So that's how I ended up here, a junior at Hawkins High School. My arrival had garnered some interest within the student community, mostly because they rarely got new students, and when they did, they weren't really as foreign as me.

So during the first week I really just was not left alone, everyone wanted to know what my deal was, why I had a British accent if I was born in Hawkins and my dad was Chief Hooper, which really was not that complicated. But let me tell you, having people constantly requesting you speak to them was unbelievably uncomfortable.

I knew people were interested by me, but I hadn't been able to quite crack if said interest was good or bad. On one hand many people thought it was really cool that I had grown up in New York and London, but on the other hand, a lot of people also seemed to resent me for that very fact.

It wasn't until the second week that I started to find my footing in the school, once the newness of my presence had worn off, I started to be able to tell who genuinely wanted to be friends with me, there wasn't much there though. Just one girl who didn't appear to have that many friends. Her name was Emily Sanders, she had long blonde hair and was the perkiest person I had ever met.

For some reason, I'd always been a person who liked to keep busy. So the first thing I'd done when I'd gotten to Hawkins was get a job. At first I'd worked at the cinema, but I'd gotten bored of that quickly and had ended up working at the local arcade, they didn't really need a lot more help, but the owner owed my dad a favour, so he hired me to pretty much just sit around and make sure things ran smoothly. Which meant I just played the games like half of the time. Actually, that's where I was headed now.

I roller skated down the streets of Hawkins, since we only had one car that my dad needed pretty much all the time, and he probably wouldn't let me borrow a car that was technically government property anyway. But I didn't mind roller skating, I'd had some friends in Mexico who really liked skating, and I'd say I was quite good at it now.

I was running a bit late, so I was zooming through the streets as fast as I could, the arcade a few metres away now, which is why I didn't see the car as it backed out of the spot where it was parked next to the arcade.

A muffled thud was heard as the rear end of the car collided with my side. The driver braked immediately, but I had already fallen to the ground. I'd tried to prevent my fall with my knee but I'd only managed to get the side of my calf scraped pretty badly on the harsh pavement.

"Oh my god, I am so sorry." A man's voice came from above me.

I looked up to meet the face of my attacker.

Oh, it was a boy I was pretty sure I shared a few classes with. He was more of the quiet type and he did look genuinely worried about me.

I sighed. "I'm okay."

He offered his hand and I gladly took it.

"I really didn't see you there and I was kind of distracted, I'm so sorry." He continued in his frantic worried tone. "Oh god, you're bleeding, I should take you to the hospital."

I examined my injury. It was kind of bleeding but it did not look hospital-worthy. "No, it's barely a scratch, and at least I now have an excuse for being late to work." I nodded towards the arcade. "Plus I think it'll be fine with our trusty first aid kit."

"At least let me help you in, and with the first aid." He insisted.

"Okay, sure."

๑ ❥ ๑

"I'm sorry, I know I know you from school, but I can't seem to remember your name." I said as the sandy haired boy took out the stuff from the first aid kit.

I was sat down on the counter with him standing right beside me, my injured leg well within his reach.

He looked down. "Uh it's Jonathan, Jonathan Byers."

"Were you just leaving the arcade when you ran me over? We don't get a whole lot of people older than fourteen around here."

He blushed. "I was just dropping off my little brother."

I immediately looked around to see if I could guess which one was Jonathan's brother but there were way too many children. "Ooh, which one is he?"

"Over there, the one with the bowl cut and green sweater. That's Will." Jonathan pointed to him.

"Oh my god he's so cute and tiny I want to pinch his cheeks, and his jumper is practically swallowing him, that is so cute."

Jonathan smiled but stayed focused on the medical supplies for me.

I let out a hiss as Jonathan dabbed my injury with antiseptic. "Wait, Jonathan and Will Byers? You're those Jonathan and Will Byers?"

Jonathan looked down bashfully. "Oh I should've guessed you know about that."

"Well yeah, I mean my dad kind of gave me real time updates as everything happened last year."

He finally looked up at me briefly. "Right, your dad is Chief Hooper."

"The one and only."

"He really helped and is still helping my family a lot." He looked so cute when he was all smiley.

"That's nice to hear."

Jonathan put a plaster on my wound. "It's all done."

I hopped down from the counter. "Thanks. You shall receive word via my representatives about pursuing a lawsuit against you, I estimate the amount disputed will be around three thousand dollars for bodily damage and... forty six million in psychological damages."

Jonathan looked genuinely scared.

I let out a laugh. "I'm joking." I elbowed his side lightly. "I don't mind that you hit me with your car, though I will probably tease you about it for the rest of time and forever."

Jonathan smiled like he was only a bit short of a laugh. "Still, I'm really sorry."

"Oh come on, don't sweat it."

I walked him over to the door. Before he left, he turned to look at his brother and then at me. "Would you please keep an eye on him?"

I smiled. "You absolutely got it."

๑ ❥ ๑

"You're late."

I knew those words awaited me before the door even opened, but I still felt guilt in my chest.

