Troy slowly came into consciousness. The first thing he was aware of was the light behind his still shut eyelids, registering that it was morning. Next he felt something heavy pinning his left arm down to the bed, cutting off his circulation. The last sense to awake before he opened his eyes was his hearing. The sound of breathing and occasional light snoring was coming at a steady rhythm beside him.

He made an effort to open his eyes, squinting in pain for a moment at the bright light that met him. The sight of Sharpay, her eyes shut, right cheek flattened against the pillow, and mouth open while she slept, jolted him awake. She was still snuggled right against him, looking like she hadn't moved much at all during the night. Troy stared at her, not sure if he should wake her up now, or let her sleep and try to manuever his arm out from under her in order to make his own escape.

While he was contemplating his dilemma, he noticed that a few strands of hair had fallen into her face, chuckling as he watched her suck them into her mouth with each intake of breath. He reached for the hair with his free hand, pulling it away from her face, and tucking it behind her ear. His fingers grazed across her left cheek as he brought his hand back to rest beside him, and he heard her make a slight gasping noise in her sleep. Her eyes began to move rapidly behind her eyelids, and then they suddenly began to flutter, alerting him that she was waking up.

He felt his heart begin to pound, not entirely sure how to deal with the situation. Should he be upset with her? He certainly had a reason to, but then again, he had let her spend the night in his bed last night, perhaps letting the window of time in which it was appropriate to be angry pass. He needed to talk to her, that was for certain, to let her know that she couldn't continue to act so recklessly, and that she should have been at home with Mckenzie last night.

He watched her eyelids finally rise, looking up to make eye contact with him. He held his breath, waiting for her to speak, but she continued to stare at him silently. Then, to his astonishment, she shut her eyes again, moving her body in closer to his, and burrying her head in his chest. She let out a small sigh, the only noise he heard her make.

"Sharpay?" He spoke to her after a moment, wondering if she had fallen back asleep.

"Mhm?" She replied, eyes still closed.

"Uh, shouldn't we get up, and talk?" He asked, suddenly feeling far too close to her.

He should have had more willpower the night before. He shouldn't have let her sleep in his bed with him, cuddled into his arms no less. Now she could be thinking anything. Maybe that they were back together. She might not remember last night at all. Maybe she thought the two of them had done more than just sleep in his bed together.

His mind was racing through a million what-ifs and regrets when she replied, "Yeah. I was just trying to pretend for a little bit longer."

Troy breathed out loudly through his nose. She remembered last night. He wasn't sure if that was for better or worse.

She slowly sat up in bed, and reached for her head, "Ow. It's bright in here."

Her head crashed back onto the pillow, landing on top of Troy's briefly freed arm again in the process.

Troy pulled it out from under her with the necessary force needed, no longer worried about waking her up.

"Come on downstairs. I'll find some asprin for you and make you some coffee." He stood up, looking down and for the first time remembering he had fallen asleep in his clothes.

Sharpay seemed to notice his attire too, crawling out of bed and then glancing down to discover what she was wearing, the t-shirt Troy had given her to sleep in the night before.

"Oh. Right." She muttered.

"If you want, I'll leave so you can get changed back into your clothes from last night." Troy offered.

Sharpay shook her head, "This is much more comfortable."

"Oh. All right." He gulped, stealing a glance at her long uncovered legs.

"Unless it makes you uncomfortable." Sharpay blushed, not used to having to worry about modesty when around Troy.

"Nothing I haven't seen before." He replied, turning and walking out of the room.

Sharpay followed him downstairs, wincing at the headache that seemed to throb with every step down. Troy reached the bottom long before her, as she tried to take each stair gently and carefully, and when she reached the kitchen, he already had a glass of water and two pills sitting on the counter for her.

"Thanks." She sat down on the stool behind it, grabbing both items and quickly popping the pills in her mouth, chasing them down with three gulps of water.

"Uh huh." Troy was already withdrawing coffee beans from his cabinet, and she watched him in silence as he set up the coffee maker.

