Jim Hopper was very ready to be home.

There had been a robbery at the local grocery store this morning, and a couple hundred had been stolen from the register. There had been no witnesses, no evidence, and nothing had changed in the store,(besides the missing hundreds) and it looked just the same as it had at closing time.

He had had Flo breathing down his neck to get a suspect list going all morning, and then the damn coffee machine went and broke when he needed it most in the afternoon, and on top of that, when they had finally caught a trail to track, a horrible December storm had come up, fast and hard, and had one, wiped whatever trail they had clean, and two, had created a thin, slippery sheet of ice on the road, which then mixed with the thick, bone-charring sleet that had come down from the heavens themselves, making the roads extremely dangerous. Jim Hopper was not looking forward to the next the half an hour (now hour long because of the reduction of speed the ice would ensue) he would spend driving through it all.

His day finally ended at the station after a long day of work, and after Flo had given him his keys as he walked out, he sprinted the 20 feet to his truck, hopping in and sliding into the vinyl seats as quickly as possible. He shrugged off his coat quickly-which was already soaked from only being out in the slanted sleet for a mere 30 seconds. He turned the keys and put the truck into drive, carefully driving out of the parking lot.

He had been driving in a comfortable silence for around 5 minutes when his thoughts finally drifted onto Eleven and how she was dealing with the sudden storm.

In the short year and a half that he had known her, they had instantly bonded, and Hopper had become like a father to the kid. He relishes now in the fact that she is warm and safe in the small secluded cabin, but can't help feel guilty at what flashbacks she must be having right now-alone.

Hopper quickly forces that thought out of his mind, and reassures himself that El must have radioed that Wheeler kid she's so infatuated with, and knowing how head over heels the kid is for her, he probably ran over to the cabin in the storm to save his "damsel in distress."

Hopper chuckles to himself at the thought.

Hopper has always liked the kid- hard to believe, yes. Fathers are supposed to hate their daughters little "boyfriends" or whatever it was that El and Mike were, but the harder he pushed himself to try to hate him, the more he found himself liking the damn kid.

But hey, anyone who loved El as purely and fiercely as he himself did- couldn't be on his bad side.

Not even two seconds after he thought about the kid, he whirred by a shape walking alongside the road, -distinctly Mike shaped.

Hopper slammed on his brakes and took the truck into reverse so fast that he even surprised himself. After getting closer, there was no doubt that it was Mike, his long, lanky, 15 year old figure noticeable from anywhere.

Hopper ignores the pelting rain that cuts through his clothes as he jumps out of the car and races to the shivering teen who had stopped walking and was looking at the Chief with a look of pure incoherence. Hopper tries to ignore the fact that the kid is sporting only a thin white cotton tee shirt, small sweatpants and waterlogged sneakers on his appearance. He also tries to block out the way Mike's tall frame sags the slightest bit under the weight of the jacket Hopper had placed gently on his shoulders moments ago.

And, he most definitely tries his hardest to at least give a worthy effort to ignore the purple shapes slowly forming along the boy's high cheekbones.

Even in the fog and rain,he can plainly see the contrast of the purple that is settling itself on the teen's pale purple travels from the boy's cheekbones to the underneath of his eye, and from the bridge of his nose to finally settling itself on the boys upper lip. (the dried blood there was also something the Chief was trying very hard to ignore.)

Cold, hard, fury bubbles inside Hopper as he pushes Mike into the front seat of his truck and buckles him kid hasn't spoken once to him yet, and Hopper doesn't know if that is because the kid can't, or just doesn't want to. Hopper tries,and fails to get the kid to talk,and his concern for the boy grows by the minute.

Mike is acting like Eleven was in those first couple of months when I first found her, Hopper thinks with a start.

He pushes back the flashbacks that came with the thought, and tries to focus his attention back on the kid to his right, when a thought hits him.

Eleven.

God, he feels so stupid now. If anyone can get the boy to talk, it would be Eleven. Those two, in the week they had known each other, had formed a bond stronger than anything Hopper had ever seen between two people, let alone kids.

Hopper quickly decides to take a risk, out of his quickly growing concern for the boy, and decides to bribe him with a visit to El, but only if he tells him why the hell he was walking around with basically no clothes in the middle of one of the worst storms of the season.

Right as he is about to speak up, Mike abruptly sits upon from his slouched position and looks straight out in front if him and into the pouring rain, and speaks.

"It was my dad."

As Mike says this, Hopper instantly understood as to what he was referring to, and instantly started to see red.

The bruises.

He should have known.

A boy like Mike knew better then to venture from the safeness of his house looking for trouble.

But, Hopper realizes with the start, is that when your supposed "safe place" becomes a place you can't even go to anymore, anyone would go to the next first place they saw as safe, which explains why he was walking in the direction of the small, desolate cabin Hopper and El were currently residing in.

Hopper forces himself to calm down, and finally responded to the boy, who was still intensely looking out the window at the falling rain.

"Kid-" Hooper starts as he turns to face the boy, -"I need to get you home, a hospital, anywhere. Let me call-" he says, but is cut short when Mike wheels around to face him, which gives Hopper a clear, unobstructed view of the expression pinned on the boys face.

The pure look of terror and pain that passes Mike's face at the mention of going home catches the chief highly off guard, causing him to lose his train of thought.

"No." Mike says in a tight, panicked voice.

"Take me to Lucas', or Dustin's, or Max's for all I care!" "Just-" "-Anywhere but there." He finishes quickly. Hopper notices that Mike's expression darkened when he said "there", like it was some evil, cursed place.

Well figures,since he just admitted to getting beat up by his own father, Hopper wouldn't expect him to be dying to go back.

"Jeez kid, how dull do you think I am?" Hopper asks the boy incredulously.

"Why the hell would I just send you off to a friend's house so you could just sneak out the back and run away again?" Hopper says, his temper rising with each word.

"And also, " Hopper shouts, his vision going red at the edges, "Where the hell would you go anyways?!" Hopper asks with a mix of frustration and genuine curiosity.

Hopper stops short, another question suddenly hitting him.

"Where were you going?" Hooper asks in a bold tone.

The damn kid just kept looking anywhere and everywhere but him, fidgeting heavily under his gaze.

. "Where." It wasn't a question, more like a command.

Hopper notices just in time that the boy's eyes had gone red-rimmed and watched with a sudden concern as the kid took a shaky breath and spoke, turning his head slightly to look at Hopper.

"Eleven."

Thank you for reading! Chapter two will be up on Sunday, 1/7 at around 4 pm!