He was meant to rename himself Johnathan - you know, like his former friend. The man his ex possibly got married to.
It was supposed to be easy, though he guessed that moving on from a cataclysmic event was never easy, same with being moved out of your hometown and even out of the state.
He did his best to memorise it when he was told that was going to be his name, even if his memory failed him sometimes. He kept practising it, honing it, just like the doctors asked him to, but of course he had to fuck it up by saying it wrong and for his new boss to think his name was not Johnathan, but "John Nolan".
It didn't matter, the witness protection people just shrugged and then rolled with it. Eventually, so did he.
He still had his parents' money. That was literally the one thing he was allowed to keep after leaving Hawkins, surprisingly. Sure, his parents didn't want their son, which he already knew (and the heightened fact he was currently in the deepest shithole he'd ever been in put weight to that) but he was sure they would have taken the money. It helped, if only a little.
It sucked more that he wasn't able to find out where his kids went.
He's always felt like that's a horrible thing to say. His kids. It's almost like Henry, his actual son, doesn't exist in that statement, despite the fact he has and always will in the span of things. Sure, he moved on, given he had no choice. That doesn't mean he forgot. He would never forget what happened in Hawkins, ever.
Despite changing his name, reviving from his injuries, starting his own business with the money, marrying Sarah and of course, raising Henry, Hawkins haunted him like a ghost that wouldn't (or more in reality, couldn't) leave him be.
There were nights that Sarah woke up to him being gone and would find him on the front lawn, frantically searching for Eddie or calling out for Dustin or Robin and she would have to raise literal hell to wake up from the delusion before something worse could happen.
(Is Dustin even still Dustin anymore? God and Robin? Did they let her keep her name or anything that made her the person they he had as his best friend once? Is Eddie's guitar, which suddenly spat itself from under the ground a day or so after it's owner's death, still in place where they put it in the trailer park? Are Will and Eleven married now? Did Max ever recover? Do they even remember him?)
It even got to the point where Henry would sometimes have to pretend to be Dustin when he was in one of his more serious "fits" as they took to naming them after a few years, the young boy roused from bed and having to lure him back inside if his mother's actions didn't work.
It was no wonder that eventually Sarah couldn't take it anymore. He was surprised it took her till Henry was in his mid-teens to ask to leave.
He didn't fight her on it and said just as much when she approached him about it, as he didn't want her to suffer through him being "completely screwed in the head" for the rest of their lives.
She said he was a good man still, he didn't really see how she could say that though. He's still thankful that Henry loved him, as without either of them, he would have found some way to bounce from life by now.
It become all the more fucking werid when his mid life crisis consists of being the oldest rookie police officer is Los Angeles, but hey - none of those asshole scientists said he couldn't do something better than building shitbrick houses for pennies, okay?
Pennsylvania had been nice for a while. It wasn't Indiana, but it had been okay and felt a little like home now he's lived there for decades, but he needed another new start. A third act in the play of his life if you almost would put it down as something that stupidly accurate, as it has truly been in three parts so far.
Steve Harrington, The King of Hawkins to Steve Harrrington, Human Disaster to John Nolan - small town construction business owner in his mid forties with a million scars from old injuries he doesn't like to take about as he signed a bunch of NDA's along with having a PTSD case as obvious as a fucking heart attack that somehow passed though cop school in order to end up on the force.
He doesn't know just how he managed to fool them into thinking he was in the least bit stable, but goddamnit for all that it's worth, he's grateful.
He's grateful for this third chance, this restart on top of another restart. A new page in a book that he would have never known he would write, given his original prospects were that of some rich douchebag that eventually would have inherited or worse, worked for his father's company. He would take being a police officer or business owner over that mess any day, but the inbetween of almost being killed several times in a few years, however? Yeah, that could go. Mostly.
He still sees himself sometimes. Not in his own reflection mind you, Steve Harrington abandoned him a long time when it came to his inner self, but in others. Other rookies he has to take under his wing now that he's a training officer just as much as a serving one. He sees himself, his old self, in their eyes. Cocky, know it all, unaware of the real world and the pimp slap of hard hitting realism that's going to hit them in this job that they've decided to take on.
His colleagues wonder why he's so level headed, how he can deal with all the shit thrown at him in stride, barely flinching as he's assaulted or confronted or any number of other things. He knows they've seen the scars, as he can't hide them. He guesses they just assume he's been through something, like Sarah did and don't talk to him about it, which in hindsight is a good thing.
Some people have tried. Grace, Sarah, Jessica, Lucy, Henry - he can also sense that lately as their wedding comes closer that Bailey has been slowly probing into his past too. He never knows what to say when asked about his parents or his life growing up.
It's just too hard, to tell any truth or to lie. It sucks, but it's all he has now, he just has to work with it, like he has been the last 20 years. So for now, as far as anyone knows, John Nolan is just that. John Nolan. LAPD officer, oldest rookie in the force, engaged to a firefighter, has a bunch of old scars on his arms, sleepwalks, deals with conflict creepily well and dedicated to the job.
He just hopes it finally stays this way.