Hello! Okay this chapter is the longest chapter I have ever written. It's off the main subject of the story but I've been off school sick and that inspired the idea for this bit of the story. Sorry if anyone doesn't like it. Izzy xx

In Peads resus Gabriella was hooked up to several drips and an oxygen mask was placed over her face. After about five minutes of constant struggle she felt the band around her chest loosen slightly and felt herself being leaned forward so the doctor could listen to her chest.

"There's no sign of infection but there is an awful wheeze all over the chest, especially on the right side. Can we keep her under constant observation and let Bristol Children's Hospital know that we will be sending her in an ambulance as soon as she is stable."

"But, isn't there a big hospital in Bath?" Isabelle asked the doctor.

"Yes there is, but I think she should go to Bristol where a team of specialist doctors can keep an eye on her. She will be in the best possible hands."

"Oh, are you okay, Mija?" Isabella directed this last question at Maria who was stood by her daughter, tears streaming down her face. This couldn't be her daughter, her brave little daughter who had fought for seven years. She was getting better; the doctors back home had said so. She couldn't be this bad, it wasn't fair.

"Mom" Gabriella uttered the word. It was all she could manage, just one word and it still took all the breath from her body as though she had been punched in the stomach. She had never felt this bad in her life. She knew that asthma could get this bad but she didn't expect it to happen to her. Then suddenly she felt the drugs the doctors had given her kick in. It was like a band being released from around her chest. She felt as though she was free.

"Okay, Gabriella. Your SATs have risen above 95. This means we can move you; we will ring the ambulance to take you to Bristol. We have started you on an aminophylline drip, otherwise known as singulair. Now we've phoned your hospital in America and they have emailed your medical notes over and we will have them faxed straight to Bristol so they can get a clearer picture of what is going on and treat you suitably. Any questions?" The doctor directed this lat bit at Maria, as Gabriella was starting to drift in and out of sleep due to the drugs.

As Gabriella entered the stage between sleep and awake ness (A/N not sure of the proper word!) her mind began to run away with her.

She was underwater, breathing and talking to the fish. Then as quick as a blink she was on top of the white house, talking to Troy. And then she was underwater, only this time she couldn't breathe, she was going to suffocate here, alone, in this dark abyss. There was no-one who could save her, she couldn't breathe, the world was coming to an end and there was nothing she, Gabriella, could do.

"Gabby? Gabriella? Mija…wake up." It was a voice she knew, she recognised. She felt the water disappear, saw the light return to the world.

"Mom…" Gabriella briefly opened her eyes, before returning to the land of her dreams.

Meanwhile Isabelle was outside on the phone to Troy's mother, and Maria's friend, Lucille.

"No, there's no improvement. They're moving her to a bigger hospital where there are specialists…" Isabelle broke down and sobbed into the phone.

On the other end Lucille felt a tear in her own eye. She had known Gabriella since before she was born. Lucille and Maria had got to the same aqua size class at the local pool whilst pregnant. She had been there for Maria when her parents had moved to England when Gabriella was three. And she had been there all through the death of Maria's husband. She had watched Gabriella grow from a cute baby to a cheeky toddler to a shy girl and now to a beautiful young adult. She had watched the friendship between her son and Gabriella get stronger and stronger throughout first and middle school. And now they were starting high school in three months. She didn't think Troy could get through it without Gabriella.

"I'm sure Gabby will; pull through, she's a strong girl. Well I have to go now, but promise me Isabelle, that you will phone as soon as there is any news, good or bad."

"I promise, Luc. Thanks for being there. You don't know how much that means to me. Are you going to tell Troy?"

"Yes, he has to know as soon as possible. I'll go wake him. I'll have those things shipped over as soon as possible. Bye" Lucille hung up the phone and tried to collect herself together. She had to be there for her soon. He was going to need her.

She knocked on Troy's door. The only response she got was a grunt; she pushed the door open and saw her son lying asleep. Obviously un-troubled and peaceful. She hated to be the bearer of bad news but he was going to have to know. She was his best friend after all.

"Troy" she said, shaking his shoulder.

