Through Open Doors

"Joyce" Karen calls from the front porch of the Byers house, "Joyce please, let me in."

A puffy-eyed Joyce reluctantly opens the door for Karen before trudging back to the living room and flopping down on the couch. It had been two weeks since they shut the gate. Two weeks since she lost him. Two weeks since her world fell apart. She did her best to be strong for the kids, putting on a brave face as she made them dinner and asked about their day but she was torn up inside and she didn't know if she would ever be whole again.

It hit her harder on some days and today was one of those days. Eleven had moved in with them immediately and had been an equal mess when it came to handling the demise of her adopted father. She spent most days alone in her room, curled up in bed and Joyce often had to beg her to come to eat. It killed Joyce to see the young girl hurting, but it was hard to tell her everything would be alright when she herself was far from alright.

She thought she would be able to handle this after having already experienced losing a loved one with Bob, but she was quickly learning this was nothing like that. God, here she was referring to Hopper as a loved one when she'd blown him off for dinner. If she could do it all over, she would tell him how much he meant to her when she had the chance. She would tell him about all those feelings that terrified her because she'd never felt them towards anyone else, she'd never felt like she needed someone the way she needed him. Losing Hopper was the hardest thing she'd ever faced, and that was saying a lot considering she'd fought monsters from another dimension.

Karen had been coming around with meals for the Byers family since she heard the news, but she usually just dropped off her casserole dish and left Joyce to her thoughts. Today, however, she takes a seat across from Joyce on the couch. The kids were all at the movies, a distraction Joyce thought Eleven could use so she had the house to herself for a few hours. Karen studies her friend as she picks at her nails, eyes swollen from the tears she shed, hair a tangled mess. Joyce Byers was the picture of broken and it shocked Karen to her core. She'd seen this woman go through hell and back, she dealt with a dead beat ex-husband, raised two boys all on her own and even lost her boyfriend last year. And yet, she'd never seen her look so defeated, so alone.

"I'm here, if you want to talk about it" Karen offers, reaching to pat Joyce's arm reassuringly.

Joyce looks up at Karen and sighs. She was too exhausted to talk about it but she was tired of keeping it all bottled up.

"It's just, it's not fair" she whispers, surprising Karen with the fact that she was finally ready to talk about it.

.

She looked beautiful, even when she was broken, to him she always looked astonishing.

He hated to see her like this, hurting. Both of them, broken.

He wanted to scream that he was right here, he didn't leave them but he knows it will be of no use, he would be screaming into an empty void.

Empty. He feels empty. He wishes he could tell her that she doesn't have to hurt like this. That he will find his way back to them even if it kills him.

He wants to reach out and comfort her. To take her in his arms and make everything alright.

He's standing right here but she can't see him.

He can't tell her how much she means to him. How much he loves her.

Sighing, he takes a seat on the empty end of the couch, watching as Karen Wheeler tries to comfort her.

This wasn't how things were supposed to end.

.

"We were finally… we were going to…" Joyce blubbers, wiping her tears on the back of her sleeve while Karen holds her other hand in support.

"You were going to what honey?"

"Everything was finally falling in to place… And I was finally ready…"

"Ready for what?"

"Ready to have everything with him" she cries, dropping her head into her hands. Trying to calm herself out of another panic attack she slows her breathing and closes her eyes. She pulls herself together as best she can and turns back to Karen.

"We were finally in a place where I think we were both ready, to be together" she clarifies and Karen stares back at her wide-eyed. She'd always assumed there was more going on between Joyce and the chief of police, but she didn't expect Joyce to be so upfront about it.

"We were supposed to go on a date. A date I should've said yes too along time ago…"

"Why didn't you? Say yes, I mean?"

"Because I was afraid" Joyce sighs with defeat, her tears having dried on her cheeks. She was too tired to cry anymore.

"I was afraid of what I felt for him. That I wasn't enough for him. But now, if I had the chance I would go back and say yes, every time. I would tell him how much having him my life means to me" she continues, "And I would tell him that despite my better instincts I was in love with him."

Karen just stares at Joyce, willing her to keep going with her rant, to get some of her feelings out in the open and Joyce obliges.

"God damn it Hopper! You weren't supposed to make me fall in love with you and then leave me!" she screams at no one in particular, collapsing into Karen's arms with a heavy sob.

.

His heart is breaking for her.

He never wanted to leave her but he didn't have a choice.

Damn it he'd been in love with Joyce Byers since high school.

He takes one final look at her before leaving, making it his mission to get back to her and tell her he loved her back.

.

.

