runtowardsomething | (no subject)

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jim hopper

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It's more than a little strange, how everything seems increasingly far away. Perhaps stranger still is that she doesn't seem to be the only one for whom that's the case. Having Eddie here helps on that front, as well as many others — with the two of them here, maybe they can't forget, not entirely — but try as she might to hold onto it, what happened in Derry feels more and more like a dream than anything she actually lived.

A few things, though, stand out as real, and Beverly refuses to let herself lose sight of them. The blood that spurted out from her sink and coated her bathroom. The crack when she'd hit her father in the head, knowing that he would never try to touch her again. Bill's cheek under her hand, sticky from the cut he'd put there. There's a scar now, a jagged little sliver across her palm. She hopes it doesn't fade. If anything could serve as a reminder of that summer and the promise they made to each other, it's that.

Cold as the weather is — a far cry from the summer she remembers leaving behind — she peels off her gloves and sticks them in her jacket pocket, tracing a fingertip across that line on her palm and drawing in a breath before she bends down, picking up a rock by her feet. The park is all but empty at this time of year, apparently, and she's glad for it. Living in a goddamn Children's Home has afforded her next to nothing in the way of privacy, and while it's still several steps up from living at home before here, most of the kids at least a shade nicer than the ones she went to school with, it's nice, relieving, just to have a few moments to herself. At least they let her wander a little, as long as she's back by curfew, which in itself brings with it a few hazy reminders of Derry and missing children.

People still don't seem to give much of a damn when someone up and disappears, but at least there's that.

The surface of the lake is nearly — close, but not quite — frozen, chunks of ice floating, but she gives the rock a hurl anyway, sending it skimming across the surface as best as the weather will allow, smiling a little to herself when she actually gets some distance on it. Then she bends down for another to try again, not yet noticing someone else on the path nearby.

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She nearly laughs. Maybe by some people's standards, she's more than a little too young to have picked up a smoking habit, but it's much too late for her on that front, and she's not going to pretend otherwise just because some stranger doesn't think it's acceptable or whatever. At least he's clearly not one of those hardcore anti-smoking people that she's seen more than a few of here, given the cigarette he's got for himself. As far as she's concerned, she's just plenty old enough and capable of making a decision like that for herself.

There are worse things in this world than a little cigarette smoke. Besides, while it may be in part because she always had the good sense not to smoke at home where her father could and would have found out about it, it's not like anyone's ever cared before.

"Not for a long time," she says easily, a trace of amusement in her voice, shoulders lifting in a shrug. "You wouldn't be getting me hooked on anything I'm not hooked on already."

It still doesn't sit well with him, the idea of cancer -- a different kind, of course -- and children mixing together in his head in a way he doubts he'll ever be able to control. What he can control is what people see of that internal battle and he's gotten pretty good at keeping his expression impassive any time he thinks about Sara and all the horrible things that happened to her. All the things he was powerless to stop.

"One drag," he says finally, holding the already lit cigarette out toward her. "And make sure to find some mints later. The last thing I need is your father knocking down my door because I let you take a drag."

Of course, if she's anything like him and half the residents of this city, she's here without any parent at all. Jim has been by the Children's Home, he's walked past and gazed up at the windows and wondered just how many kids there were behind those walls. Kids who had been yanked out of their lives and just thrown into this place without any choice.

It's a small victory, but a victory all the same. Beverly smiles at him for it, equal parts grateful and pleased with herself, in part because it prevents her from shuddering, as it would be entirely too easy to do, at the thought of what her father would do if he found out about this — her smoking, but especially her taking a cigarette from a middle-aged man she's never met before. It wouldn't end well for anyone were that to happen. Not for the first time, she's more than a little grateful that he isn't here. She may not like living in the Children's Home, but she would much rather wait out the next five years there than spend another second under her father's roof, having him call her his.

She's not. She won't be, not ever again.

"Lucky for you, there's no chance of that happening," she says lightly as she reaches out for the cigarette he's offered her. If one drag is all she gets, then she means to make the most of it; she breathes in deep when she lifts it to her mouth, savoring the familiar warmth and taste of smoke in her mouth and lungs. "S'just me. But I promise not to go back to the Home smelling like smoke."

