A/N: Please read and review!
~X~
Chapter 1:
The Virgin Mary
Mary Forman sighed with a smile as she sat down beside Barbara, it was a typical November Monday morning, chilly and gray. Mary loved autumn and winter, the best seasons of the year, if one would ask her. She would bundle up her truly tiny frame in brightly colored knitted sweaters together with thick woven skirts. With her long, brown bushy hair the result usually left her kinda looking like an ewok. Mary, standing at a whopping 5 feet tall, could turn sideways and disappear like a sheet of paper because of her willowy figure. Mostly, people just confused the 17 year old with a middle schooler. But she didn't care.
Nor did Barbara and Nancy, her two best friends since Elementary School. It was always the three of them doing everything together, but lately their trio would be down to two. Ever since Nancy had started dating the one and only Steve 'the hair' Harrington.
"Mary!" The girl gasped as Barb had lightly pushed her. With a giggle to hide her scared reaction, Mary turned fully to her friend. Class hadn't even started yet.
"Sorry Barb.. I was-"
"Drifting slowly away to a better place by the looks of it" Barbara laughed as her kind of, very, cooky friend behaved as she always did. To say that Mary Forman was a dreamer was an understatement.
"Oh come on, I wasn't that bad" Mary tried to defend herself, but Barb just scoffed at her with an old Barbara classic 'oh really?' plastered on her face.
"You were in a trance" Barb stated, in a very Barbara type of way. Barb was the mother hen of the trio, while Nancy was the paranoid, careful (and somewhat naive) little angel. Which meant Mary was left with the task of being an agent of chaos. Now, to be fair Mary didn't ask or wanted to be an agent of chaos. The tiny girl had the backbone of a little chicken. But a good mix of clumsiness, pure bad luck and awkwardness by Mary created some very unbelieve messes for the trio.
Mary rolled her at Barb and started to play with the cuffs of her sleeves, she had knitted her shirt herself. "What were you going to say?"
"Have you spoken to Nance this morning?" Barbara asked, her voice tuning down to something short of a mumble. Barbara knew something was wrong between her two best friends, and wanted them to clear the air. Nancy hadn't said much about it this morning by the lockers.
Mary felt herself turning sour. Nancy had become a sore subject in recent days. It felt like she activly chose her newfound popularity over them, all over a stupid boy. It hurt, especially since the group she now hung out with actively picked on both herself and Barbara quite often. "No, she didn't want a ride since-"
Barb sighed, her shoulders slumping. "Steve"
"Yeah" Mary confirmed, Mary lived down the cul de sac from Nancy, and needed to pass her house on her way to school each day anyways. So it had naturally become their little morning ritual to go by car together ever since Mary got her license. But with Steve in the picture, the ritual had stopped. Along with other activities that the girls used to do together every day. Barbara often defended Nancy, saying that they should support and encourage her instead of making her feel bad for not hanging out with them. But that was not even the issue to Mary.
"Wanna go to Indianapolis and shop this weekend?" Barbara suddenly said, getting Mary once again back down to earth after some time away in the clouds. Mary smiled and nodded. "Sure thing! I just need to ask dad"
"Great, we could bring Nance-" The bell rang, much to Mary's pleasure. It wasn't their job to always ask Nancy if she wanted to hang with them. She looked outside the window to a brown and yellow forest, something felt wrong. And it wasn't just teenage drama.
~X~
It didn't take long before a wildfire of new gossip spread around school around lunchtime. Will Byers was missing, he hadn't come home the night before. Mary really liked the Byers, Jonathan had always been kind to her in science class as they were partnered up at the beginning of the semester. He had made an effort into making them pass every assignment, which she appreciated. Joyce and Will were the kindest people on this planet, and the mere thought of them hurting made Mary hurt too.
"Hey! Hey virgin!" A voice sounded down the hall, coming closer to the locker where Mary stood. Suddenly the door to her locker slammed close, scaring her to death and making her drop all of her notes and books that she had been holding on the floor. None other than Tommy and his not so kind girlfriend Carol stood by her. Smirking like hyenas.
"So.. Virgin Mary.. what do you know about the freak?" Carol asked with a sneer. Carol and Mary had never really had any problems, Mary didn't and couldn't hurt a fly. But in their freshman year of highschool Mary accidentally spilled water all over Carol's pants in the cafeteria (someone had tripped her) making people laugh about it for a week. Which apparently warranted years of bullying. Tommy on the other hand was just a douchebag.
"F-freak?" Mary stammered, she always ended up doing that when nervous or stressed. The words got stuck in her throat.
"Yeah, that creep Jonathan Byers" Tommy stated, his arm around Carol. The both of them knew that it was easy to trip up Mary and make fun of her.
"Nothing… Nothing" Mary stated, shaking her head with her head cast downward, she wanted to do nothing more than to leave. But they would only stop her. The couple also had a sneaking suspicion that the girl might know more about the creep than what they originally thought.
"Hey!" Steven the hair came up to them, holding Nancy's hand. "Stop being mean"
"We were just asking the virgin about that missing kid" Carol huffed while looking between the two lovebirds. Nancy didn't make a sound to Carol's comment, leaving Mary to slightly glare at her best friend.
