A/N: Kyttin here. New story for you guys. This story is slightly AU and doesn't focus on the Hannah side of things. This story is mostly going to be Lilly-oriented. It is an eventual Liley, but I hope to take my sweet time getting there. ;)

For those who are reading The Angel Of Death, I owe you another chapter soon. I just needed to start this story. For the curious wonderers, this story is actually kinda based on life right now in my house. Lilly is similar to the way my brother is, including the uhm...birth problem, as explained partway through this chapter. Next chapter will be Thursday evening, and then Chapter 3 will be Saturday, where Miley will make her first appearance.

Without further ado, I present to you...Never Give In

Chapter 1: Just Another Day

"Truscott, are you paying any attention to what I'm saying?"

The blonde locks shifted irritably as she half-opened her eyes in the harsh light of the classroom. She lifted her head slowly, noting the crick in her neck, and gazed blearily at the teacher.

"Yes, ma'am," she mumbled sleepily.

"Then perhaps you can answer the question?"

She blinked twice. How the hell would she know the answer to the question? She didn't even know what the question was. Even though it was Geometry class and it was nearing the end of the school day, the time of day when she should have been wide-awake, she felt nothing short of lethargic.

"Er...can I hear the question again?"

The teacher sighed. The woman wasn't a mean lady, she just had a very low tolerance for those who failed to pay attention in class. Even if her policy was that those who wanted grades would work for them, she demanded respect of her students and both the lady and the blonde sophomore knew that she hadn't been giving any of her classes her all.

"Alright, Truscott. The question was, what is the difference between complementary and supplementary angles?"

Her mind went blank. Angles? Compliment? Supplement? What the hell was this lady talking about? Still, she cleared her throat, waking up only a little bit more.

"Erm...a complimentary angle is one that looks nice?"

The whole class burst into laughter. She felt her cheeks go pink. It wasn't that she didn't want to do the work and learn, it was just that she didn't get it and felt like the teachers always singled her out to pick on, to make her feel stupid. She could feel her crestfallen face gazing at the reproachful teacher.

"Truscott, see me after class. A complementary set of angles is one that adds up to ninety degrees. A supplementary set of angles adds up to one-hundred-eighty degrees. Make a note of that, class; it will be on the next test."

The blonde gazed sadly at her notebook, her slightly untidy scrawl just barely legible; it was both small and compact but mirrored more of a scribble than actual writing. She struggled to read her own notes, only to find that she couldn't. She sighed pitifully, quietly, head hanging in shame. She hated everyone in the class, everyone in the school that she didn't hang out with. It was such torture for her to have to go to school every day. The only reason she did it was to please her mother, but even that wasn't enough. Nothing ever seemed to please the blonde bitch.

The bell rang. She did not move from her seat, waiting patiently; it was her last class of the day, after all. Soon, the sound of students outside dwindled down and she felt more than heard the teacher sidle up beside her.

"Lilly, what am I going to do with you? We're almost halfway through this year and you've only just barely passed half your tests."

"I'm fine," she grumbled, struggling to keep her face empty of emotion. Her hands twisted into a knot between her knees as she sat at her desk, waiting for a punishment.

"Lilly, I want to help you. I don't want to see you fail. You're a very bright, very quirky child and you should do better. I can help you, Lilly."

"I don't need help," she said quietly. The teacher sighed.

"Well, if you won't ask for help, there's not much I can do."

"Damn right," she muttered.

"Sorry?"

"Nothing."

Lilly failed to notice the skepticism on the teacher's face.

"Alright, Lilly. I can see that my time has been wasted here. I don't want to see you fail, but only you have the power to change that. If you do decide that you need help, I'm here. If I'm not, there's always the TA to help you. She's very kind and passed this class in junior high, so she knows her stuff."

"Thanks, but no thanks."

Lilly stood, slinging her bag over her shoulder, the skateboard that had once leaned against the wall held tightly in her hand by the front axle truck. It was a beat-up skateboard, nearly five years old, but it was one of Lilly's most prized possessions. She wouldn't trade it for the world and was constantly trying to scrounge up money for new wheels or bearings. It got her everywhere she needed to go, and it was the only thing she could rely on since she'd lost confidence in her own abilities as a person and a student during her freshman year in high-school.

She strode out the door and down the hall, kicking the door that led to the quad open in her haste and anger. Her first stop was her locker, where she checked on her books and tried to remember her homework.

