This chapter became a behemoth, and it has been quite awhile since I updated, which I hadn't realized! I feel like I might be spinning down a path where this is...too canon compliant lol? So that it's maybe boring, because I'm not venturing enough - But that is what I have always liked about writing fanfiction, is trying to elaborate on what could be true to canon - I am not good at my own plot, so I just like to expand lol! In any case - Here it is. It was a bit of an experimentation for me, too - The timeline of this chapter jumps around a bit - I tried, I am not sure how cohesive it is, so I apologise if the execution is clumsy. I'm excited for the next chapter, and to wrap this up for these two lonesome souls.
Thank you DEARLY for all of the comments & conversations surrounding my story, and others, as well as Jopper in general. Through dark times it has seen me.
When Joyce hung up from Hop, she had much to consider. She knew that Will was in good hands - She could have tonight to decompress.
She knew that if...if they were going to act like adults about it, if she was going to...confront what Jim meant to her - She had to work through some things. This was plain, this was necessary - There was no jumping into anything (more than they had.)
If there was ever going to be anything, she had to deal with it, because otherwise she could just real easily withdraw, close off...lose him completely. Joyce lost him completely all those years back, and yet...
She had to have the foresight in working through her grief, the trauma over Will's possession, to know that how she got through it was going to completely impact what became of her relationship with Hopper.
Joyce desperately did not want to lose him, and worried she would put too much pressure on herself to get over the hump - It wasn't linear, it wasn't like that, though. She couldn't put a timeline on it, so how could she know when she'd feel healed enough to - To what? Be with Hopper? It sounded so strange, even to herself.
She was still in awe of the year before, how Jim pulled up to her side, and helped her solider on through Will's disappearance. She still could hardly believe the total turnaround he did. The supportive, eager, incredible partner in crime she found in him through their search. The demons he cast aside to help her, to save Will.
Jim Hopper pumped life back into her son one short year ago, and Joyce wished she had stood still long enough in the months after to really see him, and the profundity of it - To maybe let herself love him, even then.
She was overcome with it when she thought about it now. By saving Will, Jim helped give back to Joyce one half of her world. How - How did she ever look passed him, to see Bob? It was, perhaps, a cruel thought, but it was something that gave Joyce pause.
It was impressive, how Jim faded into the background after Will was home, because then El needed him, and he needed to keep everyone safe by flying under the radar. If Joyce had paid closer attention she might have questioned it, but of course Jim didn't want her to look too closely, to wonder too much. It was skillfully done, really, but that lost time...
There was also the hesitation, their memories of how this went when they were so much younger, how consuming was their relationship, but so, too, how they could push each other to the brink.
It was a fine line.
But, Joyce couldn't explain how enormous it was - Jim helping. When anyone asked her - They just seemed to think, you know, a cop doing his job.
Of course, no one knew all the details - But even that Hopper helped find Will when everyone else gave up, that he coached her through breathing for him, as Jim got his heart beating again - Even those basic, non-alternate dimension aspects, meant everything to Joyce.
It wasn't just doing his duty, not even the simpler parts. It was more than anything she could have expected. Chief of Police who lost his own daughter, went to the depths of hell to help find her son, and it was a reckoning, wasn't it? It was a chance of redemption, it was a chance for Hopper to course correct - It was saving Will, and it was saving Joyce from the same darkness into which Hopper had slipped four short years before.
He was still...so good, she realized near the end of the endeavour. He was loyal, and strong, beneath a grumbling, ill-tempered exterior. Maybe it was just for her, but there was a warmth, a steadiness, too.
It certainly wasn't all the time - He still only had patience when he really tried, he still shouted and huffed, but he looked at her differently by the end of it - Looked at her like she was as strong and steady as was he (Jim always knew she was strong, as Jonathan might recall to his mother one day).
Hopper had held his arms around her and Will as her boy breathed through that oxygen mask, and it was the first time in twenty years that Joyce had felt whole again. Saved, even.
The turnaround - Shit. It was overwhelming, and it was more than she could process last year, but it was significant.
Because, he had been an asshole - Which, Jim had always been a little bit of a mischievous asshole in their youth, but he had a charm that trumped any consequences to the shit he caused.
After losing Sara, he was more mean than charming, so it was not like Joyce could have expected him to...to believe her. He believed her, and they believed Terry, and - Jesus. Jesus. What a tangle it had been, what a miracle.
