Disclaimer: 'Teen Wolf' isn't mine. Shocking, right? But it's true. If there are any similarities in content or dialogue, it has probably originated with the show.

A huge thank you to crimson sun06, darklou, Bookiee, SimplyKelly, superscaryghost, NathalieOchIzabelle, XLostxinxWonderlandX314, outlook96, masqueraderose3, Guest, Cayenne-fic, WarriorPrincessNumber42, she.s. .one, and Just Anonymous for reviewing!

I apologize for any grammar mistakes! It's like 2:30am where I am right now.

Chapter 3 – How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

The first day back at school always looked the same. Fresh off the summer or winter holidays, somewhere in the vicinity of 90% of the student body was loitering in the parking lot area, waiting till the last moment to walk through those doors and resign themselves to another four months of tests and papers and other despair-inducing activities. From there you could see small groups begin to form. Jocks were hanging out with jocks, cheerleaders with cheerleaders, nerds with nerds. Sure there was a little bit of overlap, but for the most part they stayed within their borders.

Honestly, it had taken Gwen a long time to notice those borders. For most of her life she hadn't noticed they existed at all. But then again she had been both friendly and naïve. Until high school rolled around, that is. Then she wasn't either of those things anymore. After a summer of physical therapy and the regular old type of therapy, she had shown up and there they were, plain as day. Mostly because she didn't belong to any of them anymore.

Gwen actually used to love the first day of school. Back then she used to have a place she belonged—with the other girls in the pep squad. The first day of school arrival was a process she repeated every semester. She would have just run up to them, a giant grin on her face and her high ponytail swishing back and forth against the back of her neck, and there would have been a ridiculous amount of hugging. An unnecessary amount of hugging. And then they would have giggled, laughed, and gushed about how simply amazing and incredible their vacation was—each girl trying to outdo all the others—even though most of them were lying. But last semester things went a little differently.

That day still hovered in the back of Gwen's mind like it had been yesterday morning. Karen had dropped her off and then sped away in that peppy little BMW convertible to go shopping, leaving Gwen standing in the parking lot with nowhere to go. It sure as hell wasn't with the pep squad. The lot of them had visited her in the hospital after she got out of surgery. Once. They all had flowers and teddy bears and 'sympathy eyes', earnestly telling her about how she was going to get through this. Then they the responses to her texts and calls became slower and slower. Then they just didn't bother responding at all. Finally she was there, standing in the parking lot, watching all those girls form a small circle, giggling and laughing. Most of them didn't notice her at all, but one definitely did.

Bethany Cartwell. She looked Gwen straight in the eye and smiled. Only this time it wasn't one of those happy, 'it's nice to see you' smiles. Nope, Bethany's smile read more along the lines of 'suck it, bitch'. Turns out Liv was right about a lot of things. Bethany Cartwell hated her. A lot. All those spa days and ice cream-chick flick fests had been total bullshit. She had been biding her time to step right into Gwen's spot, and from the looks of things she had done a pretty good job of it. And in that moment, Gwen had had to make a decision. She could either slip away, tail between her legs, or she could make a point. So she smiled back, a sickly sweet expression on her face, and raised her hand, making a prominent display of her middle finger. Then that smile on Bethany's face soured, turning into a sneer. The message was pretty clear.

It's war, bitch.

Things had pretty much spiraled from there. It was a sort of cold war of snide remarks and passive aggressive actions. Books were knocked out of hands, doors were slammed in faces. Most of it was stupid stuff that Gwen would let roll off her back pretty easily. Bethany Cartwell was kind of terrible at the witty insult. But then she had gone and done something Gwen couldn't let go. Near the end of the semester, Bethany had planned a memorial for Liv. Like she had known Liv—like she had actually cared about Liv. She had made this whole display—those stupid wreaths and flowers—it was all crap that Liv would have hated.