"Whaa-"replied Troy, still half asleep.

"Troy, honey. Wake up. I have to tell you something." She sat on the end of his bed and prodded his foot gently.

"Mom? What is it? Is everything okay?" Troy had fully awoken now and could see that his mother was troubled. He had only ever seen that look in her eye once before, and that was when his father had been in a car crash. Thankfully his dad had fully recovered.

"Troy, you knew Gabriella had asthma, right?"

"Yeah, but it wasn't bad. She always told me not to fuss. That it was hardly there."

"Well I'm afraid she's had a real bad attack. They don't know what caused it but she's in hospital in a serious condition."

"I have to see her. No. NO" Troy started off quietly but his voice grew more and more urgent as he took in what his mother had said. Gabriella was in a serious condition. That wasn't good. That was really bad. He had to see her. Now.

"Troy, you can't. She's in England. They won't let her fly home until she's better. You can't see her. I'm sorry. I've spoken to Isabelle, her grandmother, and she says the doctors are doing all they can to stabilise her."

"But she can't die. She's my best friend. I need her. I can't live without her." Tears were now pouring down Troy's face. It broke his mother's heart; she had never seen her boy like this. He was distraught. He sobbed and sobbed until there were no tears left in his body. And his mother held him until he stopped crying and fell into a fitful sleep. He kept muttering 'no, not Brie.'

Meanwhile back in England Gabriella was just being unloaded at the children's hospital in Bristol.0-The twenty minute journey had been un-eventful, they had the lights and sirens on the whole way. To clear traffic, they wanted to get to the hospital as quickly as possible.

"Mom?" Asked Gabriella, coming out of the doze she had been in.

"Yes, honey. I'm here, its okay."

The doctors and nurses got Gabriella settled, took some blood to run some tests and finally left her to sleep. When she woke up the next morning she felt as though a weight had been lifted from her chest. For the first time in two days it didn't feel as though every breath was a struggle. She could breathe easy, as it were.

"Ah Gabriella I see you are awake." A man who looked to be in his early thirties walked into the room. Gabriella started, she had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn't realised she had opened her eyes. She looked around her, taking in her mother in the chair by her bed. Her grandmother in the chair by the window.

"Morning Honey, look, they couldn't have put you in a room that suited your personality better!" Said Isabelle, fighting her way through the tubes and wires attached to Gabriella to give her youngest grandchild a kiss.

Gabriella smiled as she took in the star wars characters painted on the window of her room; it was a well known fact that she hated anything to do with star wars.

"I'm Dr Jones, I've been looking after you since you joined us earlier this morning. When you joined us you had us all extremely worried, young lady. We managed to stabilise you, but we can't say how long you will need to be on oxygen and steroids, so you may be with us for quite a while. I'm sorry. Any questions?"

"What are my average SATs? Are they below 95? And my blood sugar? Last time I was in hospital it dropped slightly lower than average-" Gabriella went into overdrive, she had so many questions for the doctor.

"Wow, I can see we have an intelligent girl here. Well your average SATs are 96 on oxygen. That's not good but not too bad. Your blood sugar is slightly low but that's a side effect of the medication we have put you on. Nothing to worry about. They aren't the normal questions a fourteen year old would ask. I'm impressed."

"She's no normal fourteen year old. She's taking 11th grade science. And I've known her to ask doctors questions that they don't know the answers too." Laughed Maria. Even though she was still extremely worried, Gabriella's sudden outburst of questions had relieved her of some of the worry.

Gabriella started to improve slightly after four days. She was still on constant oxygen and singulair but her SATs had improved to 98. On her fifth day in hospital her bedside phone rang.

"Hello, Gabby here. I love you. You have saved me from extreme boredom." Gabriella said into the receiver without even asking who it was.

"Gabriella? This is your form tutor, Mr Phillips. You are on loud speaker in homeroom."

Gabriella cringed. Mr Phillips was the assistant gym teacher; only just having graduated from college he was young and extremely good looking. Nearly every female in EHS had a crush on him and Gabriella was no exception.

