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"Hey, Joycie," Jim gave her a few minutes before trying again. She could hear the practiced patience in his tone.

The kitchen was darkening as the sun set, and she flipped the light on. December kept them wrapped in its dim, cold cloak.

He looked so good with the warm light in the room. He hadn't called her Joycie in two decades.

"I wasn't judging you," He spoke low, his voice deep. He knew how to reel her back in, how to be steady but gentle. "I know you know how to take care of your house, and your boys. I would never say otherwise. I would hit anyone for saying otherwise," At this she smiled, sighing.

"I just worry." Hopper had removed his coat and hat, and was slowly edging back into the kitchen, mirroring her movements. He orbited around her like she was the sun.

"Sometimes your concern is condescending, Hop."

"I'm working on that."

Joyce made a noise of friendly skepticism, but it filled her with that warm, prickling affection from which she hid.

"Are you really here to talk about the party again? Let them have it, what else can I say?" She was still busying herself, though couldn't ignore his large frame filling her kitchen, couldn't ignore his efforts.

"You can handle a few teenagers, Chief." Joyce dipped her head, smiling as she used his title. Each time she called him Chief, he looked both exasperated, and enlivened. It was mockery, but it was flirty. It was playful, it was comfortable.

"I can," Jim admitted, a small shrug, his uniform stretching tightly across his shoulders. His whole face changed when it was just the two of them. He smiled in a way she had forgotten about, he made her smile in a way that he forgot about.

"I just like everything better when you're there." He said, as he towered over her in a way that was entirely pleasant.

He cast warmth, not a shadow.

Joyce softened, some, her wide, wild eyes narrowing. There was a fondness in those brown depths, a calm, and she felt the tension slipping away. Jim meant it, because he was a shitty liar, and if he didn't mean something he wouldn't bother saying it. He wasn't a sentimental man, but if there was someone to bring it out in him - It was Joyce (and, in another lifetime, Sara).

"I like everything better when you're there, too, Hop." She said, softly (she knew she shouldn't say it, was battling to not admit), so soft that Jim wasn't sure he was supposed to acknowledge it, so quietly that he wasn't sure her lips moved. The only indication of it was the pink in her cheeks, the shine of her eyes, and the rate of his heart.

Shit. He didn't have a hope in hell.

Joyce was pouring them both coffee with the kettle she boiled, without asking, without needing to ask. She knew him then. She knew him now.

Jim sat at his designated chair at the table, his leg bouncing underneath.

Somehow, among the trauma, and the near-death battles...the fact that her missing son was what brought her back into his life...Joyce was still the freshest breath of air, when all was said and done. She was an old flame, a lost love, but still was exciting, unpredictable, passionate. All Jim wanted to do was make her days a little easier, all he wanted was to be present. Joyce deserved it, if nothing else (and for now, there could be nothing else).

The longer they spent together, the younger Jim felt – He felt giddy, almost, which is not something the Chief of Police was sure he had been since he was seventeen, and making out with Joyce between fifth and sixth period.

He knew it was selfish. He knew it was risky. He was just so goddamned relieved that she knew about El, was so glad to have her support with that, so glad to support her back. There was nothing – nothing hidden, nothing in the shadowy place between them – Except Bob, except her grief.

Jim didn't want to rush her, but Christ, how he wanted her all to himself. He didn't even - He didn't even know how he wanted her, he didn't connect the dots, or allow himself to think beyond - Beyond friendship, beyond this duo, this partnership, but - What if, what else...

He was greedy with her, desperate for her time, and attention, in a way that was totally teenage at times. He could see he was eager, could feel that he was perhaps encroaching on her mourning, but he couldn't stop himself.

It had only been two months, and the dark circles beneath her eyes reminded him of that. It had only been two months, and the nightmares that he shared with her reminded him of that.

But the energy with which he was filled when he was in the same room as Joyce was – impossible. He couldn't keep still, even just watching her move around the kitchen, stubborn, and adamant, and refusing to look at him, as she heated her home, he couldn't contain himself.

When they saved his life from those murderous vines, a switch flipped inside of him, for Joyce. Something that was - buried, and faded, and pushed deep, deep down, flamed to life again, and he couldn't contain himself.

It had come around after the first time in the Upside Down, too, after saving Will, but before Eleven, and Bob. It didn't have the chance to become...what it had this time, this...whatever it was, this goddamn devotion to her.

Stop.


"I don't know – I'll think about going. They don't want us there, right?" Joyce said, biting her bottom lip in consideration, the slightest line between her brows.

She knew his cream to sugar ratio, she knew to let it sit for a minute longer than hers, because she liked it scorching, and he was more sensitive to the heat.

"Nah, but we could – I don't know – Build a fire outside, go for a drive, chain smoke on the porch...keep in the proximity."

"Seems a bit fast and loose for that kind of thing, Hop."

"Maybe," He agreed, swooping in for his coffee, and he held the large mug in one hand, easily, while she cradled it in her two. "Maybe I'll have to sit at the door with my gun unholstered the whole night to feel okay. But I'd still rather do it with you there."

