Between You & Me

Disclaimer: I do not own HSM.

Chapter Twenty-Four

He remembered the day she had fallen. They had been planning a water balloon attack on Chad since early that morning. They had devised a pulley system, heaving baskets of balloons filled with water from the grass to the balcony of his treehouse and stashing them inside. It was revenge for shoving both of them in the Evans' pool while fully clothed the day before. She had thought it up and planned its execution. She was seven; anyone could forgive her recklessness or failure of foresight.

She forgot about their mothers and their Sunday morning phonecalls to discuss barbeque plans. They didn't think to tell Lucille that it was an ambush and that any warning to Chad defeated the entire prank. So naturally Lucille told Mary Danforth about how cute the two nine year olds in the backyard were as they filled countless balloons and painstakingly arranged them around the treehouse, and then Mary told Chad he should go over and join them, which completely ruined any level of surprise. Instead, Chad was ready for them. He had snuck behind the hedge until he was directly in sight of the treehouse, and then he started throwing.

Troy had sounded the alarm and Gabriella had been the first one to hit their target dead on with a lime green balloon. Like many battles, time seemed to stand still and speed up at intervals so that to Troy, it always seemed like the assault and counter assault lasted for hours. Time stopped when Gabriella slipped. The wooden balcony around the treehouse was slick with water and remnants of balloons and her foam flipflops had little grip. Troy would always remember what it felt like when she hit the balcony and then tumbled off the edge.

Sharpay was the only person in the waiting room. The pastel green walls reminded her of toothpaste and the dark green trim clashed with the blue tiled floor. A single window looked out over the roof of a lower floor of the hospital, limiting her view of Albuquerque to the tree tops and a church steeple. There were no curtains. She was seated in one of five matching metal chairs with plastic upholstering, her feet flat on the floor, her butt on the edge of the seat, and her eyes glued on the empty door way that led to the hallway and the nurses station.

A clock on the wall read midnight, although Sharpay felt like the night had been dragging on for days now. She had already entertained the thought of standing on the table piled with magazines and ripping the apparatus off the wall, but she knew she would still continue to count the minutes. Instead she watched the desk outside the door, and waited for a nurse to come talk to her. Sharpay craved knowledge of what was happening in the rooms elsewhere in the hospital. She wanted her parents and she wanted her friends, and she wanted every person whom she thought could tell her it would all be okay and be believable. She wanted to be home.

If she had been home earlier, maybe she wouldn't be sitting in a waiting room reserved for the family of patients in the operating room undergoing emergency surgery. If she had been home, her parents would not have spent a half hour trying to find her to tell her what Ryan had done. Where he and Gabriella were. Sharpay could still feel the dread and the panic that had squeezed her heart when she had finally decided to answer her cell phone, not expecting tears on the other end. It had seeped from her heart to her stomach now, settling into a cold, hard rock in the pit of her gut.

Sharpay shivered, her father's jacket too big to offer any real comfort to her bare shoulders. She was still dressed in her beautiful gown, her heels exchanged for flipflops a nurse had produced from her own locker when she had seen Sharpay's glitzy, strappy heels. Sharpay had almost burst into tears with the gesture. Her hair had long since been ripped from the biting pins, her makeup washed off in a bathroom. Her body was restless and she contemplated walking across the hall to the vending machine just to have an excuse to move, but the fear of missing something gripped her again and she settled back against the uncomfortable chair.

Her eyes had only been closed for what seemed like minutes, but she felt pulled back to the present by the obvious sound of running feet. Voices at desk were rushed and shouted, but recognizable and Sharpay didn't have time to stand before Troy was in the room. He seemed to look everywhere before he found her. When he did, words deserted them both. Sharpay just held his gaze, terrified of what she knew and what she didn't.

"Where is sh—", he started before pausing to watch his words, aware of everything between them. Licking his lips, he dropped his voice to something Sharpay recognized as terrified. Is that how she sounded? "What happened?"

The corner of Sharpay's mouth twitched at the courteous correction. She let it sink in before looking beyond Troy to see his parents in the hallway talking to a nurse. Jack caught her watching and Sharpay looked back to Troy. She swallowed and pulled her knees to her chest, her arms wrapped around them to hold herself together. She shrugged and gave his question a simple answer.