English...maybe some reading. I can't remember. Fuck it. Next up, PE...nothing in PE, it's so boring. Then there's history...I hate that class. I think there's a report due soon...fuck it. Science...fuck that. Health class...I haven't learned shit in there. And then math. Fuck that, bitch. I'm not gonna do your bullshit after-class work just because you can't say everything in class.

She slammed the door to her locker shut, slinging the nearly-empty backpack over her shoulder as she carried her skateboard out to the front. Without warning, an arm landed on her shoulder and she started.

"Hey, Lilly-pop."

"Ollie-pop!" she returned, grinning. "How was your day?"

"Same shit, different day. You?"

"Ditto. What's up?"

"Well, the guys are thinking about heading out surfing tomorrow morning, since it's a Wednesday and it's late-start. You wanna come?"

"Oliver...I'd love to, but I can't."

He looked confused, his dark brown hair rippling in the gentle breeze, his lean figure looking totally relaxed as he fell in-step beside her. He had been her best friend since before they had known how to properly communicate with people. Lilly thought their bond of friendship was something powerful, something that they could never forsake. She knew that the outsiders said that she was a slut and he was just in it to get a piece of her ass. However, the proud virgin blonde said differently, knew differently, and refused to fight the rumors. Who gave a fuck if they were having sex every night? Which they weren't, but still, it wasn't any of anyone's fucking business who she chose to hang out with and why.

"So, wait, why can't you go?"

"My board is snapped, remember?"

"I have a spare," he reminded her. She shook her head.

"Ollie, I think I just want a morning to sleep in, maybe just lay in bed and relax, ya know?"

He sighed, slightly dejected. "Alright, Lilly. Hey, skate night on Friday, right?"

"Totally. What park?"

"The one north of your house."

"Sick. I'll be there."

She tossed the board down and jumped on it, rolling away from the boy at an even pace. "I'll catch you later, aight?"

"Aight. Later, Lilly!"

She waved, smiling, and turned around, kicking at the sidewalk to get the board going. The wind raking through her hair was enough to calm her and get her to forget about the stresses of the day, the sunshine warming her heart as she headed home. Home...she suddenly realized that it was the last place she wanted to be. She most likely had to take care of her younger brother until her mother got home, which was always a pain in the ass; the kid was always smiling, but the seed of evil had been planted behind his eyes, and it was always there to banter against Lilly. She groaned.

"Little bastard's going to give me a helluva time today," she grumbled.

She turned to her right and headed into the neighborhood, skating down the street until she reached her home. The door was unlocked, since the fourteen-year-old didn't have any clue as to what an unlocked door could lead to. Still, the neighborhood was notoriously crime-free and provided a safe community for families to settle into. It wasn't the most expensive neighborhood around, but it was a good one to live in, no question about that.

Lilly slammed the door behind her, trudging down the hall and into her room. She smiled when she saw the familiar domicile with posters scattered everywhere except the wall to her left; that wall was reserved for her artwork, but lately it hadn't been used. The desk to her right and the bed across the room in the opposite corner of the door were the only pieces of furniture that looked like they were used, even amidst the laundry scattered throughout the room, piled on the bed, the floor, the dresser beside the bed, the desk, even the ceiling fan had bras and the occasional pair of panties hanging from its wooden slats. She dropped her board against the desk, just out of the path of the door's rotation, and tossed her backpack onto her bed. She needed food before she did anything else.

Upon walking into the kitchen, she noticed a sticky note on the stainless steel refrigerator. She tugged it free and let her eyes take in the words, slowly reading each letter.

Lilly-

Maxie had a doctor's appt. Back around five.

-Mom

She grinned. The house was hers for an hour and a half. She grabbed a carton of ice cream from the fridge and set it on the counter, the solidified sweet sounding like a clacking brick as it collided against the ceramic tile on the counter-top. She reached up into the cabinet above the toaster oven that resided between the fridge and the sink and extricated a small glass cup, her fingers idly shutting the cabinet door and opening the fridge. Mmm, Hot Damn sounds good to me.

