Chapter Text
Summer 2008
Hopper crouched on the back porch, his large frame barely obscured by the barbecue grill that had seen better days. Lightning flashed, thunder cracking too soon after, and the rain poured down even harder than before.
Joyce was on her knees at the other end of the porch, her dark clothing allowing her to blend into the murky night. She held up two fingers and pointed toward the house to the right of the back door.
Hopper nodded and started to move, but Joyce held up her other hand with her index finger outstretched and wagged it at the room just off the kitchen to Hopper’s left.
Hopper winced, nodding his acknowledgement before pushing himself up against the back of the house. They always hoped for a clean finish to a job, but it was rarely the case with a target like the one they were after.
The screaming coming from inside the house somehow felt louder than the thunder rumbling the ground beneath them. The target was at his worst, and while Joyce was always calm under pressure, Hopper struggled to follow protocol when shit went down.
He heard a meaty thud, a grunt of pain, and a dull thump that told him their target hit his wife hard enough to throw her into the wall. Hopefully she stayed down until they got in there.
Hopper’s fingers twitched as he watched Joyce picking the lock on the back door. She was good. Quick and efficient. Quieter than anybody he ever saw do the job. It still felt like an eternity when the target screamed at his wife again and they could hear him hitting her.
“Leave her alone!”
“Shit,” Hopper hissed. It was the target’s nine-year-old kid. The stupid little shit was standing up for his mom. “Let it go, kid, we’re almost there.”
Joyce turned to him and nodded, CON rules of engagement be damned, and Hopper sprang into action before he could even think it through. His body responded to Joyce because they were a well-oiled team after all these years of working together.
The boy was already on the floor, holding his head and wincing in pain. Blood dripped down his left forearm, and his blue T-shirt was ripped open. Even though he was injured and scared, he was leaning over his mom protectively.
Hopper ignored them both and lunged at Neil Hargrove, taking him down to the linoleum floor with a loud grunt as the wind was knocked out of the bastard. Joyce was on him in an instant, plunging a needle into his neck and emptying the contents into the thrashing body beneath Hopper.
He waited until Hargrove stopped moving before he climbed off the man and began tying his wrists behind his back with zip-ties. The ankles were next, followed by a heavy gag that would keep him from alerting the neighbors if he woke up before they got him to the van. The man stank of alcohol and sweat.
“Help her! Help her, please!”
Hopper turned to find the kid on his knees by his mother. Joyce mirrored the boy’s position, but the look on her face said the last chance to help Beth was already gone.
Billy shook his head, blond hair falling in his eyes. He grabbed the front of his mom’s shirt and looked up at Joyce, eyes welling with tears. “Help her! Do CPR or something! A transfusion! An injection! Do you have those paddle things? Paramedics have those! I know they do!”
“Sweetheart,” Joyce said softly, reaching out to the boy.
Billy pushed her hands away. “No! You have to help her! Mama’s gonna be fine! Just help her!”
“She’s gone, honey,” Joyce said, resting her hands on her thighs once she realized the boy wasn’t ready for comfort yet.
“No!” Billy screamed, grabbing his mom’s shirt again and shaking her lifeless body. “She’ll be fine! Just fix her! I’ve seen them do it on TV! Just do the paddles! Start her heart again!”
Joyce softened even more and rested her left hand on Beth’s chest. “Even if we used the paddles, she can’t breathe anymore, sweetheart. Look at her. The throat has been fractured, and the chest is caved in. Her heart and lungs can’t-”
“Joyce,” Hopper said, stopping her before she fell down the rabbit hole of medical explanations to a kid who couldn’t understand any of it. All Billy knew was that his mom wasn’t breathing.
Joyce threw him an apologetic look. She knew she didn’t have the bedside manner that came so easy to most people. She made up for it in other ways, and even if Billy didn’t know it, she would protect him with her life if need be.
Billy looked up at Hopper, his bottom lip quivering and tears running down his blood-stained cheeks. Bruises were already forming on his face, making those pretty blue eyes even more striking. A chunk of his hair was matted to his head with blood, the rest of it wet with sweat. He looked too small to deal with what was going on around him, and it broke Hopper’s heart.
The boy sat back on his heels, his right hand resting on his mom’s arm. “Is she really dead?” Billy whispered.
