Then and Now

Hey guys, thanks so much for all of your reviews on the last chapter! They mean so much to me and are such a good motivator. Anyway, here's Chapter 4, I hope that you enjoy it and please review! As soon as I get 8 reviews I will upload chapter 5. Enjoy!

I've been thinking about you

And how we used to be...

Do you remember, Do you remember, Do you remember

All of the times we had

Do You Remember - Jay Sean

Chapter 4 – Do You Remember

"What the hell is going on?" Chad questioned, his wide eyes swivelling from the direction of where Gabriella had run off to back to his best friend. "Troy, do you know Briella?" Still watching the blue eyed boy clutching his startlingly red cheek, Chad became more and more frustrated with his lack of answer. "Troy!"

Tearing his eyes away from where the brunette headed girl had been standing only moments earlier, Troy blinked repeatedly, attempting to remove the flood of tears currently clouding his vision. Eventually, he cleared his throat and stared back up at his dark eyed friend, "Now is not the time or place Chad. Ella needs you now, please go to her, she'll need someone to comfort her." Casting one last glance around at his stunned group of gathered friends, Troy shook his head slowly and sent a quick look to the open balcony doors to his above right, before turning on his heel and heading for the low fence that separated the Danforth's from their next door neighbours.

Watching Troy hop over the fence and enter the house next door, Chad shook his head in disbelief and ran one hand through his frazzled mess of hair. "Kels, you lived in New York with Troy and your Aunt and Uncle while your parents were off somewhere 'finding themselves' or whatever, what's going on?" Taylor questioned in frustration, her hands leaving Pippin's fur as the small dog suddenly jumped up to run after Gabriella.

Shaking her head, Kelsi sighed and shook her head, "I'm sorry guys, but Troy's right. Whatever is going on is between the pair of them and it will be up to them when the time is right to tell you what's going on, when they want to. Troy's right though, Chad, Elro is going to need you now."

"Elro?" Chad asked, confusion filling his features.

Kelsi simply sent him a wicked grin and laughed softly, "Yeah, Gabriella Rosemary Montez, Elro. I did know her for six months before my parents got back from Europe and I came home to Albuquerque with them Chad." Sending the confused teenagers another small smile, Kelsi turned and headed after her cousin, entering the cream house next door through the same sliding door that Troy had moments earlier.

"I better go check on Briella," Chad muttered softly, his eyes flickering up to the open balcony doors as the others all nodded and got to their feet, motioning that they should go. Taylor smiled sadly at Chad, pressing a kiss to his cheek and sending him a call me signal before following the others out of the side gate.

Chad sighed, thinking about the good day that had been potentially ruined, turning on his heel and re-entering his house. Closing the door swiftly behind him, he kicked off his shoes and took the stairs from the kitchen two at a time, eager to find out what was going on.

Sighing as she shut the door behind herself, Kelsi watched as the gang got up to leave next door. Turning around, the blue eyed girl grinned as she smelled her Aunt Lucille's freshly baked cookies. Spying them on the counter in front of her, she reached forward and grabbed one, instantly biting into the warm chocolaty goodness.

"Kelsi Alyssa Nielson!" A voice yelled behind her and jumping, the teenager smiled sweetly when she saw her mother's sister stood behind her.

"Hi Aunt Lucille," Kelsi beamed innocently at the brunette woman who simply shook her head chuckling. Flashing one more childlike grin at her Aunt, the blue eyed girl tucked happily back into her fresh cookie.

Placing her shopping bags on the counter that Kelsi was now sat at, the middle aged woman studied her niece closely. "Do me a favour please and wrap those cookies up so that you can take them home Kels? Because G-d alone knows that your Mother can't cook."

Laughing, Kelsi hunted out the cling film and started to wrap the cookies up carefully, "Believe me Aunt Luc, I know that Mom can't cook, unfortunately you stole all of the cooking genes and she was left with all of the artistic ones, which thankfully I inherited." Giggling as she finished wrapping up the cookies, Kelsi hopped up onto the counter once more.

Her eyes twinkling, Lucille finished emptying her shopping bags and turned back to Kelsi, "Yes well, I was always the better twin," She laughed, her laughter instantly harmonising with Kelsi's giggles. "What are you doing here anyway Kels?"

"Erm, well you see," Kelsi gulped and started clasping and unclasping her hands. "It turns out that Chad has a new adoptive sister, her mom died earlier this summer," She whispered softly, Lucille leaning against the counter in order to hear her.

