Chapter 1- Tired of Waiting

She had been busy on a case in downtown St. Louis when her superior called in. Allegedly, an actual Russian scientist was at Murray Bauman's house.

That paranoid idiot had an actual Russian at his house.

She couldn't believe it.

Laurie Miller had spent the past fourteen years in the FBI working undercover at various points in Russian organizations. One of her aunt's had married a Russian man at the height of the Red Scare and before he got arrested and deported for no reason other than he was an intelligent Russian man, Laurie had learned enough Russian from him to know she wanted to learn more. She studied on her own and then took Russian all through University.

So when she joined the FBI at 22 with her International Relations and Russian Majors, they took her straight away and put her undercover whenever they could. She mostly worked translating communications.

And now here she was, on the way to the house of one of the most paranoid people she had had the misfortune to come across. She and Murray had met a couple of times before and each time was a misery for her. Laurie just couldn't stand paranoid people.

They sucked all of the fun out of everything.

The drive from St. Louis to Sesser was annoying long and although Laurie knew she wasn't going to like was at the end of this trip, she was sort of looking forward to it. She had only six more years before she could retire and if she could get at least one more promotion, she would be set up fairly nicely in her retirement. Getting her hands on a legit Russian scientist would almost certainly guarantee her a promotion.

And maybe this would finally get Murray off her radar.

It was after lunch by the time Laurie finally pulled into Murray's "driveway". She had never been to his home/bunker, but unbeknownst to him, she, and the FBI, had always known where he lived.

But Murray was a headache, not an actual problem.

Laurie put her car in park and turned it off. She sat there for a moment, the air turning off and feeling the heat penetrate into the car. Her job was fairly quiet; Laurie never saw much action and she preferred it that way. She sighed, grabbed her suit jacket off the passenger's seat, and got out of the car. She gave herself a minute to put the jacket on and straighten herself up before walking up to the metal door. Nothing like pretending like she wasn't sweating to a disgusting degree.

Laurie banged loudly on the door and waited, the sun beating down on her.

"Uhh…is that-is that you, Miller?" Murray said a minute later, clearly annoyed and surprised by her presence.

"Open the fucking door Murray; it's hot as fuck out here. My hairspray will only hold for so long."

Nothing happened.

"MURRAY!" she yelled. The drive from St. Louis had clearly annoyed her more than she expected. Her jaw clenched as the anger and annoyance rolled through her.

A moment of hesitation and then a buzzing sound and the door began to open. Laurie let herself in.

"Special Agent Miller, was it?" Murray said, stopping her just inside the doorway. He was stalling her. She tried not to grimace at the ugly jean shorts he was wearing and the white tank top, but she was certain she made some sort of face.

"Very good, Murray. You remember me. It's been what, two years? Look at you, still paranoid as fuck." Laurie smiled sweetly.

"Um, so...um, you know where I live?" he asked, genuinely confused and she could hear the paranoia coming out.

"Wait…Laurie?" a deep voice called from another room.

Laurie turned, remembering that voice, but trying to recall from the depths of her memory of who the voice belonged to.

Her heart dropped when she recognized the man coming out from a room in the depths of Murray's bunker.

"Fucking hell...Jim?" Her heart began to beat quickly in her chest. It just couldn't be?

"Uh, wait, you two know each other?" Murray said, standing too closely to Laurie.

She groaned and smacked him in his chest with the palm of her hand, not even looking at him. She heard what sounded like him hitting the ground and Jim frowned at her, disappointed, but Laurie didn't care.

"Laurie," he admonished her.

Jim Hopper. The asshole had been her brother-in-law for about eight years, in what seemed like another lifetime. The last time she had seen him was sometime in '78 before Jim and her sister had divorced. Not long after their daughter died.

"Fucking hell, Jim, what are you doing at fucking Murray Bauman's house?"

He gulped somewhat nervously, putting his hands on his hips over a ridiculously ugly floral shirt. "Well, what are you doing at fucking Murray Bauman's house?" he shot back at her.

Laurie narrowed her eyes at him angrily. "I'm fucking FBI, Jim. I'm doing my job. What are you doing here?"

