CHAPTER FOURTEEN
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THE POLICE STATION WAS STRANGELY quiet now, though she supposed that people would be calling in more when there were monsters running around town. But now that there was none of that, nobody going missing, nobody getting killed, there wasn't too much to do. She was back to filing a lot of papers and processing a lot of paperwork.

Which she didn't mind – tedious work like that always made the time go by pretty fast in her opinion. She had a goal and she could achieve that goal. She could work in silence or put on her headphones connected to her Walkman and listen to music while she did it.

Lexie was doing that very thing when Hopper approached the desk she was working at, looking over the moon. Flo was at the reception desk so Lexie had taken an empty one near the back by his office. She removed her headphones. He was practically giddy.

"What did you do?" she asked, looking him up and down.

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Hopper shot back defensively, yet still in a gleeful tone.

It took a few moments of her looking at him for him to crack. They stepped into his office and she sat in the chair across from his desk and he started to let loose. Why he was venting about his parenting problems to a seventeen year old girl still, not even he was sure.

"I did it," he said. "I took care of my little Mike Wheeler problem."

"Okay, what does that mean?" Lexie asked, a little bit skeptical. And a little bit scared if she was honest.

"That little shit," he began, referencing Mike, of course.

"Who I know you wouldn't kill," Lexie interjected, raising her eyebrows and remembering their previous conversation. Hopper scoffed like it still wasn't out of the question.

"I talked to Joyce and she gave me a, uh, script, kind of thing," he explained. "About how to talk to them both, set respectful boundaries, all that crap. But then the little shit starts whispering to her and I maybe said some things I shouldn't have said."

"Why are you so worried about this?" Lexie asked, truly fearing the worst at this point.

"I lied about his Nana," Hopper confessed, nodding like he was reminding himself that he had truly done it. Almost like he was convincing himself that the ends surely had to justify his means.

"You lied about his Nana?" she repeated, tilting her head in confusion. "What do you mean you lied about his Nana?"

Then Hopper proceeded to explain how, once he had gotten Mike outside and into the car under the pretense that something was very wrong with his Nana, things had blown up from there. Mike had quickly figured out that it was a lie and tried to leave the car, but not before Hopper locked him in. Repeatedly.

And maybe, maybe, he had taken the theatrics a little too far when Mike had called him crazy.

"But it worked," he finished, nodding to himself a little and leaning back in his chair. "Oh, it worked."

     Lexie was silent and debating on whether she should laugh or tell him that maybe he didn't need to scare the living hell out of a teenager.

"Is that part of the script Joyce gave you?" she finally questioned, smiling to herself a little bit. "She told you to tell him that his grandma might be dying and lock him in your car? To threaten him?"

By the end of her sentence, she was trying to hold back the strong urge she had to laugh hysterically at the situation. She could only imagine what Mike looked like right about now.

"I took some liberties," Hopper replied, shrugging, but still happy with himself. Lexie started laughing now and shook her head. "I don't need your judgment, Lexie, really I don't."

He was saying it in a joking way, and was the same when he got out of his set and practically lifted her out of hers by the arms.

"Get back to your job," he teased as she continued to laugh.

"Actually, I'm off, and you need to do your job," she realized as she glanced down at her watch to check the time. It was an earlier shift, and now it was about midday so Flo would be fine for the rest of the day. "Chief."

"Okay, okay, get out of here."

He supposed this is what he deserved for asking a teenager for parenting advice.

__________

Lexie was stopping at home, dropping off her headphones, Walkman, and a few other things she had brought to the station just in case she needed to pass the time. She grabbed her bag that she usually carried with her everywhere and shoved her book inside. From downstairs, she could hear the front door open and a few voices sound out from below.

Both her mother and Iris were at work at the bakery and she honestly wasn't sure where Emily was, so that's who she assumed had entered. All summer, Emily had spent pretty much every waking moment with her friends and when she wasn't doing that she was writing a letter to Dustin at camp or something of that nature.

