Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

All I Have to Do Is Dream

"All I Have to Do Is Dream"

I can make you mine, taste your lips of wine

Anytime, night or day

Only trouble is, gee whiz,

I'm dreamin' my life away

- The Everly Brothers

"Thanks, man. I appreciate the call." Hopper put down the phone and sat there staring into space. Joyce Byers was looking into putting her house on the market. If he hadn't known the real estate agent so well, he never would have believed it. To take this step without mentioning it to him—without mentioning it to the kids, who counted on her being there ... She must really mean it, he reasoned. That's why she didn't tell him, so he couldn't talk her out of it.

He put a hand over his face, trying to imagine this Godforsaken corner of the country without her. She had always been here. When he'd come back to Hawkins, run back with his tail between his legs, he had known she was here, and somehow that had made it better.

He would stop her. That was clear. He would get in the way of the sale and he would stop her. That it was unethical didn't really bother him—but that it would hurt Joyce for him to do that kind of thing did. So, he couldn't try to stop the sale. Could he try to stop her? Could he use Eleven and how much she needed a mother figure to make her rethink the plan? Or—could he use himself? Could he go over there and throw himself at her feet, beg her not to go? Jim Hopper couldn't remember the last time he had begged anyone for anything.

Well, he could, too, little as he wanted to. He had begged the doctors to save his little girl, to stop her pain. And where had that gotten him? No, he didn't think that he could beg again, not even for Joyce.

What if he told her how he felt? He'd been waiting until she was ready, but this seemed like an emergency. What if he went to her house, and ...

Hopper knocked impatiently on the door, but didn't wait for an answer. He was reaching for the doorknob almost before the sound of his knock had faded. He pushed the door open, seeing Joyce standing there in the middle of the room.

"Hop?" she asked, confused, but he didn't stop to answer.

In three steps he was in front of her, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her against him, bending his head toward hers. As their lips met he could feel her tense in his arms, but he softly deepened the kiss and she relaxed, her response coming little by little until she was kissing him back with an enthusiasm he remembered from all those years ago.

"Joyce," he murmured, breaking the kiss, "don't go. Stay with me."

"Jim ..." She hadn't called him that since high school, and even then rarely. "I don't know if I can."

"I don't know what I would do without you." He kissed her again, and she—

"Chief?"

"What?" Hopper snapped, embarrassed to be found sitting there at his desk lost in fantasy.

"Mayor's on the phone."

"Aw, what does he want?"

Flo shrugged, pointing at the phone as if to indicate that was the only way to find out, and disappeared.

Hopper dealt with the mayor as quickly as he could, returning to the knotty problem of how to convince Joyce not to leave as soon as the phone hit the cradle. Where had he been? Oh, yes—

Hopper knocked impatiently on the door, but didn't wait for an answer. He was reaching for the doorknob almost before the sound of his knock had faded. He pushed the door open, seeing Joyce standing there in the middle of the room.

"I'm not letting you go!" he said defiantly, before he was even through the door.

"What are you talking about?"

"You! Your house! You can't just up and leave!"

Her hands were on her hips, and she was glaring at him. "I don't know who you think you are—"

No. That was definitely not the way. The last thing Joyce needed after Lonnie was to have him walk in and start laying down the law. Bob would never have done that, Hopper acknowledged.

He lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair, thinking about the best approach.

Hopper knocked impatiently on the door, but didn't wait for an answer. He was reaching for the doorknob almost before the sound of his knock had faded. He pushed the door open, seeing Joyce standing there in the middle of the room.

"Hop?"

"I ... heard you were thinking of putting your house on the market. I thought I might buy it."

"You want to buy my house?"

"Only if you're in it."

Smooth. Very smooth. She'd like that.

"Hopper. Be serious."

"I am being serious, Joyce. Serious as I've ever been. Let's try this, really try this, like we should have before."

Her mouth was open, her eyes on him, and he thought he could see a kind of hope dawning there. "It would never work."

"Of course it would work. We have these great kids, and we're so good together, and—we could have a really good life." He cupped her chin in his hand. "Don't tell me you've never thought about it."

"I ... have, but ..."

"Then it's settled." Cautiously, tentatively, he took her in his arms and bent to kiss her, relieved when she turned her face up to his. This could work, the two of them, it could—

Hopper sat up with a startled cry as hot ash dropped on his shirtfront. He brushed it away, acknowledging to his shame that he wasn't ready to put his cards on the table so openly. He wasn't even sure he could. When it came to Joyce he was so afraid of screwing things up that he just didn't even know what to say. Maybe he never would.

With a glance at the phone, he acknowledged that maybe the clock would run down before he worked up the nerve, and whose fault would that be? One more thing messed up in his life that he had no one to blame for but himself.