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“Is this your first time in the city?”
Joyce shakes her head, giving her driver a small smile through the rearview mirror.
“My son lives here,” she says excitedly. “He’s an artist.”
The man gives her a nod. Stops asking her questions, suddenly more interested in the news playing on the radio.
It’s fine. She likes the quiet, too.
Truth is, she has only been to New York City once, and she never really got the lay of the land. She’d still been married to Lonnie and heavily pregnant with Jonathan at the time. He’d convinced her to take some time off work, wanted to show her the lights at Time Square. Make memories, he’d said. She chuckles under her breath at the thought. The weekend had ended with Lonnie disappearing and leaving a very annoyed and very anxious Joyce alone in their hotel room, calling around the bars to see if her husband was there.
This time, though, she’s not here for lights or sightseeing or anyone’s half-hearted attempt at failing romance.
She’s here for her boy.
Her taxi finally jerks to the curb in front of a narrow brick building that looks like it’s held its ground for a solid century, stoic between two glossy high-rises. She hefts her bag onto her shoulder, tells the driver to keep the change after she hands him a ten, and squints up at the fire escape zig-zagging along the building’s face. Will had told her ‘We’re on the fourth floor. It’s a walk-up. Sorry, mom, the elevator is broken,’ like he thought that would deter her plans on staying with them. As if she hadn’t spent so much of her life climbing stairs with a baby on her hip.
Inside, the stairwell is dim and tight. It echoes with the sound of radio from another apartment. Joyce climbs, her breath catching only a little. She pauses at the landing to collect herself, smooth her hair, straighten her coat. She wants to look composed. Or at least mom-composed, which is usually still pretty disheveled and slightly less tired.
When she reaches the door labeled 4B, she hears a voice inside. Mike’s, low and rambling like he’s narrating something unnecessarily complicated. Will is so much quieter, she thinks fondly. Still gentle when he speaks. Adulthood never really quite carved it out of him. Joyce knocks, and there’s a sudden shuffling inside, a thump she recognizes instantly (that’s Mike, tripping over something), followed by a breathless, “I’ve got it! I’ve got - Will, don’t move - okay, I’ve got it-”
The door swings open.
Mike fills the doorway, somehow taller every time she sees him, hair still a mess despite clearly having tried to tame it. His face splits into a grin the second he sees her. Bright, earnest, a little frantic, like he’s been preparing for this moment all morning.
“Joyce! Hi! You made it! Did you, um, find it okay? Was the taxi okay? You took a yellow cab, right? The unmarked ones are kinda scammy-”
She laughs, warmth blooming in her chest. “Hi, Mike.”
And then Will appears behind him, one hand resting instinctively over the swell of his belly. He looks tired but glowing in that unmistakable way. Her Will, her baby, except he’s standing here in his apartment, with his separate life across the country, a baby of his own inside him, with someone who loves him as fiercely as Joyce herself does. It makes her breathless.
“Mom,” Will says, smiling wide and teary-eyed in that way he gets when he’s trying not to be emotional. “You’re finally here!”
Joyce steps forward, cupping his face, kissing his forehead like she’s done since he was small. God, it’s been too long. Since February, when they’d showed up at her doorstep, unable to keep the news off their tongues.
“Of course I’m here, sweetie.” She looks at him, her thumb caressing his cheek. “Wouldn’t miss spending time with you for the world.”
Mike moves aside to let her in, hovering like he’s worried she’ll judge the apartment. A ridiculous thought, honestly. Surely after all these years, her son-in-law must know her better than that. Really, Joyce is already charmed. The place smells like rosemary and coffee. A quilt she recognizes from their house back in Hawkins is draped over the back of the couch. There are photos pinned on a corkboard near the kitchen. Jonathan and Nancy’s wedding. Will’s sketches. Mike’s scribbled grocery lists. A sonogram picture tacked right in the center.
Joyce’s throat goes tight.
“Well,” she says, clearing it, “It’s-” She pauses. “You have a beautiful home, boys.”
Will laughs, leaning into Mike while he beams, steadying a hand at the small of Will’s back. Proud as Joyce has ever seen him. They look so young and sweet and hopeful. She thinks of city lights and a version of herself from a long time ago, starry eyed and easily impressed.
“It’s not much,” Will says, a bit bashful. “It’s what we can afford while Mike’s still finishing up school.”
Joyce looks at Mike, who suddenly seems really shy. “Here,” he says. “Let me take your bag. I’ll put it in the bedroom, yeah?”
