An angry pulsation rocked the sides of Jim Hopper's head, instantly drawing back memories of his late high school days and the dozens of ice-chilled beers he could consume in a night. However, the way his stiff neck painfully refused to turn and the obvious splitting of skin across his forehead confirmed that this was no hangover. His tired, blue eyes creaked open and the spinning world around him slowly came into focus. He was in the Port Townsend Hospital, where he recognized the beeps of different monitors and the blinding white wall, ceiling, and floors, which only intensified his headache.
The hustle and bustle of nurses and doctors shuffling about in the hallway became louder in his ears. Wincing through the discomfort, he raised himself up onto an elbow. He felt the fabric of a bandage stretched across his sore forehead. His back felt like he had been rear-ended by a bus, yet he seemed overall unseriously hurt. It was then a dark figure in his peripheral vision startled him. An older gentleman of eastern descent with thinning black hair and a serious expression eyed him from across the room.
"Who the hell are you?" Hopper sputtered.
His own slurring reminded him of his high school drinking days once more.
"Ishiro Serizawa," the man said, accent thick and alluring.
He flashed a well-polished FBI badge and ID. Though Hopper's tired eyes scanned over it, he comprehended little.
"I found you in an unfortunate circumstance last night and got you here," he said. "Just wanted to make sure you woke up feeling alright."
"Well, that's a no," Hopper growled, getting himself seated.
An exasperated breath escaped him. How scarcely he remembered the previous day gave him pause. He recalled the stale cup of black coffee he sipped callously casually while he talked with the coroner over Benny's cold body. He remembered the lone, warm tear he shed in the privacy of his cruiser for his slain friend. Beyond that, his mind went blank. Serizawa sensed this by the troubled expression on Hopper's bearded face.
"Perhaps your memories will be restored as your head injury heals," he said with a kind smile.
"Can you fill in some blanks for me?" Hopper asked, a bit demandingly.
"Not many," Serizawa admitted in a friendly tone. "I found you near the public school campus. Perhaps some young troublemakers caught you off guard?"
Hopper's belly felt hot with frustration as he took the question as an insult. With a deep breath, he kept himself cool.
"None of them in my town are stupid enough to assault an officer," he replied. His brow then curved upward, though it stung his forehead to do so. "What's the FBI doing over there anyway?"
"We were investigating a missing person report," Serizawa said. "A young girl with amnesia had wandered off from her caretakers. We thought perhaps she might have gone to the school."
"Did you find her?"
"We did."
"Well, that's good I suppose. Anything I need to be aware of?"
"Not to my knowledge, Chief."
Serizawa rose to his feet. He was admittedly taller than Hopper gave him credit for. He kindly offered a bland business card to Hopper.
"I will be returning to Seattle in a few days," he said, "but please do not hesitate to call me if we can ever be of service to your town again."
With a slight bow of his head, he ducked out of the room, leaving Hopper to the mercies of the various beeping and dinging of the machines and his own loneliness. He got himself up and slowly, gruelingly clothes himself, at which point the doctor came in. Hopper managed to convince [bully] his way into being discharged, and was given instruction to go home and rest which he promptly ignored. He returned to the school campus where his faithful cruiser sat waiting for him. Nothing inside helped him to piece together the happenings from the previous night.
His investigation was then interrupted by dismissal, and the subsequent wave of a couple dozen students descending on the parking lot. One group of friends known throughout the town approached him, led by Mike Wheeler.
"Hey Chief," he said, a bit sheepishly. "You okay?"
"We heard you got hurt last night," Max
"You heard?" Hopper repeated.
"Yeah, the whole town's heard by now," Lucas said.
Hopper let out a sigh.
"Well you can tell the whole town that I'm fine," he said with a bit of a bite.
"Chicks dig scars," Dustin chuckled. "Maybe with one across your forehead you'll finally find Misses Chief Hopper."
The ensuing glare from the Chief made Dustin's blood turn cold at once. To his relief, Hopper's attention was diverted when Steve Harrington pulled into the parking lot in his cream white truck, a bit aggressively.
"Sorry I'm late, dweeb," Steve said as he stepped from his truck, distractedly looking down at his watch. "I went to check on the- OH!"
Steve's face paled and his hazel eyes widened in shock when he found himself face-to-face with the Chief. Behind him, out of his line of sight, the tweens all gestured wildly for Steve to discontinue his sentence.
"The... the..." Steve stammered, "the towels. The sports club didn't have enough clean towels, and you know how those rich jocks get when they don't have their clean towels."
A look of suspicion remained on Hopper's face as he eyed Steve up and down.
"You seem nervous, Harrington," Hopper noted.
"Me? Nervous? Never," Steve chuckled.
"Anyway," Dustin chimed in, "we really should be going. The homework's not going to do itself."
"We didn't get homework toda-," Will started before his mouth was promptly covered by Mike.
The rest of the group wandered off to collect their bike's while Dustin jumped into Steve's truck. Eventually Hopper was left alone once more. He paced to a fro for a bit, hoping something would finally jog his memory. The only thing that had an air of familiarity were the woods behind the school. Despite looking this way and that, Hopper's gaze kept returning to the dark, shadowy trees. He decided to return to his cruiser, accepting at last that perhaps the doctor had been right after all. Perhaps the best thing for him, and the only way to recall what had happened to him before, would be to go home and rest. Reluctantly, and with one last glimpse of the woods, he drove off in his cruiser, feeling troubled and uneasy.
