A/N: No reports. I am currently freaking out over the whole Heath Ledger thing… That was a huge shock for my friends and me. RIP, and may his family get through this difficult time. On another note, I probably am not going to be on the computer for a while after this. Again. My finals went well mostly, but my mother (being the overbearing person she just so happens to be) is upset my math exam was…. negligent. Anyway, enjoy? -love- Desireé
Chapter Nine, Destination
I listened in
Yes I'm guilty of this you should know this
I broke down and wrote you back before you had a chance to
Forget forgotten
I am moving past this giving notice
I have to go
Yes I know the feeling, know you're leaving
-'The Con', Tegan and Sara
There were three things that Gabriella Montez especially hated.
One of them was Troy Bolton. The reasons were obvious; at least, she supposed them to be. No one really knew the back-story, the gruesome details, or the uncivil shouts that echoed through the apartment in the final days leading up to her departure. But still, it was easy to see she despised Troy Bolton. Right? (Adeline being the exception. She was particularly convinced that there was some leftover passion between them, in spite of the very apparent physical distance and occasional rant.)
Another thing was music. She couldn't stand it when people played their car radios louder than necessary; they were just so arrogant. The iPods got on her nerves. Two hundred bucks was not worth something that could pass for a compact mirror. And of course, the Broadway fanatics that occasionally blew through Sampson annoyed her to no end. They all raved about Wicked, and RENT, and Mamma Mia! But the thing that Gabriella hated most about music is that it was what brought her to Troy, and, in a way, also tore them apart.
The third thing was, ironically enough, five-three and dark-haired and incredibly panicky—also translated to simply 'herself'. She didn't realize this, though, until December the seventeenth when she curled her fingers around the curtain and glanced out the window to see two young adults staring back at the building. Her heart stopped briefly, and she wondered what it would be like to die.
It was then that for the first time in her life Gabriella Montez understood that death wasn't the worst thing that could happen to a person.
TYWY
"Aren't you coming in?"
Arielle was staring at her aunt from her spot on the street pavement, arms folded over her chest and elbows propped on the car door. The blue-haired woman sat in the driver's seat, hands on the wheel and eyes narrow as she stared at the name 'The Witching Hour'. "I don't think so," she said, and then paused, pretending to consider this. "No, I'm not."
"Why not?" Arielle pressed, leaning toward her so she could see the frown lines in the woman's forehead. She counted six exactly, invisible unless worry panned out on the face. "We can't go alone. What if there's a serial killer in there, and we knock, and he answers and then murders us?"
Shivering slightly from the bitter cold, Harris raised an eyebrow and turned to stare at his sister. "What makes you so sure it would be a 'he'? I'm certain there are serial killers that are female, too."
The blonde shrugged. "Yeah, maybe, but girls are smart. If we want to kill, we wouldn't be waiting around for teenagers to come to the door—the person would be dead already."
April lost color for a moment. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear you confidently illustrate that homicide tactic and just get going, okay?" she said, fanning her cheeks with a hand. The children sighed. "I know, I know, you're all excited and everything. But look, I was the last to see Gabriella before she left; I don't think I deserve to be the first to see her now. You guys go up and ring the doorbell or something. It's a shop, so maybe you can just go inside. I'll drive around the block, so if you're still here, then I'll take you to the motel or something."
Her eyes began to institute an apology, and Arielle smiled. "It's okay, I know you've already done your part." She crouched down and hugged her aunt awkwardly, the car's frame cutting into her stomach. Harris nodded lightly and did the same, saying the good byes in a fairly sad way.
The rental car, a puke green compact that should never have been up for grabs at the dealership, drove away and Arielle hugged her duffle bag as she glanced up at the shop name again. "'The Witching Hour'," she read, clearing her throat. "I wonder… If she's there. I mean, for real for real, there."
Beneath their snow boots, the ice crunched. Harris smiled up at the building, eyes squinted; in that moment, that rare moment, he looked like Troy. "Only one way to find out."
TYWY
There was one thing Troy Bolton hated.
