Hopper’s plans for the day: sleeping in, a couple beers, some light reading, coffee and contemplation.

El’s plans for his day: not that.

It was early January, which meant that Mike was still on winter break from school. Naturally, Eleven was looking for every possible chance to spend time with him.

Hopper quickly learned that his day wasn’t going to go as planned when he awoke to El shaking him out of bed.

“Wake up!” She said eagerly, ignoring his confused grunts and cries of protest.

“Jesus, kid!” Hopper exclaimed, grumpily rubbing the sleep from his eyes, “What’s going on?!”

“I wanna see Mike!” El pleaded, “He goes back to school soon!”

“I can drop you off at his house, then,” Hopper grumbled, turning to roll back into bed.

“But I want him to come here!” She explained, tugging on his shoulder so that he was facing her again.

Hopper sighed and eyed her warily. “Why?”

“He’s never been here.”

“Because there’s not much here,” Hopper snorted.

“We have the TV!” El insisted. “And Eggos!”

“So, you just want to watch TV and eat waffles all day with him?”

“Yes!”

“I don’t think you two should be on your own out here,” Hopper said carefully. “It’s not really...”

His brow furrowed as he tried to think of the right word. Appropriate? Safe? Responsible? Considering that Hopper would rarely use those words to describe his own actions, none of them seemed to fit.

“A good idea,” he finally settled on. “You should have some kind of supervision.”

Supervision, i.e., making sure that his daughter’s boyfriend wasn’t up to no good. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Mike, per say. The kid had certainly proven himself to be valiant on more than one occasion.

Regardless, that still didn’t change the fact that Mike was only 13, and Hopper just didn’t trust teenage boys, like, at all.

When Hopper had been around Mike’s age, his mother was completely convinced that Hopper was on the debate team (he wasn’t). And if Mike so much as thought of pulling any of the same moves that Hopper had with Chrissy Carpenter back in the day...

In short, Hopper just wanted to take precautions. Precaution #1: Not letting a hormonal teenage boy spend the day alone in a secluded cabin with his daughter. Granted, he had the day off today, but El didn’t know that. Spending the day babysitting a pair of teenagers was not exactly what Hopper had in mind for his rare vacation day.

“But you don’t work today!” El reminded him. “You could go get him and then stay here! We wouldn’t be alone!”

Dammit. “Who told you I had the day off?” Hopper grumbled.

“Will heard you tell his mama so Will told Mike and Mike told me!”

“Will heard me talking to Joyce?”

“Yes! On the phone,” El explained, exasperated, “Will says you two always talk.”

Hopper wasn’t much of a blusher, but he felt his cheeks flare up at that. “Not a lot,” he mumbled, rubbing his jaw. “Just sometimes.”

El disregarded this. “So, can you bring him?” She pleaded instead, “Please?”

“I dunno, kid…”

“Please!” She whimpered, pouted her lower lip, batted her doe-eyes, and with that, Hopper knew that he was done for. Resistance, at this point, was futile. El, as she often did, had won him over.

“Fine,” Hopper sighed, “Just let me —“

But by the time Hopper said, “Fine,” El had already run out the door. “ThankYouSoMuch!” She exclaimed in one breath, calling out to him from the living room. He could hear her dialing the phone, no doubt to let Mike know the good news.

One of these days, she wasn’t going to win him over so easily.

Today wasn’t that day, evidently, as around an hour later, Hopper found himself driving Mike back to the cabin with him.

Per Dr. Owens’ orders, El was still to be kept in hiding for the rest of the year, which meant that organizing time for Mike and El to be together had to be handled with care. Ted and Karen knew about El, she’d spent plenty of afternoons at the Wheeler home, after all...

...Hopper just usually left out the part about her being telekinetic, a government experiment, or a Russian spy (not that the last one was ever true to begin with, but he digressed).

“Your parents know what you’re up to?” Hopper asked Mike, though, in the back of his mind, he realized this was probably something he should have asked before picking the kid up.

“Kinda,” Mike replied unconvincingly. “I told them I was going to go hang out with my friends. Dustin said he’d cover for me. My parents don’t really care what I do anyways, so it’s not a big deal.”

“I’m sure they care,” Hopper offered.

Mike just shrugged, looked down at his feet, and grumbled, “I guess.”

Hopper didn’t like the sound of that, but didn’t press the issue further. He wasn’t much for small talk, and trying to make one-on-one conversation with the boy currently dating your daughter was a little awkward, to say the least.

