Previously: The cabin is made hospitable.
chapter six: act
Hopper knows how to splice electricity.
She watches him grab tools out of his truck, snuffling a little in the crisp autumn morning, and feels flummoxed by him again, that he knows that, that he's the head of lawful authority, and yet has an adaptability that's usually associated with criminality.
He doesn't know it in a, know what to look for to catch the bad guys way, but in a we can't have a paper trail that leads the "Department of Energy" checking out this place, so...
She didn't know something like that could be done.
Her list is a steam of consciousness stockpile of supplies. His is more focused, needs of light and central heating. A record player not run-on batteries, a fridge, a stove, hot showers, and television.
It's so...normal. Normalizing.
Another start, like the clearing out of the cabin, to comfort she forgot was supposed to be important too.
She's boggled down by ward schematics and higher maths, still thinking of the dilapidated cabin as a bolt hole, a necessary refuge but not something…sustainable, or substantial. Hopper sees it as it is, but he thinks in terms of not yet, could be, will be. Not temporary.
Her notebook plops down on the crunched leaves as she follows with an avid wariness, like a spooked duckling, wanting to see this in action so she can learn while also trying to, still, figure him out.
He doesn't wait because that would be encouraging her, and she's sixteen, and he's the Chief of Police. He isn't supposed to be showing her these things. But, contrary to his own rumination, his stride isn't as long as it could be, and he lets her, in her careful steps, catch up.
"You know what we're doing?" he checks, considering if there's any way, with her mind reading, that he can convince her to head back to the cabin instead.
"You know what teenagers hate hearing in every universe?" she asks, voice only slightly strained from a sleepless night. Hearing it, realizing it, she clears her throat, invokes a little sing-song to the punchline to play the part of easy teenage rebellion; a part that will ease the angst of cursed confession, spilled in the dead of night, of letting him know that the other realm is affecting her. "Hearing do as I say, not as I do."
He sucks hard on his cigarette, shaking his head. "Oh, I remember," he mutters. He doesn't argue that point, with his own memories supplying the ammunition. "This is necessary," he justifies, past stand-in conscious criticism of the kind of example he's setting. "We're not stealing from people, we're just…bypassing."
Bypass. Sure.
"So…" she muses, seeing his eyes turn to narrow at her innocent tone. "Could you show me how to bypass a car if I didn't have the key?"
The end of his cigarette blazes between his teeth again. "No."
"But it might be important –"
"I don't want you stealing from anyone in Hawkins."
"Pretty sure your neighbors are in Hawkins," she continues, blithely ignoring the assertive tone that's crumbled many others. She's interested in seeing what stolen electricity even looks like. "Are you sure we're not stealing from them?"
She's surprised, and relieved, that he isn't rigid in his morality. He thinks he should be, seems to have been raised by it, and failed under its expectations, but his ability to bend? At least he isn't going to disparage her on that. It's not like she has any resources to speak of, in this realm, and they're going to need supplies.
Another burden, unseen, and heavy, is dropping from her shoulders.
"Don't steal from anyone we like," he amends.
Eleven looks at her in betrayal.
"You…don't…like it?"
Ally chews the too sweet, soggy, overcooked and somehow undercooked, cardboard, wondering what she's missing.
Maybe food just…tastes differently here?
Eleven's fork is frozen, the waffle she's been eating like a squirrel dropping into a drowning pool of butter and syrup, while she stares.
"How about I make eggs?" Ally offers, trying not to make a face.
Now that the cabin is lit, with heated air filling the room, and they can use the stove and fridge, breakfast has been toasted and divided up at the small, rickety table of rusted legs and peeling plastic. The appliances are plugged into the sockets, running on sweet, stolen electricity. No magic workarounds, like figuring out how to boil the water with a spell to work the percolator.
At the offer of eggs, Eleven makes a face of mutiny.
Hopper watching, takes another big, happy, exaggerated bite. "I think they're the best."
Ally narrows her eyes on him, while Eleven bestows him a regal, agreeing nod. "Then I hope you get to eat it. Every. Morning."
"Yes," Eleven agrees immediately.
Hopper backtracks. "Not every morning. Just…every once in a while. As a treat."
