeling now. She'd been hurt before, but never like this. This was different. This was utter betrayal from someone she trusted, someone she loved.
"Is it true?" she asked softly.
Hopper didn't answer.
"Is it?" she demanded again, looking him in the eyes, though he remained staring at the ground.
Hopper sighed heavily before he began.
And that was all it took for El to know the truth.
"Joyce?" she questioned.
It was just a name, but he knew what she meant.
"No, no kid. Joyce had no idea."
Another heavy sigh before he continued. "I never would have told him if I didn't think you could protect yourself," he started to explain weakly, knowing it didn't really matter.
El stumbled backwards, staring at him wordlessly until she knew that she couldn't be there any longer.
"El, please, wait."
The cabin's screen door angrily shrieked as she slammed it open to run out.
"Come back. El! El!" Hopper yelled after her from the porch.
It was of no use; she wasn't coming back.
Her heart was pounding, and her ears were ringing. She raced through the trees, not bothering to keep on any path. Her vision was starting to blur, and the wet leaves made traction difficult. A branch sliced painfully across her cheek, nearly jabbing her in the eye. She wanted to stop, but she knew that she had to keep running.
She quickly came to the road and recognized where she was. It was raining hard now, and her bare feet were covered in mud. El knew where she had to go. She slowed, walking along the side of the road because running was becoming too painful on her bare feet, though she picked up her pace the closer she got. When she finally arrived, the entire house was empty and dark. Then she remembered that Mike had told her that he would be gone for two nights; the whole family was going to visit his grandparents in Michigan. Mike had been annoyed about it all week, so this wasn't a surprise for her at all. She had simply forgotten in her state of mind.
El was freezing, shivering, and wet, head to toe. She thought about going inside anyway, but she didn't want to be there alone.
It was dark outside now, and she had nowhere else to go, so she started for the only other safe place she knew. She knew how to get there; they had walked the path back and forth a hundred times.
When she got to this house, there was a warm orange light coming from the front windows, reminding her of home.
El walked up to the front door and hesitated, briefly wondering what if Joyce didn't understand? After all, Hopper had made the trade for Will's safety.
El twisted the knob anyway because she never once felt like Joyce loved her any less than her own kids, and she really needed someone right now. The door opened, and she stepped inside. There was nobody in the living room, so she stood frozen and dripping in the doorway instead.
Joyce was in the kitchen, but she had heard the door open. She assumed it was Jonathan, but when he didn't say hello and she didn't hear anyone walking through the house, she immediately got concerned.
"Jonathan?" she called, hearing the downpour of the rain, louder than it had been a moment ago. When no one answered, Joyce cautiously came around the corner.
"Oh my god, sweetie. What's wrong?" she immediately asked, throwing the dish towel from her hands down on the table as she approached her.
Joyce ushered her a few steps inside so she could close the door behind her.
"What happened?" she repeated. "Are you alright?"
El couldn't form a sentence so she said nothing. Being somewhere she finally felt safe caused every bit of resolve she had to crumble, and tears started freely flowing. Joyce helped her over to the couch and sat down next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.
Joyce took in her disheveled state, concerned. "Did something happen to Hopper?"
Hopper.
El sobbed louder, now feeling a sharp, stabbing pain in her chest between her ribs. She thought her heart might actually be breaking. "It hurts," El cried.
"Where baby? Shh," Joyce tried to soothe. She ran a hand next to the red welt on her cheek. "Here?"
El managed to shake her head no.
"You have to tell me so that I can help you," Joyce said, smoothing her wet hair away from her face.
"Ri-ight he-re," El choked between breaths. She pressed hard with her hand between her ribs and doubled over. "I-I-can't breathe," she finally managed to get out.
Joyce now recognized the signs of El's panic attack. She had also felt the same way too many times before and knew that El must be feeling very scared. She pulled her closer to her body, and El started nearly hyperventilating.
Will heard the commotion and came out to see what was going on.
"Mom?" he questioned, looking from her to El with concern.
"It's okay honey. Can you please get her a towel?"
Will nodded and came back quickly from the linen closet.
Joyce took it and wrapped it around El's shoulders, trapping some of the dripping ends of her soaking wet hair underneath.
