Chapter Text
April 10, 1979
It was raining. Despite feeling like he'd left that stupid, cursed, microbial city a lifetime ago, that morning he perfectly remembered the fresh smell of wet maples. It was raining fine drops, light as fog. His damp hat fell heavier than usual on his sweaty forehead as he walked briskly toward the police station. The dark circles under his eyes, promptly hidden behind the opaque veil of the sunglasses, would remain his secret for the rest of the day. With long, heavy strides, he approached the sidewalk, gritting his teeth in silence. Where on earth had he left the pack of cigarettes from the night before? Perhaps on the coffee table, among the forgotten empty cans. Perhaps in the bathroom, on the edge of the sink. Perhaps he had swapped the pack for yet another tube of painkillers, hidden in the inside pocket of his blue jacket. Nothing that day would lift his dark mood, or cure the migraine throbbing across his temples. He entered, taking a generous drag of smoke. Didn't say hello to anyone. A glance at his colleagues, disappointment written on their faces, and only Florence was ready to offer a cup of watery coffee and the first lecture of the morning.
"Chief," she said, her voice hoarse, "dry biscuits and yesterday's coffee for breakfast, you'll have to make do for today."
More than he'd expected. "Okay, Flo. Anything urgent?"
Daniels, behind her, stiffened. Callahan lowered his eyes, his brow furrowed. "You have a visitor," the secretary replied, leading him toward the door. She stopped him with the hand before he could even reach the handle. "It's Marian Byers. She's been waiting for you since before your shift started. For God's sake, try to be... gentle."
"Marian—what?"
Flo shook her head. "Ah, happy birthday, Jim."
Yeah, happy birthday. He opened the door and entered with the same grave step as always, petrified by the unusual image.
Marian Byers. Right. His slowed mind registered that name afterward, realizing what it meant only when he saw a tiny little girl, brown pigtails falling untidily over her gray plaid jacket, and a pair of big blue eyes. He also noticed the enormous red backpack at her feet, from which the furry head of a plush orange lion peeked out.
"Good morning, kid," he croaked. The voice came out deeper and rougher than he'd imagined—after all, the first words of the day were always the most difficult. If he could, he would have torn out his vocal cords with his bare hands. "Aren't you a little far from home, hm? Your mother must be worried."
She nodded. "Yes, sir."
Sir. Jim had to bite his cheek to keep from laughing. Florence. The damned woman had hidden the donuts right in his office; sitting at his desk, his mud-stained boots resting on the plywood edge, he realized the little girl had already stolen the strawberry and cream glaze. His unusual guest, sitting on a now seemingly oversized chair, rocked her yellow rubber boots guiltily back and forth.
"Does Joyce know you're here?"
She shook her head. "Mom's at work. Dad took Jonathan hunting in the woods. Will's at Mike's." She shrugged.
Jim imagined the scene. The little girl alone in a quiet house on a Saturday morning, the rain outside the window. She must have combed her hair and dressed herself, packed her favorite stuffed animal in her backpack, and then... "How old are you, Marian?"
"Nine and a half," she replied, flashing her trademark wide, gap-toothed smile. Her lateral incisors must have just fallen out. "Dad and brothers always call me Mary, but I like Marian, because it's like Lady Marian's name, like the fairy tale. And Robin Hood is my favorite of all. That's why I thought about going to live in the woods, behind a waterfall. But then I thought, I don't know where a waterfall is."
Robin Hood, woods, waterfalls—he had no idea what she was talking about. Leaning across his desk, arms crossed, he scrutinized her intently. "Are you telling me they left you home alone, and you decided to run away into the woods? You were alone in the woods?!" But how could that be? Her boots were clean, her brown pigtails barely wet.
"No!" Marian shrieked. "I thought so, but then I changed my mind. Mom says if anything bad happens, or if I do anything bad, I have to tell Sheriff Jim Hopper, so I figured running away is a bad thing, and I came here and I... I'm not going to jail, am I? I'm sorry."
Jim laughed softly. The first time he'd convinced Joyce to smoke a joint under the gym stairs, she'd felt so guilty she couldn't look him in the face for two weeks. God, she looked so much like her. All her mother, except for the clear blue eyes.
"You're not going to jail, kid. But you did something dangerous. Something unpleasant could have happened along the way. Cars drive fast, and you're a little girl, they might not see you. You might meet bad people along the way, you understand?" But what could he say to a little girl left home alone on a Saturday morning? Her asshole father would have been happy to get rid of the only offspring he wouldn't give a gun, a cigarette, or a pack of condoms to. Only things that would make him proud in the hands of his sons. And above all, at that point, what would he do with Marian? Leave her at Melvald's sitting on a shelf, watching her mother toil through the aisles? Or leave her alone in a big, damp house until the evening? Knowing Lonnie, he wouldn't have come home until late, and he would have kept Jonathan with him. That asshole probably didn't even have a hunting license. Anyway, he had no choice. "Come on, let's call your mother. I'll take you to her when she's done with work, okay?"