If Gwen had ever come close to a mental break, it was that moment right there. It was like her mind had disengaged from her body. She could remember the anger though—that uncontrollable feeling of rage boiling up inside of her until She couldn't entirely recall all the details of the incident, but according to the report the principal wrote up, it had involved a lot of screaming and her ripping down every wreath and breaking every vase of flowers in the place. Brad and Karen had worked their monetary magic and gotten her off with a slap on the wrist and one detention, but at that point she had come to a decision. She was done. She was out.

Gwen grabbed her bag and climbed out of the car, slamming the door behind her, and took a deep breath. Here she was again, standing in the parking lot on the first day of school, no enemies, no allegiances, no nothing. She could see all those groups were beginning to form while she stood there alone, and that's the way she liked it. Reaching for those headphones around her neck, she pulled them up and over her ears, letting the music wash over her, and then strode through the front doors alone.

Anonymity. It was nice thing to have. Back at Devenford she had achieved a certain degree of notoriety what with her transition from pep squad captain to antisocial weirdo. People used to look at her with this expression on their faces that clearly stated something along the lines of 'what happened?'. Here nobody had anything to compare her to. She was just Gwen. Not that girl whose friend died or that girl who started screaming at Bethany Cartwell for being a phony, narcissistic ass. She was unknown. Or at least she would have been.

Liam Dunbar. The move was so close to being perfect—she was so close to leaving it all behind—but then he had to go ahead and transfer too. It wasn't like he was the worst of them back at Devenford. They had been friends before the accident—not incredibly close, but friends—and he hadn't been one of the harsh ones. Sure he had sent her some weird looks, but for the most part he left her alone. Hell, he even seemed to try and get Brett—Liv's bitter old boyfriend—to back off every once and a while. He wasn't that bad. Until the day that he was—the day that he became one of the assholes.

Oh, well. It was like Lydia said. This was a big school. They'd be able to avoid each other.

Taking one last deep breath, Gwen strode forward through the front doors of the school. As the random new girl that nobody recognized, she did get few looks from the other students, but this time they were merely curious instead of judgmental or hostile. And if there were any whispers, she didn't hear them. The earphones took care of that.

After winding her way through the halls, Gwen found her way to her locker, number 237. She quickly dialed in her combination and wrenched it open. She casually began to load in her books, fantasizing about being back in her bed. That is until she saw that square jaw and those blue eyes walking down the hallway in her direction. Gwen's eyes widened a bit and she ducked her head into her locker to hide, peeking out of the corner of her eye to see where he was going. But then he came to a stop on the opposite side of the hallway and reached for one of the locker doors.

Great. Fantastic. They had an entire freaking school with tons of hallways lined with lockers, and Liam Dunbar just had to have his locker just across the hallway from her.

Gwen's eyes fell shut and she swore inwardly, keeping her head in her locker to avoid yet another awkward encounter. When she finally opened her eyes again, she found herself staring at a note at bottom of her locker—one written with neat, flourished handwriting—sitting on top of a pair of stylish suede boots. Grumbling to herself, Gwen ripped open the note. This kind of stunt was just like Lydia. Thoughtful, but in the most inconvenient way possibly.

Gwen,

Have a great first day! And please do your best to be something slightly resembling normal. You're probably wearing those horrendous combat boots despite my previous advice, so I have provided you with a more suitable option. For the love of Gucci, please wear them. When you wear those combat boots you look like you should be in one of those reality shows about pawn shops.

Lydia

As her eyes skimmed the note, Gwen let out a light hearted snort and rolled her eyes before folding the note back up and tucking it in the back of her locker. Sometimes she thought Lydia was a freaking ninja or something. Or that she had an army of couture-wearing clones hidden in the Martin lake house. There had to be more than one of her. How did she find the time to pull stuff like this off?

