Title: Roar! Save Your Pride
Summary: When the world knows she's Hannah, Miley runs to a small college in Florida to get away from it all, only to find out that running doesn't solve anything.
Rating: T
Word Count: 2531

Disclaimer: I don't own Hannah Montana, Flagler college, or the lyrics at the end of the Chapter. They belong to Secondhand Serenade. Please don't sue me!

Chapter: 1
Title: Freshmen Orientation

A/N: This is a REPOST of a story I wrote last February. My penname used to be ZOMBiiSLAYERx3, but I've switched account. So, I did NOT steal this story… Thanks for listening. R&R and I'll return the favor!

"Daddy, I'm telling you I'm fine! Yeah, my roommate's helping me." Miley Stewart shifted her cell phone so that it wouldn't fall from the place in between her ear and her shoulder where she'd wedged it. With a heavy box in her hand, she placed it against the wall next to her and pushed it up with her knee. Sighing into the phone she continued to listen to her father. "No Dad, no one's bothered me. One girl really freaked out when she saw me, but other than that I've just gotten a few greetings. Seriously Dad, stop asking me that because the answer hasn't changed since you last asked me. Okay, okay. I love you too! If I have any problems… Yes I will call you. Bye."

"You're dad called again?" a girl asked. Miley rolled her eyes and smiled.

"Yes! I don't think he believes me when I say I'm fine!"

The girl's hazel eyes sparkled and she shook her head. Without even asking she took the box from Miley and placed it on her shoulder. She motioned to the pile of boxes that Miley still had to take up to their dorm. "Honestly Stewart, I don't think that you brought enough stuff with you. I know that you're used to being Hannah Montana, but you're not going to have this much closet space!"

"Sorry Rhea," Miley shrugged with a grin. "A girl just can't help bringing her entire closet with her. It's a girl thing, you should know."

They grabbed the elevator. Rhea held the elevator doors open while Miley kicked and pushed boxes into the it. She tripped coming into the elevator and landed among the scattered boxes. Rhea snorted and burst out laughing. Miley had to admit that sometimes her laugh was annoying, but that was something that made her unique; annoying or not.

When they reached their floor, the second one, Miley held the doors open and Rhea placed all the boxes into the hallway. The each took turns carrying boxes to their dorm room. The room itself was a bright blue with two box-spring beds, two closets, two desks, a mini-fridge (provided by Rhea herself), and a lot of shelves (provided by both Miley and Rhea).

"So…" Rhea started as soon as all the boxes were stacked on Miley's side of the room. "Want to unpack? Or… we could totally go down and explore for a while…"

Miley looked at the pile of boxes in her room and then out the window into the courtyard.

"Explore, explore, explore! Onward! Let's be the next Lewis and Clark!" she exclaimed and was already half out the door by the time Rhea was off the bed. There was no way Miley was unpacking boxes. They took the stairs down to the main floor and wandered out into the sweet Florida sunshine.

"Miley Stewart! You're our lucky winner! You've won a full-ride scholarship to Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida!" Rhea said like she did every time they walked outside, but this time it felt different. Now that the boxes were in the room and the room keys were in her purse. Now that she had her schedule and that she knew where her classes were. Now that she was actually here, this all felt oh, so weird. It felt oh, so real.

It was safe to say that she wasn't in Malibu anymore. Miley sniffed the air and scrunched her nose in disgust. Ugh, sulfur. The water in St. Augustine, always smelled disgustingly of sulfur. Miley had long forgotten why, but she hoped that her senses would adjust soon like everyone had told her they had a long time ago.

"Oh, oh, I know that look! Don't think about it, that's one of the reason's why you can still smell it," she said.

"How do you do that?"

She shook her head, her white-blonde hair getting caught in her lip-gloss. "I'm telling you I'm Pathetelelic!"

"You mean telepathic?"

"That's what I said."

Miley shook her head and the girls walked out of the courtyard and onto the streets of St. Augustine. The stood on the sidewalk for a while debating on what they should do. Miley looked at her watch to catch the time and both girls realized that they hadn't eaten lunch yet. Rhea said that she knew this amazing Cuban restaurant. Miley wasn't big on Cuban food, but she went anyway. They were waiting for a table when a boy came up and nearly attacked Rhea.

