"White Rabbit"

When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead

And the white knight is talking backwards

And the red queen's off with her head

- Jefferson Airplane

The nights were the worst. Hopper could make it through his days, despite the boredom of the job and the incredible stupidity of some of his cops and the mind-numbing tedium of living in Hawkins. A steady flow of cigarettes, supplemented with coffee and anxiety meds, took the edge off and made the days bearable.

But at night, when the TV went to snow and he turned off the lights and lay there alone in the dark with nothing but his thoughts—that's when the demons came out. The exquisite pain of every memory of Sara's all-too-brief life playing against the screen of the dark wall, the anguish of reliving every moment of what-if, every time he could have done something differently and maybe she would have lived. It was that kind of thing, that attitude that everything was his responsibility, and that he could have done something, that had been the final straw for Diane. She'd accused him of making everything about him, of having some kind of God complex—or, at other times, a martyr complex—and of forgetting Sara while he wallowed in his own pain.

Unspoken was that he had forgotten Diane, too, and that was true. Lost, unable to find safe ground, he couldn't reach for her, didn't know how to be the husband of a grieving mother any more than he knew how to get past being a grieving father.

When the ghosts of his daughter and his wife—not dead, but as lost to him as though she might have been—rose up and began speaking to him, that's when the coffee gave way to beer and then the harder stuff, and the anxiety meds gave way to whatever else he could convince his doctor to prescribe for him. And Hopper had always been good at convincing people, so it was a pretty wide range.

Enough stuff thrown down his throat and oblivion would come, usually while he lay on the couch watching the static on the TV, far, far into the night. And then morning would jerk him awake, the sun over the pond gleaming through the window, breaking into the oblivion he had tried so hard to reach. He'd roll over and over on the couch, getting another ten minutes here, half an hour there, but with the deeper sleep broken the dreams came, the ones where he reached for Sara in the water and had to watch her slipping away, or she was trapped in a burning building and he got close enough to watch the flames engulf her, or worse, when reality gave way altogether and she turned into something grotesque. So he would eventually drag himself off the couch, his head pounding, and the caffeine and nicotine infusions would start all over again.

Other nights, he tried to stave off the darkness and the memories and the guilt in more … creative ways. Hawkins had a fair number of lonely single women and divorcees, and for some reason many of them were drawn to the new police chief. A few because they remembered him in high school, a few because they liked the power or got off on uniforms and the illusion of authority, and a disturbing number because they were drawn to his pain and wanted to fix him, or mother him, or drown their own sorrows with him.

Still, sooner or later they all fell asleep, and then it was just like any other night, only with an awkward good-bye waiting for him in the morning. He had slowed down his progress through the ladies of Hawkins recently, and only partially because he was afraid eventually he would run out and there would only be one left … and he could never have used her like that, anyway. No. Joyce Byers was off limits.

All in all, though, it wasn't the worst life. Hawkins was just what he remembered, and the job was easy because nothing ever happened. And if Sara haunted his dreams, at least that was better than forgetting what she looked like, which he couldn't have borne.

For once, Joyce had gotten up early on a Saturday morning. Most nights she had such trouble falling asleep that mornings came hard, and the effort of getting up in time to make the boys breakfast was more than she could manage.

But she had determined to turn over a new leaf, to be a better mom, so out of bed it was.

Only once she was upright and half-dressed did she realize she could already smell bacon. And coffee. And from the kitchen she heard the high-pitched giggle that always made her smile. She eased her door open just slightly as she was buttoning her shirt so she could hear them talking to each other.

"Can you do the pancakes in funny shapes again?"

"You mean, like your face?"

Will giggled again. "Yeah."

"Sure."

Jonathan was so grown-up, so good with his brother. Too much of both, Joyce worried. A teenager should rebel more, have more fun, go out with his friends. God knew she had done all three. But Jonathan seemed to prefer staying home, taking care of his little brother, and taking pictures. His pictures looked good to Joyce, and she knew he was serious about photography and eventually about film school, but still … She couldn't help feeling as though, if she hadn't been such a mess, Jonathan could have had a more normal life.

"You hanging out with your weird friends again today?" Jonathan asked. She could hear the sizzle as a pancake hit the skillet.

"They're not weird."

"Come on, kid. Of course they are. So are you."

"Well, then, you are, too!" Will sounded pleased with his comeback.

"Sure am. Who'd want to be boring like the rest of Hawkins, anyway?"

"Isn't there anyone you want to be friends with?"

Jonathan thought that one over. He was often more willing to be honest with his little brother than he was with anyone else. "Maybe. A couple of kids. But … I doubt they'd get me."

They probably wouldn't. Hawkins was the same old boring one-size-fits-all place it had been when Joyce was in high school. Will was lucky he'd found a few other boys who liked geeky space stuff and books. They'd started playing some weird game where they rolled dice and pretended to be fantasy characters a year or so ago. Joyce didn't understand it, but it made Will happy, so that was all she really cared about. They spent hours in Mike Wheeler's basement. Mike's mom Karen was a nice woman, but very … traditional. It was hard to believe she'd given birth to someone as unusual as Mike.

Slipping out of her bedroom, Joyce came into the kitchen, surprised as always by the bright smiles her boys had for her. Some part of her always felt like she didn't deserve them to be happy to see her, not when she screwed up so many things. "Smells great, Jonathan. Thanks for cooking." Joyce herself was a terrible cook. Jonathan had learned out of self-defense, and his food was so much better than anything she could make.

"Did you get enough sleep?" he asked her, giving her a concerned look. She was filled with guilt all over again. It shouldn't have been her teenage son's worry how she slept.

"I did." She hadn't, but it didn't matter. "I could use some of that coffee, though." Cup in hand, she went over to the table, resting a hand on the top of Will's head. He had pushed his half-eaten pancakes aside and was drawing a picture, his face intent. She recognized the robed character on the page, a more and more frequent subject these days. "What's Will the Wise up to?"

"After school yesterday, Mike said we might be going in a cave, searching for a dragon."

"A dragon? Can you guys take down a dragon?"

Will grinned at her. "Of course."

"Of course. Will the Wise always knows what to do." Over Will's head, Joyce and Jonathan traded smiles.

Jonathan poured more batter, evidently for Joyce's pancakes. He liked to feed her, worrying that she was too thin. "What kind of spells are you going to use?" he asked Will.

As Will launched into an enthusiastic description, Joyce watched her boys, thinking how lucky she was that they were so good together, and so good with her. Maybe she'd done something right after all.