The kid smokes like a pro and it makes something in Jim's heart sink a little as he realizes just how old he's gotten. When he'd been her age, he'd been smoking and cutting class, and then, not so many years later, he'd been screwing around with girls in the back of his dad's car. Now, though, he looks at her, her slight frame, the red of her hair, her unlined skin and he feels like no kid should ever be doing those sorts of things.

But then, he's seen plenty of kids doing things they should never have to be doing. He's seen kids stronger than any adult he's ever known, except maybe Joyce. Or Bob.

He reaches out to take the cigarette back before she can take another drag, plucking it from her fingers easily.

"I appreciate it," he says, looking at her for a moment longer. "I'm Jim. Or Hopper, I guess, most kids tend to call me Hopper." Not even Eleven ever called him Jim.

"You spend time with a lot of kids, Hopper?" Beverly asks, amused rather than accusatory. He hasn't yet given her any reason to think he's some kind of a perv, isn't looking at her the way she's seen some men look at her before. It is an unusual statement, though, enough that it's hard not to be a little curious about it. Aside from the staff at the Children's Home, who are at least getting paid for it, she hasn't known a lot of adults who've spent a lot of time with a lot of kids. Maybe he's just friendly, but even that strikes her as a little unusual.

In some ways, Darrow seems almost painfully similar to Derry. In others, she doesn't think it could be more different.

"I'm Beverly. Marsh."

"More than I'd like," he answers dryly, though that's not completely true. They might be pains in his ass most of the time, but they're all good kids, Eleven especially, and it's nice to have them around and in his life in varying degrees. Nothing will make up for the loss of Sara, but it's been sort of nice to discover it's not the end of the world to be around kids again.

"I'm a cop," he says. "Last year a high school friend's son went missing. All his friends got tangled up in the disappearance. They were around. A lot."

He pauses for a long moment, smoking his cigarette, then figures there's no reason not to talk about her. "And there's my kid, too. Jane. Even she calls me Hop sometimes."

Of course, Eleven technically isn't his kid, no matter how much care he gives her. She's something else entirely, something beyond just a regular little girl with a regular life. Even on his best days, Jim knows he can't give that to her, he can't undo the things that were done to her, can't fix what's broken inside.

"Did they find him?" Beverly asks before she can help herself, her eyes widening a little. It seems better, at least, than blurting out her surprise at the fact that he's a cop who actually seems to give a damn about a single missing kid, never mind any number of them. Still, it's hard not to wonder, hard not to think about Georgie and Betty and all the others, the missing posters that had become entirely too commonplace, glanced over as easily as if they were advertisements on telephone poles.

Of course, they weren't really missing. She'd seen them, all of them, floating down in the sewer, the memory strange and sudden enough that she nearly reels with it. How she would explain it if she let on, if he asked, she doesn't have the first idea. There's no way he would believe her even if she tried.

"Your friend's son, I mean. Did he turn up?"

"Yeah," he says, noting her reaction as he takes another long drag from his cigarette. It's hit on some kind of personal experience in her, he can see that, though that could mean just about anything. A friend who'd gone missing, maybe, because Christ knows that happens more often these days than it used to, or maybe she's been a runaway herself at some point in her life. He doesn't ask, but he notices.

"Yeah, we brought him home." And now, stuck in Darrow, all he can do is hope that was enough. All he can do is hope Joyce and Jonathan and Nancy were able to get that thing out of him, that he was able to hold off those damn monsters long enough for Eleven to close the gate. That Will was safe now, after everything he's been through.

He's not patting himself on the back, though, not even for Will being brought home safe the first time. Barb is still gone and there's not a damn thing he can go for her parents.

"Good," Beverly says, exhaling slowly, almost like she's been holding her breath. She isn't entirely sure why it matters. The kids in Derry weren't missing in the first place, and wherever Hopper is from, she knows it's not there. That much has become more than apparent already. She doubts what was happening before she got here was happening anywhere else. At least, she would like to hope that's the case, that there could only be one evil like that in existence. Whatever happened to the kid he knew, his friend's son, maybe it was just normal — someone who ran away, who got lost far from home, even someone who was kidnapped and got away. Any of those would make more sense than what she's seen, what she can barely remember, what she's torn between wanting to try to hold on to so she doesn't forget it like she seems on the cusp of doing and wanting never to think about again. "Good. I'm glad."

