A/N Well this story is something I've been thinking about for a while. And I thought I'd finally make it happen. I hope you all enjoy the story. It begins shortly before season 1 starts. I really hope to take this story all the way to season 2 ( I already have some of it mapped out in my head), but we'll see how this goes. As always thanks for reading and if you can review!

She's a Rainbow

She comes in colors ev'rywhere/She combs her hair/She's like a rainbow/Coming, colors in the air
Oh, everywhere/She comes in colors -The Rolling Stones

Kathy Martin was currently sitting in her 1977 yellow Jeep hoping that a sinkhole would open up and carry her down with it. With her head on the steering wheel Kathy took deep breaths in and out singing along to a song playing on the radio hoping to calm her nerves. Today was Kathy's first day at her new school, in her new town, in her new life. Currently, everything was a little too new for Kathy's taste. Not that it mattered to any one but her. Did her family ask her if she would like to move to a new state and start school halfway through her first semester of junior year?

With a groan Kathy took the key out of the ignition and sat back in the driver's seat. She leaned over to the passenger seat and grabbed her backpack and put it on her lap. Closing her eyes she took one last deep breath and opened the door. Getting out of the car Kathy gently closed her door and looked at the front entrance of the school. She smoothed out her Kinks t-shirt and scuffed her Keds on the pavement. "Here we go"

Kathy gripped her backpack strap tighter as she maneuvered her way through the sea of people in the halls. Taking her schedule out of the back pocket of her jeans Kathy looked for her locker number until she was able to see it. Walking slowly and carefully through the hallway Kathy made her way until she was finally able to locate her locker. She put in the combination to open the locker but aggravatingly found that it wouldn't open. As she tried to struggle open the stubborn locker door she felt a tap on her shoulder.

"You have to push it up and then pull the door open"

Kathy looked up to see a girl with short red hair and a kind face. Doing as she was advised Kathy was able to open the door. "You're a lifesaver, thank you." At that comment the girl smile brightened and she stuck out her hand "I'm Barbara". Grasping her hand she gave it friendly shake "Kathy".

As Kathy put some books into her locker Barbara leaned against her own locker. "You're new here right?"

Kathy gave a breathy laugh and turned to look at Barbara "What gave it away?" Closing her locker door Kathy took out her schedule to look at her classes. Barbara stuck out her hand and Kathy gave her the schedule. Scanning her eyes over the paper Barbara smiled "You have two classes with me. Your first class is right around the corner" The bell rang and Barbara quickly handed her back the schedule. "I'll see you later!"

"Bye, and thanks again!" Kathy looked back down at her schedule and looked at all her classes. It looked like standard classes and Kathy was getting ready to head to her first class when she noticed what her last period was- photo. Photo? Kathy couldn't take a decent picture to save her life, let alone be expected to develop one. She shook her head and started walking to her first class and decided that was one problem she would put off until the last minute.

Most of Kathy's day went by in a repetitive blur. All her teachers had her stand in the front of her class and introduce herself. By her third class, Kathy had figured out a speech that she could repeat to all of her other classes. "Hi, I'm Kathy. I'm from Reseda, California and I'm really excited to be here at Hawkins". Most noticeably most of her classmates paid little attention to her and most if not all managed to roll their eyes when she said she was excited to be here.

It wasn't until lunch rolled around that Kathy started to actually feel really alone. She hadn't seen Barbara and she really didn't want to appear too clingy. So this left Kathy with only one option-eating lunch in her car. With one of her personal mixtapes playing in the car, Kathy reclined her seat and laid down. Humming quietly to It Ain't Easy by David Bowie, she picked up her trapper keeper and opened it to see pictures of her friends taped inside the binder. Lynn, Grace, Johnny, and Kathy were spread throughout the binder smiling and reminding her of were she wasn't.

Kathy sat up and turned down the radio. This wasn't Kathy, she was a vibrant, optimistic, and caring person. If her friends could see her now, they would tell her to 'man the hell up and embrace your new life'. Starting now that was exactly what Kathy was going to do. Glancing at her watch Kathy grabbed her backpack and headed to her next class. Unfortunately for Kathy her new outlook on life was about to be tested. Her procrastion towards her photo class was no longer an option.

