Castaways

A High School Musical Fanfiction

Chapter 7: What happened to Hawaii?

"Wow...that was awkward", Troy muttered as he nervously ran his hand through his hair.

The aircrew had left soon after that embarrassing encounter / praise of Sharpay's dancing.

"I'm really sorry about what happened or what almost happened... Sorry, I'm babbling. Let's just forget about it", Troy suggested while walking back to his seat and leaving Sharpay standing alone in the middle of the airplane. He didn't even glance back to see the forlorn look on her face.

"Sure, it never happened", she told him, though that was the last thing she wanted to say.

Troy bent over and picked up her L.A. Hoodie and held it out for her.

She hesitated and looked up at him with wide, brown eyes. "Um, would you mind if I wore yours instead? ... I mean if you're not going to wear it, of course."

"Oh, sure. I'm pretty warm." He handed her his Wildcats hoodie and she quickly put it on.

"Thanks", she said with a smile. "It's the sizing."

"It's the wrong size?", Troy asked in confusion.

"No, not size ... sizing. It's this stuff they put in new clothes that makes them stiff. It makes the shirt itchy." She'd never admit the real reason she wanted his hoodie -- because it smelled so deliciously Troy-like. And since she couldn't hug the real thing she'd settle for his clothes. She covertly lifted the sleeve of the jacket to her noise and inhaled deeply while she nuzzled the soft, worn fleece.

"You were really great with the dancing, by the way. How did you learn to do that?"

"Well, Ryan and I have taken every kind of dance class there is. I can also do tap, ballet, jazz, Irish folk dancing, ballroom, salsa... You name it; I can do it. In fact Ryan is actually better at belly dancing than me, but it's just disturbing to watch."

Troy shuttered visibly as an unsettling image flashed in his mind: Ryan dressed as a harem girl and performing the Dance of the Seven Veils. He shuttered again.

"You alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine ... just had a scary thought..."

"Ryan and the seven veils thing?"

"How'd you know?"

"Remember? We're more alike than you thought. But it might be a memory though, not a nightmare. He actually dressed up like that for Halloween when we were six. I was a Power Ranger that year -- Pink Ranger, of course."

"Of course." He smiled warmly at her. "I was Batman that year ... I think."

"Oooo, The Dark Knight..." Her voice dropped an octave and became almost smoky.

Troy's eyes widened and twinkled at the same time. "I think everyone has a dark side."

Her eyes caught his and then, his comment about forgetting about them almost kissing slammed into her like Ryan when he flubbed up a dance routine and literally slammed into her.

She quickly looked away and started rummaging through her shoulder bag.

Troy felt like an idiot. Obviously, she wasn't interested in flirting with him and he certainly shouldn't be interested in flirting with her. Gabriella, remember?, he chided himself. He opened up his Buffy comic and tried to concentrate on the plot. It wasn't easy since Buffy seemed to be morphing into a familiar blond with brown eyes, instead of green. Yeah, Sharpay would make a great Buffy.

A long hour of silence later, Sharpay looked over at Troy cautiously. This was ridiculous. Just because he wasn't interested in her in that way, didn't mean they couldn't be friends ... or at least be friendly.

"Hey, have you finished your comic book yet?"

"Uh yeah, I'm not really into this arc so much."

"You wanna trade?"

A laugh escaped before he could stop it. "What? For Cosmo Girl? I don't think so."

"Who knows, Bolton? You might learn something. But, how about something on my iPhone?", she quirked her brow at him.

"More crappy music?" Troy couldn't believe how much fun it was to trade quips back and forth between them.

"You could watch a movie", she suggested.

"It has movies too?", Troy asked jealously.

"Yep." She started to flip through her movie list and observed with a pout that the battery was almost dead. "How about 'The Lost Boys'? I know it's old, but..."

He interrupted her excitedly. "It's a classic. I'll take it."

They exchanged comic book for iPod and settled in for their respective entertainment.

Sharpay finished the Buffy comic in about fifteen minutes and started surreptitiously glancing over at the iPhone to see if she could see the movie. iPhones were great, but you really needed to be sitting directly in front of the screen to see the picture. Troy was obliviously wrapped up in the movie and didn't notice her inching closer. Also, he was wearing ear buds so he couldn't even hear her.