In the time that Jim had been back in Hawkins before Will went missing, Joyce had seen him around plenty. She spoke to him when the time called for it, but had specific interactions with him just a handful of times - But those times were enough to know he had changed, that he was broken, and sour.
In the first year he returned, the lowest point in it all, was their first major re-connection. The night she drove over to his trailer after he came through Melvald's with sunglasses on well after dark, stinking of liquor, filled a prescription, bought beer, and left without a word. Maybe he didn't even know that it was Joyce that rang him in, he was in such a haze.
Joyce showed up on his doorstep later on, another six-pack in hand, because she was not there to judge his coping mechanisms. She was there to offer comfort - Their baggage, and his attitude, be damned.
Their history, his need, his loss was more important - And to each other, even then, they were such familiar shoulders on which to lean.
He leaned on hers that night, not really asking any questions, just choking out her name as she appeared in his doorway. Joyce held him, wrapped around him so tightly, as they stood on his deck, and he clutched her arms, and wept, staring out at the lake. He didn't remark about the bruises on her forearms, and she didn't remark about the dangerous path he was stumbling down.
It became decidedly less tender after that. He was always drunk or hung over, or high on barbiturates, it seemed. Joyce didn't blame him. She got it, even if she felt a knot in her stomach every time she saw him worse for wear.
He made mean jokes, he looked like shit, and he was at the same bar Lonnie frequented, way too late on week nights. He was falling, and Joyce could only watch from afar.
On the anniversary of Sara's death, he took weeks off of work on a whim. Joyce called Benny when she got word of this from Flo - She asked him to look out for the angry drunkard into which Jim Hopper had turned. She had too much on her plate with her own angry drunkard of a husband, and couldn't get dragged down by Jim Hopper. But, she was worried - Rightfully so, as was Flo, and anyone in his life who knew how good-hearted he was somewhere inside.
She did her duty - Benny looked out for him as friends do, and Jim ticked up a bit after this. He stayed at a low base level of darkness, but didn't have those manic spirals. He did his job, he bedded his women, and he stayed out of Joyce's line of sight, for the most part.
The most memorable of the times they interacted, and one of the last instances until Will went missing - Was a confrontation.
August '81
Fucking Lonnie, Joyce thought, as she pulled into the parking lot of the bar. He called her around 2 A.M., or attempted to - The bartender took over for her incoherent husband, and asked her to come pick him up. He wasn't causing shit tonight, just so drunk he was all but unconscious. He couldn't have found anyone to go home with, or lost all his money, and got too wasted in the process.
He was already sleeping on the couch in the weeks before this, and they were hardly speaking. Joyce was grateful when he was gone all night, most nights. She had almost completely washed her hands of him, with just a few i's to dot, and t's to cross.
But here she was, stuffing the dead weight of Lonnie into her little car. He stunk of sweat, hard liquor, and vaguely of sick - How damned charming, Joyce thought - What an idyllic little life.
She could not wait until she could kick his ass out once and for all. But until then, she didn't care if he stayed drunk and gone most of the time. She'd take him home tonight, sure, but he'd likely be gone by the time she woke in the morning. Fine by fucking her.
It was hot, one of those close, pulsing, summer nights. The humidity was going to drive her insane before Lonnie did, and that was saying something. She wore loose cotton shorts, and a white t-shirt to run this nightmare of an errand, and the feel of fabric on her overheated skin was making her even more irritable. She was struck with the impulse to wander into the middle of the street and scream, she was so goddamn frustrated.
Joyce clenched her jaw, and brushed her sweaty bangs back from her face, slamming the car door a little harder than necessary, though Lonnie didn't budge. Joyce gave a start when she noticed that Hopper had followed them outside.
Of fucking course.
He wore a faded short-sleeved denim shirt, black jeans, and no hat. His hair stuck up in whorls, and she found he looked threadbare in the neon glow of the lights from the bar. She couldn't remember Jim Hopper in the summertime, she realized.
There was no one else outside, last call was still about half an hour away - The music from the dive throbbed through the air - Nothing trendy, but good enough old rock n' roll to keep the regulars happy. Lonnie and Jim were both regulars, and wasn't that something to brag about?
