Author's Note: Please review and ideas are always appreciated

Author's Note: Please review and ideas are always appreciated!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

1 800 GONE

Chapter 12: That Wretched Headset

By musiclover94

Last Chapter…

He mumbled, "See you," before closing the door behind him, mortified. Gabriella didn't move for several seconds after he left, not wanting to lose the feeling of his arms around her. And this time, she didn't even fight it off.

--

The door opened again a few seconds after Troy left and Heather walked in, looking giddy.

"Who was that?" she asked, sitting down in a hard-backed chair by Gabriella's bed and leaning in, her bright red locks covering some of her face, but Gabriella could tell she was hungry for gossip.

"Just a friend," Gabriella said, looking at her hands, giving herself away by blushing beet red. Heather noticed and smirked. "Right. Just a friend."

"Honest!" Gabriella retorted.

The ginger rolled her brown eyes and sighed. "Whatever you say. He's cute, by the way. Too young for me, though."

Upon seeing Gabriella's mutinous expression after her words, Heather laughed, trying to lighten the mood. When Gabriella still was glaring at her, Heather said, "Just kidding, Ms. Montez."

Gabriella snapped out of it just then. "Call me Gabriella," she mumbled, embarrassed over her expression outburst.

"Okay. I came in here to do brain scans on you." She grabbed the ghastly headset thing beside the bed and picked it up. It didn't look heavy, but defiantly clunky.

"Am I going to have to sleep with that on?" Gabriella eyed the contraption apprehensively.

"'Fraid so, Gabriella. But it's just a brain scanner now, before you wear it when you nod off." She put it on over Gabriella's head. It felt like a too-small birdcage. She heard a switch go on and then a buzz from the headset.

"Try and empty your mind," Heather said.

"I'll try." And fail.

In a few minutes the flip switched off and the buzz died away. The cage was lifted off Gabriella's grateful head and she rubbed it with an available hand.

Heather was doing something on the monitor, which was making perfect sense to her, but to Gabriella, it was just a whole bunch of numbers and letters and a picture of a cauliflower-like object: her brain. A piece of paper was printing out of the machine and Heather seized it with a French-manicured hand. She scanned whatever was on the picture and smirked. Before Gabriella could ask, she handed over the data, still smirking.

Gabriella looked at the page. Most of it was occupied with a large chart that had gently wavy lines on it: her brain waves. The curves were probably from things like blinking and breathing. But at one point, the line went haywire, going all over the place and ironically forming the shape of a heart.

"Yeah, you totally like him." Heather said, saying it as if it was a law.

Gabriella blushed again. The redhead grinned like a Cheshire cat. The brunette did remember thinking about Troy during the scan, despite her best efforts to keep her mind blank. But that hug had felt so good….Gabriella shook her head, trying to clear her head of all thoughts.

"Well, I'll run these over to my boss and you just…do whatever you feel like." She turned and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Gabriella looked hazily around the room, her eyes fluttering in between being shut and being open. Finally, her head hit the surprisingly comfy pillow and she drifted off, completely forgetting to put on that wretched headset.

Author's Note: Yeah, it was kind of a filler chapter, but I'm running low on ideas at the moment. If you have any ideas, please send them to me! Thanks and please review.