runtowardsomething | (no subject)

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jim hopper

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When the ferry finally comes, Beverly is exhausted and blood-spattered, still only half-present. She's far from the only person who dealt with such an altercation this weekend, and she doubts she's the only person who walked away from someone who wouldn't get back up. She doesn't regret it — or she wouldn't, if she could actually remember what she did. Those few minutes are still a blank in her mind, a sensation not wholly unfamiliar. She remembers being dragged from her tent, and the sheer panic in being held down; she remembers her hand finding purchase on a tree branch.

The first memory she has after that, though, is of standing on the beach, holding that branch like a club, her hands and face marked with someone else's blood.

Nothing is going to come of it. She's already been assured of that. All the festival-goers have the same story — an unprovoked attack in the middle of the night, fights that very well may have been kill or be killed. Beverly isn't so sure that's actually what motivated her, but it makes no material difference. It was self-defense. No one could claim otherwise.

That doesn't leave her any less rattled as the boat carries them back to the mainland. Someone has draped a blanket around her shoulders, and in the slight dawn chill, she's grateful for it, pulling it more tightly around herself. The t-shirt she was sleeping in is bloodstained, too. She heard a mention of it possibly being needed for evidence, but that's largely irrelevant. It doesn't change anything. She just wants to get home and get the blood off herself.

With phone signals having cut out so early in their stay, she hasn't talked to Hopper since she left. Somehow, though, she knows he'll be there when the ferry docks. It's an odd thing to be assured of, to have faith in, and yet it's true — both that she does, and that he's there.

Tired, relieved, suddenly feeling like she's about to cry, Beverly steps off the ferry back onto solid ground and heads right for him, still wearing the blanket. She doesn't know where it came from. She can figure that part out later.

Cracking the barest hint of a weary smile, she croaks, "So Pyre Fest really sucked."

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No feeling in this world, no amount of guilt or anger or pain can ever come close to the feeling of being afraid for your child. Hopper knows he isn't special in this regard, he isn't feeling something every other parent hasn't felt probably every day of their lives, but the familiarity of it has still stunned him. Like a well fitting coat, the fear that entered his life when Sara got sick and never really went away, it envelops him.

Right up until the moment he sees her.

She's blood stained, worse for wear, battered, but alive. Hopper cuts through the crowd to meet her and when she speaks, he coughs out a ragged laugh, then grabs her by the shoulders and pulls her to him.

"Jesus Christ, kid," he says into her hair.

Beverly huffs out a breath when he pulls her close, and it's only what little energy she has left that keeps it from coming out as a sob. Even then, she can't do anything about the tears that prick at her eyes, her hands fisting in his shirt as she wraps her arms around him in turn. Although it's been a few hours now since the chaos subsided, it's only here, now, that she feels anything resembling safe. Really, it's incredible to know what that feels like at all. She never did before Darrow.

"I'm okay," she says, little more than an exhale, and if she sounds like she's trying to convince herself of that as much as she is telling him, then she doubts she could be blamed for it. "I'm okay. I'm not hurt."

She doesn't know what he's heard, what kind of news made it back. Still, if anyone has found out anything, she figures it would be someone in a position like his, and anyway, she's sure she looks a mess, disheveled and marked with blood. She should at least let him know that it's not hers.

Okay and not hurt are very different things, something Hopper knows well, but he's not about to start pushing Beverly to tell him anything right now. She will if she needs to, she has her friends, and she's got her therapist, too, all the support systems are in place.

That isn't something Hopper could have said a few years ago, not about himself, and not about the kid he was caring for.

"Good," he says, still holding her tight. "That's the most important thing. C'mon, let's get you home so you can get cleaned up."

Beverly nods against his shoulder, giving herself another moment to try to catch her breath, to remind herself that there's no danger anymore. It was short-lived anyway. The attackers themselves, the cultists, if what she's heard is to be believed, didn't even worry her so much, comparatively speaking. It was the moment she woke up and there was someone at the entryway of her tent that still has her so rattled — that, and what happened after, in the few moments she can't remember.

She doesn't regret what she knows she did, but that doesn't make it any less unsettling to come back to herself with a body by her feet and blood on her hands, a seconds-long blank space in her memory.

"Yeah," she agrees, her voice quiet and a little rough. "Home." There's little she wants more right now than to wash the blood off herself and get rid of the bloodstained clothes, even if they have to be saved for evidence or whatever. "I'm glad you're here."