She grabbed Hopper by the crook of his big arm, and steered him back toward the door in case Lonnie came to. Had they been in the same bar the entire night, for Jim to only notice, typical, when Joyce was on the scene?
Hopper started ranting, or tried to - She caught words here and there, as he ran his hands through his hair habitually, and she couldn't see his eyes, a shadow cast from his heavy brow when he looked down at her.
As drunk Jim tried to lecture Joyce about her drunk husband, her temper rose. She was already fucking hot, sticky, sweaty, her heart thrumming uncomfortably in the heat, and she felt her face burn, listening to the drunk Chief of Police try to shame her, and her situation.
She could have broken limbs in that moment. She could have smashed their two thick heads together.
Jim was no fucking better than Lonnie, he just didn't have a wife or kids waiting at home. But that was the whole point, wasn't it? He was doing it because he lost that wife, and kid. Lonnie was doing it despite the wife, and kids.
Jim had that up on Lonnie, she supposed. But he had fallen further than Lonnie had. Lonnie was never made of much, never destined for great things - He had drunk in his blood, whereas Jim constructed his downward spiral from grief. It was gut-wrenching, when it wasn't so frustrating to watch.
"Not a good fuckin' look, Chief," Joyce told Jim as he finished a rambling, aggressive threat to arrest Lonnie, for no real reason that she could decipher.
The light caught his eyes, and they were narrow, and unfocused - There was a meanness about them, and plain and simple drunk, too.
"You can't put one foot in front of the other, let alone arrest anybody." She threw in, because if he was going to lecture her about drunk idiots, she was going to point out the biggest one she could see.
"You marrying him wasn't a good fuckin' look." Jim was never short on retorts, even when wasted. Get him in close enough proximity to Lonnie Byers, and he could argue until daylight on sheer will alone.
Jesus Christ, Joyce thought, her mouth dropping open a bit. He was unbelievable.
JESUS CHRIST, she wanted to scream at him. It had been fifteen years. Jim had been married, too - Jim had been through so much more than to worry that she married goddamn Lonnie Byers.
Hopper swayed on the spot, all broad, 6 foot-whatever of him. She'd let him fall like a fuckin' tree if he lost his balance, she already decided.
"Clever. Find a new bone to pick." Joyce said, instead of shouting him down, knowing it would be a waste of her energy.
She tore the car keys from her pocket, and felt the humid heat prickle unpleasantly across her skin with the motion. Her temper was short tonight, and rightfully so. She had two boys at home in bed, and was across town picking up their scumbag of a father, and dealing with her equally drunk, grieving, old flame - Seriously, a fairy-tale, Joyce thought.
"You don't want me to help you?" Jim said, barely coherent himself, and stumbling in the gravel parking lot.
Joyce looked up, glaring at him darkly. She could see the sweat across his face gleaming in the street lamps. He didn't look good. He looked on the verge of passing out himself. He looked pekid, and bloated.
"You want to help me?" There came the shouting. She couldn't contain it - He knew which buttons to push after all of these years, and Joyce boiled over, useless as it was.
"Look the fuck after YOURSELF, so if I ever do need you to arrest him you will be SOBER ENOUGH to manage it." She roared up at him, stopping short of poking her finger against his chest, as she would likely knock him over if she did, so unsteady was he.
And, she meant it - Really. It wasn't like Lonnie had never laid his hands on her. Jim had seen the evidence of it himself, soon after he came back to town. It's not like Jonathan had never snuck the phone into the closet and called the cops during a particularly bad row - It's not like it was outside the realm of possibility that Joyce might actually need his miserable ass arrested at some point.
Could Jim not see that? Could he not see what this looked like?
"I'm not like him, Joyce." He said, as if he read her thoughts. It was the most sober he sounded since she arrived.
She couldn't really look at him in any detail. She couldn't really accept that this was Hopper - It was the worst shape she had ever seen him in, ever, at any point in their history. It was alarming, it made her feel a little hysterical to witness him like this.
"I know you aren't, Jim, and that's why this is so hard to see." There was no reason to hold back - Both for the fact of who they were to each other, and that he would not likely remember it in the morning, anyway.
"Fuck you," Hopper snarled down at Joyce, a nerve clearly touched, as he wiped a hand over his upper lip to swipe the sweat away.
His skin tone was sallow, as if he hadn't eaten a vegetable or seen the sunshine in months - As if all he drank was beer, and all he ate were pills.
