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"Hold the Line"

It's not in the way your love set me free

It's not in the way that you look or the things that you say that you'll do

Hold the line

Love isn't always on time

- Toto

Hopper led Joyce across the metal-lined hallway and up the steps to the control room, ignoring the alarms and the people shouting in Russian and all the people he passed on the way. He had the briefcase, he had Joyce—they were going to finish this, and they were going to go home, and go on their date, and become the kind of people who didn't have to know that a Russian installation bent on opening a gate to another world and letting monsters free lurked beneath the local mall.

Bursting into the control room, he shouted at the people there, scientists one and all, to judge by the lab coats, "Hey! Everybody out." They turned and looked at him blankly, and he said it again; screamed it, really. "Everybody out!" And he pointed the gun at the ceiling and sprayed it with bullets, just for good measure.

That got the message thoroughly across, and the scientists exited quickly and efficiently, leaving Joyce and Hopper alone in the room.

Outside the windows, they could see the machine the Russians had built, going on with its work, slowly but surely opening that goddamned gate. Joyce stood looking at it, stunned, her eyes so big in her pale little face. Hopper wanted to make sure she never had to look like that again.

"Hey," he said to her, quietly. Calmly. Reassuringly, he hoped. She turned to look at him and Hopper lifted the briefcase. "You ready to end this?"

Joyce nodded, and he placed the briefcase on the desk, popping the locks and opening it to reveal the two keys nestled there. One for him and one for her. They would finish this together.

Each taking a key, they advanced to the two pedestals in the front of the control room. Hopper lifted the walkie-talkie. "Murray, you all set down there?"

"All set, but I've got some company which I'd love you to obliterate."

Typical Murray. Always demanding. Hopper was going to miss that guy when this was over and hopefully he never had to see him again.

"Will do," he said into the walkie. "Hang tight." He and Joyce put their keys into the locks and looked at each other. "On three."

"On three," Joyce confirmed.

"One … Two …"

But before Hopper reached three, a hand grabbed him by the throat and he was spun around, looking directly into the face of that gigantic Russian asshole he had failed to kill at the carnival. Damn this guy, anyway, Hopper thought, even as he was being swung head-first into the shatter-proof glass of the control room.

Before he could get to his feet, Joyce went running for the gun he had dropped and was caught by the big Russian, held in midair and then thrown across the room into a bank of equipment. She shrieked and slid to the floor.

The Russian pulled a walkie-talkie and began speaking into it. Before he could get out more than a few words, Hopper got to his feet and tackled the guy. He was tired of taking this jackass's abuse. It was time to show him how Americans got things done.

Or so he thought, until the Russian caught his punch and kicked him back into the bank of monitors. They closed with each other, slugging it out, until the Russian struck Hopper in the stomach and laid him out on the floor, the breath knocked out of him.

The Russian lifted him by the collar and smashed his face into a grating, punching him in the kidney for good measure.

Hopper absorbed the blow—time enough to be in pain later—and elbowed the Russian in the nose over his shoulder, sending him staggering back. But he kept coming.

They were out of the control room now, Hopper stumbling down a set of metal stairs toward the machine, which was still going about its business, still opening the gate, even as Hopper went face-first onto the metal floor of the walkway. He got to his feet only to be kicked backward into the railing and then punched in the face.

The Russian gave him a moment to collect himself, and they faced each other, standing directly in front of the machine. Raising his fists, Hopper motioned to the Russian to keep coming. This wasn't going to end until one of them was dead, and Hopper was damned if the one who died was going to be him, not when he finally had something—someone—to live for. Joyce. El. His girls. He wasn't going to abandon them, or let them down. He was going to stand here and fight for them as long as there was breath left in his body.

He kept at the Russian, taking the blows that came to him, pushing the pain away, somewhere far down where he could deal with it later, getting in a punch here and a kick there, whatever he could land. Back and forth across the walkway, behind the machine.

If the Russian won, it was over. If Hopper couldn't hold out long enough to beat him, Hawkins would never be safe again. Not for El, not for Joyce, not for Will or Mike or Dustin or Jonathan or Nancy or the Harrington kid … not for anyone.

And with that thought strengethening him, giving him the endurance he needed, Hopper finally managed to knock the Russian down, raining two-handed blows down on his solar plexus, on his ribcage. Over and over again, until the Russian kneed him in the side of the head and he went reeling over the Russian's prone body, his head hanging off the walkway, nearly inside the machine.

The Russian put his boot on Hopper's throat and held him there, and Hopper fought to breathe, fought to stay alert, fought to be the person he had always wanted to be—the one who saved the day and took care of his people.