runtowardsomething | (no subject)

The last month and a half or so, Beverly has felt like she's been going nonstop. With a week left until Christmas, that isn't about to let up anytime soon. It's a sort of busy that she likes, or at least is more than willing to throw herself into, most of her assistant work for Bill having migrated, entirely understandably, to helping out around the townhouse with Neil still wheelchair bound; really, it seems like the least she can do. That doesn't make it any less exhausting, though, all the more so with everything else she's given herself to do. Decorating around the house with Hopper and El isn't too difficult, at least, but planning a dinner for a dozen or so people definitely is, as is buying gifts for all of them and more, everyone she's come to think of as hers. Stressful as it may be, it's a good feeling, being so distinctly reminded that she has such an extensive family here, connections chosen and forged rather than dictated by blood.

Given all the preparation she has ahead of her, she and Eponine had planned a while back to meet up before Christmas to exchange presents and have a girls' night in, a brief respite from all the holiday craziness. The night before, she'd texted to reconfirm, and with their plans on, she drives out toward Eponine's in the afternoon, the sun just beginning to set. When she calls to let her know that she's on her way, she gets an automated message, the number you are trying to reach is no longer in service, which is weird, but she tries to ignore the building feeling of dread in her gut.

That's her first mistake, really. After what happened a few weeks ago, she should know better than to doubt those instincts.

By the time she reaches Eponine's place, she knows but doesn't want to let herself believe what she's going to find there, which is nothing. The texts she sends, though she got answers just last night, start bouncing back as undelivered now. Trying to call again yields the same message as before. For the next half an hour or so, she does what she can do try to see if there's any other feasible explanation — contacting mutual friends, going over to Barton to see if maybe a class ran late.

All of it yields nothing, and she's been here long enough to know what that means. Bringing the unopened gift with her, she heads home, and rather than going inside, sits on the front steps to light a cigarette, her eyes red.

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Hopper remembers saying something similar to Diane all those years ago. Sara had been diagnosed just before her seventh, died before her eighth, and he'd growled furiously under his breath that it shouldn't happen, not at her birthday.

But that was the thing about life; it wasn't fair and he hated that it wasn't.

"You wanna do somethin' for her?" he asks. "I dunno what just..." She'd have likely been at their place on Christmas Day, he realizes, and that feels like a punch to the gut, too. "We can get her a stocking or somethin'."

"Yeah," Beverly says, nodding slowly as she lets the suggestion sink in. "Okay. That'd be nice." It won't bring her friend back, or fill the space in her chest that feels hollowed out and empty. But at least they'll be recognizing her in some way, acknowledging that she was here and she was loved. Knowing what she does about Eponine's past, that feels significant enough to count for something, and better than just letting it go and moving on.

"Thanks," she adds, mumbled against his shoulder. "You know. For being here."

As much as Hopper wants to promise he'll always be there for her, he knows it would be unfair. There's every chance he'll end up the same as Eponine one day, gone from there, returned to there, and then who knows what else. Away from Beverly, that's all he can say for certain, if he were to leave Darrow.

"I got you," he says instead. He does and he will for as long as he's able to. "She was lucky to have a friend like you. Pretty sure she knew it."

Eponine deserved more of it, too, he thinks. She deserved to have a whole damn life here.

"Yeah, well, that made two of us," Beverly says with a sad, lopsided hint of a smile. Maybe it's a horrible thing to consider herself lucky for, but she'd never met anyone before Eponine who understood what she went through back in Derry; before her, there was never anyone Beverly even felt like she could tell. It made a big difference, that first step, finding someone she could trust. Without her, she's not sure she would have known if or how to tell anyone else.

"I hope she's... safe. Not back where she came from, but somewhere else, maybe."

"It happens," he says. "People talk about that island they were on before, right?"

If that exists and Darrow exists, then Hopper has decided and mostly made peace with the fact that there must be other places like them. Places were people go, are taken, where they live outside of the reality they were meant to.

It's insane, but so was Hawkins.

"Right," Beverly agrees, and if she still sounds a little like she's trying to convince herself of that, she knows it's true all the same. She's heard those stories, if not in very much detail. The only part that matters, at least right now, to her, is that there's at least one other place like this out there, and so disappearing from here doesn't have to mean going back to the place someone came from.

She knows what happened to her friend, after all. Knows that there isn't anything there for her to go back to.

"It's not like there's any way to know what happens when people leave here anyway. Maybe there's even weirder shit out there somewhere."

"There's even weirder shit out there," Hopper says and he sounds sure of that, because he it. His own home falls into what he thinks of as weirder shit, although he doesn't hope Eponine has gone somewhere like Hawkins either.

"She's too damn smart to have ended up anywhere but somewhere new," he decides. "That kid is wily." He says it with a healthy amount of respect, even if he hadn't always seen eye to eye with her.

"She's definitely that," Beverly agrees, quietly grateful for the present-tense verbs — is, not was. Eventually, maybe, she'll have to start thinking about her friend that way, but right now, it would seem too much like writing her off, declaring her dead. Really, there's no reason to assume that she wound up back where she was before. The world is too vast for that, the possibilities too endless, and Eponine is too clever.

An uneasiness still clings to her, though, sticks like a lump in the back of her throat, and it takes her a moment to place why. It's another moment still for her to decide to say anything, accustomed as she is to keeping as much under wraps as she possibly can. If there's anyone to try to express it to, though, it's Hopper, and she's not sure it will be much of a surprise anyway.

"I don't want to go back either," she admits, teeth pressing hard against her lower lip. "To where I'm from. If it were me. I don't... think there's anything good back there for me."

"I don't want you goin' anywhere either," Hopper says, tightening his arm about Beverly as the thought settles uncomfortably in his stomach. He can't lose her, he can't lose Eleven either and he would do just about anything to keep them both here and safe, as if it's up to him.

With a tilt of his head, Hopper presses his lips to Beverly's temple.

"We can make a deal with whatever devil works in Darrow," he says, mostly joking. "Make sure neither of us go anywhere."

"I'd do it," Beverly says without hesitation, cracking a wry smile. In a way, she feels like she's already made a deal with some devil anyway, like they all did back in Derry, that same looming future waiting for her, the promise made in blood to go back someday. It doesn't count as breaking that promise if she's here, she thinks. Even if she did want to go back, she wouldn't be able to, and most of the Losers are here anyway.

"For you and me, and El, and the others." Her family. She never really had one of those before.