Sharpay found herself leaning closer and closer to Troy. God, he smells just like his hoodie. Before she realized it, she was resting her chin on his shoulder. Instead of the typical sitcom reaction, where he would jump three feet into the air and scream like a girl, his reaction genuinely surprised and thrilled her. He pulled out his right earbud and offered it to Sharpay. Yesterday, she would have sneered at it and asked for a clean one, but that was a 1,000 miles and a whole day of bonding ago. She accepted it with a smile and leaned over even closer. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder to allow her to see better and she snuggled into his embrace.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

"Aaaah, ain't that cute?", asked Jim, the flight engineer, as he nudged the pilot in the arm and nodded towards their passengers.

Troy and Sharpay were cuddled close together with her head in his lap and his head leaning down over her back, sort of like a human pretzel.

"I'd like to have her head in my lap", commented the lecherous co-pilot.

"Jeez, Chuck! Give it a break!", the pilot snapped at him. "She's just a kid and you're old enough to be her ..."

"First lover?", Chuck provided with a waggle of his bushy unibrow.

"He's hopeless, Frank", Jim said as he skillfully opened up the door and took a deep breath of tropical air. "Mmmm, I just love the smell of Hawaii. Come on, we've got a lot of work to do."

"What about the kids?"

"Leave them alone; they'll wake up in a bit. There's no way they can sleep through the unloading of 5,000 pounds of cargo."

The pilot pushed Chuck out the door and the flight engineer headed to the back of the craft to supervise the cargo.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

Whooooosh!

Troy and Sharpay startled awake simultaneously and sat up in surprise.

"What was that?", Sharpay asked with concern in her voice.

Jim, the flight engineer, answered her question as he appeared from the rear of the craft.

"That was just take-off, kids."

"Take off?", they asked in unison.

"What happened to landing in Hawaii?", Sharpay added quickly as she stood to her full height, such as it was, and moved forward to challenge him.

"Oh, we did that two and a half hours ago, little lady", Jim told her calmly.

"But...but...", Sharpay started in exasperation.

"You two were sound asleep ... as snug as two bugs in a rug, as my old granny used to say."

"Then, why didn't you wake us up?" Sharpay was quickly losing her patience with this man.

"Son", the flight engineer addressed Troy, "you need to calm down you girlfriend there."

"Oh, she's not my girlfriend", Troy replied automatically.

"Alright...alright. I know about how teenagers work these days ... you don't date; you hook up ... you don't have girlfriends; you have friends with benefits. Am I right?"

"Benefits?", shrieked Sharpay while frantically waving her hand back and forth between Troy and herself. "There are no benefits going on here." Her voice was becoming higher and more tense by the seconds and Troy noticed that there was a vein on her forehead that was suddenly starting to pulse.

"Uh, yeah", Troy added in a much more subdued tone, "We're friends ... just friends."

"Calm down, little lady", Jim soothed as he held his hands, palms out, towards Sharpay in order to supposedly fend her off. "I didn't mean to imply anything, but to be honest ... well, I never danced with any of my female friends like the two of you were dancing. And the way you two were nuzzling up then to each other while you were sleeping ... well..."

Sharpay's face turned a bright red, but if it was from embarrassment or anger, it was difficult to say.

Quickly, Troy stepped up behind her and grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her back from the engineer before she hurt him. "So to get back on track...", Troy said, trying to change the subject. "Are you telling me we missed Hawaii?"

"Yep. Our next stop is Sydney, Australia in about...", he paused and glanced down at his wrist watch, "nine and a half hours." With that, he tipped his baseball cap at them and left.

Suddenly, they were alone again. Sharpay was staring in disbelief at the closed cockpit door and Troy still stood behind her with his hands firmly holding onto her shoulders.

"Ooo, I could just kill that guy. He's sooooo...", Sharpay said with a frustrated sigh.

She pulled away from Troy and they both felt the lose immediately. Sharpay turned back and instantly their eyes locked on each other.

"Ummm, I'm sorry", Sharpay said as she looked away from him. "Sometimes, I just can't control my temper."

"Don't worry, Shar. This'll just make it seem like we're getting there that much faster."

Troy walked back over to his seat and Sharpay flopped down next to him.

"So what do we do now?", Sharpay sighed in frustration.

"Don't know." He noticed the iPhone lying on the floor and bent down to pick it up. "Sorry, looks like the battery's dead."

He landed it back to Sharpay and she dropped it back into her shoulder bag. Then, she reached in and pulled out the two magazines. She looked at him with an apologetic look. "Take your pick", she said as she held up the Seventeen Magazine in one hand and Cosmo Girl in the other. "This is all we have for the next two hours."