"Still in the FBI, huh, Laurie? That's good. That's great! How long has it been?"

"JIM!" she yelled. What was it with men today?

He jumped slightly and shrugged. "It's a long story, Laurie."

She sighed, her shoulders dropping. "Jim, for fuck's sake man. It's been a long day for me. Where's the Russian?" she asked, skipping to the point.

He looked slightly surprised. "Rus-russian? What Russian? Murray speaks Russian."

Laurie sighed loudly and threw herself into the nearest chair. "I'm so fucking tired, Jim. I know there was a Russian here at some point." She slammed her eyes shut, squeezing them tightly to try and block out everything. "Just please, somebody tell me what's going on."

"Uh, well, there maybe was a Russian here, but not anymore," Murray said, almost convincingly.

"Then why is Jim still here?"

"Just…talking."

"You know Murray, I'm pretty sure I could shoot you and get away with it."

Silence hung in the air for a moment. "I need you to promise to listen first," Jim said, apparently walking further into the room.

Laurie thought about threatening him too, but a vision of his daughter, her niece, bald and dying in the hospital, crossed her mind. So Laurie sat up in the chair and opened her eyes. "Alright Jim, tell me what's going on. I promise not to shoot Murray until after you tell me what's going on."

She waited as Jim took a seat on the couch in front of her and began to talk. Laurie listened to this complicated tale about Russians and a gate and a mall and on and on. She tried to keep her face neutral as her ex-brother-in-law spoke. The Red Scare had long been trumped up. Yes, there was a problem, but the problem was two-sided. Laurie had seen this plenty in her time in the FBI. America was not an innocent bystander in this.

But a gate that led to another dimension? Monsters? It was too much.

"…and that's why we took Smirnoff…"

"ALEXEI!" a woman shouted from another room. Laurie startled at the sound. She knew there was a Russian here, but another woman too?

"And I can tell you don't believe me," Jim finished, slapping his hands on his legs.

Laurie smiled softly. "I do believe you," she said, lying. "Especially because you have this Russian here and I think I know you." Truth was, Laurie wanted to believe him. But the last time she had seen Jim, he had been depressed and knee deep in a drinking problem. "So, Jim, let's go ahead and bring the Russian out and I'll see what he has to say. Okay?"

Jim hesitated.

"I need you to trust me, Jim. Please."

After another moment of hesitation, Jim nodded. "Joyce," he called out, presumably to the woman who had yelled at him.

Laurie turned to watch as a young man in a dirty white shirt walked out of a room with an older woman. The guy looked fairly young with big gold glasses and curly hair. His clothes seemed slightly big for him, making her wonder if he had lost weight working hard or if the Russians just hadn't tried to give him good clothes? Laurie tried to keep her face neutral.

Murray and Jim didn't know that Laurie spoke Russian. A side-effect of working for the FBI meant she tried to keep as much possible close to the chest. One run-in with Murray had her completely pretend to not understand Russian, so today was going to be interesting.

The Russian walked through the room timidly, not meeting Laurie's eyes. He sat next to Murray on one of the couches, avoiding Jim. The woman, Joyce, sat next to Jim.

Laurie smiled at Joyce. "Hi, I'm Laurie."

"I'm Joyce. Hop and I went to high school together," she said, volunteering information that Laurie hadn't asked for.

Laurie looked at Jim, smirking. "Of course."

"Our kids are friends," he added and seemed to immediately regret that.

"Kid? Oh?" She cocked her head.

"This probably isn't the time," he said softly, wanting to avoid the topic, particularly, Laurie was sure, with her.

"No, probably not," Laurie agreed, shaking her head. She leaned forward slightly on her knees. "But we're going to talk, Jim." She turned her attention to the Russian scientist, trying to relax her body language and she smiled softly at the young man. "Hi."

He smiled timidly at her, looking at Jim first.

"Alexei, is it?"

He nodded silently.

"Well, introduce me, Murray."

Murray turned to Alexei and began speaking in Russian. "This is Special Agent Laurie Miller with the FBI. She can be trusted, I'm pretty sure. Apparently, she and Hopper know each other."

Alexei looked over at her when he mentioned the FBI in concern, but then looked back at Murray. "Can she help me defect?"