Hopper nodded. “I’m sorry, kid, but yeah.”
The boy’s body crumbled, and he fell over his mother’s body, sobbing so hard he lost his breath. Hopper crawled across the floor and ran his hands over the boy’s back, murmuring comforting nothings at him while Joyce backed away and finished prepping Neil for transport.
Hopper stayed with Billy until Joyce sent the message off to the CON’s retrieval team, letting them know there was a dead body to pick up and a house that was about to be vacant.
A message to CPS would normally be the next step while working a case, but this wasn’t just any case. Billy Hargrove wasn’t like other kids.
The directors at the CON had an eye on him ever since their previous home burned down under mysterious circumstances, and on closer inspection, discovered that the boy was being seen by a local pediatrician for bed wetting.
The Macdonald Triad proposed by J.M. Macdonald back in 1963 was outdated, but that didn’t stop the government from sticking their nose where it didn’t belong. What sealed Billy’s fate as a participant in the CON’s juvenile program was the mutilation of a few pets in the neighborhood, completing the Macdonald Triad and labeling him as a possible future killer.
Hopper and Joyce were sure Billy had nothing to do with the mutilations, but it didn’t matter now that his parents were dead. Neil might still be breathing, but he wouldn’t survive the next twenty-four hours.
“Hey, kiddo,” Hopper said, running his hand over Billy’s back. “Can you talk to me about something?”
Billy sat up, his eyes red-rimmed and puffy. He cried so hard he washed most of the blood off his face. As he looked up at Hopper, the expression on his face quickly changed. The heartbroken child disappeared in the blink of an eye, replaced by a look Hopper knew all too well. Before he could grab hold of him, Billy scrambled away, running down the hallway.
“Heads up,” Hopper grumbled over his shoulder as he stood up and readied himself for all seventy-five pounds of righteous anger charging back to the kitchen with a knife in his right hand.
Hopper had years of training under his belt when the kid had none. At least not when it came to hand-to-hand combat and disarming an experienced serial killer in the field. In one swift move, he grabbed the knife and twisted while wrapping his arms around the kid.
Billy screamed with indignant rage as Hopper dropped to the floor, taking Billy with him in a bear hug. He tucked his legs around Billy’s, holding him while Joyce took the knife from him and slipped it into her back pocket.
Hopper let the boy scream and swear and thrash in his arms. He had a lot of anger to get out. Years of abuse. Years of being afraid. His entire life was a game of survival.
The kid finally wore himself out, panting heavily as his body went limp in Hopper’s arms. Hop sat them up and cupped the boy’s head with one hand, his other on the boy’s hip.
“We’ve got some things to talk about,” Hopper said, keeping his body still to minimize the stimuli to Billy’s overwrought senses. “But first I want you to know that your dad won’t be able to hurt anybody ever again. Not after tonight.”
“Fuckin’ cops,” Billy said with a snarl.
“We’re not cops, and your dad’s not going to prison.”
“Where’s he going?”
Hopper thought of the rest of their kids back home. Children deemed a threat to society but a possible useful tool if raised correctly. Hopper and Joyce weren’t grooming them like the government wanted them too, though. They were loving those kids like they were their own, and Billy was their next adoptee. Hopper knew how to talk to them.
“The woman behind us is my wife, and her job is to keep people safe from people like your dad.”
“How?” Billy asked, his voice painfully small and vulnerable.
“The only way that ensures he’ll never hurt you or anybody else ever again. She’s going to kill him,” Hopper said bluntly.
Billy sucked in a sharp breath before turning and grabbing hold of Hopper’s shirt, burying his face in the material and crying softly. It wasn’t the enraged bawling from before. This was relief. Hopper could feel it.
Joyce, being a Cleaner, knew how to take down targets and dispose of them, but Hopper’s job was different. The perfect complement to her raw danger was Hopper’s empathy and ability to read people.
Billy settled against him, the shock and fear draining from his body as he let himself believe Hopper’s words.
After that, Billy didn’t fight them on anything. He was quiet and docile. He stood by and watched as Hopper hefted Neil over his shoulder and carried him out. When Hopper came back in, Beth’s body was covered with a floral print sheet and a very used, very raggedy stuffed llama was placed on her chest.