Well, several things. But those were more strong dislikes, and this was pure hatred.
Originally, he didn't mind music. He didn't object to the alternative rock, the jazzy pop, the sent-straight-from-hell heavy metal. They were all, by a way of evolution, a part of him. They were a part of all teenagers. Music had introduced him to the girl he loved with all he had; the girl he had chased for years upon years. But music had also—in some way shape or form—killed him.
Figuratively speaking, of course. He was still a normal guy on the outside, but inside there was a spot on his soul devoted to music—and was now empty. Troy stopped listening to his albums not long after Arielle celebrated her first birthday. He was trying his hardest not to get distracted; the children would be his first and perhaps only priority. But the idea that his daughter listened to the same tunes, the same melodies, the same lyrics he did which grinded his ears or punctured the wounds he had sealed so long ago made him shiver.
Although, the constant shaking of picture frames and phone calls from the neighbors, he admitted, were missed. Peace and quiet weren't the best things in the world, even if Troy Bolton wished otherwise.
TYWY
The bell rang, signaling the front door was open and someone would be coming in. A customer or two. Gabriella felt her entire body go numb. She sat at her desk, trying to concentrate on the stack of papers as best as she could. Focus, focus, focus. "Hello?" asked a voice. It was the girl's. It was her speaking.
The dark-haired woman stood up and peered around the corner, trying to seem pleasant. If you don't panic, they don't panic. Gabriella smiled with her lips closed and zipped up her hoodie jacket. She thought it smelled like Troy, but of course no one else knew this. Secrets—most of which, Theresa Montez had always said, were meant to be spilled or shared—would always eventually morph into little savages that haunted your mind. Savages: attack. "Welcome," she said, eyes as bright as possible and face sore from the sudden emotion. "Um, this is 'The Witching Hour' and it's not exactly a very tidy boutique but I am sure you'll find something…" She trailed off to find the girl gaping at her.
"Something wrong?" she asked, swallowing.
"I—I—I can't…" And then, Arielle Bolton introduced herself in a very not-so-normal fashion by fainting forward and crumbling onto Gabriella Montez's body, with her face milk-white and hands sweaty. Behind them, her brother swore beneath his breath in a very Troy-like fashion. Old habits die hard.
TYWY
There was an awkward silence when Gabriella finally managed to drag Arielle up the stairs to her apartment and lay her on the couch. Harris watched nervously, wringing his hands over and over again while he wondered why he hadn't spoken to his mother yet. She was a beautiful woman, older with age and sadder with tragedy. He longed to reach out and hug her, touch her, anything as long as it had to do with her. He was fifteen and he had never known what a mother was until now, watching her dab a wet wash cloth to Arielle's forehead. "She took quite a fall," she mused after a spell of stillness.
"Um, yeah…" The teenager shifted with a cough. "Our parents forgot to give her… her meds. She's. Got. Um. Epilepsy." He looked down at the floor and mentally kicked himself. Cover stories had never been his strong suit.
"That's seizures, Harris," Gabriella replied stiffly, turning to glance at him. Her face was dark, but there was a joy in her eyes he liked.
"So I guess there's no use trying to pretend we're someone else."
She shook her head. "Not really." Then the uncomfortable quiet set in, making Gabriella eager to get up and greet the son she knew, and making Harris want to go back to New York City. Damn Arielle.
"I don't suppose your father still has a sailor's mouth, too," she finally said, pressing the cloth to the girl's forehead again. Strands of hair clung to her damp skin, making lines curve around her eyebrows like roads on a map. Destination: unknown.
Harris blinked. "What?" Gabriella looked up at him, and he saw himself in her. "Oh, you mean… The F-word. Right. Yeah, I'm sorry. That was a bad first impression. Um, my dad—our dad—doesn't cuss a lot. He just gets mad sometimes and drops like 'shit' and stuff accidentally, before he can catch himself. But nothing else. Really." He cleared his throat awkwardly and forced a smile. She returned the favor, one he thought was just as strained, but the hint of delight was still in her gaze, one similar to his.
