Chapter 36

Disclaimer: I do not own High School Musical or any of its characters.

Gabriella was correct about Troy's sleeping habits, at twenty past ten Troy came stumbling out of the bedroom just as Gabriella had finished her assignments and reading for the week and was putting a movie into the DVD player.

"Hey Baby are you feeling better?" she asked smiling at him.

"Yeah" Troy replied stretching "Where is everyone?"

"It's Friday night Troy, Casey's gone home for the weekend. Sophia and Alia are out with the others, I think they were talking about going to a bowling arcade." Gabriella deliberately kept her answer vague not wanting Troy to think that she regretted not being able to go with the others or wanted them to meet up with them for the rest of the evening. She was only partially successful Troy looked like he was feeling guilty about keeping her home studying alone on a Friday night.

"Did you want to go out, maybe we could give Sophia a call and work out a place to meet them?" Troy asked."

"No Troy, we went out with them all last night, I want to spend some time just the two of us tonight" she replied smiling. "It's just as well they're all out if you're going to walk around dressed like that" she teased her eyes clearly admiring Troy's boxer clad body.

Troy blushed and smiled "Do you want to go out somewhere?" he asked.

"I don't want to be around a crowd of other people but I wouldn't mind going for a walk, but do you want something to eat?" she replied knowing that Troy's calves would recover better if he got some gentle exercise now before pushing himself again.

Troy smirked knowing the motives behind Gabriella's suggestions and happy to go along with it. "Give me a minute" he said returning to the bedroom to finish getting dressed.

"Do you want me to heat up the rest of the leftovers now or when we get back?" Gabriella called out to him letting him know that not eating was not an option Troy would need the extra protein to heal his overworked muscles. She had learned a lot about muscle strength and recovery since starting to date Troy.

They walked around the quiet campus avoiding the bars and theatres and other places that would be highly populated just enjoying this time on their own with no roles to play or schedule to keep.

"I've really missed this Gabi" Troy said softly wrapping his good arm around her shoulders.

"I've missed you too Troy" she replied hugging him gently.

"East High's not the same without you" he said.

"Are you coping with all your schoolwork?" she asked knowing that while he normally did not need to be prompted to study while she was around he could easily have fallen into bad habits without her. Especially with the Basketball team all on a mission to keep him from missing her and feeling too lonely.

"Yeah well I suddenly have all this extra time of an evening" he teased, reassuring her "Mum wouldn't have let me come if I wasn't up to date with all my classes."

Gabriella nodded agreeing with Lucille, and not wanting Troy to think she was nagging changed the subject.

"How are rehearsals for the musical going?" she asked a little surprised that he hadn't already told her all about them.

Troy groaned "Horrible, I wish you were there to do the musical. Sharing the lead with Sharpay is a nightmare. She's even worse that she was last year" Troy complained. "She keeps trying to change the songs and the dance moves and all her lines and she argues constantly with Kelsi and Ryan she wants them to increase her part and make sure she's centre stage for the whole time" he explained.

"How are Ryan and Kelsi coping with that? Surely you're not letting her get away with treating your 'little sister' like that." It wasn't a question Gabriella knew that Troy would do anything to protect Kelsi from Sharpay's bitchiness.

"Kelsi's doing okay. She stands up for herself against Sharpay now" Troy said, clearly proud of his friend.

Gabriella smiled and raised her eyebrow questioningly, waiting for him to continue.

"And I refused to sing the songs with Sharpay at all unless she sang them the way Kelsi had written them" Troy admitted. "Her new song for the ending is amazing. Luckily Ryan agrees with me and Kelsi, the songs are perfect the way they are making them faster would ruin them. So he's choreographed dance moves that don't work the way Sharpay wants to sing the songs." Troy smiled as he talked about his honorary sister, the one person that had wholeheartedly supported their relationship and their marriage right from the start.

"Oh my God! What happened?" Gabriella winced at the thought of the tantrum Sharpay must have thrown at that.

"Sharpay tried to tell Darbus that I was being obstructive and get her to make Ryan swap parts with me" Troy said.

"What did Darbus say to that?" Gabriella asked surprised at the amusement she heard in Troy's voice. She would have thought he'd be annoyed at Sharpay's continued attempts to manipulate him.

Troy smirked "Darbus didn't get the chance to say anything. Ryan was there when Sharpay said it and he completely refused to play a romantic role paired with his sister. He even suggested to Darbus that his voice would actually be a better match for Sharpay's part than mine and that there wasn't enough time for Kelsi to transpose all the songs so if he was going to replace one of us with him then he should replace Sharpay instead of me" Troy laughed at the memory. "Of course Darbus refused to even consider it and the whole subject was dropped."

Gabriella giggled and looked at Troy curiously "Would you have agreed to play a romantic role opposite Ryan if Darbus had agreed? What about the kissing scene?" She asked blushing slightly. While she didn't want to watch her husband kissing anyone else she found the idea of two guys kissing hot and Troy's extreme confidence on stage was always a real turn on for her.