I sighed. "Don't be hard on me, Elf."

I came in and started shedding layers. I honestly did feel bad about leaving El alone longer than necessary, but our first couple of weeks living together hadn't gone exactly without a hitch.

She had, understandably, been wary of me at the beginning. Dad had actually told her some stuff about me, so she wasn't completely untrustworthy of me, but she did make it really hard to bond sometimes.

She could barely stand being in the same room as me the first week, and I had to stand a lot of passive aggressive behaviours, but I tried to take everything on with a good face. I think once she realised Dad's attention or care for her wasn't compromised by my arrival and he wasn't just going to throw her out into the streets once his actual daughter was there she started warming up to me.

I do think a big part of Elf acclimatising to me had to do with me teaching her. Since my dad claimed I remembered more things from eighth grade than he did, and also spent more time home, I should be the one to deal with El's schooling.

So I'd borrowed some books from Hawkins Middle School and tried to teach El, although I would say she was learning far more English and Maths than any other subjects, as those were the only two subjects I was genuinely good at.

"I fell down at work, and my leg kind of hurts so it made it harder to roller skate back here." I explained as I fell next to El on the couch.

I lifted the edge of my bandage a little to show the girl.

She looked at me with genuine concern in her eyes. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, totally fine, kiddo." I reached for a chocolate bar on the coffee table. "Mm by the way, I saw ya boy Mike at the arcade."

I gave El a small teasing shove with my shoulder. She tried but failed to keep in a smile. "How did he look?"

"Mm alright, he was playing with his friends a long time, they were all celebrating one of them broke some kind of record on one of the games." I recounted.

I knew thinking too much about Mike made El sad, but I knew she liked hearing updates about him from time to time.

El smiled forlornly, but she got the sad pout real quick.

"Hey come on, I'll talk to Dad again, maybe you can see him soon." I tried to lift her spirits.

El nodded silently. We both stayed quiet for a moment before El spoke up in her soft quiet voice. "It's not fair."

I slid closer to her on the couch and put my arm around her. "Oh, I know, Elf, I know. Dads can be a little complicated at times but his overprotectiveness comes only out of genuine care, I can assure you that."

"But it doesn't feel like that."

I rubbed Elf's arm. She worried me sometimes. "Everything will be alright, Elf, I promise."

๑ ❥ ๑

School bells were quite literally the worst sound on Earth.

Biology class with Mr Nettles had dragged on and on, I literally had no recollection of anything that had happened during the lesson. The only thing I remembered was something about an assignment in pairs. I considered myself to be friendly with Jonathan Byers now, so I'd asked him to partner up with me. I should probably ask him what we had to do.

"Hey Jonathan!" I called after the retreating boy.

He stopped, and his shoulders seemed to lose some tension once he saw it was just me. It wasn't until I came near him that I realised he had actually been walking with a girl. A very pretty girl. In fact, she was so pretty I spent way more than the regular amount of time you're supposed to look at someone, staring at her.

"Hey! I don't think we've met, I'm Nancy Wheeler, I've heard a lot about you."

It took a few seconds for me to register that the pretty girl had just spoken to me. "Oh it's so nice to meet you, I'm Rory, as you probably know." I then remembered Jonathan was there too. "I just came over to ask Jonathan here something about our biology class assignment."

I grabbed a pen from my pocket and started fidgeting with it.

"Yeah, sure, what is it?" Jonathan prompted me.

I scratched the back of my neck. "Um I really didn't listen to a word that came out of Mr Nettles's mouth, so what did we have to do again?"

Jonathan's lips curled up as he held in a snicker.

I frowned. "What?"

He looked down. "Oh it's nothing, I'm sorry."

"No, come on, tell me. Are you making fun of me because I didn't listen to Mr Nettles?"

Jonathan smiled again. "No, it's not that. It's just... the way you say Nettles."

My mouth opened in understanding. "It is a rather funny name, innit?"

Nancy smiled, and I swear my heart skipped a beat. "Honestly, can I just say I love your accent."

I smiled. "Thanks." This was the first time I genuinely meant the thanks at someone complimenting my accent.

Jonathan then distracted me from Nancy's very green eyes and explained our biology project briefly. Right as he finished though, a guy with very big brown hair and for some reason wearing sunglasses, approached us and hugged Nancy from behind, and she let out the cutest little yelp, he then whispered something in her ear, to which she giggled.

I glanced at Jonathan, who seemed to be reaching the same levels of uncomfortable as I was.

Nancy then seemed to remember who she was with and gave her (assumed) boyfriend a few taps on the arm so he'd get off her. "Steve, this is Rory Hopper. Rory, this is my boyfriend Steve Harrington."

I could feel my heart drop as I heard the actual word 'boyfriend'.

The so called Steve looked nodded at me before looking me up and down. "Hey, I've heard a lot about you."

His arrogant smile rubbed me the wrong way, but I tried to be polite. "That's nice."

๑ ❥ ๑

"Excuse me? The Dig Dug machine is broken."