Figuring she probably owes something of an explanation after picking up on that so quickly, she smiles a little ruefully. "We had... some kids that went missing back home. A whole bunch of 'em. No one really gave a shit, though, so."

Edited 2017-11-25 21:34 (UTC)

A bunch of 'em.

It makes something in Hopper's chest tighten a little and he takes a final drag of his cigarette, then offers the rest to Beverly. It isn't much, probably only a few short drags left off it, but suddenly he doesn't want it anymore. A bunch of missing kids and no one really gave a shit. It's true that he'd first thought Will had maybe just run off or been taken by his father, but only because kids in Hawkins didn't go missing, they didn't get kidnapped or murdered and left in ditches to be found by a soon to be traumatized volunteer search party. That shit happened in New York, but not small town Indiana.

But a bunch of kids is a pattern, an obvious one, and he can't imagine not caring, not doing something about it.

"Not the cops?" he asks. He wants to be surprised and hear her say they tried, they worked as hard as they could, it was just the rest of the town that gave up on them, but he has a feeling that isn't coming. A police force is only as good as its leader and maybe Hopper hadn't been the best leader for a long time, but he likes to think he stepped up when it mattered.

"Not really." Beverly shrugs, though the gesture isn't nearly as flippant as the words themselves would suggest. It wouldn't have made any difference, she knows, not when there wouldn't have been anything but a body to find even if anyone had looked hard enough, not when they wouldn't have believed in or seen what was happening. All the same, it's not exactly easy to think about, least of all when she and her friends so easily could have been among them, and when she doesn't want to wind up as oblivious as so many of the people in Derry were.

She has to remember, somehow. She has to know.

Reaching out for what's left of his cigarette, hardly about to question or pass up the offer, she takes a drag before she continues, already debating how much to say or not to say. "They set a curfew, they'd look, and then they'd just... give up. And when the next kid went missing, it would be like all the others were just forgotten."

"Shit," he breathes, looking out at the water for a moment. He's been a police officer for a long time and he knows the reality of kids, especially ones who come from homes where one of their parents is a bit of an asshole. Kids run off. Girls find themselves older boyfriends and boys find themselves with too many black eyes and they find reasons to leave, it's just the reality of the world, but it sounds like she's talking about a small town and small towns don't lose bunches of kids and just do nothing.

He didn't let Hawkins lose one kid without diving head first into a government conspiracy.

"That's messed up, kid," he says finally. "They weren't doing what they were supposed to. I'm sorry."

There's not a lot he can do about it now, it's not like he can offer to go back to wherever it is she's from and figure out what's happened to the missing kids. They're both stuck here now and that's about all there is for either of them. But he can't just leave it at that either and so, self consciously touching the blue hairband around his wrist, Hopper nods away from the water.

"Look, you want a hot cocoa or something?" he asks. "My treat."

Even if they had done what they were supposed to, it probably wouldn't have mattered, Beverly thinks again, but she has the sense not to try to say as much. She doesn't know how to explain it without sounding insane or being dismissed or both; what details she can remember seem far away, anyway, only half-lived, like something dreamed up rather than something that actually happened. The fact of the matter is, though, that there was something deeply fucking evil in Derry, and it would have taken a lot — it did take a lot — to stand a chance against it. Not believing in it would only have lowered any chance there might have been, and what adult is going to believe a thirteen-year-old telling them that there's an evil clown killing kids?

None of them, probably. Hopper might seem like a nice enough guy, but that doesn't mean he would be any different in that regard.

"Yeah, okay," she says, smiling crookedly, one shoulder lifting in an absent shrug. "I'm not really in a hurry to get back to the Home, anyway." She has to savor these tastes of freedom where she can get them. For all that it may be a hell of a lot better than living at home was, that doesn't mean she's all that crazy about it. Teenage girls, it turns out, are just as bad no matter what place or time they're in, and she doesn't fit in much better here than she ever did before.

She seems like a nice kid -- like she's seen some shit, maybe, but nice all the same -- and he wants to assure her somehow he's not some weirdo, but in doing so, he's pretty sure he'll come across as a weirdo. Instead he just turns away from the water, his hands shoved into his pockets to keep them warm.