"Kid, I've been here trying to get a boat to that island since we spotted the ferry on fire," Hopper answers, his laughter rough. They hadn't been able to do much, it seemed no matter how hard they tried at first, they couldn't get there.

Eventually, someone had gotten through. And now everyone is back on land, away from whatever fucked up stuff is going on with that island. A place Hopper intends on investigating at some point.

Now, though, he has a daughter to take home.

With his hand still on Beverly's shoulder, he leads her through the crowd toward his truck. When the station had called, he hadn't even thought about bringing a police vehicle, had just gotten in the first thing that would drive him here.

Hearing that isn't even particularly surprising, which is maybe why Beverly finds herself feeling all the more emotional for it. Despite how long she's been here now, there's a part of her that still isn't used to having anyone who cares about her enough to go charging into danger for her. The other Losers did, back in Derry — whatever memories may be fading now, that much, she knows, that she was taken and they came for her — but it's different, and all the more meaningful, with Hopper.

Neither of her biological parents ever did anything for her. Her mother left her with a monster, and that monster was her father.

Drawn in on herself, she lets him lead her over toward the truck, almost grateful for the crowd. People are less likely to look at her this way. She just wants to be home and clean and safe. "It was bad," she says, a little blank. "I don't know how much anyone here knows."

"Shitty festival, more bees," he says as he unlocks the door of the truck and helps her in. He doesn't say anything else until he's in the driver's seat and he's started the truck and begun to back out of his spot.

"There was talk about cultists, too," he continues. He had wanted them to be alone for this part. She's covered in blood, after all, and it doesn't belong to her, so Hopper has an idea something bad has happened to Beverly in particular. "Like those creeps in East Hallow. People in robes trying to attack the folks who'd come for the shitty festival."

Beverly suspects he does it on purpose, waiting to mention the cultists until they're safely shut in the car. The fact of it being a shitty festival with more bees is still true enough, but cultists on the attack are kind of a bigger deal there, and they both know it. Hopper's smart, and he's good at his job. Given the state she's in, it's probably easy to guess some approximation of what happened.

That doesn't make it any easier to say. She looks down at her hands, traces the scar that runs diagonally across one. Both her palms are still scraped from the bark of the branch she picked up, that she hit someone with. That she defended herself with. Hopper will get that. She knows he will.

"Yeah," she says, her voice rough. "That's pretty much it." For the festival, it is. For her specifically, not so much. "One of them... came into my tent. He was trying to drag me away, I guess. I don't know, really, what happened after that. I don't remember it. But I managed to grab a tree branch, and..."

Despite the blood on them, she presses the heels of her hands to her eyes for a moment. She's already a mess anyway. It won't make any real difference. "The next thing I knew, I was standing there, holding it, and he was..." She can't say it. She doesn't actually know. "I think I might've killed him."

Hopper doesn't feel bad for the guy. It's the least of what he deserves, honestly, and Hopper knows it isn't a good part of him, it doesn't speak well of his thought process, but he knows he would do a hell of a lot worse if he could get his hands on the guy. Anyone who touches his kids automatically becomes the enemy.

"You don't remember it?" he asks.

Blackouts are something Hopper is familiar with, but his have mostly been due to alcohol or the drugs he used to take. Beverly, though, it sounds like she might've just blocked it from her memory. Forgotten it on purpose, something her brain does to protect herself. He wouldn't blame her for that either.

"Not... those few seconds," Beverly confirms, shaking her head, mouth pulled into a frown. At a glance, in the moment, he doesn't seem upset with her or bothered by the fact of what she did, but it's still not an easy thing to give voice to. She killed someone. She doesn't know for sure, but it seems likely enough, and even if she didn't, she still very well could have. Either way, she still has no memory of actually doing it, of deciding to do it, only the moments before and the instant after when she realized what she'd done. "I guess I just. I don't know, reacted."

She shrugs, but there's nothing casual or easy about it, watching Hopper carefully as if for any signs of disapproval. "Someone on the boat said no one was gonna consider it anything other than self-defense. But it still... happened."

“It was self-defense,” Hopper answers, voice firm, as he glances over at her. They’re getting close to home, but he doesn’t want her to think this conversation has to end just because they reach their destination, so he turns away from the townhouse, down a side street, toward a coffee shop he knows they both like.

“They hurt a lot of people,” Hopper continues. “That annoying kid who can’t die? Someone said he was stabbed to death by them. It was self-defense, kid.”