Gwen left the heeled boots at the bottom of her locker and busied herself with decorating the interior of the door with band posters and a few photographs—old ones of her and Liv and new ones of her and Lydia. Honestly, though, she was just killing time, waiting for Liam to clear out. After she finished loading in all her school supplies, she glanced over her shoulder in the direction of what was apparently Liam's locker. When she found the spot vacant, she retracted her head from where it was stashed in her locker and went to close the door. But as soon as that door began to swing shut, she was faced with yet another surprise.

Two faces suddenly appeared in front of her, both of them with freakishly huge grins on their faces, making her jump back and let out a yelp. "Son of a—Seriously? Was that necessary? And please stop smiling like that—it's really starting to creep me out. You either look like pedophiles or serial killers."

The wide smiles on Stiles and Scott's faces faltered slightly and they exchanged a look before turning back to Gwen. There was just something off about those two. They constantly looked like they were conspiring for some reason or another. Not in a way that meant they were up to anything sinister—they were way too uncoordinated for that. They just looked like they were hiding something. All the time. "You don't have to do this, you know," she sighed, looking back and forth between the two of them.

"What do you mean?" Scott inquired, furrowing his eyebrows a little.

"Please," Gwen said, rolling her eyes a bit as she fully slammed her locker door. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. I divest you of all responsibility. You don't have to keep looking in on Lydia's basket case cousin." She waved her hands around a bit like she was shooing them off. "You are hereby released from your obligation. Go forth and be free. I really don't need a guardian angel hovering over me. It's gonna ruin that mysterious/misunderstood brand I'm trying to cultivate if I'm chumming around with you guys."

"Wha-that's not what we were doing!" Scott protested.

"Sooooo…." she drawled out, shrugging a bit. "What are you doing?"

"Wha—nothing," Stiles laughed out, scratching at the back of his neck and waving his hands around a bit. "First day back at school. Classes, books, and stuff. Knowledge."

"Um, yeah," Gwen said, scrunching her face up into a confused expression. "That's the basic idea. I meant what are you doing here. At my locker. Which, as I understand it, is far, far away from either of your lockers. If you're not checking up on me then what the hell are you doing here?"

Scott sighed heavily and scratched at his forehead. "Lydia wanted us to check in on you," he finally admitted.

"Right," Gwen sighed out, bobbing her head a bit. "I got that. And why is it exactly that she can't check in on me herself?"

Again, Scott and Stiles exchanged a glance, kind of like they were confirming their stories before speaking again.

"She's got food poisoning."

"She's just really tired."

Gwen raised her eyebrows at the both of them, slightly accusatorially, and gave them a skeptical look. Their heads snapped around so that they could glower at each other, each one a bit angry at the other for invalidating their argument. After one brief death glare, they faced Gwen with expressions that were almost innocent-looking. "She's tired and has food poisoning," they said together, making Gwen wrinkle her nose even more.

"Really?" she demanded skeptically. "Because when I was on the phone with her earlier today, she didn't sound like she had food poisoning."

"Bwah, it was really sudden," Stiles blurted out, his face creasing into a wince. "Just, you know….puking and fluids everywhere. Not pretty. She's probably sleeping it off right now. It's seems like one of those 24 hour things. She'll be right back here tomorrow."

"Yeah..." Gwen just stared at them for a moment, eyes narrowed suspiciously. Then she blew out a long breath and shook her head at them. "You know you guys suck at lying, right? Like, terribly. Horribly."

Stiles let out a scoff and rolled his eyes so heavily his head rolled a little bit too. "Pshah! What are you talking about? We're great a—at lying."

Half way into the sentence Stiles seemed to realize it wasn't exactly taking him in the right direction, and that grimace returned to his face. Gwen bit down on the inside of her cheek, trying her level best not to bust out laughing. Lydia had informed her that laughing at her friends was only allowed when they were being complete idiots. Gwen had yet to fully gage the spectrum of idiocy that Stiles and Scott could display, but generally it ranged from well-intentioned to hilarious and more than once moved into the 'embarrassing' territory. "Smooth, man," she said, shooting him a bit of a snide smirk. "Really smooth."