"Hard to see is you walking around with bruises from that prick, and too much pride to leave."
"That's a low blow," Joyce said with a short, dark laugh, only because she was too angry to cry. "It has nothing to do with pride. Hell, Jim, I'm insulted you don't know me better than that. You gonna remember that one tomorrow? It might be the worst thing you've ever said to me."
"Doubt that's true." He shrugged, and she knew he was drunk, but she absolutely hated him in that moment.
She hated him for making her think there was no use, and no good in anything that she did - The world was gonna spit her up and chew her out, anyway, wasn't it? And how would she stop it from doing the same to her boys when their father was a fucking idiot, Hopper was a fucking idiot, was there any man in her life that wasn't? How was she going to raise her boys to be decent men, when she didn't know any decent men?
"Glad you're proud of yourself." Joyce walked away, hands clenched into fists. She would not cry about it until much later, when the pulsating anger, and humidity, had faded some.
"Ain't proud of a thing in my life anymore, Joyce." Jim shouted at her retreating back, his voice cracking.
If she didn't have Lonnie to get home and out of her face, this might break her. She might turn around, she might hold him like she held him when he first came back to town - Equally as broken then, just not quite so fucked up.
But she couldn't dig him out of his darkness, when she was drowning in her own. She wasn't going to be manipulated by his heartache, though it certainly amplified her own.
"Can't imagine you are, Jim." Joyce threw over her shoulder, quietly, but the signpost he kicked told that he heard her.
When Joyce got home, she cracked the windows, but left Lonnie asleep in the car, because she officially couldn't fucking stand him.
And the next time she saw Jim, at any level beyond pleasantries at her till, was when Will got lost in the Upside Down.
Reflecting on that confrontation, just past midnight in '85...was bizarre for Joyce.
Joyce knew that Jim was not like Lonnie, and was not like all of the angry abusers of which her family was comprised, but that argument was not something she took lightly. It was not a moment she shrugged off, it was one she locked away. It was apart of the reason, now that she was thinking, that she could look passed Hopper to see Bob, even after Will's rescue. Because she had seen that side of him. Joyce had the right to be cautious.
But, oh he had...indeed, course corrected. He had improved, and confirmed that he was a man of substance - He was an asshole then, but he was still a decent man, and she was relieved at this reminder.
She had been to hell and back with Jim Hopper, in more ways than one, and wasn't...sure how they kept coming back to each other.
It must mean something that they could find their way back.
She hoped they would find their way back again, for the dark winter clutched Joyce deep in a fog of familiar anxiety, and depression.
It wasn't unexpected, considering the high from exorcising Will's demonic shadow monster, from welcoming El back into their lives, was diminishing slightly. The adrenaline from the ordeal was wearing off, some months later. The peace, the calm wasn't surprising to wake up to now. It had...settled, there was a bit of a routine to their lives again.
And that was nice. It was nice to feel safe, to know both Will and El were becoming happy and whole, though it was something they had to work for, and through. It was nice to see Jonathan come out of his shell around Nancy, to watch Jim navigate fatherhood the second time around.
But, it wasn't enough, either. The newness had kept Joyce on her toes, gave her a purpose - Something to work through, and figure out - Something to adjust to, help the kids adjust to - Find a rhythm in their daily life.
When it was time to relax into it all, when that rhythm and routine were established, the calm gave way to old worries, to half-healed wounds, and to unprocessed grief.
When Joyce finally felt like she could breathe again, the Christmas tree thrown out the back door, when the days were cold, short, and dark - Joyce blinked and realized she was heavy. Ah. This. Yes, this she knew.
She crawled into bed one afternoon, drew the curtains, pulled thick blankets over top her, and didn't really feel like she crawled out again until the springtime - Her spirit didn't, at least.
She still - existed, of course. A single mother didn't get to completely shut down, as grieving, broken, and depressed as she may be.
Joyce went to work and came home, helped with homework, worried and fretted, but she didn't quite have the energy. Some days she just went through the motions, after assuring the kids were okay.
Other times she had too much energy, but it was not the productive kind. It was the kind that had her spiraling through intrusive thoughts, that had her tossing and turning all night, so that she looked like the living dead at work the next day.
It was an energy that scared her, that made her fear she would never be able to pull herself out of any of this - That Bob's death, Will's agonizing possession, all Jonathan had shouldered through the ordeal, the emotional and physical torture El experienced, would be the things to bring her down, and keep her there.
