Joyce Byers

No matter how busy they both are -- with school, with work -- they still try to make time for each other. They hang out, when she stays over at the house or he swings by the apartment, sure, and they meet for lunch or for coffee but, once a month or so, they go out on a proper date. They might both be too old for dating, both been around those houses one too many times, but Joyce doesn't care. It's her favourite thing.

And she's been planning this one for a while.

Honestly, she much prefers how teenagers dress now -- jeans and t-shirts, cute tops -- but she hopes that the outfit that she's picked out will strike a nostalgic note for Jim. She smoothes her pencil skirt over her stockings, straightens her sweater and waits for the familiar sound of the key she'd given him in the apartment door.

It takes her so long to get ready that she might as well be a teenager again. She dresses carefully, layering the lingerie that she'd cricled back to buy with a black velvet dress that's fitted across her chest and flared slightly around her thighs. She puts on heels and agonises, for a long moment, about which lipstick to choose before she goes for red.

She wants to be as far away from how worn down she's felt for a long time as she can. She wants to feel like she did when she was young, and full of promise.

Hopper wanted to pick her up but, because Will hasn't headed out yet, she'd said she'd meet him at the restaurant. She arrives early, standing outside with her arms folded against the cold, a cigarette between two fingers.

She's so nervous she actually laughs at herself.
Jesus.

"Hey," he says, looking down at her. "I'm gonna die someday. But not today. I still got a date to make, remember?"

She clings to it, to that promise, and to the kiss that follows it, as she watches him walk away from her and prays that he isn't about to let her down.

"Don't you stand me up, Jim Hopper," she murmurs under her breath, as she turns towards the flickering screens. "Don't you dare."

Joyce's heart is in her mouth as she watches him on the screens, moving slowly, gun in hand. He looks so different that he did back in Hawkins -- not just what they did to him physically, but something in his eyes -- and Joyce's chest aches as she watches him pick his way down the corridors that lead towards the laundry. Her eyes on the screens, she runs through the plan in her head again: get 'em in, lock 'em up, rain fire from above, and hope like Hell. Joyce can't think about El and the others right then, about Will and Jonathan and, oh God, Mike is with them, too, isn't he? And it's just so much to expect of a girl of El's age, just like it was too much to expect of Will, and it's too much to expect of Hopper and, Jesus Christ, can't the world just save itself for a change?

On the screen, Hopper's got the demodog's attention. Everything's still for a moment, and then it explodes and he takes off running, and she knows her job, she does, but on the screen, the man she loves is running and suddenly it occurs to her that he's not running fast enough. He's not going to make it.

Barely knowing what she's doing, Joyce grabs one of the cattle prods off the wall, and she runs, the soles of her boots pounding against the concrete floor. Goddamnit, she is not having another funeral.

She rounds a corner and, for a sick moment, she thinks she's too late because Hopper is down, the demodog on top of him, all slobbering jaws and hunger and hate, and then she doesn't think at all, just jabs with the prod and pulls the trigger until it spills to the side and goes quiet and still. Back on his feet, Jim throws his arms around her, says her name, and all Joyce can think is thank God, thank God, thank God.

They barely have time to catch their breath before the demogorgon explodes towards them. They run, back towards the pit because where else are they going to go? They stumble into a cell and Jim yanks the door shut behind them, but it's barely a heartbeat before the demogorgon rips it away like it's paper, and they're going to die, aren't they? After everything they've been through, everything they've survived, they're going to die like this, cold and on the other side of the world from their kids. At least they'll be together. At least…

"Hey, assholes!" shouts Murray, and they barely have time to turn their faces away before fire rains down, and Jim's arm is around her and then it isn't and Joyce lifts her head because if he's gone, if it…if it's happened, then she at least has to see. She owes him that much.

But she doesn't see him. She doesn't see Jim or the monster or the prison at all. She sees a snatch of blue sky instead.

"Jim?"