"Ugh, shut up."

"How was Mexico?"

Both of their eyes widened, doing a bit of a deer in headlights type thing, and neither of them said a word. She jutted out her chin a bit and gave them a questioning look while the both of them gaped at her, their mouths opening and closing a bit. Gwen just snorted and rolled her eyes at them.

"Yeah," she deadpanned. "You two are a pair of international men of mystery." Then she raised her eyebrows expectantly, pointing back and forth between them. "Get it? International? Because you were in Mexico?" The look of sheer alarm on both of their faces made her pause. "Man, what the hell did you guys do down there? Run over a hobo?"

"Nothing," Scott replied quickly, fidgeting evasively. "We just, uh, we just went to a club. Did some dancing—that sort of thing."

"Did you and Kira finally get to have that makeout session?" Gwen asked, looking at Scott pointedly. He flushed slightly and shifted on his feet, which as far as Gwen was concerned was a giant flashing neon light of a 'no'. She rolled her eyes and let out a loud groan, rocking back on her heels a bit. "Seriously? If you can't seal the deal on a road trip to Mexico filled with illicit substances and reckless, youthful abandon, when the hell is it going to happen? Jesus, the sexual tension in your group is stressing me out, and I don't even have to witness it all that much. It must be hell for you guys." She pivoted a bit, staring down Stiles this time. "Okay, at least tell me that you and Malia hooked up."

"O—okay," Stiles said, holding his hands out like he was physically pushing back her inquiries. "I think that's enough of the twenty questions."

A big grin, sarcastic split across Gwen's face. "Well that sounds like a yes," she drawled out. She lifted her hand up for a high-five and waggled her eyebrows theatrically.

Stiles glared at that hand for a moment, clearly somewhat less than amused. But then again that was the objective. Gwen had learned while back that if asking people to leave you alone didn't work out, you could always annoy them until they would want to. Turns out that after a decade of people-pleasing, she was pretty good at the alienating people thing. "What?" Gwen asked, an innocent expression covering her face and waving her hand around a bit. "No high-five?"

"Oh my God." Stiles groaned and rocked back on his heels, the expression on his face clearly stating 'I am so done with this shit'. Grabbing her shoulders, Stiles spun her around and began to walk, half-guiding, half-pushing her down the hall with Scott keeping up with them. "What are you doing?" Gwen asked, frowning a bit as she was steered around.

"You're going to class," Stiles informed her. "You are going to sit down, pay attention, not get yourself into any trouble, and generally not be a pain in the ass. More specifically you're not going to be a pain in my ass. How does that sound?"

"Well honestly it sounds a little boring," Gwen mused. "Like an 'I'd rather be getting a root canal' boring."

"Great," Stiles said, patting her on the head with a heavy dose of condescension. "Congratulations. It sounds like you've fully grasped the concept of 'high school'. Enjoy the next three and half years of torture."

Gwen made a face and twisted around to glower up at him. "Really? That's what you're going with? I was thinking something more along the lines of a rousing speech—a little bit of encouragement."

"Would you look at that?!" Stiles announced, coming to an abrupt stop and positioning her in front of a doorway. "It's your homeroom. Welcome to hell."

"Loving the positive attitude, Stilinski," Gwen drawled out, her voice thick with sarcasm, and shooting him a double thumbs up. She blew out a long breath and nodded at the two of them. "I've got to say, I feel super-comforted right now. Are you guys going to walk me to my next class too? Can we hold hands and skip through the hallways?"

Gwen stared into the room and wrinkled her nose slightly. The teacher was standing at the board writing out a list labeled 'classroom rules' and rolling his eyes at the happy chatter of his students. Ugh. Great. He was one of those 'I'll stamp out your joy with difficult tests and endless homework assignments' types. Gwen let out a low whine and rocked back on her heels. "And apparently the devil wears pleated khakis," she drawled out. "You think he'd choose something with a little more flare."