“Ready to go?” Hopper asked.
Billy didn’t say anything after taking one last look at his mom, but he followed Hopper out of the house while Joyce closed up after them. He didn’t ask about his dad and didn’t spare a glance at the locking cage doors between the front and back of the van Hopper helped him into.
He sat on Joyce’s lap and fell asleep on the three-hour drive from Crawford County to Hawkins, Indiana. Joyce gently rubbed the boy’s arm and slowly woke him, understanding what it was like to wake up disoriented, having been in Billy’s shoes herself too many times to count.
Hopper made the turn down their street, the two-story house they called home a welcome sight. He pulled into the driveway at what the locals called the Creel House and smiled as he saw their kids playing on the porch. They all stopped what they were doing as Hopper parked the van.
As expected, Steve hung back by the door, glaring and sizing up the new kid. Eddie and Chrissy, however, were waiting with a smile, Jonathan somewhere in between until he had a chance to see how Billy would react to the most outgoing members of their little group.
Hopper left the van running as Joyce got out with Billy and led him up onto the front porch. Hop was glad he had the window rolled down because he was able to hear Eddie and Chrissy chattering away to the newcomer, excited to welcome him and make him feel at home, the blood and injuries old hat to all of them and not a deterrent in the least.
He smiled as he pulled the van around to the back of the house. Muscle memory and years of experience made for quick work as he unloaded the van, taking Neil into the building they called a shed behind the house. He set Neil on the steel exam table in the middle of the main room.
All the surfaces were sparkling clean. The overhead fluorescent lights were harsh but served their purpose. He gave Neil another injection before cutting the zip-ties off him and attaching all the restrains bolted to the steel table.
Heavy, well-oiled straps at his forehead, upper chest, stomach thighs, knees, ankles, and wrists would keep him secure even if he woke up before they were ready for him.
Hopper checked the supplies even though he knew they were all in order and ready for the job later that night. He turned the lights off and locked the heavy steel door before walking back to the front of the house.
Steve and Jonathan were still on the porch, but Hopper suspected that the youngest and oldest of the group were with the new kid. Billy would need his injuries tended to, a hot shower, and new clothes. He also needed to know he had a place in their big family, and his kids would make sure of that.
“Dad?”
Hopper came to a stop on the porch, looking down at those big brown eyes, full of worry. His kid was ten years old and gangly, but getting taller by the day. “Yeah, Steve?”
“Jonathan wants to know if Eddie and Chrissy are still gonna play with us even though the new kid is here,” Steve said with a pout.
Jonathan scowled at him, whacking Steve’s arm with the back of his left hand. Steve rolled his eyes and put his hands on his hips. He didn’t bother arguing. Even though Jonathan hadn’t said a word since that last night he spent with Lonnie two years ago, the boy could damn well argue with body language and facial expressions.
“Do you remember how you felt when you first got here?” Hopper said, ignoring the antics. “Remember how scared you were?”
“I wasn’t scared,” Steve insisted, that bottom lip sticking out even more.
Hopper smiled. “And why was that?”
Steve sighed, dropping his arms at his sides and shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Because Eddie and Chrissy wouldn’t leave me alone,” he grumbled.
Hopper let it slide. In Steve-speak that was a glowing review of the time a then six-year-old Chrissy and eleven-year-old Eddie managed to break the ice, calm down a traumatized child, and give him the space and love he needed to flourish along with the love of a family.
“They still love you,” Hopper said, clapping a hand down on Steve’s right shoulder. “And they’ve got more than enough for you guys and Billy, okay?”
Steve rolled his eyes again and took a step back, still uncomfortable with too much affection. “Fine. I guess,” he said before grabbing Jonathan’s hand and dragging him into the house.
Hopper followed them in, chuckling to himself when the sounds of Eddie and Chrissy still chattering away greeted him from the bottom of the stairs. He watched Jonathan and Steve head toward the back of the house where their latest school project was underway.
He decided to let Joyce and the kids handle Billy upstairs and instead made his way to the hall bathroom, where he had a change of clothes. After a quick shower and change into fresh clothes that were free of blood and whatever else that splashed onto him during the job, he headed to the kitchen.
Everybody was going to be hungry soon, and Hop had the big task of feeding all of them.