This was not how she imagined starting her senior year.

Alone.

Panicking. Palms sweating. Head swimming.

In a place two thousand miles from home.

It was October, so it should still be warm, more like summer heat than the cool, chilly autumn that would soon come with November. The days would be perfect for afternoons at the beach after lunch period. Toes wiggling in the burning sand, almost too hot, frothy waters breaking over her ankles and cooling the scalded pads of her feet. Sunlight in her eyes, kissing her golden skin, weaving through her golden hair. Her friends laughing, kicking and splashing in the water, playing volleyball in the surf...her heart twinged as she thought of them. Starting the best year of their high school career. Without her….

Fighting back tears, Mary Thatcher wiped gently at the corners of her eyes and tried not to smear her mascara or draw too much attention to herself in the crowd of people that weaved like threads around her, a tapestry of simple quiet country life. She felt so out of place. They were all familiar with these hallways, these lockers, these classrooms...they knew the world they lived in and their place in it. She felt like a dissonant note in a beautiful aria, like profanity whispered in a silent church pew. No, she was more than out of place...unwelcome, unwanted.

She ignored the quarterback shoulders jostling her, the wisps of aquanet-stiff hair as a group of cheerleaders hurried by, unaware of her existence here when back home...gosh, back home she had been one of them. I will be again, she determined to herself, fixing her gaze on the mouth of the tall faded front doors of the school that was flooded with students filing inside the main hallway. I will be again, she joined the crowd, feeling more courageous (even if it was just for show, she was good at pretending and putting on a brave face).

This wasn't sunny California, but she had resolved to make the best of it. Cold, sleepy, quirky little Hawkins would be home. Mary squared her shoulders, pinned a smile neatly into the corners of her mouth, and decided today would be a good day. A day of firsts. One of which being that she was wearing a sweater on a particularly foggy day in October that made her want to curl up with Pride and Prejudice and a cup of hot coffee.

A particularly wide set of shoulders - with an even deeper voice to match - slammed into her, throwing her to the ground and her books scraped against the mud-streaked floor as they slid out of her grasp. Whoever it was found their group and assimilated easily, unaware that they'd left a small, out of place blonde girl with scraped, rug-burnt knees and a tight-lipped teary smile in their wake.

Today is going to be a good day.

She fought tears as she collected her disheveled books.

Today WILL be a good day.

Her knee stung, blood filling in the cracks where the skin had split open.

I promise. It will get better.

.

.

.

It had taken her a minute or two to collect herself after...the incident. There was no avoiding being late, but there was no way she was walking into class looking like she did. Scraped knee, mascara smeared into the creases under her eyes. If teachers here in Hawkins were anything like the ones in California, they, too, would have a penchant for humiliating the new kid at school by making them introduce themselves in front of a class full of cranky, half-asleep seniors who could care less. It would be her first impression. First impressions mattered to Mary Thatcher – and there was no way she would let herself be remembered with panda eyes and bloody knees.

There wasn't much she could do about the fresh cut except dab it with cool water and hope it would clot before she arrived in class. But as for the mascara, that was fixable. Mary wiped away the black streaks under her eyes, fished for the tube of Great Lash in her knapsack, and filled in the areas that had been washed away by her tears. She hummed a song she'd heard on the radio as she navigated the streets of her new home toward the school, getting lost more than once. Shout...shout...let it all out. These are the things I can do without...

She hummed as she worked, pulling together the mask she'd so carefully crafted these last few years of high school. Pink lips, spidery lashes, pinched cheeks. A smile that was so practiced and mechanical that she didn't have to think twice about putting it on, like a pair of heals or a favorite jacket...it was just there, reliable, easy to pull out and put on so she could hide behind it. The pretty much invisible, but visibly scared new girl disappeared and someone familiar reappeared in the reflection before her. Someone she could rely on to get her through this day. Someone stronger, more sure of herself. Cheerleader, straight A student, boy crazy. Not her, but someone she knew would be accepted and well-liked. A role she had played long enough for it to become second nature...like another personality, hiding deep inside.

At last she was fit to be seen.

