Tumbling Etceteras – Chapter One

Sequel to "Inevitable"


Disclaimer:

Nothing but the words on this page belongs to me; the characters are the property of Disney.

Summary:

A series of one-shots: After finally working through their guilt and overcoming their fears, Troy and Gabriella fall whole-heatedly into something they had never even had control over in the first place.


Grinning as though it were about to go out of fashion, Troy and Gabriella stared wondrously at each other across the table of the quaint little restaurant that Troy had chosen and merely allowed their conversation to wash into the gentle hum of their surroundings. They didn't need to speak anymore; they didn't want to: both needed a moment to bask in the relief and joy-filled glow of knowing that their first date had been a success. There had been no awkwardness and, finally, no guilt. It had felt natural for Troy to reach across the table to take Gabriella's hand in his as they ate, and it had felt more than natural for her to toy with his comparably large fingers in return. Their first date - and Gabriella had to bite back a snigger at the term they were applying to it: she supposed that it should really be their first "official" date; their first "unmistakeable" date; their first "date that she couldn't rationalise as being a meeting between friends in a slightly datey environment" - had been as perfect as she could ever have hoped and not even the most clumsy of elephants could have burst the bubbles of mirth that were inflating her stomach and heart and God so many places that she just couldn't fathom. Yet even better was the fact that Gabriella just didn't care or want to begin to try and process it.

Apparently her smirk hadn't gone unnoticed by the boy smiling almost giddily back at her. "What does the smirk mean, Montez?" he questioned; leaning his chin on his fist and tilting in closer to her. The lessened distance between them allowed his breath to warm her delicate nose: it was heavenly.

Shyly, Gabriella glanced down quickly before almost immediately gathering the courage to look at him again; albeit with rosier cheeks. "I may have been musing about the fact that this really isn't our first date."

Her smirk was returned cheekily. "Oh have you now?" Troy teased. "I'm going to enjoy telling Chad that we actually had a 'date' when I see him later at the party." He scratched his neck slightly before continuing. "He usually makes me call our hang-outs TSNADs," he mumbled and earning a raised eyebrow in response.

"A Snad?" she repeated. "What's one of those when it's at home?" she asked confusedly.

"A Chad weirdism -Troyella Style 'Not a Date'." His explanation was muttered with extreme embarrassment and he was about to try and redeem himself when her giggles interrupted him.

"Oh gosh. Troyella? Is he a girl? You actually used to use that term?" Gabriella's cheeks had now taken on a pink hue for an entirely different reason.

"I don't know: I think he reads too many gossip rags, and, I mean, for him to go home and think about this obviously shows he has way too much time on his hands." He flipped their hands over so that the back of his own was resting against the table and her tiny palm was anchored in the middle of his; their fingers remaining interlaced the entire time. "And I tried not to use the stupid word but he would sometimes make me if he was feeling extra convinced that I was being a coward."

Gabriella bit her lip; feeling ever so slightly guilty. "A coward?"

"For not making a move," Troy explained in such a casually nonchalant manner that she was amazed at the ease with which he was willing to place the blame for the slow pace of their relationship on himself; even when they both knew that it was her own uncertainties that had rendered it temporarily stagnant.

"That was hardly the reason it's taken so long," Gabriella reminded softly. "I'm sorry for that, you know."

His eyebrows knitted together adorably, Troy rolled his eyes in an attempt to brush over her concerns. "It was right though: and better for us."

"The whole four months?" she questioned teasingly.

"Definitely the first three and a half," he countered just as playfully and stuck his tongue out for good measure. "It's like Christmas, you know? You're excited about if for months and even though you know that you're getting the new Xbox and seriously just want the 25th to arrive as soon as it hits December, you know that you'll enjoy it that much more if you wait..."

"You think?"

"I know," he replied with a wink.

"What do you think Chad will say then? You're going to torture him, aren't you?" Gabriella asked with a knowing smile.

"Me?" He looked aghast. "I'm just going to walk in there and tell it how it is." He averted his gaze from her sceptical look and pursed his lips cheekily. "He'll be far too drunk by time we get there to get a proper reaction, anyway," he smirked in admission. Standing up, he tugged her gently to her feet and began to lead her to the car.

"And?" she prompted further. "I don't trust that smirk."

Wrapping an arm around her lower waist and finding that the curve of her hip provided the perfect resting place for it, Troy widened his eyes tauntingly. "We can save the big guns until school on Monday."

Monday.

School.

Gabriella had completely forgotten about that.

