Disclaimer: One Tree Hill is the work of art belonging entirely to Mark Schwan and the CW/WB.

Author's Note: What to say? I've been a huge fan of One Tree Hill ever since I started watching it, way back in the sixth grade. I was left somewhat unfulfilled by the finale, but have gone on a recent Netflix binge and recently rented the movie Collateral. If any of you have seen that movie, this fic is partially inspired by it. For those who haven't seen it, it is a must see – great acting, atmosphere and music all around.

As for a back story on this fic, it will all be explained I promise. The core cast is all here, with a few other characters of my own. This is my first foray in the world of OTH fanfic, so please let me know how I'm doing with the characterizations. This first chapter is short, because it's a prologue, but the following chapters will be longer.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to review!

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Stars and Street Lights

Prologue: Pieces of the Night

"Haley, watch out!"

Her eyes widened for a fraction of a second before she watched something large and moving slam into the passenger side of her cab.

White-hot pain ignited along every inch of her body, but before she could register the feeling further, her body was thrown sharply to the left, the seat belt like a strip of metal from her neck across her body to her waist as her equilibrium was forced out of balance. Her head was thrown from right to left and right again as she heard crunching metal and glass all around her. Too shocked to scream, she simply grit her teeth against the pain and clamped her eyes shut, waiting until the sounds of madness all around her ceased.

Suddenly, all was still, but not quiet. A cacophony of car honks and screams resounded around her as she fought to maintain consciousness. Her head was dangling, the seat belt now cutting deeply against her neck. Her neck was sore and she could barely breathe with the seat belt pressing against her windpipe, even though, in her hazy state, she reasoned it was probably the only reason she was still alive.

The thought made her pause. Was she still alive?

The pain throughout her body screamed that she was, and so did the sounds that were around her. She heard sirens now, wailing, blaring sirens that made her ears ring. She wondered blearily if—

A groan from somewhere behind her made her stop.

Her fare! Immediately she remembered the time before the crash, before all the pain. She forced her mind to clear as she unclogged her brain: his name was Nathan Scott. He was someone famous, but she hadn't known that at first. He was handsome. Cocky, but handsome.

Reaching her arms out, she felt vinyl, uneven but smooth. The inside roof of her cab. They had been flipped over by the other car slamming into them; she was hanging upside down. Her heart felt like it dropped into her mouth when she remembered that Nathan Scott hadn't been wearing his seat belt, he had only had needed to be taken ten blocks uptown and hadn't wanted to walk. She had told him to put on his seat belt…

Pushing herself away from the seat belt with the support of her arms against the roof of the cab, she attempted to speak.

"Mr. Scott," she said weakly, "Mr. Scott. Are you okay? Please…please say something."

When she heard nothing from behind her, she began to panic. She turned her neck, wincing with the oncoming pain, and reached along her side for the seat belt clip. She found it, pressing down and let out a strangled oomph! as she felt the few inches to the floor of the cab, her head dangerously close to the shattered windshield.

"Mr. Scott," she gritted out.

She heard shuffling from somewhere next to her, and then there was a face just out of the corner of her eye.

"Miss, hold on," he told her, "We're going to get you out of there, just hang tight."

She tried to shake her head, to tell them no, Nathan Scott was the one who needed help, but it hurt her throat too much to speak and she was fighting both a migraine and nausea in order to stay conscious at the moment.

"Turn your head, miss, if you can," the man told her.

Slowly, she complied, gritting her teeth in the process. She saw part of the dark uniform the man was wearing as he leaned down next to the cab to get a better look at her face.

"She's conscious," he called over his shoulder, scooting backwards and out of her vision. "Let's get her out."

Oh god, oh god, she thought as the pain in her neck intensified the longer she kept her gaze where the paramedic had told her.

"Give me your hand, miss," another voice told her, this one feminine. "The left one first, then the right. That's it."

She did as she was told, fighting more waves of nausea as she turned her body to reach for the outstretched arms of the woman who she now only realized was a fire fighter. A female fire fighter.

Girl power, she thought vaguely in the back of her mind.

She had to fight down the scream that would have ripped her throat to shreds as the firefighter pulled her slowly but surely out of the car, nearly dislocating her shoulders as she did so. But it was just more pain on top of what she was already feeling. She felt the cold, wet pavement and pebbles of glass as she was dragged from the wreckage.

Had it started raining? She wasn't sure.

The firefighter let her arms go when she was cleared from the car, and she began to walk on all fours towards bright lights as she continued to fight to stay conscious. She felt hands on either side of her guiding her and lifting her gently to her feet. When her knees began to buckle beneath her, strong arms caught her and led her to a solid seat she could collapse on to. She looked around her and realized it was an ambulance. She was sitting inside an ambulance. Someone was handing her an oxygen mask, but then another image of Nathan Scott flashed in her mind – cocky smile and all – and she tried to get to her feet.

When hands pushed her down again, she shook her head and spoke, "Please, there's a man in there still. Scott. Nathan Scott. You have to help him!"

"Miss, calm down," a paramedic told her, the same one she remembered talking to her while she was in the cab. "Firefighters are trying to reach him right now. Please, take this and place it up against your mouth," he told her, handing her the oxygen mask again.

Helpless, she took it and focused her attention on the two firefighters surrounding the passenger side of the cab. Her 3,500 pound baby, which had been given to her by the cab company she worked for, looked like it had been through a meat grinder. Glass was splayed all over the ground and the roof looked jagged against the straight line of the pavement. Bright lights and sirens flashed and blared all around her, drowning out the sound of her own thoughts. Even a crowd had begun to gather at the periphery of the crash.