3 months after the gate is closed…

Moving was an easy decision after she lost the only reason she would ever stay in Hawkins. The kids were hesitant at first but soon the idea of starting over somewhere new began to sound promising. They packed up the moving van and after a series of heartfelt goodbye's and promises to visit, they were on their way to a new beginning.

Packing up his things was the second hardest thing she'd ever done; saying goodbye to him was the first. Placing the last of his shirts into a box, she stumbles upon a note in his handwriting. She closes her eyes when she realizes what it is, the heart-to-heart he gave his adopted daughter before everything turned upside down.

Eleven spots the paper and asks her what it is and when she realizes Hop never delivered his speech she gives the note to the young girl. She watches from the door as El reads her father's words, her heart aching for the young girl. El notices her in the doorway and asks if it's time to go and she says yes. Wrapping her arm around the young girl she leads her out of the room placing a kiss to into her hair.

"He loved you so much kiddo" she whispers.

Handing her the note Eleven looks up at her and smiles softly, "He loved you too."

Joyce wraps the girl in a hug and they stay there for a moment in silence, comforting each other the only way they know how.

Watching as the kids say goodbye, she glances over the note in her hands. Feelings. She too had forgotten what those were like. Yes, she loved Bob, but somehow her feelings for Hopper were different. They were all-consuming. She had watched him go from a jock she would share cigarettes with under the bleachers to a broken alcoholic to an incredible father and her feelings evolved as she watched him grow, watched him learn. She fell for him when they briefly dated back in high school. She fell a little more when he helped her save Will from the bounds of the Upside Down. And more when he smiled at her while passing her a cigarette on her dimly lit porch on a late Monday evening. She fell harder when she watched him with El, the way he was a father figure for her boys, the way he secretly had a huge heart. She fell more and more in love with Jim Hopper as he stopped coming up with excuses to come over and just came over. When he showed up at Melvalds just to have lunch with her. Slowly over time, she had fallen head over heels in love with everything about him.

She swears sometimes it feels like he's there with her, telling her it will all be alright. For a brief moment, she wanted to believe maybe she wasn't crazy, maybe somehow he really was. But she knew it was her paranoia talking and she couldn't let herself go down that rabbit hole again; not without Jim around to be the only one on her side.

Packing the kids up in the car, she takes one last look around her empty living room. They'd been to hell and back in this house, literally.

He needed to get out of here already. He had no idea how long it had been but her house was bare now and he was afraid once they left he would never be able to find them again.

She smiles as she takes one final glance around. So much had happened here. Her kids grew up here, Jonathan got his first video camera, Will learned how to ride a bike. The emotion was suddenly overwhelming, and she can feel herself beginning to panic. What if moving away wasn't a good idea? Her breath hitches in her throat as she struggles to calm herself until suddenly, she feels at ease. She feels safe and for the first time in months like maybe everything would be alright. She doesn't know where the sudden calmness comes from, just that it feels like she's enveloped in a hug from him.

.

He knows she can't see him, but he can't help himself. He needed to hold her in his arms, one last time.

.

She freezes as he puts his arms around her and for a brief second, he's hopeful that maybe, she can sense him.

She swears she feels something different, something like an energy but she can't quite put her finger on it. It was eerily similar to what she felt when Will was trying to contact her from the Upside Down, but it couldn't be. Could it? They never found his body after the explosion, would it be so crazy that maybe he escaped through the gate before she closed it? Joyce, you're being crazy again, you're just telling yourself what you want to hear, she tries to reason with herself. But, what if? Eleven was still without her power's but what if there was some why they could look for him? There was no harm in looking, right?

Wrapping her sweater around herself she lets out a sigh. She would have to wait to bring it up until El's powers were back, otherwise, she knew the girl would go stir crazy waiting so they could investigate. For now, she was going to have to accept that he was gone. He would never know how she felt about him and it was time to start again. Before closing the door behind her she whispers to the empty room,

"Hop, if you can hear me somehow just know that I love you."

.

I can hear you, and I love you too. Always have, always will.

.

And she closes the door to her house one last time.

.

.

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Chicago, Christmas Time 1985

*crackling static on the radio*

The thunder rumbles as the dark clouds began to roll in over the city.

"Now remember, if it's too much for you sweetheart you can get out of there. You just got your powers back we don't want to push it" Joyce says to the blindfolding girl who is sitting in the middle of the living room floor.

"Got it. Don't push it" El responds back, tightening her blindfold around her head.

*static crackling and lightning flashes in the distance*

"She's been in there a long time maybe we should stop her?" Will whispers towards his mother.

*Thunder booms throughout the house and the power fades in and out*

Eleven gasps and jerks her blindfold off.

"I found him."