Troy killed the engine and glanced over at Gabriella with a slightly concerned expression. "Is my driving really that bad?" he asked; only partly in jest.

"Hmmm?" Her response was uttered in a dreamily distracted tone and it took a second for her actions to catch up with her speech. Her eyes were wide and glassy and her face pale as she turned to look at him.

"I mean," Troy tried tentatively. "I would let the quiet and whatever be blamed on the fact that it's early and we're on the way to school," he suggested. "But it's you we're talking about and you love early mornings and school. So I thought that maybe it was my driving, 'cos you're clutching the arm rest so hard that your knuckles are white. I mean, I did go a little bit faster than I probably should have and I'm sorry for that and maybe last time I drove slower because, God, I used to get so nervous around you before…"

As he rambled, Gabriella's nerves settled slightly and she finally managed to lift her heavy hand to place it comfortingly on his knee. "It wasn't your driving, Troy," she giggled.

"It wasn't?" he asked, flipping his sandy bangs out of his eyes.

"Did I do something really embarrassing at the party after our date? I was sure that I only had a few drinks but I would be lying if I hadn't felt buzzed at the end of the night…"

Biting her lip, she shook her hand. "When I was with you, you were perfectly normal: the regular amount of dorky but normal all the same."

He glanced at her curiously again. "So everything is fine?"

Gabriella took a deep breath. "Uhuh, everything is okay."

"What about more than okay? Can we try that?"

The cute smile that he was sending in her direction was simply heart-melting. "Yeah, I think that I could even say things were good."

A grin burst his smile outwards. "Excellent. Don't move," he instructed before jumping out of the door of his truck and racing around to open the passenger door for her. "May I help the lady disembark from her charge?" he asked in what was actually a rather impressive English accent.

A tinkling laughter spilled from her lips at his bowed form. "Why of course you may!" Gabriella acquiesced and accepted his hand before sliding to the floor beside him.

"And may I also be so prudent to say that you are looking quite simply resplendent this morning, m'lady?" Troy charmed successfully despite the out-of-place wink that accompanied his compliment.

Blushing, Gabriella buried her head into his shoulder slightly; too elevated by his charm to realise that they were, as expected being stared at by almost every person that they walked passed on the way towards the fountain at the front of school. "Have you been watching your Mom's Jane Eyre DVDs again?" she asked with a soft snigger and glossing over the compliment.

"No." His response was an automatic defence of his masculinity. A second later he turned to her with a shocked, almost ashamed expression. "How do you even know about that?" he whispered.

Gabriella rolled her eyes before leaning conspiratorially closer to him. "Your Mom told me," she revealed in just as hushed a tone of voice; if slightly more mocking.

He stopped dead in his tracks. "She said she'd never tell anyone! Not even my Dad knows!"

It was taking every ounce of willpower that Gabriella possessed not to laugh in his face at the quite genuine but truly unbelievable look of horror and betrayal on his face. "Ooops?" she suggested as the only possible reply.

"Oooops?" Troy asked in despair. "Do you think Lois Lane would say that to Clark if his Mom just suddenly told people that his weakness was Kryptonite?"

"Troy," she comforted with a hand to his bicep; one that clenched beneath her fingers and caused something in the pit of Gabriella's stomach to spark that was exhilaratingly unfamiliar. "Firstly, me knowing that you watch high-class television movies is not going to cause pain or death," she deadpanned. "Secondly, I won't tell anybody else." She peered up at him nervously through her eyelashes. "And thirdly, I don't think it's a weakness. I think it's definitely one of your many strengths."

He regarded her carefully; an adoring smile on his face at the fact that she had spoken so candidluy. "In that case, maybe I was watching it yesterday whilst I was doing my English homework."

As they stepped through the doors of East High, Troy dropped her hand briefly so that he could hold the heavy door open for her. As her body collided with the already musty warmth of the corridor, as her ear drums were submerged in the frantic buzz of the Monday-morning rush, Troy reached for Gabriella's hand again. Their fingers interlocked and she stiffened. Her gaze fell to the floor but she could sense the wall of eyes on her, encroaching on them; she could feel the transparent beams of curiosity and spite, surprise and irritation searing her body. It was what she had been fearing: the judgement and the attention and Gabriella just needed the ground to swallow her whole.

Troy felt her tiny hand go rigid in his own before she gripped onto him as though her life depended on it. The smile that had been on his face as he had greeted some of his fellow basketball players that were clustered just inside the building faded as his eyes fell to Gabriella; her head downcast and her feet striding deliberately one in front of the other. It was only then that he became aware that it was she deciding their pace, a much faster one than was the norm. "Hey, Gabi," he placated and rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand as she sped up even before turning the corner and reaching her locker.