Mary wandered the hallways looking for her first period History. The twice crumpled three times smoothed out paper in her hands instructed her to look for classroom 104, so she marched resolutely past the two hundreds until she found it at the front of the old, musty-smelling one hundred section of the building. 104, the numbers faded and scratched on the door. She took a deep, cleansing breath and steeled herself. Just smile. Be friendly. Don't let anyone know how scared you are.

She turned the knob and pushed forward, forcing herself to go inside. All eyes were instantly on her, including the teacher's. Mary felt her heart pumping thickly in the bottom of her throat. She could barely breathe.

"Can I...help you?" The teacher was a balding middle aged white man with a gap in his front teeth and heavy black rimmed glasses that seemed to swallow his face whole. He held an enormous book in one pale, thin hand with long, spidery fingers.

"Yes…" she started, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat and started again, this time remembering to smile. "yes. I'm new here? My name is Mary. Mary Thatcher."

The teacher, whom her printed class schedule referred to as Mr. Moore, furrowed his brow as he looked down at his roster. "Ah yes," he intoned glumly, more to himself than anyone in particular as he searched the list. "I've marked you as absent. Where were you?"

"First day," she chuckled nervously, clutching her books tighter to her chest for comfort. Like a life boat for a drowning man. "I got….lost?"

"Hmph." He grunted, clearly irritated and unwilling to hide it from her. "Don't let it happen again…go ahead and take a seat next to Munson. Raise your hand Eddie."

No answer. Some of the girls rolled their eyes at the mention of the name. Mary even saw a couple of the football players sneer wordlessly at each other and trade knowing looks.

"Eddie!" Mr. Moore shouted.

A mop full of shaggy dark hair popped up from behind a freckled girl near the back who was no longer paying attention to what was happening at the front of the class. Beneath a wild fringe, a pair of dark eyes blinked heavily as though trying to see through a dense fog. Mr. Moore gave a resigned sigh and gestured to the shaggy-haired boy at the back of the class, who was now stretching and yawning, giving away the fact that he had been asleep for the first ten minutes of class. And he was not afraid of hiding it.

"I catch you sleeping in my class again, Munson, and you're heading straight for detention," Mr. Moore warned as he fixed his student roster.

"Wouldn't dream of missing all the action, sir…" The boy responded with brazen snark, yawning loudly again and making the girl in front of him jump and curse under her breath.

Mary, thankful for the performance to be over, filed through the narrow passage between desks to get to the safety of her own. She narrowly missed tripping again over a long leg that was stretched out in her path and a backpack strap that threatened to entangle her in its grasp, but finally made it, safe and sound, to her desk next to the boy with the dark sleepy eyes and shaggy mop of hair who was now etching what looked to be a devil into the surface of his desk. She could not help but stare as she watched him deface school property without a care in the world.

He must have felt the disapproving weight of her gaze as he looked up from his task and met the question in her eyes with a most definitive and boldfaced answer – I don't care.

With a roguish grin that matched the one he'd scratched into the face of the roughly hewn devil on his desk, he gave her a brave and puckish wink. Mary's head snapped forward, her cheeks on fire, as she realized she'd locked eyes with the school bad boy. Do not want to be seen being friendly with his ilk...she thought to herself, her eyes wide as she focused on turning to the page that Mr. Moore was now droning on about at the front of the class.

She could still feel his gaze fixed on her.

But this time, she wasn't looking back.

.

.

.

Armed to the teeth with a mantra that she would not go one minute without reciting to herself, Mary was still determined to have a good first day….even though, if she were being honest with herself, it had not been much of a good day at all.

In Chemistry, during lab, she poured the wrong ingredient in her beaker and caused it to boil over in a mess of frothy green slime. Her lab partner – the shaggy haired boy who sat next to her in History that morning – had smirked and crossed his arms, leaning over and whispering in her ear "didn't take you as the mad scientist type when you walked into first period this morning, Thatcher..." with a laugh weaving in and out of his voice. She could've punched him square in the nose for that one.

