A/N- So, this whole story took me nearly a year to write. I have absolutely no idea why, I've never really had issues with time before, but TYWY was a challenge. I've spent weeks upon weeks trying to perfect this last chapter… Hopefully it suffices.
To anyone who has actually stuck with it from start to finish, thank you! You guys are so supportive and it's really helped me with writing. Any latecomers: hopefully this wasn't that confusing, haha. Well, I am planning to make this the last HSM fanfic I write, but I'm guessing there will be some one-shots here and there, especially considering…
I've seen High School Musical 3 twice now. I'm planning to see it again in the coming weeks. My obsession? Totally not normal. Am I okay with it? Yes. Is Zac Efron once again insanely hot? Oh, yeah. :) -love- Desireé
Chapter Twenty-Six, Heal
Fill these spaces up with days
in my room you can go you can stay;
I can't sleep. I can't speak to you
I can't sleep
Now these years locked in my drawer
I'll open to see just to be sure
-'Sleep', Azure Ray
It is harder to keep quiet when you have nothing to say. This quote, coming from an unremembered source of her childhood, had forever perplexed Gabriella until the day of Arielle's memorial, where the Original Six (plus Harris) stood silently as a pastor said some empty, religious words about life and its meaning. They were all going speak eventually; everyone was to say something about the dearly departed, nice or touching or whatever emotional adjective they wanted to use. The ashes sat at the head of the room, the spirit of Arielle spinning in the same spot over and over again. Cassandra was nowhere to be found.
On the way back to the loft, the silence in the rental car became increasingly painful, minute by minute. Gabriella squirmed and fidgeted in the front seat, wondering just how hard it was to spend five minutes of noiselessness. It turns out, it's really hard. Like, so difficult she thought she'd burst out laughing due to her nerves if Harris didn't shake things up.
"I thought," he suggested rather loudly for the hushed day they were having, "we could take a road trip—a real one, this time—to Albuquerque, and spread Ari's ashes there. You know, there are not a lot of places here that mean much to her. But she always liked visiting Grandpa Jack and Grandma Lucile. They couldn't make the memorial, so they would probably be happy to help us out for the weekend."
"We'll see," Troy said, eyes bouncing back toward his son in the rear view mirror.
"I think it's a great idea," Gabriella told him, chin in hand as she rested on the console between the seats. "The three of us could go."
Troy's stoic face didn't flicker. "I said we'll see." And for the time being, that was that.
At the loft, Gabriella decides it's best to remind everyone that just because a person has died doesn't mean they're really gone.
Hot chocolate warmed their trembling natures in the dining room. Troy had left the heater off when they arrived back at the apartment, and the subzero feeling was identical to their personalities. "I had a dream about Ari last night," Harris told his mother when Troy had gone to answer the phone in the other room—probably more people calling to say how regretful it is to lose such a young life. Empty, empty, empty words.
"Oh?" Gabriella replied, nursing her mug close to her chest. "What was it about?"
"There was a memorial for her, like today, except it was at a beach, for some reason. And there were so many people, crowds upon crowds of friends and family I didn't even recognize. Everyone was running back and forth, getting things ready, and in the mix of it all, there was Arielle, standing plain and tall like nothing was different. She saw me, and smiled from across the way. I heard her, it was her voice," Harris paused to gulp down some hot chocolate, "and she said softly, 'Don't worry, big brother. You'll get your happy ending soon. I'm okay, all right?' And then she disappeared. Or I woke up. Whichever it was."
An uncomfortable feeling of unfamiliarity settled inside Gabriella as she watched her son grow up in all of fifteen seconds. She had missed this, all of it, by hiding out in a small town that she thought could fix her problems. It hurts to be wrong. "Maybe you should tell your father that," she said, leaning forward. "I know he'd find some solace in the report of Arielle's well-being."
"Dreams don't mean anything, not to him; he wouldn't take me seriously," Harris said, clenching his jaw. "I can't tell him anything. He's not that kind of sentimental parent, one that you probably would be. Dad's been raised on Monkey See, Monkey Do. He learned basketball that way, he watched you sing the first lyric of that karaoke song, but no one helped him with this being a father gig. He—he sucks at it." Once he said this, Harris exhaled a long, drawn-out breath, and Gabriella saw what relief it gave him.
