All right, kids. Here we are, the conclusion. I hate this part. I feel like I've been on a journey with you guys and even Ryan, weird as that may sound, as I've written this, and now it's come to an end. I need to extend a huge thank you to all of you who took the time to read and review. Please keep in mind that any tips/criticisms that I received I have kept in mind and appreciate you for pointing them out. I couldn't even begin to tell you when I'll start pumping out another fic, but I have some ideas and hopefully they'll make themselves known after too long. I think after all this I owe you guys some Rypay fluff so I'll be thinking about that, another Ryan angst (what can I say? He's so fun and easy to torture!) and that's about all I've got in my head right now. Oh, also I'm not sure how many of you read my oneshot "If Only"--I've had some messages asking me to add to it and even though I like it the way it is, I'm not against turning it into a full fic, so if you guys want to hop on over and take a look, and let me know what you would like, I would definitely take your input into consideration. Ok, well, time for me to get off my ramble box and let you guys get to the chap! Thanks again for all your support!

"Sharpay Evans, you be careful with your brother!"

"I am!" Yet she didn't reduce the speed she was putting forth to the cursed wheelchair I'm sentenced to until my ribs are further along in the healing process.

My mom didn't say anything, just flashed one of those "what can you do" smiles to herself before going back into the house.

"Oh, ow! Ow, ow!" I protested as Shar took a corner too fast, putting raw pressure on my ribs.

"Oops, sorry," she giggled, letting up a bit. "Want to go down to the lake?"

"I do if we go slowly."

"I can arrange that, sir." She giggled again and we started for the lake, lapsing into silence. It's hard to imagine that a mere two weeks before, you couldn't pay me enough to go away with my parents and sister, but now I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. They had much preferred Hawaii as a brief holiday, but medical purposes forced us to go no further than a quiet lakeside getaway two hours east of home. The circumstances had softened my parents into not balking at our missing a week or two of school.

And naturally, they put a quick kibosh on the Maine plan once they found out the whole story. 'The whole story' includes the entire wrestling team being put on probation, some even in juvenile detention centers and awaiting final sentences. East High as I know it now won't exactly be the picture of perfection once we return to it, but either way, I think we're going to be surprised.

Hopefully one thing that won't fit into that category will be Kelsi. I'd only talked to her a few times, but she seems to be recovering nicely, considering she spent three hours tied to a tree stump in the middle of the woods and forced to endure endless sexual slurs and God only knows what else the whole time. She swears no one raped her or did anything they shouldn't have, and I just hope she's not lying to save trouble.

Shar leaned forward and rested her chin on my shoulder. "Whatcha thinking about?"

"I don't know. It's just weird to think about everything that's happened and what they'll be like now."

We reached the shore and she set the brake before kneeling in the sand next to my chair. "Are you okay?"

I can't help but smile at the very un-Sharlike question. I can count on one hand the number of occasions she's asked, or at least asked and really wanted to know.

"Yeah. I think so."

She ran her fingers through the sand for a few moments. "I was trying to figure out what to say to you, you know, after I read your journal. At first I wanted to believe that you could lie to yourself, but…I knew you'd never do that. Maybe if I'd…" She looked away, and I knew my twin's eyes were welling up again, as they had done so many times before in the past weeks.

"You didn't do anything, Sharpay. They would have found a way to pull this off with or without you. Do you believe me?"

"I'll try."

"Anyway, if you had, there's no way you would have made it that easy." I grinned. "I would have gone right over like a tree in the forest."

Her response to that was to fling lake water in my direction.

"Hey!" I sputtered as my shorts and shirt got soaked, "that's not fair! I can't even fight back!"

"That's the point, jerkwad!" She repeated her action, but I get her one better by scooping up wet sand from over the side of my chair and hurling it at her. For a second I think the game has lost its appeal as it settled in her long blonde hair, but she proves me wrong and by the time my mom calls us for dinner, we each look as if we've been on a military trek in the midst of a monsoon.

"Mom's going to take one look at us and go--" I try to perfect the scream of shock that's sure to emanate from our mother when she sees our soiled appearance. Sharpay doubles over at my imitation and only straightens up when my mom calls us for a second time, sounding more impatient now. My parents have kind of a low tolerance of having to call us for something more than once.

As we struggle through the doorway and Sharpay kicks off her now filthy Gucci flip flops, a shriek echoes throughout the house that's honestly not too far off the mark from my simulation of it. Sharpay and I glanced at each other, and then back at our mother, whose hands had flown up to her chest as if she were having a heart attack, then back at each other before she and I became absolutely sick with laughter. I'm gripping the arm of my wheelchair in mirth, and Sharpay trips over her flip flops and ends up on the floor, still hysterical. My parents are desperately trying to restore order, but Shar and I are too far gone. I look up long enough to see a smile playing at my dad's mouth, and once my mom sees it, she starts smiling too. Soon they're laughing with us, harder than I've seen either of them laugh before. To top it off, the acrid smell of smoke invades our nostrils and by the time my mom gets to the oven, our chicken casserole is done for. We ceased in our hilarity for exactly three seconds before it ensued once more, and eventually we just gave up and sent out for pizza.

I'm feeling pretty good as I savor my vegetarian slice and watch my parents and sister chat freely.

I really am okay.

A hush falls throughout the halls as Sharpay and I enter the doors of East High. Kelsi breaks it by disentangling herself from Jason, who's apparently come to his senses, and flinging herself at me, trying to hug me in my crippled state. Troy and Gabriella are watching from not far away.

"Hey, man," Chad grinned, slapping me a high five as Shar pushes me past him, and Taylor smiled at me too. They're both still somewhat black and blue, but it will pass.

The faces that have once been enemies no longer seem like enemies; not best friends, but nobody looks as if they possess the hunger to gut me and sell my organs on E-Bay at the moment. People smile at me as Sharpay steers me to my locker, some pat me on the back, some say hello. A new world at East High is opening up to me.

"Guess you and your girlfriend are going to have to spring for wheelchair classes, hey, Evans?" an unpleasantly familiar voice threw at me. I barely have time to glance behind me at Jeremy Straight and Christopher Hertz before Sharpay has them both up against the opposite wall of lockers, speaking softly but, as far as I can make out, devilishly. I don't know what she's saying, but the end result turns out to be the two athletic superstars scurrying away as if they're walking barefoot on hot coals.

"What did you say?" I asked her when she returned to me.

"It doesn't matter what I said," she said, a twinkle in her eye, and I know she's right. In the end, everything changes.

But everything stays the same.