November 1963

Hop is back for the first time since graduation, and he has been missed more than he realised.

Jim can't quite sort the feeling taking hold in his gut while he pulls into Hawkins High for the first time in five long months, but it's possible it isn't all bad. Partly he feels nostalgic, thinking back on all the time he spent here, but he also feels a sharp sense of satisfaction to have moved beyond this place and all those in it, to never have to walk through those front doors again if he doesn't want to.

He pulls into the parking lot, tires crunching on the frost-encrusted leaves as he spins to a stop. He takes a moment to bask in the joy, now feeling like a returning conqueror as he pulls the keys from the ignition of his '62 Impala, cutting off the radio.

He had planned on coming back for Homecoming; Gary is only about a hundred miles from Hawkins, after all, and Uncle Geoff had told him that his car was available anytime Jim wanted to make the trip home. He'd been working hard all summer and decided to stay on at the mill into the fall, and Homecoming seemed like the perfect time to get back and visit his friends and see his folks.

Then all that went out the window when he found out about the barely-driven Impala for sale at a knockdown price at a garage in Gary; he knew he needed to keep up his sixty hour work week and then some to make her his as soon as possible.

And she is a sweet thing, Jim thinks tenderly, with a convertible roof, all that chrome trim, and a stunning 380 brake horsepower engine. He wasn't a huge fan of the bronzey-brown colour, at first, but as soon as he was handed the keys for the first time he practically fell in love.

It's all worth it, in the end, because really, Thanksgiving is a more important holiday even if it is over a month later. Plus, in light of all the extra hours he's been putting in at work, they've agreed to give him the whole long weekend, starting with getting off at noon today.

Jim checks his watch as he strides towards the entrance to the school. It reads 3:38, so he has seven minutes until school lets out and he can pick up his cousin Donnie, like he promised his parents and Aunt Shirley.

He pulls his jacket closer around his body, eager to get inside and onto one of the benches outside the principal's office to wait for Donnie. He chuckles to himself as he imagines the face of the secretary—Ms. Tait—when she sees him sitting there again like he never even left. He wasn't especially a troublemaker… but there were a number of miscommunications, he supposes, that ended with frequent trips down the hall to visit Principal Amon. Thankfully he'd always had a knack for talking his way out of trouble.

The scent of tobacco wafts up at him as one boot lands on the steps, and Jim breathes it in deeply, fond memories popping into his head. Then, over the quiet whistling of the wind, he hears a soft sniff from below, and stops in his tracks. Another sniff—and was that a sob?

He climbs back down and marches to the other side of the steps—the hollow side—and spots a familiar-yet-somehow-not-familiar face.

"Hop!" Joyce starts, quickly looking away and wiping her face with her mittens. When she turns back to him she's smiling around a cigarette. "They make a mistake letting you leave? I always knew that it had to be a joke that you graduated."

The smile that crawls onto his face is warmer than he's worn in a while. She looks different than last time he saw her: older, and the unruly brown hair that she and Sandra Derkins had bleached with lemon juice in June is now cut short and dyed a shade darker than her natural colour. Even with her cap tugged over her ears, the bangs and the sharp flip at her jaw give her a very mod look. And that eyeliner makes it look even a little bit tough. "Amon called me, begging me to come back and teach you young things the way of the big wide world." Without thinking about it much, he slips into his old seat on the step supports, leaning against a beam. "But I see I've done a good enough job teaching you the importance of skipping class every once in a while," he says, reaching for her cigarette with a smirk.

Her smile is a touch brighter, too, as she hands it to him. He spies the pack poking out of her old wool coat and frowns. "Marlboros, huh? You like your smokes that watered down?" He takes a drag, handing it back to her.

"I know, I know, no Luckys. But these were always my favourite, and I can afford my own now," she says, lifting her chin proudly. "I got a job at Melvald's for the summer, and I was working real good hours. They even kept me part-time for the school year."

