Jim Hopper wasn’t exactly a man who trusted easily. Years on the force, too many bodies in his case files, and the haunting silence of his own home life had left him with a wall around his heart thicker than the brick walls of the Hawkins police station. But that was before you walked in.

You weren’t a cop — far from it. You were the town’s troubled youth manager, the one they called when the schools had a kid they didn’t know what to do with. Your office wasn’t much: peeling posters about “staying in school,” a dented desk with coffee rings, and a couch that had seen better days. But for a lot of those kids, it was the safest place in town.

Hopper had seen you before in passing — usually at the station when you were picking up some teenager who’d been caught spray-painting the abandoned mill or skipping school. You always had this calm way about you, even when the kid was spitting insults and refusing to walk out the door. Hopper didn’t know whether it was patience or stubbornness that kept you steady, but either way, it got his attention.

The first time you actually worked together was when one of your kids, sixteen-year-old Danny Moore, went missing. Hopper was already on edge — missing kids in Hawkins never led to anything good. You were at the station when he came in, pacing, phone in hand.

“Moore’s been acting strange lately,” you explained, voice low but steady. “Skipping school. Hanging with older kids. I think he’s in trouble, Hop.”

Hopper noticed you didn’t say Officer Hopper like most people. Somehow, he didn’t mind.

The two of you spent hours driving through backroads, checking the rusted-out trailer parks and half-abandoned motels. You told him about Danny’s past, about the fights he’d been in, the family who barely noticed when he came home late. Hopper listened more than he talked, something he rarely did with anyone.

When you finally found Danny — cold, scared, hiding under the bleachers behind the high school — Hopper watched the way you knelt down, speaking to him like an equal, not a problem to be solved. No threats, no lectures. Just a quiet, steady voice that somehow got the kid to come out.

Later that night, when the paperwork was done and the kid was safe, Hopper found you leaning against your car outside the station.

“Thanks for sticking with it,” you said, hands in your pockets. “Not a lot of people in this town care enough to look twice at kids like him.”

Hopper shrugged, but there was a flicker in his eyes. “Not a lot of people fight for them like you do.”