Disclaimer: I do not own Cars, nor do I own any of the characters associated with Cars. The only charrie I own (at least, thus far) is Reny. Cars belongs to Pixar; not me!

It was only the beginning of the season, really. Ok, so there had been three races, but they had seemed more like warm-ups then actual competitions between racecars. Now that racing was in full swing, however, the competition had gotten dirtier, the drivers more hard-pressed to finish well. Chick was, of coarse, causing wrecks left and right, and nursing his vendetta against McQueen; Lightning simply ignored Chick's self-centered comments; he knew where his bread was buttered.

Now that today's race had finished, the track a whir of activity; camera bulbs flashed, fans yelled, and reporters hassled drivers for their take on the race; altogether, a volatile mixture. Two fans had leapt from their places, shouting at one another through the sea of reporters, as race officials attempted to break up the argument and to prevent the passing racers from being bumped by over zealous fans. Havoc reigned, as one car rear-ended the one in front on it, adding curses and grinding metal to the already stressed atmosphere.

Lightning McQueen ignored all this; he'd found out what to expect in his first season as a Piston Cup contender. The mass of noise following the climatic end of a race was to be expected, as were the hoards of reporters waiting to interview significant cars after the checkered flag had been waved. It was racing, and Lightning revealed in such an environment; this was what he'd been born to do. This was where he was born to be.

However, even for a seasoned racecar like McQueen, it did get a bit tiring. After endless interviews with reporters about the race (which he had, of coarse, won) and an endless soiree with his fans, Lightning was ready for the journey home. He'd finally broken away from all the reporters and admirers that clogged the inner workings of the track; now he headed to a place where no reporters were privileged to enter, and where he could finally have a bit of peace.

Lightning headed for his trailer on the other side of the private lot reserved for the 18 wheelers that pulled the luxurious transferable suites racers used for travel. As he rolled past a dark, dingy alley, he heard what sounded like a muffled sneeze, followed by the quiet revving of an engine. Intrigued, Lightning rolled closer, his blue eyes straining to pick up signs of life in the half light. It was only when Lightning was grille to grille with the other car that he managed to make out anything; a glint of silver paint, the gentle purring of an engine…And two large, hazel-green eyes, staring at him in surprise.

With a yell of shock, Lightning threw his gears into reverse, only to be marred from escape by an empty metal trashcan that hid most of the alley from view. With a clatter of metal-against-metal, Lightning shoved the can aside, flooding the alley with more light then it had seen in weeks. What he saw silenced the cry of surprise he had been about to utter, rendering him unable to do no more then stare in silent shock at what he had unearthed.

In the clear light from the track sat a small, silver Mustang GT, her body dented and her paint chipped in several places; a silver bracelet hung from her left rear-view mirror, and closer examination reveiled the car-charms to be Dale Earnhardt. Her eyes were hazel, but clearly a greener shade then the eyes of Lightning's best friend, Mater; they were also narrowed in displeasure at having been discovered.

"You're Lightning McQueen, aren't you?"

Lightning blinked his voice low and raspy in confusion. "Who… Who are you?"

No sooner had the question escaped, then Lightning felt the presence of two other cars, one on each side of them. They proved to be RPM, a bright yellow racecar (who happened to be one of Chick's victims in said race), and Leakless, a yellow and black racecar with a rather board expression on his grille.

"Well, well, well. What is it we have here?" muttered Leakless darkly. "Find you, did he, Reny?"

This was just too unusual.

"You know her?" Lightning gasped.

"Sure." answered RPM with a shrug of his tires. "She's been hanging around since around Wednesday, I think. Was it Wednesday, Leakless?"

The yellow-and-black racecar flicked his tires in a bored manner, and RPM seemed to take this as assent. "Wednesday, then. She's been doing odd jobs around the track for us ever since she showed up. Little things, really, like fetching a can of fuel or a couple spark plugs; she treats it like it's something big, though." The yellow racecar grinned cheekily. "I think she likes us ordering her around."