Lexie went down the stairs and found Emily, Max, and El standing in the foyer. "Hey, guys," she greeted, looking around for the rest of the group. Usually if there were a few of them, the rest were not far behind. "Where are the boys?"

"We don't know and we don't care," Max replied matter of factly and looked back at El and Emily. "Right?"

"Right," El agreed, nodding with certainty.

"Yeah," Emily added, with a little bit less certainty.

Lexie shrugged and reached the bottom of the stairs, double checking to make sure she had her house keys in her bag before she left. She couldn't really argue with that.

"Hey, is Steve around?" Max asked, looking around like he was going to pop out of a corner or from behind the curtains or something. Lexie furrowed her brows.

"No?" she replied. "You know he lives next door, right?"

"Yeah, but he's here like all the time," Emily said with a simple shrug. She turned to El and Max. "Like all the time. I thought it would be more likely to find him here first. 'Cause he's here like all –"

"I get it," Lexie interjected, rolling her eyes at her sister playfully. "Why do you need Steve?"

"The mall," El told her simply, like that answered the whole thing.

"We're going to the mall," Max elaborated decidedly.

"And he's got a car," Emily chimed in.

"Well, I'm also going to the mall, but Steve's at the mall, so you're out of luck," Lexie answered simply, shrugging back at them like Emily had shrugged at her.

Max and Emily groaned, knowing that they would all have to take the bus there, which was a marginally less enjoyable experience than just driving there. El stood there, looking at the others cluelessly, probably just happy to have a reason to go somewhere. She didn't spend too much time going out and doing things, and Lexie wasn't sure Hopper was even okay with her being there now. But what he didn't know couldn't hurt him. She thought the girl deserved a little bit of a break.

"Whatever, we don't need a car," Max said, opening the door for El and Max to leave through. She grabbed Lexie's wrist and ushered her through the door and followed after her.

The bus it would have to be.

__________

The bus ride to the mall suddenly felt longer than it usually did. Usually, she had a book that she could read or music that she could listen to on the way and it made the time fly. Now, all she had was Max rapidly explaining to her why they were strictly ignoring Mike specifically. Lucas just so happened to be part of the Mike equation at the moment, so naturally he was included. It was intended to be a day without boys.

"So of course we had to take El to the mall," Emily was explaining as well, noting that they had missed her at the movies the night before so of course now they were making up for that. "Lexie's always at the mall, though, because she's in love with Steve."

"Whoa," Lexie said, trying not to turn bright red at the accusation. Not that the children's impression of whatever it was she felt for Steve exactly mattered, she felt embarrassed nonetheless. "Not true."

She was sitting behind her with Max while El took the seat next to Lexie. El was watching the interaction with a growing grin. Lexie turned to look back at Emily, who also had a growing smile on her face and wide eyes.

"Lexie, are you kidding?" she asked in disbelief.

"No, I am not!" Lexie shot back, ready to climb over her seat and press her hand over her sister's mouth so she would stop talking. Emily leaned back in her seat casually as if she was satisfied with her reaction.

"You'll admit it someday."

"And maybe that someday is the day that I kill you," Lexie threatened, mostly joking but also now understanding where Hopper was coming from in a new light. Maybe Emily and Mike could have graves next door to each other.

"Hey, you could do worse," Max assured her, like that was even the source of her potential embarrassment. Lexie was about ready to put her face in her hands. "Way worse."

__________

"Have fun, you guys," Lexie called out to the girls as she made her way into the mall herself. As much as she loved them, their line of questioning had only gotten more direct after that. So she was very ready to set them loose and let them do what they wanted while she did her own thing.

She walked her normal path to Scoops Ahoy and found Steve there, as expected, working the counter by himself. He was scooping two cones of ice cream and handed them to a pair of girls, telling them to have a good day. They walked away from the counter with their cones and Lexie came up to their spot, Steve looking at her in near relief.

"Lex, thank god you're here," he said, gesturing his scooper toward the back room. "You're smart." He said it not as a question, and not as a full sentence, leaving her confused.