When he was finished, he turned to her, "I guess we can go ahead and talk while we wait."

Sharpay nodded, and then, as Troy started to open his mouth to speak, she blurted out, "I'm so sorry!"

Troy closed his mouth again, standing still, and waiting for her to continue.

"I screwed your date up, and what's worse I did it on purpose. I don't even know what I did or said. The last thing I remember is being upstairs in our room- your room!" She paused, embarassed by the blunder, but continued, "I can't even believe you let me stay, but I'm so glad you did, because I needed you last night Troy."

Troy stared down at the floor, "Mckenzie was so dissapointed last night when I dropped her off at your brother's and you weren't there."

"Oh." A deep crimson blush crept onto Sharpay's cheeks when she realized she hadn't even thought about her daughter the night before.

"You're not the child I'm supposed to be taking care of." He stated, "You have a child you don't take care of..."

"I'm so sorry. I didn't even realize..." She swallowed, realizing that an act she thought had pulled Troy closer to her, may have just pushed him away even further, "You said Ryan wanted to see her, and I just assumed the two of them would be spending time together. I was so preoccupied with the thought of you with another woman. I just couldn't stand it."

"You couldn't stand the idea of me with someone else?" Troy exclaimed, suddenly becoming excitable, "Sharpay you told me yesterday that the reason you came back here was because of a pregnancy scare! The thought of that is absolutely sickening to me. I haven't even been with another woman since you left."

"Never?" Sharpay could feel her head pounding in pain, made worse by him raising his voice, but she ignored it, overcome with disbelief, "You haven't had sex in four years?"

"No." Troy almost felt embarassed about it, but he knew there was no pointing in lying to her, "Around six months after you left, everyone kept insisting I start dating again. I had several women come upstairs to the bedroom, but that was our bed. No matter how much I tried to rationalize things in my head, I always felt guilty and wrong, like I was cheating on you. I could never go through with it. Eventually I stopped trying to date. I didn't really want anyone else anyway."

"You didn't love anyone else." Sharpay corrected, "I promise you, I never did either, but sex is sex."

"Not to me." He grumbled taking a step back, stung to realize he had been more sentimental about their intimacy than she had, "After I'd slept with someone I loved, to do it with anyone else just wouldn't be the same."

"Oh." She lowered her head in guilt, the impure one out of the two, "It's human to have desires."

"Like wanting to be with someone even after she broke your heart and abandoned your daughter?" Troy mumbled.

"Troy..." Sharpay stood up, walking towards him, and placing a hand on his shoulder, "Stop torturing yourself. I know you're very angry and hurt, but it's clear you still love me, and I still love you. We should be together."

"I don't love you anymore." Troy insisted, "I may never be able to get completely over the feelings I had for you in the past. Having you around definitely makes it harder. But I don't want to feel like this about you anymore. I want to be able to move on."

"If you didn't still love me you would have already moved on." Sharpay argued, "You would have been with other women. You wouldn't still be so angry with me. And you wouldn't have let me stay here with you last night."

"I probably shouldn't have done that." Troy stated.

"I agree." Her honest compliance startled him slightly, "But you did. I know it's a little late, but I'm back. I've realized that you and Mckenzie are the two people I need most in my life. You know you've waited to hear me say that. You don't have to continue to push me away out of principle. Give in a little. You said yourself you wanted to be with me."

"I want to be with you in a selfish way that neglects what's best for all of us long term." Troy replied, "But I have the willpower not to do that, because I have to look out for my daughter first."

"Do you always put Mckenzie's needs ahead of your own?" Sharpay asked softly.

"One of us has to." He snapped back.

"Well that's very admirable Troy, but you seem so unhappy." She placed her other hand on his opposite shoulder as well, now holding him in a strange embrace, "Why don't we take things slow." She ran her hands down to his chest, "We'll spend some time with Mckenzie, as a family."

She ran her hands further down, slipping them underneath his t-shirt, and rubbing them over his abs. He'd lost all feeling everywhere else, along with the ability to protest or think with any sort of logic.