"Not bad at all. Well, welcome to the working class," he says, pretending to raise a glass in a toast. "What does your mom say about the smoking"

"Oh, she still screams and hollers." Her voice is steady, but the slight twitch of a muscle in her chin reveals that things haven't really gotten better between Joyce and Vera Horowitz. A number of times that they met out here Joyce was fit to bursting—even by that time of day—with anger at something her witch of a mother had done that morning. Jim had heard stories that made his fights with hisparents seem practically endearing. "But I'm buying all my own shit now, practically, so we have something of an arrangement: she puts food on the table and doesn't have to buy me shoes and shirts, and I smoke out the window." She sniffs again, rubbing her nose. "And at school, of course."

"I can see that," Jim says slowly. "But why skip last period to sit out here? Why not hit the road, go into town or go home early for the long weekend?" Jim isn't totally sure where Joyce lives, or how far from school, but he knows she always used to walk to and from Hawkins High. She could go anywhere from here. Why didn't she?

"Too fuckin' cold," Joyce says, her voice clipped. "Pauline has been giving me rides since the temperature dropped. I'd freeze to death otherwise."

He had noticed she wasn't really dressed for walking in this weather; her tweed skirt, striped sweater, and knitted cap are sensible enough, he supposes, but her dark green tights look threadbare, as does her dad's old, giant WWII coat, and instead of any kind of boot she wears Chucks at least a size too big lined with plastic bags and her wool socks folded overtop. Jim can only see the bags because one has come untucked.

But it's fifteen degrees out here—colder than it has any business being in November—and she keeps rubbing her calves to keep warm. Jim's freezing too, and he just got out of his car.

Joyce folds her knees to hide her feet from his gaze, and he can't tell if it's subconscious or not. "Anyway, I might just end up walking home after all." She hands him her cigarette again.

He pushes it back at her. "I've got the feeling you need that more than me right now." He pulls out his own pack, and Joyce gasps.

"Camels! You're not smoking Luckys anymore either?"

Jim shrugs, smiling as he pulls a cigarette from the pack. "Nah, I started smoking these this summer when my uncle kept buying the wrong ones." Uncle Geoff was a kind man of few words, a hard-working, blue-collar American through and through. And anytime Jim cleaned up his apartment, or brought the car back with a full tank, a pack of Camels was the way Geoff showed his gratitude, and Jim never had the heart to point out that he wasn't in the habit of smoking them.

Jim leans forward, cigarette held in his teeth, and after a short pause and his raised eyebrows, Joyce starts fumbling in her pockets for her lighter. He can feel his, pressed on his left hip as usual, so he's not sure what made him wait for hers. It's not like he doesn't light his own smokes every other day of his life.

"So… so I guess you just developed a taste for them?" Joyce says, relaxing a tad when she at least gets the thing lit on the first try. She blocks the wind with her hand, scooting forward to bring the flame to the end of the cigarette while her own stays held between her lips.

Jim holds still while she lights it, noticing the tiniest tremor in her hands. "Yeah, and now I don't think I'll ever go back."

Joyce meets his gaze just then with unusual directness, and for a moment Jim gets a glimpse of the emotions roiling beneath the surface of her brown eyes. Why was she out here crying in the freezing cold?

"How come you weren't back for Homecoming?" she asks, looking away.

Jim perks up. "I needed to work the extra hours." He leans back, unable to fight his grin. "You might have thought you heard a tiger in the parking lot just a few minutes ago, but I'll have you know that's my new baby—a 1962 Chevy Impala."

Joyce raises her eyebrows, then gives some mock applause while Jim sits there beaming. "Well congratulations."

"Thank you. I feel like a proud father."

She smiles. "You boys and your toys…"

Then her lip trembles, and she starts to cry.

Jim is so shocked he just stares at her for a long ten seconds. What did I do? "Joyce," he says, finally recovering. "Joycie, hey," he moves closer, trying to peer into her face which is pressed down into her mittens. He notices the left one has a quarter-sized hole unravelling in the thumb. "What is it? What did I say?"