She would write some nights when she couldn't sleep - In a diary-like prose, but they were almost letters - Explanations of her mental state, pleas to her boys to know she was sorry if anything happened to her, to know how hard she tried, but how she wished she could have given them so much more. She felt a little sorry for herself when she wrote these things, she begged for some sense and clarity to come from it, scrawled on the lines of paper.
This can't be all I am, or all I have, this can't be my grand failure, sucked down into this darkness.
She was embarrassed re-reading her thoughts in the daylight - She threw it out, certain things would get better - Until nighttime came, and in crept the cold aching heartache, chaining her down.
The most alive she felt through the fog was when all three kids were in her home - Making a meal, doing the dishes, teaching El an array of things - Long division, Dungeons and Dragons, how to use Jon's cameras, who were The Clash.
And that was the thing - Though Joyce was certain she was depressed, though she ached and yawned, barely ate - There were still three kids in her home. El - Just like Joyce promised - was still welcome, and nothing changed in their interactions. It was reassuring, as nothing else was in these weeks.
But though there was El - There was no Hopper.
Joyce figured she scared him off, though they both knew that wasn't it - He was not scared, just respecting her need for space, and time - She all but warned him she would need time.
Hopper saw her in the midst of it during the day on New Year's Eve, when he thought he'd swing by for a coffee like was habit while both younger teens were at the Wheelers. He liked to keep busy whilst El was out of his supervision, something that would forever make him uneasy, and time with Joyce proved to be the most pleasant way to do so.
It was not the worst that Hop had seen her, considering the state she was in when Will got lost, but it was enough to show that...he had no business being impatient, he had no right to want to rush her through this trauma. It was important for him to have witnessed it, though it upset him, too. He hated seeing, and leaving, her in such distress. But he was who she needed the time from.
Joyce wouldn't quite look at him, wouldn't meet his gaze, didn't wanna share a smoke, made him a coffee whilst she took none for herself. Her face was wet with tears that didn't seem to have a beginning, or end, dark circles under her eyes made them look hollow, and she looked nearly frail.
Jim didn't...push her, didn't question her. He didn't want to embarrass her, but it was worrisome. He cut his visit short, not embracing her like he might normally, not pressing a kiss to her hair on his way out the door. He left feeling a little empty, not expecting to see her at the teen's party that night, as he sat in his truck at the end of her driveway afterward. But, it was the right thing to do, because Joyce felt relieved when he left.
Not because...not because she feared he would judge her, or wouldn't support her through it - She knew that he would, if she allowed him to. It was not because she was ashamed of her anxiety, but more that she just felt so vulnerable, so exposed, around him to begin with.
It was more than she could handle - Being such a mess in front of him, knowing how he felt - Knowing what they wanted - And she blamed herself for not being able to give it, hated herself for potentially squandering a last chance with Hopper.
Jim felt out the situation as the weeks went on. He didn't change their plans, didn't change the routine of the days El would visit, or the nights she would sleep over. He still picked Will up from the Wheelers, too, he still dropped dinner off for everyone when El would stay.
And he would ask El, ask Will...how was Joyce? He wanted to know if she was coming out of it, if him not being around was easing some of the pressure, was allowing her the space she needed.
It seemed that it was, so because of this...they progressively drifted apart in the first four months of '85. Not necessarily emotionally, because that - Shit. That was still very much a thing, but they didn't cross each other's doorsteps.
They heard each other's voices from the threshold, but the most they saw of the other was entering and exiting their vehicles - Backs of heads, elbows around the corner. Jim knew when to do his shopping at Melvald's, because he knew her schedule. They talked on the phone at times to clarify plans their kids tried to make for them, but it was always very much in the role as parent. They weren't Joyce and Jim, they were just heads of their households discussing whatever Will and El were up to that week.
It was - Odd, it was sad, in a way, but it was also the most he could have done for her. It meant so much to her, this peculiar detachment, because she was beating her own path through the grief, and she needed that.
She needed a little independence, needed a little room to grow. Joyce had no doubt that Hopper was good for her, had no doubt that they could raise each other up through their insurmountable pain - But she also had no doubt that she needed to get through this part of it on her own. She needed to focus, she needed to navigate her emotions, not splinter herself even more by allowing Jim into her home, her heart, her life (her bed.)
