Chapter Text
There's a small amount of fog rolling over the small town she used to live in for most of her life, sure she might have ran away to Seattle for a bit but Max Caulfield's home has always and will always be Arcadia Bay. She's feeling just the slightest bit anxious, I mean she's returning to her hometown as a new woman. Sure she's still a scrawny little nerd but this time she has boobs (not big ones but still) and way longer hair, so surely no one would recognize Maxine Caulfield as having been Maxwell Caulfield (She hopes against all odds).
The bus passes by a really familiar sight, the two whales diner. "I wonder how Joyce, William and Chloe are doing." She thinks to herself, leaning against the window as the sounds of "Syd Matters" play from her earphones. She wistfully stares out from the window as people walk, drive or bike past.
A few minutes later she finally arrives at Blackwell Academy, she picks up the last of her luggage that she managed to haul with her on to the bus and nearly falls on her face as she hauls the final suitcase of her stuff towards the dorms (a process which has taken up most of the allotted time for move-in day) while some of the other people she saw moving into the dorm with the help of their families are already taking a tour around the campus. After a slight struggle she finally pushes the last suitcase into her new room, which for now is only filled with a bed, desk, chair, a duffel bag and five suitcases that she will have to send back to her parents after she's done unpacking.
"Hello new home, you're quite empty huh? Don't worry, mama Max will stuff you." She cringes once she realizes how that might sound in a different context but nonetheless she starts by opening the most important suitcase that she brought in first. Pulling out skinny jeans, graphic t-shirts, underwear and her medicine, quickly putting her estrofem and androcur neatly in the furthest crevice of her desk drawers. Sighing from relief that they weren't stolen (no real reason for them to be stolen but she's allowed to be a little paranoid/anxious).
The rest of the day is quickly swallowed by putting her room together bit by bit, looking a little more familiar now. Her laptop neatly put on her desk, a small laundry basket off in a corner, some nice posters that she's had for a while and a lot of childhood photos put into drawers. She looks up at the empty wall above her bed and decides to snap the first photo she will add to it. Walking up to her mirror that was provided to her along with almost everything else that couldn't fit in a suitcase by the school. She's small and looks fragile, stupid and nerdy. In her old turtle t-shirt, skinny jeans that only accentuate her bony-knees, her large shoulders and the bags under her eyes.
"A before and after picture maybe?" She says to herself as she puts her polaroid camera onto her desk and waits for the camera to actually take the picture. Her arms at her sides as she stares into the lens, she hears a knock on the door before it's opened by a girl she saw at the dorms carrying a bunny or rabbit in a cage at the start of the day. She turns to talk to her and hears the camera click as the picture is taken.
"Oh sorry. A-am I interrupting? I made everyone cookies and I've been handing them out." For the first time Max actually focuses on the woman standing before her, wrapped in a large cardigan, dress shirt, a long skirt and wearing a cross necklace.
"Oh! No not at all! I was just taking a picture for my wall, I can rip it up if you don't want me to hold onto it." The girls eyes widen a bit.
"No you don't have to do anything like that! I'm sorry for photo bombing. I'm Kate by the way, I'm thinking of starting up a bible study group so if you're interested feel free to join." Kate says as she hands a small plastic bag filled with three (hopefully sweet) wheat cookies, Max takes the bag. Feeling apprehensive as she hears about the bible study, most Christians don't really enjoy talking to trans people.
"Uhm, maybe I haven't gone to church in years and I wasn't really invested ever. Thanks for the cookies though, Kate." The Christian in response cocks her head to the side a little but nods as she hears the thanks.
"Well, the lord accepts all his lost children! What's your name?" Max feels a bit dumber once again as she realizes she hasn't even given her name.
"I'm Maxine Caulfield, Max for short. Nice to meet you Kate." Holding out her hand as she introduces herself, Kate gives a very weak handshake in response.
"Same to you Max, I'm sure you want to sleep by now so I'll go give someone else some cookies. Have a good night!" Kate says as she walks out and waves with the hand that isn't filled with four bags of cookies.
