Chapter 1: You Don't Mess Around With Jim

Yeah, he big and dumb as a man can come
But he stronger than a country hoss
And when the bad folks all get together at night
You know they all call big Jim boss

After everything, Hopper promises that he is going to keep El safe.

The cabin wasn't as messy as it had been almost a year ago, but it was a near miss. The door hung half of its hinges so Hopper didn't bother with trying to shut it, just left it wide open behind them. El was looking around, wide-eyed, and he remembered suddenly that most of this mess was from their fight. Christ, that felt like forever ago.

It was freezing, too, the broken door and windows having long since let out all the excess heat Joyce had trapped, so Hopper left his coat on as he went to stand in the middle of the living room area.

"Well," he said, "this place has seen better days, hasn't it?"

He said it lightly, but El lowered her gaze and he did not miss the way her shoulders hunched inward a bit. "Sorry," she mumbled to the floor.

"Hey." Hopper went to her and put a hand on her shoulder, and ducked his head so he could look her in the eye. "No apologies. We're just gonna move forward now, yeah?"

El blew out a long breath. "Okay."

He glanced into her bedroom, relieved to see that everything in there still seemed to be in place. "You tired?" he asked.

El didn't roll her eyes, but she gave him a look that accomplished the same thing. "It's morning," she reminded him.

It was early afternoon, technically, but he didn't bother to correct her. "Yeah, I know, but—" She looked exhausted still from closing the gate, even after sleeping nearly thirteen hours at Joyce's house, but he decided to take her words at face value. If nothing else, the kid took her vow of honesty very seriously. He changed track mid-sentence. "Let's get to work."

She gave him a ghost of a smile and he wondered if she realized that it was the same thing he had said on her very first day here. She'd been so quiet then, so jumpy and scared and distrustful of him. Standing here now, even with her pinched, exhausted face and Joyce's clothes hanging off her thin frame, she looked years older.

Lord knows he felt years older.

She was already working, pushing the sofa back into place. Then she paused and looked up at him. "Music?" she asked, a little hesitantly.

Hopper couldn't have stopped the smile that spread over his face if he tried. It had become something of a tradition after the first day, listening to Jim Croce while they cleaned. He'd tried making her listen to the rest of his collection, too, even picked up a few new albums over the course of the year, but she hadn't taken to any of them quite as much. "Yeah, kid," he said, and went to put on the record.

—

El had done a bit of cleaning already before she ran off, Hopper realized as they worked. The bookcase was standing again, and most of its contents had been returned the shelves. A neat pile of glass indicated that she had at least started sweeping. That made his heart hurt, for some reason he couldn't quite identify—that she really had cared about trying to make things right. It made the guilt a little stronger.

But they were past that, now. Moving forward. So Hopper picked up the broom and continued sweeping the glass shards, humming softly to the music. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see El swaying a bit to the beat and bobbing her head, though she stilled whenever she thought he was looking. He had to stifle a smile at that.

Once he felt sure they could cross the room safely without slicing their feet open, he turned his attention to the door. Upon closer inspection, he realized that the hinges themselves had been ripped clean off the frame, leaving deep gashes in the wood. He'd have to move the hinges entirely, so that they would have something to cling to. It was tedious work but not difficult, and he almost enjoyed the methodical turning of the screwdriver.

It was a few minutes before he realized that El had stopped cleaning and was standing still, watching him from a few feet away. There was an expression of intense focus on her face, as if she was trying to memorize his movements in order to replicate them herself in the future. It was how she had observed everything he did in the beginning, though he saw that face less often now that the world was a little less of a mystery to her.

"C'mere," he said, waving her over with the screwdriver. "You wanna learn how to fix this door?"

She nodded and came to sit cross-legged next to him, peering over his shoulder.

He held up the hinge he had freed from the bottom of the door. "This," he said, "is the hinge. It's what makes the door swing, see? The part of the doorframe it was attached to is broken off, so I'm moving it up a little higher and re-attaching it."

El said nothing, but she seemed interested, so he continued to quietly narrate his actions as he worked. A few times he handed her loose nails or asked her to hold the door in place for him, and she appeared to enjoy the involvement. When they had finished, she sat back on her heels with a look of satisfaction.

"There," said Hopper, swinging the newly attached door smoothly back and forth a few times before closing it tightly. "Now we won't freeze to death in here."

He slid the locks shut and then looked down at her, about to suggest they take a break and maybe have a snack, but the words died in his throat. She looked apprehensive suddenly, and was staring at the locks almost as if afraid of them.

Hopper felt his brow furrow in concern and confusion. "You okay, kid?" he asked.

"The man," she said, still staring at the locks. "In the lab."

"What?"

Her eyes met his and he was alarmed to see something approaching panic in her expression. "The hurt man. He saw me."

"Yeah. Doc Owens." He frowned. "What's this about, kid?"

She looked back to the locks and he sighed.

"Come on, El. Out with it."

Still refusing to meet his gaze, she said, "You showed me to him."

Her voice sounded accusatory, and, Hopper thought, a little hurt. He hoped she would elaborate, because he still didn't understand, but she said nothing else. After a short pause, he moved to sit down at the kitchen table, and motioned for her to do the same. Whatever this was about, it seemed too serious a conversation to have while sitting on the floor by the front door.

"I don't understand," he said once she had settled in her chair. "Are you upset that I let him see you? We didn't really have a choice, kid, we had to go past him to get to the gate."

"He's from the lab," said El, as if her meaning was obvious.

And then suddenly, to Hopper, it was. "You're worried he's one of the bad men," he realized.

After a moment's hesitation, she nodded.

"Ah, kid." He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Look. I think we can trust him, okay? He helped us all escape the lab yesterday." It occurred to him that she probably did not actually know what had transpired before her dramatic entrance at the Byers' house, but she did not stop him to ask for clarification, so he just kept going. "And he's been helping Will this year. So, you know, maybe he can help you too."

If anything, El looked even more troubled at that. "Papa said he would help me," she said quietly.

And then he had hunted her down, terrorized her and her friends. No wonder El had been eyeing the locks with such concern. She was scared that Owens could find them and break in, just as Brenner would have.

He felt like the biggest bastard suddenly, telling Owens about El without explaining things to her first. It had seemed like such a little thing yesterday, with the gate still open, but now he realized how it must have looked to her: like he had been willing to sell her out in order to get to the gate. Like after everything, she was still just a means to an end for him, just as she had been for Brenner and his men.

"We can trust him," he said again, with greater certainty. "He isn't one of the bad men. He's there to help stop the bad men."

Her next words were whispered. "What if he's lying?"

And maybe she was right. Maybe it had been foolish of him to say anything to Owens. Maybe he couldn't really be trusted. Maybe he should have been silent about El, letting Owens draw his own conclusions. Maybe he should have just shot him rather than take the risk.

But he did not voice any of those concerns to El. Instead, he reached across the table and laid his hand gently on top of hers. "Listen," he said, quietly and seriously. "It's impossible to know for sure. But I do know this. I am going to keep you safe. Okay?"

El just looked at him with those wide, fearful eyes.

"Those bad men aren't going to get you. Even if Owens gets them all together to look for you, they'd have to get past me first, yeah? And that's not going to happen."

"Okay," whispered El.

Hopper gave her hand a squeeze. "I am going to keep you safe," he repeated. "No matter what. I promise."

He couldn't really promise that. He knew that. No one could promise it.

But damn if he wasn't going to do his absolute best.