"She's going to be okay, sweetie," she told Will softly. He understood that his mom meant for him to leave them alone, so he made his way back to his bedroom, though still very worried about his friend.
Joyce pulled El back, forcing her to look her in the eyes. "Breathe sweetie. In… and out. In… and out," she coached just as Hopper had done once before with her. It took El a few attempts until she was able to get enough air in to her lungs to calm down a little.
Joyce rubbed her shoulders, trying to dry her off as best as she could with the towel.
"I don't feel good," El warned abruptly, throwing herself up and in motion towards the bathroom. Her mouth was watering, and she knew all too well from her days in the lab what it felt like when she was going to be sick.
She knelt in front of the toilet, throwing up all she had in her stomach. She hated this feeling.
Joyce stayed next to her until El had nothing left. She finally sat back against the wall, exhausted.
"I'm going to get you some dry clothes," Joyce murmured.
She came back and set the clothes on the edge of the bathtub, but El didn't move to get up. Joyce recognized that kind of hurt, the one with the blank stare, the kind that makes it so you can't move, can't get up, can't do anything. She didn't know what caused it for El, but still, it was familiar.
"Come on sweetie," Joyce told her, pulling her away from the wall. She towel dried her hair one more time and lifted her arms up to help her out of her wet shirt, replacing it with one of her own. She helped her stand up and held her pants out for her, the way a mother would help dress a toddler.
"That's better," Joyce said, guiding her back out to the couch. She sat her down and wrapped a blanket around her. She ran a gentle hand next to the red welt on her cheek again. She needed to know what happened. El needed to talk. "Did someone do this to you?"
El barley shook her head no. "Tree," she explained simply with one word.
They were both silent for a few minutes while Joyce tried waiting her out. El laid her head down on her shoulder, and Joyce wrapped her arm back around her. "Do you think you could tell me what happened?" Joyce finally asked gently. She needed to know if they were in trouble.
El thought about it, about what she would say, but she didn't want to talk about it. She didn't want to say the words out loud.
"Did something happen with Mike?" Joyce tried to guess.
El shook her head no. "Hopper," El finally admitted.
"Oh, I see. Did you have a fight with him?"
El thought that it couldn't really be called a fight when minimal words were actually exchanged. "He gave me back to Papa," El blurted out.
Joyce's mind ran a mile a minute at what that could possibly mean. Hopper would never give El up; she meant so much to him. "What do you mean he gave you back to your Papa?"
El started crying again. "For Will. He gave me to Papa to find Will," she revealed.
Joyce put it all together, realizing how her and Hopper were suddenly and surprisingly allowed into the Upside Down; it must have been because he had traded El for Will.
Joyce hugged her tighter. "Baby, I'm sorry," she apologized after a minute. "I had no idea."
"I know," El agreed, sniffling.
Joyce didn't have anything else to say. She knew there was no way she could make this better, no way she could make El feel any less devastated, so she resolved to just make her feel safe tonight.
El cried until she had no tears left. When she was finally quieted down, Joyce asked if she needed anything. El shook her head no, clinging tightly to her instead.
"Okay sweetie." She understood El was only asking for her instead. El pulled her legs up on the couch and curled up on Joyce's lap. Joyce rubbed her back until El's eyelids became heavy and finally closed.
It was maybe an hour later when Hopper practically came crashing through the front door. His worried face immediately relaxed when he saw that El was safe, wrapped in Joyce's arms.
He closed the door quietly and sat across from the two of them. El whined, stretching her legs out before hugging Joyce a little tighter. Joyce's hand went to her head, stroking her hair. "Shh," she whispered to the girl in her arms.
Neither of them spoke until they were sure El was asleep again.
"Thanks for taking her in," Hopper finally said.
"She's always welcome here," Joyce replied. She didn't look him in the eyes, but she had a look on her face that he couldn't ignore.
"I assume she told you," Hopper rasped.
Joyce nodded. That night, Brenner had also interrogated her about El's whereabouts just as he had done to Hopper. She never would have asked him to trade another child's life for Will, and he knew that.
"I did what I thought I had to do," he whispered.
"Hop." It hurt her to say this. "I think it'd be best if-"
"Joyce," he interrupted, his tone practically begging for forgiveness. He didn't want to hear what she was about to say any more than she wanted to say it.