She grabbed the thin-necked bottle of cinnamon schnapps and poured some of the blessed alcohol into the glass, ignoring the warning on the side dictating the age requirement of twenty-one years as she did so, the amber-colored liquid swirling around the bottom of the glass as it filled. Once the glass was two-thirds full, she screwed the cap back on and slid the bottle back into the fridge, shutting the door gently afterward. The freezing-hot of the schnapps burned her throat, but she enjoyed the taste; it refreshed her and made her feel alive, even as the relaxing alcohol hit her blood-stream and mellowed her out. She smacked her lips and scooped up a spoon in her free hand, looping the arm around the gallon of frozen sweetness. She idly migrated back to her room, shutting the door behind her to blast music without regard or remorse for those around her. The goth-rock that pumped through the speakers attached to her laptop was bliss.

She checked her email. Nothing but spam. Next was to surf the web. She knew that none of her skater or surfer friends would be online for another hour or so, and thus decided to use her free time to satisfy her curiosities. One particular link intrigued her like none other on the page, so she clicked it and decided to see what it was about.

She immediately exited out of the window when it came up. Never again in her life would she ever go there, and just to erase the image, she downed the rest of the schnapps. The ice cream started calling her name as it began to melt in the container, and she decided to dive in and enjoy the sweetness within. And even as the music washed over her and she hummed with the lyrics, she lost herself to them and failed to notice the sounds of a car pulling up out front. It wasn't until she heard the front door close that she realized what was happening.

"Shit," she groaned. The glass immediately ended up on a lower shelf of her desk and she prayed that the smell would be overrun by the ice cream. Her mother knocked right as she took another spoonful of the stuff, and while one hand reached out for the door handle, the other dimmed the volume of the music by several notches.

"Hey there, how was your day?" her mother quipped. The blonde shrugged.

"Nothing new."

"Any homework?"

"Nope."

Her mother's hands went to their respective hips. "Lillian, don't lie to me. Do you have any homework?"

She shrugged, scooping out more ice cream. "Can't remember," she replied thickly.

"You had better try your damnedest to remember, young lady. You have a planner to write down all your assignments, right?"

"Yes," she replied unconcernedly.

"Then why don't you use it?"

"Because I can remember it all on my own."

"Then why can't you remember it now?"

"Because I don't have any homework."

"Lilly, five C's and a D in Geometry don't make me think that you're telling the truth."

There was vicious anger laced into the woman's words. Heather Truscott was not someone to be messed with, yet her daughter always seemed to get on the woman's nerves.

"The teacher hates me," she stated dumbly, scooping out more ice cream. The woman snatched the carton away and put the lid back on it, yanking the spoon from her daughter's mouth.

"The teacher does not hate you. You're just not trying. You don't apply yourself, Lillian. Look at this shithole of a room."

She glanced around. "I know where everything is, mom."

"I don't care what's where, it's a pigsty. Since you don't have any homework, you can get to cleaning it all up and putting it where it goes. Honestly, Lillian...you're a girl. You should have some form of class and respect for your things."

The woman walked away. Lilly scowled.

"Bitch," she muttered, turning back to the computer. She noticed an IM from Oliver and smiled.

Hey, Lilly.

She typed back to him.

Hey Ollie.

How's the bitch?

Same as usual. Yours?

Flipped when she saw my grades. I'm getting all c's.

I have one d and my mom is freaking out

One d? I don't have any.

Well aren't you just a little einstein.

She could almost imagine him laughing on the other end of the computer link. However, she had no motivation to talk to him at that moment.

Ollie, the bitch wants me to clean my room. I think I gotta take this.

Don't piss her off, Lilly. We've gotta skate on Friday.

I'll try. Later, Ollie.

She closed the window and put her music back on, though not as loud as before. She wondered when her mom would get a real hobby instead of just pushing her around all the time. It was terribly frustrating.

"Alright, well, here goes the cleaning," she grumbled. The clothes-hamper was the first thing to be located and it was almost immediately stuffed to the brim as Lilly tossed all her dirty clothing into its belly, including the garments on the ceiling fan. She was a bit saddened to see them go, but she had to at least try and make her mom happy so she could go out on Friday night. She didn't care about the finals next week. All that mattered was having fun and living life. School wasn't life. School was just a waste of time.

Finally, all the dirty laundry had been accounted for. The clean laundry was just heaped on the floor in the closet. If she needed clothes, she could get to them. She knew what existed in the heap and what didn't. That is, she thought she did, until the pile moved and her cat crawled out from under it, having been bundled up in the warm heap of clean clothes.

"Hey there, Whiskers. What are you doing in there?"