"RA--" she started to scream, but her attacker placed his hand over her mouth.

"My God Rhea, chill out. I'm not going to rape you. It's only me; the one, the only, me. Long time no see girlie, where were you hiding all summer?" Rhea laughed when she turned around to see who it was. She hugged the boy with dark black hair and pale-olive skin.

"I spent my summer in Malibu with Miley," she told him, motioning to me. "She's my best friend from Tennessee."

He gave her a silly look. "Malibu is not in Tennessee, Rhea-Bear."

"Okay, well we used to live in Tennessee, but then she moved to Malibu and I moved to Jacksonville," she said sticking her tongue out when she was finished. "By the way, this is Miley."

"Yeah, Hannah Montana," he said. Miley rolled my eyes and nodded. He stuck his hand out and she shook it. "I'm Alexander Gilmore, but you can call me Zane."

"My name is Destiny Stewart, not Hannah Montana. However, you can call me Miley and only Miley," she said with a wry smile. They decided to eat together and while Zane and Rhea caught up, Miley thought to herself.

So far it hadn't been bad, but it had only been a day. What hadn't been bad? Her first day out in the public as Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana. That's why Miley was here in Florida instead of at USC with Lilly and Oliver like she was supposed to be. She'd made it this far, all the way through high school and then right at the last second, it all got swept from under her.

It'd all been so sudden. Jake and she had started dating in sophomore year when Jake moved permanently to Malibu. It'd been exciting and thrilling and… she loved him. Through the middle of their senior year, they started fighting, all the time. One night they were at a premiere and the press were bugging them, telling Miley that Jake was cheating on "Hannah" with some little Malibu girl. Finally Jake just go so fed up with it that he just pulled off her wig, right there in front of everyone.

That's when Miley decided to come to St. Augustine. To attend this small college with only 2,100 students. Her best friend from her childhood was going there too. Rhea came to stay with her that summer and they packed together and planned every part of their trip so that Hannah Montana/Miley Stewart was out of the press' eye. Miley broke up with Jake, even though he apologized so often that's all that ever came out of his mouth. Lilly and Oliver had been mad when she broke the news to them, but they were over it now. Both happy and sharing a dorm at USC without her.

"Earth to Miles," Rhea was saying. Miley looked up from her Caesar salad that she'd been picking at for the last twenty minutes. I took a bit and looked up at Zane and Rhea. I smiled, saying that I was paying attention and they started talking about this art teacher they had in high school.

"Are you wigging out?" Rhea asked several minutes later as Miley had stopped paying attention again.

"What?" she asked. "Am I what?"

"Wigging out? You keep going all zone-y on us. It's very ish and sketch."

"What the hell does that mean? 'Ish' and 'Sketch?' Are you speaking a foreign language or something?" Zane asked rather confused.

"She means I'm acting weird," Miley translated. He nodded and looked at her funny. Miley smiled at him and waved. Okay, so she was acting weird… There was nothing wrong with that…

"Sometimes she gets like this," Rhea tried to explain to him. "You see, even since the world found out her secret, she's been in hiding. She's just now readjusting to the real world."

"That's one way to put it," Miley said with a roll of her eyes. She took a rather large sip of her ice tea and started to choke on it. Rhea patted her hard on the back. Miley sent Rhea a look that told her not to touch her again or she'd get her hand chopped off.

The three of us were quiet for a while, which must have been really hard for Rhea because she was a complete chatter box all the time. All at once Zane looked as though he had just remember something. "You're dating Jake Ryan right?" he asked. Miley's eyes widened and her heart started to beat faster. To save herself from throwing up she just shook her head, "no" and then looked back down at her salad. Zane continued on, "Oh well… you were dating weren't you? Of course you were, Hannake was the biggest thing since Bradgelina. Just so you know, he's in my dorm."

Miley spit ice tea across the table at him. "What?!"

"Yeah he lives with my friend Christian. Apparently they know each other from way back to diaper days. Kind of like you and Rhea," he said with a shrug as he wiped her ice tea off his shirt as best as he could. "Is there a problem with that?"