Monkey See, Monkey Do. Troy was very much like that; he never knew how to take that first step on his own. Gabriella hadn't minded playing teacher; why had it never occurred to her that, after she left, things wouldn't change? He'd still need the training wheels. He still needed them now. And so did she.
"My child, you are allowed to do whatever you wish to do, but I'll try to be the sentimental parent and say this. You're smart; I know that much, and you make wise decisions. If anything, your father needs to know he isn't alone in this. I'm a variable in this equation—just substituting for now but I can work with the math pretty well. You're another integer. Go, be with him and figure this out. The dream helped you, right? It will help him." Mathematical metaphors could only assist her now.
Don't worry, big brother. You'll get your happy ending soon. I'm okay, all right? Harris wanted to believe this was true, that Arielle was still around in some way. But there was the sinking feeling that people just see what they want to see, and this was just a dream that he wanted to dream. "Harris," Gabriella brought him out of his thoughtful misery, "There's no food in the kitchen, so I'm going to go get us something to eat. You know what to do."
After years of being pushed away, Harris couldn't bring himself to say what he wanted, needed to be heard. Troy reappeared just as Gabriella was leaving; they exchanged a short kiss and she murmured something inaudible. Troy raised a brow and looked at Harris, this gangly teenager with a dark face and black hair and blue eyes and nowhere to go. "I've been planning what to say," he panted, "to you for years, in case this ever came up. I was going to tell you how much emotional damage you caused by shutting me out; I was going to let you know when I have kids, I'm not going to be the distant father you are to me. But now, standing here with the chance to tell you everything, I just can't care anymore. I'm going out with Mom."
From the hallway, Gabriella listened with a saddened smile, feelings conflicting inside her. Happy to be called a mother, disappointed to see her broken family. Harris walked past her, stood in the doorway with his jacket crawling over him. "Ready?" he asked shortly.
She sighed and looked the other way, as if expecting Troy to appear, to make an effort. But the other end of the hall was cleared, and the television blasted in the other room. Nothing was really that different, she realized. Arielle stood plain and tall, because nothing was different.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We come from the same place that will take us back once time is up.
"School is completely relevant. You can't convince me otherwise, Harris, you will be going back," Gabriella replied as they stood up to get off the subway train that had been taking them home. A flow of people ran through the station, and they made sure to stay close as they maneuvered their way to the sidewalk, up above ground and sucking in oxygen, stale with cigarette smoke and taxi cab fumes.
Troy had not seen sunlight for probably four days now. He kept the curtains of his windows closed, and barely surfaced other than early in the morning and late at night. Gabriella decided to skip this battle, and opted for sleeping on the couch. No one had touched Arielle's room since the memorial.
"We're back," Gabriella called out, in case Troy was around. She looked around the corner of the hallway, and sighed. His bedroom was still closed off, and she stopped the pity parade she had been hosting all this time, patiently. Her knuckles collided with the door and she didn't let up until he finally answered. Troy looked worn, gray circling his eyes like an approaching rainstorm and the shadow of a man on his jaw line in the form of facial hair. Gabriella's impatient exterior softened, and she went with her first instinct—to hug him.
"I really miss her," he said against her shoulder, standing in the doorway like a person not sure which way they wished to go. Memories flooded him and he thought out loud, "You know, when she was six or seven, we were really happy. It was for only a little while; I had just married Cassandra but she was away for a shoot, and the kids were relieved to have just me around. That's probably the first time I realized I really loved them. I don't know why it took me so long before."
Teary-eyed and emotional, Gabriella fanned her face and smiled. "Some of us are late bloomers," she quipped, speaking for the both of them. He smiled sheepishly and she nudged him with her elbow. "I know you miss her, and so do I, but you still have Harris. You still have me. I just think that it'd be good to get up, and get some air. Take a walk."
He blinked and turned away from her. "I don't want to—I think I'll just stay here."
Exasperation rushed back to her and she took hold of his arm, while the image of Baby Harris crumbling to the ground scared her briefly. Chills ran down her spine and she breathed out. "Troy, stop being silly. You have to come with us, it'll be fun."