A light chuckle broke from behind the three racecars, and a red Chevrolet Monte Carlo pulled in beside them. "Sometimes I think she'd run the races for us if we asked her to." Pivoting on his tires, the red racer turned to face the battered young Mustang head on. "Hey, Reny. Looks like someone found you after all." he said with another chuckle. The Mustang grimaced, her hazel-green eyes narrowing. "Hey, Junior." she sighed. Junior grinned in response. "If we keep going at this rate, the whole racing circuit is going to know you're here! Where's the fun in that?!" He prodded her lightly with one tire. The silver Mustang rolled her eyes. "Where indeed?" she muttered dryly. Junior laughed. "I'd better go, 'fore someone gets too suspicious. Take care, kid." He nudged her again with his tire before wheeling around and heading in the direction of his trailer.

RPM and Leakless muttered some excuse or another, leaving Lightning alone with the mildly irritated Mustang. Actually, 'mildly' didn't even begin to cover it; 'Reny' was looking at Lightning McQueen with something that mimicked a death-glare. With a disgruntled rev of her engine and a flit of her rather worn tires, she challenged him silently to say anything about what he had just stumbled upon. Though her hazel-green eyes were hostile, Lightning still managed to catch the anxiety that managed to peep through, no matter how defiant she attempted to act towards his presence. Lightning rolled his eyes, his chassis sinking with the sigh that followed.

"Don't be that way! I'm not going to tell anyone; promise."

The Mustang remained silent, but Lightning caught a brief flicker of surprise, and perhaps relief, before her hood returned to its' indifferent mask.

"Your name is Reny, right?"

"Yah." she muttered, appraising him through narrowed eyes.

"How'd you end up here?"

Reny rolled her eyes in exasperation. "I drove? Well, actually, I found out where today's race was going to be, and then I came here, and waited for a bit 'till the cars came. I've been here ever since."

"Why here?"

Reny glanced down, her right tire drawing nervous circles in the dust from the alley. "I like racing. A lot." The silver Mustang seemed to sag under Lightning's gaze. "I thought maybe I could travel the circuit: you know, do little things for the racers, little jobs and stuff. That kinda' thing. And I though that, maybe…" She let out a big sigh, and glanced to the side; Lightning did not miss the longing in her eyes. "Maybe I might be able to get a lap or two on the track. Not much; just enough to get a feel for where to turn, where to stay high and low, and how not to run into the wall, and… so on…"

Lightning blinked; this was not at all what he'd been expecting. And yet, he could sympathize with the dog-eared Mustang's longing for the racetrack. That same desire had fueled him from the moment he first set eyes on a Piston Cup race, the reason that he stood right here with sponsor stickers affixed just behind his front tires, and a Rust-eze paint job he always had Ramone paint over when he wasn't racing.

Lightning glanced at Reny with sympathetic eyes, before resuming his questioning.

"How old are you, anyway? It's kind of hard to tell through all that grime."

Reny glared at him, defiantly. "Even if I was clean, you'd never guess right!" As she said this, her defiant mask slipped, replaced by a somewhat numb expression Lightning hadn't seen before. "Strangers never do."

The two elapsed into silence, Reny brooding, and Lighting puzzling over this new piece of information. What exactly did she mean by that? Was she saying that she'd had some horrible accident that had disfigured her in a way that made it impossible to guess her age? Maybe, McQueen mused; although, as beat up as she was, it was hard to tell. Her voice sounded young, but perhaps she had a young voice? After all, ones' voice it not really any clue to ones' age.

Lighting's musing was brought quickly back to the pavement when Reny's voice drifted up through his disjointed thoughts.

"15."

"Huh?" Lightning asked, confused by this seemingly random number.

"I'm 15." Reny peeked furtively at the red racecar from the corner of her eye.

"Oh." said Lightning, realization dawning on him. "So you must have come with your parents, then."

Reny was silent for a moment. "N-no. I came by myself."

Lightning was confused, again. "You came by yourself?"

"I ran away." Reny's voice was defiant again.

Lightning was too stunned to speak; his mind turned over this new piece of information. Run away! No wonder she was so worried about being found!

"Why?"

Reny shrugged, suspicion gleaming from every surface. "I wanted to."