"Ryan pulled a u-turn just after the bridge outside of town; you know the one?" She kept going at Troy's nod. "There was a truck coming the other way, Ryan was going too fast and they just...," she let her voice trail off. Troy turned white, his jaw clenching and his eyes searching Sharpay's face. She turned away, still talking as she looked out the window. "There are cops out everywhere because of Homecoming so they keep telling us how lucky they were, that someone was close by and got to the scene so fast. They had to wait for the fire department to come because the car was smashed so badly no one could get to them. It's been on the news. It doesn't even look like a car."

"Pay?" Troy said her name softly and waited for her to look at him. "Where are your parents?" He wanted to ask where is Gabriella? Where is Ryan?, but he didn't. Was he afraid of the possible answers, Sharpay wondered.

"Ryan's in surgery. We were told it would take awhile. He's bleeding from everywhere, or that's what it sounds like. They were talking about brain pressure and his spleen and his lung. He could die. That's what they told us." Sharpay hugged herself harder as Troy shifted his weight. It was unintentional, but he was impatient. "They said they would be able to find us upstairs but I couldn't go. I thought someone should be here, and after all those things I said to her, I can't go face her now. I needed time. I needed to think. But then," she sighed, "but then I needed you and I knew she will need you, so I called."

They had come to the point that Sharpay had been dreading. He would blame her when this was all over. Everyone would blame her, just as she blamed herself. She had known they would follow her when she stormed out and she knew Gabriella's dam had burst, her patience draining fast. Sharpay had known they were all headed for disaster when she stormed out of the gym, but she had expected it to be figuratively. Emotionally. Maybe verbally. Could you have a verbal disaster? Her thoughts swam and swelled inside her head as she struggled to tell Troy what he needed to know. He beat her to it, making her feel like a coward.

"Upstairs? Are your parents with Gabriella, Pay? Where is she?" Troy hadn't moved, Sharpay realized. Hardly a muscle since had learned of the details of the crash and began doing what she had done, creating and recreating nightmares and scenarios in his head.

"They gave her a room for the night," Sharpay told him softly. "She has to stay tonight but they figure she can go home tomorrow. Are you going up?"

Troy hesitated. A part of him—most of him—wanted to bolt from the room and climb the stairs to Gabriella's room. The other part of him, the part that remembered Sharpay beating up Chad because he pushed Ryan and the part that remembered that she had combed the internet for a pair of scarlet ballet slippers for Gabriella's sixteenth birthday, kept him from running. A fleeting moment of realization hit him in the stomach. He didn`t have time to think it through, but in a moment, Troy realized that he hadn`t stayed with Sharpay strictly because he didn`t want to hurt her, but also because he didn't want to be the one to hurt her. He pushed the moment away to deal with later and tried to make up his mind.

"I can stay with you," he said quietly, "If you want. She'd want me to stay."

"No," Sharpay was saying, catching her bottom lip between her teeth, "You should go." He nodded and turned towards the door. She reached out to grab his hand but the space between them was too great and he didn't notice. It was when he paused at the nurses desk that she made up her mind and hurried to follow him. He was at the elevator when she called out. "Troy, wait." She paused. "Can I come?"

There was a jackhammer in Gabriella's skull. It was the first coherent thought she had managed to follow all the way through without falling into darkness since the truck hit them on the bridge. A truck had hit them. Something pulled at Gabriella's rising consciousness begged for her attention. She felt the jackhammer speed up, the darkness receding to grey, just like dawn when it broke through the window. For a moment, the greyness rippled and the black threatened, before the white exploded like shards of glass.

She winced, but never opened her eyes. Something soft touched her hand, and then it was gone just as fast. Gabriella wondered what it was. It didn't hurt like all the other times. Other times. She tried to remember why she was asleep. Why nothing would obey her. Why everything tightened and surged when she tried to think. She was tired. That's why everything felt heavy, she decided. If she slept, it would be easier. She felt the touch again, feather-light as it swept across her cheek.

"Ella?" She heard her name whispered, and the greyness rippled. "Come on, El."

Gabriella wanted to tell her to go away. As the abyss in her mind wavered and brightened, Gabriella suddenly wanted the black back. The fingers in her hair made that impossible though, as their familiar touch urged her to wakefulness. The jackhammer had dulled to steady throbbing and her hearing returned. The rustle of fabric was muffled and the voices blended together except for Sharpay's.

