Title: Where Are They Now?
Fandom: HSM
Characters: Troy Bolton, Gabriella Montez, Taylor McKessie, Chad Danforth, Sharpay Evans, Ryan Evans
Pairings: Troy/Gabriella, past Taylor/Chad, Ryan/Chad
Everybody has a dream about what they would like to do with their lives. Unfortunately, when it comes to real life, those dreams rarely ever come to fruition. This was exactly the case with the 2008 graduates of East High School.
Troy Bolton, after trying to juggle basketball and theatre for a year, dropped the latter to pursue his original dream. This image of NBA never came around, however, so Troy returned to Albequerque to take over his father's position as coach of the East High Wildcats.
Gabriella Montez, despite all of her smarts, found Stanford to be too much and transferred to Berkley in order to be with Troy, majoring in psychology. She and Troy, always the ones for a "happily ever after", got married just after college. Gabriella now owned a small practice that was losing money fast.
Taylor McKessie had managed to make it through Harvard and ended up with a law degree to show for it. But the real world was much like high school in the sense that everything had a hierarchy, and, unfortunately, Taylor never made it past the level of assistant.
Taylor had wanted the storybook wedding just as much as Gabriella had, and she got it albeit briefly. She managed to reconnect with her high school sweetheart, Chad Danforth, and they married. By the second year, they had a child, a boy by the name of Jack. When Jack was four, however, Taylor discovered that Chad had been cheating on her with another man. Chad's secret out of the bag, the two divorced but stayed the best of friends, if only for Jack's sake.
When Jack turned six, Chad, who had also never managed to fulfill his NBA dreams, was offered the position of assistant coach to Troy. Taylor followed Chad down to Albuquerque and got a place near her ex in order to stay connected to their son. Taylor landed a position as personal assistant to one of the senior partners at a local law firm.
While in college, Sharpay Evans discovered her love for math and science. So, after two years of theatre, Sharpay switched to a combination math, science, and teaching major. After getting her teaching degree, Sharpay also returned to East High to teach, of all things, physics.
The only one of them who had gotten any part of the fame they had dreamed about was Ryan Evans. After Juliard, he had moved to New York City, starred in a few popular shows, and had officially come out to the world via an interview in The Advocate. But after a close brush with AIDS, Ryan had decided to leave the New York Bohemian lifestyle and roared back into Albuquerque on a cherry-red motorbike, also returning to East High to restart the drama program that had disappeared with Ms. Darbus' retirement.
It was just chance that they were all in front of the school at the same time one day in April. Hugs and kisses were exchanged and plans were made to meet up the following evening before everyone went on their way.
On one night in December the following year, Chad brought Jack to visit with Ryan and a huge rainstorm had stranded them in the Evans' apartment with flooding all around. It was then, after listening to Ryan singing Jack to sleep, that Chad had first kissed the blonde. Three months later, they moved in together.
If there was one ting the 2008 graduates of East High School learned, it was that, although you may not always get your dream, things all work out for the best in the end.