"It's that bad?" he asks about the Children's Home. No matter how you cut it, he figures it's got to be an uncomfortable living situation. That many kids and teenagers crammed into one building, all having to share the same space, the same bathrooms, none of them with a bit of privacy. Hopper hates having to share his office, never mind the one place he's supposed to be able to call his own.

"It's not terrible," Beverly allows, because it's true, even if it isn't quite what she means. She's lived worse places, is the point. Maybe, if she'd come from a better home, if she hadn't been about to leave anyway, this transition would be more difficult, and she can't pretend that the thought of spending almost five years surrounded by other people like that isn't seriously daunting, not to mention uncomfortable. At least she's safe there, though. Other kids always suck, but she's never once felt that safety in jeopardy, not the way she used to. "The people who work there are nice enough. But it's still..."

It's still a whole bunch of children and teenagers living under one roof, quickly getting sick of each other's company, pairing off into cliques the way kids do at school, except maybe worse. It's still a long time before she'll be old enough to live on her own.

She kicks absently at a pebble on the path. "Plus, you come from almost twenty years before everybody else, it gets a little weird."

Hopper knows he's not the only one who isn't from this more modern time, but it still makes him grin to hear her say it, the sort of expression people don't expect to see him wearing, probably because he so rarely does.

"It was 1984 the last time I checked," he tells her. "Now everyone's got phones that play television shows and fit in their damn pockets." He has one, too, of course, it had come to him with the package he'd received on his first day here, but he barely uses it. It'll take some getting used to, there's that, but there also isn't really anyone for him to call.

He should go back to work, maybe he'd make some friends that way, but even police work seems to have changed more than he likes to think on.

"Mine has this game," he says. "Sugar Smash. Everyone is always playing it, but what the hell's the point?"

"It was '89 for me," Beverly says, smiling in earnest at that. It's a little unexpected, actually, when nearly everyone she's met — save, of course, Eddie — comes from what amounts to the present here, or at least close to it. 1984 isn't all that far off, though, near enough in her past that she remembers it, though eight feels like a long way off from thirteen. Then again, she's felt older than her age for a good long while now. Especially after last summer, after what happened in the sewer, she thinks maybe they all lost a piece of their childhood that day. Hazy as the memories are, out of reach sometimes, there's no real coming back from something like that. "So, you know, to them, the other kids, my clothes, my pop culture references, the music I like, the fact that I don't know what to do with the cell phone — it makes me pretty weird."

Once again, she's a loser, though even in the absence of the other kids who'd comprised her makeshift family that summer, who put themselves at risk to come for her, she's trying to embrace the title. There are worse things to be.

"Mine has that, too, but I don't— It just seems like a waste of time, doesn't it?"

Based on that, he has to figure Eleven is technically a little older than Beverly, not that it really matters one way or another. Eleven isn't here, which he remembers every single morning when he wakes up with a stab of pain to his gut, and even if she were, she'd still be thirteen, which is about the age he figures Beverly is now. Time has just sort of folded in on itself here somehow.

"Yeah, well," he says, not only thinking of Eleven, but both of Joyce's sons, of Mike and Dustin and Lucas, all those kids who get bullied and made fun of. "Weirdos always grow up to be a hell of a lot more interesting than the normal kids. Trust me, I was a normal kid."

And he's only interesting now because of Eleven. Because of those kids.

"I can see how it might be soothing," he says. "If you're used to it. But all the flashing colours make my old eyes tired."

"Well, that's good to know," Beverly says with a laugh. "Since I don't think I've ever been a normal kid. Not by anyone else's standards, anyway." It's a little bittersweet to say, something twisting in her chest as she does. Having Eddie here is beyond relieving, but that hasn't stopped her from missing the rest of the Losers' Club so much it hurts. For the first time in her life, she'd had people with whom she belonged. She was going to have lost them anyway, but that doesn't make it much easier to be without them after the summer that bonded them all together.

None of it is anything she particularly wants or knows how to talk about — the friends she lost, the shit people used to say about her in school. It's not like it makes much of a difference here, anyway.

"I just figured phones would be, y'know, phones," she adds. "Not whatever thousand other things they are now."

"I guess the world can surprise the hell out of you," he says, not really meaning the phones, but figuring they fall in line with everything else he's seen. The lab had probably managed to create something similar a long time ago, they just hadn't told anyone else about it, keeping it for themselves like they did everything else. Maybe a phone couldn't be used as a weapon, but maybe he just wasn't thinking on it hard enough.