Ally sits up like she's had a burst of inspiration. "Or, you could have it for every meal."
He points his fork at her. "How about setting a good example?" he mutters. With Eleven looking at him, he changes his grip on the fork and smiles even wider, eyes squinting. "Why don't you make some eggs, since you don't like the waffles, and we can all try some?"
She tilts her head like she's considering it, wondering who would prefer an alternative breakfast more. She isn't used to chemical additives and phony food. He feels sugar is an indulgent completely wasted on plain Eggos when he could be having a warm, fried doughnut for the same calories.
"Oh, so you would like some?" she goads, blinking like she's surprised.
His teeth grit a little harder, keeping his smile. "If you're making any."
"But if you're still hungry I could give you the rest of my Eggos." She stabs hers with a fork, already starting to transfer it.
He quickly pulls his plate back.
She grins. Bust-ed!
Eleven slips her empty plate under Ally's suspended waffle to catch it, shooting them both a look of utter, child-like, disdain.
The television is a box. A square.
It has thick, curved, greenish glass, and a little attachable antenna on top, and button dials along the side.
Ally and Eleven are on the couch, leaned toward the small screen, and the fuzzy, almost monotone colors of a Sunday morning cartoon.
Ally is only slightly ahead of Eleven in recognizing when there's a commercial break.
"Huh."
They glance at each other, equally baffled. Eleven sees that this can be new to someone else too, before she glances back, not wanting to miss anything, as kids on screen exclaim over a montage of action figures.
"When will you be back?" she asks, not looking at her.
Ally withholds a sigh. She thought delaying would help, but instead Eleven has retreated like she's on the side of scaffold, waiting out her execution. "I don't know."
Eleven looks at the small clock she's clutched in her lap since she learned both Hopper, then Ally, would be leaving her alone today. She turns the face to Ally, still clutching tight to its sides. "What…time?"
Ally pulls in her lower lip, reaching out to point to the painted numbers. "It might be little hand on 2, big hand on 12. Or it might be little hand on 4, big hand on…6."
Eleven's jaw tightens. Her head is a mess of not wanting to be alone, to be left behind, with the discomfort of not understanding the vagaries of a time frame and wanting something exact she can hold onto. Concrete concepts, Ally reminds herself.
"A long time," Eleven guesses, looking down at the face.
She can feel the edges of an exhausted headache throbbing behind her eyes. Ideally, she'd spend another few hours meditating, but she doesn't have the time for that either.
"I need to check on Will."
She needs to figure out how to help Will. Hopper doesn't want to commit to anything without Joyce, and it's hard to talk to Joyce when she's around the doctors.
She wants to keep Eleven in the loop, wants to draw on Eleven's deep well of empathy so she understands, but every time she's mentioned Will, Eleven retreats into a /my fault/ despondence.
She's tried so far, to avoid the topic, to avoid names. She hasn't even attempted to call her 'El' because it was a special name bestowed by her friends, by Mike. She hasn't called her the lab's name either. Instead, she's been relying on mental nudges, but she's also trying not to do that, for Eleven's verbal skills, and Hopper's inclusion.
Ally pulls out her list, moving to distract her. "Is there anything you really, really want that I could add?"
Eleven's brow wrinkles, looking at the list she can't read, thinking about want.
Mike. Not be left behind. Go outside. See her friends.
What she can't have.
She doesn't answer. Instead turning back to the television, watching the commercials, to see if they'll tell her the things to want.
Ally wraps her arm around Eleven's shoulders, pulls her in for a side-hug. "Okay," somehow it's more depressing to know Eleven didn't dream of having or holding anything at all, in her sterile room, with only one drawing taped to the wall, from crayons only offered in experiments. "I have a few ideas, and you can see what you like."
Eleven wiggles just a little closer, her eyes going back to the clock, to see how much time is left.
She's tightening the strings of Hopper's old (shockingly short) exercise shorts over her tights when she wonders –
"How did you call me to you, when you were in the showers with the doctor?"
"Call you?" Eleven repeats, confused.
So, it hadn't been on purpose.
"Do you remember what happened before I arrived?"