"Then the two of us can start to spend some alone time together. We can catch up, and reminisce on old times, and I won't let you be so lonely anymore." Her voice had grown softer with each new suggestion, and she finished by tilting her head up, capturing his lips, and for the first time in years, kissing him.

It took Troy a moment to register what was happening; to feel Sharpay's lips moving against his own. Then, instinctively, he began to move his own lips, kissing her back with more and more fervour with each passing second. His hands reached down, grasping her hips, and desperately pulling her into him as close as their bodies would allow, and then he finally had enough thought process beyond physical feeling to take control of what he was doing.

He roughly pushed her away from him, gasping for air, "I want a divorce."

Her jaw dropped as she took in his words, and for a moment she stood frozen, in shock of the unexpected proposition. Her face broke, giving way to a sob of desperation, and she hit him hard in his chest with the back of her hand one time, before taking a step back and letting out a loud cry.

"What am I supposed to do?" She begged through her tears, "How do I make you take me back?"

Troy didn't answer, swallowing several times, in an effort to rid himself of the taste of her mouth, feeling ashamed with himself for kissing her back to begin with. He was so weak.

"Answer me!" She roared, reaching behind herself and grabbing her glass of water, flinging it at him.

He narrowly dodged the object, and watched it shatter on the floor beneath him, suddenly filled with an eerie feeling, something similar to deja vu. He'd been through this before, watched her throw a fit when something didn't go her way, the few times in their relationship when he hadn't groveled at her feet and refused to give into a ridiculous demand.

Troy continued to get lost in his own thoughts, forgetting about the world around him in the present, and this infuriated Sharpay, desperate for some sort of attention from him, be it good or bad.

She took a few menacing steps back towards him, and suddenly yelped in pain, looking down at her barefeet, the bottoms of them now penatrated with broken glass.

She sank down to the floor, still crying, trying to examine her feet, and pry the shards of glass out of them.

"Sharpay." Troy grasped her by the shoulders, lifting her up, and then carrying her into the living room, sitting her down on his couch.

He sat down beside her, putting her feet in his lap, gently picking out the pieces of glass from her broken skin, while she whimpered, and continued to cry, in her hysterics no longer on the brink of reality.

He glanced back at her face, watched her glare angrily at him through her tears. She was a child. A hopeless, reckless, misbehaving child. He had aged, matured with the natural progression of time, as well as the somewhat untimely responsibilites that had been thrust upon him. She remained forever a little girl, never ready to deal with more than she had planned for in the ideal world that existed only in her mind.

When faced with the prospect of a family at twenty years old, he'd known he had to either adjust to the large pending change, or break down. Now, he was well adjusted, and she was well broken.

She let out a loud coughing sound, choking on the sobs that left her throat at an impossibly fast rate, the tears streaming down her face leaving it red and swollen.

"You need to stop." He spoke to her gently, "You're getting yourself too worked up over something I simply said in the moment. I don't know why you would care so much anyway. We haven't been married for years as far as anyone other than the state of New Mexico is concerned. Here." He lifted her feet off of him, holding the shards of glass in his other hand.

"You're fine." He stood up, walking back into the kitchen and dumping the glass into the trashcan. He glanced down at the rest of it, still broken on the kitchen floor, and needing to be swept up.

"I'll call Ryan." He called back into the living room, "He can bring Mckenzie home, and come get you."

Sharpay didn't answer, lying back on the couch and staring at the ceiling, as her tears began to lull, giving way to shattering doses of self-hatred.


"Sharpay."

Troy stepped back into the living room some time later, after cleaning up her mess in the kitchen, calling Ryan upstairs privately, and taking some time to meditate on his own, and think through the events of the past week.

She sat up, sniffling and wiping away the tears that had already dried on her face, staining it with temporary streaks of discoloration.

"I didn't want us to have another... confrontation." He stood over her, before hesitantly sitting down on the couch beside her.

"I shouldn't have freaked out I guess. You're right... about our marriage I mean." She let out a quivering breath, "It's just, we were kissing, and I was so happy, and then you said that."