"Still the same as I remember then," she said softly, looking back down to Arielle and humming abruptly, as if holding back tears. "She will be up soon, we'll just give her some time. So, would you like some tea?"
The boy cocked his head to one side and stared down at his sister. "Yeah," he finally gave in, "I would." He followed Gabriella—his mother—into the kitchen and looked around casually, when inside his heart was beating like a hummingbird's. "So you live here… by yourself?"
She reached for the cupboard and nodded with a stiff posture. "If you want to know if you have a stepfather, the answer is no," she replied, turning to look at him again. But this time, she really looked, without the bitter impatience or the expected indifference. The way he half-smiled, the way his eyes seemed to swallow you even if he didn't mean for it, the small cough in his voice that was there to save him from any conversation blunders, it all reminded her of what she had always wanted him to be: the perfect combination of her and Troy. Results: pending.
TYWY
"Remind me again why we're here?" Ryan Evans asked his sister when she dragged him through the streets of New York City, her hand clamped around his in an effort not to let him get away and disappear into the public. The man tilted his head up toward the clouds, which were heavy and gray with the potential of a storm.
"I thought," Sharpay replied huffily, as if she had explained this plenty of times—which she had, "that Troy might like a little unofficial reunion. You know, minus the Gabriella part." She finally pulled her brother into a restaurant planted on the outskirts of Times Square, smiling cheerfully when her eyes locked with the host's. "John! I'm so glad this all went smoothly. You're looking lovely, working out?"
The man, clearly older than one would assume the drama queen would like, beamed bashfully and shrugged. "Only a little," he confessed, gathering a pile of menus on the podium.
"I knew it," Sharpay said with extra fluff in her voice. "Now, is the room ready upstairs? The gig starts in approximately twenty-three minutes, I don't want to be wasting time with last minute details!"
John shook his head and ushered them upstairs. They arrived in the private party room of the NY brasserie, and Sharpay gave a nod to gesture her blessing. "Perfect, you're just amazing!" she squealed, kissing the host on the cheek and clapping her hands together. Ryan cleared his throat and she stole a second to glare at him before turning back to the environment before them, complete with lit candles and ivory tablecloths. "Oh, this is just superb."
When they were alone finally, Ryan snickered as he picked up a fork and set it back down again. "Oh, just superb, just marvelous, just oh so incredibly amazing," he impersonated his sister, and a little too freakishly well. He waved his hand in front of his face and batted his eyelashes. Adding a drawl to his voice, he said, "Oh, my, this is just one overwhelming bane-kwet!"
"You're such a dork," Sharpay sighed, coming to stand next to him and look around once more for the final stamp of approval. "You think it'll help him get out of the dumps? I went to see him yesterday. He doesn't look too hot."
The blond man raised an eyebrow. "You went to go see Troy… alone?" She scoffed and swatted his arm, including an eye roll when he winced.
"I have a fiancé, thank you very much for the credit, Ry-an," she said with a sneer. "And I've got way more self-control than I did in high school. Jesus, do you not realize that people can change?"
He glanced at her and his shoulders went up slightly, then down again. "Fine, then. What was the first question?"
"I asked if it'll help him be happy again," Sharpay replied, putting her hands on her hips. "Now that I think about it, I'm not entirely sure he would want to see the class, what with them probably not aware of his little show-down with Gabriella. But it's been a long time; maybe he's moved on. He did mention how much he was thinking about her though…"
Ryan interrupted her with a sputter. "Wait, rewind, rewind, rewind," he said to her, blinking a few times as if to get a clear image in his mind of the scene she was spinning. "First of all, I just realized—you met with him yesterday and you got all this done so quickly? It's five-thirty!"
She grinned proudly. "Aren't I a miracle worker, Mr. Evans?" she coaxed, although her voice hinted it was more a statement than a question.
"And our entire class is coming," he checked.