Eleven stares, focus turning inward as she thinks about waking up. Hearing Ally's voice. Her memory of the doctor warped by unflatteringly perception, making her more goblin than dwarf, frowning mouth drooping unnaturally, eyes like polished stone and hellfire.
She's a bit amused at the imagination, but also –
It's another reminder of what Eleven has missed. The right instruction for her abilities, not for their use, but for her wellbeing. It's so intrinsic to being a psychic that Ally doesn't know where to even begin teaching it. Since she was a small, small, child, she was taught how to strengthen recall, to remember exact wording, specific detail, body language, not let feelings change perception, push away others impressions. It's not just a language, or an exercise, it's an entire culture that Eleven doesn't have.
A psychic made, not born, reared by power-grasping bureaucrats.
Ally rubs at her headache, wondering if she should have another cup of coffee before she goes, or stay away from the caffeine altogether.
She tries to refocus. "So, you…" she shakes her head, realizing she needs to speak simply, so Eleven has a better chance of understanding. "Do you think you could remember that message, and try it again?"
Eleven frowns. She closes her eyes, thinking back to the moment.
Ally listens to the echo of her own voice. Most of the message is muddled, not as clear, but for the part where she said 'I'll come back. I promise.'
Ally waits, but doesn't feel the pull she did when she jumped to the showers.
"Can you remember why you wanted me there?" she tries again.
Eleven's eyes clench tighter, her hands balling into fists in her lap.
I promise. I promise. I'll be back, I promise.
Ally moves in front of her, squatting down to lay her hands over Eleven's. "Okay," she soothes, telling Eleven to stop. She doesn't want to strain her. She isn't sure if it was a fluke, or emotional desperation, or if Ally, by leaving that message, had created a link for Eleven to utilize.
Was it Eleven's ability or Ally's mistake?
And why does she keep leaving threads for others to pull on? Is this how it work in this realm?
Eleven's eyes blink open, her shoulders slumping.
"You did great," Ally encourages, immediately addressing Eleven's conditioned sense of failure. "It's always hard recreating something without knowing how it works."
She had hoped it would, but it's not like they're worse off than they were before.
She sits back up, stretching her burned hand that keeps cramping, her ribs that are still protesting. She's pretending she's fine, and Eleven is only slightly suspicious, but she's not the same kind of psychic where she knows how much of Ally's restored health is an act. (Or a lie.)
Ally looks around the small space, running through the same considerations as Hopper, when he had trouble leaving this morning.
Stay away from windows, don't answer the door, don't go outside…
"Remember to keep the fire going, just in case." Eleven now knows how to cautiously create and stoke a fire. Maybe its unneeded, but its better to think nothing, especially stolen electricity, is a banked guarantee.
There's juice, snacks, sandwiches prepped.
Warmth, food, stay here, and…
She looks back at the television, the stand-in companion and entertainment.
"You can catch me up on the shows you watched, if there was anything good?" she offers, wondering if consciously taking notes will be enough mental stimulation.
Eleven, still withdrawn, curls up on her side on the couch, and gives a sighing nod.
Ally leaves, before she feels worse.
She's Ally Byers.
Though, maybe her fake mother wouldn't give her the name of a man who didn't marry or acknowledge her, and was off creating another family?
Or maybe she would? Maybe her fake mother would dub her Byers, having something to prove.
It's a workable backstory, instead of composing another false name.
She's Ally Byers, coming to see, or to meet, her half-brother who miraculously rose from the dead, after she had missed the funeral.
Ally Byers can walk down Main Street, a drifter and outsider, glancing into windows, people watching, and checking high corners for camera equipment. The benefit of small-towns is less surveillance, so the more areas she can jump to in a pinch.
There are less people here, than the streets of New Amsterdam, but unfortunately with Will in the paper, and the temporary shutdown of the middle school (probably her fault, with the pipes) there's a buzz in the air, a whisper of Will's name repeated again, and again, that she's particularly tuned into that creates an in and out clamor that rings in her head like a boxer taking too many blows.
Ally Byers spies the Chief that let her off the hook for trying to lift a car yesterday morning, through a window at a place called Melvin's General Store and reroutes towards the familiar.
The little bell chimes as she slips in.