A loud snort erupted from Stiles's throat. "And there is the Martin family resemblance I've been looking for."

"What are you talking about?" Gwen said smirking up at him. "The good taste or the clever sass?"

"Or the staggering degree of self-confidence that can make you want to slam your head into the nearest solid surface," Stiles muttered back.

All of the sudden the school bell rang, and the ebb and flow of the students shifted and they began to file into their classrooms. That general sound of first-day cheerfulness and excitement gradually faded away into that more typical sound of quiet despair. A couple of students shoved their way past the trio, jostling Gwen a bit as they moved. Why they were so eager to get to freaking math class she had no idea.

Well here it was. Her bright and shining new beginning.

Just then, another student rammed into her shoulder, making her stumble. Yup. That sounded about right.

A hand reached up and grabbed her shoulder, steadying her. She looked up to find Scott staring down at her reassuringly. His hand gripped her shoulder, squeezing it with a brotherly sort of affection. "Hey," he said, looking down at her earnestly. "You'll be fine."

"Oh, I know I'll be fine," Gwen said with a casual scoff. "It's them you should be worried about."

"That's the spirit?" Stiles said as he pumped a fist in the air, the sentence coming out more as a question than anything else.

"You know you guys don't have to do this, right?" she said, turning around to face them both fully. "I mean, really. I know Lydia asked you and I appreciate the sentiment and all that, but I'm a big girl. I don't need you to babysit me .And I'm sure you both have things you'd rather be doing right now, and honestly it's a bit annoying to have people standing over you like that."

The two of them looked a little skeptical which, quite frankly, she resented. Then the second bell rang. Stiles just smacked Scott in the arm and jerked his head in the the direction of his first period class before running off down the hallway. Scott on the other hand lingered for a moment. He sighed a bit, gripping the straps of his backpack. "You're going to be fine," he repeated. Only this time it sounded different. It wasn't a reassurance. It was just a plain, unembellished, unassuming statement of fact—something Gwen wasn't very used to lately. And so she did what she usually did these days. She pushed back.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, man," Gwen quipped, giving him a long wave. "But that's kinda what I've been saying the whole time."

A soft smile pulled at the corners of Scott's lips. It was a bit unnerving, actually. He was such an oddly positive force, it felt kind of like staring into the sun. But then again the rays of the sun were kind of useless if they were confronted with a black hole. Scott didn't seem the type to accept that, though. "You are going to be okay," Scott said insistently.

"Great," Gwen drawled out. Scott's smile widened a bit, making her even more uncomfortable. "What?!"

"Nothing," he said with a shake of his head. "Now go kick today's ass. Make a few friends."

"Ugh," Gwen groaned, wrinkling her nose in distaste. "Not likely."

Scott raised his eyebrows at her and let out a weird laugh. "Fine. Just….don't make any enemies."

"Pshah—how likely is that? In case you haven't noticed, I am very difficult to be around."

Scott didn't respond. He just shot her one last smile before jogging down the hallway in the same direction as Stiles. Gwen sighed heavily as he disappeared into the crowds of students. Honestly it was kind of weird the way Scott and Stiles were looking out for her. It wasn't like she knew either of them all that well. She had met them a few weeks ago back when she had moved in to the Martin household, and then it was like the two of them had just decided to look out for her. Though Gwen was pretty sure it wasn't on her own account. It was on Lydia's. If she was Lydia's problem, she was their problem too. Which honestly was just fine with Gwen. Really, it was. All of the benefits of friendship, none of the hassle, right? That was fan-freaking-tastic.

By the time Gwen actually walked into her classroom, most of the seats had already filled up. Luckily there were a few spots left in the back of the room. Gwen liked the back of the room—nobody looked at you when you were in the back of the room. It was pretty much ideal. What wasn't ideal was that the room was filled with those two-person desks instead of those individual ones. That meant some poor, unfortunate soul was going to be her desk mate.