At lunch, when all the other kids were talking, laughing, and sharing their excitement over the upcoming pep rally and Halloween with their friend groups, Mary had bobbed around in circles for fifteen minutes while searching for someone, anyone to invite her to sit with them, like a little ship lost in a very big sea. She'd seen the shaggy haired boy across the room, safe at a table near the middle with his group of friends. But she wandered for a long time, trying to lock eyes with the cheerleaders' table – where she'd sat before at home with her own friends – but no one would budge, no one would even meet her searching, pleading gaze. Her heart sank a little as she realized she was, for now, the school pariah. New, unestablished, a strange blank slate. She ended up sitting alone in a bathroom stall with only her turkey sandwich for company, rewarding herself with a well-earned and welcomed cry as she picked at her food, her appetite gone.

And then, though lunch had been the worst experience of the cluster she'd had so far, there was the incident at her locker. She finally became acquainted with it after lunch period, determined to find it and unload some of the books from her heavy bag to give her shoulders a rest. Once there, she found it easy enough to open it, to get her books inside. It was as soon as she heard footsteps jogging down the hallway, arriving at her side in a moment, that the incident began.

It was one of the cheerleaders. Someone she desperately wanted to make contact with. Conjuring up her best friendly, yet vaguely interested smile, Mary closed her locker and turned toward the girl as she rummaged through her stuff, giving her a bright and cheery hello to hopefully start up a conversation.

No answer. More rummaging.

Certain the girl just hadn't heard her, Mary tried again. "Hi, I'm...I'm new here. My name is Mary. Are you on the squad? I was a flyer back home…mostly because I'm small enough to throw, but I did base every now and then-"

Finally, the girl stopped what she was doing, slammed her locker shut, and acknowledged her with a self-important scowl. "I'm sorry, why you talking to me?" She scoffed, and laughed to herself as she walked away with her brown ponytail swinging behind her.

All of that was behind her now. Sure, it was the end of the day and the only interaction she'd had with another student was with a guy who liked to scratch demons into his desk and snore through history lessons, but this was just the first day. First days could be hard. Her spirit of resolution renewed, she stood in front of the announcements board and saw exactly what she'd been looking for all day.

CHEER TRY OUTS. 3:15 IN FRONT OF BLEACHERS. NO POMS REQUIRED.

Mary could simply weep for joy, her fingers shaking from both hunger and excitement as she tore one of the flyers off the board and started toward the football field. She could be honest with herself – it had not been a good day. But now...now the tide had turned. This was her territory, what she was good at. Cheerleading had been her lifeblood back home.

This was her opportunity to find her niche here in Hawkins. And with her background in gymnastics and cheer squad, she was sure she'd earn a place on the squad.

The field was small and a little rundown, not at all the grand spectacle her high school in San Diego had boasted. The grass was wildly overgrown, spotted with dandelions and deep potholes that could break an ankle with ease, and the track field was still muddy and sticky from a recent bout of rain. Even the bleachers looked worse for wear – rusty and creaking dangerously in the wind and under the feet of students as the filed up and down the stairs, they looked more like a health code violation than a place to sit and watch a football game. But the field was full of cheerleaders, football players, and even a few track and field runners looking to get some practice in before the season began. They were completely unfazed by the state of their less than impressive equipment.

Mary made a beeline for the group of cheerleaders and found an inconspicuous spot in the back of the awkward group of mismatched teenage girls standing – all beaming with the same hope that began to take root in her own mind - in the mud. Her heart sank as the captain stepped forward and began to speak – the brown-haired ponytail girl from the locker incident.

Don't let it faze you.

You can do this. You've done this for years.

You can do it.

"Look we don't usually hold tryouts this late in the fall semester with only two weeks left until the first game, but desperate times call for desperate measures." The cheer captain walked slowly up and down the ranks of girls, scrutinizing every detail of each one she passed. "We need someone who can learn the routines fast and who can do basic gymnastics. You must be in good shape, able to lift on base and be willing to be tossed, and you cannot get sick. Not once. I don't care if you're coughing up a lung. You will still show up at every practice and every game." She stopped at the last girl and turned on her heel, her blindingly white shoes squelching in the fresh mud. "Anyone unable or unwilling to follow these rules can just leave right now."