"I'm sure Joyce is relieved that she can take time off to be with Will while he's in Intensive Care." Hopper is smiling his not-real, intent smile at the cashier. "So she doesn't have to stress about returning to a job she's worked for…what is it now…?" he prompts, tilting his head curiously.
"Ten years," the cashier answers, cowed.
"Right, wow." Hopper nods, like he's being friendly. "10 years. Model employee, right?" he asks leading again.
Hopper just charming enough for deniability to what he's doing, and authoritative enough to get away with it. The old cashier, who she guesses now is either the manager or the owner, nods shallowly, smaller by the chastisement he hasn't earned. There's a well of sympathy for Joyce, but a harsher reality in how he's going to man his store, without working every shift himself.
She's not sure if Hopper's act is necessary, if his protectiveness isn't making a villain where one doesn't exist.
She peeks at Hopper's bagged purchases, to avoid her face giving her away.
Cigarettes, toiletries, toothbrushes, deodorant...hairbrush?
Oh.
Fruity shampoo, conditioner, soap, moisturizer, shaving cream…
Apparently there's nowhere safe for her to look. She turns to study the magazines.
Hopper finally grasps the sack, turning to Ally and halting a little.
"You said I should find you today, so you could take me to the hospital." She greets, eyes still on the magazine.
The old cashier watches at the corner of his eye, clinking the coins back into the register.
The Chief gives her a once over, moving around her. "Sure," he says brusquely, the bell dinging again as she follows along his taller form out the door.
Under the awning, in the shade, she shivers slightly, pulling down the sleeves of her Henley to cover her hands. Other than the exercise shorts she's wearing the exact outfit as yesterday. The shorts she compromised on for decency, but she stripped off the coat and any other identifying markers that might make the lab think she has allies here, in Hawkins.
A drifter, in truth.
Hopper side-eyes her, shifting the bag away, as if hiding the toiletries he's picked up for her and Eleven. "Here," he pulls a wallet out of his back pocket, making a visual distraction. "I don't know what stores have anything a teenage girl would want to wear, but you should get a jacket or something."
He hands her pieces of paper, without much context, his mind going through prices of clothing, and wondering if he should head to the bank.
She looks down at them, staring at the identical portrait faces. "This is your currency?" she asks skeptically. "Green paper?"
He raises his brows at her. "What?"
She turns the paper over, looking over the images and the script. "What if the store doesn't accept notes?"
He squints at her, trying to see if she's kidding. "What are you talking about?"
She turns the paper to him. "Federal Reserve Note," she recites from the uppermost script. She makes an intuitive leap. "Do you use notes when you run out of coin?"
And falls short, based on his expression.
"Bills," he corrects, shaking his head at her as he pats his pockets for his cigarettes. "Have you ever bought anything before?"
She tightens, realizing she's being too other. "Not with notes apparently," she blows out a breath like it isn't unusual, lowering her hand to her side, careful not to crush the notes, bills, as they seem delicate, too easy to tear. She'll figure out how currency works here on her own.
She glances down the street, wondering where to buy this jacket, or maybe a whole outfit that makes her fit in a little better. He probably shouldn't be handing her money in public, or buying feminine toiletries, and though he's supposed to be 'escorting' her to the hospital maybe it's best if she just meets him there instead. Approach separately. She thinks about telling him that, but her headache is starting to pound, and there are too many inner voices flying through her wards.
So, instead, she glances at the pack of cigarettes he's unwrapping, wondering at his stress response. "You smoke too much."
He scoffs, the insult like water off a duck's back.
Ally Byers turns away, too distracted to give a proper goodbye.
The sizes were weird here, and her measurements were…off, compared to the – was it the standard? (Joyce and Nancy had been tiny and skinny. What women she's seen so far -)
She always considered herself sort of curvy-athletic. More suited to contact sports, or hiking, over running, or ballet.
Now it feels like her breasts were…too large, making her shoulders wide, and her waist didn't tuck in, and the curves of her hips were more cello than violin.
The store lady, thin and statuesque, with a name tag of 'Laura' but who preferred the address of Mrs. Cunningham was hinting at her 'problems' in a grating sugar-sweet voice, through a plastic smile.