"Please tell me you're joking," Miley asked. She was standing now, Rhea pulled her back down.

"Don't you dare draw attention to yourself Miley. I don't think you need to deal with the paparazzi today. Now Zane, if you knew they weren't dating, why did you tell us that?"

"Just because he's been looking for her all day," he said with a shrug. "Is this bad?"

"Very," Rhea said and Miley put her face in her hands. She'd come to Florida to get away from him, to get away from the movie star scene. Of course, he'd follow her. Jake thought that Miley and he were going to get married. He'd apologized so many times for loosing his cool the night the world found out the truth. Miley rubbed her nose and then stood up.

"I'm going back to the dorm Rhea. I just have to be alone for a while, 'kay? Nice to meet you Zane, thanks for the tip-off," she said. She threw some cash on the table for her meal and left them sitting there. Rhea smacked Zane and explained the situation to him. When she was finished, he felt like smacking himself.

Miley rushed across St. Augustine in a hurry. She placed a baseball cap on her head and sunglasses over her eyes to divert attention from her. Without thinking, she tripped over the rather large entry step into the main hall that led to the elevator. Stumbling, she swore and promised her toe that she'd ice it when she was in the dorm.

"Miley!" She whipped around to see another person in a hat in sunglasses; Jake Miley should have realized that her disguise was the oldest one in the book. She fumbled in her purse for her keys and then frantically pushed the button for the elevator. As long as she was in the elevator she was safe. Boys weren't allowed in the girls' dorms. By the time she was in the elevator he was almost upon her. She slid down in relief as the doors closed. She rushed to her dorm and pulled out her cell phone.

"Lilly?" she asked into the phone, placing it in between her shoulder and her ear as she searched for ice in the mini-fridge's mini-freezer.

"Miley? Oh my god! How are you? I miss you so much! I've only had to share a dorm with Oliver for two days, but he's such a pig! It's so gross, he has his stuff all over the place! Nevermind me though, how is Florida? Are you sure you won't come here?"

Miley laughed. "Lilly I'm fine… or I was fine. You're never going to believe who's here… It's Jake! He's stalking me, I swear."

"No!"

"Yes! It's so terrible. I literally just had to run to the elevator from the lobby and I stubbed my big toe in the door," she said rather childishly as she placed a piece of ice on her toe. "Lilly, what am I going to do?"

They talked for a long while, until Lilly had to go to a class because her semester had already started. Miley tried to call Oliver, but he was in class and couldn't pick up. In frustration she tried Jackson, but he couldn't talk because he was having an important discussion with his girlfriend. No one was at home, her father was probably out for a 'run' and she didn't try his cell phone because she was still kind of annoyed from the one million and one phone calls this morning.

She pulled out her guitar, tuned it, and strummed idly. Finally the words came to her head and came out of her mouth;

"And it's over, we're goners.
It's out of our control,
And if there one thing that I know
It's just best to let it let it roll.
So let's just, let it roll.
Let's just, let it roll.

Your hazel eyes,
Paralyze my senses,
Cut me down to size, defenseless,
I'm defenseless."

"Miley, that was beautiful," Rhea said. She and Zane were standing in the doorway, their eyes locked on Miley. Miley pointed at Zane, saying that he wasn't allowed to be up here and if the Dean found out they'd both be kicked out of school before they even got to start their classes. She looked at him and understood. "He just wanted to apologize, he had no idea what a big deal it was. Don't worry though, I filled him in for you though."

"Yeah, I'm sorry Miley, I had no idea. I guess my brain just didn't make any connections. It tends to do that," he said trying to make it sound conversational. Miley nodded in acceptance and put the guitar in the case, locking it away. She shouldn't have brought it or got it out. It was only going to cause problems. Always got her into trouble. After an awkward pause, Zane turned and snuck back downstairs and Rhea came inside.

"Miley, it'll be okay. I won't let him anywhere near you," Rhea said, hugging Miley very tightly.

"I'm not worried about him or what he does," Miley said. "I'm worried about me and what I might do."

"Like what? What might you do?"

For a moment, Miley opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Sighing, she paused before looking Rhea right in the eyes. Without thinking about it for a second longer she said, "Take him back."