A/N So, as it turns out, I actually have no earthly idea where I'm going with this story other than the fact that it appears to be progressing in a chronological fashion. Which, on the plus side, makes me suggestible. On the down side, I can't promise this won't turn into a meander.
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Hopper wasn't anything close to what anyone would describe as a "morning person." The top two job perks of being Chief of Police as far as he was concerned was parking wherever the hell he damn well pleased and being able to show up to work whenever he happened to get there. Eleven, however, put him to shame and had adopted the sleeping habits of your average house cat. It was a rare occurrence for her to wake up before him and yet this Saturday morning, there she was at the crack of dawn...or possibly the crack of eight, close enough...eating cereal on the sofa and watching cartoons. Hopper bemoaned the fact that the cabin did not have a second bedroom that would have made it possible for him to sleep through this nonsense.
"You're up early," he noted without opening his eyes.
"Not that early," she replied.
He noted the atypical presence of sunlight in the cabin and tracked the problem to the two offending windows high up in the pitch of the ceiling. She followed his gaze and answered the non-verbal question of why in the hell were those curtains not drawn with a simple, "They're too high to see in." And then she went back to ignoring him in favor of her program.
He may have been exhausted from being up half the night, but her intent was impossible to miss: if he was going to deny her visitors on a Saturday, she was going to make him realize what a pain in the ass she could be when she didn't have someone else around to occupy her time.
"I know what you're doing," he told her with a hint of pride. He wasn't pleased she was targeting him, but he wasn't blind to the fact that passive aggressiveness at this level required a degree of social awareness she didn't have even six months ago.
"Watching TV?" her voice was innocent, but she couldn't completely hide the smirk of self satisfaction for having found a way to express her displeasure while still maintaining plausible deniability.
Hopper dragged himself out of bed and, as he passed the sofa on his way to start a pot of coffee, ruffled her hair as a sign of affection and gave her head a light shove that was equally congratulatory and retaliatory.
Even though it started far too early, the morning passed amicably. Hopper deemed it safe enough for Eleven to accompany him outside to reset the trip wire Jonathon had triggered. She collected pine cones to make into fire starters for the wood stove, he pointed out the various animal tracks he'd learned from a boyhood spent outdoors in rural middle-America. Outside during the day in the immediate vicinity of the cabin while he stood watch had been downgraded to being only a little bit stupid.
After lunch, Hopper announced he was headed out for a few hours.
"Where are you going?"
"Last night I said I'd check on Will today so I'm headed to the Byers'."
"Can I come?" Eleven asked hopefully.
"No you can't and don't try to make me feel guilty about it either," he warned anticipating her next move. "That isn't going to work now that I know nothing's out there."
"But I'm bored," she complained, turning bored into a two syllable word.
"Yeah, well next time you're tempted to hide something from me, remember how being grounded is boring," he responded unsympathetically.
Eleven only glared in response.
"I'll bring back something good for dinner, alright?" he said as a peace offering.
"Pizza?"
"Sure, kid. Pizza. Do something productive while I'm gone. Listen to your tapes."
"I need new ones."
"Then give me the old ones to take to Will. Remember, you won't be seeing Mike next Saturday either because we're going to see your mom."
She swore silently to herself. She really was going to have to time her getting into trouble better.
"Can I see Mike tomorrow? Tomorrow is one week," she reminded him.
"I'll see what I can do," he said before walking out the door.
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Hopper pulled up in front of the Byers' home taking note of the presence of Joyce's car and the absence of Jonathon's. Hopper took note of everything, it was something he was no longer able to turn off at will. He stepped onto the slightly sloping porch with a battered file box tucked under one arm and caught himself knocking twice, once and stopped before knocking three times. Force of habit.
"Hey Joyce, how are things?" he greeted her.
"You might have been right. Maybe," she said. "Will can't remember what he was dreaming about, but he was confident it was a dream that set him off and not the Upside Down. Don't let it go to your head."
"Where is he now?" Hopper set the box down at his feet to remove his coat. The Byers' home continued to be kept uncomfortably warm in his opinion.
"The boys all stayed the night here and Jonathon took them all back to the Wheeler's early this morning to sneak them in. I didn't want Karen to find out they left in the middle of the night without her knowing. Mostly I didn't want to have to explain how they ended up at my house the middle of the night without looking any more irresponsible than she already thinks I am."