Walking briskly, Gwen tried to make her way to one of those seats. Before she could, though, a jaded drawl reached her ears. "I don't recognize you. You must be Ms. Gilroy."

Gwen stopped in her tracks, a wince covering her face as she slowly turned towards the board. The teacher—who according to his stark handwriting was named Mr. Hamilton—hadn't even needed to turn away from the board to register her entrance. He used some sort of ninja-like enhanced peripheral vision. This did not bode well. "Hi," she said with an uncomfortable wave. "Nice to meet you. I'll just—" she pointed at the free desks "—I'll just go find a seat."

"No you won't," Mr. Hamilton replied, blocking her escape and making sure she stopped short a second time. "I've been informed that I'm supposed to introduce new students at the beginning of the class. I assure you, I will enjoy the experience even less than you will."

"I seriously doubt that," she muttered to herself as she was dragged back to the front of the room.

"Alright, listen up!" Mr. Hamilton called out harshly, making the idle chitchat of the classroom stop abruptly. Most of the students twisted in their seats and turned to the front of the class, looking directly at her. Great.

"This is Gwendolyn Gilroy," Mr. Hamilton continued, waving vaguely in Gwen's direction. "She's a new transfer student, so you should all me nice and welcoming and so on and so forth." Then he turned to Gwen once more. "Do you have anything you'd like to add?"

Gwen glanced between Mr. Hamilton and the rest of the class. "Nah."

Then, without further ado, she left the front of the class and made her way to the back of the room, picking out .

"Alright then," she heard Mr. Hamilton say. "An answer elegant in its brevity. Now if you will all lend me as much of your limited attention as possible, we can now. Most of you seem to have forgotten the rules of the classroom I established last semester, so let's have a refresher course, shall we?"

Mr. Hamilton began to drone on about his rules as Gwen settled herself in for the period. The list was pretty predictable, and filled with directives that no teenager would even bother trying to fulfill.

Don't be late

Don't use cell phones

Restrain your idiocy as much as possible

Don't…..

She could have kept reading, but there were about twenty items up there and, quite frankly, she didn't care. So she just sat there. Staring down at her left hand, she began doing the exercises they taught her in physical therapy—touching each of her fingers to her thumb as quickly as possible. She managed about four repetitions before the tremor started, making her whole hand shake. She involuntarily gritted her teeth in frustration, clenching her hand into a fist. Why couldn't she get to ten? Why couldn't she at least get to ten?

"Hey!"

Gwen jumped in her seat a bit at the voice that suddenly appeared by her ear. She looked up from her hand to find a boy sliding in the seat next to her. He had a strong jaw line, velvety brown skin that was so smooth it made her a little bit envious, and a smile that seemed like it was an expression he was used to making. Great. She was sitting next to one of the happy ones. There was a distinct possibility that this could get annoying pretty quickly.

The guy dropped into the chair next to hers easily and flashed her a wide smile in greeting. She just pressed her lips together in a thin line and nodded at him in response, hoping that the less than warm greeting would put a stop to any other attempts at communication. Unfortunately she was not quite successful. The guy immediately opened his mouth to say something. He wasn't just one of the happy ones, he was one of the talkers. Gwen groaned internally waiting for some sort of verbal onslaught, but before he got the chance to say anything, Mr. Hamilton's dry voice interrupted.

"Mason," the teacher drawled out. "So good of you to show up for class. Barely into the school year and you've already violated rule number one."

The guy—Mason—glanced at the list written up at the board before speaking. "Oh, yeah," he muttered. "Sorry. The bus was late."

"You know the rules," the man replied. "Three tardies and you get a detention. Consider this your strike one."

Mason sighed heavily, but nodded in silent agreement. Then Mr. Hamilton's eyes shifted slightly, and Gwen found herself as the object of his attention. And the way he was looking at her you would of thought she was a slug or something else equally disgusting. "Ms. Gilroy, please remove those headphones. It may be a difficult concept to grasp, but classes such as this one are a time for you to learn. Generally this involves actually listening to the individual teaching you."

