DISCLAIMER: I wish.

A/N: I know it's been like a month since the last update and I blame it on my sucky muse. Thanks for all of you reviews, they seriously make my day and you're all awesome!

See Liv, I updated this weekend :P

Lissia – miss you babe!

Enjoy!


Troy Bolton was staring at the back door in shock. The same door that Gabriella just went through.

He was going to fucking kill Chad. After all this was all his fault. If he had just kept his big mouth closed, none of this would've happened.

Troy was standing at his old house's front yard greeting people and glancing to his father's bedroom window. He knew that Gabriella was there, getting ready for the wedding.

"Hey man! How's it hanging?"

Troy threw a murderous glare at Chad's direction. "How do you think it's hanging?" he said with gritted teeth.

"A little to the left?" Chad smirked, but the smirk soon turned to a frown when Troy didn't laugh, "What's wrong man?"

"The love of my life is in that room", he pointed at the room in question, "getting ready to marry my brother, that's what's wrong." He buried his face in his hands, "She doesn't even know that I love her."

"Then why don't you just tell her that?" Chad asked, as if it was obvious.

"I can't do that! It's my brother, Chad – I can't just ask her to leave him and be with me."

"Why not?"

Troy felt frustrated beyond belief, "Because he's my brother and he loves her!"

"But so do you."

"I know that, okay? And I fucking hate it!" The raise in his voice didn't worry Chad, "After this day I'm going to forever wonder what would have happened if I just had told her how I feel."

Chad shrugged, "You could do that now."

Troy didn't know why, but the way Chad said it changed everything, "I could do that now!"

So maybe it wasn't totally Chad's fault, but he was a big part of his decision. And now he was standing there next to John, looking at the back door, just like everybody else.

"She's not come back yet", John whispered next to her, "Troy, she's still in the bathroom."

Troy nodded absentmindedly to his brother, because he was thinking exactly the same thing. Why wasn't she here yet? It probably took a long time with that dress – yeah, that was probably it. But Troy knew he was wrong, he saw the way she was looking at him when she was supposed to say her I do. She was looking at him the same way he was looking at her when he told her she loved her. She was looking at him like she loved him too.

"Troy?" John's quiet voice made him come out of his thoughts. "Is it bad that I'm kinda hoping she won't come back?"

Troy's heart stopped. Not literally of course, 'cause if that happened he would be dead, but he was pretty sure that it at least missed a beat. "What are you talking about, man?" He asked shakily, not daring to look at his brothers eyes.

John nervously shifted his weight from one foot to another, "I mean that when she said that she has to pee, I felt…relieved", he admitted and Troy's heart was doing the tango, "I know it sounds bad, and I feel horrible for even thinking like this, but she's not here Troy maybe that's a sign that this wedding shouldn't be happening."

"So…you don't want to marry her?" his voice was like a teenage boy's.

John looked at his brother strangely, there was something about his voice that wasn't right, "I…I don't know."

Troy laid his shaking hand on John's shoulder, "John, do you love her?" He asked, fearing the answer.

"Yes." How many times wasit possible for a heart to break? Troy wondered, "But I don't think I love her enough to marry her."

His heart started beating again, before a new thought stopped it seriously! Troy yelled inside of his head "So you're going to ask her to keep dating you but not get married?"

There was definitely something strange in Troy's voice, it almost sounded like he was sad about that idea."I don't know", he glanced at the wedding party who were all talking quietly to each other, throwing sympathetic looks to John, thinking that he was left in the altar, which he probably was, "You think I should?"

"NO!" Everyone went silent at Troy's outburst, turning their heads to him, "I mean, that doesn't sound fair, does it?" He added in a tone that only reached John's ear, making him even more suspicious.

"So you think we should just end it?" he asked skeptically, a new idea coming to him – changing everything.

It would be so easy to just say yes. Telling John that Gabriella didn't deserve a guy like him, but once again the good guy in him decided to come out, "I think you should go and talk to her, you should decide together what you want. I think that you should marry her if she wanted it, because she's the most amazing girl in this world, and she deserves to be happy and you should do whatever you have to make her happy", he glanced at John who's face was mix of shock, anger, gentleness and love. Troy coughed slightly, "Yeah, that's, err… what I think."

John didn't break their eye contact for a long time searching something in his eyes, but after he either found it or gave up looking he grabbed his brother into a big bear hug. "Thanks little bro, you just made me see everything a little clearer." He released him and then walked down the aisle to the back door feeling everyone's eyes on his back.