"I guess so? You're smart too," she said, unsure of what problem he could've run into during his shift scooping ice cream.

Before he could say anything else to her, the window behind him slid open and Robin poked her head through it with a smile on her face. A legitimate smile, and Lexie was hoping that maybe it was a good day.

"We've got our first sentence," she announced proudly.

"Oh, seriously?" Steve asked, turning to look back at her.

"The week is long," Robin answered, in an exaggerated fake Russian accent. Honestly, Lexie was even more confused than she was before. Robin's eyes landed on her. "Hey, are you here to help?"

"Help?" she inquired, looking between Steve and Robin hoping that someone would explain something soon.

"She doesn't know?" Robin asked Steve, like she should've known whatever it was immediately.

"She just got here," Steve defended, looking back toward Lexie before adding, "I was gonna tell you."

"Well, then, do it," Robin said before leaning back and closing the window.

Steve rolled his eyes and leaned closer to her over the counter like he was going to tell her a secret. And when he did that, she was trying to act like her palms weren't sweating.

"Dustin may have intercepted a Russian communication on his radio," he explained quietly, eyes darting back and forth to make sure that nobody else heard. "We're going to be American heroes."

"Uh...Russian communication? Why do you need to be American heroes?" Lexie asked, not really understanding the need to get involved with, well, any of it. After the year before, she was pretty much ready to keep her nose out of all the business that wasn't hers. This felt like something that wasn't her business.

"The ladies love a good American hero," he answered simply, smirking at her. She tried rolling her eyes as playfully as possible, stepping back a little bit so he wasn't nearly as close anymore.

     "Well, I don't need an American hero," she said, casting her eyes to the side and trying not to feel that weird feeling in her stomach that was becoming customary.

     At the exact moment that she was beginning to overanalyze every single expression on his face, a loud giggle rang out behind her. She turned around only to find Emily, Max, and El standing there, El with a brand new outfit. Had they really shopped that fast?

     "Don't worry, we just came here for the ice cream," Emily assured her. "Not to watch you make googly eyes at Steve all day."

     "Oh my god," she muttered, ducking her head down and failing to hide her blush. "You know what? I think that secret Russian communication doesn't sound that bad after all, maybe."

     Before any of them could say anything else, or at least before she could hear them say it, Lexie pushed the door open and entered the back room of Scoops Ahoy. She had been back there a few times because Steve had let her, but there wasn't much too look at.

     Dustin and Robin sat around a table with a small book and a tape recorder. When she entered the room, Dustin looked up from the recorder and his eyes lit up. He jumped up from his seat and charged Lexie, giving her a huge hug.

     "Lexie!" he exclaimed. She grinned and squeezed him tightly.

     "It's been quiet without you around, Dustin," she smiled, ruffling the hat on his head around a little bit. "In a bad way, like way too quiet." He nodded along like it was obvious.

     "Those other shits ditched me, Lexie," Dustin explained, gesturing vaguely to mean the rest of his friends. "But little did they know, I picked up a secret Russian communication." He made his way back to the table and pointed at the things on it.

     "So I've heard," she said, noticing that Robin's 'you suck' board was pinned to the wall with the Russian alphabet on it.

     "My data was destroyed, tragically," Robin pointed out, sighing but she seemed glad to be doing something other than scooping ice cream.

     "Yeah, what a tragedy," Lexie agreed, though she sounded like she didn't mean it at all. That was where she kept track of how many girls Steve struck out with, and she could go without knowing, personally.

     The funny thing was she knew he was over Nancy at this point, but he seemed to be into practically every girl in Hawkins that wasn't her. How was that for luck? But every time she put a new mark on the board, Lexie just tried her best to laugh along with it but also encourage Steve to get out there if that was what he wanted.

     "So you've got a sentence?" she asked, taking a seat at the table with the other two, looking down at the book on the table. It was a translation guide.

     "We've got a sentence," Robin grinned.
Lexie smiled back at her.

     "Well, if you've got one, it shouldn't be hard to get another."