Never Again

Hawkins, IN

June 15, 1986

The next few days passed in a slow blur. Eleven had been brought back to the room after her tests, and the doctors had been just as stumped as they had been that first night. They could not find a single thing wrong with her physically. The only anomaly they had noted were the two separate nose bleeds she had experienced during the tests. However, even these were minor and stopped quickly on their own. Hopper had very quickly explained them away, noting that she got them frequently due to spring pollen allergies and had for years.

Mike and Hopper pretty much lived by her side, never leaving for longer than it took to use the bathroom and fetch fresh coffee or a sandwich from downstairs. Even then, they took turns leaving so that she was never there alone. Neither could stomach the thought of her waking up alone and scared in a room which, according to Hopper, looked uncomfortably similar to her room back in the lab. Thankfully, a steady stream of well-wishers had filled every spare surface with flowers and cards and one very large pink bear, compliments of Dustin.

Joyce had been the first to come, bringing Will along. While she had been ready to demand an explanation as to why nobody had called her that first night, it only took one look at Hopper to wash all that away. He looked lost and barely holding it together. Of course she knew all about Sara, and knew this must feel like history repeating itself. Jonathan and Nancy had come next and offered their sympathy and concern. The whole Sinclair family had come, bringing Max with them. Even Erica had made a card of her own for Eleven, insisting that it get hung high on the wall so she would see it when she woke up. Steve drove Dustin and his mom over and they passed along the expected sympathies as well. By the end of that first day, Mike was ready to snap if anyone else asked if there was anything they could do. He could tell Hopper was beginning to feel the same.

By Sunday afternoon, the visitors had stopped, and it was now just Joyce coming around breakfast and dinner time. Sometimes she brought Will, and sometimes came by herself. Flo had brought a bouquet and a card signed by everyone from the station. They had all come to love Hopper's daughter when he shocked them all with the news last year too. Hopper couldn't help but notice, as he took stock of everyone who had stopped by, the Mike's parents had been conspicuously absent. Sure, Mike had been there the whole time, and Nancy had come by, but it was more than a little strange that his parents hadn't come once.

When Joyce came by just before dinner on Sunday, Hopper shocked Mike with the news that he was going to be leaving the hospital for a little while.

"Since there's no way in hell I'm going in to work tomorrow," he explained, "I need to run the Blazer over to the station. Joyce is going to give me a lift back to the house so I can bring my own car back here." He paused, before continuing, "You're going to stay here with her, right? You're not going anywhere?" His tone wasn't accusatory, as though Mike might suddenly decide to wander off, but rather genuinely fearful that she might wake up alone.

"Don't worry, I'll be right here. I'm not going anywhere," he reassured. "Give me five minutes to stretch my legs, hit the bathroom and grab more coffee and I won't be leaving her side for hours."

"Thanks," he said, relieved. "Take ten. I'm probably going grab a shower and some fresh clothes while I'm at the house."

"Sure, no problem," Mike said. The bathroom in Eleven's hospital room had a shower, which Mike had used that morning, thanks to Nancy bringing him a change of clothes the previous afternoon. Hopper hadn't bothered, having nothing clean to change into, and he was beginning to feel gritty and stiff from days parked in a chair.

Half an hour later, Hopper was relieved to find himself standing under cascades of hot water, rinsing the grim of the last three days down the drain. He had left instructions with Mike to call him if there was any change at all, though he knew in his heart that nothing was likely to happen in his absence. As he let the water work the tension out of his back, he suddenly found himself sobbing once more, his thoughts a swirl of both his daughters and the terror of them sharing the same fate. It had been terrible receiving the cancer diagnosis with Sara, but it had also been a solid diagnosis that came complete with a treatment plan. Somehow, this felt even worse, with the doctors completely stumped at what was even wrong. He found himself coming back again and again to the same horrible fear that he was going to lose her too.

As it had so many times in the last few days, this thought led him back to the other time he was certain was going to lose her. It had been late November, a year and a half earlier. It had been a couple weeks since she had closed the gate for good, and life had begun to return to a new normalcy. The windows had been fixed in the cabin and life was put back into order. Begrudgingly, he had allowed Mike to come over one afternoon, with the promise of more visits as long as they worked out proper precautions to stay safe. For a while, Jane finally seemed genuinely happy. Then one fateful Saturday, she wasn't.

She had been quiet all afternoon and through dinner, clearly deep in thought. He knew better than to push for an explanation; he was quickly learning she would come to him when she was ready. Finally, after dinner, she had come over and sat next to him on the couch, eyes downcast, and blurted out, "Friends don't lie."

He looked at her puzzled, wondering what promise he had broken this time, when she continued, "I need to tell you what happened when I left. All of it."

He was taken aback that she wanted to volunteer the story. It had been in the back of his mind that he needed to find out at some point, but he had been cowardly avoiding it, reveling in the peace that had come into their lives.

"Okay, let's hear it," he said, putting down the newspaper and turning to face her, giving his full attention.