Thankfully Troy either didn't notice her blush in the dark or didn't feel it worth mentioning. He shrugged "I don't see why not, so long as you were okay with it. It's not like I'm at all attracted to either of them so there wouldn't be much difference kissing Ryan instead of Sharpay. It might even be easier because I know Ryan isn't ever going to use the fact that the two of us have to kiss on stage to try to break us up or cause trouble. Chances are though Darbus would have had the kiss written out of the script if she gave the role to Ryan anyway. East High is not ready for something like that" he said smirking slightly. "But it's amazing how much easier Ryan is to dance with when he stands in for Sharpay at practice, he's not always trying to angle his body so he's in the spotlight or changing the steps without warning me to make himself look good. And he doesn't get angry when I don't learn the steps on the first try. I can just relax with him and go through the routine."

"I really wish you could have played the lead. It's really hard trying to play the role against Sharpay but I guess it's good practice, you're not going to be able to be in any of my theatre projects next year." Troy said trying to be positive so Gabriella wouldn't feel guilty that she'd chosen to do the Freshman Honours Program instead of play the lead in the musical.

Gabriella laughed at the idea of her extremely straight husband playing a gay role in front of the entire high school. "I bet your Dad would've been unhappy if Darbus had let Ryan have the role" she commented.

Troy laughed too "Unhappy! He would have gone ballistic. He probably would have thought Darbus had done it on purpose just to embarrass him."

"Well.." Gabriella said thoughtfully, "I'm not saying that would be the only reason Darbus would agree to cast Ryan instead of Sharpay, but I bet she'd get a kick out of Jack's reaction." She started to laugh.

Troy continued to laugh too "Yeah, I would have liked to see the fight the two of them had over that."

"Only if you weren't in the middle of it" Gabriella replied.

"I would hate to do that to Ryan too. Everyone knows I'm married but he would have copped a lot of teasing and rumours that he was gay. There are quite a few openly homophobic guys at East High. School's been hard enough for him without starting all that up again" Troy said seriously.

"Do you think he is gay?" Gabriella asked curiously.

"He's always denied it. I know he was picked on a lot before we all became friends for dressing like he does, but I think that's mostly just his personality" Troy replied.

"But what do you really think?" Gabriella said ignoring the way Troy had clearly tried to avoid answering the question.

"I think he's my friend. If he is gay and he ever decides to come out and tell us he is I'll support him, but until he does that I'm going to believe him when he tells me he's straight" Troy said firmly refusing to engage in speculation. "I think a lot of his feminine traits are just because he's spent his whole life in Sharpay's shadow."

"You haven't told me anything about Chad and Taylor, have they been fighting again?" Taylor had denied arguing with Chad when they spoke on the phone but something didn't seem right between them.

Troy shook his head thoughtfully "No they aren't actually fighting any more than usual. Chad describes it as 'differences of opinion'. I think they are having difficulty coming to terms with how far apart they will be next year. I don't think they're going to make it" he warned his wife, knowing that their friends would need their support when the breakup came. And that as best friends to each of the couple they were going to be put in the middle of the situation whether they liked it or not.

Gabriella frowned agreeing with Troy. She honestly didn't see a future for her friends as a couple. "I think they've already made the decision to break up when they leave Albuquerque. That's the problem they're trying to keep their relationship going when they've already given up on it in their hearts. The tension is getting to them."

"It might be easier for them to break up now then, rather than put themselves through all this for a relationship that's going to end soon anyway" Troy said sadly.

"That's what Mum thought about us when she told us about the marriage contract. She was wrong. Love is worth fighting for" Gabriella said angrily.

"Gabriella no! That's not what I meant. The situation between Taylor and Chad is nothing like it was between us. No-one is forcing Chad and Taylor to break up before they leave for college. They could stay together if they wanted to. I know Taylor has her heart set on Yale but either Chad could have applied to colleges in Boston, or they could try a long distance relationship. They've chosen to break up because it's easier than working it out. I'm just saying that if they've made the decision to end their relationship, then really it's already over. They're just fooling themselves by trying to stay together until the end of the summer. They'd be better off making a clean break of things and work on staying friends" Troy tried to explain.

Gabriella sighed "You're right" she admitted reluctantly "It's just sad that they can be so good together and they don't want to make the effort to make it work. I had visions of the four of us visiting each other like you mom and dad visit Robert and Sandra. Watching our children grow up as friends."

"Yeah well you know those visits really haven't worked for me since I was little" Troy laughed. "But that doesn't mean we can't visit them they're still our friends it just means we will have two separate families to visit. Chad and I will teach our kids to play basketball, and you and Taylor will help them with their studies and to run for student class president and stuff."

A/N: Thank you to Pumpkinking5, Kiara, CimorelliMIA, broadwaybaby2010, Wildcats2016, Ceciliaa93, cupcakedream and the other anonymous reviewers for your support.