Her thoughts were dissecting, worse than the insinuations, and just so pauses, cutting each little piece to pick over the bones. The care she put in each plausible deniability put-down, was wasted when Ally could hear it all.
She rather wear Hopper's cast offs, and her clothes until they're threads, then spend another minute with this woman in her shadow, aiming the fun house mirror in front of her, so it could strip everything she previously liked about herself.
Five stores down, she picks up a cardigan without speaking to anyone. Hands over Hopper's notes and waiting for the cashier to give her, what she assumes, is the correct change.
It's only in passing the gift shop in the hospital, hearing the kind thoughts of the attendant that she realizes, she still has funds, and Ally Byers should buy something for her long-lost brother, shouldn't she?
Hopper only implied she should spend it on clothes.
A doctor, in another unmarked lab coat, sees her in the little shop she's using as a reprieve from the hospital's worry-stress-grieved clamor, and follows in at a curious, but polite distance.
In her profile, he's looking for similarities in her face to a coughing patient in a closed off ward. Assuming the rumors are true. Maybe the hair is a similar mahogany brown, compared to Mrs. Byers darker locks.
She chats quietly with the shop lady, soft-spoken like Will Byers, friendly, but shy, smiling more than communicating as she places a small bear with a Get Well Soon! shirt, on the counter.
She steps to the side when she realizes he's behind her, her blue eyes vibrant compared to Will Byers soft brown.
"Is it true," she asks quietly, only meeting his gaze for a moment before looking back at the line of chocolate underneath the counter, "that chocolate makes you feel better?" She bites the corner of her lip, looking unsure. "Medicinally?"
He hadn't expected to be addressed, so he takes a moment to gather, looking down at the selection. "Dark chocolate is known to have dopamine and serotonin. It's a natural mood booster."
She nods, hand hesitating on the different candy wrappers in a way that makes him think she's reading each and every one, when there's only two dark chocolates in the display. Just as he thinks it, she grabs an assorted handful, looking down at her money like she's conscious of limited funds.
Before she leaves, she turns to him, never quite meeting his eye, and says thank you.
Dr. Owens thinks it's a shame, these three Byers kids, shy and kind, had been exposed to all this.
There are no children in the waiting room.
She half-expected there would be, with school out. Maybe it was a choice of the parents, maybe the children, just like her, were really waiting until they could talk to Will away from supervision.
Ally sits in the waiting room, cuddling her get well bear absently, as she indulges in a piece of chocolate, scanning the room without looking up.
There's an older woman with chest congestion. A man who broke his toes, and maybe his foot. A child who needs stitches from his older brother throwing a rock at his head, a…
A man who has the Hawkins paper folded under his arm, who's leg bounces, as he debates getting back up and asking the receptionist, again, when he can see Will Byer's doctor, or his family, or the patient himself.
He's in a suit that makes him shift and tug on his tie, like he's wearing a uniform for a cause he doesn't believe, with one shoe polished and the other scuffed. He glances at her, brown eyes sharp and pointed, like he expects derision in teenage – or maybe just womanly – evaluation, his lips pressed behind his dark, full beard, eyebrow cocked under his shiny balding head.
"Are you a reporter?" she asks rhetorically.
"Yes, I am," he answers, somewhere between sarcastic and self-important. "Murray Bauman, with the Indianapolis Star."
She blinks languish, ignoring the social cue to reciprocate. "What brings you to town Mr. Bauman?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe the eleven-year-old who disappeared for a week, who's body was found in the ravine, and then buried, and yet mysteriously walks out of the woods two nights ago?"
His brain is like a boiler room of a cruise liner, overwhelmingly busy, and crowded, and running on different levels, stoking different fires.
In her realm, when people hear a child went missing, was declared dead, and was later found in the woods, their suspicions would run to the fae, and changelings, not something as pedestrian as government.
Murray Bauman, on a roll, sits closer to her, glaring towards the receptionist purposely ignoring him, and towards the hall, as if expecting a government agent, wearing dark sunglasses to suddenly stand in the threshold. He expects - or wants - someone to confirm his theories, to try to silence him.