She composes herself quickly; when she lifts her face a moment later, her tears have stopped, and her eyes aren't even red. Her chin still quivers a little, and she sniffs pitifully a few times, but the brief, alarming outburst seems to be over. Her cigarette is nearly finished, but she takes one long drag, holding her breath while she tosses the stub into the snow. "It's nothing… it's just…" she raises her arms then drops them to her lap, her voice cracking. "It's been a shit day, Hop. On top of a shit week."

Her breathing starts coming heavier again, and Jim isn't sure what to do. This was always the part of his relationship with girls he tried to avoid, and he's certainly never had to deal with tears from a girl he's not sleeping with. "Well, what happened?"

"It's kind of a long story," she says, wrapping her arms around her middle now. "And it's so dumb… just about a dumb boy and especially my dumb friends." She looks up at him again, and this time he sees more than a flash of emotion in her eyes. She's hurt, and furious. "Do you ever not like your friends so much?"

He half smiles. "Sometimes. What happened?"

She sighs. "It's just… do you remember Henry Lloyd?"

Jim nods. "Yeah, he's a senior this year, right?"

"Right. Well, Pauline heard from George Burness—you know him? He's real close with Henry—that Henry was into me, I guess. She told me at lunch one day a couple of weeks ago when we were sitting with Jeanine, and they were both really excited, saying how they were going to help me get him because they knew that I'd had a crush on him, or whatever, since the Fair on Labour Day weekend." She bites her lip, closing her eyes tight. "So things seem to be going well, until all of a sudden Henry asks Jeanine out, and she says yes. She'd been spending some time with him since they sit near each other in Science class, but I thought she was talking me up to him, since that's what Pauline said she was doing and Pauline is her lab buddy.

"But then today I find out from Pauline that she knew Jeanine was just flirting with Henry, but didn't tell me because I 'need to learn to chase after boys myself.'" Joyce takes another deep, steadying breath. "And they both think that they haven't done anything really wrong, and that I should just get over it. Even Sandra won't take my side about it because she wasn't there at lunch that day, and we sit on the opposite side of the class in science from the others, and because she says she does think I'm a little too shy with boys."

It's a lot to take in, and Jim is a bit overwhelmed. He takes a puff from his cigarette, stalling a little while he thinks. "That's… that's really rough."

Joyce nods. "Fucking bitches." Then, unexpectedly, she grins. "And I told them to their faces."

Jim's eyes go wide. "You called them fucking bitches to their faces?"

Joyce nods, though now her smile is flickering, and her eyes watering. "Yeah," she wipes the tears away as they fall. "Not Sandra, specifically. But the other two. And Pauline called me an unhinged nutcase, and Jeanine called me a two-faced, psycho slut, which doesn't even make sense because I wasn't the one lying to my friends and throwing myself at Henry! Plus Jeanine knows I've never…" she trails off, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "Anyway. I'm skipping science right now because I can't stand to even look at them."

Science used to be her favourite class, Jim remembers. She never used to skip it. "Well, at least it's Thanksgiving," he offers, "and you won't have to see any of them for almost a week."

"Yeah, and then I'll spend the holiday holed up at home with my loving mother," she says bitterly. "And I feel so…" she sighs, "so stupid, because obviously everyone in the country is still shaken up, and it's Thanksgiving so we're all supposed to be thankful that no one shot us dead while we were driving around, but here I am skipping class and bawling because my friends were mean to me."

"I know what you mean, actually," Jim says, taking a drag, and offering her his cigarette. Joyce waves it away. "This girl that I had kind of been seeing called me that night and said we couldn't see each other anymore. She said Kennedy's death just reminded her that life is short and all that shit, and she needed to focus on the big picture." He shrugs, though it still stings to remember being outright told that you're not good enough to be in someone's "big picture." Especially when he'd been driving to Chicago to see her every Sunday—his only day off—for two months now. "I was so pissed, it was like nothing else about JFK being shot mattered except that this girl dumped me because of it. I didn't think about Mrs. Kennedy, or their kids, or the whole damn country being a mess, just me."

Joyce nods. "Exactly. It just feels like there's so much more important crap than this but it still just sucks."