Will’s eyes stay on Mike’s back as he disappears behind a sliding darkwood door. When he’s gone, he looks back at her, an apologetic smile on his face.
“Sorry. He’s been weird about not, like…” He pauses. Trying to choose his words. His hand rubs little circles against his stomach. “I guess, providing as much as he’d like? Alpha stuff, y’know?” Says it like a question, but Joyce understands well enough. Ah, she thinks to herself. A sore spot, then.
If only Mike knew how much he does in fact provide for Will. In every way that matters.
“It’s okay, honey,” she says. She takes his hand, the one not resting on his middle. Squeezes it. She sighs deeply. Still feels like she’s bubbling over with too many emotions. “You look good,” she whispers.
“You too,” Will tells her.
“Have you been eating?”
Will rolls his eyes. “Mom.”
“I know how you get when you’re busy, and you’ve been very busy.” Growing life. Illustrating comics. Being a husband. “You’ve been working hard. You both have.”
“I eat plenty,” Will says, grinning. “Mike makes sure of that.”
“Let me cook you guys something.”
“Mom, seriously-”
“Did someone say something about food?” Mike calls out from the next room over. Joyce hears something falling, followed by a muttered, “Shit, was this already broken?”
“Yes,” she calls back. “I did. And before you say anything, I’m mom. It’s my job to feed you.”
Mike reappears, hands empty, looking relieved and worried all at once. “I mean, we ate breakfast not too long ago,” he says quickly, then winces like he’s said the wrong thing. “Not that- not that you can’t cook. Obviously. You’re amazing. I just-”
“Mike,” Joyce says gently, and he stills instantly, still so much like a kid. “Honey. Sit down.”
Will snorts. “Good luck.”
Mike sticks his tongue out at him, does as Joyce says anyway, perching on the edge of the kitchen chair while she starts poking around their cabinets with the ease of a woman who raised two boys on a single income and a prayer. Feels like she’s a ball of nervous energy. Needs to get it all out somehow, busying herself with something. The kitchen is small but well loved and lived-in. Spices labeled in Mike’s careful handwriting. Will’s sketchbook tucked beside the fruit bowl. Natal vitamins next to the sink.
Joyce hums under her breath. “I’ll just make something simple. Pasta, maybe. You’ve got garlic? Oh, thank God.”
“You don’t have to, mom, seriously.” Despite his protests, Will settles beside Mike. Eases himself down with a little sigh and winces. Joyce clocks it immediately.
“You alright?” Joyce asks.
“Yeah,” Will says. “She’s just been kicking all day.”
Mike’s head snaps up. “She has? Since when?”
“Since before you woke up, which was quite late this morning, Wheeler,” Will teases.
Joyce busies herself filling a pot with water, giving them space. She lets herself steal glimpses of them. Mike reaches for Will’s hand without looking, thumb brushing over his knuckles like it’s second nature. Will squeezes back, leaning into him. It’s all very sweet and easy.
Alpha stuff, huh?
She watches as Mike pulls him close. Tells Will something in his ear that makes his cheeks pink, planting a kiss on his temple.
“So, you’ll have to show me around,” she says, in the middle of starting the sauce. “I want to know what your lives are like in the big city.”
“Obviously Will wants to take you to as many art museums as possible,” Mike says cheekily.
“I do.” Will smirks. “And maybe the park, if the weather’s nice.”
“We’ll have to bundle you up.” Mike says it automatically, already half in hover mode, thumb brushing over Will’s wrist.
“I’m pregnant, not made of glass,” Will scoffs, fondly offended. “It’s like, barely September.”
“No,” Mike agrees. “But you’re really stubborn.”
Joyce laughs, stirring the sauce. “That much hasn’t changed, then.”
There’s a warmth blooming inside her. Feels better than a million city lights.
The three of them have lunch and eventually migrate to what Will calls the study. Joyce has to smile at the name. The room is barely big enough for the desk shoved against the window and the sagging loveseat pressed into the opposite wall. Sketches are taped everywhere. Will’s work in various stages, charcoal smudges and soft colors layered over one another. A narrow bookshelf bows under the weight of art books and paperbacks with cracked spines.
“It’s where the magic happens,” Will says, lowering himself onto the loveseat with an exhale.
“And where the existential dread lives,” Mike adds, but he follows Will down, tucking himself into the corner and immediately offering his shoulder.