She would be better for it, sooner than later, and in turn would be better for them all. She would be better for Jim when she could see the light in the day again, when she could handle more the heavy emotions that their relationship brought.
Joyce believed it was for the best, though at times she wondered if she went too far, and if he would lose interest in their whole dynamic. Jim could have his choice of women, why would he spend the winter waiting for Joyce to decide he could chastely enter her life again? Because of that worry, she stayed away a little longer than she wanted to, a little awkward and uncertain in the ups and downs, these highs and lows, the push and pull between her and Hopper.
Worried, awkward, or uncertain, though - God, it was still something, and with Jim it could be everything.
Jim strode into the station, irritated at the mud tracked through the place. It was only Monday morning, and there wouldn't be any cleaners until mid-week, at the earliest. It had been a wet spring, and a positively mucky April. His officers apparently didn't know how to -
"WIPE YOUR GOD DAMN FEET!" Jim bellowed into the main area, rolling his eyes as Callahan flinched, and Powell tipped an imaginary cap to him.
"Mornin', Chief." Said the younger officer, and Jim stopped on his way to pour a coffee. He put his hands on his hips, broad and imposing, as he tracked his eyes from Callahan's passive expression, to his mud-covered boots propped up on the desk.
"You gotta be kidding me," Hopper said, and Powell nearby shook his head, very much engrossed in his paperwork.
"I swear to Christ, Callahan." Jim thumped the officer's desk, so that he lost his place, and his feet lurched back onto the floor.
"Congratulations, you've been demoted to office cleaner today, and if,-"
"Jim," Flo came round, and interrupted his ranting, which he truthfully felt like he was just getting started on, so wound up and looking for an argument was he.
"Aw, come on, Chief, it's gonna rain today anyway,-" Callahan protested, all but whining.
"Jim,-" Flo tapped him on the shoulder, trying to pass a memo over it.
"You defying me?" Jim ignored the woman behind him, and stood taller, if possible. Not like Callahan had the brains to be intimidated by him, but it was burning off some of his irritation to wield some authority.
"Not if those were orders,-" The kid muttered, and sometimes Jim forgot how young he was, because he felt like he was dealing with fuckin' Dustin, or Harrington. Kids, all of 'em - Young, dumb, oblivious, kids.
"Hopper!" Flo was still attempting to get his attention, all three voices near shouting, and it was a bit of a scene for so early in the day.
"Consider 'em orders, then,-" Jim huffed.
"Fine,-"
"'Scuse me?" Jim rounded again, and Powell was muttering something about no sense.
"JIM HOPPER!" Would this end?, Flo sighed to herself.
"Fine, Chief, sir." Callahan waved his hands about dismissively, one for theatrics, succumbing to Jim's anger.
"Flo, for the love of,-" Jim nearly knocked into the older woman as he turned to face her, directly at his shoulder.
"As charming as your particularly short fuse is today, Chief," Flo was never one to miss a beat, shoving the memo into Jim's hands with her own patience thinning. "Joyce Byers is in your office."
Ah shit. There went the wind in his sails. There was part of the reason for said short fuse, and for his positively thrumming nerves.
"Huh?"
Flo sighed again, rolled her eyes this time, and went back to her desk. The ill-tempered Chief most certainly heard her clearly, and she wasn't going to repeat herself, wasn't going to get involved in whatever vaguely depressing romance Jim and Joyce might be striking up, or snuffing out, or rekindling, or avoiding, or -
"She's been in there some time, Chief, considering you're a smidge late, so..."
"Right."
Shit.
Joyce Byers had not been in his office to wait for him since - Since that fateful day Will went missing. His heart leaped into his throat, deep-rooted concern galloping ahead of his own hang ups at seeing her again.
Hopper hadn't seen Joyce face-to-face in months. Since December. That was too long - The longest since she was back in his world (he back in hers) - Not to see her, not to talk to her, not to hold her, or share smokes, or smile into her warm, wide, brown eyes. He had not seen her in 1985. That made him feel a bit sick - Made him feel like he'd lost out big, had fucked it all up all over again.
He kicked the little office door open (after which Callahan propped his feet back onto his desk), and strode down the hall to his office, trying not to look too eager, trying not to let her bowl him over like she did every god damn time.
There she was indeed.