"Hop - I said I'll think about it." She hid her face behind her mug as she inhaled, smiling into the drink.

Joyce joined him at the table, finally, and it was something of a truce, he thought.

It was the first time they had been alone since the Snow Ball. Their fight from earlier was already dissipating, and sometimes to fight with her was to be reminded of how sweet it was on her good side.

Jim sighed, and relaxed. His mind kept flitting back over to the Wheelers, fretting over El. Maybe Joyce was right. Maybe the whole thing was a bit fast, and loose. He just couldn't ask El to stay cooped up now that her friends knew she was here, and that she was okay. There was no way. After the Snow Ball had passed without incident, he felt better. He did. And Dr. Owens' measures to help had reassured him. But he was still -

"You're miles away, hmm?" Joyce's voice broke through his cloud of worry, and his heavy brow raised, as she touched his hand.

Her hand was warm, despite the cold. Her heart was warm, despite the loss. Her house was warm, even when he could see his breath. Joyce shook him to his roots, in a big way.

"Hey, yeah, you know." Jim grunted, rubbing a hand over his beard, shifting in the small chair that creaked beneath him. He sipped loudly from his mug. He wanted to fill the room with noise, wanted to distract himself from it all.

"She'll be okay. They all will be okay." Her voice was small, wavering slightly, but it was sincere. It was hard to be optimistic.

She sighed, then, and he felt her weariness across the table, through where she touched his hand. She held on tighter.

"So will you. You will thrive, Joyce." And he said it with such conviction, such sudden passion, that her eyes watered, overcome with emotion. His large hand covered hers, and squeezed. A pleasant shiver ran down her spine, goosebumps rose on her arms.

"Don't know if I've ever thrived, Hop." Joyce blinked back the tears, a watery laugh on her lips.

"You were the brightest goddamn light in high school, you know that? You thrived, Joyce." He said, and his voice was almost hoarse, almost like he was overcome with emotion, too.

Joyce didn't know who these two shmaltzy middle-aged wrecks were sitting in her kitchen, but they weren't altogether unfamiliar, or surprising, she supposed. They were the products of trauma, of hardship, and grief. These adult versions of themselves grew from abuse, and war, and insurmountable loss. It wasn't pretty. But they were here.

Long moments stretched as they drank, and Joyce kept her hand on his.

"Do you ever think about leaving?" Joyce asked, and her fingers wandered along his wrist, dipping beneath the material of his sleeve to skim wiry arm hair there. It was the most she had touched him since the parking lot. They were...getting comfortable, he thought.

"I left once, didn't work out much for me..." He said gruffly, but off-handedly, casually, as if it would shake off the catastrophic circumstances which led to his return to Hawkins.

"I never left, though. Bob wanted me to leave." She pulled her hand back just as his fingertips skimmed hers again, and she reached for the ashtray across the table. She dug her smokes from the pocket of her jacket that was slung over the chair, and she knew he was staring at her, because her face was burning.

Joyce had not told anyone about that, yet. Was sure she wouldn't have told anyone. She avoided his eyes, hand trembling ever so slightly as she flicked her lighter.

"What?" Came Jim's voice, and he sounded about as off-kilter as she expected.

Jim's low-level of jealousy through the few months of her relationship with Bob was just that - so indiscernible - that she wasn't quite sure it had been there at all.

Of course, it made sense now, knowing that he was housing El, that he couldn't get too close - Well, he had already been close, but he pulled back. The comments always struck her as odd, because Jim had...disappeared, but yet he still made little digs at Bob. Nothing callous, but just enough for Joyce to look at him, and wonder.

So, she knew it would throw him off to hear that Bob was so serious about her, and her boys, that he asked her to leave.

(Jim Hopper was the only other person to ever ask her to leave Hawkins).

"Yeah. Maine. Buy his parents' house..." The words were easier for her to say around the cigarette, muffled, and not quite there.

"Shit." He was staring at her, his gaze gliding from her eyes, to her mouth, where she still struggled with the lighter.

"Yeah." She sighed, cigarette moving where it stuck to her lips.

Jim quickly put a cigarette in his own mouth, and his eyes were sharp, clear, a blue so lively that it took her breath away.

He lit his smoke, as she gave up on hers, tossing her lighter on the table, scattering to the edge. Their eyes locked with a deep inhale from both, and she was surprised, nearly alarmed, at the intensity radiating from him.

It was all falling into perspective, perhaps.

Joyce blinked slowly, long lashes brushing her cheeks as she glanced down - Demure, sensitive, certain. She gripped the smoke between her fingers, securing it in her lips, and leaned in close to Jim, looking up at him expectantly, eyelids heavy.

He ignited the lighter with one flick of his thumb, and neither of them blinked as he held it steady in front of Joyce, watching her tiny shoulders rise on the inhale, her doe eyes reflecting the flame.

Shit.