"Right, that poor girl, but what does that have to do wi-" Lucille was abruptly cut off by Kelsi.

"It's Gabriella," The young girl breathed out, her eyes snapping closed. Lucille standing instantly up right, a hand placed over her mouth in shock. "It was Maria in that car accident Aunt Lucille. Gabriella was left all alone to deal with it, G-d, we should have been there for her, we should have, she was my best friend, and I didn't even bother to keep in touch, she needed me Aunt Luc." Kelsi started to sob softly, feeling Lucille's arms wrap tightly around her. "Troy saw her, it wasn't exactly a good run in. I thought that I'd better come over and see if he was alright, but I wanted to give him some time to process it first."

"It's ok Kelsi, it'll all be ok," Lucille whispered soothingly, running a hand through her niece's hair tenderly. "We should have been there for her, you're right, but you can't change the past. Now you, my favourite niece in the entire world need to go and make sure that Troy is not about to destroy his room, because he will never talk to me about what's going on. You, on the other hand, know more about him than only one other person in the universe." Seeing Kelsi's perplexed stare, Lucille smiled sadly once more, "Sorry to say it Kelsi, but Gabriella knows more about that boy than you or I, or Jack, will ever know I believe. Now, hop to it, favourite niece." Lucille winked at the laughing girl, turning around to flick through the cook book sat on the bench beside her.

"Aunt Luc, I'm your only niece," Kelsi giggled, hopping off of the bench and heading for the stairs up to Troy's room.

"You really screwed it up you know," Kelsi muttered, leaning on the door frame to Troy's room, her eyes scanning his figure as he lay on his bed just in front of her.

"I know Kelsi, I know," Troy whispered wearily running his hands over his saddened face and red eyes. Kelsi smiled softly at her cousin, knowing just how in love he had really been with Gabriella, and how much he couldn't face breaking her heart when he found out that he was leaving. "I should have talked to her, tried to tell her, anything would have been better than what I did. I shouldn't have just left; hell knows what those bastards at Lincoln High did to her after I left Kelsi. She'll never forgive me Kelsi, not after what I did, I promised that I wouldn't leave her and I did, even worse, I left without telling her." Sitting up, Troy buried his face in his hands. Sighing, Kelsi pushed off of the wall and bounced down the couple of steps into Troy's room, sitting beside her and wrapping an arm around her cousin's shoulders. Gently rubbing a comforting hand up and down Troy's back, Kelsi shuddered watching the usually calm basketball captain crumple in front of her.

Entering Gabriella's room, Chad winced as he watched the young girl on the bed shake violently as tears flooded down her cheeks like mini waterfalls. "Oh Briella," Chad whispered softly, rushing into the room and climbing onto the bed beside her. As he pulled her into a tight hug, her sobs only grew considerably louder. Chad glanced down into her crimson eyes as he quietly held her, trying to comfort her in any way he could. "You know him don't you?" He questioned softly, when she had eventually calmed down slightly.

Nodding, Gabriella snivelled slightly and headed for the blanket box at the bottom of the bed. Flinging off all of the cuddly toys, she reached in and grabbed a photo album out, using the other arm the lift Pippin onto the bed. Handing the album to Chad, she sat next to him and watched his expression change as he flicked through, each picture containing Troy and Gabriella, often including Kelsi, Avril or Duffy.

"He's the one that left you, the one that you said broke all of his promises," Chad summed up, closing the album and glancing to Gabriella once more.

Nodding Gabriella gently wiped the remaining tears from her eyes. "Yeah, and I loved him, with all of my heart, I just never thought that I'd see him again, ever. Honestly, I think that I hoped that I never would," She smiled softly, running a finger over Troy's face in one of the pictures that she knew Avril had taken. The pair of them were in a swimming pool, Gabriella earning a piggy back off of Troy, with one of her hands rested on the back of his head, both of them smiling as her elbow rested on his shoulder and his hands clasped her tightly beneath the surface of the pool.

"What happened between you?" Chad queried, the love in Gabriella's eyes and the longing in her voice not going unnoticed by him.

Sighing slightly, Gabriella glanced at him, "How long have you got and how much do you already know?"

"For you Briella, I have all night," Chad beamed, stretching out on the bed and patting Pippin who was now curled into a ball between them, her fur sticking out at all angles. "And as for how much I know, not much," He shook his head, still studying her now slightly red eyes. "All that I really know is that Coach B was offered an assistant coaching position with the New York University Violets basketball team, and it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. So they packed up the entire family, including Kelsi who was living with them at the time, and moved to New York for as long as the proper assistant coach was on sabbatical or something like that. The only difference being that Kelsi returned after only six months because her parents had finished their round the world trip."