He's pretty sure those assholes could make a weapon out of just about anything.

"Here," he says, pushing open the door of a diner. That's something else he's not used to either, all the quaint little coffee shops that seem to exist on every corner. If he wants coffee, he's going into a diner for it and the same stands true for hot cocoa.

"Yeah, it really can," Beverly says, brow raising slightly, though she doesn't want to stop and dwell on the ways in which that's proven to be the case. Even if she tried, too much of it might still be too out of reach, and that's not something she wants to confront right now any more than is necessary. Besides, the same applies well enough to Darrow. None of this is anything that should be possible, and yet here they are, and she's sure it's real. There's no way in hell she could ever have imagined anything this elaborate. It's all too strange, too far-fetched, for that.

She offers him a smile as she steps into the diner, a little crooked but warm and genuine all the same. For all that she might not mind the weather, it is something of a relief to be inside, some of the feeling starting to return to her cold fingers. "Well, this place looks pretty normal, at least."

"Better than all those shops that have popped up everywhere," he agrees, gesturing back toward the street where they've come from. Even from right here, on his way to a booth, he can see two, both bearing the same logo.

Coffee had always just seemed like fuel to him, something to drink in the morning so he could get going after he took a few of his pills and then something to drink again in the afternoon when the pills began to catch up with him. But now it's a multi-million dollar business just throwing whipped cream on some sugared up shit.

"You'll adapt better than I do, kid," he predicts. "You're young enough. You'll figure it all out. I'm too old for this."

There are things Beverly can't help but think that she doesn't want to adapt to, but she knows better than to say so. It isn't that she thinks he'd judge her or think less of her for it — and even if she did, she'd have no real reason to care — but rather that she's a hell of a lot better off than she ever was at home. It's worth whatever she has to put up with for that to be the case. She shouldn't complain about the utter lack of privacy or a space of her own when at least she's safe. Teenagers can be fucking awful, but at least there are people whose job it is to look out for the kids under their roof.

She'll take it. She doesn't really have a choice, anyway.

"Too old to get hooked on Sugar Smash?" she asks with a flicker of a teasing smile. "Because I'm pretty sure there are people here who'd tell you there's no such thing."

"What the hell do they know?" he asks, taking out his cigarettes as he moves them toward a booth before remembering, for the tenth time that day, that he's not allowed to smoke inside any of these places. With a grumble, he slides the pack back into his pocket and sits down, slouching against the back of the booth and just letting himself sit for a moment.

It feels weird, not having anything to do here. Hawkins had never been an epicentre of crime, but ever since Will had gone missing, his life had been a pretty glorious clusterfuck and he'd mostly dealt with it pretty well. Darrow is empty in comparison and he sort of hates it.

"You miss your parents?" he asks. "My kid... shit, she'd love it here."

Because, so long as she could keep herself under control, there would be no hiding in Darrow. No need to stay inside with the door locked and the shades drawn.

"No," Beverly answers, a little more quickly, more tightly, than she'd intended. It isn't something she talks about, not even with the rest of the Losers' Club, not even after what they saw. She sure as fuck doesn't plan to do so with a stranger, no matter how nice he might be so far. Even just the one word feels like a slip, though, and her eyes widen a little for it, one hand pushing back through her cropped-short hair.

She's not his anymore. She's not. She doesn't ever have to be again. It's just harder than it ought to be to remind herself of that sometimes.

Her expression quickly turning a little sheepish, apologetic, as if that can erase what she's sure must have been a moment of weirdness, she shrugs. "There wasn't... a whole lot for me back there," she says, as if that's an explanation, though it doesn't actually have anything to do with the question of her parents, and she half-suspects he'll know it. "What's she like, your daughter?"

It says something, although Hopper doesn't want to stop and examine it long enough to figure out what it says, that when she asks, he thinks of Eleven first and Sara second. For a moment he tries to reason with himself, to push away the guilt. Sara died, he doesn't know what she would be like now, the teenager she would have turned into. It would hurt too much to answer it as if she were still alive anyway. He used to do it, used to pretend she was still around, just living somewhere else with her mother, but he can't now.

It's time to live in the present.

