"Excuse me, Jim. There are just a few papers we need you to sign. This one is the DNR that you requested," the nurse explained gently, helping him to place the pen in his hand. His signature was nothing more than a shaky scribble.
Lung cancer.
Cancer. He had hated that word, but during his life, he came to find out there were other words he hated just as much.
He laid his head back down on the hospital pillow, closing his eyes. Even with oxygen in place, breathing was a chore. His chest rasped with every breath and it felt like he was slowly drowning. But he couldn't complain. This was what he deserved.
Three children were dead because of him and even more lives were destroyed, and so he deserved every last moment of this hell.
Sara was the first. He failed to save his own baby girl from the big, bad C-word too. In the end, there would be no justice for her.
When El came to him, he hoped that he could at least do a little bit better with his second little girl. He would keep her safe and protected at any cost. He would avenge the awful people who made her life a living hell.
He thought back to the second time that he failed; he remembered every detail clearly, as though it were yesterday.
It was a Wednesday. Day 367 that Mike had spent without El, and he knew that he couldn't take one more day of it. Mike wasn't sure why, but that day in particular, it hit him that El was really gone. She had to be, because there was no way she would let him go all this time without giving him some kind of sign.
It wasn't fair. El had deserved so much more than to be reduced to ashes in his science homeroom. He hated that classroom so much that he skipped more days than not, not even caring how much trouble he got in. And he did get in so much trouble too.
He picked up his Supercom and called her one last time to be sure.
"El, if you are there, just please, please say something," he begged.
He was met with radio silence.
But El had been there. She had been watching him and listening to him all 367 days. She wasn't allowed to talk to him though; it was one of his rules.
El could sense something wasn't right that night. Even though her worry tried to pull her away, she managed to stay present in the void, following Mike to his bedroom. She watched him pull something out from under his bed. He put the shiny metal object in his mouth and pulled the trigger without a single moment of hesitation. It was so fast that El had no time to stop it from happening, though she later realized that it wasn't true; she had 367 days to stop it from happening.
When the call came in, Hopper was one of the first people at the scene. The only person who had gotten there sooner was El. He later found out that she had watched it all happen in her head. Their cover was blown, and he had to pry her off Mike's lifeless body.
That night, Michael Wheeler was pronounced dead of a self-inflicted gunshot in his home. He had left no note.
Of course Eleven blamed herself, but Hopper knew that it was really his fault. It was his stupid, fucking rules that stopped her from telling the kid that she was okay. What would have been the fucking harm in that?
El spent her days in states that ranged from numb to angry to hysterical. Hopper permanently slept in her bed and lost track of how many days she sobbed until she could breathe, only falling asleep from sheer exhaustion. When she did manage to fall asleep, she'd wake up screaming for Mike to stop. The scene replayed in her mind over and over every single night.
Hopper shouldn't have left her for work that day, but he had already missed too many days, and he knew he was going to have to leave her at some point.
El hated being alone now, and when the silence was too much, she felt desperate to go to sleep. She found the bottle of pills Hopper had given her before to help her sleep. She poured out two in her hand and took them, impatiently waiting for their effects to kick in. She didn't think anything was happening, at least not fast enough. She took two more, and then two more, until she lost count and the bottle was empty. It wasn't long before she sighed in relief and her eyes closed.
It was finally working.
"Mike?" she whispered in disbelief when she saw him. He was different from how he usually came to her in her dreams.
He wasn't bloody. He was in one piece.
"El? What are you doing here? No, you have to go back," he cried, shaking her shoulders.
"Mike," she repeated, latching her arms onto him, ignoring his words. He didn't disappear like he usually did when she touched him in the void.
She could actually feel him. He was here; he was real.
Hopper knocked on the front door that night, and El didn't answer. He'd never forget the panic in his chest as he kicked the front door in.
He ran to her room and found her asleep in her bed. He was about to turn her lights off when he noticed the empty orange pill bottle on the nightstand next to a glass of water.
Hopper approached her carefully and immediately noticed that something was wrong. He pulled her into his arms without checking for a pulse. He knew what he would find. He ran out of the cabin thinking that if he could just get her to the hospital quick enough, she would be fine.
She had to be okay.
He couldn't lose her too.
He set her limp body in the passenger seat and turned his sirens on, nearly running the vehicle off the road on the way to the hospital.
He stopped in the emergency entrance and ran around to pull her cold body out of the car.
"Help, I need help! My daughter-" he yelled, laying her down on the gurney that appeared in front of him.
He followed the staff behind a curtain, but their urgency slowed when it was immediately obvious that the child placed in front of them had been gone for too long.
"Why aren't you doing anything? You have to help her!" he yelled, even though he already knew the truth too. "Please help her, please, God, please," he pleaded. Hands directed him to a private room where he collapsed to the floor, and his world was never the same.
Joyce tried her best to help him through, but he couldn't stand to be around her anymore. He wouldn't destroy her life too.
He thought about ending his own life more times than he could count. In the end, he thought that he deserved to suffer through it, until the cancer diagnosis finally made up his mind for him.
"Is there anyone you'd like us to call?" the nurse asked, interrupting his thoughts.
Even if he were capable of speaking, there would have been no one.
"Okay," she told him quietly, rubbing his hand. She had been too kind, and he didn't deserve that during his final hours. She sat down in the chair next to him and stayed for the next few hours.
Hopper drifted in and out of consciousness, as the hospital made sure a dying patient was relatively as pain free as possible. His eyes blinked open, and out of the corner of his eye, he realized that the nurse looked familiar, like someone he loved many years ago- brown hair, beautiful brown eyes, a kind smile.
He could hear his monitors start to alarm, and he managed to keep his eyes open for a few more seconds. He knew it was really the end, because it was as if she was the one here holding his hand now, and he swore he could feel her lips on his. His mouth moved to whisper her name one last time.
Joyce.
Then it was dark, and everything was gone. The darkness only lasted a few seconds until it started growing lighter and lighter.
"Daddy!" Hopper heard a tiny voice say, one that he hadn't heard in over 16 years, though he remembered exactly how she sounded.
Arms wrapped around his waist and a second pair around his legs.
"We missed you," El whispered, holding him tightly.
On Sunday morning, Joyce Byers sat down with a cup of coffee and the newspaper. Silent tears slipped down her cheeks when she recognized one of the names in the obituaries, and she prayed that Jim Hopper was finally at peace.
Jim Hopper passed away of lung cancer at Hawkins Memorial on Friday, June 16th, 1995 at the age of 51. Jim was Hawkins Chief of Police for 15 years prior to his retirement. He was preceded in death by his two daughters, Sara and Jane. Those wishing to honor his life can make a donation in his name to the Kids Cancer Foundation and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.