"Hey Sir. Hi guys"

"Hey Gabriella" came a chorus of voices, all of which she recognised.

"We thought we'd ring and see how you were doing. And judging by your greeting we rang just in time." Said Mr Phillips.

"Yeah, sir. Thanks, I thought I was going to die of boredom, or food poisoning. The food in hideous, even worse than the school canteen" This got a laugh out of the students gathered around the phone in the classroom.

Troy smiled. Even though the voice was weak, it was still the same old Gabriella. He had tried phoning from home but Gabriella had been asleep. Troy had hardly slept or eaten since he found out Gabriella was sick.

"Well, I'll pass the phone to your friends so you can have a quick private word. Get well soon Gabs." Said the teacher, passing the phone to Troy.

"Hey Brie, guess who?"

"Hmm, I have no idea" Joked Gabriella, she knew full well who was on the other end of the phone. Troy was the only person in the world who was aloud to call her 'Brie'.

"Ouch, that hurt, Gabby"

"Sorry Troysie, I knew it was you"

"Good, well how you doin'?"

"I'm on top of the world Troy."

Troy laughed at his friends sarcasm.

"No, no joke. The amount of drug's they've given me, I feel ass though I could run a marathon."

"I wouldn't advise it, honey"

"No, I guess I should wait until I'm out of hospital"

"Yeah, probably. Well I have to go because Sharpay is trying to take the phone out of my hand. I miss you" He said the last bit in a whisper so only Gabriella could hear. Looking back on it, she thought it was at that moment she fell in love with him. Tears were just forming in Gabriella's eyes when.

"Oh my goodness, Gabriella Amelia Montez. How dare you get sick two moths before the cheer trials? I was counting on you double back flip to get us in." Sharpay snapped down the phone, Gabriella smiled. She knew that Sharpay was only messing about. "So Hon, how are you?"

"I'm not doing too badly, Shar. I should be back for the trials but I may not be in a fit state to cheer. I'm pumped full of drugs so I'm on the mend. How's everyone back there?"

"Thank god your on the mend, were all fine. Missing you terribly. Especially Troy, he hasn't been the same since you landed in hospital. Taylor is literally biting my hand off to talk to you so I'm gonna pass over. Bye honey, Love you."

"Bye Sharpay. Love you too."

"Hey Gabs, oh my lord I miss you so much. How are you? Is it really serious? Are you gonna be okay? What are your SATs like?-"

Gabriella cut her friend off, smiling. "Hey Tay, I miss you too. I'm really not too bad. Still on constant oxygen because my SATs are still mega low, but they're improving. They're averaging 97-98 at the moment." Taylor was the only person Gabriella would discuss this kind of thing with. Of course the others cared for her but they wouldn't understand all the medical speak.

"Oh, that's not too bad then. I miss you loads and loads. I've been collecting all the homework and I'll email it through to you tonight. Chad wants a word so I gotta go, see you soon. Bye, love ya."

"Love you too"

"Gabstar! What's up kiddo?" Chad always made a big thing of calling Gabriella 'Kiddo', even though he was born only one day after her.

"Hey 'fro" Gabriella had always called Chad this. Chad sometimes joked that Gabriella loved his afro more than she loved him. "I'm okay, just really tired after talking to the gang."

"D'ya know what?"

"What Chad?"

"Asthma sucks." Chad said simply.

"Yeah, I agree. Well I gotta go, Chaddy. I'm whacked. Speak later. Bye."

"Bye Kiddo, miss ya."

"Miss ya too, 'fro"

As Gabriella hung up the phone she reflected on what Chad had said, 'Asthma sucks'. Too right.

A week later there were signs of improvement, Gabriella was now off constant oxygen during the day but had to go back on it at night, unless she was having a particularly rough day, when she would go on it all the time again.

Maria had noticed how down her daughter was and had rung Lucille Bolton.

"I have a plan" She had said. "Gabriella's real down and needs cheering up and I bet Troy's not much better."

"Fire, Troy's real down too" Lucille had said.