Murray shrugged. "Probably." He looked at Laurie. "If he helps us stop this disaster, can you help him defect?"

Laurie considered it. If this thing was actually happening, if there really was some crazy plot with the Russians and some gate, then his help would be quite beneficial. "I'm sure something can be worked out."

"If this is real, you mean," Jim interrupted.

She tried not to roll her eyes. "Jim," Laurie said quietly, looking over at her former brother-in-law. "I told you I believe you."

"And yet," he said, "I know that tone of voice."

"Oh, do you?" she snapped. Laurie stood up from the couch, towering over Jim, fully knowing if he stood up he would tower far over her. She leaned over slightly, glaring at him. "I'll fucking shoot you," she whispered in menacing voice, fully meaning her threat. She hadn't forgotten how Jim had lost it after Sara's death, how he had left Diane alone in her grief. Laurie hadn't forgotten any of it. "The FBI won't care."

Laurie wasn't usually this angry, but the combination of a long drive, the Red Scare, Murray, and running into Jim had combined to make her utterly miserable and irritable.

Jim regarded her carefully for a minute before nodding. "That I believe."

"Good, then shut your fucking mouth," she snapped again. She waited as Jim's eyes went wide and then he leaned back in the couch. Behind her, Murray had been translating for Alexei, adding a little bit of exaggeration, she noticed.

"Uh, I'm guessing there's some back story here?" Joyce said, looking between Laurie and Jim.

"A little," Laurie admitted as she sat back down. She looked back at Alexei. The man was regarding her cautiously, but she could also see the telltale sign of respect. Laurie had a feeling, based on Jim calling him Smirnoff instead of his name, that Jim hadn't been very nice to Alexei. She wanted to talk to him in Russian, to try to tell him she was, if he was being sincere, on his side. "Alexei, tell me what's going on." She gazed over at Murray. "And be sure to translate correctly. I want his side of the story, not yours."

Murray nodded and spoke to Alexei. Alexei took a deep breath and began his story, of working on the key in Russia before coming to America to work on the key in Hawkins. Laurie listened carefully, tuning out Murray's pointless translations, while also trying to pretend she needed his translations. The kid at least did a better job of convincing Laurie that this stuff was actually happening.

Or maybe her hatred of Jim was clouding her biases.

"I can help them turn it off. I will help them turn it off," Alexei finished.

Laurie waited for Murray to finish his translation and then she smiled and nodded. Laurie sat back in her chair and closed her eyes, arms crossed across her chest.

First things first, should she punch Jim in the face?

Maybe, if an appropriate situation came up.

Second, did she believe this?

Well, it was kind of easy to believe that the Russians were plotting something in America, but a gate to another dimension? That seemed a little farfetched.

But was it really like Jim to believe in something so insane?

It had been seven years since her niece Sara Hopper had died from cancer. Her death had destroyed Jim and Laurie's sister Diane, unsurprisingly. Laurie was able to get transferred to New York to be close to her sister and give Diane any support she could in Sara's last months. Even before Sara died, Jim had begun drinking. He was good enough to not drink before going to the hospital to see Sara, but at night, Laurie noticed him drinking a lot.

It got worse after her death and it took about a year for Diane to decide to leave Jim, something that had been difficult for her to do.

In the almost ten years that Laurie knew Jim, she had never known him to believe in crazy things. He believed in what he could see.

So the fact that he was peddling this to her did make her pause.

But what if Jim had changed? What if his alcoholism led to him believing crazy stories?

Third, what could she do about the Russian?

If she believed this story, then she had to ask herself if Alexei actually wanted to help.

And if he wanted to help, then she had to ask herself if she could help him defect. She had done that for three other Russians over the past ten years. It wasn't beyond the realm of what she could do as an FBI Agent.

"Um-" Joyce started to say, but somebody shushed her.

Laurie took another deep breath and let it out slowly. She had to make a choice, here and now.

She opened her eyes and sat back up and looked at Alexei, really looking at him. It was usually impossible to judge a person based on a first interaction, but he seemed sincere. He was a dangerous man, but perhaps he also seemed like he did want to help.

So she'd let him help.

"Let's do this, then."