"I think you should go," she finished anyway. "She'll be fine here tonight. I just, I don't want her to wake up."
And see me, Hopper adds to himself knowing that's she means.
"She was so upset she made herself sick," Joyce disclosed with regret.
He didn't say anything and didn't make a move for the door.
"Jim, please," she urged with a whisper.
He stared at the two of them for a long minute. He knew El felt safe and would be fine here; it was clear in the way that she clung to Joyce, but that wasn't the problem.
"Fine," he finally agreed standing up. He moved towards Joyce to kiss her goodbye, but she turned her head. It was impossible to not understand what she meant, and it hurt. He planted a kiss on the top of her head instead, lingering there for a minute.
He left without another word. There was nothing else he could say. Nothing was going to make this right. He hadn't experienced regret like this in many years. He never meant to hurt El or Joyce, that was the last thing he ever wanted to do.
But he knew how powerful El was the night he first met her. She had gotten away from the bad men more than once, and he knew that she could do it again, while Will stood no chance being in the Upside Down.
But he also knew that it didn't make what he did any less disgusting.
Hopper remained in the driveway briefly, then decided to leave, knowing Joyce was right. El was safe, and neither of them wanted to see him. He felt even worse knowing that El had been so upset that she had gotten sick over it.
Because of him.
He knew he would always find a way to hurt everyone that he cared about. It was just who he was. A black hole.
He anxiously smoked cigarette after cigarette until he got back to his trailer. There was no sense going to the cabin tonight alone. He stepped inside, throwing his keys on the table, looking around. His own house was unfamiliar, but he hadn't forgotten the feeling of overwhelming loneliness and disappointment. That was easy to remember, and it set in the moment he sat down on the couch. He stood back up and moved to the cabinet, the one with the hard liquor. He pulled the amber liquor out and drank straight from the bottle. Though it had been over a year since he had drank to get drunk, the burn of the liquor going down was also familiar.
Anger fueled by drunken anxiety took over after a bit. He paced the living room and ended up kicking the end table so hard the leg fell off. He created two holes in the wall too, resulting in bloodied knuckles.
When the alcohol wasn't enough, he searched for the orange prescription bottles he had stashed away in the bathroom vanity. Tonight he needed to be numb.
Joyce stayed with El on the couch thinking over tonight's events until she was getting drowsy too. "Sweetie," Joyce said nudging El gently. She woke up with a whine but didn't move from her position. "Let's get you to bed."
Joyce helped her up and walked her to the bedroom. She pulled back the covers on her bed and El climbed in. "Stay?" El asked.
"Of course hun. I'll be back in just a minute," Joyce promised, leaning down to kiss her forehead.
She shut off the lights in the house, said goodnight to Will, and promised him that El was alright. She climbed in bed and El scooted towards her, curling up with a soft sigh.
"Do you love Hopper?" El murmured.
Joyce thought about this for a moment before answering. Not because she didn't love him, but she didn't want El to misunderstand.
"I do love him," she answered after a minute. "But I don't think that he should have ever told your Papa where you kids were that night. I think that was the wrong thing to do. I also don't think Hopper thought you would get hurt. He never would have wanted you hurt," she added. This was something she thought a lot about earlier while El was asleep.
"Will was going to die," El replied unexpectedly. Joyce didn't argue that because it was true. "Do you think Hopper loves me?"
Joyce had no doubt about that either. "Of course he does. I know he does honey," she promised, stroking her head. "And I love you too."
"I wish you were my mama," El whispered sadly.
"Even though I'm not your mama who gave birth to you, I still love you just like I love Will and Jonathan. And I know your mama loved you so, so much," Joyce comforted. "I'm so sorry about everything that's happened," she apologized after a moment. "And I know that Hopper is too."
"Why didn't he tell me before?"
"I'm sure he knew that it would be upsetting. And I know that he doesn't want to see you hurt. At all."
El considered this. Hopper had told her this before too, so it was probably true. But what if Papa would have taken her that day? Would Hopper have tried to save her like he did Will? Would he have just let her go? El wasn't sure of the answer, but then she remembered that she and Hopper had been working on learning about forgiveness.
Hopper had told her once that he wasn't so good at it either and that they would work on it together. So maybe, as long as Hopper loved her now, maybe she could learn to forgive him.
