Eleven

"Yeah," he says. "It takes time."

And he had figured it would. They're good kids, though, the both of them. They've both been through a lot. At some point, hopefully, he thinks they'll be able to confide in each other in ways they can't with him. He'd be okay with that.

"You met some of her friends at the Home, right?" he asks. "Richie and Stan?" Richie's a pain in the ass, but a generally good kid, and Stan is the sort of kid Hopper had never had a hope of being himself. He's polite and sensitive and Hopper would never say it out loud, but he's definitely the one of Beverly's friends he likes the best.