Joyce pours herself a small glass of wine from the bottle Mike brought out. It’s expensive looking with a gold label, which tells her he agonized over the choice. She settles into the desk chair, spinning it slightly so she can see them both.
The conversation is honey-slow. They talk about Jonathan and Nancy’s photos from Japan. Hopper and El’s frequent camping trips to Alaska, the new house they all moved into. About the neighbor downstairs who plays the same jazz record every night at ten. About Will’s next job and Mike’s workshop professor who keeps assigning stories about monsters.
Familiar territory, then, Joyce had said. Maybe the wrong thing. Her son’s eyes going wide, Mike getting quiet.
It slows down even more as the minutes stretch on. During a particularly long lull, Will’s head tips, resting against Mike’s shoulder. Mike doesn’t move, just adjusts, arm curling more securely around him. His hand settles over Will’s stomach, thumb moving in slow, absent arcs. Will’s breathing evens out. His mouth falls slightly open, lashes fanning dark against the arch of his cheek.
“He’s out,” Mike whispers, smiling down at him.
“He’s been growing a whole person,” Joyce says softly. “That’ll do it.”
Mike nods, but he doesn’t look away. He presses a kiss to Will’s hair, gentle, tender.
Makes Joyce ache all over again.
He’s got beautiful eyes. Same color as dark chocolate. This boy she’s watched grow up has become a man, her son’s whole life. No longer the kid who biked up to her house with scraped knees and a big mouth. Not the teenager who hovered anxiously at Will’s bedside, either, when…when the terrible things were happening. Christmas lights. Vines. So many years of constant sorrow.
She takes another sip of her wine. Clears her throat.
“Mike,” she says quietly.
He looks up, immediately alert. “Yeah?”
“You’re scared,” she says. It’s not an accusation.
At first, she thinks he’s going to deny it. Shakes his head, but ultimately he lets out a small, humorless breath. “Yeah.”
“Hm.” She takes another sip.
“I keep thinking,” he continues, lowering his voice even more, “that I’m going to mess everything up. That I won’t know what to do. Or that I’ll know exactly what not to do and still somehow do it anyway.”
“Why do you think that?”
She can’t wrap her mind around it. This strong figure protected her son from the moment they met on a playground so long ago. Kept him safe, still does. She has flashes of them in a hospital. Mike covering his ears as Will screamed. Of him at thirteen trying to carry her to Jonathan’s car after Bob had died. So brave. It’s laughable that he’d feel different.
“Um.” Mike hesitates again. He opens his mouth before closing it. “Did Will ever tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
”The things we saw when we were- y’know.” Mike swallows. His arms tighten around Will. “In the upside down for the last time.”
Joyce finds herself refilling her wine glass. Takes a bigger gulp, downs half of it right away. The truth is, after all the mess, they’d been content to keep the past folded away, discarded. Will hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Neither had Jonathan. Neither had Joyce. It’s been over ten years. Feels even longer.
“I know some of it,” she says quietly, fingers in front of her mouth. “Will said that he’d saved you when you came out.”
Mike nods. His jaw clenches. “He did more than save me. He saved the world. But, there were things,” he says. “Things that happened that still scare me to this day. Vecna had this way of showing us our biggest fears.”
Joyce stays silent. She watches the way his thumb traces the same small shape over Will’s arm, over and over. A grounding ritual.
“I guess it knew my fears really well. It showed me Will, uh, dying.” He says it with a broken face, expression crumbling like it kills him to say it. “I still think about it, sometimes. I get scared. I couldn’t save him that night, and I worry that-”
“Mike.”
“I worry that it’ll happen again, and now we’re going to have a baby, and what if I-”
“Sweetie, listen to me,” Joyce says gently, reaching out to squeeze Mike’s knee. “I get it, okay?”
Mike sniffs. He stares at her, gaze dark, gleaming in the fading daylight. Joyce leans forward.
“It’s normal.” As normal as their situation can be, anyway. “Vecna is dead. The world is still here. You’re both still here, too, and you’re doing amazing.”
“Will’s amazing,” he corrects. “He works, finds time for me, is carrying our baby that I put in him, and what do I have to show for it?”
Joyce blushes. Wants to tell him that it takes two to tango, but decides against it.
“Let me tell you something,” she says. “When Will was little, Lonnie thought providing meant money and empty promises. And when things got hard, he disappeared.”
Mike makes a wounded sound. “I’d never leave him.”