The photo didn't turn out that badly, which is honestly a surprise to Max. Sure there's a bit of motion blur but nothing too awful and Kate's surprised face is quite cute. "No I shouldn't think about that, life will only be harder if people find out you're bi, let alone trans!" Max thinks to herself as she takes some blu tack and sticks it onto the back of the polaroid before fitting it onto the wall. She pulls out her meds, putting the androcur in first and swallowing it with the help of some water from her bottle and then putting the estrofem under her tongue. She changes into her pajamas, a t-shirt with a duck on it and some shorts over her underwear. Settling into bed she wonders about how she might be able find her classes the following day and how she's going to use the communal showers without being outed. Her worries however are dragged away by the warm embrace of sleep.
The first day at Blackwell academy goes by really quickly, Max has a lot on her plate as she wanders around the school like a headless chicken. Not knowing where any of the classes are, asking people that she passes by and attempting to make friends. Including another nerd named "Warren" who talks about a lot of niche interests that she manages to catch but only some of them. She sighs out of relief when she sees Kate also going to Miss Amelia Linger's class, Max was really starstruck when she visited a showing of some her works which helped to relight the passion in photography she had as a child. She didn't get to see her at the art exhibit but she was every bit as impressive as she thought that she would be.
"Now then, that is what we're going to be focusing on for the majority of the upcoming months. If you don't like it, too bad but if you are confident in the fact that you know what I'm going to teach you then you can take my position for a day." Miss Amelia explains as she sits on her desk looking at the rather small class, filled with Max, Kate, a blond woman who's really extravagantly dressed, a woman with dyed hair, a guy with a buzzcut, another blond woman with cute bangs, a woman with glasses and a ponytail and last but not least a shy looking slightly larger than average guy.
"I'm not saying this to intimidate you or scare you away from me. I will always be here for any questions you might have and I will support all of you the best I can, now does anyone have any pictures they would like to share with the class?" Miss Amelia says as she looks around the room, standing up from her desk and revealing camera bag which proudly boasts a few pins. One of them stating "Ask me about my D&D Character" with antlers on it and another with the pride flag and the words "Be who you are!", Max is really glad that she didn't turn out to be a bigot like that one "Jefferson" person Miss Amelia talked about in her autobiography. The class has become as quiet as a church since no one is jumping at the opportunity to be mocked for their work.
"Alright, if you don't want to share pictures or you don't have any, split into groups and start taking some! You can stay in class, go out to the hall or even outside. As long as you don't leave school grounds and make it back to class at 13.45 y'all are free to do as you like." Amelia says as she claps her hands and the room very clearly starts to split to people who have already talked, speaking of which Kate comes up to Max.
"Did you like the cookies Max?" She says while bringing her chair over, along with a notebook and pencil clutched in her hand.
"Oh I didn't have the time to eat any, I was way too tired last night. I'll try some today though." Max replies, hoping that Kate can't smell the fact that she didn't remember to brush her teeth last night.
"Okay! Let's get to getting you some pictures and getting me some sketches." Kate replies.
The rest of the day goes by quite quickly, most of the classes are really boring just basic info about what the following few months are going to be about. What the tests are going cover and the study material. By the time she gets back to her dorm Max starts to wonder about what to eat since there weren't that many vegan choices at the school cafeteria. For a moment she looks over at her phone and thinks about going to the two wales diner. "What if Joyce and William aren't accepting as I thought they were? I mean Chloe promised that she'd be Max's partner in crime "from now until the end of time" but maybe she meant to that Maxwell and not Maxine?" all of the thinking gets to her a little as she decides to scroll on facebook for a while eating some of Kate's cookies which are actually covered in sugar (and taste really nice).
After she's decided she's had enough of the internet, Max decides to read a little bit ahead on her math coursebook since she's always struggled with it. Looking around at the somewhat empty room she feels at peace. She's here, she's made it back to Arcadia Bay, studying under Amelia Linger and other amazing teachers. She unlocks her phone and scrolls down to the phone number she had saved since she left "Captain Chloe", they haven't talked in so long but she never had the heart to delete Chloe's number. Chloe might have lost hers a while ago since they switched phone plans while studying at Seattle.
Max spends fifteen agonizing minutes typing, deleting and retyping a message until she realizes that she can't come up with something that would be a good opener. She can't exactly just send over "Hey Chloe it's your bestfriend Max but now I think I'm a girl and I'm actually hiding out in the girls dorm of Blackwell academy because I'm a disgusting tranny, do you wanna play pirates in your backyard again?"
Taking her meds and settling into bed once again Max tries to get some good rest and not be haunted by Chloe.