(no subject)

[something_incredible]

Jim Hopper is not an easy man to rattle.

He's seen shit. He was in Vietnam, he'd been a cop in New York, he lost his daughter, his family, he'd fought a damn monster and an evil lab while trying to save a bunch of kids, and that's all before being flung into this weird city he can't leave and where technology and time have both jumped forward thirty years. All of that, he thinks, is the sort of stuff that prepares a person to deal well with more weird stuff when it's flung their way.

But somehow he wasn't prepared for this.

He's sitting on the front stoop of the Bramford Building and he thinks he has plans to meet someone, but he feels like he's a million miles away. When getting his mail out of the box not ten minutes earlier, he'd shuffled through it all, most of it fliers for useless nonsense he's never going to buy and one envelope addressed to Former Resident. He was puzzling over that when he'd realized the next envelope was addressed directly to him.

It's official looking. Like it's come from the government. Or maybe some kind of lab.

He tears into it hurriedly and when the doctored birth certificate slips out, Hopper stares at the names for a long moment before he finds himself sinking down to the stairs. This was the plan all along. This was what he was going to ask Owens to provide him if he and Eleven made it out of that pit alive. A birth certificate that made him Eleven's father, something that couldn't be challenged, something no one would ever question. A way to give her a real life. A real family.

There's her name. Jane Hopper. His last name, his full name listed as her father. Theresa Ives listed as her mother.

He doesn't know what to think. His hand is shaking a little and Hopper pulls the birth certificate close, holding it against his chest with his eyes closed.

Comments

[historical_consultant]

He doesn't have the haunted, desperate look she'd seen on him a few weeks aog but when Lucy comes upon him on the steps, she still worries. She walks over to him quicker, concern evident on her face.

"Jim?" she asks, stopping until she's just in front of him, a frown on her face. Her eyes flick down to the paper he's holding but she doesn't try to look. It might be something he doesn't want her to see and though she's curious, she's not pushy.

"Are you all right?" she asks, moving to sit down beside him.

[something_incredible]

Lucy's voice comes to him as if from some distance and although Hopper opens his eyes when she sits down beside him, for just a second he feels like he's seeing through her. Looking forward -- and backward somehow -- to a place he'd come from and still has never been to.

It's going to be a tough thing to explain and he thinks he could get away with not doing so, but maybe he should. He's trusted Lucy with some stuff and she's trusted him, too, and maybe this is the kind of thing he can let her help him carry. Maybe, if he ever sees Eleven again, it'll be a little easier for her, too. Having someone else she can at least try and trust right off, because Hopper trusts her already. Because she knows.

"I'm okay," he says, then pulls the birth certificate away from his chest. "Got this in the mail today."

[historical_consultant]

Lucy takes the birth certificate from him and scans the document. It takes her a second to realize what she's reading and then she smiles just a touch. This seems like good news, like something he might have wanted considering how he's talked about children and how much he seems to love them.

"Wow," Lucy murmurs, handing him the paper back very carefully. "Is this -- is this a good thing?"

She tempers her smile just in case it's not, just in case it's something that dredges up feelings of sadness, homesickness and guilt. She doesn't want to send him back to his booze and pills right now.

[something_incredible]

"It's a good thing," he says. If nothing else, it means there's a world out there where Eleven is going to be able to have a proper life. A place where she'll be able to go to school, have her friends, live out in the open so long as she doesn't use her powers. It's a world where she's a little bit more safe than she was before.

"It's fake," he adds. "The birth certificate, it's a fake, someone made it for me. It lists me as her biological father and I'm not. Jane was... do you remember what I told you about the lab in Hawkins? The weird experiments they were doing?"

He's taking a leap of faith here, but it feels like the right decision.

[historical_consultant]

"I remember," Lucy says, feeling a little tendril of worry take root in her stomach. She has a feeling she knows what he's going to tell her, where Jane came from but maybe she's wrong. Maybe the foreboding she's feeling is just her paranoid mind and, for once, she hopes that's the case.

"What about it?" Lucy asks, clasping her hands together and worrying her lower lip between her teeth. "Was she...somehow involved?"