As she walked into the class she noticed that there were only a couple of other students there and most of them just looked like they were ready to get the hell out of there. Kathy took a seat in the back and hoped that she wouldn't be required to do anything to difficult on her first day. The teacher, who looked just as tired, if not more, than the rest of the class spoke in a long exasperating way.

"Alright class. Today we are going to be developing the film that we have been working on. This will be a precursor to the final semester project that will count for half of your grade in the class so start finalizing your ideas. Get to work."

Kathy apprehensively looked around and wondered what the hell she was going to do. As the rest of the class grabbed their film and walked into the dark room Kathy walked up to the teacher in hopes of trying to figure out something that would help her not fail this class.

"Excuse me Mr. Thompson?"

Without looking up at her he continued to sort through some paperwork. "Yes?"

Biting her lip Kathy then continued "You see it's my first day Mr. Thompson so I was wondering if I could possible for me to get another project to work on, or at least an extension-"

"What did you say your name was?"

"I didn't. My names Kathy and-"

"Listen Kitty,"

"Kathy"

Mr. Thompson looked up at Kathy "Kate, if I give you a different assignment than the rest of the class that would just make things harder for me. That means another rubric, coming up with another assignment, you chose this class for a reason right?"

"Well, actually-"

"So you see my point Karen. Here. You take this film and you practice developing some pictures. You still have the rest of the semester to figure out what you want your project to be. That's the best I can do. Get to work".

Kathy took the film rolls and walked into the dark room with frustration. Most of the students were already a quarter of the way done with developing their pictures. Looking around to see if anyone would give her some direction she found no one. Kathy walked up to a girl leaning over a sink filling up a container as said "Do you know what I'm supposed to do with these?"

The girl looked up at Kathy like she had grown another head. Speaking slowly, as if Kathy had a problem understanding simply concepts, she said "You have to open them first. You go into that room and open them and put them into a canister." She pointed at circular canister on a shelf and then pointed at the door. " Biting her tongue so she wouldn't say something she would regret later she muttered a quick "Thanks" and walked away.

As she walked away Kathy heard her say "What and airhead" Her blood now boiling Kathy walked up to the door. Quickly, she noticed that the door was closed she knocked on the door.

"One second!"

Kathy noticed the door open and she walked into the pitch black room. How the hell was she supposed to do anything in the dark? Blindly walking to a corner of the room she felt around until she felt a table to put the film rolls and canister down. What was she supposed to do now?

As the minutes ticked by Kathy blindly waited around willing her mind to somehow come up with what to do.

"Are you- are you almost done?"

Startled Kathy jumped and managed to knock over one on the film rolls.

"Are you alright?"

Stumbling in the dark on her knees she tried to find the fallen film roll. "No- Yes! I'm fine. It's just so damn dark in here I forgot anyone else was in here. Sorry." Finding the film roll she carefully stood back up and placed it back on the table.

It took a beat for the other person to reply before they asked a question. "Is it fine if I open the door now then?"

Kathy thought for a second. She hadn't even done whatever the hell she was supposed to do in here. She could try asking for help again, what could go wrong? Well, besides the fact that she was in a pitch black room alone with a stranger- a guy stranger by the sound of the voice.

"Actually, I was wondering if you could tell me exactly what I'm supposed to do in here?"

There was a long pause that made Kathy a bit nervous that she was going to be called an airhead again. Assuming that was going to be the way that the conversation was going to go she spoke as the same time as the stranger.

"Nevermind-"

"What do you mean-"

They both paused. "Sorry" they both managed out.

Kathy took a breath "Look, I'm just- I'm new here and I have no idea how to take a decent picture let alone how to develop film! I just, I didn't even get to sign up for classes this is just what they gave me. And I'm not an airhead I swear, I just have no idea what i'm doing and a little help would be nice. So will you help me so that you can save me from making more of a fool of myself?"

Kathy searched the darkness hoping that whoever the person in the room with her was going to give her a break and help her out.