"I found the box from the lab, with Mama's file, when I was cleaning up the glass." she began. This much of the story he had guessed at straight away, as soon as they got back to the cabin that first night. After settling her into bed, he had gone back out to the living room and found the box and files among all the other disarray.

She went on to explain the full story. After finding the picture, she had reached out and found her Mama in the In-Between and in a rebellious anger, had decided to go to her. She had put a few things in her bag and taken off on foot. Once she got out to the main road, she had stuck her thumb out to hitchhike, just like she had seen on TV shows a few times. The nice man in the big truck had picked her up and given her a ride to Mama's house. So far, this matched up with the story she had told him on the drive to close the gate. He sat in nervous anticipation, knowing there was still a day and a half between the nice man in the truck and her showing up at the Byers' house with a punk makeover.

"At Mama's, I was able to find her again in the In-Between, and she showed me the few things she could still remember, on a loop in her mind. Me being born, Papa taking me away, her trying to get me back, finding me in the lab, Papa breaking her mind with electricity. She also showed me another girl from the lab, like me. She wanted me to find her."

She went on, explaining how she found Kali's picture in Mama's files, and located her in Chicago. After discovering that Aunt Becky was calling people and telling them she was there, she had stolen the money out of Becky's purse, walked to the bus station and bought a ticket to Chicago to find the girl she was now calling her sister. Hopper sat there, doing his best to hold back his anger, trying to give her the chance to lay out her story in full.

"I know taking the money was wrong. And I know going to Chicago was really wrong. I'm sorry that I even left; I know I shouldn't have done that," she went on. She could see he was fighting to keep his anger in check, and was scared to continue, but knew that she had to. Keeping everything that had happened a secret was starting to make her tummy hurt all the time.

"This next part is bad. I'm so sorry," she apologized.

Without pausing, she spilled the rest of what happened up until the point she came back, sparing no detail. Letting the photo guide her across the city until she found Kali and her friends in the abandoned warehouse. Standing up to the man with the knife. Meeting Kali, hearing Hopper when he tried to call her on the radio at the cabin, testing her power by dragging the train car. She described learning what Kali's gang did, tracking down the bad men from the lab. How she found Ray, the man who hurt Mama and Kali before she escaped. How they went to find him. How they robbed the convenience store on the way there.

Hopper had started to say something, when she cut him off, "Please, let me say it all first."

She described getting to Ray's apartment, how they broke in, threw him against the wall. How she had tried to strangle him in her rage. How it was only seeing a picture of him with his kids that she had stopped, and also stopped Kali from shooting him. How they fled, barely escaping the police. How the police found them back at the warehouse and once again, she barely made it out while they were being shot at.

By the end of her explanation, she was in tears, sobbing out her apology, "I'm so sorry. I know it was bad and I promise I'll never do anything like that again." Then, after a pause, looking up at his angry face, she choked out "Please don't make me go away. I promise I'll be good, just please don't make me go away."

He had been ready to lay into her right then about how horrible everything she had done was, but that final desperate plea tore his heart apart. He pulled her into a reassuring half hug. "I'll never send you away. But I need to think about what you've told me. For now, I need you to go to bed and we can talk about this in the morning."

She had nodded, eyes downcast, and walked quietly into her room and softly shut the door. After a long night of restless tossing and thinking, he had decided how he wanted to handle it. The next morning, when she cautiously poked her head out of her room, she found him sitting at the kitchen table with a plate of Eggos and sausage placed at her seat. As she sat down, she had nervously raised her eyes to gauge just how much trouble she would be in.

"Alright," he began. "So you understand that pretty much everything you told me last night was bad, right? Things you should never do? Yeah?"

"Yes," she said softly, hesitating.

"Running away, hitchhiking, stealing money, robbing a store, trying to kill a man," he said, counting off the misdeeds, raising a finger on his left hand for each one. "Coming back home and saving the world." he continued, folding all five fingers back down. "I think you've earned a pass, just this once. No one got hurt too badly, you're sorry for the things you did and you know not to do them again."

She looked up, a nervous smile beginning to form. "Not grounded?" she asked, hopefully.

He smiled, "Not this time." Then, getting serious again for just a moment, "But if you EVER do anything like that again, you will be VERY grounded."

She smiled fully then and dug into breakfast, the pit in her stomach gone. He sat back, taking a sip of his coffee. He had another reason for being lenient; something he needed to confess as well, though it took him another two days to work up the courage to tell her.

After dinner, they had sat on the couch, and he began, just as she had, "Friends don't lie. I have something I need to tell you too."

Not sure what it could be, she turned to look at him.

"I need to tell you about what happened the night you found Will. I did something that night I'm not proud of and it's been eating me up ever since."

She was shocked at what it might be. She knew he and Mrs. Byers had gone into the Upside-Down and found Will, tracking him from his fort in the woods to the library where the demogorgon had put him.