“You,” Joyce continues, “you’re present, Mike. You listen. You show up. You know how to make a home.”
Mike’s eyes shine wet. He blinks hard, a familiar tell.
“And you didn’t fail Will,” she continues softly. “You saved him. Again and again, all throughout his life.”
Joyce can see it in the way his shoulders sag, like he’s finally setting down something heavy he’s been carrying for years.
“I just want to get it right,” he says, voice steadier now. “For him. For the baby. I don’t want them to ever doubt that they’re taken care of.”
“Taken care of doesn’t only mean money, Mike.”
He exhales, rubbing his thumb over Will’s sleeve. “I know. I know. Still.” He shrugs helplessly. “I need to make money so I can properly spoil my two princesses, that’s all.”
“I have no doubt you’re going to be writing the New York Time’s next bestseller.”
They both share a quiet laugh.
Will stirs against Mike, making little sounds of protest, brow furrowing. Mike immediately stills, murmuring something soothing under his breath. Will relaxes again, hand curling into Mike’s shirt.
Outside, the city lights have turned on, finally. They bleed into this tiny apartment, shining gold and red and blue. They sit a little longer in the dim study. Joyce finishes her wine. Mike shuts his eyes, the side of his face pressed to the top of Will’s head, the calmest Joyce has seen him since she’s arrived.
“They’re happy,” she tells her husband later that night, phone receiver plastic pressed to her cheek. “Jim. They’re really, really happy.”
There’s a pause on the other end of the line, the familiar sound of him shifting. “Yeah?” he says, gruff but warm. “That good, huh?”
“They’re better than good. Oh, you have to come with me next time I visit. Their apartment is so cute.” She leans back against the guest room pillows. “I’m so glad I came. Will is tired but he’s absolutely glowing, and Mike. God, Jim. He looks at Will like he’s hung the stars and moon in the sky. I mean, he’s always been that way, but it’s like, tenfold now.”
Hopper chuckles. “Kid was always intense.”
“In the best way,” Joyce agrees. “He takes such good care of him. Of both of them.”
There’s a comfortable quiet for a moment.
“So,” Hopper says eventually. “You ask if they’ve picked a name yet?”
Joyce hums. “No. I didn’t want to pry. Feels like something they should keep to themselves for a little while longer.”
“Fair,” Hopper says. “You get the sense they’ve got one?”
“I think so,” Joyce says softly. “The way they talk. Like they’re already speaking to her.”
They speak a little longer. Eleven and Max are looking at places to move next month, and soon, they’ll be real empty nesters. Again, that familiar tug is back in the pit of her stomach. She says goodbye not long after, promising to call again soon, and slips the phone back on the hook.
As she gets comfortable, her throat starts to itch. Isn’t used to talking so much anymore. Needs to grab herself a glass of water. She pads quietly down the hall toward the kitchen. She stops just short of the doorway.
Mike and Will are still awake on the couch in the living room, lights low. Will is half-curled into Mike’s side, blanket tucked around him, Mike’s arm draped securely over his shoulders. Will murmurs something Joyce can’t quite hear, voice soft and sleepy, and Mike answers just as quietly, forehead pressed to Will’s.
“-me too,” Mike says. “So much.”
Joyce smiles, unseen. She’s about to turn back when Mike speaks again, his voice dropping even lower.
“Hey,” he murmurs, hand sliding down to rest over Will’s stomach. His thumb moves in slow, gentle circles. “You were busy today, huh?”
Will makes a quiet, whiny sound. “She’s been kicking nonstop.”
Mike huffs a soft laugh. “I felt it.” He leans down, presses his lips lightly to the curve of Will’s belly. “Hey, Lydia. It’s okay. You can rest now.”
Joyce’s breath catches.
“She’s got your rebellious streak,” Will whispers.
“Yeah,” Mike says, smiling in his voice. “Lucky girl.”
Joyce steps back before she’s noticed, heart full to the point of bursting. She returns to the guest room without the water, not trusting herself to not make a sound.
She sits on the bed again, hands folded in her lap, blinking fast.
She lets the name settle into her bones and smiles, quiet and grateful, as the apartment hums gently around her. She thinks of calling Hop back. Instead, she gets back into bed, pulling the covers up to her shoulders. Tomorrow they’re going to Brooklyn for pizza, then the MoMa. She’s got a disposable camera in her bag she’s got to use the film up for. She should get some sleep.
It’s going to be the best week ever.