Chapter 56

A/N: Everything I know about the American college system and sports scholarships has come from movies and fanfiction. I apologise if I've got something wrong. Actually I'm pretty sure colleges don't cooperate with accommodation like this but they might in my story.

Disclaimer: I do not own High School Musical

Tuesday December 17

Troy and Gabriella arrived at school the next morning to find Jack Bolton waiting for them in the hallway near Toy's locker.

"Hey Dad, what's up?" Troy greeted his father surprised to see him there. Normally Jack tried to limit their interaction at school to in the gym and made himself scarce the rest of the time, to allow Troy the separation between home and school needed for him to have a normal life.

Jack smiled at his son "Good morning Troy, This came for you yesterday. Hello Gabriella" he said handing over a large thick letter bearing the USC Berkley logo.

Troy's eyes lit up, a thick letter like that meant an acceptance. He tore open the envelope and quickly read the cover letter. "Yes! Yes! Yes!" he cried grabbing Gabriella and kissing her passionately.

Jack coughed slightly embarrassed by this unusual public demonstration of affection by the normally reserved couple.

Gabriella Broke off the kiss and blushed looking at her feet.

"Sorry Dad!" Troy said still too excited to be embarrassed.

"I take it that it's good news" Jack asked amused.

"Yeah! They're offering me a full ride, tuition, books, accommodation, travel expenses... it's pretty much the same deal as U of A offered." Troy said enthusiastically.

Gabriella squealed uncharacteristically and threw herself back into Troy's arms kissing him again.

"Congratulations son!" Jack said proudly but can you two please cool it before I'm forced to give you detention for PDA on top of the detention you're undoubtedly going to get for being late to Darbus' class."

Troy looked at his father in horror "couldn't you write us a note" he begged

Jack sighed and handed over the prewritten note excusing their lateness as he had kept them on a school related matter.

Troy grinned and thanked his father before grabbing his and Gabriella's books and heading towards homeroom.

Troy and Gabriella met on the roof during free period that morning to read through all the literature that Berkley had sent. They were a little disappointed not to find any information about student housing for married couples or housing available off campus. Troy rang the number provided on the campus housing brochure and explained the situation. How he had been offered a basketball scholarship that included housing and that his wife had also received a full scholarship to Stanford that also included accommodation and that he was ringing to enquire if there was any housing available that they could share preferably somewhere in between the two colleges.

To say the housing officer at Berkley was surprised would be an understatement. Occasionally they had older married students but rarely from two different colleges and never before in her memory a first year scholarship student. However she did look up the various married accommodation options for them and was able to offer them either married accommodation on the Berkeley campus or in a small student housing apartment block near the California State University East Bay Campus in Hayward. She warned Troy though that his scholarship would only cover the equivalent of normal single on campus accommodation costs which would only be sixty-one percent of the actual cost of married accommodation on campus or sixty-eight percent of the cost of the apartment she was offering him in Hayward and that there was no guarantee that Stanford would agree to the option of paying for off campus married accommodation as part of his wife's scholarship. Troy asked her to put his name down for one of these married student flats in Hayward and said that he'd get back to her about whether Stanford would cover the rest of the cost or whether they'd be paying themselves.

The housing officer also told him that he should investigate the possibility of living on campus at Stanford even though Berkeley did not have the same agreement with Stanford that they had with California State and therefore they would not be able to offer him any subsidisation on accommodation at Stanford if they chose to live on campus there.

Gabriella then rang the housing officer at Stanford with the same request explaining that her husband had already enquired and had been allocated married housing in Hayward and she wondered if Stanford would subsidise her half of the flat as part of her scholarship. Unfortunately the housing officer was unable to give her an answer without consulting various higher authorities as Stanford didn't normally provide off campus accommodation for their scholarship students. They would however allocate her married housing on campus and cover seventy –five percent of the rent. This was not as good a deal as it sounded however as the total rent was significantly higher than it would be at Hayward or Berkeley so the balance they would have to pay was actually more expensive. She was advised to put her request in writing and email it to the housing officer and the also whomever had signed the letter informing her of her scholarship.

Troy drove Gabriella home during lunch so she could send the emails off to Stanford. They were both too impatient to wait for the end of the day.

"What are we going to do if they say no?" Gabriella asked anxiously as she returned to the kitchen where Troy was making them something to eat.

