Missing Scene - Blog Posts

- “Thank you,  I guess .. I’ll finally be able to sleep at night”

star wars missing scene

A Moment Of Peace

Characters: Joyce Byers, Jim Hopper

Warnings: some swearing, brief references to blood and canonical minor character death

Summary: after Eleven closes the Hawkins gate, Hopper tries his best to take care of Joyce. A missing scene from the Season 2 finale.

Author’s Notes: this is my contribution to @crimetimecrow’s spring break ST exchange, a gift for my exchange partner @autisticjoyce / @whats-a-terrarium (I do sincerely apologize for the delay. Turns out finals season coinciding perfectly with multiple family health difficulties halfway across the country really drains my creativity. who knew!) Although it’s my first time writing ST fic, I hope that you enjoy the Joyce/Hopper content! I know it’s not quite hurt/comfort like you asked for but I did try for fluff with a side of angst

Words: 1.8k

-

Hopper isn’t entirely sure how they both ended up here, with blood and dirt and other unpleasant substances staining their clothes and caked into the soles of their shoes, tracking grime over the scuffed linoleum. He’s been scrambling around houses and sheds and forests and a damn nightmare of a lab for what feels like years, riding an adrenaline high the entire time. He’s barely had time to wash most of the blood and grime off his face and hands, much less change.

But here he is, Joyce Byers at his side, standing in front of a reach-in refrigerator full of frozen waffles.

It feels surreal.

It is surreal. This whole thing feels like the fever dream production of some Hollywood director tripping on acid, not real life.

Except it is, and he’s gone from shooting desperately at a horde of those—what had the curly-haired kid called ‘em again?—demon-dogs or something like that—to browsing the local grocery in the space of two hours.

“How many do you think we should get?”

Her voice is subdued, almost as monotone as the low hum of the refrigerator. Her arms are folded over her chest, a tightness lingering in her shoulders as she taps her fingers absentmindedly against her bicep.

He clears his throat. “Uh, maybe four boxes? Five? Do your kids normally eat a lot?”

Not that this is a normal situation, exactly, but Joyce would know the kids’ habits better than him, and that’s a good place to start.

She shrugs, turning her head to look up at him. There’s a quizzical wrinkle in her forehead, for once a question and not a sign of worry. It’s been a while since he’s seen her…not anxious.

“We’ll just put the leftovers in the fridge. I’m not keeping that…that thing.”

Hopper remembers jerking around at the startled scream, whipping out his pistol in case something that gone horribly wrong and the dog monsters were back, only to see Joyce staring wide-eyed at the slimy corpse sliding to the kitchen floor with a wet slunk, wrapped in a blanket that’s probably stained to hell now.

He doesn’t have a clue why Dustin had wanted to keep that thing around. Once the feds come through tomorrow—today, whatever—there won’t be any traces of what really happened. No way they’d let some kid keep evidence of such a major fuck-up, after all. Not if they’re smart, and willing to commit a few regulatory violations. He’s found that they’re often lacking in the first department but a little too committed in the second.

“Anyway.” Joyce clears her throat. “There’ll be space.”

He pulls the fridge door open. “Sure. Let’s just say six boxes then.”

The cashier—some new kid they must’ve recently hired on and had decided to put on the earliest shift for some reason—stares openly, slowly chewing a mouthful of gum.

“Long night?” She asks.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Hopper answers, wishing she’d just check them out faster so he and Joyce could get back to their kids—their respective kids, anyway. Jonathan, Nancy Wheeler, and the Harrington boy are taking care of the other kids, but Hopper would rather keep close to them for a little while, at least until the government shows up and starts patching up their own mess.

Then again, he isn’t exactly looking forward to all the paperwork waiting for him. The bullshit with the unconscious (drugged!!) Hargrove kid, the stolen car, the many parents he was going to have to explain shit too, the scrutiny of a whole town that was going to fall on this incident one way or another—sure, most of it wasn’t his problem (the kids had a real bad habit of recklessly endangering themselves but he was the one responsible for them, because Joyce was just trying to protect her boy and he understands that, really, but it’s just so much to smooth over—)

But he’s an adult and he can take responsibility. Hopefully later, when the headache pulsing behind his eyes has worn off.

He doesn’t realize that the cashier is asking him to pay, more flatly bored than irritated, until she raps her knuckles on the cash register.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbles, reaching for his wallet on autopilot.

It’s like that the whole way back to Joyce’s house, too. Scattered. Distracted. Fidgety. Like his thoughts are all jumbled up in his head and he can’t get them sorted out properly.

The roads are empty and dark. Quiet. He doesn’t start up conversation, and neither does Joyce, a stack of yellow boxes cradled in her arms. She’s got that look again—like she’s staring straight through the forest, through the sky, through the whole universe, and for all that, sees nothing at all.

She’s right next to him, curled up in the passenger’s seat, but it feels like he could reach over and his hand would go straight through her.