"Get the jaws!" She heard one of the firefighters yell.

After another twenty minutes of breathing in and out with the aid of the oxygen mask, and the paramedic systemically checking her vitals, she saw the firefighters drag her cab fare, Nathan Scott, from the car. She threw the oxygen mask away, stood up and ran over to where he lay on the pavement with a second paramedic hovering over him before anyone could stop her.

"Mr. Scott," she said, kneeling down beside him. Her vision swam for a moment, but she forced herself to focus.

"Miss, you need to step back," the paramedic told her, but he soon turned away and called over his shoulder, "I need a gurney over here!"

"Mr. Scott," Haley said, resting a hand on the side of his face. She shook his shoulder gently, her eyes blurring up with tears as she continued to try and wake him up.

"Mr. Scott! Mr. Scott!" She said, her voice cracking. "Wake up, please. Nathan, wake up!"

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10 Hours Earlier

Haley James, cab driver extraordinaire, could, at that moment, be summed up in one word: exhausted.

Nothing had gone right so far. And though it was only six in the evening, she was sure something equally wrong was going to happen during her shift. As of ten minutes ago, she had been evicted from her apartment, possibly ruined her friendship with her best friend, Peyton Sawyer, been robbed for two grand by her sister Taylor because "she needed the money but promised to pay her back" and she couldn't get her demo tapes from the studio because she didn't have the money in her account (thanks to her sister) to pay the recording people for the time she'd spent getting her tapes down on track.

To put it bluntly, her day had sucked. Badly.

She was aware that, had she woken up at her normal time of 6 AM that morning and taken on the day shift just like she always did, more than half of those mishaps could have been avoided. She wouldn't have slept through Peyton's gallery opening and would have gotten the call from the bank when they told her Taylor was drawing out her cash.

But she, being the good girl (pushover) she was, she had offered to take her co-worker and friend Jake Jagielski's shift because he had a special night planned for him and his daughter that included tickets to the New York Ballet. Haley wondered how much a four-year-old could enjoy something like ballet, but didn't say anything as she agreed to have Jake cover her day shift and she cover his night shift.

Generally, Haley didn't like covering the night shift and stuck to driving days, even though the tips were a little slimmer and there was more traffic to navigate through, but for Jake, she'd do it. He only worked part-time for the cab company, singing at local gigs the rest of the time. Sometimes she joined him, sometimes she was just a happy audience member. She had babysat for his daughter Jenny on more than one occasion and loved the little girl to pieces.

It was with this somewhat optimistic viewpoint that she set out of the gate and onto the crazed streets of New York at night and hit the local hot spot hotels for people looking to make it to some fancy engagement or another.

She spent the next nine or so hours of her shift driving around the city, uptown to downtown, Manhattan to Queens and back, and was relieved to see that it was turning out to be a relatively normal night. She was sure to stay away from some of the rougher neighborhoods, not wanting to be a target, though definitely prepared. There were only two or three female cab drivers that worked for the same company as she did, but their gate boss, Thomas, had all made sure they were licensed to carry fire arms in case the worst were to happen. Haley didn't like guns, but she would dislike being attacked even more, and so she carried the weapon in her glove box, though she had never had to use it after working for the company for a little over six months.

It was sometime around 3:30 AM when Haley re-entered uptown after dropping off a group of drunk teenagers at their residence, thankful that they had caught a cab instead of drove themselves but also annoyed at their loud antics.

She was turning a corner when a young man carrying a large yellow and purple duffle bag flagging her caught her eye, and she pulled to the sidewalk to let him in.

"Where to?" Haley asked, glancing in her rear view mirror as he closed the door and she set off down the street into the sparse early morning traffic.

"The Waldorf," he said, rubbing his hands together to, Haley assumed, warm himself up. "You know it?"

She switched on the heater and fought back a smile. Definitely not from around here, she thought.

"We'll be there in fifteen," she said, making eye contact for a brief moment with him as she looked in her mirror again. "First time in New York?" She asked, her usual conversation starter for her fares whom she suspected were out of towners.

The young man laughed, ruffling his hair a little. "That obvious?" He said.

Haley glanced at his casual-fancy attire – black slacks, blazer and button up shirt. The only thing that looked out of place was the sports duffle bag, though she wondered at the odd mix of bright yellow and purple.

"Just a little," she said, smiling. "Where are you from, originally?"

Now it was his turn to fight back a smile. He looked at her in the rear view mirror, a slight smirk on his face and coloring his tone as he spoke.

"You don't know who I am, do you?" He stated, highly amused.

"Should I?" Haley asked, genuinely curious as she turned a corner onto another street.

He laughed – not an altogether unpleasant sound – shaking his head and simply shrugging his shoulders. "No reason you should, though it might have been flattering," he admitted.

"Might?" Haley repeated. From what she could see in the mirror, he was a very good-looking guy. Strong features, dark hair and striking blue eyes. He probably got a lot of girls staring his way with those eyes.

"It's refreshing," he said, smiling again. Haley had to admit he had a great smile. "Meeting someone who doesn't know who I am."

Haley had to fight back another smile. "All right, then. You gonna keep me hanging all the way to the Waldorf?"

He studied her for a moment, a smile still on his face.

When he didn't say anything, Haley, keeping her eyes on the road, reached her left hand over her right shoulder and held it out for him to take, "Haley James, cab driver and struggling singer."

He took her hand, and she felt a slight shock go through her. His smile was unmistakably cocky now.

"Nathan Scott, point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers," he answered, "At your service."

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Author's Note: So, what do you think? Would you like to read more?