"Yeah, that's just about right," Gabriella smiled weakly at Chad. "Troy and Kelsi arrived at Lincoln High about three weeks or so after I did, Troy was instantly made into the golden boy, purely because without him, our basketball team sucked, big time," She giggled softly. "Kelsi was instantly popular as well, purely because Troy wouldn't go anywhere without her, or at least not without making sure that she was ok first."

"Sounds like Troy," Chad nodded, smiling softly, "He's always been super over protective of Kelsi, ever since Pre-K."

Gabriella nodded, a small smile filtering onto her features, "Yeah, I always did love their relationship, it was so genuine, and you could always tell just how close they were. But anyway, Lincoln was run by cliques, me, I obviously fell into the loser pack, straight from the off, although in all fairness, the majority of them also classed me as a bigger loser than what they were. I was bullied, given triple the amount of homework from the sports teams, and then Troy joined the school," Gabriella blushed softly as Chad tilted his head and watched her with a slight uncertainty. "Everything changed. Everything."

19 months earlier...

"Gabriella, are you sure that you're going to be alright?" The red headed girl asked, worry etched into her tone. "I mean, Avril and I can walk you to your next class to stop those lunkhead jock idiots from getting anywhere near you if you want."

Slowly, the brunette shook her head, even in the three weeks that Gabriella had been at Lincoln High, she knew that there was a standing order – jocks, drama freaks, skaters, hippies, emos, nerds – she also knew that Duffy and Avril fit right in snugly with the second band, the drama freaks, whereas Gabriella herself was classed as below the nerds group, allowing her to be picked on by all members of any clique within the school. "No, its ok, I don't want to make you guys' late for your next lesson. I have a free anyway, so I'm going to try to get to the library, hell knows they won't know where that is."

Laughing, the pair of girls stood with the brunette nodded, smiling slightly at their new friend. "OK Brie, if you're sure," Avril muttered quietly, although the pale blonde still looked nervous about leaving Gabriella, knowing that even with herself and Duffy, Gabriella was severely prone to attacks by other members of the school.

"I'll be fine guys, promise," Gabriella smiled crookedly, attempting, and failing, to look confident, but knowing that Avril practically had OCD when it came to being on time for anything, whether it be her lessons, or simply meeting Duffy and Gabriella in Starbucks for coffee and a quick bite to eat.

The warning bell sounded and both girls gave Gabriella one final hug of reassurance, before departing rapidly for their Spanish lesson. Sighing, Gabriella turned back to her locker and began to load her bag with work that she could get done over her free period, before meeting the girls once more to go off campus for lunch. Feeling that her bag was finally full, the young girl turned around, and froze in terror and the smirking gang of teenagers waiting for her at the top of the hallway.

Gulping, Gabriella turned to flee in the other direction. Her fear only increased tenfold when she saw that the basketball team, the football team and the cheerleaders had her surrounded on all sides.

"Well, well, well, look what we have here," The captain of the football team, Russell Kingsley smirked as he sauntered up to Gabriella, grasping her chin in his hand and yanking her forwards. "Guess that this one little bitch decided that she would defy our orders and actually turn up to school today. That was a really bad move Geekella, unless of course, you've finished all of the assignments that we gave you yesterday and the day before." Releasing her chin, he allowed two others of his cronies to shove her roughly against the lockers while the other students gathered laughed, all at least, with the exception of one blue eyed boy, who was watching them with horror filled eyes.

"Eww, Russ, did you just touch it? Hell knows what diseases you'll catch!" The head cheerleader Mindy Carmichael screeched in her high pitched voice, causing everyone to wince. "Oh, and Gabsmella, when he said that you had better have done our assignments, he means all of them, not just the football teams, we're here on behalf of the athletic team, the baseball team, the dance team and others as well, so you had better be ready to dish them all out. Got that?" Mindy finished venomously, her face pressed right up against Gabriella's as the brunette whimpered and pulled back.

"Erm, well you se em, I only got some of them done, but my m-m-mom, sh-she made m-me stop and g-g-go to sl-sleep when it g-g-got to three this m-morning, and sh-she wouldn't l-l-let me stay off to f-finish them," Gabriella whispered, causing all of them gathered to smirk some more.

