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The last time Hopper had to do something like this, it'd been in New York. And it'd been a hell of a lot more expensive there, that's for sure, although the two storey townhouse he'd found them on Maple Street wasn't exactly cheap. He's a detective, though, he gets paid a decent salary and now he's got a mortgage, too.

And a place for the three of them to live.

With Eleven moving in, he'd given up his bedroom for her, but his back had ached within two days of sleeping on the couch and he'd pretty quickly come to the conclusion that they'd need a new place. Somewhere they could all have their own space, without tripping over each other or Ellie, who deserved a back yard to run around in on the days Hopper got caught up at work and couldn't always take her for a walk.

The townhouse is between Beacon and Hegal, the end unit of three, closer to Beacon. It has a gate on the side, a fenced in yard big enough for the dog and for Hopper to put out some lawn furniture, a few chairs, a little table. There's a tiny balcony off the window of what he figures will be Beverly's room, a ladder that leads down into the yard, but only once it's pushed down from above. No one can reach it from the ground and he kind of likes having the escape route, if there ever was a fire.

It needs some work. It isn't brand new, some of the baseboards are scuffed and need replacing, there are some cracks in the plaster in the kitchen. The floors are hardwood, which is nice, but they need to be refinished all through the second floor where the bedrooms are located.

Besides that, it's a nice place. Three bedrooms on the second floor, a bathroom off the master suite, which Hopper likes, because sharing a single bathroom with two teenage girls isn't something he's looking forward to. There's a fairly large bathroom between the two other rooms, one of which will be Beverly's and the other Eleven's. The main floor has a spare room, maybe an office, he hasn't decided yet, a sizeable kitchen and living room, as well a dining room Hopper figures they'll almost never use.

But there's space for all of them and as he stands on the front step with a box in his arms, the dog winding around his legs before disappearing into the townhouse to investigate, he feels pretty damn good about it.

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She follows him inside, taking a look around. Yes, she remembers this place. She likes that it has a yard. Maybe she can talk to Hopper about putting a bird feeder out, so that Stan can visit and see some birds, too.

He likes birds.

"Which one is my room?" she asks, shaking herself from the thoughts. She should focus on getting all of her things into her room, and maybe helping Hopper with anything too heavy.

"C'mon, I'll show you," Hopper says, then begins to climb the stairs with Eleven behind him. He pauses at the top of the stairs and puts his box down to the side where he'll be able to grab it and take it into his own room, then nods down the hall.

"Bathroom," he says, pointing. "Then Bev's room is the one at the back of the house and this is yours."

He walks into the room at the front of the house, then reaches out and pulls open the curtain that cover the big window. At the cabin, she had wanted the windows open and now he can actually give it to her. The window overlooks the street outside, the small green space across the street, trees and houses and cars as they drive by.

She sets her box down just inside the room and joins him at the window. If she listens carefully, she can almost hear the cars when they go by. But she can see them, and the green space across the street, and people walking by. Her window has a wide, flat sill that she can already imagine decorating with things. She grins up at Hopper, then plucks the fabric of the curtains with one hand.

"I can change this?" she asks. She looks up at him, the hope tempered by a nervous wince. But she has her own taste, now. Max had helped her learn about it, and she wants to decorate her room the way she thinks she'll like it.

Hopper laughs and says, "Yeah, they're pretty damn ugly, aren't they?"

He looks at the room as a whole, imagines what Sara's room had been like in their apartment in New York, then smiles at Eleven. It's a gentler smile than most of his, usually only see by El or Beverly. These are his girls now. Sara will always be his first girl, the first to have his heart, but she shares it now. And she's gone. It's time to look forward.

"Anything you want, kid," he says. "This is your space. Short of knocking out walls, you tell me what you want and we'll get it done. But you're helping with any painting."

Her eyes flash with excitement. "Painting," she echoes, and looks at the walls. They're a simple, soft, grayish purple color, and they're not bad, but they're boring. Not at all like her vibrant blue shirt with the fake paint splatters on them. She wants something fun, something pretty.

"Yeah and you want anything fancy and difficult, you better figure out how to do it first," he says, pointing at her, but he's smiling. He can see the excitement in her eyes and he loves that. It's the sort of thing he wants for both of them, her and Beverly, giving them the home and all the stuff they should have had, but was taken from them.

"We'll get it all fixed up," he says. "This whole place. It'll be ours."

"Ours," she echoes. She feels warm and safe, in a way that she usually only does when Hop hugs her, and she grins up at him. Then she takes his hand and tugs her back out of the room — her room. They have a lot more unloading to do, and she wants to decide where her bed will go when it arrives, which means she'll need all of her things.

Which isn't much, but that isn't the point.

And the least she can do is help Hopper and Beverly with their things, too.

Hopper likes how she says that and he smiles crookedly as he follows her down the stairs. They grab a few more boxes, he takes those he's carrying into the kitchen, letting Eleven go upstairs on her own.

It takes a few trips, but eventually he's got most of the boxes that belong to the girls up in their rooms, just in time for a furniture truck to pull up outside.

"Hey, El!" he calls. "You figured out a spot for your bed yet?"

She's just finished moving the last box off to the side — she wants her bed right against the window, so she can sit on it and look out — when he calls up to her, and she rushes down the stairs. She grabs onto him to brake herself, looking at the furniture truck with barely contained excitement.

"Are all of the beds on it?" she asks. It doesn't seem possible, to imagine three beds cramped or stacked into the back of the truck. It's big, but not that big.

"Well, we gotta build 'em," Hopper answers, grinning over at Eleven. "You and me and Bev. I figure all three of us working on them and we can get them all set up before we need to stop for dinner."

There are other things he'll have to build, too. Dressers for all three of them. Desks for both Eleven and Beverly for their bedrooms. A TV unit for their living room. The couch is coming the following day and luckily he won't have to put that together.

She looks up at him, perhaps a little nervously. The idea of putting their lives together as a family makes something warm bloom in her chest, even as she feels a fresh well of nerves. She and Beverly are getting along, but things still feel tense. What if she messes up?

"I don't know how to build beds," she says instead of voicing her real concerns.

"Neither do I," Hopper answers as the boxes begin to get unloaded and carried toward the house. He opens the door and steps back, directing the delivery guys where each of the pieces of furniture goes before he looks back to Eleven.

"They come with instructions," he tells her. "They're made for idiots like us to put together. We can do it. We might try to kill each other before it's over, but we can do it."

She feels less stupid, knowing that Hop is no better off in this regard. Maybe building beds isn't a normal thing that people do, then. All of the beds she'd ever seen had been fully assembled, after all. Maybe this is the strange part, and for once, it's not her inexperience that is.

She grins and shakes her head when he says that, though.

"I will protect you," she promises.

"Yeah?" he asks, looking amused. "You don't think you're gonna be the one trying to strangle me? Using your powers to bonk my head against the wall from halfway across the room?"

He's not sure he would mind all that much. Getting annoyed with each other while they try to build furniture is actually a pretty normal thing for a family to do together. Like a rite of passage.

El smiles a little wryly, but she rolls her eyes. "No," she insists. She hadn't even hurt him during their blowout argument at the cabin, and that'd been bad, hadn't it? She cares about him too much to hurt him — though, she's pretty sure he's joking about bonking his head.