1960

Laughter echoed through the trees, coupled with the sound of glass bottles clinking against one another in a sign of cheers as the flames of a bonfire chased away the darkness of nightfall. The once peaceful shores on the edge of Lovers' Lake were now abuzz with energy, as the Hawkins High School student body celebrated the achievements of the class of 1960. From one last hurrah before graduating seniors were set to enter the workforce or go away for college, to underclassmen blowing off steam from the pressures of the prior school year and having one final night of fun before bidding their older peers goodbye, nearly the entire student body was present to say farewell to the past nine months of their lives.

"Cannonball!" Charles Sinclair bellowed, clad only in a pair of boxers as he sprinted through the grass towards the water, egged on by the cheers of the Hawkins High basketball team behind him.

Seventeen-year-old Eleanora Yount ducked around the boy to avoid being trampled, coming to a stop and watching with an amused grin until the coast was clear. She watched as Charles leaped off the bank, tucking his knees up to his chest as he cannonballed into the water, causing a few girls swimming nearby to screech as they were caught in the splash zone. She held on tightly to the bottle in her right hand as she wove her way through the crowds of people, looking around for a moment in search of her friend before her gaze landed on the familiar head of blonde hair waving her over.

"Nora!" Marcie Wallace exclaimed, waving excitedly as Nora made her way towards a cluster of tree stumps, where Marcie sat alongside a few of their other classmates. "You look like you could use a refill."

"Could I ever," Nora agreed with a chuckle, plastering on a smile before tipping back the bottle in her hand to take a sip of the last few drops of her beer.

Nora eyed Marcie gratefully as she passed her another bottle to replace the now-empty one in her hands, and she took a seat on an open stump next to the blonde, who wrapped an arm around her best friend's shoulders. "Just think, this'll be us next year." Marcie said dreamily, gesturing around to all of the graduating seniors that milled about, a few even having worn their graduation cap to the party that evening.

Nora smiled, but couldn't bring herself to speak the words that got stuck in her throat. They hung heavy, unspoken, causing Nora to feel as if she were about to choke. Instead of looking back at Marcie, she followed her friend's gaze around the crowd, from the band geeks challenging one another to a beer chugging competition, to the athletes who had one by one followed after Charles Sinclair jumping into the lake. Near the middle of the party, she spotted her sister Claudia, one of the graduating seniors, dancing around with her friend, Sue Anderson. How carefree her sister looked that evening, Nora thought jealously, oblivious to the news the youngest Yount sister was never supposed to hear through a closed door that evening.

Just one night, Nora promised herself. One final night in Hawkins where everything is normal.

"Nora," Marcie said, though it fell on deaf ears as Nora continued to watch the scene before her. "Nora!"

"What?" Nora asked, snapping out of her thoughts as she looked back over at Marcie. "Sorry," she chuckled sheepishly. "Hey, M, I think I need some air. I'll see you later though, yeah?"

"Don't be too long," Marcie chided, though Nora watched as her gaze flickered to where the Harrington brothers, Daniel and Dennis, threw a football back and forth near one side of the riverbank, and something told Nora that her friend could easily occupy her time while she was gone.

"Whatever you say," Nora teased, raising herself back up from the log and wandering back through the crowd of students.

"Hey Nora!" a few of her classmates greeted as she passed by, causing Nora to once again plaster on a smile as she waved back. Although, Nora kept moving forward, not stopping to talk to anyone for more than a moment or two as she desperately tried to reach the edge of the crowd.

Not watching directly in front of where she was going, Nora came to an abrupt halt as she nearly bumped straight into where Karen Childress and Ted Wheeler sat cozily on another one of the tree stumps, so invested in one another Nora could have sworn they were attempting to eat each other's faces off. A disgusted grimace settled over the girl's features as she tried to get around them unnoticed, not wanting to disturb them if they ever came up for air, but in her haste, she managed to trip over another stump, losing her balance as she pitched forward.