[something_incredible]

"You ever heard of Project MKUltra?" he asks. "It was this rumour for a long time, these experiments being conducted by the CIA using LSD to try and achieve some form of mind control, only it turned out not to be a rumour."

He takes a deep breath and says, "Terry was pregnant at the time she volunteered for the study. The shit they had her on... it did things to the baby. When Jane was born they took her. Told Terry she died. They took away her name and gave her a number instead. They marked her, right here." He reaches out and touches Lucy's wrist where Eleven's tattoo is. "Number eleven."

Another deep breath and it's shaking a little when it comes out. "The lab caught Terry sneaking in to try and get her back. They did shit to her, electroshock therapy, it fucked her up. She's catatonic now and when Eleven escaped the lab and I found her, I just... I had to keep her safe from them. I had to. There wasn't anyone else left to do it."

[historical_consultant]

"I've heard of it but I never actively pursued information on it," Lucy admits with a shake of her head. "It was one of those things that someone somewhere will lecture about sometimes and you go and it's interesting but you don't follow up."

It wasn't really in her wheelhouse, so to speak. The program was awful to think about and terrible to imagine really happening but it had been all rumor and conjecture and theory, nothing more.

Now, listening to what Jim says, a sick feeling twists her stomach and she clasps her hands together tightly.

"That's -- " She swallows and blows out a breath. "I don't even have the words for what that is. I don't even understand how a human, someone with a heart, could do that to another person. I'm sorry it happened to her."

[something_incredible]

"Jane's her real name, the name Terry gave her, so it's on the birth certificate and it's what I've been calling her to people who don't know about all this, but she didn't even know her name when she came out of the lab," he says. "We all just called her Eleven. Or El."

It feels good to have that out there. Maybe not her real name, but the one she'd given herself.

"I had to keep her hidden from the lab for a year," he says. "Taking care of a teenage girl is hard enough, but when she's isolated and can throw a book at your head with her mind it's something else."

[historical_consultant]

"Well, now I have to ask why she might have a reason to throw a book at your head," Lucy says, snickering quietly. There are much more serious things to question, to ask but she doesn't want to immediately delve into that, not so soon after learning about her. It's hard to relive terrible things like that so might as well try and be light and airy for a second.

"What sort of behavior were you showing her that she had to do that?" Lucy asks because it was obviously something he'd done. Of course it was.

[something_incredible]

Hopper laughs, even though it's not really a funny situation. Eleven would appreciate Lucy based on that comment alone, because of course it had all been his fault.

"I wouldn't let her go visit the friends she'd made," he says. "You remember the boy I told you about who went missing? When Joyce and I went into that other world to find him, Eleven was there, too, fighting the monster with Will's friends. They all thought she died doing it. Her friends, but more importantly, the lab thought it, too. I had to keep it that way and I know it sucked, I know she was pissed at me, but it was keeping her safe."

He shrugs and he's still smiling, but it's strained. "It was hard. This birth certificate means I could have done stuff like enroll her in school. Give her a real life."

[historical_consultant]

"You still can," Lucy tells him, reaching over to take his hand and give it a squeeze. "Your life with her isn't over. It's just...temporarily delayed but it's not over. I have all the hope in the world that you'll get back to her at some point."

It had to he hard right now though. To have this show up and remind him of what he'd been about to embark on with Jane. Or Eleven. She wasn't sure what to call her but she doesn't think it matters either.

"Don't be quite so fatalistic just yet," she chides. "You haven't been here long enough for that."

[something_incredible]

"Maybe," he agrees, looking at Lucy. Grateful for her. She tells him not to give up on going back, but there are moments like this one, looking at her, holding her gaze, and he doesn't necessarily want to go back.

Not without a chance with her.

"I'm okay," he says with a smile. "Because this shit isn't about me. If somewhere back there, that doctor came through and gave this to me, it means she's going to be okay. That's what I care about."

Maybe the birth certificate isn't a guarantee, but it something and he feels good about it.

[historical_consultant]

"That's a good way to see it," Lucy tells him, nodding. "This is a good thing. I know the memories associated with it might be a bit hard to deal with but this seems like a pretty good sign of normalcy. That you and she were going to be able to have a life together."