"How many rolls of film do you have?"

"Two"

"I'm going to walk over to you and i'll show you what you have to do."

Kathy stuck her arm out in hopes of figuring out where the other person was. When her hand touched his chest she immediately drew her hand back. "Um".

"Where is your film?"

She, against her better judgment, reached out her hand and was able to find his hand. She led him to the desk and put the film rolls in his hand. "First you have to open it. You use this to open the lid like you would a can" He grabbed Kathy's hand and put the opener in his hand. When she was done she handed it back to him. " You keep that one I have another one. This way you can open up one for yourself. "

Kathy nodded just to realize that he couldn't see her. "Thank you"

"Now open the can and carefully take out the film roll. Do you have a canister?"

"Yeah I have one."

"Ok, now you have to wrap the film around the canister. Make sure that it's not bunched up and you should be fine."

Kathy blindly tried to wrap the film into the canister but she was struggling to get it wrapped around.

"Here"

Guiding her hands he showed her how to wrap the film around the canister. "Now just keep doing that until you get to the end and then cover the canister and you're done"

Kathy finished wrapping around her film and smiled to herself. "I did it!" Kathy tried to fight the urge to run up and hug him like she would with any of her other friends.

"That wasn't so hard right?"

"No, thank you so much really."

"Its- don't worry about it"

The door suddenly opened on them and Kathy had to put her hand in front of her face to shield her eyes from the harshness of the light. "Hey airhead and freak class is over now"

Kathy, clenching her first, took a deep breath to steady her nerves and not talk back to the girl.

When the girl left them Kathy was the first to walk out of the room. She waited so that she could see who had helped her out.

Timidly, a tall, attractive, shaggy haired brunette guy walked out of the room. It looked as if he was trying to look anywhere but at Kathy.

Kathy bit back a smile and passed the canister into one hand and stuck out the other for him to shake.

"I'm Kathy. It's nice to actually see you"

He looked at her hand before looking back at her. He had a confused look but he took Kathy's hand nonetheless. "Jonathan"

"Well, Jonathan I think you just became my new favorite person"

He turned his head so that he wasn't look straight at her.

"Do you want to walk out together?"

He gave her that confused look again before he said "Alright"

Kathy collected her things and waited for Jonathan to do the same. Smiling at him she noticed that he was biting back a smile. Walking out to the parking lot Kath pointed at her Jeep.

"This is me"

He silently nodded his head.

Kathy opened her car door and tossed her backpack into the passenger seat. She was about to get into her car when she turned and looked at him. He was looking at her with a kind of calculating look as if she might say something unkind at any movement.

"Thanks again for helping me out back there. You really didn't have to- I mean you lost out on your time to work on your own film." Drumming her fingers against the car door she looked at Jonathan.

He looked a bit bashful and Kathy swore she'd never seen anything cuter. "Really it wasn't a big deal" he stuffed his hand into the front pockets of his jeans and he looked down at the pavement.

Kathy bit her lip and quickly dug around into her glove compartment. "Here. My friends from back home used to consider this a form of currency so this is yours. I hope you like it- I mean if you don't that's fine. But I don't know you might I- I'm rambling again aren't I?" Kathy looked up and saw that Jonathan was now struggling to hold in a smile.

Kathy handed him a mixtape with the title 'Golden Gate Dreaming' written hastily across the front. Jonathan took the mixtape and gave the faintest hint of a smile. Kathy now made a promise to herself that she would see that boy smile a full 20 watt smile if it was the last thing she did.

Smiling brightly Kathy got into the car and put her keys into the ignition. Jonathan took a few steps back as she backed out of the parking space. "I guess I'll see you around"

Jonathan, still holding onto the mix tape, looked up at Kathy. "Yeah. Yeah I'll see you around."

Smiling Kathy turned the car and drove off. On the drive home Kathy realized that the day actually hadn't been so bad. In fact, if she thought about it, it felt like the a new chapter in her life. Turning up the radio Kathy was ready to get home get started on the insane workload she had ahead of her. Hawkins, it seemed, would be lot more interesting than she thought it would be.