"I said it because I kissed you back." Troy explained.

"I know." She sighed, and then pointed down at her feet, "I shouldn't have thrown that glass at you. I got what I deserved pretty quickly this time... It's been slow and painful dealing with the consequences of leaving you two."

"What are we going to do?" Troy placed a hand on his forehead, closing his eyes for a moment, "We've got to work something out. We can't keep having mini episodes like this. I don't want Mckenzie to witness one."

"Me either." Sharpay agreed, "I'm sorry."

"Let's work on just being friends right now, or at least being civil to each other." He suggested.

"I don't see what it would hurt to spend some time alone together, and try to see if we can make our relationship work." She pleaded the idea yet again.

"That's just not going to work right now." Troy answered.

"But I love you!" Her voice cracked, and she crawled along the couch cushions until she reached him, "I need you Troy. I wouldn't have come back here if I didn't need you."

She wrapped her arms around his neck, burrying her head into his shoulder.

"You wouldn't have come back here because Mckenzie needed you?" Troy tried again to put things in perspective for her.

"I would. I did." She insisted, her voice muffled as she continued to cling to his neck, "But I need you to take care of me."

She tugged on his heart strings a little with the statement, even while his agitation levels peaked. He always had taken care of her. He'd done the cooking and the cleaning, woke her up in the mornings, held her until she fell asleep at night. He'd worked all day while she stayed home, taken care of Mckenzie whenever he was home. He'd put up with Sharpay's temper tantrums, her incessant demanding, always jumped to meet her expectations, no matter how often his efforts fell short in her eyes. He wanted to take care of her, even now; it came naturally to him.

She crawled into his lap, asking in a pouty whisper, "Hold me?"

"Okay." He replied, reluctantly, his arms wrapping around her in yet another situation in which his desires overtook all else, "For now."


Mckenzie let herself in through the front door, bursting inside while Ryan quickly followed after her. She ran into the living room, and came to a halt, finding not only her father, but her mother as well.

"Hello?" Ryan called out, entering the living room after his niece, also coming to a stop when he found Troy and Sharpay on the couch together, "Oh."

She sat on his lap, arms wrapped around his neck, while Troy had his arms around her body, the two in an embrace that made Ryan remark, "I guess you two made up again."

Troy's heart lurched, and he struggled to find words, overcome with more feelings of guilt. On the phone with Ryan he had recalled all events of the morning and night before, though neglecting to mention the kiss that led to their most recent brawl. He felt foolish, sitting on the couch, holding her, after having just vented to Ryan about her never changing, and the frusteration he felt towards her childishness.

"Mommy, you were here?" Mckenzie asked, "I would have come home last night if I had known."

She stopped, and then let out a giggle, "Why are you sitting on Daddy's lap? You're too big."

"Yeah." Ryan spoke up, staring at his sister, "Mommy's acting like a baby."

Sharpay glared at Ryan, unappreciative of the comment with a deeper meaning. She swung her legs around, and Troy released her from his arms, allowing her to stand up.

"We were just hugging." She said to Mckenzie.

Her daughter seemed no longer concerned with her adult mother sitting on her father in a way she herself would. She rushed to her, wrapping her arms around her legs, "I missed you!"

Sharpay felt her cheeks warm at the physical act of affection initiated by Mckenzie. She beamed, reaching down, and scooping her up into her arms.

"I missed you too."

Mckenzie wrapped her legs around Sharpay's hip, and smiled beginning to chatter about how late she had been allowed to stay up the night before, the pictures she had drawn, and the movie she and Uncle Ryan had watched.

"Shar?" Ryan looked back at his sister, "Do you and Mckenzie want to go upstairs and talk, while Troy and I talk down here?"

Sharpay wasn't happy with the prospect, knowing the two would be talking about her, but she couldn't refuse the offer in front of Mckenzie, who was already nodding her head up and down excitedly.

"Okay." Sharpay replied, while her four year old was already prattling away with all the things just the two of them could do together up in her room.