Maybe it wouldn't have been a conventional life but it would have been a life. He would have had a daughter and she would have had the father figure that it sounded like she desperately needed.

"She's going to be okay," Lucy agrees. "And so are you."

[runtowardsomething]

These days, Beverly spends about as much time at Hopper's as not, if not maybe a little more. School isn't quite over yet, but it's close to it, and it makes the walk over, a change of clothes shoved into her backpack along with her books, that much more pleasant. It's second-nature now, and she tries not to think too hard about that or what it means. Still in the back of her head is the idea that she shouldn't overstay her welcome, though she's been given no indication yet that she has or is close to doing so. She just doesn't want to let it go too far, in case that day does wind up coming.

Today, though, after she turns the corner of the block Hopper's building is on, she practically skids to a stop by the stairs, frowning instinctively at the sight of him. This is unusual, a break from what's become routine, and by the look on his face, it's hard not to worry about what he's looking at, what might have happened. "Hey," she says, rocking back on her heels, brow furrowing. "Are you okay? Did something happen?"

[something_incredible]

He knows he must look a little thrown off, especially with the way Bev approaches, but he doesn't want her to think there's something wrong. It's weird, it's really damn weird, but it's not a bad thing and he looks up at her quickly and gives a nod right off. No point in worrying her more than he probably already has, especially not when she's been through plenty of shit already.

The less shit he causes, the better.

"Yeah," he says. "I'm okay. It's fine. Come sit for a second, I got something to show you."

He has fewer reservations about telling Beverly than nearly anyone else. She'll get it, he's just got a feeling she will. Nothing about Eleven will be all that surprising to her and he doesn't know why he thinks this, just that he does.

[runtowardsomething]

"Okay," Beverly says easily, crossing the last of the distance between them so she can take a seat on the steps at his side. She might not know what's going on, confusion and faint concern still written in her expression, but if he says it's fine, then she believes him, has no reason not to. Something might be going on, but she still trusts him to be honest with her about whatever it is, or just to tell her that he doesn't want to talk about it. Since he's said he wants to show her something, the latter doesn't seem like it will be the case, but the principle of the thing applies even so.

Crossing one leg over the other, she looks at him while pointedly not trying to get a closer look at the paper he's holding. Whatever it is, it's his business to tell her, not hers to start snooping into. "What's up?"

[something_incredible]

"I've told you about Jane," he starts. "But only a little bit, 'cause the thing with Jane..."

For a moment he has to hesitate, has to figure out what to say next, because it's a huge story. Sometimes it doesn't feel like he even knows where it begins. One day Will had been missing and then suddenly there had been monsters and alternate worlds and evil labs. And Eleven right there in the middle of it.

"Jane's mother participated in an experiment run by the government," he says. Beverly's from a similar timeline as he is, but maybe the CIA doesn't exist for her or maybe because she's a kid she won't know it, but he's got it at least give it a shot. "It was called MKUltra and they gave people mind altering drugs to try and see if they could figure out methods of mind control. Only with Terry, it did something to her baby."

[runtowardsomething]

It sounds crazy, of course. There's not really any two ways around that. Beverly is used to crazy, though, is pretty sure anyone in their right mind would say the same thing about a killer, shapeshifting clown living in a sewer. For a moment, the memory is a startlingly vivid one, more so than she's used to, bright lights and sharp teeth, and she has to suppress a shiver that threatens to run down her spine. This isn't about that at all, and she can't pretend like she isn't curious. It's true, he hasn't told her much about Jane, but she's wondered. Now, those sparse details are starting to make sense.

"And that was Jane," she says, nodding slowly. She's still not sure what this has to do with what's going on now, but she's sure it will add up eventually. "What did it do?"

[something_incredible]

"Yeah," he says. "That was Jane."

He doesn't know all the details, he can't fill in every last bit of Eleven's life leading up to when he'd first met her, but he knows enough.

"I don't even know what it did to her," he says. "Not really. But this kid, Beverly, she- she can move things. Without touching them. She can use her mind to pick up men three times her size. She flipped a van."

He wishes he'd been able to see that. Hearing about it second hand had been crazy enough, but he'd liked to have seen those lab assholes scared out of their wits by a little girl who could flip their van just using her mind.