"She's a weirdo," he says with a grin. "Scary smart, stubborn as hell and she's got a mean streak, but I think she learned that from me. She's also the most honest kid I've ever known and loyal to a damn fault. She'd do anything for her friends. For me."

His smile fades a little and he shakes his head. "I know I've disappointed her a hell of a lot recently. It'd be nice to see her again. Tell her I didn't mean it."

It hurts a little to hear, a bittersweet sort of ache deep in her chest. Some people are just good liars, she knows, but it isn't hard to tell that he means this; he'd have no reason to tell her, a stranger, as much otherwise. All of this — the look on his face, the way he talks about his daughter — must be genuine, then, and it's impossible for her to imagine being on the receiving end of that. She'd take disappointments and apologies over what she got instead in a fucking heartbeat. Having neither the first idea how nor any desire to talk about that, though, Beverly smiles instead, a little wistful.

"Sounds kinda like she'd have gotten along with my friends from home," she says, thumb tapping absently against the tabletop. "And... Obviously I don't know her, or you, really, but if you can say that at all, then I think she probably knows. At least on some level."

"Yeah," he says. "I hope so."

Eleven is smart. Smarter than he's ever been and he figures some people might attribute that to the experiments done on her, to the drugs they'd given her mother, but he knows that's not the case. She was always going to be smart, it's just that the experiments made her different. Made her lonely.

"So your folks weren't much to write home about, huh?" he asks. She can keep it to herself if she wants, but the way she's said it, so quick to say she doesn't miss them, it's not a difficult thing to guess. Not much of a stretch at all, he figures, to assume they weren't all that present for her. It annoys him, though he tries not to let it show. He lost his kid, lost every last bit of her, watched her disappear before his very eyes, watched her die and he would give anything to have just one more moment with her.

Meanwhile someone out there -- two someones -- treated this kid bad enough that she doesn't even miss them.

Beverly half-wishes he hadn't asked, half-wishes she hadn't said anything. It would have been easy enough to pretend, to act like any other kid who's probably grateful for some semblance of freedom while missing home more than they'd want to admit. She can't take it back now, though, and there's every chance she wouldn't have actually been able to say it. If she tried to backtrack now, the words would just die in her throat. She's fucking glad to be away from there, whatever the cost. Saying so, though, has never been worth it, not with the likelihood that no one would believe her, not with the sort of things people used to say about her, not with the consequences she might face for doing so.

Even before kids started going missing and an evil fucking clown started terrorizing them, she hadn't felt safe in a long time.

"Yeah, that's putting it nicely," she says, figuring she might as well be that honest now that she's started. She smiles wryly, though, albeit self-consciously, as she speaks, an attempt at downplaying the weight of it. "It sounds like she's pretty lucky, your daughter. My dad definitely wouldn't have cared if he disappointed me, whether he meant it or not." Disappointment doesn't begin to cover it.

Hopper knows he's not always a great dad. He knows he yells when he gets scared and he knows he didn't always appreciate his time with Sara when he had it. He knows there were moments when his kid -- both of them, he understands, looking back now -- had hated him a little and he knows he probably deserved it.

But he also likes to think that if Eleven was here on her own or if someone could find wherever Sara is now and ask her, they'd both say they miss him. That they'd like to go home.

"I'm sorry, kid," he says. "That's shitty."

Because he's been a cop for long enough that he knows disappointment isn't the worst of it. Hawkins might not have had much in the way of crime, but working in New York for those few years had given him enough nightmare fodder for the rest of his damn life.

Beverly shrugs, a short, contained movement, because he's not wrong, and because she has no idea how to say so, never mind to admit just how true it is. It's always been easier not to talk about it, and it shouldn't matter now anyway. She's a long, long way from Derry and her father and everything that happened there. Hell, she hardly knows now how they wound up on this subject in the first place, or at least why they've stayed on it.

Still, she means what she said. His daughter is lucky to have a parent who evidently seems to care so much, who would have no reason to be saying things like this to her if he didn't mean them, who would probably never intentionally hurt her.

"At least he's not here," she replies, still not entirely sure why she's telling him any of this at all, however vague any statements might be. "I guess if I have to be stuck in some weird future alternate universe and living in a home with a whole bunch of other kids, there's that."

Kids hate their parents all the time. That's pretty much a fact of life, that's what Hopper figures. He hated his dad with something bordering on regularity, he'd hated his mom a few times, too, but there's a big difference between hating your parents some of the time and being genuinely glad they're not around.

