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"I Go Crazy"

I see your face and it just ain't true

No, it just ain't true

- Paul Davis

Joyce woke on the couch, the axe on her lap, sure that she had heard Will's voice. She looked around, dazed, blinked, and must have dozed off again, because Will was suddenly there in front of her, shouting "Mom!" She gasped, blinked again, and Will became Jonathan, who was bending over her, trying to shake her awake.

"What? What time is it?"

"It's almost eight. We have to go."

Still half-asleep, she couldn't remember why. "Where?" she asked him. "Where?"

"To see Will. To the morgue."

"Will isn't at the morgue," she said automatically.

"Mom, please don't start that again. I need you to— I need you. Please."

Jonathan so rarely asked for anything, and almost never said he needed anything. For him, she would make an effort.

"Let me get my teeth brushed. Is there any coffee?"

He looked relieved. "I'm making some."

"Thank you."

"Should I take some to the Chief?"

"The Chief?"

"Yeah, he's asleep out in his truck."

"He is?" Joyce was touched. That was the Hopper she remembered, who didn't say much but was just quietly there when you least expected him to be. "Yeah, take him some coffee. Tell him—tell him I said thanks."

Hopper followed them to the morgue. He hadn't said much to either Joyce or Jonathan this morning, feeling kind of foolish to be found asleep in his truck outside their house. He was glad neither of them had felt the need to make a big deal out of it.

At the morgue, both of them were ushered into the back, but Hopper was not asked to join them. Which was fine by him. He'd only seen the kid alive once, and he'd seen him dead once, and that was enough. More than enough. He wished he could be there for Joyce when she had to face the truth, but he'd be right outside, where he could rush in if he was needed.

He sat there for what felt like forever, turning his hat around in his hands, waiting. And waiting. At last he asked Patty, the receptionist, what was taking so long.

She gave the long-suffering sigh of the only competent person in an office full of chaos. "Well, everything's been a bit chaotic around here without Gary."

"Without Gary?" Hopper echoed. "Where's Gary?" Gary hadn't missed a day of work in all the time Hopper had been on the job here. Why would he be off today, of all days?

Patty frowned at him. "I thought you know. Those men from State, they sent Gary home last night."

"So who did the autopsy?"

"Someone from State."

Why the hell would someone from State come to Hawkins to autopsy a little kid who fell in a quarry? That didn't make any sense at all. On the whole, Hopper was relieved to have something to puzzle over, but he was sure in the end it would be nothing. A paperwork issue, some overzealous bureaucrat who liked little kids' autopsies done with extra red tape.

Back in the bowels of the morgue, Joyce and Jonathan stood in front of a window, looking into a room where a form draped in a blue sheet lay on a stretcher. Jonathan was holding himself together, but barely. Joyce … wasn't sure what to think. This must look like Will, or Hopper would never have told her that it was. And if it wasn't Will, and it looked like him, then why? How? But it couldn't be Will, because he was at home, somehow. Right here, like he had told her.

Still, the anticipation of the moment that sheet would be pulled back and she would have to see the face of a dead child who looked like her boy was making it hard to breathe.

Jonathan looked at her, then at the morgue attendant, and gave him the smallest of nods. The attendant pulled back the sheet. Next to her, Jonathan trembled when the face was revealed, the face that looked remarkably like Will's. Jonathan bolted off somewhere to be sick, but Joyce stayed where she was. How could this boy look so much like Will and not be Will?

To the attendant, she said, "He has a birthmark on his right arm. Can you show that to me, please?"

The attendant moved the sheet. The mark was there. It was … Will's. Just as she had seen it thousands of times. Just as she had traced her fingers over when he was a baby.

How could she be standing here looking at this body, this body that looked like Will in every detail, and be certain that it wasn't him? Because she was certain. She was absolutely sure. If that made her crazy, so be it, but she wasn't going to let Will down by ignoring what she felt.

Jonathan hadn't been able to bear going back in, so he'd come out and was now sitting next to Hopper, both waiting. The kid was holding himself together pretty well, but you could tell it had hit him hard. Living out there, the three of them, big age difference between the two boys, Joyce being who she was—Jonathan probably felt responsible. Hopper felt for him, poor kid.

"How's your mom doing?" he asked.

The kid had to think that one over. Either he wasn't sure what to say or he wasn't sure how she was doing—or he was sure and didn't want to say it out loud. "I don't know," he muttered at last.

Behind the desk a phone rang.

"How long's that stuff been goin' on, with the lights and Will and the thing in the wall?"

Jonathan shook his head. "Since the first phone call, I guess."