[runtowardsomething]

"Holy shit," Beverly blurts out, her eyes widening a little. There's weird and then there's weird, and though she doesn't know what she would have expected, it definitely isn't anything as intense as that. Still, she's come to trust Hopper over the past few months — wouldn't be staying with him regularly otherwise — and she knows that if he's saying it, then it has to be true. It's kind of hard to imagine something like that, anyway; there's no reason to make it up.

Besides, he'd believed her about the Home, not just the blood but the weird noises and all of that. He'd probably believe her about what happened back in Derry if she told him. So she can believe him about this.

"That's... well, kind of terrifying, but kind of amazing."

[something_incredible]

"That's a pretty good way to sum up Jane," he says with a huff of laughter. "The lab that was doing the experiments lied to her mother. They told her Jane had died and then they kept her so they could keep doing experiments on her and that kid... shit, that kid spent thirteen years living in a lab. Doing what she was told."

He pauses, then says, "They tattooed a number on her wrist. Eleven. That's what she called herself, that's what we all called her when she escaped the lab and we found her. Jane's her legal name, but she's Eleven to me."

It feels good to say that and he smiles a little, then holds the birth certificate out toward Beverly for her to look at if she likes.

[runtowardsomething]

It is, like the rest of it, unimaginable. Her own home life was hell, but at least she had temporary escapes, not just confined within the walls of the apartment all the time. Somehow she doubts that people running experiments on a teenager in a laboratory were giving her a lot of free time or letting her do shit for fun. What Hopper says only seems to back that up.

She looks at the paper, then, only when he's held it out to her, and sees the names on it. Hopper listed as Jane's — Eleven's — father, her last name changed to match his. She gets it, then, why he looked the way he did when she first rounded the corner and came up to the building. Of course this would be enough to throw him for a loop, even if it seems like it's got to be a good thing.

To her, at least, it seems that way. For just a moment, some small part of her feels just a little jealous, though not with any spite behind it. She would have loved that, though, to have someone take her away and be the kind of parent she never got to have. Still, she's got a good thing going here; she is, she imagines, luckier than most, and not just because of the shit that's been happening in the Home.

"So this makes her legally your daughter," she says, nodding a little to herself. "This happened after you got here?"

[something_incredible]

"Must've, yeah," Hopper answers. "It was one of the things I asked of this doctor at the lab. I made a deal with him, I'd help him out if he made this happen so she wouldn't have to hide anymore. They wanted her back, they were always looking for her and she was so mad at me all of the time, keeping her in our cabin. I wouldn't let her go out, I wouldn't let her go see her friends, but I thought if the lab saw her..."

He shrugs and falls silent, not wanting to say it. If the lab had seen her, if they'd gotten their hands on her again, they never would have let her go.

"See, they did something else in the lab, they... they opened this door of some kind into another version of Hawkins and there was something dangerous in there," he says. "Eleven was the only one who could close it, but if they wanted her help, I wanted her safe when she was done."

[runtowardsomething]

"So she wouldn't have to go back there." Beverly nods a little to herself. It makes sense, inasmuch as anything that sounds so impossible can make sense. She's not sure what the birth certificate is doing here, but she's heard about this, things showing up the same way people do, without any explanation beyond that they mean something to someone. Mostly, she's just glad she hasn't had to deal with that herself. This seems like a good thing, though — bittersweet, maybe, but ultimately a good thing, proof that he was able to do what he intended and keep Eleven safe.

Her father never did shit to keep her safe. If anything, he was what she needed to be kept safe from.

"This means you could do that, right? Keep her away from them."

[something_incredible]

"That was the plan," he says. "I'd kept her away from the lab for a year, but she's thirteen. She needs friends. Keeping her locked up in the cabin like a prisoner-"

He shrugs. "That's no better than the lab, is it? I mean, I wasn't experimenting on her or forcing her to do anything, but she still needed to get out and spend time with people her age. Going from the lab to being stuck in a cabin had to have been shit. I wanted her to be able to go to school. Do normal kid stuff."

And the birth certificate would have made that possible. Now he has it, but not Eleven.