Over their heads, the bell rings, signalling the end of school for the day. Joyce looks up, then sighs once more. "But I'd rather be shot dead than sit in a car with Pauline right now though," she says, and when she looks back at Jim her eyes are clear. "She can go straight to hell."

Jim laughs, and even Joyce cracks a smile. He stands, ducking his head to exit the steps, then offers his hand. "Well, if you want, I can drive you home." He takes another look at her shoes as he helps her stand, deciding he won't take no for an answer. "I'm here to pick up Donnie as a favour to my aunt, who's madly making stuffing and cranberry sauce for tomorrow and can't come get him." He steps away from the stairs to give his cousin a chance to see him when he leaves the building, and looks at Joyce. "It'll give me a chance to show off my new girl." He wiggles his eyebrows. "You can even pick the radio station."

"Ooh, she sings too?" Joyce asks, shoving her hands in her pockets. "Colour me impressed. How can I say no to that?"

"You really can't," Jim replies, waving his hand as he sees Donnie looking around from the middle of the doorway, blocking the exit for the horde behind him, who immediately start shoving. "Donald!" He shouts, waving his arm above his head at the freshman.

Donnie grabs his books tighter and rushes down the steps, brushing his hair back from his face. He smiles up at Jim. "Wow, hi Jim! Mom didn't tell me you were coming home for Thanksgiving this year!"

"It's always nice to be a pleasant surprise," he says, grinning. "Donnie, are you going to introduce yourself to the lady?"

As if seeing Joyce for the first time, Donnie tries to reach out his hand but ends up dropping a textbook, then another as he tries to catch it. Soon half of his supplies are on the ground. "Oh… darn it!" He bends to grab it all quickly, but when Jim clears his throat he stands straight, sheepishly holding out his hand again. "I'm Donald, but most people call me Donnie."

Joyce bites her lip and takes his hand, shaking it firmly. "I'm Joyce. Nice to meet you."

"But most people call her Joycie," Jim adds, grinning down at Joyce while Donnie scrambles once more to gather his school supplies. "Don't they, Joycie?"

"No, they do not," Joyce says, glaring at him while she helps the younger boy gather his textbooks. She holds on to two of them, knowing he's overloaded. "Not if they like their teeth in their head," she whispers, so only Jim can hear.

He laughs, bumping her with his shoulder. Not very hard, mind, but Joyce is much smaller than he is and she practically goes flying, catching herself on the bike rack.

Donnie's jaw drops when he sees Jim's new car looking between his cousin and the vehicle as if waiting for Jim to tell him to quit being so gullible and of course his actual car is that beater in the corner of the lot. But Jim just grins at the boy's reverential stare, patting the soft top above the driver's door. "She's sweet, huh?"

Donnie nods, eyes still huge. "Is it a sixty-three?"

"Sixty-two," Jim says proudly. "Barely driven, so I got her for a song."

Donnie adjusts the books in his arms to reach for the door. He holds it open for Joyce, smiling politely, but Jim frowns.

"Not happening," he barks. "Ladies get the front, squirt."

Abashed, Donnie climbs in the backseat, putting the stack of school supplies beside him on the bench. Jim swings into the driver's seat as Joyce slides in beside him, biting back a smile. "I'll bet that's the first time you've tried to keep a girl out of your backseat."

Jim starts the car, grinning at her. "She hasn't been broken in like that yet, but oh, that day will come."

"Broken in like what?" Donnie asks, sticking his head between the seats. "You've never had anyone sit in the back? Am I the very first?"

"Yeah kid, you sure are the first to take a ride in the back," Joyce says mischievously. She raises an eyebrow in Hopper's direction. "Not the last, though, I'm sure"

He nods. "Maybe one day I'll even get a ride back there," he says seriously.

Donnie frowns. "Why would you ride in your own backseat?"

"No better place, kid, trust me."

Joyce snorts, covering her mouth to stifle her laughter.

"To be sure, it can get bumpy back there," he says, watching Joyce from the corner of his eye. "And it's not exactly glamourous, but it has its charms. A bit less spacious than some, but if you know what you're doing you can sure make the most of it."