During the next two days Gabriella sunk further into her depression, she hardly spoke to anyone and never smiled. She spent half of her time asleep and the other half absorbed on one of her books, she regularly joined Harry at Hogwarts and even travelled with the Dr through time and space. That was one thing she loved about England, Dr who.

On her 15th day in hospital she was feeling really down, she spoke to no-one and barley looked at anybody. Around 1pm she was sleeping when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Go away" She mumbled, not opening her eyes.

"Is that any way to treat somebody who has just flown fourteen hours to see you?" Asked a very familiar voice.

"Troy?" She gasped, opening her eyes with a start.

"The one and only." Grinned her best friend.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"If your gonna be like that I'll leave" Joked Troy, getting up and pretending to flounce out the door.

"No don't go. But seriously how?" Asked Gabriella, pulling at his sleeve. She was still in shock, she was so used to just seeing her mother, grandmother and various nurses and doctors that it was a shock to see anybody else.

"Well, your mom rang my mom and told her you were depressed, my mom told your mom that I was depressed and then they hatched a cunning plan for me and my mom to take a trip. I missed you so much it was Un-bearable. I thought you were gonna die."

"You don't get rid of me that easily Troy." Gabriella joked, her face breaking out into the first real smile for days. "So, your having the time off school?"

"No, doofus. It's spring break"

"Oh yeah I forgot." Said Gabriella, she was starting to get tired from all the excitement. She yawned and tried to hide it from Troy, but he was not deceived.

"Sleep, Missy." He said, getting off the bed and sitting in the chair by the window.

"But Troy I'm not – not" But she could not finish the sentence, her eyes were already shut.

Three hours later, Maria and Lucille walked into the room to find two teenagers sleeping like babies. Gabriella had been exhausted from the excitement and had not even awoken when the nurse came in to re-fill her drip. Lucille shook Troy's shoulder and called his name softly.

"Eugh" Moaned Troy, his body was still on California time.

"Hey, honey. Were gonna go book into the hotel now. We can come back and see Gabby in the morning but there are no visitors aloud after 10 and its 10.30, so say good-bye to her."

Troy walked over and woke Gabriella. "Hey Brie. We gotta go now-"

But he was cut of by a shout from Gabriella. "No! You can't go, you only just got here. Don't leave me Troy." She started to cry and Troy saw the number on her SATs monitor fall from 96 to 92.

"Hey, don't cry. We'll be back in the morning. We're not aloud to stay in the hospital over night. That's all." Said Troy in a rush, he hated seeing his best friend like this.

"Oh" Sniffled Gabriella wiping her eyes on her bed cover.

"So we'll see you at 7.30 tomorrow morning, honey." Said Lucille, giving Gabriella a kiss on the forehead.

The next morning Troy and Lucille arrived at Gabriella's room to find an extremely upset Maria outside, Isabelle trying to calm her.

"I am sure Gabriella will be just fine. She's a strong girl and will pull through."

"What's happened?" Asked Lucille.

"Gabriella had a slightly rough night. Her SATs dropped to 85 and her temperature went to 104. They are just giving her an x-ray to check for signs of infection. The temperature could just be a reaction to the medication, but they don't know why her SATs dropped-" She was cut off by the door opening. Dr Jones walked out.

"Gabriella has no sign of infection, but we have put her back on constant oxygen to stabilise her SATs. We are going to move her to intensive care, just to be on the safe side. You can go in to see her now." He smiled nervously at the assembled group and walked away.

"That man has been a total godsend. He's stayed on longer than he should have done just to get our Gabby through the night." Isabelle said as Maria rushed into the room.

Troy followed her and felt tears spring to his eyes. He had never seen Gabriella look like this. So frail and ill. She was thin with no colour in her cheeks whatsoever and her lips were almost transparent.

"Troy" Croaked Gabriella. "You can come closer I won't bite."

Even her voice had lost its usual sparkle.

They moved her to intensive care on the Tuesday morning and by the following Monday she was ready to move back to a normal ward. She surprised everyone with a quick recovery.

"I was bored being ill. I decided I wasn't going to be ill anymore." She told Dr Jones as he did his rounds on Friday morning.