No one even moved. Mary tuned out, instead focusing on the small tight-knit group of cheerleaders as they too looked at the group of girls in front of them, most of them visibly unimpressed with the turnout. Their uniforms were clean, pressed, and the strips of white in them were as bright as their captain's tennis shoes. All of them had their hair pulled into tight, neat ponytails smoothed down with aquanet and hair gel with pretty green and gold ribbons wrapped around the bands which matched the colors of their uniforms. The letters HHS were emblazoned across emerald green cable knit tops, the same shade of green as their pleated skirts. All of the girls wore the same white tennis shoes and some held green and orange pompoms loosely in their hands. It was like looking at the same girl copied ten times over. She locked eyes with one, a quiet pretty girl with strawberry blonde hair and a fringe that brushed across the peaks of her perfectly manicured eyebrows. She offered a small smile of welcome; Mary accepted it gladly and gave one in return.

Tryouts commenced and each girl was taught a short, basic routine that Mary could've done in her sleep, having done many like them a thousand times over in her six year career as a cheerleader. An even simpler display of gymnastics skill was asked of them as the cheer captain, whose name Mary had learned was Jenny Clarkson, instructed the strawberry blonde girl with the fringe, Chrissy Cunningham, to demonstrate the sequence of cartwheels and layouts Jenny wanted the girls to repeat for her. Again, stuff Mary had done a thousand times. Her heart began to sing in her chest as she saw that she indeed had the upperhand over most of these poor girls who couldn't even do a basic backhand spring. There was no way she wouldn't make the team.

Once each test had been finished and the girls evaluated based on their skill level and technique, Jenny stood for ten tortuously long minutes scribbling away notes for herself on her clipboard. Mary tried to stay still and calm, to not look too eager, her spirit bolstered by the small but encouraging exchange with Chrissy. This was her chance and she couldn't blow it, not if she wanted to fit in here at Hawkins, but if at least one girl liked her...that was at least a start.

At last Jenny looked up, a slightly devious smile on her face. "Thanks for making it easy on me girls! All of you but Thatcher and Mason can go. The rest of you...please never show up at cheer tryouts again."

Confused and disappointed by her outright disdain for most of the group, the girls dismissed themselves slowly, gathering their things and shuffling away until only Mary and another girl – tall, pretty, with raven hair and lightning blue eyeshadow rimming her steely blue eyes – remained.

"You two were the only ones with potential," Jenny said, not even looking up from her clipboard as she viciously crossed out at least fifteen names in red pen. She snapped her gum and replaced the pen behind her ear, meeting each girl's gaze. "But I'm giving the spot to Linda Mason."

Mary's blood ran cold as Linda, the steely-eyed tall girl, stepped forward and accepted her new pompoms and uniform from Chrissy who stood next to the cheer captain. She felt like she'd suddenly grown roots and planted herself in the ground, her legs as heavy as molten lead. "What?"

"You heard me, new girl." A couple of the girls behind her snickered together as they hid behind their french manicured hands and long blonde ponytails.

"But...you saw what I could do. I did everything perfectly. I...I've been a cheerleader since I was eleven. I was on my squad back home-"

"Look that's all really cool and all," Jenny sneered, cutting Mary off as she struggled through her argument. "But...I really don't like to take new girls on my team. Talented or not...I just don't know how loyal you are."

Mary repeated the word, stuttering over the two syllables incredulously. "Loyal?"

"Yeah, loyal. You know like...the opposite of a traitor," Jenny said as she moved closer to her, holding her eyes with an incredible ferocity and authority that made Mary nervous. "I need to know that you'll do exactly as I say when I say it. Linda's been in my class since sixth grade. Who are you? I don't even know you. You moved here like what...five minutes ago? How do I know you're up for this?"

"You haven't even given me a chance…" Mary replied, confused.

"Yeah, but…I don't have time for chances, I've got practices to run and a squad to captain, I graduate this year, then college..." Jenny shrugged and sighed, as though it wounded her deeply to deliver such bad news. "I'm gonna need you to prove that you're worth my time. Worth the effort."

Mary swallowed hard against the lump that took up all the room in her throat, making her feel claustrophobic from the inside out. A pang of homesickness ricocheted through her body like a bullet. The sting of it left her feeling raw, open, reminding her of the sight of a seething wound. Vulnerable and naked. She felt the eye of every girl on that squad staring at her, boring into her with the heat and intensity of burning coals and only one pair – Chrissy's – was looking at her with soft, gentle pity.