"First of all," he retaliated, spinning back toward her. Her fingers snapped as they were forced to withdraw their grasp on him. "I don't have to do anything."
There was a sad truth to this, but she grimaced at him anyway. "Just like I didn't have to come back. Just like Harris doesn't have to be this good of a son to us even though we've been gone—literally and figuratively—for a good chunk of his life," she said just as fiercely. "I came back because I've missed you for so long, and because I was sick of pretending to be happy. Harris, well, quite frankly, I have no fucking idea how he's coping with us, the dysfunctional item who may or may not still be romantically linked."
Normally, Troy would have been dramatic and kissed her, or something along those lines, but he thought back to a Christmas party, a long time before that, where he had discovered Arielle and Harris hiding from the drunken and loud event. I think if Dad had an entourage, we'd be a much less dysfunctional family. And he had replied plain and simple, We're not dysfunctional. But even that was a lie in itself, and so he started to laugh—mostly because that was all one could do in such a situation.
"What are you doing?" Gabriella put her hands on her hips, looking furious at this point. He wanted her to laugh along with him, to know that he wasn't alone, but she didn't seem to get the joke. Well, of course not, she wasn't there that day. In fact, she'd only been in his life for, what, a few weeks? No more than a month. It was February. They saw each other on Christmas Eve. It had been so long before then. "Troy?"
The apartment began to reel and he rubbed his eyes, letting the weaknesses shine through. "Gabriella, I am not in the mood to be around anyone right now, okay?"
She narrowed her eyes. "Excuse me for trying to bring you back to earth! Jesus, Troy, is this a Law + Order episode or something? Are you going to come out of your depression and just fucking realize that there are other people in your life, people other than Arielle—"
He pushed her against the wall, his forearm parallel to her collarbone just firmly enough so she stayed put for a second. Gabriella could see would-be tears in his eyes, forming in spite of his best efforts to keep a manly front. He spoke quietly, "I know I have both of you. I know there are still a lot of fucking people in my life, people other than Arielle Delaney Bolton. But she's gone, and somehow, at this moment, I feel like she was all I had before. And I took advantage of that. Now I've paid the price, and I know you and Harris are here, but right now, I can't tell you that's enough. I just can't."
As quickly as she could, Gabriella made space between them and she pursed her lips. "I'm leaving," she said, softly like she remembered, "and I'm taking Harris with me." She waited, to watch the expected déjà vu spasm in his eyes. "I know. It's the same moment as the one too long ago. Except, this time, you know where I'm going. And you have the chance to come with us."
He looked so tired, his posture feeble and his long arms drooping by his sides, pulling toward the ground. She gave him a second, and gripped the knob of the door, nodding. "Remember that night, the night we finally got on the same page? I was so happy to feel like I knew you again, to come to some sort of truce, like a cease-fire—but now we're back to square one. I'm holding on for the old Troy Bolton."
"The one who played basketball and could carry a tune?" he asked.
"The one who can paint a picture in the meantime of mayhem, and still be the best father he can be," she corrected him, and smiled. "We'll leave tomorrow. You know what to do."
Far from it, he thought. But he contemplated the way she walked away, much more gracefully than before. He had a second chance, the opportunity to say he was sorry. He owed her that much, if not a great deal more.
TYWY
"I'd like to just go with you," Harris said.
"I'd like to get a haircut, but the salon is too expensive for my taste and split ends are to me as snakes are to Medusa," Gabriella replied, stuffing what clothes she had garnered from Sharpay in recent times. They had spoken very little to the Evans, other than thank you and it's okay. Everyone wanted to get back to the way things were, but complications—unknown, unreasonable, unexplainable complications—got in the way.
Harris frowned, looking at a picture of him and Arielle in his lap. They were ten and twelve, respectively, holding sparklers on the Fourth of July. That was a happy day. "I don't want him to come."
"There's a chance he won't." She crossed her fingers behind her back. He wouldn't let them leave again. Not when she laid the map out in front of him so easily.
"Well, I'm thinking that if it's just you and me, we can go live in Albuquerque all merry and happy and I can just forget about this place."