"Uggg", Troy mumbled as he looked dejectedly at his choices. "I guess I should do this the scientific way ... eeny, meeny, miny, moe..."

"Oh, come on, Troy. We only have, like, nine hours here. Just pick, already."

"Okay, okay", he said nervously as he reached slowly towards the Seventeen Magazine. Then, at the last second, he changed his mind and quickly snatched the Cosmo Girl out of her hand.

Fifteen minutes later, Troy looked over and noticed that Sharpay was covertly scribbling into her magazine which she had folded so he couldn't see it. This, of course, only made him want to know what she was doing.

Clearing his throat loudly, Troy announced in a loud voice. "Did you know that thongs can cause urinary tract infections?"

"What?! But I'm not wearing a...", she said before she could stop herself. "What are you talking about?"

"And how often do you change your tampon? Because it says here that you should change them every two to six hours or they could cause infections. It says so right here", Troy continued, as he pointed to the article. "See...'Secret Health Dangers'. I had no idea being a girl was so hard." And then, before she could comment, he asked, "Want to trade back?"

Sharpay's eyes widened nervously and she clutched the magazine close to her chest. "No."

"You're not hiding anything, are you, Sharpay?"

Sharpay straightened her back immediately and replied, quite defensively, "Of course not. It's just...well, I've already finished that magazine." She indicated to the Cosmo Girl.

Troy decided to give up on playing coy. "Come on, Sharpay. I know you're hiding something, so just tell me what it is."

"No", she said petulantly.

That wasn't going to stop Troy. He reached over and made a grab for the Seventeen magazine, but Sharpay jumped up from him and ran off towards the rear of the plane and disappeared between the large cargo pallets. He heard the echo of her playful laughter, but she had vanished.

"Oh, come on, Sharpay. I was just kidding. I won't take your magazine. I don't care what you were writing." He continued to talk to her as he walked further and further from their seats. Wow, I had no idea this thing was so big.

Just when he was about to turn back, he saw her dart across in front of him. She was about fifteen feet ahead and Troy broke into a slow jog to catch up to her. When he got to the intersection where she saw her, she had vanished. All he found was the Seventeen magazine lying on the floor. Quickly, he scooped it up and kept walking. He spent the next fifteen minutes chasing her up and down narrow aisles whose walls were made of towering pallets of plastic wrapped packages. He only saw glimpses of a blond fairy-like creature as she danced away from him. Dejectedly, Troy decided to give up and go back to his seat. He turned around and screamed like a girl when he ran straight into Sharpay who took full advantage of the situation by laughing uncontrollably at his distress.

Anger flashed instantly in his eyes and he grabbed her by her shoulders in a harsh imitation of how he'd held her just hours earlier.

"You think this is funny? I've been worried sick about you and you're out here playing games. You know what this means", Troy's voice dropped menacingly and he added with a gravel-filled voice, "don't you?"

Sharpay stopped laughing as soon as he grabbed her and she felt like she was staring into the eyes of a stranger. Her voice caught in her throat and she was realized that she was actually afraid of Troy Bolton.

"Well, I'm waiting ... Do you know what this means, Sharpay?"

Before she could rasp out a reply, she saw his eyes crinkle at the corners and then, a tiny smile appeared on his face. "Sharpay..." His tone had instantaneously changed to playful. He leaned in closer. "It means ..." He lowered his head to her ears and whispered, "today is April Fool's Day. And I got you!"

"What?", she screamed and pulled away from him so quickly that she lost her balance and when careening to the floor.

"Oh, gosh. I'm so sorry", Troy asked with genuine concern as he bent down to help her up.

"I can't believe you did that to me. You had me scared out of my wits." She was seething at him, but did not refuse his offer of help in standing back up.

"I'm sorry." It was barely above a whisper. "But you scared me first."

She pushed her way past him and started to head back towards the front of the plane. "No, you scared yourself", she called back over her shoulder.

"Sharpay", Troy called and rushed to catch up as he reached for her arm.

She shook his hand off and turned back. "What?", she barked.

"Ummm, you're going the wrong way." Troy pointed towards the front of the aircraft. "Our seats are that way."

Troy's eyes widened when she growled at him as she shouldered her way past him and stomped towards the, now correct, end of the plane. Troy skulked up slowly behind her and slumped down into his seat in silence. Sharpay has her eyes closed tightly and her arms crossed over her chest and she's concentrating on her breathing...trying to slow down and regain control over herself.