The cat mewled and jumped back onto her bed, curling happily into a warm ball of purring fuzz on her pillow. She was only five months old, but she had made Lilly her mother and guardian on the day they'd first been introduced. Lilly couldn't help but smile at the cat; she was so adorable and happy just laying on her clothes or her bed or in her lap. Such simple pleasures that cats were taken by.

She scratched the fur-ball behind the ears and left the animal to sleep. She then stuffed everything that was hanging out of her dresser back into the drawers and slammed them shut, straightening the bottom of her t-shirt. Her shoes struck the wall beside the desk, causing the glass to rattle on the uneven wood surface. She remembered the now-nonexistent contents of the glass, knowing that to go out and rinse it out while her mother was in the kitchen would be suicide. She changed her mind and moved the glass to the sink in the bathroom, rinsing it in there, then scooping some water into her mouth via her hands. She needed to gargle out the alcoholic taste and try to keep a neutral smell around her. Upon walking into the kitchen to put the glass into the dishwasher, however, she was found to be sadly mistaken.

"Phew, Lilly, you reek," her brother commented. She leered at him.

"Maxie's right, Lilly. When was the last time you showered?"

"Last night," she lied. She hated showers, and the oily strands of blonde hair only served to promote that fact.

"I don't believe that for one minute," the bustling blonde woman replied as she prepared dinner, which was scheduled to be rotisserie chicken with stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy. "Your hair is oily, Lilly. You should go get a shower."

"I'll get one later," she replied shortly. She turned and strode from the kitchen to avoid any further confrontation from her mother and brother. She hated it when they berated her. She hated when anyone berated her. That was why she was so adamant about being distant with them. They all thought she was stupid and irresponsible, but she wasn't entirely to blame.

Before Lilly had been born, in the short ten minutes before her birth, she had rotated her body within her mother's womb to prepare for entry into the birth canal. However, the umbilical cord had gotten wrapped around her neck, and as her mother pushed, the life-line became tighter and tighter, a noose around her own unborn neck, and when her mother finally pushed her out, the cord was still looped tightly around her neck. She had been born blue, no heartbeat, no pulse, no breathing, nothing. She was dead at birth.

But the nurse refused to give up. She laid the baby's fragile body down on a table and undid the cord, tying it off while instructing the younger intern nurse to suction the baby, to force a heart-beat, to force breathing to revive the child. The nurse had been doubtful, and even as Heather laid in the bed, crying for the loss of her child, she heard the old, white-haired nurse scream at the intern.

"I said, SUCTION THAT BABY!"

Almost immediately after, a reassuring sob had been heard, and the baby had been brought back from Death's clutches. Lillian Truscott was a miracle child, one who'd been doomed to die before birth. The problem with all the proceedings, however, wasn't the fact that the nurses saved her life. It was that she had been suffocating for long enough that part of her brain had begun to die. The dead neurons, partly in her instant memory, partly in her physical memory, and even a little bit in her motor functions, had only hindered her throughout school. She only just barely passed all her classes and was always called stupid or retarded. The words had hurt, and she'd been to speech therapy for her lisp, to counseling to straighten out her jumbled emotions, to tutoring and special-education classes and resource studies and she had been granted an IEP to help her with her studies. She did not see things clearly the way most others did, didn't comprehend everything the first time through, spent hours doing homework where with most it only took minutes. She hated it all. She couldn't blame herself because she didn't intentionally throttle herself. She couldn't blame her mother, much for the same reason. And yet, she was angry at those whom she couldn't blame, just because she had to blame them. Her mother claimed to have been there for her daughter, but that was far from the truth. The woman had only pushed for her girl to get through school and to push and struggle and push and struggle and push and struggle for all her life. She hated herself for being mentally impaired, but refused to get help. She wanted to be independent like the rest of the sophomore class, but deep down she knew it would be hell to try. Everyone already called her stupid, so why shouldn't she live up to their expectation?

"Lillian Truscott!" her mother called. She groaned, standing up as she rolled off the bed.

"This should be fun," she muttered as she left her room.

Her mother stood in the kitchen holding a square-shaped piece of paper. Lilly cringed. That's the last grade update before the finals.

"What the hell is this?"

Lilly raised an eyebrow.

"Three D's? Lillian, explain yourself!"

"There's nothing to explain."

"What, you just don't get the work? You're not trying? You don't care? What is it, Lillian?"

She shrugged. The intense fire raging in her mother's blue eyes only served to grow bigger.

