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"Lyin' Eyes"

My oh, my, you sure know how to arrange things

You set it up so well, so carefully

- The Eagles

It was hard to let Joyce go when Bob came out of the room to find her. She was in so much pain, pain that Hopper remembered so clearly, and he wanted to be the one to make that pain go away. He wanted to see her smile again, like she had begun to do last summer, before Will's episodes got worse, to fix all of this for her.

But he couldn't. He couldn't fix things for Joyce; he hadn't been able to fix them for Sara, or for Diane. And when he tried to fix things for Eleven, he had only made them worse.

Eleven!

He stopped stockstill, trying to do the math in his head. How long had he been gone? And with no word to her? She must be terrified, especially after they had left things in such a disaster.

Hopper rushed out of the hospital and out to his car, snatching the CB off its cradle and tuning it to their channel. He pressed the call button in their Morse code signal, waiting for a response.

There was nothing. God, she must be so pissed at him. She must think he had just gone away and left her there. This whole mess was all his fault, because he hadn't been able to keep one simple promise.

He had to apologize. He had to tell her how sorry he was, how much she meant to him. He had never been good at this, but he had to try.

Leaning forward over the steering wheel, Hopper pressed the talk button. "Hey, it's, uh … it's me. I know that I've been gone too long and, uh, it's, I just—I want you to know that it's not about you and it's not about our fight. Okay?" He waited a second, but there was no response. Obviously he couldn't tell her what had happened, not sitting here in his car in the parking lot of the lab, no matter how much he wished he could. "Something came up and I will—I will explain it all when I see you. I just, I want you to know that I'm not mad. I'm just sorry. About—everything." Tears were stinging his eyes now, and he closed them, trying to hold the tears back. There was no time to cry. Not now. He had to explain, so she would know. "I don't want you to get hurt. At all. And I don't want to lose you." There was more, there was so much more, but he didn't know how to say any more. "Just make sure you heat up some real food, okay, not just Eggos, and I want you to eat all the peas, even if they're mushy and gross, and … I will be home. Soon," he promised.

He let go of the talk button and sat there for a long time, thinking about all the ways he had gone wrong, the ways he had hurt people, hurt her, and how he could make it up to her.

Owens had gone to a meeting; Hopper had gone outside, probably for a cigarette. Joyce envied him. She could have used one right now.

Sitting with Will and Mike and Bob, the minutes seemed to go on for hours. "What the hell is taking so long?" she asked at last.

"Hey," Bob said encouragingly, "doctors take forever, always. Just try and relax." He reached for her hand. "Just be patient."

She couldn't hold his hand. She was too nervous, too angry, too frightened. She wanted to get up and scream and throw things, but she didn't want to freak Will out. Will had to be so scared.

Glancing at him, Joyce wished he was scared. This Will was too calm, too expressionless. Her boy was fading, she could see it.

Throwing off the blanket, she jumped out of the chair. She couldn't stand to sit there one more second.

Leaving the door open, she marched down the hallway. Two men in military uniforms were blocking the door, but she didn't slow down as she approached them. "Let me through."

They caught her by the arms, holding her easily as she kept demanding to be let through and they kept telling her "You know we can't do that, ma'am".

"I need to talk to him!"

Bob came up behind her, his gentle hands on her arms pulling her back.

"He'll be with you shortly," one of the guards told her.

"You said that an hour ago!" She couldn't hold her anger back any longer, and these expressionless men standing in her way seemed like the right people to vent that anger at. She didn't even know what she was saying—but it was clear they didn't, either. They just stood there.

Only Mike's excited voice stopped the flow of her angry words. "Mrs. Byers! Will thinks he has a plan."

"See?" she told the army men. "My son has a plan. What are your doctors doing?"

Without waiting for a response, she returned to Will. "What's up, sweetie?"

"I need the pictures," he told her, looking agitated. "Can we—I need to go home and see the pictures."

"I'll find out." Joyce was not surprised when the doctor appeared as she reached the door of the room. "We need the pictures. The ones from my house." She knew they had been to the house because he'd had the snapshot of the shadow thing.

"All right. Wait here. I'll get them set up." Owens hurried off, returning after another half an hour to take Will into a conference room where all the pictures were laid out as they had been in the house.

The rest of them stood behind him, watching as he studied the pictures. The other doctors were clearly not on board with this, their impatience plain.

"Sam, this is ludicrous," one of them complained.

"Just … give him a moment, okay?"

"We don't have time—"

"Hey, jackass," Hopper said, "why don't you do us all a favor and shut up, okay?"

Joyce was not surprised when the annoying doctor did just that. Hopper had that effect on people. It was the most entertaining moment of her day so far.

Will got to his feet, walking around the table as he studied the pictures. He laid his finger on one of them. "That's it."

"That's … what?" Owens asked. "What, what's that, Will?"

"I don't know. I just know—he doesn't want me to see there. I think it's important."

Owens sent a team off where Will had indicated, and sent Will back to bed. Joyce sat with him, wanting to hold his hand, but he was too anxious to let her. This was the most emotion she'd seen in him since he'd woken up, and she was glad to see he was fighting whatever influence this shadow thing had over him. He didn't want to talk, though, and she couldn't really blame him for that.

Hopper went downstairs to the command center to watch what was happening. Bob stayed with Joyce, his presence warm and comforting.

She wasn't sure how long it had been when Will finally spoke again. Tears were gathering in the corners of his eyes. "I—I'm sorry."

"What? What? What do you mean, sweetie?"

He turned his head on the pillow to look at her, and she knew she was seeing her Will, little and scared and honest. "It made me do it."

Joyce got to her feet. "Who? Who made you do what?"

"I told you, they upset him. They shouldn't have done that! They shouldn't have upset him." Will was crying now as Joyce tried to understand what he was saying.

"The spy!" Mike said suddenly. "The spy!" He leaped out of his chair and ran from the room. The army guys caught him, too, as he shouted at them "It's a trap!", but they wouldn't let him through.

Bob went after him, holding him back so he didn't get himself in trouble, but Mike just kept shouting something about it being a trap.

"Will, sweetie, talk to me. You've got to help me understand," Joyce begged.

"It's too late. It's too late!" The tears receded, suddenly, and that strange calm returned. Will looked into her eyes. "We should go now. They're almost here."

And Joyce understood what he had done and despair filled her. If he could do that, lead the lab's men into a trap and then call the armies of that thing here, then her boy was almost gone … and she had no way of holding what was left of him.