Thankfully, the drive didn’t take long. The morning was still young when Hopper stopped the car on the side road closest to the cabin. The air was brisk and bitingly-cold, and the sky was blanketed with a thick layer of dark grey clouds. It’d snowed heavily the night before, which left calve-deep snowdrifts throughout the forest.

“Watch your step,” Hopper instructed as the two exited his cruiser.

Mike nodded appreciatively. “Thanks again for the ride,” he said as the two began the short walk to the cabin.

“Don’t mention it,” Hopper said, “Was I supposed to let you bike here?”

“I could have!”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, I could do it!” Mike bolstered. “It’s not that far!”

“It’s a good 20-minute drive, maybe 25.”

“I’ve biked to the quarry before, that’s like, just as far away, basically.”

“Impressive.”

The forest was stunningly still as they walked. The only sound to be heard for miles around was the crush of snow beneath their boots, the distance drum of a woodpecker drilling into a tree, and the occasional brush of dead branches against their coats.

Despite his heavy snow boots, bulky winter coat, pom-pom adorned hat, and knitted wool mittens, Mike’s cheeks were getting pink. It was probably from the cold, or maybe the exertion of trudging through all the deep snow. The latter seemed more likely, as he seemed intent on keeping up with Hopper. With every step Hopper took, Mike strained his legs to match his pace. As Hopper was obviously much taller and leaner, the kid was nearly lunging through the snow to keep up with him.

Mike didn’t have to try so hard to impress him, if that’s what was going on here. Hopper would be lying if he said that it wasn’t slightly amusing though.

As Mike lunged about, Hopper became increasingly aware of the rattling sounds coming out of his bulging backpack.

“Whatcha got in the bag there?” Hopper asked conversationally, trying to keep his demeanor as least snoop-like as possible.

“Just some movies, board games, comic books, and stuff,” Mike replied, “You know, in case we get bored or anything. I brought Monopoly! It’s kinda lame, but you could play with us, if you want.”

Hopper gave him a polite smile. “That’s okay, kid. I’m sure El has a whole agenda planned for you two, anyway.”

Mike brightened at the mention of El’s name. “Probably, she’s like super good with that kind of stuff,” he gushed, “I’m trying to teach her how to make her own D&D campaigns. We’re just starting off with basic a basic dungeon crawl, then we’re gonna work our way up to intrigue adventures.”

“That’s nice,” Hopper replied, not understanding any of what Mike had just said.

Not much later, the two finally reached the secluded cabin. Hopper couldn’t help but notice the flash of the curtain rustling behind the front window. No doubt El had been waiting there on standby ever since Hopper had left. The thought made him smile in an endearing sort of way.

“Here we are,” Hopper announced, causing Mike to grin excitedly. The pair mounted the front steps, approached the cabin door, and stomped the extra snow off their boots. Hopper gave a cautionary glance around the forest before giving his secret knock.

Within seconds (milliseconds, really), El had undone every lock and swung the door wide open. “Hi!” She burst out eagerly, eyes locked on Mike.

“El!” Mike exclaimed. He stepped forward quickly, pulling her into his arms in a big hug. “I missed you!”

“I missed you too!” El responded, squeezing him tightly.

The last time they’d seen each other was Saturday.

Today was Monday.  

Hopper had to bite his tongue to keep himself from pointing this out to them.

“You’re cold!” El commented, pulling back from Mike to examine his face.

Mike’s face flushed even redder as El moved her hands up to cup his cheeks. “I’m fine!” He insisted, “My mom made me wear a billion sweaters.”

El gave him a doubtful look. “Mike. You’re cold.”

Hopper, who’d seemingly been invisible to them for the past couple moments, cleared his throat.

“I think we’re both pretty cold, so let’s all get inside,” Hopper cut in, placing a hand on Mike’s shoulder. “We’re gonna freeze to death out here.”

“Yes, come in!” El said eagerly. She took Mike by his mittened hand and pulled him into the cabin. Hopper entered behind them, listening as they chattered away. The kids headed over to the living room (living area, really), as he hung up his coat and made his way to the kitchen. Even though he hadn’t gotten to sleep in, there was still plenty of time for coffee.

As he started to brew a pot of coffee, El quietly approached him.

“Papa,” she whispered, glancing back at the living room, where Mike was in the midst of removing his various layers of outerwear.

“Yes?” Hopper said bemusedly. He already had a pretty good feeling as to where this was going.

“Can you go to your room?” She asked in an odd mixture of both politeness and forcefulness.

“Yeah, I don’t think so, kid.”

“Why?”

“Where should I put this stuff?” Mike called out, holding up the mass of knitted wool that was his hat, scarf, mittens, and a couple sweaters.