I looked up from my book to see which imp dared disturb me.

It was Will Byers's friend group. I knew Will and Mike from sight, but I had no idea about the other two.

I took the lollipop I'd been sucking on out of my mouth. "Have you asked Fred to fix it?"

"He's not here," the one with the cap said.

"Ugh." I put my lollipop back in. I slowly got off my ass and set my book aside.

"You're Chief Hopper's daughter, right?" Tiny Will Byers asked.

"I usually go by Rory, Chief Hopper's daughter is a bit of mouthful."

"My name is Will."

Oh my god could he be any more cute?

I nodded as the flock of prepubescent kids followed me to the Dig Dug machine. "Yeah, I know your brother, he pointed you out to me last time he was here."

"Jonathan was here?" He seemed a bit miffed at the news.

"Just a little while, he helped me after he hit me with his car." I reassured him.

And all of a sudden, I seemed to become ten times more interesting to the kids.

"My brother hit you with his car?" Will asked, incredulous.

"That's awesome!" Cap Kid exclaimed.

I considered. "It was awesome."

We arrived at the broken machine, and I went to check the plug, as I literally had no idea what else could be wrong. I unplugged it and plugged it in again a few times.

"We thought it might be something to do with the central wiring." One of the kids said from behind me, I think it was the tall one.

I turned to the four boys. "Look, you and I know that I know absolutely nothing about these machines, but I assume one of you does, I can't let you touch actually this stuff but I can let you look at it, so one of you get down here and tell me what to do."

Cap Boy immediately volunteered.

I crawled into the space between the machine and the wall. "Good god, this place is filthy. These people really ought to run the hoover once in a while."

Cap Boy stuck his head next to me to look at the machine. He then started going off with instructions to fix the machine.

"So, if you're Hopper's daughter, why are you British?" One of the boys out of my view asked.

I fumbled with some wires. "Oh that's the million dollar question, innit?" I heard a few giggles. "It's simple, really, my parents got divorced when I was eleven, my mum got full custody, and decided to move us to London, which is where I'd lived up to now."

"But you didn't live in Hawkins before, right?" A different voice asked.

"Nah, we lived in New York."

"That is so cool." Cap Boy said from beside me.

I shrugged. "'S alright."

"What's London like?" A voice I believed to be Will's asked.

"Mm, busy, damp."

"Sounds better than here." Which boy was the debbie downer?

"I mean I like it here too, it's quiet, and – things are really close to one another." I said.

The sound of the machine firing up again distracted the boys completely. They all cheered as I slowly lifted myself of the floor and dusted my jeans.

They seemed really excited to play their game. As I stalked away from them, Will turned to me and said, "Thank you so much, Rory!"

The rest of the boys directed their general gratefulness to me too. I sent them a quick salute and left them to it.

๑ ❥ ๑

As the third week of class came to an end, all I felt was relief. My life in Hawkins was really starting to take discernable shape.

The hallway was empty as I pondered which books to take home at my locker. I was no stranger to being the last one out of school, I never knew why people always seemed so eager to just leave as fast as humanly possible once the bell rang. I liked taking my time.

"Hey, Hopper!"

I turned to see a big head of hair coming my way, holding a piece of paper in his hand. "Yes, um...?"

"Steve." He supplied, only mildly miffed. Right, Nancy's boyfriend. "You graded my paper."

So that's what he was holding. I remembered his essay, it had been pretty disastrous. Our English teacher had handed everyone someone else's assignment to grade, and then we'd returned each assignment to its respective writer, and now we had to take them home to consider our classmates' corrections. We'd also somehow also get graded on our grading of the papers, probably do we'd make an effort grading.

I nodded. "I did."

His annoyed look remained. "So why couldn't you just correct a few spelling errors like everyone else? With all these corrections I'm going to have to pretty much rewrite the whole thing."

"Oh that would be a good idea."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, can you just take some of these out?"

"I guess I could, but I really do think you ought to make some serious rewrites before you hand it in if you want a good grade."

He still didn't seem pleased. "I already wrote the assignment, I'm not gonna do it again I don't have the time."

I shrugged my shoulders and turned away from him to look into my locker. "El flojo trabaja doble." I whispered under my breath.

"What did you say? What does that mean?" Steve pressed.

I sighed. Why did no one here know their Latin sayings? "The lazy one works double."

He seemed offended. I had a feeling I wasn't seeing the end of this any time soon. "Are you calling me lazy?"

"No, but I'm calling your work lazy. It's obvious you barely put any effort into it."

He huffed in annoyance. "If I did or didn't, it's none of your business. I just need you to take this back."

I slammed my locker door shut all of a sudden. I turned to Steve."You know what? I'm not discussing this with you. It's my grade too, so I'm not changing anything. If you want I can help you fix your essay tomorrow, but I am not changing that revision."

Before he could say anything, I started speed-walking down the hallway.

"Come on, just change it!" He called after me.

"Write better essays!"

๑ ❥ ๑

AN: Reviews are appreciated!