"What do you want me to do?" She asked quietly.

Jenny chewed on the cap of her pen as she retreated deep into thought. The other girls traded giggles and whispers behind her. Mary suddenly felt less like a human being and more like a circus attraction, a freak locked in a cage for people to mock and stare at. Her cage was being rattled even now…

Don't let them see that you're hurt, you're scared. Mary straightened her posture, held her head a little higher, put that plastic smile back on even though it hurt this time to fall into its perfect, painful lines. Smile. Just smile.

Suddenly, Jenny met her gaze, her expression one of evil, malicious delight. "I want you…to pretend to date the school freak, Eddie Munson. I saw you in Chem, you're his lab partner, aren't you? I want you to be nice to him, get him to like you back, convince him that the pretty new cheerleader wants him bad. And then… once you've got him hook like and sinker….you dump him like a ton of bricks in front of the ENTIRE school. At the winter formal, let's say."

The rest of the squad gasped, but quickly their shock turned to gleeful peals of laughter. Chrissy was the only one not joining in on the distasteful display of mirth as she stood, arms crossed and completely quiet, apart from the rest of the girls. Jenny accepted their praise expectantly as some of them lauded her for her "evil genius".

"What does playing with some poor guy's heart have to do with me being on the cheerleading squad?" Mary asked helplessly, waiting until the laughter had died down.

"You do this, you prove you're loyal. You show me you're willing to do what I say," Jenny replied matter-of-factly. "Besides, he's just a freak. Freaks don't have feelings. He's practically asking for it, always being a jerk to our quarterback Matty Bleaker, who's like...actually going places in life after high school. Munson is a pathetic loser who deserves to be destroyed. Maybe it'll finally put him in his place."

Jenny handed her clipboard off to one of the girls nearby and put her arm around Mary, walking her away from the group for some sick twisted heart to heart that Mary wished she could run far away from

. "Look...don't think of it as playing with his heart. For one, he doesn't have one. Two, this is your way of getting on the squad and showing the rest of us that you're cool. Don't you...want to be cool? Don't you want to fit in?"

Mary couldn't believe she was being asked to do such a horrible thing. Sure, Eddie was a little...different. Maybe a little weird. And more than a little frightening, with all the black and chains and devil-may-care bravado he wore with as much confidence and certainty as the leather jacket he sported on his broad, lithe shoulders. But he was the only one that hadn't completely ignored her existence. Apathetic, sure, knowing the differences that separated them and kept them worlds apart, boundaries to be respected and acknowledged but never to be crossed. But he had actually looked her in the eyes, saw her, accepting in the fact that she was indeed a living, breathing human being just like him.

The fact that she was being asked to break his heart – if it could be broken, who knew if he'd even fall for such a foolhardy and juvenile trap – just to be on the cheerleading squad of a dilapidated school full of nobodies from a town in Indiana that no one had ever heart of…. Her mind reeled as she began to consider it. Could I? Should I? But how...how could I screw over this guy I've never spoken a word to? Who hasn't done a thing to me? He could really be a jerk and deserve it, who knows...but, if this is my only chance…

"Fine," Mary finally caved in. "Fine I'll do what you ask."

"Great!" Jenny cheered, clapping her hands together. "Next practice is Monday night at six. Come in uniform! Chrissy will give it to you on your way out…oh. And tell anyone about this? You're ruined. And I'll make sure of it that I ruin you myself…"

With a broad, victorious grin full of teeth that reminded her of a jack o lantern, Jenny walked away and left Mary where she stood, feeling like the world was spinning under her feet.

It was official.

This was the worst day she'd had in a long long time...

anyone else obsessed with eddie munson? anyone else DESTROYED by the fact that he died and didn't get to live a long happy life that he deserved because he was actually the most adorable creature in existence? anyone with me? good. this is what that story is. for fun, for giggles, to keep eddie munson alive because HE IS MY HERO.

disclaimer - i don't own eddie munson or any of the stranger things characters. they belong to the duffer brothers.