But she took his hand. "Please don't tell Dad. He's mad. It's really, really awful when he gets mad."
Jim sighed, offered her another donut, and winked. That only would be their little secret.
*
March 21, 1986
"MARY!" Joyce's voice echoed against the door. "Honey, you're late. It's the fourth time I've tried to wake you!"
Marian slips out of bed, rolling on the floor. She was dreaming of being a sole lying on the seabed; now all she feels is the cold floor against her floral pajamas. Rapido, Marian. The alarm goes off, and she knows she has exactly seven minutes left to comb her braids, change her shirt, brush her teeth, and steal a carton of milk and a PJ sandwich.
Her mother is ready for work, but she's late too. Her gaze inevitably falls on the T-shirt her daughter is wearing. Elvis Presley, Memphis 1954. She can't hide a tearful smile. She wants to tell her, oh my God, how you've grown—that T-shirt fits her perfectly now. She'll start stealing her clothes from the closet, the few pieces of makeup from the bathroom bag. But there's no time.
"Where's the bike?" Marian leans out the window, but there's no sign of it.
"Oh dear, Jane must have taken it last night. Will's already gone. I'm sorry, honey."
"Little bitch," she grit her teeth, clutching her red backpack. "I'm late, gotta run. Hop—" Joyce nods. He's already waiting for her outside in the driveway. "Great! Love you, Mom, don't wait for me for dinner, I'll call you later. Bye!" her voice fades into an echo as she runs outside.
In March, the rain is a kind of constant white noise. The insistent patter permeates every corner of the city. Hawkins is too young to escape that noise, that damp feeling deep in her bones. Marian waves goodbye to Hopper, runs into school without saying hello to anyone. Out of the corner of her eye, she notices her bike right there, where it shouldn't be. "Fuck it, I don't need it today anyway. Not tonight, at least." Holding back a shy smile is completely impossible. But as soon as she crosses the school threshold, a pinch on her side makes her suddenly jump.
"You're late, cookie. What happened, did you fall into a sugar bowl?" Eddie grins at her side. He smells of burnt tobacco, rain, warm, wrinkled clothes fresh from the dryer. He's been at the self-service laundry with the last clean things he has left; Marian could bet all thirteen dollars in her backpack pocket.
"Jane stole my bike," she confesses through gritted teeth, as she tries to unlock the rusty old locker (which she's refused to change since freshman year of high school). "Drove up with Hop and said—you damn bastard, open up—I told my mother that—Jesus Christ—"
Eddie flips it up with a mechanical gesture, and a mountain of books falls on them both. And Marian feels a wave of embarrassment invade her entire body, up and up, from the tips of her toes to her hot, almost inflamed cheeks! Among those schoolbooks—algebra, English literature, French—there are also hidden notes, all of Eddie's crazy proposals: Are we skipping third period today? Gonna smoke something under the gym stairs, you in? I'm starving, let's get out of here and get ourselves a pizza (at 11 AM, by the way). All crumpled paper relics, meticulously preserved. And then the drawings, their D&D characters, fantastical places painted with half-broken pencils, notes for made-up stories. Sheet music, tons of sheet music. Luckily, that's what Eddie gets his hands on.
"Is this what you do while wasting time in the morning?" he waves the papers under her nose. "I take it all back! Writing songs for the band is never a waste of time."
"No, Eddie. As commendable as it is, these are classical scores. It's a piano waltz in C major. I'm perfecting it for my college scholarship application."
"God—don't say that word again, you'll give me hives."
Marian laughs. "Scholarship, study, study!"
Eddie fakes a heart attack, his hands clutched to his chest with an expression of pure pain, and he rolls against the row of metal lockers. A couple of freshmen run toward their classrooms, avoiding him at a safe distance, their eyes lowered to the floor.
"You've been here forever, even the walls know your name, and yet you still manage to scare the first-years!"
Eddie laughs. His arm slides around her shoulders. He's warm, as always. And the smell of his clothes mixes with that of the cigarettes always hidden under the shoulder strap of his denim vest, and that of his cheap perfume. Marian wants to bury her face in his neck and sleep there for at least three days. She wants to take the hand around her shoulders and intertwine her fingers with his. She wants crawl under his shirt and live there. But she just smiles and hides her face behind Eddie's mane, which blocks any peripheral vision. That's probably why she's constantly tripping over her own feet.
"Look, let's do this—let's skip math class—"
"Forget it."
"—or history?"
"Edward Munson, you're going to drive me crazy. You need good grades if you want to graduate!"
"At least PE! Please. We'll sit in the music room before lunch, smoke a couple of cigarettes, and you'll play me this fa-la-la, eh? Tell me it sounds like a good idea."
Saying no goes against all logic, all moral justice, all instinct, all divinity! When Edward Munson looks at her like that, with his eyes full of light and his hands full of her, Marian always says yes. After all, nobody gives a damn about PE.