A/N: Thank you all for your patience. This is one of my favourite chapters simply because of who's in it. I hope you enjoy.

Chapter Seven

"She's not even singing anymore."

It was one line. One line that I heard that someone said as I walked by them that struck me. Despite all my efforts to assimilate, to adjust to Tammy's life while making it interesting enough and staying in her realm of interests, I had forgotten something major. Tammy sang. Off key and all the time. Logically it was something that could easily be fixed, but I was suddenly afraid that somehow someone would realize the truth. I wasn't her.

I tried to put it out of my mind. It was a small detail that I could fix. I just didn't know how. It seemed like everything was adding up. It had been the most stressful week I had had so far. Carol actively tried to trip me in the hallways. The one teacher, Hughs, kept glaring at me every time he saw me and people had kept trying to talk to me, to get me to tell them "the truth." They all acted as if they knew Tammy, and maybe they did, it was a small town. Everyone tended to know everybody. I didn't. I just tried my best in answering without ever having to actually say someone's name.

I picked Robin up outside of the house she gave me direction to. She was already outside when I showed up after my self defence class.

"Hey," I said. I had been looking forward to this. I hadn't had a sleep over since my twenty fifth birthday and that was more just people passed out at my house. My birthday was in November. It was coming up and no one was going to know.

"Is this what you wear to your class?" Robin's voice broke through my thoughts. She threw her bag at the floor by her feet. I was still in the uniform they gave to the students.

"Yup." I grinned at her. "What? Don't you think it suits me?"

"Maybe, if you were in fighting The Karate Kid."

"You know he's got nothing on me," I grinned.

We sat in Tammy's room. Her mother had brought up drinks and snacks. She seemed pleased to meet Robin, if a little uncertain. She had pulled me aside at one point early in the night to ask where Ally was, if she was coming. I told her this was a time for Robin and I to build our friendship, to become better friends. After all, wasn't it good to have more friends? She didn't have an argument for that.

"What's your favourite song?"

Robin was going through Tammy's records and cassettes. She didn't look too impressed but then again neither was I when I went through them. I had no idea what Tammy's favourite song was.

"I don't know. There are so many options." It was a lame answer. I hated it when people asked that question. "How can someone choose one song?"

"Okay," she smiled at me. "Do you have a favourite artist?"

I tried to think quickly. I couldn't say that my favourite artist was Pink! Or Green Day or. Blink 182. None of those existed yet. I settled on something I felt was safe. "Queen."

"Queen's great, but they have nothing on Cher," she said, holding up a tape. I threw a pillow at her. She fell down laughing. "What?"

"Who's your favourite then?" I asked.

"Definitely Cher." I threw another pillow at her.

When Robin was asleep, I lay in silence. We watched movies and stayed up late talking about what felt like everything under the sun. She had offered to do my hair but the mess of curls seemed too much for both of us. It made me miss my hair. When she finally fell asleep though it felt like the world was crashing around me. When had I last felt like this? With my own friends back home? People I may never see again who knew everything about me? Robin was great but she didn't know me. She thought she was befriending Tammy. I was trying not to cry. It wouldn't be fair to Robin, but none of this had been fair to me, or to Tammy, wherever she was.

I didn't want to feel like this. That whatever I tried to do, I couldn't find my place here. I was always going to be Tammy. I just wanted to be me again.

I sat in front of Tammy's stereo. There was a trick to it, I was certain. I just couldn't figure it out. I needed the music. I needed stuff to listen to while I worked out and I needed to listen to stuff so I could memorize the lyrics and sing along. I had to do something. I needed this. I stared at the radio. This wasn't working. I needed help. Where was youtube when I needed it?

I couldn't go to just anyone. No one would understand why Tammy Thompson who was well known for singing and taping herself, suddenly couldn't figure out how to record music. It wouldn't make sense. Who would believe that a teenage girl didn't know how to make mixtapes?

I walked into Radioshack. It was fantastically empty and I was exceedingly grateful for it. I had only a vague idea of what I was going to say.

"Welcome to Radioshack! I'm Bob..oh hey! How'd those mix tapes work out for you?" I was grateful that it was him. He seemed the type that he wouldn't make fun of me, but would actually help.

"Terrible," I said. "I don't know what I did wrong but it wasn't working."

"Alright, take me through the process."

"I tried everything. I ran the tapes back, I tried recording my voice. I tried recording the radio. It kept playing back fuzz and I don't know what I'm doing wrong but I have to be doing something wrong because it didn't work. Why didn't it work?" I felt myself talking faster and faster. I couldn't stop myself "I swear I'm not incompetent! This is so stupid! It's not rocket science! I can work photoshop and do basic html programming but I can't figure out a stupid tape machine! Why are these even a thing?!" I started to cry. God it was so stupid and I was tired of these emotions.