"After you found where Will was, I knew we had to go into the Upside-Down to get him, and the only way I knew to get in was through the lab, through the opening by the bath. When Joyce and I went there, I had hoped we could make it downstairs on our own, the same way I had a few days before. But the guards caught us. I had to make a deal with Brenner to get down there."

With a sickening horror, she began to see where his confession was headed.

Tears beginning to form in his eyes, he went on. "El, I'm so sorry. We had to save Will. We had to get through the gate and to do that, we had to give Brenner what he wanted." He paused, working up the courage to say what needed to be said. "I told him where to find you. I'm so sorry, El," he sobbed. "I thought, once we had Will safe, we would be able to find a way to get you back out of there and get you someplace safe. I never thought anything like that would happen at the school. If I had known…" He let that thought trail off. "I'm so sorry."

He reached out to take one of her hands in his own, but she quickly pulled back in a confused mix of fear and disgust. Her head was lost in a barrage of competing thoughts. She had often wondered how Papa had found her that night but never imagined one of the people she trusted had given her up to him. Now it turned out that Hopper, one of only two people in the whole world she thought she could trust, who she had relied on for nearly everything for the last year, had betrayed her. He had been ready to ship her back to life in the lab. She knew in her heart if Papa had gotten her back into the lab, no-one would have ever been able to get her back out and even Hopper had to know that. And he still did it anyway. Without his betrayal, they could have figured out a plan, some way to keep her hidden and safe, but he took that chance away. He had told the bad men exactly where to find her and put her friends in danger; had put Mike in danger. He was the reason she had kill the bad men, to try and protect the people she cared about. He was the reason the demogorgon came, and she had to drag herself into the Upside-Down to destroy it. Because of him, she had to hide out in the woods, almost freeze in the snow and practically starve. She thought back to the food he had been leaving for her in the box in the woods and was sickened. Had he been trying to help her, or was he just trying to alleviate his own guilt?

Hopper watched her face for some sign of what she was thinking, and got back only confusion and anger; she wouldn't make eye contact with him. Without saying a word, she stood and walked into her room, slamming the door behind her. She looked around her room at the things he had given her, suddenly feeling like everything she saw was a lie. The bear he had given her to help with her nightmares. The book he read to her on the nights she couldn't sleep, for fear the bad men would find her again. She grabbed them both and turned, swinging the door open from across the room with a single angry look. He looked up, still sitting on the couch, clearly still crying. She threw the bear at him first, then the book. It was then that she saw the blue band on her wrist; Sara's hairband. He had given it to her the day after she closed the gate, telling her how it had been his strength and now he wanted her to have it. She ripped it from her wrist and flung that at him as well, slamming the door once more.

She laid on the bed then, pulling the blankets around her like a protective shell and began to cry. Part of her wanted to grab her coat and march right out the front door; there was nothing he could do to stop her. She could walk to Mike's. He was all she had now, the only person she could trust. She also knew she couldn't put him in danger like that, assuming Hopper hadn't also been lying about the bad men still looking for her. Somewhere in the darkness of night, sleep finally overtook her. The next morning, she didn't bother emerging for breakfast. Hopper gently knocked at her door, and getting no response, tried the doorknob. His hand met the familiar resistance of her holding the other side with her mind, so he knew at least she was still there.

The next nine days were an utter hell for him, though he was certain he deserved all of it. For nine days, she didn't speak a single word to him. She stayed in her room until he was gone in the morning. Each day, as he drove to work, he was certain she would be gone when he got home. Remarkably, each night, she was still there. Sometimes she ate before he got home, and sat locked away in her room with the TV on loud static. He could only assume she was talking to Mike and he prayed the boy was helping her see that he wasn't the monster she suddenly saw him as. Other nights, she joined him at the table, glaring at him over their dinners and retreating to the confines on her room as soon as they were done.

On the tenth day, she emerged from her room while he sat drinking his morning coffee. She sat across from him at the table, carefully collecting her thoughts. Finally she spoke. "I don't like what you did, but I think I understand why you did it. I forgive you." She reached out and grabbed his free hand, giving it a squeeze. "Mike helped me understand. You need to thank him."

Hopper stood then, setting down his mug and walking around the table, pulling her into a hug. Tears of relief fell as he kissed the top of her head. "I'm so sorry."

She hugged him back, smiling once more, before saying, "But if you EVER do anything like that again, you will be VERY grounded," echoing his own threat back.

He knew they had turned a major corner in their life together that day, as they both vowed total honesty and only making promises they knew they could keep. Two days later, Dr. Owens had surprised them with the birth certificate, making them officially father and daughter.

Standing in the rapidly cooling water, Hopper vowed to himself once more, he would not lose her. He had betrayed her once and nearly lost her, and he would do everything in his power to keep that from happening again. He suddenly felt an urgent need to get back to her as he shut off the water and began to dry off. Dressing quickly, and thinking to grab a second change of clothes to take with him, he headed for the front door. As he swung it shut, he turned and locked the pair of deadbolts, giving the door a final shake to ensure the house was secure. He turned and walked down the steps, got into the car and headed back to the hospital.