prompt call: st3 aftermath, after the battle/before the timeskip, a moment between joyce and jonathan? (also: happy birthday! :D)
Outside the mall, the first thing Joyce does, by long habit, is look for her sons. The parking lot is a madhouse, with ambulances and fire trucks and soldiers everywhere. Helicopters pass by overhead. This is going to be a night Hawkins will never forget, she thinks vaguely, and then she thinks about how many other nights of strange and terrible events that Hawkins has forgotten completely. And she can't let herself laugh at it, she can't, because she might start laughing and not stop.
She's got a couple of soldiers as minders, and they keep making noises about needing to debrief her, but she's ignoring them and so far they haven't pressed the issue, apparently realizing that they would need to herd her away at gunpoint to stop her from looking for her boys. She has seen too much not to think they wouldn't do it if they had to, but they don't quite seem to want to press the issue in front of a parking lot full of witnesses. She's not sure where Murray got off to, although if they've given him a comfortable interrogation room and something to drink, he is probably going to happily talk their ears off all night.
But she doesn't want to think about Murray, because thinking about him makes her think about --and, no. She's going to look for her boys. That's what she needs to do.
"Will!" she calls. "Jonathan!"
She spots Jonathan first, bundled up in a blanket in the back of an ambulance. She pushes past other people who hardly even register on her, and climbs up with him before she notices he's not alone. Nancy is cuddled in beside him.
"Hi," Joyce says, and she hugs Jonathan and then hugs Nancy too. "You're all right. Thank God." She takes Jonathan by the shoulders. "Where's your brother?"
"He's okay, Mom." Jonathan grips her wrist with his hand -- not a tiny hand anymore, a man-sized hand. "I think he's with Mike and the Wheelers. He's fine. I just saw him a minute ago."
Joyce lets out a shuddering breath. She turns to look out across the parking lot, at all the flashing lights and the little clusters of people where families are reuniting.
Her eye falls on a small figure: Eleven, or Jane, as Hop used to call her. Alone. Looking and looking, for someone she won't find.
And two soldiers, guns cocked over their shoulders, looking at her expectantly. Their patience will only hold out for so long, she knows, and she could fight, she could push back, but ... she's tired. So tired.
"Jonathan, are you hurt? You don’t have to go to the hospital, do you?"
"No, Mom," he says, still gripping her wrist.
"I'm going to need to go with these men, okay? You'll have to take your brother home. And make sure he gets some food into him, something decent, no junk food."
"Yeah, Mom, I can do that." There's a slight, lopsided smile on his face. She wonders if he's thinking about all the many ways this conversation has played out between them, usually under much more normal circumstances, over the years. Pick your brother up after school, Jonathan, I'm working late. Your brother's sick, can you stay home with him on Saturday? Be sure to take out the pot roast to thaw, sweetie, I'll put it in when I get home ...
God, she's so lucky to have him. So lucky to have both of them.
"And ... Jonathan? That Eleven girl? Can you take her home along with Will?" She pushes onward, forestalling any questions he might ask. "I don't think she has anywhere to go tonight."
Jonathan, bless him, doesn't ask questions. He just nods, serious and dependable.
It's Nancy who asks what Jonathan doesn't. "Are you all right, Mrs. Byers?"
"I'm fine, thank you, honey," she lies, and kisses Jonathan's forehead while he looks embarrassed. "I'll be home soon. Okay?"
"Okay, Mom," Jonathan says, and then he leans forward to hug her, something he doesn't do much anymore. She grips him, and then clings to him, arms wrapped tightly around him, feeling the press of his ribs under his loose T-shirt and the blanket. So fragile and yet so strong. Her Jonathan.
"I love you," she says into his hair, and he mumbles it back, and then she lets him go and steps down from the ambulance. She gives the soldiers an expectant look, and they have the decency to look a little bit ashamed before they lead her away.
She looks back a few times, before they put her in a car and she can no longer see her son. A mother has that right.