"Are you sure he is missing?" Tommy added while making a gesture to cut his throat, making Carol burst out laughing. But no one else thought it was a joke, Mary glared at the couple, ready to start something nasty to make them shut up. Steve saw this and scoffed lightly with a smirk. "Let's go" he said, as to end the conversation before it became a scene. Tommy and Carol rolled their eyes and went ahead on them, making sure to step on Mary's stuff, Steve right behind them. Meanwhile Nancy stayed behind.
"Nancy?" Steve asked, looking back onto his new girlfriend.
"Just a minute" She said, Steve just shrugged and went down the hall. Mary on the other hand bent down to pick up her belongings. Tommy had stomped on her math notes, making sure to rup hard to make the paper tear and wrinkle.
"Really nice new friends you have there Nance" Mary stated, looking up at Nancy to properly get a look at her. It wasn't anger that radiated from the tiny brunette, more of pure disappointment.
"They are not-" Nancy mumbled and started to bend down to help her, but Mary slapped her hands away. Not hard.
"Don't bother" Mary huffed and got tired of the mess the douchebags had made. In a rush she just took everything, not caring about further damage to her stuff while standing up properly. With a final hard stare at the friend in front of her, she turned to leave.
"Mary!" Nancy said as Mary left, the girl stopped and looked over her shoulder. She didn't know when things had started to twist and turn like this. Was it a few weeks ago when Steve had started to flirt with Nancy, or was it even further back in time.
"I can't with you right now Nance" Mary huffed and shook her head. "Just leave me alone"
~X~
"I'm home!" A rough voice was heard from the hallway of the Forman house. It was a cute two story house, just like the rest in the neighborhood. There wasn't anything noteworthy with it, other than maybe slightly too big for a household of two. But with Mary's father's ownership of the only workshop in Hawkins, business was booming.
"Dad!" Mary shouted as she ran from the kitchen to the front door to greet him, Randal 'Red' Forman was a tall and strict man. But he had a soft spot for his daughter. A war veteran of both the Korean and Vietnam war, the man was cold and harsh to the rest of the world. But to Mary, he was the kindest teddybear there ever was.
"Hi there tiny" Red said and hugged Mary, he was still in overalls and dirty from a hard day's work. But Mary didn't care. "You know I will grow any day now" She huffed at the nickname 'tiny' that she had gotten in middle school when it seemed she stopped growing. Red thought it was hilarious.
"Sure you will honey" Red huffed and let his daughter go. "What's for dinner?"
"Meatloaf" Mary said as she walked back to the kitchen, her father following soon after. Mary had taken up cooking very young, as she felt the need to take care of her father as much as he took care of her. She was now, at age 17, a really good cook.
"Thank you" Red said as he hugged mary sideways and kissed her hairline. The kitchen was spotless as usual with a delicious smell coming from the oven. The table set too.
"Ew, you stink" Mary huffed and pushed her father away, Red laughed at her wining and scoffed as he smelled his armpits. He wasn't that bad.
"So high maintenance" He grumbled, but resigned to his fate of a shower before dinner. "Be right back"
Not much later, both of them sat at the dinner table, feasting on delicious meatloaf. They had the tv on in the livingroom, both of them wanted to hear the evening news. Red was, like always, starving after a full day at work but still tried to talk to Mary through bites. "So how was your day?"
"Okay I guess, there is a kid missing" Mary sighed as she poked around her food, thoughts were running wild inside of her head.
"Byers, I saw that" Red said. He himself had never quite enjoyed Joyce and her two sons, but he was also a bit of a rude person so they didn't complain. Joyce was just simply too loopy for Red, always stressed and in a hurry.
"His brother is my lab partner, I hope everything is alright" Mary said and poked around more with her delicious food.
"It will be, he will turn up soon" Red stated and looked up at his teenage daughter. "Eat your peas"
"Yes dad" Mary huffed and took a bite of the green veggies only to prove a point. Red knew that when something wasn't right, his tiny daughter would skip meals to have time to worry even more.
"How is Nancy and Barbara?" Red asked and Mary knew that her cover for acting normal was all but blown. Her father was too good at seeing right through her.
"Barb asked me to come with her to Indianapolis this weekend" She said and looked at her father for approval.
"Sure you can go, just-"
"Don't be a dumbass" Mary finished her father's life motto. It was simply the Forman way. Don't be a dumbass.
"And Nancy is just, Nancy I guess" Mary huffed and shrugged her shoulders in a dismissive manner. Red rolled his eyes and put down his fork to glare at her.
"Honey, do I look like I understand teenage girls?" Red asked and pointed a very serious finger at her. Mary mumbled a bit and looked away from her father to not meet his eyes.
"No" She said.
"So speak english"
Mary groaned and huffed, like any teenager would do when being scolded by their dad. "She is just hanging out with these not so nice people all of the sudden"
"Because of a guy?" Red asked, trying to help his daughter open up even more. Now, he may not be the best father in the world. He had his faults, he had his anger and irritable personality. But god dammit he tried his best for this little girl in front of him.
"Yeah" Mary sighed and looked at her very tired father once again.
"Then she is a dumbass" Red stated, shrugged his shoulder and went back to his meatloaf. Mary finally cracked a smile."Dad!"
"What?" Red said with a smirk of his own, Mary reached out for one of his hands over the table. "Thank you" She sighed and squeezed it as hard as she could.
"No problem honey" Red said and squeezed her hand back, glancing down at their joint hands he saw the numbers. The black ink had started to shine through the thick makeup that Mary always put on every day.
004