As the row of inanimate white soothed her vision, her shoulders appeared to relax slightly and she eased her hand from his grasp before turning her back on him swiftly. Troy heard her exhale slowly and frowned when she raised a shaking hand to turn the dial and open it; a feat which required several attempts because of her trembling digits. Splaying his hand across the small of her back, Troy rested his chin on her shoulder. "You're shaking," he mumbled into her ear. "What happened?"

She was quiet for a moment but took the gentle nudging of his forehead against the side of her own as a sign that he really did want an answer. "You're going to think I'm so odd," she muttered in embarrassment whilst she busied her hands arranging and rearranging the books in her locker.

"Gabi…" His reverent voicing of her name was the only way he could possibly think of conveying to her how wrong she was.

"It was the people," she started quietly. "There were so many people and they were all looking at me and…" her sentence trailed off as she shivered. "I don't deal with the whispers and the stares very well."

A frown was fixed on his forehead as he spoke. "I didn't notice anything different…"

Gabriella couldn't help but smile. "That's because you're used to everybody paying attention to you: you're their basketball hero and all of the girls love you." She turned around and leaned back against the cooling metal as she heard him begin to muddle together a response. "I'm not saying it as a bad thing: it's part of who you are and stuff. But, I suppose, I'm just not used to it…it kind of freaks me out to have people look at me like that. I'm just the freaky Math girl and…"

"You aren't just the freaky math girl," Troy argued, brushing a curl behind her reddened ears. "You're funny and cute and beautiful and so many other things…"

"Not to them," she reminded. "I'm not supposed to be holding your hand when you come to school in the morning. And then they look at me with those like scoffing eyes and I go red and get all nervous and it just proves that…"

Troy's eyes were dripping with alarm at her admission. Cupping her face, he pressed his thumb against her lips. "Stop, okay. It doesn't prove anything," he paused. "Other than that you're too cute." He smiled softly. "That was a compliment and that's supposed to make you blush or giggle or something; otherwise I've lost my touch and I'll have to spend the entire weekend finding some other way to charm you so that you don't get rid of me after only a week." At that he did manage to tease a small smile out of her. "I'm sorry that I didn't realise that you felt uncomfortable…and that it's my fault," he added sheepishly. "I think it'll just take a little bit of getting used to that I have a new girlfriend – and that she's as amazing as you." Her rosebud lips parted at his remark and Troy's eyebrows flinched. "Well that's different to the typical blush but I'll take it."

Gabriella continued to look at him in what he couldn't only describe as shock. "Girlfriend?" she gasped out quietly.

"Well yeah," Troy confirmed confidently; his voice however belying his confusion at her apparent bewilderment. "That's what people usually call it."

"Oh."

"You are my girlfriend, right?"

Gabriella squeaked a haze of syllables that sounded like a yes. At his continuing observation she shrugged embarrassedly. "I just, I mean, I wanted and I thought but I didn't know and…"

"I kind just thought that was what you wanted when you kissed me on Friday night." He smiled warmly at her rambling and nervousness.

"I do…"

"Do you need me to ask officially?" he asked slightly cockily; his hand still planted firmly against her cheek.

"No," Gabriella countered defensively at his teasing before shyly returning her eyes to his. "Maybe…" she smiled bashfully.

"If I ask you super officially then you have to seal the deal with a kiss," he teased and earned a soft nudge in his chest in return.

"I'm not kissing you in the hallway. What if Ms. Darbus or another teacher comes along? It's against the rules and I've never had detention and it's not that…but…" She narrowed her eyes at the laughter swirling in his irises. "You!" she gasped. "You're manipulating my nervousness and…!"

"Chill, Gabi," Troy chuckled. "I have something very important to ask you, in very clear and easy to understand words, just to make sure, and your chatter is distracting me…" He stopped talking for a second and gazed earnestly at her. "I would really like it if you would officially be my girlfriend."

She grinned. "I'd really like that too."

Pulling her into a hug, Troy laughed at her almost inaudible squeak. "We won't get in trouble for hugging." He let her go; his breath catching somewhere in his throat when she continued to clutch his side. "And about the other thing: I can make Chad wear stupid clothes and send him ahead of us in the mornings – might that help?"

Nodding slowly, Gabriella's eyes brightened further. "You'll be with me?"

"Every step of the way."

She didn't have any reason to doubt him.