"Oh Geekella, have you not learnt the punishment for disobeying us yet?" One of the basketball players sneered, causing the rest of the gathering to laugh some more.

"Pl-please don't," Gabriella begged, tears already slipping out from under her closed eyelids, the teenagers howling with further laughter as they did so. Suddenly, the two boys holding her dropped her, and Gabriella felt a reign of solid blows to any available part of her as she curled into a foetal protection, urging her body to give herself the strength to pull through just one more day of this. To the young girl though, the physical and mental torture were slowly becoming too much, even after only three weeks.

Cracking open one eye, Gabriella felt a shiver pass through her body as it connected with a pair of ice blue eyes stood off to the sidelines, ice blue eyes that looked a mixture of furious, ashamed and sickened all in one. "Come on Captain, join in!" One of the basketball players' yelled, instantly allowing Gabriela to recognise the boy as Troy Bolton. He was the almost prophesised one who was supposed to lift their school basketball team from their three year string of crushing defeat after crushing defeat.

Surging forwards, Troy pushed his way between the group of athletes and Gabriella. "What the hell do you lot think that you're doing?" He seethed; anger flowing through his veins as he clenched his fists, ready to fight to defend the beautiful girl crouched behind him if he had to. "You're acting like a bunch of animals, and to be honest it's disgusting, as long as I'm here, and you want me to help your shithole of a basketball team get any better, you won't lay a finger on her, or anyone else, got it?" Troy's icy cobalt eyes flickered around the stunned group of teenagers who had never once been taken down from their pedestal before this. "I said have you got that?" Troy roared, causing all of them to swiftly nod and sprint off in different directions.

Crouching down to the whimpering girl behind him, Troy rested a gentle hand on her shoulder, causing her to instantly start shaking, "Hey, it's ok," He whispered soothingly, settling back against the lockers and drawing her onto his knee. "I won't hurt you, I swear, and as I promise that they will never hurt you again Gabriella, not unless they want to feel my wrath."

"Troy took me back to his place that night, where of course I met Kels as well," Gabriella smiled softly, recalling some happy memories between the three of them at that house. "Duffy and Avril were really wary of him at first, of course, but Kelsi fit right in," She grinned at Chad, who nodded slightly, still in disbelief from Gabriella's previous tale. "After about three weeks, we started dating, no one dared to lay a hand on me, especially after Russell Kingsley's hand somehow mysteriously wound up broken after that first encounter in front of Troy. I don't believe that it was him who broke his hand, but Troy certainly revelled in the attention it brought him, and the fact that it kept me and the other three safe out of harm's way at least," Gabriella smiled softly, one hand instinctively clasping at the locket dancing around her neck, Chad chuckling as he imagined his best friend in that situation. "Kels, of course, left after six months, but she kept in touch, and she visited with her parents quite frequently. The basketball team actually did start winning everything they played for, and Troy and I went from strength to strength, the two of us, Duffy, Avril and Kelsi were like a little family really," Gabriella smiled fondly, admiring a picture of the four of them after one of the basketball games, a beaming Troy still in his uniform as he clutched a laughing Gabriella and Duffy to one side and a squirming Kelsi and Avril tightly to the other side. "We reached our one year anniversary, and he gave me the most amazing night ever, I gave him everything that night," She sighed softly, and Chad couldn't help but feel a surge of anger rush through him. "And two weeks later, he was gone. No message, no warning, no nothing," Gabriella sighed softly, running her fingers through a snoozing Pippin's fur, smiling softly when the small dog started running in her sleep. "Of course they all blamed me for him leaving. His sudden departure really left me in a hole; the entire school took it out on me. They blamed me for getting rid of their Golden Boy, therefore allowing the basketball team to start losing miserably again." Chuckling harshly, Gabriella's anger filled eyes lifted to meet Chad's startled one, "I became the punching bag for the entire school without him there to protect me anymore. Avril and Duffy tried to stop it, but when the whole school's out to get one person they're after blood, and I knew that they wouldn't stop until they got mine." Sighing sadly once more, Gabriella calmly glanced at the photo album containing so many memories of their relationship once more, almost forgetting Chad's presence in the room. "I still loved him though, he broke every promise that he ever made to me, yet, I knew that I wouldn't ever be complete again until I had him back."

Well guys that was Chapter 4, I hope that you enjoyed it and please review! As soon as I get 8 reviews I will upload the next chapter, also, thanks so much for all of your reviews on Chapter 3 once more!