He’s quiet for a minute, then asks, “How’re you feeling about it?”

Out of sorts as she may be, Beverly still dimly registers when their route changes, no longer going toward the house the way she would have expected. She has no idea if he has somewhere in mind to stop or if he's just prolonging their drive, but either way, she doesn't mind, reassured enough by his response. It's not as if she would have expected otherwise from him. For one, it's just true, but even beyond that, she knows Hopper well enough to know that he wouldn't do anything but take her side if it came to her defending herself. Still, there's a difference between knowing that and hearing it. Maybe she hasn't really had a chance to worry about any outcome here, but at least it's one less thing to have weighing on her now.

"I don't know," she adds after a long moment's thought, gaze turning down at her lap, mouth pulled into a small, careful frown. "I know... I did what I had to. The only thing I could." It would be easier if she had actually been thinking that at the time. Instead, she hadn't really had time to think, and then her brain shut off entirely. "But the... the not knowing, the space that's just blank... it really freaks me out."

Hopper nods as he pulls into the parking lot of the coffee shop, then moves toward the drive-thru, figuring neither of them are going to want to get out and go inside. As he waits behind another car placing an order, he studies his hands where they're curled over the steering wheel.

"Sometimes our brains do that," he says. "To help us. To... protect us, y'know? I'm sure your therapist can explain it better than I'll ever be able to, but it might not be all bad, not bein' able to remember that stuff."

There are times Hopper wishes he could forget. The knowledge of what he was doing when he was mixing up Agent Orange, the horror of the aftermath, the silence in the room after the doctors had stopped working on Sara. He wishes he could erase it all.

It's frightening, really, how fallible a thing memory can be. Beverly has already experienced a lot of that — things slipping out of her grasp that she wanted to hold onto, details fading, months of her life blurring at the edges. Sometimes she thinks that if it weren't for Eddie and Richie and Stan being here, and Bill, too, to a lesser extent, that she wouldn't remember that last summer at all. The thought terrifies her, though not as much her apparently being capable of doing something like this without even realizing it. Logically speaking, she knows Hopper is right, that it's probably a self-defense mechanism, something in her head switching off as a means of protecting her. She probably wouldn't want to remember it. Right now, though, it mostly just has her rattled.

"Yeah, I guess I'm gonna have a lot to unpack in therapy this week, huh?" she asks wryly, letting out a weak, hoarse laugh. With her feet curled around the edge of the seat, she hugs her knees to her chest. "I think it's just… I didn't know I could do something like that. And it doesn't even feel like I did it. Which makes me feel fucking crazy."

"Hey," he says, looking over at Beverly. "You defended yourself, it's not like you went out looking to hurt someone. You just looked after yourself and I'm glad you did."

He doesn't want Beverly thinking like that. Thinking something was wrong with her because she was able to defend herself when it counted the most. For Hopper, he feels a little bit better, knowing she's able to keep herself from danger like that.

"The rest..." He shakes his head. "I don't know. I can't imagine how it feels, knowing it happened without remembering. That's gotta be real weird."

It is weird. That much, Beverly already knew from experience; it's what a lot of Derry is like, things that she knows happened but doesn't really remember. None of that, though, involved her killing a man. Even knowing that she didn't really have any other choice, and hearing Hopper back her up in that, it's a terrible thing to have had to figure out about herself. Then again, maybe that's a sort of protection, too. At least being so hung up on that part of the whole disaster keeps her from dwelling on the part before it, a man coming into her tent and pinning her down on the sand, the horrible way her body remembered what that felt like.

"It is," she says, nodding a little. "And... knowing, too, that I'd do the same thing again if I had to." No one is ever going to touch her without her permission again. She decided that a long time ago. She just didn't think it would take measures like this to protect herself.

"That's not somethin' to feel bad about," Hopper says with a bit of force. "What you did... shit, I'm glad you did it. I know it's scary and hard as hell, but if someone tries to hurt you, I'm glad to know you can defend yourself. That you're willing to."

Darrow isn't the same as the regular world, whatever that means. Hawkins wasn't normal and he knows Derry wasn't either.

They come from places that try to kill them and they're still in one. Hopper is glad Beverly can keep herself safe if he can't.

"I'm not going to let anyone touch me like that again," Beverly says, her own voice turning a little bit icy. What happened some hours ago wasn't like what happened to her back in Derry, not at all, but it woke up the same part of her all the same. Even if the goal was different, the result wasn't as much so. However conflicted she may feel about everything, she still doesn't regret it, either. She didn't want this, any of it; she only responded accordingly, and in this case, kept herself alive.