Gwen ground her teeth together, desperately trying to keep the rude comment she was thinking in her head rather than on her lips. She managed to force it back and silently reached up, removing the headphones and stowing them in her bag. After inclining his head towards her in the most patronizing way possible, he grabbed a stack of papers off his desk and began passing them around to the class. "Alright, here's your syllabus. It has an outline of everything we'll be doing this semester. Cue the chorus of immature groaning—"

"That was a good call," the boy next to her said suddenly, wrenching her attention away from the Mr. Hamilton as he droned on about the syllabus.

Frowning to herself, Gwen glanced to her right. He was leaning in towards her conspiratorially and speaking out of the corner of his mouth in an attempt to be subtle. "What are you talking about?" she demanded.

"You had the look," he whispered back, gesturing vaguely in the direction of his eyes. "You never want to talk back to Hamilton. Once you do, he'll have it out for you all year. He takes the 'abuse of power' thing about as far as it can go for a high school teacher." Then he smiled at her and stuck out his hand. "Hi. I'm Mason."

Gwen eyed his hand warily for a few moments, but took it, giving it a hesitant shake. "Gwen."

"I'm pretty sure I met everybody in our class already and you don't look at all familiar," he continued. "Are you new here?"

"Yup," Gwen replied. Usually in circumstances like this she tried to keep it at one word answers, making people uncomfortable enough to discourage attempts at conversation. It didn't seem to be working out all that well this time, though. And it wasn't going to. She recognized this guy—his type. Mostly because she used to be his type—the friendly one who was just really good at making other people happy. And who wanted to make other people happy. Well, unfortunately for him all of his efforts on her would be a complete waste. She wasn't all that good at being happy these days.

"Fresh meat," Mason continued, still smiling and bobbing his head a bit. "That's good to hear. Well you're gonna like it here. I mean I'm pretty sure math sucks as much here as it does anywhere else and the teachers can be assholes, but we've got some things working for us. We've got an awesome lacrosse team, pretty good band, plus the tater tots they serve in the cafeteria are pretty freaking incredible."

"Sounds great," Gwen deadpanned.

Mason blinked, but otherwise didn't show all that much of a reaction to her bluntness. "Yeah….." he drawled out. "It is. Um….if you need any help getting settled—directions, that sort of thing. What school did you transfer from?"

"Look, you really don't have to do this," Gwen interjected.

A crease formed between Mason's eyebrows as they drew together. "What d'you mean?"

"The whole 'welcome wagon' thing," Gwen said, waving her hand around a bit. "You know, the tour, the advice, that sort of stuff. I appreciate the sentiment and everything, you really don't need to waste your time on me. I'm cool without it. And you don't want me to fill a spot in your friendship quota—trust me."

That seemed to shut Mason up pretty quickly. Not because it had been spoken especially harshly—Gwen's voice was more tired than anything else—but her casual bluntness seemed to have that effect on people from time to time. It was just as well, anyway. Mr. Hamilton had finished blathering on about the syllabus, and it looked like he had actually planned something for them. Ugh. Gwen hated that type of teacher—the ones who actually expected to accomplish something on the first day of school.

"So I'm sure by now you are all wondering what kind of horrors I have in store for you," Mr. Hamilton announced, clapping his hands together in something that Gwen supposed slightly resembled glee. "Well I for one would like to know exactly how much work I have cut out for me this semester, so we're going to find out what you remember from the last one. That is if you remember anything at all. And do you know what that means?" Both the collective groan of the students and the vindictive smile of the teacher told Gwen she probably wasn't going to like the answer. "That's right boys and girls," Mr. Hamilton continued. "You're taking a test. I haven't decided whether or not it's going to be graded yet."