"Hah, they wish. Only the people that matter, like Chad and Taylor and Jason and Kelsi and Zeke and Martha and Troy, of course. Maybe a few cheerleaders that hooked with the basketball team once in a blue moon, and I even managed to contact a few of the skater kids, however awful a conversation that was. They all sound so dead, it was painful to even try explaining my plan to them…" She stopped when she saw him looking at her again. "What?"
A waiter walked by and began checking for any candles that could have gone out. Ryan blew on one in a very un-Ryan way, just for spite. "So, they're all coming. All of them. On a less-than-twenty-four-hour notice," he said, pressing his palms together and lingering on his words.
"Well it's not like they just yippety-doo-dah agreed," Sharpay informed him, smiling appreciatively as the waiter came by and begrudgingly relit the candle Ryan had snuffed. "They were hesitant at first. I mean, did you know Martha actually lives in Hawaii? And Zeke, he's in France. You don't know how much I had to pay just to get him to consider coming."
"You paid for their trips?" he gasped, his eyes as big as spheres. "Sharpay, that—that—that must have cost a fortune!"
She monotonously waved her hand over her face, quirking her brows slightly. "Hello? Famous fashion designer here?"
"Money doesn't—" He panted hastily, out of breath, "—grow on trees, Shar."
"Yeah, but it sure does come out of a lot of ATMs," she retorted nonchalantly. The door opened and Chad and Taylor Danforth appeared, looking slightly homesick, even if this city was nothing like Albuquerque. Sharpay popped her foot and smiled at her brother, hands clasped and head flexed to one side. "And then there were four."
TYWY
April knew she was dead when she saw her brother's number dance across her home phone Caller ID. "He-ey," she said nervously when she answered. "What's up, little bro?"
"How're you?" Troy blurted out. "How is Arielle? And Harris? Are they being good houseguests? Ari isn't, you know, blasting her music at full volume or anything because if she is, I can totally come to get them and—"
She laughed, trying to relax. "Cool it, T, they're fine."
"Oh. Well, that's good. Can I talk to them?"
The woman froze. "They are, um, in the shower."
"What?"
"Not both of them." Stupid, stupid, stupid. "I, uh, meant that Harris is in the shower and Arielle is taking a nap." Please buy it, please buy it, please buy it.
He exhaled. "Ari is napping?" April mmhmmed and crossed her fingers. Fish, fish, got her wish. "She never naps. Hmm, maybe you're teaching her something useful…"
"Yeah, well, as long as they are here they might as well learn some good… techniques… for life." Oh so lame.
"Can you just tell them—tell them that I called and that I love them and that I'm going out to a party tonight so I'll just call later?"
April nodded and then realized he couldn't see her. "Oh, yeah, definitely. Well, um, bye little brother. Talk to you soon. Say hi to, um, well not the kids since they're here. With me. Just… say hi to your landlord. Bye."
Family was a strange thing, but Troy missed his son and daughter all the same.
TYWY
Arielle wondered where she was and why the hell her stomach felt like it was made of paper when she woke up an hour later. Harris was sitting next to her and he smiled to see her awake. "You know your name?" he inquired, looking down at his imaginary clipboard and chewing on his nonexistent fountain pen.
"Arielle Bolton," she said automatically.
"And you're how old?"
"Thirteen. Born December 1st, 2011. My dad… Oh. Wait. Gabriella."
Harris looked away and he took a breath. "She's downstairs," he said quietly. "You've been out for a little while now. She knows who we are."
"Is that good or bad?"
"I don't know."
TYWY
Everyone knew of Gabriella and Troy's absent romance, so Sharpay had nothing to worry about when every guest was officially at the party. She grinned at the pianist in the corner and carried two glasses of champagne over to Troy, who was standing alone. "All by himself?" she cooed, handing him a drink that would never meet his lips.
"Naturally," he said, voice toneless.
"You're going to have to give me more to work with than that, Mr. Allstar," she said, sipping her beverage and nudging him.
"Aren't you a clothing designer? Imagination is part of the job."
"Off the clock," she countered and he cracked a smile. "So, having fun yet?"
"I'll let you know when that happens."
"Atta boy."