"What did the kid stumble on? Who was buried in his place? Was it even a real body? Your reporters and townsfolk seem suspiciously disinterested in figuring it out. Like they've been paid off or conditioned to not ask questions."
She lets the chocolate melt on her tongue, trying to parse through the crossed, speeding train lines of his theories.
She doesn't have enough background history to understand much of it.
What's MK-Ultra?
"Why wouldn't it be a real body?" she asks with the appropriate amount of skepticism, knowing that they're listening in, where before, in Hopper's office, she was only cautious. She sounds clueless, removed from anyone's confidence that there was a government orchestration behind the disappearance. "I mean, doesn't it make more sense that another kid was found instead?"
He shakes his head at her, thinking he was wrong to see interest, or intelligence in her eyes, as she's proven to be as boring, uncritical, and naïve as the rest.
"Another kid wearing the same clothes he disappeared in, and his brother identified at the morgue?" He chides her. He wants her to try to rationalize it, so he can break down the narrative, prove more is going on here. He has an insatiable yearning to debate, to find a foe, or an ally to work off of.
"Another kid that no one in a fifty-mile radius has reported missing?"
"Some kids are forgotten," she answers, tranquil compared to his manic energy. "They slip through the cracks."
He pauses, looking over her expression more carefully.
Ally turns away to face the door, a split second before the Chief comes through.
Murray Bauman regroups, bouncing back to his feet. "Chief…Hopper, is it? I'm Murray Bauman with –"
"Not interested."
It's like a train speeding towards a mountain.
"I just want a quick interview to –"
"No comment."
"I heard you were the one to find Will Byers –"
"Not interested." Hopper jerks his head to get her to follow, as he stomps out of the waiting room.
Murray Bauman spins on his heel, blinking his surprise. "You? Why you?" He turns again towards Hopper's back, throwing his voice, completely oblivious to his volume. "Why her? How is she involved?"
"Nice to meet you," she inclines her head as she slips past, absently wondering what role she'll take in his imagination.
Hopper waits just long enough for her to slide into the elevators before his finger is jabbing at the close button, so the metal slides shut on Murray Bauman's face.
"Don't talk to reporters," he barks sternly, fully in his role as Chief, shutting down any attempt she could make in defense.
It's hard to tell if he's annoyed with the reporter, the lab, or with her. Is it all for show, or is there worry there? Does he think she's that dumb?
They arrive on a deserted floor, stopped after walking all of ten feet.
"Chief Hopper, I thought you understood this is a closed ward."
Hopper gestures to her without any interest, unmoved to the criticism. "If you're not going to let her see her half-brother, you can tell her that yourself."
The doctor stares hard, turning to Ally who's clutching the small bear at her waist. "Miss," she directs at her, with the veneer of politeness "we're keeping Will Byer's visitors at a minimum while his pneumonia is contagious. You can visit him when he's discharged."
"I can't see him at all?"
"He should be back home by Tuesday or Wednesday." The 'now leave' is implied.
"But –" she steps closer, composing her appeal on the fly, knowing she's in front of an unmovable object, a bureaucrat with a script.
"Can you just – give him this?" she asks, resigned as she hands over the teddy bear, making beseeching eye contact.
The doctor nods, seeing the acquiescence, and takes the get-well bear without a returned promise.
Ally turns back to Hopper, and his stern, emotionless visage. "I guess I'll...leave then."
She hesitates, like she isn't sure if she's going to be escorted out, or if he'll say something, before she shuffles towards the elevators, her trainers squeaking and echoing on the reflective linoleum. It's another temporary reprieve, to only have a few voices in her head, to withdraw into her own.
"Thanks, Chief," she murmurs, her blue eyes connecting with his, sounding like she's thanking him for trying.
Hopper gives nothing away, but he hears the signal they agreed on, should she get close enough to Will's doctors to find out if any of them have had psychic training.
Curiously enough, they haven't.
She's not sure if that's reassuring, or more worrying.
Notes: References to Syfy's Alice series (2009) with the 'bits of green paper' as currency. Also, hinting at Ally coming from an alt!history realm where New York is still named New Amsterdam. Ally does not get a total cheat code to the 1980's, so in some ways she's as adrift as Eleven.
Next: Ally starts to crumble under the pressure.