"You owe me an explanation, young lady! Why do you have three D's?"

"The teachers hate me and the homework is stupid."

"I doubt that those teachers hate you. That is a cock-and-bull excuse if I ever heard one. So is the homework! I don't care how boring or stupid it is, Lillian, you are to do every last bit of it every night!"

"And what? Give up my life? I have friends and commitments, mother!"

"Your only commitment as a child is to do well in school and have fun doing it, Lillian. You are not an adult, nor will you be for another two years. Is this how you want to live your life? At the rate you're going, you'll be homeless and starving, just another bum on the street with nothing to her name. Do you want that?"

"Why the hell would I want it?"

"Because the only way you're living under my roof after your eighteenth birthday is if you're going to continue being a student through college! We've been through this, Lillian."

"You're being unfair and unreasonable."

"Unfair? Unreasonable? Lillian, I've poured my life into you since you were born! Since before you were born! You've done nothing to show appreciation, nothing to carry yourself anywhere! You just want to be lazy and sit in that trash heap of a room, playing on your computer or skateboarding around town for no reason! You are lazy, ungrateful, and spoiled, Lillian Truscott!"

"There's no reward for any of it, mother! No matter what I try and do to make up for it, no matter what I say or how well I do, you're never happy! My teachers are always griping me about my grades and my studies and I've been trying to please you as much as them, but nobody seems to realize that fact! You wonder why I'm 'lazy' or 'ungrateful', mother? It's because nobody gives a damn about what I do."

"Nobody should have to, Lillian. Nobody but your family."

"But even you and dad! You don't show me any kind of pride or motivation!"

"We do when you deserve it, and you don't deserve it with grades like these."

"Then when, mother? When will I deserve it?"

"When you change yourself and your habits."

"Nobody anywhere seems to give a damn about me and my life, so why should I change for them? They don't care! Even you don't care! I'm the one who's unappreciated here!"

"You think so?"

"Yes, I do!"

"News flash, Lillian: that's life. Until you find a job that you enjoy working at for forty hours a week, you feel unappreciated and worthless, and usually that's the truth. Nobody gives a damn about the underpaid workers at the bottom of the ladder."

"Then why should I change when I already know what to expect?"

"Because if your education speaks for itself, then you don't have to start at the bottom of the career ladder!"

"But if nobody cares, why the hell should my education matter?"

"Because it's your fucking future, Lillian! Your future!"

"Why should that matter? You're already telling me I'm nothing!"

"The way you're acting right now and the bullshit you're pulling, you are just that."

"Well, why the hell am I going to want to change, then? No positive reinforcement for anything I do, and you want me to do better?"

"Because if you can't tell yourself that you know you did a good job, neither can anyone else. Your teachers would give you a surprising amount of praise if you'd shape up and start actually listening to what they have to say."

Her mother had managed to calm her voice, but Lilly was too distraught to notice. She sniffed loudly, feeling the stinging pricks of tears in her eyes.

"Fine. Hang me out to dry like the rest. I see how it is."

She turned away and moved to go back down the hall.

"Where are you going?"

"Back to my room," she growled over her shoulder.

"And what about dinner?"

"I'm not hungry," she replied darkly. With that, she slammed the bedroom door and locked it, blasting her music loud enough to rattle the windows. She held her head in her hands, struggling not to cry. It was all too much. Her mother didn't care about her future anymore. If her own mother didn't, then why should she? Where was the nourishment? Where was the encouragement? What was there to strive for?

She sighed shakily, her right hand grasping at the desktop, searching for the one thing she could do to release her frustrations. Finally, she found it, knowing its shape and cold malevolence just by lifting it up in her hand. The back of her hand hit the desk, and with one light cross from her right hand, a thin gash leered angry blood at her, the bottom of her left wrist stinging, the pain taking away the tears. Another slash followed, and another. Three even strikes had been marked out into her wrist, and she laid the blade down, reaching for the towel in her hamper. After a hasty wrap, she could feel the blood stop pulsing through her arm, and she sighed unsteadily as the blood-loss made her feel weak, dizzy, and oddly happy as the endorphins rushed to replenish the red-blood-cell count while she dozed off in the chair, the blasting music doing absolutely nothing to ward off the welcome sleep she so craved.

In terms of length these chapters will be shorter than The Angel Of Death by about half, but I'll try to make up for it with the quantity of updates. Chapter 2 should be up soon. :)