"Hey, hey hey, it's okay!" Bob stepped forward and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "Come on, sit down. It'll be okay." He led me to a chair by the cash register. He grabbed a box of kleenex and held it out to me. "It's okay."

"No it's not!" I cried out. "I can't even work a stupid tape deck! I want to go home!"

"Do you need me to call your family? Friends? How can I help?" He was so earnest and it just made me cry harder. I didn't want to do this anymore. I was so sick of being stuck in the past, or being stuck in someone else's body.

"Can you build me a time machine?" I asked with a small laugh, shaking my head at the thought. "No one can help me." I sniffled. "Not here." God, that just made me cry more. What was wrong with me?

"What do you mean, not here?"

Oh god. My face must have dropped because he went to reassure me very quickly. "Hey, hey it's okay! If you need help, we can get you some help. Or we can sit here until you feel better. Whatever you want. Don't worry."

"If only it was that simple," I said dryly. I grabbed some of the kleenex and tried to clean myself as I did my best to stop crying.

"Why isn't it that simple?" he asked. His voice was soft, and he was standing by me but still giving me space.

"You wouldn't believe me," I said before blowing my nose. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to have a meltdown."

"Sounds to me like you needed it." He handed me more kleenex and smiled. "What's so hard to believe?"

I stared at him. I barely knew this guy but I wasn't sure that I had ever met anyone who seemed as kind and earnest as he was. At least not anyone grown. I couldn't tell him. I knew that. It was a bad idea and he wasn't going to believe me. If anything it was just going to get me locked up in an asylum or something. I couldn't…and yet there was something about him.

"Do you believe in time travel?"

"Time travel?" He smiled a bit more widely. "Well, that depends. Are we talking about something that'll happen in the future, with like a machine?"

"No, more...spontaneous." Before I could stop myself, I told him everything. Well, almost everything. I didn't tell him that I was pretty sure this was a television show. No one should deal with that sort of existential crisis.

"Wow."

I swallowed dryly before standing up. "I'm sorry. I made a mistake. I shouldn't have-"

"No!" Bob nearly shouted. "No, it's okay. I won't...I won't tell anyone, if that's what you're worried about."

"You believe me?"

"Sounds almost too fantastical not to believe you. How long have you been here? As...her?" he motioned towards me.

"Few weeks now. Since the start of September."

"And you haven't told anyone?" He looked concerned.

"What am I going to say? Sorry, I woke up and am possessing your daughter? I don't know where she is. They'd commit me or they'd...there's a government facility in town."

"Yeah," he nodded. "Hawkins Electric."

I shook my head. "I doubt that's all they are. If they found out, I'd be gone faster than you can blink. I don't trust them not to...experiment, to try to take Tammy apart to figure this out. And then question me on everything that's going to happen."

"People shouldn't know their future," he nodded. "Yeah, I've read enough sci fi novels to know that much. Okay," he clapped his hands together and smiled. "What can I do to help?"

I stared at him in surprise. Was this how people felt when I said things they didn't expect. "What? You want to help me?"

"Sure," he nodded. "You're all alone in this world. You need someone on your side. I'm not much, but they don't call me Bob the Brain for nothing."

I felt myself start to cry again as he smiled at me. "I'm sorry," I said, waving a hand in my face to try and stop myself.

"It's okay," he said again.

I pushed myself forward off of the chair and hugged him tightly. He couldn't know how much this meant. He hugged me back.

"It's okay Kate."

I cried harder. I hadn't heard my name in weeks.

"It's okay. We'll figure this out."

Bob took me through the process of recording from radios onto tapes and from a full tape to a blank one. It was a small thing but it was the first step in continuing the ruse of being Tammy. He also promised to look into the books and stuff he had at home, to see if they had anything on time travel.

"This is too much," I said quietly. "You don't need to do this."

"Nonsense," Bob said, smiling. "It's barely anything. Come by this week, if you can. I'll introduce you to Joyce. You don't have to tell her anything, but she's a good woman to know. You'll like her."

"Well, if you do, that's already high praise." I hugged him again. "Thank you."

"If it gets too much," he said, "you can find me. You're not alone anymore, okay? You have a friend on your side."

I left the store feeling more light hearted than I thought was possible. Despite my reservations, the lack of thinking when I spoke, telling Bob was turning out to be a good decision. The fact that someone knew, someone finally knew, was a relief. The sound of my name also sounded better than anything I had heard since I got there. It made me realise that I needed to change Tammy's name. I needed to hear my name. From everyone.

[tbc]