"What we thought we'd have to do when I first proposed" Troy replied as calmly as he could "each have our own place on campus and move between them depending on our schedules."

"That will take an awful lot of organization Troy" Gabriella warned him. "I don't know how sustainable it would be if we each live in two different places we'd always be needing the things that we'd left at the other place. I think we'd end up having to spend most of our time at our own campus and only be together on weekends." She left it unsaid that while she may be capable of that level of organisation, Troy was not.

"Yeah" he sighed dejectedly. "A month ago that didn't seem too bad. It was better than any other alternative we could come up with but now having lived together a couple of nights a week just aren't going to be enough."

"You are right it will be hard but it's not so bad, we've just been spoilt living together. We will make it work Troy, it's only four years and we will be together on weekends and holidays" Gabriella tried to reassure him.

"Not once Basketball season starts; even if we were living together there would be away games where I wouldn't see you for days... we could be away two or three weekends in a row."

Gabriella frowned at that thought. "We don't know for sure yet that Stanford won't agree to pay for me to stay at Hayward. If Berkeley pay 68% then it will probably be a lot cheaper for them to agree to pay the other 32% than to provide me with my own room on campus. And the people I've spoken to about courses all seemed really keen to have me so with a bit of luck that might sweeten the deal." She said optimistically

Troy laughed "Yeah that's true. I won't give up hope yet."

"Aren't you going to sign the acceptance forms?" Gabriella asked.

"No not yet, I'll speak to the sports people about the problem maybe they can do something about it if they think I might sign somewhere else if we can't get this accommodation offer we want. Especially since Boston U is only about 15 minutes from MIT and we both have scholarship offers there too" He grinned.

Gabriella shivered at the thought, "Boston gets an average of 42 inches of snow in winter I don't want to live there." she stated unequivocally. "And you would hate having to run inside all the time."

"I don't want to go to Boston U. either but Berkley and Stanford don't need to know that do they?" he winked.

Gabriella laughed and gathered up her stuff to return to school.

December 18 Wednesday

Eduardo frowned as he packed his bags for the trip to Cuba. He looked around his room critically it was an almost obsessively tidy, tastefully appointed man's room like the rest of his apartment with no feminine touches or clutter spoiling the clean lines he preferred. In reality it looked more like a hotel suite than a home. He dreaded to think how much Gabriella's presence would change his calm ordered existence. He prayed that she wasn't a typically messy teenager.

At the time of signing, the marriage contract seemed like an acceptable way to gain entry into the business world he desired. He'd been young and ambitious, in a hurry to succeed, and ten years back then seemed like too far in the distant future to worry about. And he had to admit that he'd benefitted enormously from the contacts gained by becoming the future son-in-law of Alejandro Montez. Gabriella had been a sweet child and the marriage had seemed impossibly far off. Now however it was time to pay the piper.

Over the ten years since the signing of the contract Eduardo had become a successful business man in his own right, though he'd always be grateful for the start the Montez family had given him. Five years ago he'd begun to slowly distance himself from Alejandro's business empire and he'd made his home in Detroit where his manufacturing plants supplied numerous components to the car industry. He had a beautiful and intelligent mistress who he knew still harboured hopes of becoming his wife in spite of the fact that he'd been honest about his betrothal when they'd started their liaison four years earlier. He knew he would be doing the right thing to end the affair, but he had become more emotionally attached than he had expected he would.

He was to be married to a sixteen year old, a young girl he knew nothing about except for the fact that according to her high school transcripts and grade point average she was both studious and highly intelligent. He'd received the transcripts several weeks ago, ostensibly so that he could enrol her into a local high school. The very thought made him shudder. A wife that was still in High School, those of his friends who weren't completely disgusted would laugh their heads off. This could ruin him socially. He gratefully realized that she actually had enough credits to graduate. He therefore decided not to enrol Gabriella into school though he felt guilty at depriving her of her education after she'd obviously put so much effort into her work.

Eduardo wondered if he could use this as a valid reason to postpone the wedding. The girl had been accepted into Stanford. He thought it would be better for everyone if she attended college and then they got married after she graduated? After graduation she'd be old enough to be an asset to his life instead of the major embarrassment and liability she would be currently. Hell some of his colleagues had children almost that age, he would be seen as a paedophile.