It was silent again when the back door slammed and Chad cleared his throat, "He's probably going to –"

"Chad, seriously!"

"Thanks."

---

Gabriella was freaking out.

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh –"

"Your God! We get it!" Sharpay yelled dramatically, "This freaking out thing was okay for a couple of minutes, but now it's just getting boring", she crossed her slender hands and huffed in frustration.

Taylor sent her a glare which she just ignored, "Gabriella?" Taylor said carefully, "Honey? What exactly happened there?"

That seemed to trigger something in Gabriella, "Oh, I'll tell you what happened there! It was all because of Troy fucking Bolton's eyes! Those eyes should be illegal!" She paced back and forth. "Seriously! It wasn't enough that he came in here minutes before I was getting married and telling that he loved me," Both Sharpay's and Taylor's mouths dropped but Gabriella was too busy freaking out to notice, "But then he has to look at me with those fucking blue eyes and made me realize that I don't want to marry John!" She sat on the bed, "I should dig those eyes out with a knife! No, with a spoon – much more painful."

"He told you he loves you?" Taylor stuttered out, and leaned against the door.

"How are you going to dig his eyes out with a spoon?" Sharpay asked curiously from her place in the comfortable chair that was in the corner of the room.

"Yes he said he loves me; try to keep up, Taylor! And I don't know, maybe I should ask that guy from Saw to help me."

"You do know he's a fictional character, right?"

"But he must be based on somebody who was real."

"God, I hope not! He's fucking scary!"

"What the fuck you guys! You're talking about a fucking movie when Gabriella just left her fiancé at the altar!" Taylor yelled.

Sharpay sighed, "Fine, we can talk about that," She leaned her hands against her knees, "Gabriella?"

"Yes?"

"Do you love John?"

"Yes."

"Do you love Troy?"

"…yes."

She leaned back against the chair, "Well aren't we in a pickle."

Gabriella rested her head on her hands, "I know that Sharpay, what I don't know is what to do."

Taylor went to sit next to her friend and put her arm around her, "Honey? Do you want to marry John?"

"…No, I really don't want to marry him", she looked at Taylor's eyes, "I love Troy more."

Sharpay clapped her hands together, "Okay, now that we figured that one out, we can talk about more important things. You wouldn't believe how good Chad smells…" luckily for Taylor and Gabriella at that moment there was a knock on the door.

"Gabriella, it's me, John. Can I come in?"

Taylor rose from her place next to Gabriella and went to open the door, "We'll leave you two alone," she said and then took Sharpay by the hand and dragged her away. And then they were alone, Gabriella in her beautiful wedding dress and John in his black tux. Neither one of them didn't know what to say.

Finally John broke the silence, "Hey", he said lamely.

Gabriella smiled, "Hey."

John took a deep breath, "It's not going to happen, isn't it? Our wedding." He smiled sadly, "We aren't right for each other."

Gabriella let out a deep breath in relief and shook her head, "No", she looked him in the eyes – those blue eyes were so beautiful, but they weren't the eyes that were meant for her, "I wish we were, it would make everything simpler if we could just do it."

"Get married and live happily ever after?"

"Exactly, but I guess life wasn't meant to be that simple." She looked at her hands, before taking off the perfect ring. Too bad it wasn't perfect for her, "Here, you probably want this back."

John let out a slight laugh, "Yeah." He put the ring in his pocket, "I'm kinda relieved actually. Not that it would be so terrible for me to marry you, it's just that when you didn't say I do… It was the happiest moment in my life."

"That's a little messed up, don't you think? A clear sign that we aren't meant to get married."

John nodded at her words, "And after Troy talked to me, it all came even clearer."

This perked Gabriella's attention, "After Troy talked to you?"

"Yeah, he made me see that I didn't love you the way I should love you," Another laugh, "Even though he said that I should marry you if you wanted it."

"He did?"

He nodded, "He said that you deserve to be happy, and I should do whatever makes you happy." He sighed, "Listen, I don't know how to react to this thing between you and Troy…"

"There's nothing between –"

John held his hand up, "Gabs, don't think that I'm totally blind – he loves you. And I'm pretty sure that you have some kind of feelings for him. I don't know how this happened, and I don't even want to know."

"John, I didn't cheat –"

"I know. I know that you or Troy would never do anything like that to me, which is why I'm going to ask you to do the following," he looked at his feet, uncomfortably. "Don't start dating him right away. Even if you want to – I still have some feelings for you, and it would just hurt to see you with my brother, so please don't start dating him. At least not yet, be friends or –"

Gabriella put her hand on her ex-fiancées mouth, "John, I just got out of a very serious relationship – I'm not gonna start a new one at the same day. I still have some feelings for you, and I need some time for myself before even thinking about going on a date", she lowered her hand, "Although, I hope you don't mind, but if it's okay with him, I'm going to be friends with him and talk to him, even though I'm not ready for anything yet."