"Wake up, El," she whispered. "I need you to wake up." Sharpay's hand slid into Gabriella's cold one.

"Your perfume is nauseating," Gabriella croaked, her voice cracking. Her eyes remained closed until Sharpay sucked in a breath and seemed to roll away from her in surprise. Gabriella felt the mattress shift and winced at the movement. "Where's—" She paused to drink from the cup of water her sister was holding for her, angling the straw so she didn't have to move.

"Mom and Daddy are talking to the doctor down the hall," Sharpay told her quietly. Gabriella realized that the room was dark, with only a dim lamp switched on. "Troy went to get them."

"Troy's here?" She pushed away the cup and struggled to find a way to push herself up. Sharpay stopped her. The thoughts that had been swimming beneath the surface of her mind surfaced and Gabriella shot an anxious look at Sharpay, realizing she only knew where three out of the four people in her family were. There was a flash of red and a grinding screech echoing behind opened eyes. "Ryan?"

Sharpay hesitated and Gabriella felt the jackhammer return, closing her eyes and jamming a hand against her temple. She hadn't lied about Sharpay's perfume and her stomach rolled as she tried to push away the memories of the bridge and the headlights blinding her, Ryan's yelling and then the sound of sirens. There had been people yelling at her and jostling her. Strong hands that left bruises as the rushed to pry the car apart.

"He turned around because we didn't think you'd be home. We thought you would go to Lava Springs or back to the auditorium at school." Gabriella heard voices in the hallway. "He was driving too fast. I told him he was driving too fast."

"We know, El." Sharpay had sat back down on the bed again. "El, I just want to say I'm—"

"No, Pay," Gabriella cut her off, her headache causing her to slur words. "Not now. I can't do that right now."

"But—" Sharpay's cheeks flushed red.

"We will, but later. Right now, I can't." She swallowed. "Where's Ryan?"

"Mija!" Maria swept into the room and sat on the edge of the bed that Sharpay had relinguished to her. "Oh, Baby, I was so worried." Her hand was in Gabriella's hair and along her jaw. "How do you feel?"

"Like crap," Gabriella croaked, trying to give her a smile. She was tired. Her muscles ached. Her temple throbbed. "Where's Ryan?"

"He's in ICU, Baby." Maria smiled at her daughter. "I'm so happy you're okay."

"But he's okay? He'll be okay?" There was a knock on the door and Vance entered the room, smiling at Gabriella. She opened her mouth to repeat her question but he silenced her with a peck on the forehead.

"We can see him, Maria. Do you want to come? Ella should rest." Vance exchanged a look with Maria before turning to his other daughter. "Honey, do you want to come or stay here with Gabriella?"

"I-"

"Pay, go," Gabriella said softly. "I will be fine by myself."

"Alright, Mija," Maria said as Sharpay nodded and followed her father out of the room. "If you need anything, send Troy."

Then she followed her husband and stepdaughter out of the room, filing past the boy who had remained in the shadows at the doorway. Gabriella let her eyes feast on him. He was still in his tux, his hair a disaster. The tie was missing. His face was pale. She struggled to sit up and in an instant he was by her side.

"I was terrified. Do you realize how scary the past couple of hours have been? Don't ever do that to me again." He gripped her hands in his.

"Troy, can you yell tomorrow? I'm tired and my head hurts." Gabriella snuggled her cheek into the hand that had snaked up to cup her face.

"Yeah," he told her. "It can wait."

"But Troy?" she told him, her eyes closing and her breath evening. "I love you. Just so you know. I don't think I've said it yet. During all this mess, I don't think I have every actually said it that way to you."

Troy watched her slip back to sleep, speechless and without a response.

She was fine. Intact. Whole. He had to keep convincing himself.

The scars would heal. There were a couple, the biggest one winding its way up her arm and around her elbow. The most noticeable was the one at her temple, surrounded by an angry bruise and an unpleasant bump. There was also the dislocated shoulder but the drugs seemed to have kept her unaware of that one while she had been awake. She would feel it in the morning. Gabriella was lucky. He had come to realize that as Vance and Maria explained to the Bolton's the pieces gathered so far from the emergency crews. Ryan had taken the brunt of the impact, but even the impact was slowed by the fact that the truck had been under the speed limit coming off the bridge. They hadn't ended up in the ravine. The car hadn't caught on fire.

She had been able to tell him she loved him.