Troy just looked away. He wasn't ready for another confrontation right now. Then, he realized that he was still holding the magazine. That's what started this whole thing. He was almost going to hand it back to her when he rethought it. After everything he just went through, he wasn't going to give up his prize. He lifted it slightly and realized she'd never let him sit here and find out what she was trying to hide, so he came to a decisive decision and stood with as much dignity as he could muster and marched off to the lavatory.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

"Oh, shit", Troy groaned as he leaned his head back against the hard plastic of bulkhead. He was sitting on the lid of the tiny toilet and his knees were squashed up against the sink. However, that's not what made him groan. He found what she was trying to hide from him. It was one of those silly teen girl quizzes: Is He Your Soulmate?

She'd answered almost all of the questions, but it wasn't finished. Plus, she'd written little comments in the margin where a yes/no answer didn't completely explain her answer.

You can say anything to him.

"Yes." Troy instantly remembered their conversation about lesbians.

You've known him for a long time.

"Yes." Troy remembered her sitting across the table from him in Kindergarten. God, he hadn't thought of that in years.

You were friends before you dated.

"Yes." She added some notes to the margins of this one. "We were best friends in fifth grade and went to the school Valentine's Day dance together. I guess that counts."

Every time you see him your heart drops.

"Yes." Sharpay had circled the 'yes' answer about ten times.

He always seems to say the right thing at the right time.

"Yes."

You have never been in a fight before.

"No." She noted, "Sometimes, it seems like that's all we do."

You started dating because of peer pressures.

"No." "We don't date. Maybe, that's because of peer pressure. I hope that's the reason."

You started dating against what everyone said.

"No." "See above."

You have been dating for a year.

"No." "See above again. This is getting stupid."

You have liked each other for a year.

"Yes." "Well, I've liked him since middle school, but I'm not sure about him."

Everyone wants him.

"Yes." "God, yes."

His best quality is his looks but sometimes he can be a jerk.

Nothing is marked, but she wrote out to the side, "His best quality is his heart, but sometimes he can be a jerk."

He's perfect.

He has flaws but I love him anyway.

The last two weren't answered and Troy was just about to tally up the score when a loud boom came from just outside the plane and the aircraft shook with reverberations. Troy jumped and ran out of the tiny room, the magazine abandoned on the floor.

"What's going on?", Sharpay screamed as she met him half-way.

"I-I don't know, but we should get buckled in."

"Oh, God! Troy, we're going to die!", screamed a very frightened Sharpay, as the plane rattled and shook and sparks started shooting from the ceiling.

"Calm down, Sharpay. There's no need to panic", soothed Troy.

"You idiot, we're about to crash into the middle of the Pacific ocean. THIS IS THE PERFECT TIME TO PANIC!"

"Yeah, you're right. I just meant we shouldn't waste our time panicking when it doesn't help anything."

At this point the flight engineer stumbled up to check on them.. He handed them each a "Mae West" life vest and told them, "Put these on, kids, and make sure you are securely buckled. Whatever you do, stay buckled and don't get up. I'm going to check on the cargo."

"We're going to die, aren't we?", Sharpay asked him, her voice shaking.

"Well, kids, I don't mean to sound dire, but now might be a good time to start praying." He continued on toward the cargo hold in the rear of the craft.

"I guess this is it", Sharpay said as she resolutely took a deep breath.

"Yeah, I guess so. Listen, Sharpay. I need to tell you something", Troy said hesitantly. "I-I just wanted you to know I've always thought you were cute... I mean I've always liked you. What I'm trying to say is..."

"What!! You wait until now to tell me this. You couldn't have told me four or five months ago? You know, when you didn't already have a girlfriend and we weren't both ABOUT TO DIE! You really are an idiot! My God, I've had a crush on you since eighth grade and you wait until it's too late to do..."

Suddenly, Troy reached over and grabbed the back of her head with his right hand and pulled her toward him as he leaned over to capture her lips in a passionate kiss. She started to fight him at first, by instinct, but quickly relaxed into his strong embrace and returned his affection with equal fervor.

Without warning, the plane pitched forward sharply as it started to lose altitude. The engines were screaming as if in pain. They both pulled back from the kiss, but held onto each other tightly.

"Don't let me go, Troy", Sharpay had to shout over the roar of the plane, "I love you."

"I love you, too. And I'll never let you go", he shouted back to her, as they hang onto each other for dear life.

TBC

Well, folks... we've come full circle back to the beginning (or to the first chapter, anyway). Now, the fun can really start. Next chapter: they're FINALLY going to make it to that island.

Please, please, please Review and let me know if you liked this one (or not).