Angry mutterings and the sound of rustling paper filled the room as the students stowed their things. Gwen sighed heavily and followed their example, removing everything but her mechanical pencil from her desk. She tapped the eraser against the table impatiently, waiting for the depressing stack of papers to make its way in her direction. She propped her head up on her hand and yawned a bit. As she did she got a glance at Mason, who was staring at her with a curious expression. "Where's your calculator?" he asked, looking at the vacant spot in front of her.

Gwen just shrugged back. "Don't have one."

"Wha—"

But before he had the chance to finish his question, the papers made their way to her desk. Gwen skimmed the page in front of her. Linear algebra, factorials, it was mostly the easy stuff. Her pencil scratched quickly across her paper. The numbers revealed themselves fairly quickly. They usually did. Gwen wasn't sure how to describe it. It was like they….unfolded themselves. Math was just rules, really. As long as you knew what the rules were, you were fine. You knew where you stood with math. It was the same with a piano. You could hit a key and trust that it the note would come out clear and true. It was neat, tidy, and kind of beautiful. People on the other hand—they were messy.

Before she knew it, Gwen flipped the page to find herself confronted not by more paper, but by the cheap fake wood laminate desk. She scanned the pages again, giving it a quick look for mistakes. Once she got to that last page again, she pushed back her seat, strode to the front of the classroom, and dropped the paper on the teacher's desk. She got some strange looks from her classmates on the way back. As she collapsed back in her seat, she reached into her bag to pull out her headphones. Shoving them over her ears she leaned down over the desk, resting her head on her arms and closing her eyes. Then she allowed herself to drift.

She didn't get to drift very far, though. Just a few moments after she laid her head down, she felt someone tap her on the shoulder. Raising her head again, she found someone looming over her. That someone being Mr. Hamilton. Honestly with the expression on his face, she couldn't tell if he was pissed off or happy to be standing her over her like that. His lips started moving, but Gwen couldn't hear him over the sound of the music pumping in her ears. She pulled off the headphones again, looking up at him. "Sorry, what was that?"

Hamilton stared down at her, his eyes filled with a lethal mixture of judgment and contempt. He threw her test down on the table with a loud thwack. "Ms. Gilroy," he growled. "I understand that you're new here, but I don't appreciate intentional mediocrity. I expect my students to actually try to accomplish the tasks I set out for them."

Gwen looked down at the test and then back up at him again. "Um, yeah," she replied, nodding down at the paper. "I did. It's right there. I finished it. Consider it accomplished."

Hamilton let out a scoff and raised his eyebrows at her. "You finished it?" he demanded skeptically.

"Yes….." Gwen said, scrunching up her face in confusion.

Narrowing his eyes at her and letting out a disbelieving scoff, Hamilton snatched the paper back up and began to read it. His eyes darted back and forth across the page, and as they did, his face changed. It went from snide to confused then to slightly angry. When he drew the papers away from his face, he smiled down at her—actually it was more of a sneer than a smile—and returned to his desk.

A loud snort echoed from right next to her. She turned to see Mason shaking his head at his own test, trying to keep a weird, contorted smile off his face. He was pretty much the only one smiling though. She looked up to find her other classmates staring at her with weird, unreadable expressions.

Great. She had alienated her classmates, pissed off a teacher, generally made herself extremely visible, and it was only twenty-three minutes into first period. All in a good days work.

So there it is! I love Mason, and he and Gwen are going to be close friends, but at this point Gwen isn't looking to make friends. She's going to end up with them anyway though!

Sorry for there still not being much Liam, but I can guarantee that he will appear in the next chapter in a significant way.

Also, Stiles and Scott! So I tried to play it with them being a bit patronizing (Stiles especially since he's a bit of a smartass). They're trying to look out for Gwen, but they still don't know her all that well. They are going to grow to appreciate her a lot. As for right now I'm going for an older brother-younger sister type thing. Scott is the over-protective big brother and Stiles is the big brother who puts Vaseline in your conditioner to mess up your hair.

Hope you liked it, and please review!