It seemed that this latest revelation was too much for her polished mask to bear. With a squeak of much abused shocks and springs, Reny sank down so that the metal framework of her body almost brushed the dusty ground below. The defiant look slipped from her grille, to be replaced by a mixture of hardness and grief. "I didn't want to live there anymore; not when my dad's telling me I'm a useless lazy lump who needs to know how to work. I know how to work! And I'm not a useless lazy lump! Not like my mother, who spends her days doing nothing, or the wrong kind of something!" She stopped, her carriage heaving with the effort of attempting to get a magnitude of information over to the fellow car that was parked in shocked silence before her. "Besides, they have my sister; my perfectly girly little sister that never failed to please them. Which is more then anyone can say for me," she muttered dryly. "The rebellious one. I've wanted to leave since I was eleven." Pleased with her choice of words, the Mustang leaned on her back tires, her eyes glinting suspiciously at Lightning; the most she expected was for him to drive off and inform someone that they had a run-away who'd been hiding at a racetrack for the past four days.

In fact, Lightning did nothing; if he'd thought her a car that acted on every split-second decision, he probably would have informed some member of authority. From what he gathered, though, she wasn't one to go driving off on a whim; and if she'd been planning to run away since she was eleven… That was four years of weighing the pros and cons of escaping from her parents. This hadn't been a whim; this had been a desperate bid for freedom, one Lightning could end if he wanted to. Thing was, Lightning didn't want to; he understood well what it was like to be imprisoned. Granted, his brief containment in Radiator Springs wasn't half as bad as Reny's containment from her soul, but still… No, he wasn't going to turn her in. Quite the contrary; he was going to take her in.

Lightning stared calmly back into the desperate green-hazel eyes of the young silver car. Reny was perched on the edge of her tires, ready to make a drive for it should Lightning show any sign of squealing on her. "Ah, Reny." He sighed with a chuckle, blinking warmly. "I'm not gonna' turn you in: I promise you that." He watched as Reny blinked in surprise, her voice choking.

"Really?"

"Really." Lightning paused. "In fact, you've been more honest then I expected." Lightning twisted his tires around, throwing her a wink as he revved his engine. "Come on. The track's empty now, and no one's going to notice if we sneak out there for a little practice run."

Reny was too stunned to reply, but her large, grateful eyes were all the thanks Lightning needed. With a twist of his tires, the red racer turned a complete 180 degrees, the startled silver Mustang trailing behind.

The track was silent now, the fans having left for their own lodgings. Only a few racers remained in the infield; the rest were comfortably ensconced in their trailers, their snores reverberating throughout the air as they slept. For the first time that Sunday, the track was at peace with the world.

Lightning found Junior secluded in a quiet corner, the white number eight on his side bright in the lights of the track; he'd only slipped away after Reny assured him she could find a comfortable place to sleep on her own. Now he parked in silence beside the D.E.I. racer, his engine unnaturally loud in the sleepy stillness. Junior glanced sideways at Lightning, his voice a whisper in the hush of the track.

"Where's Reny?"

Lightning shrugged his tires. "She went to find a place to sleep, and wouldn't let me come with her; she nearly bit my hood off when I resisted."

Junior chuckled quietly. "That's Reny for ya! She's an independent little thing."

Lightning murmured agreement, glancing sideways at Junior. "How'd you find her?"

Junior sighed. "'Bout the same way you did, actually. How much did she tell you?"

Lightning twisted his tires against the pavement. "Just how she got here, and why she came."

Junior narrowed his eyes. "You gonna' tell on her?"

Lightning sighed. "No." He paused. "I did think of taking her to Radiator Springs. She can't just live on the street, and Sally would take care of her."

Junior nodded. "Glad you thought of it; I'd hate to see someone like her out alone." He paused, before continuing more quietly. "It'll be a good place for her, that's for sure."

Lightning smiled. "Glad you approve, Junior."

The Proper Pronunciation of Reny. Ren-e

Notes: Fist chapter lacking in excitement? Don't worry, there should be a good deal in chapter two.

7/17/08: Fixed a few errors today, and added somthing to Reny's description.

For future refrence, two lines means the chapter has come to an end; one line simply states the passage of time (untill I can find a better way ;) ).

Already have notes for Chapter 2 down. I'll try to get it out A.S.A.P.!