Classic denial. Poor Joyce.

"You know, she's had anxiety problems, in the past," Jonathan said. "But this? … I don't know."

Hopper sensed that it was rare for the kid to offer so much, and to a virtual stranger, at that. He must be really worried about her. Hell, Hopper was really worried about her. He was on the verge of getting up and going back there to see if she had collapsed or if she was still spouting delusional fairytales.

Next to him, Jonathan sighed heavily. "I'm worried it could be … I don't know." He took a deep breath, getting himself together, and made eye contact with Hopper for the first time. "She'll be okay. We'll be okay."

Hopper couldn't tell which one of them the kid was trying to convince.

"My mom … she's tough."

The kid didn't know the half of it. "Yeah, she is." Hopper reached out and put a hand on Jonathan's shoulder. "Hey. She is." This time, he didn't know which of them he was trying to convince.

Jonathan gave him a little smile, though, so Hopper figured at least one of them felt better. Actually, come to think of it, he did, too. Maybe Joyce was talking to the lights, but she would come through it. He believed that. He would help her as much as he can. For the first time, he thought maybe it was a good thing he had come to Hawkins rather than going somewhere, anywhere, else.

They were still smiling at each other, Hopper squeezing Jonathan's shoulder, when they heard a voice yelling, "Ma'am! Ma'am." The door swung violently open, and Joyce emerged, followed closely by the morgue technician, who was brandishing a clipboard and demanding that she sign it.

Joyce turned to him, yelling, "I don't know what you think that thing is in there, but that is not my son."

Hopper was on his feet, looking concerned. "Joyce. Wait a second."

"No!" She wasn't staying in here one more minute. She pushed through the doors, heedless of Jonathan calling her name and completely ignoring the technician and his damned clipboard.

Jonathan hurried out after Joyce, leaving Hopper standing there. He turned to the technician. "What was that all about?"

"She—she needs to sign the forms! But she insists that isn't her son, and that she's not going to sign. We can't release the body without a parent's signature, so now what do we do?" the technician demanded, staring at Hopper as though he had the answers.

"Wait, all right? She just lost her child. Have some compassion."

The technician took a breath, getting his temper under control with obvious effort. "All right. She has twenty-four hours."

"I'll tell her."

"Good luck." With that, the technician headed back into the lab. Hopper hoped he liked spending time around the dead, because he certainly didn't seem equipped to handle the living.

Joyce had taken off from the morgue, walking down the street, needing to get away from there and from Hopper and from Jonathan and get somewhere that she could clear her head.

Jonathan followed her in the car, demanding that she get in. He didn't understand. She wasn't sure she understood well enough to explain it to him. She waved him off. "I need to think. Just go on home."

"Mom, will you just get in, please?"

She waved him off, hurrying down the sidewalk. Jonathan pulled the car to a stop and came after her, catching up just after she had crossed the street. He put his hand on her shoulder and turned her around.

"Stop!"

"Just go home, Jonathan!"

"No. This is not an okay time for you to shut down."

"Shut down?" Was that what he thought this was? Did he not see there was more to this than met the eye?

"We have to deal with this, Mom! We have to deal with the funeral!"

She hated to have to argue with Jonathan. He didn't deserve it. But she was damned well not going to have anything more to do with that thing they'd shown her. "The funeral?" she asked him in disbelief. "For—for who? For that thing back there?"

"Let me get this straight. Will. That's not his body, because he's in the lights, right? And there's a monster in the wall. Do you even hear yourself?"

Did he imagine she didn't? Did he think she thought this was all perfectly normal? "I know it sounds crazy. I sound crazy."

"Yeah!"

"Do you think I don't know that? It is crazy! But I heard him, Jonathan, he talked to me! Will is, is calling to me, and he's out there, and he's alone, and he's scared, and, and I don't care if anyone believes me! I'm not going to stop looking for him until I find him and bring him home!"

Jonathan's eyes had filled with tears. She hated to hurt him—but she couldn't abandon Will, not even for him. Her son was out there somewhere, not back in that room, and she would fight anyone who told her otherwise, even Jonathan, her rock.

"I am going to bring him home!" she shouted at him, one more time, for emphasis. And then she turned and walked away, because she needed to think now, more than ever.

"Yeah, well, while you're talking to the lights, the rest of us are having a funeral for Will! I'm not letting him stay in that freezer another day!"

Under any other circumstances, Joyce would have been proud of him—he was doing exactly what she was doing, the very best he could for Will. Today, he was just another obstacle in her way as she tried to figure out how to get to Will.