Nora held tight to the bottle in her hand, trying not to spill or fall head over heels as she bumped into the boy in front of her, but on the impact, he whirled around, managing to catch both of them before they both went down. His grip on her arm kept her steady as she found her balance, righting herself and chuckling at her own clumsiness.

"I'm so sorry," she apologized. "I wasn't watching where I-"

Nora's voice abruptly caught in her throat as she looked up into the eyes of James Hopper, the graduating senior looking back at her with a look of amusement as he fought to laugh at her predicament.

"Are you okay?" Jim asked finally, eyeing her with a teasing glance, and Nora nodded.

"I'm fine," she assured him, gesturing back in the direction of Ted and Karen. "Just wasn't watching where I was going and almost got caught in the crossfire of some tonsil hockey." she eyed him suspiciously. "I'm surprised to see you here, Hop. I didn't think these parties were really your scene."

"Well, you only graduate once, or something like that." Jim shrugged, taking a sip of his beer.

"Not worried the cops are going to bust the place?" Nora asked. "Is your dad on duty?"

The chief's son shook his head, shrugging again nonchalantly. "It's late on a Friday night, meaning my old man's already passed out in his chair with a bottle of whiskey, watching old Gunsmoke reruns. He won't even know I'm gone." He studied Nora for a moment. "Are you having a good time? Figured you'd be off with Marcie, or your sister."

Nora nodded, but something in Jim's expression told her he didn't quite believe her. "Yeah, I'm fine." she said simply. "Just needed some air, wanted to get away from the crowd for a bit."

"Want some company?" he asked, and though everything in Nora's brain screamed at her to tell him no, to keep as much distance between her and the graduating senior, she couldn't shake the feeling that she wanted him around that evening, even if it continued to scramble the battle taking place inside her head.

"Yeah," she said, nodding. "Yeah, that sounds nice."

He gestured for her to lead the way, and Nora began to walk ahead of them, past the edges of the main group making up the graduation party and out of the clearing, where the thicker copse of trees made way to a more peaceful night. Jim followed behind her, the crowd already thinning in front of them.

"Careful," Walter Henderson chided as they walked past him. "You better watch out for Victor Creel in those woods."

"Fucking creep," Nora muttered to Jim, rolling her eyes as they ignored the Henderson boy still leaning against one of the trees. "I don't know what my sister sees in him."

"The free booze?" Jim suggested, holding up his own bottle courtesy of the Henderson family's liquor store.

Nora shrugged, nodding in agreement after a while at a loss for any other explanation. She loved her sister dearly, but what she saw in Walter, leading to Nora having to put up with him inside their own house whenever he came to visit, was beyond her. She thought graduation and Walter and Claudia's respective future plans might have begun to fizzle out any feelings her sister had for the boy, but to Nora's dismay, all Claudia could talk about was how excited she was to one day marry Walter and start a family of their own. While a lifetime full of Walter Henderson wasn't exactly how Nora had envisioned her own future, she couldn't deny that her sister was happy, so Nora would gladly reap the benefits of the free liquor bottles from his father's store he snuck in whenever he came to visit.

"Good enough for me," Nora said, but Walter's words were still enough to give pause as the image of the man arrested for murdering his family earlier that year flashed into her mind. "I wouldn't listen to him," Nora assured Jim, knowing the boy had an all-too-close encounter of his own with the man earlier that year.

"Trust me, Nora, there's not much I do listen to Walter Henderson about," Jim reassured her, scoffing, but even in the dark, she could tell the light didn't quite meet his eyes. "But that creep's locked up in Pennhurst, where he belongs."

They found another set of stumps, just far enough from the party to have a sense of privacy while still being in range of the music crooning from the stereo in the clearing. Nora sat down while Jim took a seat next to her, and she raised her beer bottle in a sign of cheers, clinking it against his.

"To your graduation," Nora said in a form of toast, attempting to lighten the mood. "Congratulations, Hop."

