Chapter 10

Troy had packed the esky and blanket and had actually been very early to school to get it all set up, before leaving again to attempt to visit the courthouse before school. The clerk he needed hadn't been there yet but he at least knew who to ask for later. He had reworked his proposal speech last night a dozen times and rehearsed until he knew it by heart. The ring was in his pocket, even the note was prewritten so he could put it in her locker and run up to the roof to make sure everything was ready.

He had informed Chad of his plans for a private lunch, and threatened him with grievous bodily harm if they were interrupted. Chad had given him a wink and a smirk, assuming his intentions to be less than innocent, and promised to keep the guys away from the rooftop garden.

Troy stood waiting on the roof for Gabriella, his mouth dry, butterflies the size of sparrows in his stomach and his heart in his throat. He had been so busy trying to organize everything that up until now he hadn't considered that Gabriella might say 'no'. All of a sudden fear overtook him he forgot every word of his practiced proposal and he started to shake as he heard her come up the stairs.

He saw her smile fade as he stepped back to avoid her embrace, confusion and tears filling her eyes. 'No' he thought, this couldn't start with tears. He didn't think he could do this if she were crying. Quickly he thrust the bouquet in his hands at her and took her into his arms. "Please don't cry" he begged panicking "I promise there's nothing to cry about, it's all good I promise. I don't know if I can do this if you cry, Please stop. I can't bear to see you cry please" he begged incoherently.

Gabriella looked at him in surprise, and then down to the flowers forced into her hand in shock. What was going on? This nervous stuttering begging Troy was nothing like the confident wildcat she knew. She wiped her eyes and raised her eyebrows questioningly and waited silently for him to explain.

Troy took a deep breath reaching into his pocket, pulling out something small. He squared his shoulders and stepped back from Gabriella going down on one knee.

"Gabriella I love you, I can't live without you, you are my life, and you are my future, none of it means anything without you. Please Gabriella, Baby will you marry me?"

Troy held out the box containing his Grandmother's engagement ring anxiously holding his breath.

Gabriella had never been so surprised in her life, she was literally stuck dumb, she couldn't have answered him, she stood there repeating the proposal over in her mind.

Troy's expression fell and he stood and turned away from her, his eyes full of tears as he finally caught his breath panting and sobbing quietly.

The sound of his distress woke Gabriella from her stupor and she hurried over and threw her arms around him holding tight. "Do you mean it?" she asked anxiously. "Do you mean we can really get married? Is it real? Or do you want to get married just to stop Eduardo?"

Troy looked up with pain filled eyes, "Yes I mean it. I want to marry you? If it wasn't for Eduardo I wouldn't have asked yet, but I know I would have asked in a few years? I love you Gabi" Gabriella knew then that he did truly mean it, and that he had been hurt by her response. He rarely called her Gabi and never had since that night. It was her parent's name for her, and Troy was very angry with them right now, he wouldn't have used that name if he wasn't distraught.

"I would love to marry you." She said, "but I don't understand how it is possible".

Troy suddenly laughed and picked her up and spun around in joy. "You will be my wife?" he demanded.

"Yes yes yes" she shouted "it will be a dream come true, but how...?"

"Come sit and I will explain" he said leading her over to the blanket and pulling her down onto his lap. "It was in those papers you took from your mum's jewellery case."

"but the contract looked..."

"Not the contract, the other papers with it. We didn't look at them because we were so upset seeing the contract but look."

He pulled the 'Parental Permission for a Minor to Wed' form out of his bag. Your mum signed it but she didn't fill his name in. We can put my name in there and we can get married next week if you want."

"You would do this for me? Troy I can't ask you to give up your future. What about college, the Redhawks? Your parents will never..."

Troy laughed "Gabriella I would do anything for you. But believe me this is not a sacrifice. You are my future. We can still go to college. I've applied to a couple of colleges in California. I can still play basketball without being a Redhawk. That's Dad's dream, not mine. I want to be near you. I think I have a reasonable shot at a scholarship at USC Sacramento or maybe even UC Berkley if I'm lucky they need a new point guard, it wouldn't be quite as good as going to Stanford with you but it's the best I can do."

He kissed her softly, and asked quietly "That's good enough isn't it? I don't want you to give up your dreams for me. We'd see each other at least a couple of times a week."

She held him tight returning the kiss with interest. "It's perfect Troy. I didn't think I would get to go to college at all anymore, let alone to Stanford."

"What do you mean not go to college?" he asked "You're already accepted. Being married shouldn't change that."

"Troy, being married to you wouldn't stop me from going to college because you want to let me go. Eduardo, I think, wants a housewife, there's no way he would have let me go to Stanford, he wasn't even going to let me come back and finish Senior Year. I have enough credits to Graduate early but I didn't want to. If I was lucky he might have let me do some classes in Detroit but I doubt he'd even let me do that if it interfered with what he wanted from me."