"Karen Wheeler had an extra kid living in her basement for the better part of a week and didn't notice, so she's not one to talk."
Joyce laughed lightly in response and leaned against the back of the sofa. Neither sat down.
"Speaking of, where is El?"
"Cabin." he responded simply. Joyce noticed that he was beginning to take on Eleven's short speech patterns.
"You could have brought her, you know."
"Maybe next time."
"Ok well, it's an open invitation. For both of you," and she meant it sincerely.
"I told her I'd try to arrange for her to see the boys tomorrow," he said it like an offer.
"Good. Come over around lunch."
"Oh before I forget," he suddenly remembered the box at his feet, "I brought you a spare radio from the station. Next time you need something in the middle of the night, you don't have to waste time sending Jonathon to come get me."
"You could just get a phone," she teased.
"Not at the cabin. No phone lines way out there."
"I don't even know how to use this thing," she looked through the box as though something in it might just come to life and attack her.
"Don't worry, it's easy. And Will knows if you forget."
"You don't have to do that, Hop."
"I don't have to do much of anything," that was, after all, the advantage of being Jim Hopper,"But after the last couple years we've had, I want you to have the peace of mind knowing you can get ahold of me whenever."
Hopper had tired of the superficial tone this conversation had taken and decided to at least attempt to push Joyce into the darker waters she'd been avoiding. He was an expert in avoidance. "Now that we've established there are no kids around to put up a front for, you don't have to hold anything back," he had to duck in order to force eye contact. "How are you doing, really?"
"Better," she started and when he raised a disbelieving eyebrow she added, "And then I feel guilty for feeling better and then I feel worse."
"I get that. Feels like you're being disloyal."
"Yeah," she said softly, distantly.
"You're not, you know," even though he knew from personal experience that these sorts of reassurances and affirmations did nothing to exorcise the demons within.
"Yeah," she echoed even though she did not actually mean it.
He pulled her into a hug, rested his chin on her head and stroked her hair in the familiar sort of way that came from a long albeit disrupted shared history. Guilt and grief were assailants Hopper knew well. Assassins who had very nearly bested him before he found new purpose in his life. It killed him that he couldn't fight them for Joyce. He could fight his way into the Hawkins Lab to save Will, he could pick off inter-dimensional creatures like tin cans on a fence, he be the ever vigilant watchman, but he could not do a damn thing about this other than to wait it out. It was a helpless feeling and he hated it. Helplessness did not suit him.
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Hopper returned to the cabin shortly after sun down to find an unusually unsettled Eleven. Eleven typically came in one of two speeds: intense focus or apathetic disregard. Anything else meant trouble.
Hopper had exhausted his willingness to put up with anymore crap that day and called her out on it. "Ok kid. Something's bothering you, spill it."
Eleven paused, clearly considering her response. She finally settled on, "Promise you won't get mad."
"Well now I know something's up. What did you do?"
Eleven looked unsure and it occurred to him that the poor kid was on the verge of being paroled and didn't want to mess up. "New word of the day," he announced, "Amnesty. A-m-n-e-s-t-y. Look it up."
Eleven went through the now familiar routine of fetching the dictionary and locating the word in question. "A forgetting or overlooking of any past offenses," she read.
"That means as long as I hear it from you first, whatever it is, I'm not mad," he explained patiently.
"Amnesty?"
"That's right."
She nodded and confessed, "I was in the Void."
"Ok. And?"
"I wanted to know if you were on your way back," she explained.
"You know I hate that," he voice was taking on a growling tone.
"Amnesty," she insisted.
"I'm reminding myself," he said dryly.
"You and Mrs. Byers. Friends? Or..." she trailed off never having quite mastered the subtle vocabulary of friends vs friends friends vs friends and God help her the multiple meanings of "like" were completely beyond her capacity.
She was turning into a perceptive little thing, he had to give her that.
"That," he started still deciding what he was going to say, "is complicated."
"Complicated?"
"And also, none of your business." Clearly he decided he wasn't going to say much.
"But-"
"Nope," he immediately cut her off, "I refuse to have this conversation. Now, you asked for pizza, I brought you pizza, sit down and eat before it gets cold."
His tone made it very clear that he considered this topic closed.
But Eleven was nothing if not persistent.