He wants to say something, but he doesn’t know what he needs to say that hasn’t already been said. She’d volunteered to go with him so he wouldn’t be on his own—just in case. And he appreciates it, obviously, but he wonders if she’d be happier with her kids, now that Will’s…better, and everything’s finally calmed down and everyone is…okay.

Except for Bob Newby.

Black hole, he thinks, then no. They’re okay now. We got most of them out, and we’ll get through the fallout together too.

“You can only ever take life one step at a time.”

His hands tighten on the wheel. He can’t think of Diane right now. What good would it do him, or Joyce, or the kids?

But yeah, she was right. And right now, the next step is getting the kids to eat.

Not like that’s hard, either. He and Joyce had only left the others because Eleven—El—Jane, whatever she wanted to be called now after her…trip—asked him for Eggos.

What else was he supposed to do? He’d carried her off the elevator, mechanically climbed the stairs, guided her face into his shoulder so she didn’t have to see all the destruction and the blood, gotten her safely out of the cloying smell of rot that infused the lab’s every hallway, and bundled her into the car as the first federal agents finally showed up. Slumped behind the wheel, not-so-silently cursing bureaucracy, he’d flinched when Eleven put her hand weakly over his.

Ignoring the officer rapping on the window, she’d met Hopper’s eyes, bloody tears drying against her cheeks, and whispered, “Home.”

And that was what really mattered in the end, not barely restraining himself from yelling at the officers, not seeing a motionless Dr. Owens carried out on a stretcher, not the stench of blood seeping from the open doors. He can’t change any of that.

Hopper had wanted to take Eleven to the hospital after the abbreviated interrogation was over, unsure if she had internal bleeding or had inhaled toxic fumes or some shit like that, but she had been adamant to avoid it. So instead, he’d broken multiple traffic safety laws to get Eleven back to the Byers’ house to check on the other kids, spent a head-splitting half hour on the phone with his deputies…and then taken an impromptu trip to the grocery.

Totally normal.

God, maybe he really is going crazy.

But standing by a table with too few chairs and watching the kids dig enthusiastically into their waffles, he feels the most normal that he’s felt in a while now. The kids chatter quietly amongst themselves, and the teens have already taken down most of the drawings plastered to the walls of the kitchen and living room areas, so it really feels…normal. Safe.

It’s…pleasant.

Except for the fact that Joyce is wrapped in a blanket in the living room, gazing dazedly into the mug of tea in her hands, and Hopper doesn’t know how to help her.

The couch creaks when he sits down next to her.

“How are you holding up?” He murmurs, half question, half simple desire to break the silence.

Joyce shrugs a little. “I’ll be okay.” She scrubs a palm over her eyes, then sighs. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”

It’s definitely not all, but he won’t push.

“Well.” Hopper pauses awkwardly. “You know that if you need anything, I’m around.”

She sniffs. “I know, Jim.”

“Uh. Yeah.” He stares down at his hands, washed clean and bandaged. But there’s still dirt under his fingernails. Probably some worse things, too.

My watch is broken, he thinks dully. Frozen at a quarter to three. It’s more like…seven, maybe, no—earlier. Six thirty or something.

Neither of them are going to get any sleep just yet. And soon, they’re going to have to give statements to the officers whenever they decide to show up and swarm the house for evidence (to cover it all up, of course). He’s going to have to talk the Hargroves down after both their kids went missing for a whole night. He’s going to have to do so much paperwork that his headache pulses harder just thinking about it.

But for now…

“Hey, uh, Joyce,” he says, coughing midway through when his throat closes up. “It’s almost sunrise.”

She blinks up at him. “Okay?”

Hopper stands and holds out his hand. “Wanna sit on the roof and watch it with me?”

There’s a very long pause, and then her hand slides into his. “Sure, Jim.” Her voice wobbles a little.

-

It’s peaceful up there, sitting side by side, wrapped in blankets in the early morning chill.

“You know,” he starts, eyes fixed on the edge of the horizon where the sun is starting to lighten the sky. “I always thought you were…cool.”

Her clothes rustle softly as she turns her head towards him.

“Maybe not in the, uh…not ‘cool’ cool like Eleven’s new look, but just…cool.”

God, that sounded pathetic.

But when he turns to look at her, Joyce is smiling. Just barely, but it’s still a smile.

So maybe she gets what he was trying to say.

“Yeah?”

Hopper swallows. “Yeah. You’re determined, and strong, and a great mom. You never just give up, and you’re—you’re fuckin’ brave. Always have been.”

The smile widens, tears glittering in her eyes. “Thanks, Jim.”

“Yeah,” he breathes again. “No problem.”

After a moment, she slides closer to him, and when she leans her head on his shoulder, he wraps his arm around her.

He’s never really been one for the whole “poetic symbolism,” “new-beginnings-fresh-starts-light-means-hope” mumbo jumbo. A sunrise is just a sunrise. It’s a normal part of a normal life, that’s all.

But his kid did just stitch up a hole in the fabric of the universe with just her mind.

So maybe, just for today, a sunrise can mean that they’re going to be alright.

-