"If only it worked like that Gabriella." He laughed. "Well your chest is a lot less wheezy and your off constant oxygen. Do you have a nebuliser at home?"

"Yep, have done since I was little." She replied.

"Good. Well if we can get you on to four hourly nebs then you should to be able to fly home in a week or so."

Gabriella's heart leapt. It had been three weeks since she had been admitted to hospital and she was becoming increasingly bored with repeats of soap operas and interior design shows! Taylor had emailed her the holiday homework so at least she wasn't behind. Troy and Lucille were flying home on Wednesday, in two days time. Troy had been a lifesaver; he had provided the home comforts she needed. He had been there to talk to about serious things but he had also been there to joke about with when Gabriella was feeling down. Not to mention he had brought over three packets of Oreo cookies, which were extremely hard to come by in England. The food in the hospital was bad to say the least. Especially as Gabriella was a vegetarian, she had to put up with veggie fingers and the hospital's attempt at curry. It was not pleasant.

When Troy came to see her later that day he could see that she was very excited about something. "Hey Brie. What's up? You're on the ceiling!"

"They said I could go home in a week, if my SATs stay up and I come off hourly nebulisers!" She exclaimed, excitedly.

"Hey, that's great!" Said Troy scooping his best friend up in a humungous hug.

"Careful you'll pull out her drips." Said Maria walking up at pretending to swat Troy over the head with the newspaper she was carrying.

"Sorry, Ms Montez." Said Troy.

"Troy, I have told you a million times, it's Maria." Said Maria, grinning. "Well, Gabby I just saw Dr Jones and he told me about your chat. That's great news!" She gave her daughter a gentle hug.

"Yeah I know. I'm so happy!" Exclaimed Gabriella.

"Well don't get too excited! You might spark off an asthma attack and that would be no good" Said Charlotte, Gabriella's nurse.

"I won't. Don't worry; I can't wait to get out of here. No offence Charlie" Gabriella said to her favourite nurse.

Gabriella continued to improve over the next few days, but then it came to the time for Troy and Lucille to leave.

"Well, if all goes to plan I'll see you in a few days at home, Brie." Said Troy, hugging Gabriella tenderly.

"Bye, Troy. I'll miss you."Said Gabriella, tears starting to form in her eyes.

"Hey don't cry. It's only a few days. I'll miss you too, Brie" Troy said, he hated leaving his friend like this. Tears were starting to form in his own eyes.

Gabriella's breathing started to quicken and the number on her SATs monitor dropped from 97 to 91. She felt the familiar band tighten around her chest. The machine started to beep and Charlotte rushed over and placed an oxygen mask over her face.

"You need to calm down Gabriella. You'll be stuck in hospital even longer if you have another serious attack." Charlotte told her. "Now, deep breaths."

After a few minutes Gabriella's breathing became less laboured and her chest stopped heaving quite so much.

"Sorry, I don't know what came over me." Said Gabriella, blushing. She never usually got so emotional but lately she was crying at the drop of a hat, especially where leaving Troy was concerned.

"Well, we're gonna miss our flight in a minute. Bye Gabriella, honey. Hope to see you soon." Said Lucille, kissing Gabriella on the forehead.

"Bye, Brie" Said Troy, willing himself not to cry.

"Bye guys." Said Gabriella, waving as Maria left the room to walk them to the main doors.

After the little blip when Troy left, Gabriella went from strength to strength. She was now on 4 hourly nebulisers, which meant she was safe to fly home. She may have to go into hospital back in America, just to check she was stable, but at least she could look forward to seeing her friends again.

On the following Tuesday, Gabriella was finally aloud out of the hospital. As she sat in the plane waiting for it to take off, she could not wait for her friends reactions when she walked out of the arrivals gate.

And do you know what? They did not disappoint.

A/N: Okay, I have never written such a long chapter! Does a mega long chapter equal mega long reviews?? Please?? Hit the little blue button and review!

This chapter was done almost entirely from personal experience. This is why I had Gabriella on holiday in England when she went into hospital; I've had plenty of experience of English hospitals. But I have had no experience of American ones.