Joyce swats his arm. "Hop!"

"What?" He leans in, whispering: "I can keep going."

"I think we've had enough car sex metaphors," Joyce whispers back. "You're going to scar the poor kid."

"He's thirteen, not three," he says, scoffing. "It's not like he doesn't think about sex. There isn't a thirteen-year-old boy in the country who wouldn't jump at the chance to have sex in the back of any car, let alone one this sexy."

"Okay, that's an exaggeration," Joyce says, looking quickly over her shoulder. "Besides, I'm pretty sure he's fourteen. Freshmen have to be fourteen."

"Even better. Fourteen-year-old boys are even randier than thirteen-year-old ones."

Joyce sits back in her chair. "You are impossible." She points out the window. "Turn left here."

Donnie, seeming to understand that they're finally done whispering about him, leans forward again. "So, Joyce, are you coming to Uncle Fred and Aunt Mary's for Thanksgiving tomorrow?"

Jim raises his eyebrows, trying to catch Donnie's eye in the mirror, but his cousin is busy staring at Joyce, completely enraptured, and doesn't notice.

Joyce hesitates. "No… no my mom and I are going to get my grandpa from Indianapolis and bring him home for dinner tomorrow. We'll probably all listen to the game, too." She turns around in her seat to face him. "Does your family have a big get-together for the holiday?"

Donnie once again seems confused, but nods. "Yeah… we usually spend the whole day at the Hoppers'—my family, and our cousins from West Virginia come up for the weekend too. We play football or something, when it's not so cold, and then there's so much food we're eating leftovers all weekend." A mischievous grin creeps onto his face. "Jim even brought us beer last year!"

"And Jim told you that that had to stay strictly confidential," he says, pointing at his cousin in the mirror. "It's hard enough for me to get my hands on booze, and it'll only get worse if either of our mothers find out about it."

"That sounds like a really good time." Joyce points at another street, and Jim turns. "Maybe it will warm up enough for you to play football, too. This cold spell is killing us all, but it can't last forever. It's the second right up there, Hop."

He obliges.

"So… you're not going to be there for any of it?" Donnie looks between the two of them. "Wait, aren't you guys… courting?"

Jim bursts out laughing, and from the corner of his eye he can see Joyce biting her lip, trying not to laugh at the poor kid too. "No, we are not courting," he says, trying to make the word sound as high-brow as possible. "Jeez, don't you think I'd have been around more this fall if I'd been 'courting' a girl in Hawkins?"

"No," Joyce answers quickly, on Donnie's behalf. "I mean, you'd have been in town more, sure, but as far as your family is concerned you might as well be in Florida if you're only back in Hawkins to visit a girl."

She's not wrong, Jim thinks.

"Oh," Donnie says, clearly mortified. "I just… I thought you were seeing each other."

"No, but that's okay. Hopper just offered to drive me home," Joyce says. "And speaking of: this is me right up here: seventy-five Wrightley drive."

Jim pulls right up into the driveway, cutting the engine. Joyce looks over at him with a raised eyebrow, but he leaves the keys in the ignition and steps out of the car. He starts to walk over to the passenger side, but Joyce must not realise he intends to get the door for her as she does it herself, shivering as she slips out into the frigid air.

He was half going to do it as a joke, half to be polite, but now he's remembering Henry Lloyd and that Joyce probably has never had a boy open her door for her, and he realises it's probably best that he didn't even half tease her.

But he does walk her to the door, shoulders hunched in his coat. Has the temperature dropped even more in the last five minutes? He shoves his hands in his pockets, stepping onto the stoop of the small one-story home, where at least the wind can't assault him.

"Thanks so much for the drive, Hop," Joyce says, fishing for her keys in the many pockets of her jacket. "I would probably have froze to death out here."

"No problem," he says. "Is your mom not home?"

She finds the key on an old Niagra falls souvenir keychain. "No, not until late. She works to close tonight, so I probably won't see her until tomorrow morning. I mean, ideally I won't see her until then," she says with a shrug. "So it's just me and Patchy tonight."

"Patchy?"