Jim clinked his bottle against hers, and they each took a sip, letting a comfortable silence wash over them. The sounds of the party were still clear as day, the cheers of the athletes and laughter of the other students mixing in with the sounds of the radio, but for the first time since she'd arrived in her ploy to pretend to have one final normal night in Hawkins, Nora finally felt as if she could breathe. Although Jim sat close, the near proximity of the two tree stumps leading for their knees to rest slightly against one another, she found his presence to be calming, an escape from the worries of both her father's words and the most bizarre few months Hawkins had ever seen after the Creel family moved to town.

"It's a nice night tonight," Nora said after a while, breaking the silence as she looked up at the starry sky above them.

"Looks like it might rain," Jim added, gesturing up to where sections of clouds were interspersed between the stars before reaching into his back pocket for a cigarette and a lighter, and proceeding to light it. He took a drag of the cigarette before offering it to Nora.

"Thanks," she said, taking the cigarette from him before inhaling a drag of her own, the small flame casting a dim orange glow in the darkness. "You think so?" she asked, following his gaze back to the sky as a slight breeze blew past them, instinctively causing Nora to cross her arms over her chest to block out the wind.

"Yeah," he said, pointing to another cluster of them. "See that one over there? The clouds next to those stars that kinda look like a wonky C? They're moving in pretty fast."

Nora chuckled at his words. "Draco," she corrected him, causing his eyebrows to furrow slightly in confusion.

"Bless you?" he responded.

"No," she shook her head, laughing again as she passed him back the cigarette. "Those stars," she explained, pointing to where he'd been looking only a moment ago. "That's the constellation Draco. It's the dragon. That funky C makes up his tail, and the part that's connected is his head. See?"

Jim looked back at her with an expression she couldn't quite discern, his eyes studying her for a moment. "Do you know a lot about stars?" he asked.

Nora shrugged. "A little, I guess." she said. "My dad's always loved that kinda stuff, so when I was younger we used to go out and he showed me the ones we could see from here. It's dorky, I know."

"No," Jim assured her, shaking his head, and as he leaned forward, she couldn't miss the feeling of his shoulder now resting against hers. "You said there are others you can see from here? Show me more."

The cigarette had long burned to ash and Nora was in the middle of showing Jim her fourth constellation, Cassiopeia,  when the rain finally hit. It came down heavily in sheets, causing the other partygoers to shriek in the distance as they began to run for their cars. As for Jim, he quickly shrugged off his jacket, holding it over Nora's head as a barrier to protect from the rain as he jerked his head back in the direction of the vehicles.

"Told you," he said smugly, "C'mon," Nora followed him, the two teenagers leaping up from the tree stumps as they made a break for the cars, the rain already lessening the visibility around them as it continued to pour and soaking Nora's clothes, even though the jacket over her head.

Nora followed him to where an Oldsmobile was parked a little ways away from the rest of the vehicles, and the two of them quickly hopped inside to get out of the rain. Laughter echoed throughout the car as realization hit Nora from the predicament she'd found herself in that evening, of leaving Marcie to her own devices with Denny Harrington, Claudia off partying with the other Hawkins girls, and Nora herself now in the passenger seat of Jim Hopper's dad's Oldsmobile.

Nora looked over at the boy next to her, his dark hair dripping wet with rainwater as he looked back at her with an amused grin. "What's so funny?" he asked.

"Nothing," she shrugged off, but couldn't help it as another chuckle escaped. "I just..." she trailed off thoughtfully. "I just really needed a night like this."

He smiled softly, but it faltered as she began to shiver in her rainwater-soaked clothes. "Cold?" he asked, and she nodded.

"A little," she said, and he instantly turned the key in the ignition, the engine roaring to life as he turned the heat up. "Thanks."

"You know," he suggested. "If you're cold, we could always... sit in the backseat, instead. For the sake of preventing hypothermia, of course." he said matter-of-factly, but she couldn't help but notice the mischievous glint in his eyes.

Nora eyed the backseat briefly before looking back at Jim. At her last chance for her plan of one last, normal evening in Hawkins. And she knew that, while she didn't know when or if she'd ever see Jim Hopper again, there was nothing she wanted more.

"Well, we can't risk hypothermia." she agreed with a smirk. "Lead the way."