"To be honest, I actually do mind it – but I except that you're going to be with Troy someday, maybe not for months, but you're going to end up together, so I better get used to the idea."

She smiled sadly, "I don't even know if Troy wants to have anything to do with me."

"Gabs, trust me – he wants to have everything to do with you", he grinned her a little, "and I know him better that anyone."

Gabriella looked at him awkwardly, "So you don't hate him…or me?"

His smile was small, gentle and genuine, "I don't hate either one of you – I never could."

A small tear ran down her cheek, and after few steps she was close enough to wrap her arms around his neck tightly, "I love you, John", she said sincerely.

He wrapped his arms around her just as tight, "I love you too, Gabs." After a while of hugging each other they let go off each other, "You should go, Sharpay and Taylor are probably going to drive you home."

"Yeah they are." They looked at each other for a moment, savouring the last moments of the long relationship, "You know, now you can get that job from New York."

"Yeah, I guess I can", John said thoughtfully.

Gabriella rose to her tiptoes and kissed his cheek, "Goodbye, John."

"Goodbye, Gabriella."

After that she left the room, and five minutes later he saw Taylor's red car driving away. And after he left the room, he realized that there were people in backyard, still waiting for the wedding to happen.

"Fuck."

---

This wasn't how Troy had expected his day to turn out.

He had expected to see his brother marry the girl he loved, then celebrate the happy couple and after that, going home with a broken heart.

But right now, he was driving home, feeling sad that his relationship with his brother wasn't probably going to be as good as it used to be for a long time and relieved that the girl he loved, couldn't marry his brother.

But the most unexpected thing happened when he reached the door to his apartment; he found a girl in a white dress sitting in front of it.

She was the most beautiful woman he had ever met.

"Hey." He said quietly, and Gabriella's head turned at his voice. Her make up was still perfect, but he didn't notice it, all he could see was her beautiful brown eyes that seemed to light up because of him. Or maybe it was just the light in the hallway.

"Hey." She answered just as quietly, and stood up, "I was waiting for you to come home and didn't feel like standing", she pointed at the high heeled white shoes in her feet.

"I bet", he awkwardly switched his weight from one foot to another, the last time he had spoken to her was when he told her he loved her, "You wanna come in?" He gestured towards the door.

Gabriella shook her head, "No, I just came to say you something, and then I have to leave."

When Troy's bottomless blue eyes filled with worry, only one thought entered her mind; those were the eyes for her, "Okay…"

"I love you, too", the same blue eyes almost dropped out of his head. She bit her bottom lip and smiled at him "I do, and I loved you since you took care of me when my mom had surgery." Troy opened his mouth to speak, but Gabriella stopped him, "Let me finish. I love you, but I can't be with you right now. I've just broken up with your brother, and both his and my sake, we can't go out", she took a breath, "Yet."

When she said that "yet", Troy felt like doing the Riverdance. "Yet", meant that it was going to happen someday. Someday she was going to be his, and only his.

Gabriella stepped closer to him, "We can still talk, and see each other, but we're going to see each other as friends for a while. Okay?" She asked and Troy's heart did a somersault, when he heard the hopefulness in her tone – he owned that hopefulness.

Troy couldn't speak, so he just nodded, and grinned hugely when he was Gabriella smiling at his nod. Before he could even try speaking, something happened, something great. Gabriella wrapped her arm around his neck and put her other hand on his chest, and then, he felt her lips on his. It was exactly like he remembered. Her soft lips fitted perfectly against his, as if they were just made for each other. Troy's other hand had time to only wrap into her hair, before Gabriella released his lips.

"We're still going to be just friends, but I think you deserved that after those many months you've waited for me, right?" Troy nodded, and Gabriella smiled at his dumbstruck expression. "See you later, Troy."

And only after the elevator doors had closed in front Gabriella, could Troy actually say something.

"See you." After that he grinned goofily, and then opened his door and went in.

So I'm bit nervous about the kissing scene 'cause I wasn't sure if it was too soon, but I felt bad for Troy 'cause he's been so sad and stuff lately so I think he deserves a little kissing.

And once again – review and get a preview, I'd love to hear your thoughts about this ;)

Only one more chapter to go :(