She would think about it more in the morning. Tonight, she was much too comfortable, and Joyce's gentle hands were quickly putting her back to sleep. "I love you," El told Joyce as she drifted to sleep.
"I love you too," Joyce repeated sincerely.
In the morning, El was in a much better mood. She told Joyce that she wanted to find Hopper right away to tell him that she forgave him. Joyce found El's actions very bold and brave and agreed that she would forgive him too.
Joyce called the cabin but there was no answer, so they figured he had already made it to the station. After a breakfast of Eggos, they got in the car and made their way to the Hawkins Police Station.
"Is the sky different today?" El asked, staring out her window once they were in the car.
"Huh. It is a strange color. Must still be from the storm last night," Joyce commented absently.
They pulled into the station but didn't see his vehicle outside. El went in to quickly check anyway, but Florence told her that he had not made it in yet. "Probably still home sleeping dear," she assured a worried looking 'Jane' when she had found out that he was childless from El's sleepover the night before.
They drove to the cabin, but his Blazer was not parked in his usual spot out on the road either. El urged Joyce to check his other house, the trailer that she had spent one night in on the night that Hopper had first found her.
It was there that they finally found his vehicle parked out front. "I can't believe he's still sleeping," grumbled Joyce, looking at her watch.
It was almost 11.
The front door was unlocked, so they both walked inside.
El nearly tripped on the empty alcohol bottles that now rolled across the floor. It landed in front of the broken end table and El spotted the holes in the wall that she didn't remember from the last time she had been there. El reasoned that she had been very out of it that night, and it was over a year ago, so maybe she just hadn't noticed them before.
"Hop?" Joyce called, closing the front door.
They were greeted with an eerie silence.
"Hopper," she called again making her way towards the hallway. "Why don't you stay out here for a minute," Joyce instructed, just in case Hopper was in child inappropriate sleeping attire. El watched as Joyce pushed open the first door on the left, his bedroom.
She stayed in the living room until she heard Joyce shriek a panicked cry of "Jim!"
El walked to the open door and saw Joyce sitting on Hopper's bed next to him. He was laying face down and she was shaking his shoulders, hard. She watched her hand move to his neck and then quickly pull back.
Joyce abruptly got up and turned around, crashing into El.
"It's okay, it's okay baby," she lied, pulling her out of the doorway and back towards the living room. "I just need a phone. I need to find the phone," Joyce panicked, running through his small trailer.
But El knew that everything was not okay. While Joyce shakily dialed 911, El went back to Hopper's room.
She stopped next to the bed. His skin wasn't the right color, and she had seen enough death to instantly know that Hopper was gone. She sat down next to him on the bed and gently placed a hand on the skin of his bare back. He didn't even feel like a person, at least not like the person that she knew.
Tears dripped down her cheeks.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," El repeated again and again. "I'm so sorry I ran away. I'm sorry, please," she choked. "I love you. Please," she begged. El laid down on top of him sobbing.
This was not happening.
She started shaking him, which slowly turned into hitting. "Wake up, wake up! Please, wake up," El wailed, banging on the corpse's chest. "I'm not mad at you. I want you to come back. Come back!" El screamed at him.
Joyce came back in the room and pulled her off of his body, sinking down to the floor next to the bed. She held her tightly, rocking her back and forth.
"…wake up. I know baby, wake up. You're okay, sweetie," El heard. She opened her eyes and shot straight up, wildly searching the dark room.
A large crack sounded, and she heard the heavy downpour on the roof. Warm arms wrapped around her.
"Just a bad dream. It was just a dream," Joyce promised, rocking her back and forth.
"A dream?" El whimpered.
It didn't feel like just a dream.
"Can I talk to Hopper?" El asked.
Joyce looked at her alarm clock. It was nearly 2 am.
"Right now?"
El nodded, wiping the tears from her cheeks. She needed to know that he was alright, that it was indeed, just a dream.
Joyce didn't have the heart to tell her no, so they made their way out to the telephone. El dialed the cabin's number, but he didn't answer. She asked Joyce for his other phone number and called that one too. Again, no answer.
El looked increasingly upset.
"Honey, it's late. I'm sure he's just asleep," Joyce assured her.
"Can you take me home?"
"Are you sure you want to go right now? We can see him first thing in the morning," Joyce promised.