Even the angriest of kids would miss their parents in a situation like this if their parents weren't complete crap.

"Yeah, so who's keeping an eye on you now?" he asks with a little smirk, watching to see her reaction. A home can't be the best for that sort of thing, there are way too many kids for them to look after and as long as they're all in their beds when they're supposed to be, that's what he figures the staff would consider a win.

"What, like, specifically?" Beverly asks, letting herself sound a little amused, mostly just relieved that he doesn't press the subject. If he asked just why she's pleased to be away from home, she doesn't know what she would say, how she would manage to deflect. There's certainly no pretending it's nothing, not with what she's said already, but she's not about to tell him the truth, either. She's never actually put it into words before, never acknowledged it verbally. Now, with some guy she barely knows, whom she's only just met, doesn't seem like the time. Besides, what difference would it make? She's here, her father is back there, and that's all there really is to it.

She shrugs. "There are a few people who look after the teenagers," she says, just a hint of disdain in her voice, though she still speaks lightly. "But no one has, like, one caretaker of their own or anything."

Hopper nods, but doesn't say anything else, having already made the decision that he's going to be the one looking out for her. It doesn't have to be a thing like it was with Eleven, he doesn't have to rescue her from the cold, from the hunger, from being kind of an idiot and nearly getting herself caught by those lab assholes over and over, but he can still check in on her.

He's a cop, after all. He can get a job here, he can get another badge and use it to make sure people are doing what they're supposed to be doing when it comes to her. And the other kids in the home, too, of course, but he's never met any of the other kids in the home. Beverly's the first one to have put a face on the whole venture.

"So what do they do?" he asks. "Make sure you put enough food in your mouth and go to school?" They probably don't help with homework. Sure as hell don't tuck them in at night or tell them to be careful. They probably don't even ask where they've been.

"Pretty much," Beverly says, and shrugs. "Make sure we're in bed by curfew, and don't try to sneak anyone in, or whatever." She's seen a couple of girls do exactly that anyway, but she's hardly about to judge them for it. As long as she doesn't have to hear whatever it is they're getting up to, it's none of her business, and it's not like she doesn't do her share of things she shouldn't, going out to smoke among them. Then again, she'd much rather be caught with a pack of cigarettes than a boy in her room, but she doubts there's much chance of the latter happening anytime soon. Some things, it's hard to find herself particularly interested in yet, even if she sometimes traces the scar along her palm and thinks of Bill. "They're... I mean, at least they give a shit, but I think it's pretty clearly just a job, at least for most of them."

It's unnecessary, too. She hasn't needed anyone hovering over her like this in a long time; she's perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Explaining that to them, though, would likely make no difference whatsoever. Especially with people showing up from all sorts of different places and times, they've probably heard it plenty of times already.

She's too young to be sneaking anyone into her room. That's Hopper's first thought. His second is that she really isn't. She's probably thirteen or fourteen and Hopper knows he'd been chasing after girls at that age. It had never really amounted to much, not for another year or so, and she's not much older than Eleven so he really doesn't want to think about that, but he'd always promised himself he wouldn't be that sort of dad with Sara. He'd never wanted her to feel like she couldn't talk to him about something because he would be too angry.

Hopper knows he had a temper, but having Sara had calmed it. It's a struggle to find that calm again these days, but he knows he has to do better.

"You seem too smart to try and sneak anyone in," he says instead of telling her not to do it. She'll do whatever she wants, he's got that sense, but it'll probably be worse with someone telling her not to. "I guess I'm technically not a cop here, but if you need anything and they're not doing things right, you come find me. Deal?"

It isn't just for any amount of common sense that Beverly has no interest in trying to sneak a boy into her room. The thought alone is an unsettling one, at least now. Maybe one day, it won't be; maybe one day, she'll be as interested as some of the other girls are in seeing how far she can get with whatever boy she happens to be interested in at the time. Contrary to the rumors that used to follow her around, though, that's nothing she's looking for right now. A good-bye kiss, soft and sweet, was one thing. Letting someone touch her is a different matter entirely.

