(no subject)

[eggos]

Fraser, Stan, and others had told El the universal truths about Darrow: you come alone, and you can't leave. Eleven is no stranger to being places alone: The lab. The Upside Down. The woods. Hopper's cabin, when he's working. (She doesn't hold that against him, but it's something she recognizes as true.) Darrow's Home for Children is not very different. She's in a room of strangers, but she's still alone. She's strange enough to them that they leave her alone.

Which is how she finds herself now, alone on the floor, her back against her bed. She's got her clothes back, and she's wearing the black-and-yellow top and black jeans now, as she pulls a pillowcase over her eyes to block out the light. There aren't any radios here, not like she's used to, but one of the staff showed her how to use her small, strange phone to make white noise, so she can listen to that, instead. Then she relaxes her shoulders and reaches out.

She tries for Mike, first. She pictures him in her mind's eye, and she focuses, and...

Nothing.

Eleven swallows and tries again. And still nothing. She tries again, until her nose starts to drip sluggishly from the effort, and she sighs and pulls the blindfold off. This isn't working. Which means he's not here, but even if he weren't, shouldn't she have been able to find him anyway? She'd found Kali states away. Why is Darrow any different?

With a breath, she reaches up to wipe her nose. This isn't working, and she's getting frustrated trying. Eleven sighs and tosses the pillowcase back onto the bed as she stands. She'll go for a walk, clear her head. She'll try again later.

The coat she's wearing is too big, still. She has money, but she hasn't gone to buy a new one. Most of the last week has been learning the rules of the Home, and reading up on the things the school will expect from her when she starts going. She's not nervous, except for a little part of her that doesn't know what to expect. She'd only been into the school a few times, in Hawkins, and it hadn't been to learn anything. Stan has been helpful. He's made lists that are easy to read, and if he thinks she's a weirdo, he doesn't say so, or act like it.

She likes Stan. He's a lot like Mike, in the ways that he's nice to her, and calm and patient. There's a tension in him that she's not familiar with, though. He seems always ready — not afraid, not exactly, but not prepared, either. She wants to ask him about it. Maybe she will.

She gets lost in her thoughts like this, frowning to herself and moving from topic to topic as she walks.

Comments

[something_incredible]

If he was still drinking, Hopper would think this was a goddamn hallucination.

But he's not. He's sober, has been since September, five whole months at this point, which is the longest he's gone without a drink since he was probably fifteen. When Sara had been born, he'd cut way down, but never stopped, and after she died that intake had shot up and then beyond. It had taken another girl who needed him to make him cut back again.

And now she's coming down the sidewalk in Darrow, clearly lost in though, and Hopper's goddamn heart breaks. He hasn't seen her in three years. It hasn't been that long for her, he can tell just by the way she looks. Her hair is longer, yeah, but it hasn't been three years. For him, though, it's felt like a lifetime.

"El?" he asks when she nears him. He's just standing there holding a paper grocery bag in one arm, a cigarette burning uselessly between the fingers of his other hand.

[eggos]

Eleven stops walking when she hears her name. She would know that voice anywhere, even if he's only said the one thing. She almost doesn't want to look up from her feet. Like it's a dream. They'd said no one would be here.

But he is.

Slowly, she lifts her eyes to his. It's only been a week since she's seen him, but it feels like longer.

"Hop," she whispers.

[something_incredible]

"Jesus Christ, kid," he says on an exhale, closing the distance between them, all but dropping the grocery bag as he flicks the cigarette away. Both his hands go to her face, cradling her cheeks, and he examines her, drinking her in, categorizing the differences from the last time he had seen her.

Longer hair. Brighter eyes. She looks like a weight has been lifted. Maybe not all of it, but some. Enough.

"Jesus Christ," he says again and then he has his arms around her, wrapping her up tight, hugging her against him and thinking about all the ways in which he isn't going to fuck this up. All the ways he isn't going to let her go.

[eggos]

She looks up at him, smiling warmly even as she's trying not to cry. She holds his wrists, her hands barely able to come up out of the too-long sleeves of her too-big jacket. He takes in the sight of her, and she does the same: it's only been a week, but he looks older, somehow, and less sad.

And when he hugs her tight, the first, most immediate thing she notes is that he's also a little skinnier.

But that isn't important right now. Right now, Hopper is hugging her, and she's hugging him back, and for the first time in a week, Eleven feels like this place could be good, not just okay.

[something_incredible]

When he releases her, it's only to look at her again, studying her, hands on her shoulders. As if he expects to find her changed, to discover he's accidentally hugging some strange teenager who's going to run off and scream for a police officer.

Which would be kind of funny, since he is one.

But no, it's still Eleven standing there and he brushes her hair back from her face just to stare at her a little better. Three years. He's been here for three years without his kid. There's another girl now, one who's become just as important, but Eleven has always been one of his girls.

"Are you alright?" he asks. "You're okay?"

[eggos]

She laughs a little and nods. She has to pull her hand out of her jacket so she can wipe her eyes, a flash of blue around her wrist before it falls down and disappears into the sleeve.

"I'm okay," she assures. She looks up at him, and frowns gently. "You... have been here?" He's not the same, that much is obvious to her, which means... he's been here. The entire time that she has, somewhere in the city, and she never even tried to look for him.

[something_incredible]

He laughs, the sound rough, a little ragged, and he shakes his head.

"Kid..." Lifting one hand from her shoulder, he scrubs a face over his face and then exhales heavily. "Shit. How much have you been told about this place? About how the time works? Arrivals? All that?"

They should go somewhere. He should take her back to the apartment and sit her down and have a proper conversation about it, but she's right here and he's almost afraid to let her go.