"So," Ryan waited until he heard Sharpay's footsteps above them before talking, "What's going on between the two of you?"

He sat down on the couch beside him, "You looked pretty cozy when I got here."

Troy felt blood rushing to his face, "I have no idea. I don't even want to talk about the fact that I was holding her in my lap when you walked in. I'm trying really hard to keep my distance from her. It's just hard, to suddenly have her so close to me, after years of fantasizing about her coming back... I don't know." He sighed loudly.

"I'm not judging you. I understand how hard this is for you. And I know how she can be."

"You mean the fact that Sharpay acts more like a four year old than Mckenzie does?" Troy clarified.

"Well, yes, and I'm sure she's said just the right things to make you question if you should even be upset with her." Ryan added.

Troy nodded in agreement, "She's been talking about how Mckenzie deserves a whole family, not a broken one. She keeps insisting I still love her..."

"Do you?" Ryan probed gently.

Troy's face twisted into a mixture of pain, anger, and confusion, "I don't know. I'm so angry with her for everything she's done, all she's put me through, and more importantly, everything she hasn't done for Mckenzie. But everytime I look at her, I just want to hold her in my arms, and kiss her, and just make everything all right again."

"You can't rewind time." Ryan pointed out, "She will never have not walked out on the two of you, no matter how much time passes. It's either something you forgive her for, and learn to cope with over time, or it's something you can't get past and still have a relationship."

"What do you think I should do?" Troy asked turning to look at his brother-in-law.

"I don't know." He admitted, "That's up to you. You're giving her a chance to develop a relationship with Mckenzie, which I think is the most important thing right now. As far as the two of you go, it's up to you to decide what will make you happy. I think you should start by being honest with yourself though. If you're still in love with her, you have to accept it before you're able to move past those feelings."

Troy sighed heavily, clenching his fists nervously, as he finally spoke his confession out loud to another person, "I love her so bad it hurts."


"Oh my God! Oh my God! Ssh. Ssh. Oh my God!"

Troy hurried, following the sounds of Sharpay's frantic voice, and Mckenzie's wails to the nursery.

"Sharpay!" He exclaimed, met with the sight of her scooping their infant daughter off of the floor, a place she clearly wasn't intended to be, "What did you do?"

Sharpay turned to him, her eyes welling with tears, and looking as though she were about to faint, "I had her on the changing table, and I left her there for just a minute so I could get a new diaper, and she must have rolled off," She stopped to take in a huge gulp of breath, something she must have ran out of entirely at the impossibly fast pace she was speaking at, "I didn't mean to! I don't know what happened! I'm so sorry!"

Troy took the still screaming baby from her arms, bouncing her gently in his own, "You have to be more careful! Goddamnit, she's a human baby, not a doll! Do you know how dangerous it is for her to get hurt?"

Sharpay bounced nervously on her feet, nodding along as Troy soothed Mckenzie until she hushed. He set her back on the changing table, quickly replacing her diaper, and setting her back inside her crib.

"How come she does that for you, and not for me?" Sharpay asked, referring to the baby's content silence.

Troy didn't answer, instead placing his hand on the small of his wife's back, and leading her out of the room.

"I'm so sorry Troy." She said again, once they were out in the hallway again, "It was an accident I swear!"

"I know it was an accident Sharpay, but you can't keep having accidents when it involves the baby! I'm scared to leave her alone with you during the day!"

"Don't say that." Sharpay begged, her voice hurt, "I'm her mother."

"Yeah, and sometimes I feel like I'm the father of both of you." He grumbled.

She lowered her head, her ego and feelings both wounded, cursing herself for not being a more natural mother, and for repeatedly letting Troy down in her efforts to become one.


A/N: Another chapter! I've been trying to put out a few this summer, because I'm starting college in a couple of weeks, and I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update then. I am determined to finish this story though.

Wow, a lot of Sharpay bashing from reviewers last chapter. I'm interested to see how y'all will react to this one. Thank you so much to all that reviewed, regardless of your different opinions, and if you read this chapter, please, please review!

Thanks for reading.

xoxo,

A.