Joyce cocks her head. "I never told you about Patchy? Patchy the cat?"

A grin grows on his face. "No; you named your cat Patchy?"

"I was eight," she says. "He was a feral cat I found out back all beaten up by something. Mom wasn't going to let me keep him but I just kept on trying to help him that eventually he just wouldn't go away. He's a crotchety old codger now, but not so bad." She fumbles with the keys. "I didn't realise I never told you about him."

"I'm sure I've been cheated of a number of great stories," he deadpans.

Joyce gives him a dry look over her shoulder as she opens the door. "He's a good cat. Anyway, I better let you go before you freeze to my doorstep. Thanks again for dropping me off, Hop. And happy Thanksgiving."

"Same to you."

Donnie has moved to the front seat when Jim gets back to the car. He gives his cousin a hard look. "Next time, maybe don't ask people you've just met if they're coming to Thanksgiving, huh?"

Donnie flushes, looking down in his lap. "I thought she was your girlfriend—when you were being all whispery I figured that's what that meant."

Jim chuckles, starting the car and peeling out of the driveway. "Yeah, well it's better not to assume, okay?"

He grumbles out an "okay," before perking up once more. "Well did you invite her over for any part of the weekend? If you're friends, then she could still come, right?"

"Why, do you have a crush on her?" Jim asks, lightly punching his cousin's leg. "She's a bit old for you."

"How old is she?"

"Sixteen," Jim answers. "And no, I didn't invite her over. We're friends but… I guess we're not that kind of friends." Even as he says it, it sounds strange. He can count on one hand the number of real conversations he's had with Joyce Horowitz outside of their alcove under the high school steps, but they talked about practically everything under the sun during those ritual smoke breaks. Hell, as of today she's cried in front of him, and he didn't even run the other way.

Still, they aren't friends like that. After all, she's still in high school while he's a grown man living in another city. That has to mean they can't really be friends.

"So she's two years older than me and two younger than you," Donnie says, crossing his arms. "That's not that weird."

"Well ask her out then," Jim says, thinking of how much he'd be willing to pay to be a fly on the wall for that conversation. "Ask her to the winter formal."

Donnie is quiet. "I don't have a crush on her," he admits. "Anyway, I'm just saying I thought you guys were cour—that you were involved. I didn't mean to be impolite."

Jim ruffles Donnie's hair, and the smaller boy is quiet. "Don't worry. Joyce is tough—she won't be offended."

Donnie nods, looking out the window. "It must be sad to be alone on Thanksgiving," he muses.

Jim drums his fingers on the gear shift. "She's not really alone," he says, thinking more of Patchy the cat than of Vera Horowitz. From all he's heard of that woman, Joyce would better enjoy Thanksgiving completely alone than with her.

"I guess." Donnie turns back to Jim, smiling. "I'm glad we have a big family to celebrate with, though."

Jim smiles too. "Me too, kiddo."

Back on Wrightley dr. Joyce Horowitz closes and locks her front door behind her, watching the Chevy drive away through the frosted glass. She goes to pet Patchy the cat, perched on the shoe rack, but the cat jumps down and walks away. Joyce smiles.

And she starts to cry.

6101719: Hope you enjoyed this chapter! It was super fun to write, and while I was working on some dynamic stuff I ended up basically planning a super loose outline for the next couple of one-shots I want to do, which is exciting. Hopefully that means the next update won't be in too long!

On AO3 I posted this and asked about whether we know Hopper served in Vietnam or whether that's just a wiki superstition, and the response there was so good that I want to ask you guys a different question that I can't remember the answer to (guys, do NOT trust the wiki, it's super wrong about a lot of things): Do we know of what year it was when Lonnie left Joyce AND perhaps more importantly, do we know for sure that Lonnie left Joyce? His line in s1 to Jonathan about "maybe I'm not the asshole" makes me think it might be a bit more ambiguous about whether he left or was kicked out. I like the idea of Joyce kicking him out when things got too much, but I'm not totally sure which direction I want to go with that yet. And still, I'd love to stick to canon when possible.

Thanks, all. Much love.