[eggos]

She thinks back to the things Stan and Fraser have said, the things others have said, too. She frowns.

"That... we come alone. Stan said his friends were here before. I looked for Mike, but..." She frowns again, deeper, and looks up at him. "What do you mean, 'how time works?'" Her fingers clutch to his jacket, like she's as worried about losing him as he is of losing her.

[something_incredible]

"Shit," he says, then exhales. "The way it works, best it's been explained to me, is we can be here and still be there. Last thing I remember in Hawkins, you and me were coming back up after you sealed the tear. You were floating, kid, remember that? We got back up to the top and I turned to help you off the platform, only it wasn't there anymore. You weren't there."

He pauses, then says, "That was three years ago for me."

Three goddamn years away from her.

[eggos]

She remembers that, because it wasn't very long ago. But he's telling her he left right after that, before the dance, and he's been here for three years. Except he'd been with her, the whole time, and it hasn't been three years. She frowns, looking up at him.

We can be here and still be there, he'd said. That conjures up a dozen different ideas, ideas about doubles and fakes, and Eleven frowns harder.

"Are you wrong?" she asks, even as she doesn't want to believe it. She wants to believe that this is still her Hopper, even though he's been, somehow, gone and home at the same time.

[something_incredible]

Hopper laughs, a short huff of air, and he looks at Eleven, a lopsided smile curving one corner of his mouth. "I dunno, you wanna test me? The way we were fighting before, I kinda figure you might say I'm wrong no matter what."

His smile fades a little and he shakes his head. "I'm me, kid. Just... me from a little earlier than I think you remember. You wanna quiz me to be sure?"

He doesn't care. He'll do anything right now, anything she wants. He's just so damn glad to see her.

[eggos]

She purses her lips to the side, watching him thoughtfully. Now that he's asked, she can't think of anything to ask him. She's not good at this part. So she decides to trust him. If he's not the right Hopper, she can handle it then.

She lunges back in for another hug, then leans her head back to look at him.

"I don't have to stay at the Home?" she says, a bit hopefully.

[something_incredible]

"Hell no, kid," he says with a laugh, his arms around her again. "I got your birth certificate here and everything. And the folks at the Home know me pretty well, I-"

He pauses, realizing he's going to have to tell her about Beverly. Eleven has definitely exhibited signs of jealousy before, but he thinks she'll like Beverly a lot, if she gives her a chance.

"There's another girl," he says. "She used to live at the Home, she's friends with some of the kids who are still there, with Stan and Richie and Eddie. Some bad stuff happened to her. Really bad. She needed somewhere to stay and eventually she just sorta stuck around."

[eggos]

Eleven hears the words, and she feels her spine tense. Another girl. Just like Max, when El was gone. She wonders what 'bad stuff' happened to her. She wonders if Hopper likes her more than he likes Eleven.

She wonders if she'll fit into his life.

"Oh," she says, as neutrally as she can manage. She probably doesn't do a good job.

[something_incredible]

"You'll like her, kid," he says and he believes she will, as long as she gives Beverly a chance. They're a lot alike, having relied on men meant to be their fathers, even if not quite the traditional sense for Eleven, men who only ever ended up hurting them.

"She'll like you, too," he says. "She knows about you. Not everything, not all the secrets, but she knows what you and me mean to each other. That you lived with me back in Hawkins. You two... you got a lot in common. Probably stuff you can talk to each other about that you're not gonna ever wanna tell me."

[eggos]

Eleven hesitates, then reaches for his wrist. If he's from before the dance, then he'll still have it. Slowly, she rolls the cuff of his jacket back, out of the way, so she can see it for herself. In that moment, nothing is more important than learning whether he's still wearing the blue hair band that he'd given to her.

In that moment, El wants to know, for sure, that this other girl hasn't taken her place.

[something_incredible]

"What- you're lookin' for this?" he asks as she reveals Sara's blue hair band, wrapped around his wrist. He never takes it off. Back in Hawkins, he remembers thinking maybe he'd give it to Eleven, hopefully make her understand just how important she is to him, but he hadn't had the chance before ending up here.

"Yeah, I still got it," he says. "Couldn't lose this."

[eggos]

Eleven looks at it for a long moment, then pulls her own left sleeve up so he can see it.

"We match," she murmurs. It's strange to think about how there are two of this small thing, now. Could there be two Hoppers, too? Could there be two Elevens?

[something_incredible]

"Huh," Hopper says, looking down at Eleven's wrist. It's the same hair band, there's no doubt in his mind, because he knows he would never forget what it looks like. Sara was everything to him and she always will be.

But he's expanded what everything can mean in these past few years, first with Eleven, then with Beverly.

"Look at that," he agrees in a soft voice. "We match."

[eggos]

"You gave it to me after I closed the gate," she murmurs. She hesitates, but then says, "Do you want it back?" She wants to keep it. It's a link between her and Hopper that she can see, that she can feel. But if he wants it back, even though he already has one, then she'll give it back.

[something_incredible]

"No," he says, then smiles a little and shakes his head. He curls his fingers over Eleven's wrist, covering the blue hair band with his hand, then squeezes gently. "Nah, kid, that's yours."

He still can't really believe she's here and for a moment Hopper only stares at her, then grins.

"Shit," he says. "Gonna have to make room for you at the apartment."

[eggos]

That earns a small, hopeful smile, and her shoulders start to relax a bit. She's slept in plenty of too-small places before, and she knows that he knows that. If he wants her to sleep on the couch, like he sometimes did, then she will. But he still wants her there. Even with this other girl, even with everything being strange and wrong about when they're both from. He still wants her there.