“Anywhere!” Hopper and El chimed back before returning to their own conversation.

“We had a deal, remember?” Hopper reminded her. The coffee pot finished brewing, so he grabbed a spare mug to fill. “Supervision? Remember that?”

“You can supervise,” El said, “From your room. You can hear.”

“Why all the privacy?” Hopper looked her in the eye as he took a sip of his coffee. “I thought that you were gonna do is just watch TV and eat waffles.”

El’s face flushed pink. “Yes. but…”

“No buts,” Hopper smirked as he ruffled her hair, ignoring her narrowed eyes and frustrated pout. He grabbed the latest morning paper and moved to sit at the dining table, well within view of the living area. “I think I’m going to be comfortable right here,” he said, taking another sip of coffee.

El looked exasperated but defeated. He heard her grumble under her breath as she returned to Mike, who had settled on stacking all his items in a makeshift pile in the corner.

Hopper could tell that El wasn’t thrilled with the whole situation (she kept giving him looks from the living room), but she got over it soon enough. Before long, she and Mike were back to conversing with ease, their soft chatter serving as a kind of white noise buffer for Hopper.

Even though it was his day off, Hopper found that reading the newspaper led to a slippery slope of events; reading made him think about the latest cases, thinking about the latest cases made him frustrated that he hadn’t made any new leads lately, and being frustrated that he hadn’t made any new leads lately made him dust off a few cold case files that he kept lying around the cabin and get to work.

What could he say? Old habits died hard. Besides, it gave him something to do while he supervised the kids, and was a far more challenging puzzle to solve than the crosswords in The Hawkins Post.

While Hopper absentmindedly scrounged over case files, Mike and El crafted a makeshift fort out of couch cushions, one of the dining chairs, and the sheets from El’s bed. They spent most of the rest of the day inside there, goofing off and joking around.

As…eventful as this morning had been, Hopper had to admit that it was good to hear El laughing and having a good time. After everything that she’d gone through growing up, some basic happiness was the least of what she deserved.

The kids spent their day TV (El introduced him to her favorite soap opera: All My Children, to which Mike replied, “This is kinda cheesy,” but continued watching anyway), playing board games (Hopper had never heard the two bicker until El refused to pay Mike after landing on his Boardwalk hotel, stating that she “didn’t want to,” to which Mike replied, “You have to,” to which El exclaimed, “I hate this dumb game”), and snacking (after the Monopoly incident, Hopper directed Mike to the secret Eggo stash — after El was presented with a stack of candy-covered waffles courtesy of Mike Wheeler, the two exchanged earnest apologies and all was forgiven).

The day flew by faster than Hopper had expected and before long, it was evening: time to take Mike back home. “We better head out,” Hopper announced, setting down his files and rubbing at his temples. His brain hurt from staring at so much information and getting nowhere for so long. He felt like he’d blinked and watched the day disappear, and if it wasn’t for his watch reading 6 PM, he wouldn’t have believed that much time had passed at all.

El gave a small whine from inside the fort, but the two kids emerged, looking quite glum. Mike started gathering his things together as El reluctantly helped. Hopper grabbed his coat and keys as he moved to stand by the front door. He sincerely hoped that the drive back wouldn’t be too bad — at night, the wet snow froze the roads into ice, which made trying to drive over it absolute hell. He was going to have to take it slow, avoid side roads…

“Do you have to go?” El asked. The two had finished getting Mike’s things together, and she was now in the midst of giving Mike a goodbye hug.

“I don’t want to,” Mike mumbled back, his face buried in her ever-growing curly hair.

“You two can see each other this weekend, or something,” Hopper reminded them, checking his watch.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Mike assured Eleven, pulling back to smile at her.

“Okay!” El beamed back. She rose on tip-toe and kissed the corner of his mouth, causing Mike to smile bashfully.

Their eyes met then, and Hopper couldn’t help but notice the familiar heart-eyed look that El had been sporting lately, the way that Mike was now slowly moving in, and how obviously obvious it was where this was all headed.

Hopper decided to cut things off by clearing his throat. “You ready to head out, Mike?” He asked as the two flinched apart.

“Uh, yeah!” Mike responded, flushing red. He quickly put on his winter layers, grabbed his backpack, and gave El one last goodbye hug before crossing the living room to stand at Hopper’s side. “Sorry,” he mumbled, glancing up at Hopper anxiously.

Hopper just nodded and gave Mike a light pat on the shoulder. Slipping on his winter gloves, he readied himself for the winter chill, opened the front door…