After Hopper disappears, Joyce is trying her best to stay strong for her family but she can’t shake the strange feeling that Hopper is still alive. Her suspicion is confirmed when he makes contact to tell her he’s trapped in the upside down, taking shelter inside her house. As they navigate the divide keeping them apart, Joyce and Hopper grow closer than ever, working together in secret to bring him home. Only, it doesn’t go exactly as planned…
Rating: E
Words: 34k
Ch:15/15 - complete
AN: This is your fair warning! There is no standard happy-ending to this story and it can get kind of dark and weird sometimes. I have tried to tag as best I could for triggers, but if you feel I have missed something, please send me a dm or an ask on my tumblr here. Also, this work didn't get a chance to be thoroughly beta'd since I had to deal with a major power outage at home this last week so there is a chance it may get another update in the near future so I can fix a few things. Thank you to @starmaammke for offering to beta for me -- I'm sorry I couldn't get it to you in time!
There are a few inspirations for this story: the music -- there's a whole playlist of songs that inspired this story. Find it here!
Movies -- A Ghost Story; Ghost (mmm Patrick Swayze); Donnie Darko; the Shape of Water, among others (let's see if you find the references!)
And the book -- the Time Traveller's Wife.
Yes, there is time travel and the plot gets a bit twisted so if you have any questions, please ask me about it as I may have glossed over something!
I'll be honest, this fic kind of snuck up on me. I never intended it to be so dark when I first started planning it, but I've always enjoyed pretty much anything beautiful and sad, so I suppose it makes sense how this happened. I may or may not have plans to continue it in another fic (*evil grin*), but I will be diving back into my other series before I continue this one.
Thank you to @palmviolet for putting this Big Bang together!
THANK YOU @snowchicago99 for everything ❤︎
And thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy (even with all the angst lol)
Be sure to check out the corresponding artwork made by the lovely @snowchicago99 on tumblr.