She can't tell him that, though, not without it likely raising questions, given what she's said already. Instead, she focuses on the rest of what he's said, wondering why he's offering such a thing in the first place. It's a nice gesture, and he seems like a nice guy, but it's not exactly something she can imagine anyone back home doing. Besides, she's just some girl, no one to whom he owes anything. He means it, though, or he seems to, and maybe that's enough.

"Yeah, okay," she says, one corner of her mouth lifting just slightly. "I can do that."

Hopper nods and says, "And in return, you can show my kid around if she ever shows up here. She's gonna need some help."

Truthfully, he's not sure what Eleven might do without Mike. She's a smart kid and she's independent and fierce. She'd made it a year without him, but Hopper knows she had been waiting for the day she she was able to see him again. Sometimes it had seemed it was the only thing she was living for, the only thing he had to offer her was the possibility of being with her friends again.

Without Mike, she'll need someone. Hopper won't be able to help her the same way another kid can and it might do her some good to spend some time with another girl.

"Of course," Beverly says, that much, at least, coming easily. Her track record with other teenage girls may not be the greatest, but there are a few here who aren't so bad, and the way he talks about his daughter, she'd guess the same would apply there. Besides, she's already dealt with adjusting to this place herself and knows how difficult it can be, even with someone from home here. Hell, that much is probably the same anywhere. Ben was the perpetual new kid — she wouldn't have even known his name had she not run into him that day, though she barely remembers now how that happened, only that it did — and that was in a town as small as Derry, with far less to see than there is in Darrow.

She pauses a moment, then adds, "I hope she does. Show up. For your sake. It sounds like you really care about her." Maybe it should go without saying, where a parent and a child are concerned, but that's never been her experience. Besides, given what he said before, she kind of wonders if maybe it might help to hear it.

He really does and realizing that had been scary at first. Caring about her meant she could hurt him. Not intentionally, but if he ever lost her the way he'd lost Sara, Hopper doesn't know if he could survive that. Sara's death had nearly killed him, but to lose two children would have ultimately been the end of him.

It doesn't matter that he's not Eleven's biological father, it would still kill him.

"I can't even say I wish she'd show up," he says with a faint smile. "I want to see her again, but this place isn't exactly bursting with opportunity." And he wants a better life for her than a place like this can give.

"Yeah, you've got a point there," Beverly replies, her smile small and wry. She can't say she minds that entirely, mostly because it's still got far more opportunity than Derry ever did, and for all the weird shit she's heard about happening, it all seems to pale in comparison to what she remembers about that last summer. It may be hazy now, occasional details coming back in bits and pieces, but she's pretty sure that if she could survive that — and if she could survive thirteen years living with her father — then she can probably make it through just about anything this place has to throw at her.

In its own way, it seems almost painfully nice, that he wouldn't want his daughter to show up for her sake, regardless of the fact that it means he might never see her again. She wants to say that, but it seems too revealing in its way, giving away too much of what she means to try to keep to herself.

"I barely ever get to do anything. But I guess that comes with the territory, having people watch you all the time or whatever."

"What would you want to do?" he asks. "If you could."

Even now, if someone asked him that question, Hopper isn't sure he would be able to come up with an answer. Within the confines of Darrow, there's not much that interests him, which is a little dangerous. The last time he was bored -- and depressed, he has to acknowledge that -- he'd spent a lot of his time drinking and taking pills just to make sure he could get through a day. It's Eleven that changed that in him and while he still likes a beer with his dinner, the pills never found a foothold in that little cabin they'd shared. It's not something he wants to go back to, even if it would be an easy way to alleviate the boredom.

What he needs is a damn job. What he needs is to go down to the police department and lay out his credentials and see where it gets him in a place like this where he can't actually prove anything. If he has to retake some kind of exam, he thinks he could pass, but he'd be more concerned about a physical test.

"I don't know," Beverly says, shoulders lifting in a shrug. It's not really something she's given a lot of thought to where specifics are involved; mostly, it's just hard to go from very little supervision to nearly constant, so that she couldn't do anything now even if she wanted to. Oh, there are times like this, when she gets to wander without anyone looking over her shoulder, but for the most part, however much of an improvement this may be over her last circumstances, she can't pretend that it isn't somewhat stifling. Though she'd take this over that, without question, knows that, in a lot of ways, she's gotten lucky here, it would be nice if there were a little more of the world available than this. "But something. More than having to tell someone where I'm going every second of every day."

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