Disclaimer: I own nothing. End of story.

Chapter One: Run Baby, Run

Lauren Davis sighs as she changes the radio dial for what feels like the thousandth time since she started driving a half hour ago. Every song she hears seems to be mocking her, reminding her of one of the many things she doesn't want to think about, taunting her with memories of past and buried things.

She can't help but resent her three year old sister, sound asleep in her car seat towards the back of the Trail Blazer. Katie doesn't understand that their lives are being uprooted, hers, along with her older siblings, and they're never going to be the same. Katie, in her small and innocent mind, doesn't understand that she's never going to see their mother again because a drunk driver carelessly ran a red light and smashed into a mother of five, killing her instantly.

Lauren was in the passenger seat of that car, suffered from severe head trauma and a busted knee but was able to walk away. But her mother, the woman she came to depend on during her seventeen years of life, wasn't as fortunate. So, now the five kids, ranging from ages seventeen to three, are packed up and making the long haul from Laguna Beach, California to Tree Hill, North Carolina to live with their father. The man who walked out on their family when Katie was a year old, the man who raised Lauren like she was his own until a more promising life called to him from his hometown. That life, however, happened to be with his ex-girlfriend and his illegitimate child.

Lucas Scott is his name, and playing is his game. He settled for Brooke Davis, in Lauren's mind, when Peyton Sawyer walked out on him all those years ago. When Peyton came back around, claiming she had a fourteen year old son that looked exactly like him, he walked away from Lauren's mother and the life they created, the marriage they finalized when Lauren was four and Peyton and the turned down proposal was far from mind. Lauren, the result of a drunken one night stand with a man who, when told of the pregnancy, wanted nothing to do with it, was adopted by the man-then considered to be a saint in disguise. She, when asked at six years old if she wanted to take the last name 'Scott' because Mommy and Daddy and baby Logan had it, decided not to because she liked the ring of 'Haley Lauren Davis' more than 'Haley Lauren Scott'. Besides, there was already one Haley Scott in the family, they didn't need two. Now, eleven years later, she's more than glad she never took it in the first place. However, since Lucas legally adopted her and it wasn't considered invalid after the divorce, she has to spend the next year of her life living with the man she began to spite. She's only glad she has her brother and sisters to help her through it.

Katie, along with her twin sister Hayden, were too little to understand why Daddy suddenly left to go live somewhere else, and everything was okay, because Daddy still wrote to them and visited periodically. Lauren refused to see him when he visited, especially after the way they left things the night he packed his bags. At fourteen and wise beyond her years, she understood the real reason why he was leaving, and knew it was not all because he had a thirteen year old son he never knew about and needed to make things right. She knew it was because Peyton came to him, declared her love for him, and it always came back to her.

"Un-fucking-believable," Fourteen year old Lauren Davis mutters angrily and she watches the man she came to consider her father scramble around the bedroom, the bedroom he shared with her mother for a little over ten years, packing his belongings.

"Watch your mouth, young lady," Lucas reprimands her for swearing as he continues to pack as if he's just going on a small business trip, instead of walking out of their lives.

"Why, you're not my father," she stubbornly declares as she leans against the door frame of the bedroom.



He chuckles lightly before shaking his head and stopping to look at the girl he watched grow from toddler to teenager, "I adopted you smartass, incase you forgot."

"That doesn't mean shit to me now."

"Oh really, and what if I said you meant shit to me, Lauren? How would that make you feel?"

"Obviously I don't, actually NONE of us do, if you're just gonna pack up and leave like this. Really, who does that Dad, who gets up and walks out on their family as soon as their slutty little ex-girlfriend comes back around?" She spits the word 'Dad' out so harshly it makes Lucas actually flinch.

"Don't you DARE call Peyton a slut you ungrateful little brat. After everything I did for you, I took you in and treated you like my own and this is how you repay me? No wonder your own father didn't want you."

Lauren laughs before looking him in the eye, "You're pathetic, and I actually feel sorry for you. Have a good life with Peyton," she shakes her head before turning around to leave the room, but not before turning back around with one last remark, "Oh, and by the way…when Peyton discovers what a pathetic piece of shit you are and kicks you to the curb...don't come crawling back to us, because we won't be waiting with open arms."

Lauren can't help but kick herself in the ass now for the things she said, because instead of him coming crawling back to them…they're stuck crawling to him. And he and Peyton, along with their now fifteen year old son Ryder are welcoming them with open arms, 'orphan' Lauren included. Grateful as the others may be, Lauren will be dead before she crawls back to that man with her tail between her legs, begging for forgiveness for being so harsh that night two years ago. Her Aunt Haley always goes on about how Lauren is an exact replica of her mother in high school, looks and personality, and Lauren is damn sure her mother would never forgive him for what he did, and she wasn't about to either.