Even if Alejandro and Maria wouldn't agree to delay the wedding, it might be worth it to still send her to Stanford and if possible to avoid introducing her to any of his friends and colleagues in America for several years. A side benefit of keeping Gabriella away from Detroit would be that he wouldn't have to change his lifestyle and habits, but to do that he would have to set her up somewhere until she started at Stanford. He wondered if Maria would agree to let her stay and finish her senior year, or perhaps she would enjoy spending a semester as an exchange student in Italy or Spain seeing she had studied both languages.

It was five to seven when Troy, Gabriella and Lucille arrived at Reverend and Mrs Anderson's that night. Reverend Anderson answered the door and greeted them warmly, pleased that they had brought one of their parents with them and with the apparent lack of tension between them all.

"I'm very pleased to meet you Mrs Bolton. I know it cannot have been easy for you to accept Troy and Gabriella's marriage." Reverend Anderson said warmly.

"I won't ask why you agreed to marry them Reverend. I know when my son sets his mind to something he can be an unstoppable force." Lucille said with a rueful smile.

"If it was just his mind that was set on getting married I wouldn't have agreed. It was obvious he had set his heart and soul on marrying Gabriella. You have a very fine son Mrs Bolton. And to be honest conducting their wedding was a pleasure, very rarely do I see a couple whose love is so unmistakably pure as Troy and Gabriella's" the reverend assured her.

Mrs Anderson came down the stairs, "Troy, Gabriella" she greeted "I think you'll be very pleased with the way the photos turned out." She led them into the dining room where her laptop was waiting.

She fired up the laptop and opened the file she needed before sliding it over in front of the other three.

Mrs Anderson had done an outstanding job, the photographs were easily as good as any of the most expensive professional wedding photographers could have taken. She had arrived at the chapel early with her husband and the first shots showed Troy arriving and the expressions on his friend's faces as he'd explained what they were doing in the chapel. Then getting ready, nervously trying to tie his bowtie with Chad's unhelpful attempts to assist before Ryan stepped in and tied it for him, the five boys standing together supporting Troy and a rather humorous shot of Ryan standing in the entryway holding the flowers ready to give to Gabriella as she came in.

Then came the photos of the wedding itself, Troy's awed expression as he first saw Gabriella and Gabriella smiling as she walked down the aisle towards him. The two of them during their vows and their first kiss as man and wife. Then came some more casual shots of the group as a whole before some formal photos of the couple outside the chapel.

"Wow! They're great" Gabriella exclaimed enthusiastically.

"Yeah!" Troy agreed.

Lucille burst into tears "You did a wonderful job capturing it all" she sobbed.

"Mama" Troy queried worriedly wrapping his arms around his mother. He held her as she laid her head on his shoulder and cried. Gabriella smiled reassuringly at him with her hand on his shoulder for support. Eventually Lucille began to calm down.

"I'm sorry. It's just seeing the photos I can see what I missed out on. I wish I could have been there" she explained tears still running down her face.

"I'm sorry Mama." Troy looked guilty and sad. "I wish you could have been there too. I never meant to hurt you."

"I understand that Troy, you felt you had no choice. And you were right we would probably have tried to stop you, and I'd definitely have called Maria and told her. Even if we didn't succeed in stopping the wedding we would have caused a scene and ruined the ceremony. I'm not angry or disappointed in you for not telling me. I'm just sad that I wasn't able to be there on your wedding day. I'll get over it but it just may take a while." She pulled herself together. "But we need to get back to this, I've wasted enough of the Reverend and Mrs Anderson's time."

"If you have a USB key I can load the photos you want onto it, I offered to organise the printing of the enlargements you wanted because I get quite a substantial bulk discount if I run it through with the other jobs I do all the printing for the wedding and funeral booklets for the church and quite a few baptism photos."

"That would be great" Gabriella replied handing over her and Troy's USB. They then discussed which prints they wanted enlargements of and what sizes they wanted, choosing some to keep and also some to give as gifts for their family.

Troy rang Mrs Anderson as they were on their way home to ask for an enlargement of his mother's favourite photo to also be added to their order for her for Christmas.

A/N: Thankyou to Kiara, Pumpkinking5, Wildcats2016 and iminlove 13 for your support.

I've always disliked it when authors ask for reviews but it is a bit disheartening when over 100 people are reading my story but only 4 bother to review it. It only takes a few seconds.