White-gray smoke fills the space in between Joyce and Hopper's too close bodies. They're sitting at her dining room table, chairs pulled together as if they're conspiratorially whispering to one another, and maybe they are. Jane doesn't get any closer to find out, and she's not too sure if their oddly intimate moment is something that she wants to be the one to tread on.

Instead, she pulls away from the scene and forgoes the glass of water she had initially gone to get for a handful from the bathroom tap. Satiated, she heads back to Will's room, and timidly knocks on the door. She only just left him a moment ago, but he doesn't like to be surprised anymore than she does. She enters when he calls out for her to come in.

"That was quick," he questions with a downturn of his lips. He just had his nose shoved into a comic book, but he holds it off to the side in favor of a conversation with her. "Something happen?"

Jane bites the inside of her lip. "I don't know."

"You don't know?" He says slowly, and now the comic book is completely lowered to the comforter of his bed. "Is it the Chief?" His brown eyes widen, and he leans forward in a panic. "Is it mom? Is she okay?"

"More than okay, I think. They were sitting close." She plops herself down onto the edge of his bed. She squints in a fashion very reminiscent of her father. "Very close. It looked..." She trails off with a mild frown. The word is there, but she's struggling to find it until- "Intimate."

"Intimate?" Will is a parrot, apparently, and Jane is only amused by this fact. It's better than Mike and his remarkable aptitude for repeating himself immediately after just saying something. Though, despite that minor flaw, she adores the boy deeply.

She nods quickly. "They were really, really close. Whispering. But it didn't look like bad whispering. Dad was smiling." A smile of her own lights up her face. He didn't do it often enough, and Jane thought that it was downright criminal.

"Do you think he said the 'L' word?" Will is fully leaning forward now, eyes alight and fully eager to squeeze the gossip from the other teen.

"What is that? The 'L' word?" Despite her progress in speaking full sentences, she still spoke haltingly when confronted with new terms and words she didn't recognize.

Will, unbothered by that fact, lowered his voice and looked around covertly. "It stands for love."

"Oh," Jane sagged in relief. "He says it all the time."

"To my mom!?" Will's eyes seemingly bug from his head, but he has the grace to wince at the volume of his voice.

"I don't know," she replies with a roll of her shoulders. "But he says it to me a lot."

"Really?" The boy visibly deflates, and the conversation seems to take a different tone. He picks at his jeans without looking up. "Lonnie never said it to me."

"Well," she amends. "He sort of says it. He doesn't use the word all the time. But I hear it." She folds her lanky arms across her chest, pushes her lower lip out in a scowl, and adopts a gruff voice that has Will silently clutching his side in sudden laughter. "'Put your seat belt on. Jesus! Wash your hands. Don't trip. Eat your veggies, kid. Go to bed.'" She wags a stern finger, but dissolves into giggles alongside Will. "He doesn't have to use the word for me to know what he means."

"That's so cool." He says it as if it's part of her abilities, and not something he too endures all the time. Especially these days. "I mean, mom says it all the time. Obviously. I just sometimes wish I had a dad that would say it too. Y'know?"

"I have a mom," Jane admits softly. "But she's gone." She taps her temple gently. "Up here. I wish I had one like yours."

They're quiet for a moment, both thinking of their sole parental figures, when a sharp knock on the bedroom door causes them to both jump. Joyce's mess of hair pokes in before her beaming face does. "Hey, kiddos. Pizza's here. Come and get it while it's hot." She's gone before either of them can reply. Will shakes his head, but he's grinning after her anyway.

They clamber off the bed, ready to chow down, but pause in the doorway simultaneously. They grin at one another, both on the same line of thought, before slowly creeping down the hall and towards the kitchen. Hopper's rumbling voice is felt more than heard, but Joyce seems to be the one doing all the talking anyway.

"-and I love you, you idiot. Every ounce of you. So, quit your whining, grab a slice, and start your diet tomorrow. Okay?"

There's a pregnant pause, a shuffling of feet, then: "I love you too, Joyce."

Will and Jane high-five around the corner. A throat is cleared awkwardly, and it's not from either of them. So, it startles the two teens when Hopper's gruff voice suddenly says:

"And I love you too, Miss Hopper. Now quit eavesdroppin' and grab some food."

The End.

Thank You.