Troy was getting angry "I can't believe your parents would ruin your life like that" he ranted.

"Me either, Mum has been talking about me going to Stanford ever since I started kindergarten." Gabriella hugged Troy trying to get him to calm down. "It's not like she wanted this but it's not her choice. I'd hoped since Stanford was so important to her that it would be written into the contract that Eduardo ould have to let me go if I got in."

After several minutes just enjoying being in his embrace, Gabriella's thoughts returned to Troy's proposal. "Troy you never told me how we can do this your Dad would never sign a consent form for you to get married even if we explained the circumstances, though maybe your Mum might..." she trailed of thoughtfully. "Don't we need both parents' consent? And my Dad hasn't signed mine either" she started to get upset, thinking that maybe this lovely idyllic dream solution was too good to be possible after all, and Troy hadn't thought of all these things. 'It was really sweet of him to ask her even if it is impossible' she thought sadly.

Troy hurried to reassure her. "No Baby it's okay, I'm eighteen, I don't need my parents to sign a consent form for me I'm old enough to get married without my parents' permission. And I asked at the courthouse, you don't need your Dad's consent either, you just need to sign a declaration that you haven't seen him for more than 3 years and don't know his address or phone number or have any other way of contacting him." He hesitated a moment, then asked "You don't do you? Because if you have his address or number written down somewhere then just tell me where it's written and I'll go destroy it so you don't have to lie." Troy knew that Gabriella could lie if she had to but that she hated to do it and would worry that if her father caught up with them he could use the fact that she'd lied about not being able to contact him to invalidate their marriage.

"Troy Bolton you have one of the most devious minds..." she burst out laughing in relief and couldn't continue.

"Hey!" Troy protested weakly. In truth he was so thrilled to hear that laugh he loved so much that she could have called him every name under the sun and he wouldn't have minded. They laughed together for several minutes before Troy made an effort to calm down. They still had stuff to discuss and she hadn't actually accepted his ring yet.

"Gabriella will you marry me next week?" He asked opening the box and taking out the engagement ring. "I mean it will just be a courthouse ceremony no big church wedding or anything" he rambled apologetically.

"Yes Troy I will marry you next week" Gabriella said with a beautiful smile at the boy, no man, she loved.

Troy grabbed her hands gently "Which hand do you want this on?" he asked holding out the ring. "I mean your mum wore hers on the right hand didn't she? Do you want to do that too?"

Gabriella was surprised he'd noticed that, surely he hadn't seen her mother since he came up with this plan. She thought for a moment then shook her head. "Wearing your wedding ring on the right hand is traditional for my father's country. Given that I want no part of the traditional marriage he has arranged I think I will wear it on the left like the Americans normally do."

Troy pushed the ring onto her finger then kissed her hand "Wow! A perfect fit." He said.

"That's good we wouldn't want to have to get them resized and risk not getting them back in time. Have you tried yours on? Or are you going to use your Wildcats ring?" Gabriella asked thinking she should offer to buy him a ring and wondering how she'd manage to purchase one without anyone finding out.

Troy laughed "That would be one way to hide it." He said as he shook his head showing her the matching wedding bands.

She took the larger of the two rings out and helped him put it on the appropriate finger, it also fit perfectly. "You want to hide our marriage?" she asked uncertainly, surprisingly a little hurt by the idea.

"No Baby, I want to shout it out to everyone that you are mine. But we'll have to hide our engagement until after the ceremony cause if my Dad finds out he'll tell your Mum, and they'll try to stop us."

Gabriella nodded she admired the exquisite engagement ring on her hand for a few minutes before reluctantly taking the ring off and returning it to the box and giving it back to Troy. "You better keep this then" she said "I might get tempted to try it on again and get caught. It is really beautiful."

"They were my Grandma and Grandad's from Mum's side, they eloped too and they were very happy for more than 30 years when Grandma died, I thought it might be a good omen. Grandad left them to me because he said I was the grandchild most like him. Some of my Aunts weren't too happy about it but they understood. I never met Grandma, she died when Mum was young but Grandad lived with us for several years when I was a kid and he told me lot's about her. He really loved her she died about twenty years before he did and still he talked about her every day, about how wonderful she was or how she would have loved this or that."

"It almost seems it's meant to be" Gabriella agreed smiling.

Troy leaned in and kissed her again and all thoughts of wedding planning were pushed aside as they just enjoyed being together until the warning bell rang.

They quickly packed the uneaten picnic back into the esky and ran toward the stairs. Troy pulled her to a halt before they could descend though and warned her that to keep the secret they couldn't look too happy, particularly where it might get back to Gabriella's mother.