"I... I hate this, how it feels, all of it. But I don't regret it."

"Good," he says. "Because you sure as hell ain't in trouble for it. I don't regret that you were able to keep yourself either."

Because she could, she's still here. Still alive, still part of his life, and Eleven's life. She's still here for her friends to love, for her future.

Hopper doesn't know how to say all that, so he just looks at her, holds her gaze, and hopes she sees how sincere he is.

Beverly gives him a tiny, shaky smile at that, the only thing she really can do. It's not as if she actually expected him to be mad, or to believe otherwise. Hopper, more than anyone else in her life, has been a consistent, supportive presence, and she can't imagine that he would want her to do anything but defend herself if need be. Still, it's different to hear it, to see the way he looks at her and know how much he must mean it. It's been a long night, anyway; she's exhausted, and only now that she has a chance to relax is she starting to become aware of just how terrifying it's all been.

"Thanks," she says quietly. "I know... I mean, I figured that would be the case, but. It helps. Hearing it, or whatever."

"I can say it much as you need. I'm never gonna be upset you're still here and some asshole intent on hurting you isn't. Never."

He'd kill the guy himself if he was still alive. These people wanted to hurt others, they wanted to cause trouble, to cause pain. He's not sad the ones who are dead are gone now and maybe he's not supposed to say that as a cop, but he can say it to Beverly without a bit of guilt.

There's probably something to be said for that, Beverly thinks, when she lived most of her life with some asshole intent on hurting her. She knows that's what she was thinking of — or not even thinking of, really, but acting on — when she woke up and someone was in her tent, when he pinned her to the sand. She wasn't on the beach at some shitty festival anymore. She was back in Derry, with the man who may have technically been her father but sure as hell never acted like one.

She doesn't know how to say that, though. Hopper knows more about that part of her life than just about anyone, so she wouldn't be surprised if he's guessed already, but she can't bring herself to put it into words, to acknowledge it outright.

"I mean, when you say it like that, it just makes sense," she says, sniffling through a laugh that comes out shakier than she'd have liked. "I'm here, and he's not, and... he won't hurt anyone else, either."

"No, he won't," Hopper agrees. He pauses, then reaches over, careful as he always is when he touches Beverly in moments of heightened emotion. Hopper doesn't think she'd ever lash out, not with him, but he also knows that she experienced a lot of touching from her father that should have never happened.

He's never going to make her feel that way.

His hand falls on her shoulder, rubbing gently. "You shouldn't have had to take that on," he says. "I know you've seen some shit, kid, but... hell, you're still a kid. I wish I could've been there for you. To take care of it. I'm sorry I wasn't."

"Those cultists or whatever wouldn't have stood a chance if you'd been around," Beverly says, cracking a tiny smile, the barest attempt at levity. Considering that they attacked people in their sleep — fucking cowardly, she thinks — that may well not actually be true, but she likes to believe it is. She knows he means it, anyway, that he would have been there if he could, if he'd known, that he would have shielded her from it rather than leave her to take it on. That, like so much else, means more to her than she would ever know how to tell him.

"There's nothing for you to be sorry for, though," she adds, because it feels important. "Not like anyone knew a mediocre music festival would turn into some weird ritual sacrifice. There wasn't even any good music."

"Well, that's shit," he says plainly, cracking a small smile as well. "Least they could have done was give you a decent party first."

His problem now is going to be letting her out of his sight for longer than five minutes, letting her go anywhere. She's proven over and over she can take care of herself, but that doesn't mean he wants her to have to. He needs to protect her, even when he knows all the same he can't. Not from everything.

"You ever need me, for anything, I'm right there," he promises. "I don't need an explanation. Got it?"

"If I'd had even a single bar of phone reception, I would have called you," Beverly says, quietly, halfheartedly wry. For all that she would rather be flippant than emotional, she means it, after all. Coming from her, that says quite a lot. From the time she was young — too young, she knows now, with the benefit of a little more age on her side — she knew she had to fend for herself, because there was no one else who would look after her, no one she could and thus no one she would turn to when things got difficult. Whether it was the shit she dealt with at home or the shit she dealt with at school, it was hers to carry.

But Hopper, for as long as she's known him, has been there. Even before he offered her a room in his apartment, and before he became her legal guardian, she learned quickly that he was someone she could rely on. It's all the more true now.

"So yeah. Got it."

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