"Please?" El was on the brink of tears.
"Okay sweetie, okay," Joyce agreed.
She peeked in Jonathan's room to confirm that he was home and left a note on the kitchen table for the kids just in case they woke up and wondered where she had gone to.
Joyce started the car to head to the cabin, but El asked to stop at Hopper's trailer first. Her bare feet bounced anxiously the entire way, and Joyce wondered if El had seen something that she didn't want to talk about.
The storm was still heavy and made their drive much slower than normal.
When they finally pulled up to his trailer, his Blazer was parked outside, just as El had predicted. El jumped out of the car, through the rain and in through the front door, rushing past the empty glass bottles and broken end table, straight to Hopper's bedroom.
Joyce followed a few steps behind.
"Wake up!" El called, jumping on top of him in his bed.
Hopper groaned at the unexpected weight, trying to understand what was happening.
"What the hell," he mumbled drowsily, wiping his eyes. He struggled to sit up against the little person on top of him; the two pills he had taken earlier were really kicking his ass.
"I forgive you. I'm so sorry," El cried climbing into his bed next to him. "I love you. I'm sorry."
Hopper reached for the bedside lamp, knocking the prescription bottle on the floor.
He turned the light on and saw Joyce standing in his doorway, with the same confused look that he was sure he had on his face.
El clung to him, sobbing.
"It's okay kid. It's okay," he told her, patting her back.
"I just want you to know," she hiccuped. "That I'm- I'm not mad at you. I don't want you to go," she cried into his chest.
He looked to Joyce again, but she shook her head. She had no idea what had gotten into her either.
"I'm not going anywhere, kid. You are stuck with me, okay?"
"I love you," El confessed to him again.
He hugged her tighter. "I love you too." He paused. "I should have told you about what I did. I'm just so sorry," he apologized to El, though his eyes were locked with Joyce's.
"I don't care. I love you. I forgive you," El proclaimed.
"Thank you, kid. That means… a lot," he spoke sincerely.
El stayed curled up in his arms.
"I should get going," Joyce whispered to Hopper after a moment.
"Can you stay?" El asked, scooting closer to show her that there was plenty of room in the bed.
"Honey, I really should get back home," Joyce excused.
"Please?" El asked.
"Please," Hopper repeated.
Joyce tried to tell herself no, not tonight. But she was exhausted, and she'd already let her kids know that she may not be home. Plus, the storm wasn't letting up any time soon. She reluctantly moved to the bed and kicked her shoes off. El climbed under the covers, cuddling close to Hopper so that Joyce would have enough room. Joyce climbed in and El pulled the covers up over them all, smiling for the first time all night. Hopper reached over to turn the light off.
El still greatly disliked storms, but tonight she felt as safe as she ever had, curled up between the two people she thought of as her parents. She spent so much of her life alone in a tiny dark room that she was really grateful when she had the chance to snuggle up next to someone as she slept.
"Good night, I love you," El sighed happily to the both of them, quickly drifting off to sleep.
The adrenaline of waking up out of a dead sleep was wearing off on Hopper too, and the two pills mixed with the liquor were making his head swim. He wondered if he was having some kind of strange dream.
"So uh, what did you do to her?" Hopper finally asked Joyce softly.
"She just woke up like this after a dream saying that she needed to see you. She was really desperate," Joyce quietly answered.
"Huh," Hopper replied. "I really am sorry you know," he spoke after a minute of listening to the rain pounding away on the roof.
"I know. You did what you thought was right."
He sighed. "But I should have told you."
"Really Jim, it's okay," she told him, turning to give him a kiss, while trying not to squish El. If El could forgive him this easily, she could too.
"Good night," Joyce breathed, after a minute, laying down to get comfortable in bed.
"'Night," Hopper smiled content.
In the morning, El checked that Hopper was still the warm, soft person that she knew. When she was confident that he was just fine, she carefully slid out of bed trying not to wake up either adult. She watched from the doorway, as Joyce rolled over next to Hopper, and then she slipped away.
She went through the entire trailer while they slept, pouring down the sink all the clear and colored smelly liquids in glass bottles, and she threw away all the pills in the orange containers that she could find. She hoped Hopper would not be too mad at her when he got up. And if he was, well, then he was just going to have to work on his forgiveness too.