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"Stand by Me"

When the night has come

And the land is dark

And the moon is the only light we'll see

No I won't be afraid

Oh, I won't be afraid

Just as long as you stand by me

- Ben E. King

They had left Hopper alone after they hosed him down. Alone with a set of clean hospital scrubs to wear instead of the gown, and a bucket to throw up into. And throw up he did, until he was so empty he couldn't imagine there was anything left … and yet that gross black stuff still kept coming. He tried not to think about what kind of long-term effects there might be of all the gunk he had swallowed.

As he was retching one more time, the door opened. Owens' voice sounded from behind him. "All right, cowboy. Good news. We're giving you the green light." He stopped in front of Hopper. "How you feeling?"

Hopper made the effort to grin at him. "Never better."

"All right," Owens said, taking that for the 'fuck you' that it was. "Well, got a present for you." He gestured to the man who had come in behind him, who stepped forward with a hazmat suit, helmet and all, in his arms.

"The hell is that?"

"There's something you should see." Owens wasn't trying to deflect anymore. Which was a good thing, because Hopper didn't really feel up to decking him, which he would have had to do if Owens had tried to lie to him again.

He put the suit on over the scrubs and followed Owens down the familiar hallways. They came through a set of sliding doors he didn't remember from before, and stepped into a room filled with those floating flakes of decay. The Upside Down was still open, then, somehow.

Owens gestured for him to get on an industrial elevator with an open cage, so he did, feeling it wobble unpleasantly beneath his feet. Once he was on, it was lowered through a hole in the floor, far below, in pitch darkness. Until a light was suddenly switched on and Hopper saw what they had been hiding from him all this time.

It was massive. A long, red, pulsing slash in the world, with those vine things lacing across it.

As they continued to move lower, Owens spoke, his voice echoing in the cavernous space. "All living organisms develop defense mechanisms against attack. They adapt. They find some way to survive."

At the bottom, more people in full suits were moving around. Hopper stepped off the elevator, looking around him. Tunnels snaked away from him in every direction. The lab people were trying to hold it off, he could see that—but he could also see that they were failing. "Oh, my God."

"It's pretty impressive, isn't it? It's been spreading. Growing beneath us like some cancer."

"Why aren't you burning it?"

"There's a complication."

Will was sleeping, still sedated, and Mike had finally fallen asleep in his chair with a blanket over him. Bob drew Joyce aside. "I know you said no questions, but—"

"No, I know, you have to know now. I'm sorry, I never wanted this to be your problem."

"Hey." He put one hand gently under her chin and lifted her face so she could look him in the eye. "Your problems are my problems. That's the way I want it. I want … you, Joyce, and everything that comes with you. No matter how hard, or scary, or … unbelievable."

"Bob." She reached up and kissed him, touched by his generosity. "I … don't know where to start. I guess—Will wasn't lost in the woods last year. He was lost … somewhere else. Somewhere—it's like here, only it's dark, and cold, and everything is decaying."

"How did he get there?"

"There was a girl. She—"

"That Russian girl people talk about?"

"Yes, only she wasn't Russian. She was raised here, and she had—powers."

"Like superpowers?" Bob asked, looking skeptical.

"Yes. Just like that. She could lift things with her mind. She could open doors into this other place, this Upside Down, she called it. She had opened a giant one, just downstairs in this building, when she was scared, and then she ran away. Mike found her." Joyce glanced at him, making sure he was still asleep. "He took care of her. I … never believed Will was gone. I could feel him, there in the house. And he kept trying to call me, only he couldn't get through. So I went to Hopper, and he—he believed me." She would never forget how that had felt, knowing she wasn't alone, that Hopper was on her side. "He helped me get back here, and he talked the lab into letting us go into the Upside Down to get Will. Only … there was a creature, they called it the Demogorgon, and it—it got Will. It almost killed him." Tears were gathering in her eyes as she added, "He's never been the same since."

"No, he wouldn't be, would he?" Bob looked at Will over her shoulder. "I always thought he was pretty cool, but now—what a brave little kid."

It warmed Joyce all through that he saw that. "He is. He really is." She swallowed against the tears. "We've been bringing him here, hoping they could help him, but he keeps having these … episodes, where he feels like he's back there. They told me it was all in his head," she said bitterly, "but clearly it wasn't. There's this giant shadow thing that's been following him, and it—it got inside him, somehow. It's in there now, inside my boy."

Bob put his arms around her, holding her until she had control over herself. "You could have told me. Really. I would have believed you."

"It's not the kind of thing you go around talking about, and I—" She hadn't wanted to scare him off, but she didn't want to say that. Joyce pulled away from him. "They made me sign like a thousand documents. We—we all had to. We had to! I mean, I lost track at a certain point. They're going to make you do the same, I'm sure."

"Yeah," Bob agreed, a little hesitantly. "Whatever." He didn't look so sure, though, and after a moment he asked, "What kind of documents?"

"I don't know. Confidentiality, official forms saying that nothing ever happened. Which is why –"

"Will got lost in the woods," Bob finished, looking at Will.

"Yeah."

"Man. I always thought stuff like this happened in movies and comic books. Certainly not in Hawkins, and certainly not to … someone like you."

"Or you."

"Yeah." Bob bumped her hands with his, carefully, since they were both now holding hot cups of coffee.

The chill from the tunnels clung to Joyce despite the coffee, and the clean scrubs, and the blanket, and Bob. She wondered about Hopper. He had been down there so long—was he going to be okay?

Bob gave her a little smile. "Bob Newby. Superhero." He looked back over at Will and shivered.

"Cold?"

"Just a little jitters, I guess." He looked down into Joyce's eyes. "Hey, don't you start worrying about me. Okay? I'm fine. I'm fine. It's not like you didn't warn me. 'This is not a normal family'. Isn't that what you said?"

Joyce managed a smile. "Yeah."

Bob chuckled. "You weren't kidding." He glanced at Will again and then looked back at Joyce. "Kind of makes my idea of moving to Maine sound a little less crazy, right?"

"Oh, it's not crazy at all." After today, the idea of getting out of Hawkins sounded downright sane.

They smiled at each other. For a moment, Joyce felt safe. Like there was a future ahead of her where they could be a family, happy and … normal.

"Mom?" It was Will's voice, slurred with sleep.

"Hey!" Joyce put her cup down and hurried to his side while Bob left the room to call for a doctor. "Sweetie, how you feeling? You okay?"

Bob came back in. "They're on their way." He leaned over Joyce's shoulder, smiling at Will. "Hey!"

Will looked back at him blankly. "Who is that?"

"What?"

"It's me, big guy. Bob." He reached for Will's hand, but Will snatched it away, looking up at Bob with fear and suspicion in his eyes.

"Are you a …" Will paused, looking Bob up and down. "Doctor?"

"No. No, it's just me. Just—just Bob." He and Joyce exchanged a worried look.

Joyce looked back at Will, feeling the chill that had started to go away coming back full force. He had forgotten who Bob was. That could not be good.