She looked up and bit her lower lip, resisting a grin. "And what shall we do with your father?"
Before Harris could reply, Troy appeared in the doorway, still infirm but a little less hunched over than before. "I'm coming," he said, trying to smile. "We can leave in the morning, right?"
Harris looked rather disappointed as he avoided his father's glance, keeping to himself from where he sat. Gabriella considered the moment, for whether it triumph or a failure, and went to wrap her arms around Troy. He smelled like Dial body wash, the kind she remembered loving in high school, and clean laundry. "I knew you'd come around," she sighed. He nodded and said something about calling April, who had not been able to make it to the memorial, either.
"I miss my sister," he said, and looked at Harris, who nodded a fraction of an inch. This was the renovation of a father-son dynamic, soaking up the strength that came in this new common ground.
TYWY
Jack and Lucile Bolton were overjoyed to hear Gabriella on the phone, asking if they could come to stay with them for a little while. "We'd be happy to have you three," Lucille said, choking down the last word as she once again remembered Arielle would no longer be there. "I'm so glad you've decided to come down. Jack and I were so disappointed to know we'd be missing the memorial."
The following morning, Troy's Range Rover sat in the apartment garage, perfectly shiny and not a scratch on it. He had sent his agent, Greta, to get it in Sampson, and gave her a second task when she arrived at the loft. "I need you to clear everything out of here," he said, thinking particularly of Arielle's bedroom. At this, he shivered, knowing he would never have the strength to do this himself. Some things would never get easier. "We'll probably be living in Albuquerque for a while. Maybe rent this place out. So much history, it deserves someone."
Neither Harris nor Gabriella knew that Troy was planning to leave New York for good. He imagined a nice house, a nice balcony, a nice hammock, a nice everything for the three of them. The city was quite overwhelming, and so the neighborhood where everything—what should have been his began might be a good place to start over.
The Range Rover purred when he started the engine. Gabriella sat in the passenger seat, and Harris was in the back with a book and a sober expression. "You guys hungry?" Troy asked.
"No," both Gabriella and Harris replied in unison. Each of them was caught up in another world, and he thought this only to be fair, as he had spent days in his room, hiding from the inevitable: talking. And now that neither wanted to speak to him, Troy decided to respect their wishes.
"Well, um, just so you know, there's supposed to be some wet weather in the next couple of hours, across the border, so, uh, just know…" He drifted off, to see if either of them would look up and wait for the finishing part of the sentence. Neither did, so Troy pulled out of the parking garage, mentally waved goodbye to that part of his life, and cringed at the thought of Arielle's ashes tucked away in Harris' duffle bag. She was worth much more than another piece of luggage, but he realized she was now like gunpowder, and still the same explosive little child in their lives.
TYWY
Windshield wipers danced in front of her face, wish-wash, wish-wash, over and over as rain pounced on the earth and the frost on the glass spread like the common cold. Gabriella breathed out, looking at Troy, who was watching the road diligently as if nervous another car would come barreling in their direction, on this empty highway. She was about to say something, but then his cell phone rang a distant tune he wished he didn't remember.
That name burned into his eyes as he watched the caller ID flash on the screen. He didn't even realize her number had never been erased, even after the divorce papers made their way to his mailbox. "I have to take this call," he said, and pulled over to the turnpike shoulder. Troy opened his door, and Gabriella raised an eyebrow.
"Who is it?"
"Cassandra," he said flatly, and closed the door behind him. It was pouring buckets, but he held his jacket above his head, standing beneath a symphony of thunder, getting wet and not caring. She imagined him waltzing, like the day on the rooftop at school, in black Converse sneakers and tuxedo jacket. Gabriella found herself smiling, even if she hated the fact that he was talking to someone who shouldn't have been calling in the first place.
"You can go get him, you know," Harris said, not looking up from his book.
She turned around, fingers grasping the headrest of the seat. "What do you mean?"
Black hair in his eyes, Harris glanced at her and folded the corner of the already dog-eared page he was reading. "I mean, you can get out, and tell him to hang up. She's calling to say she's sorry, that she needs to see him, blah, blah, blah. I know the routine. And I know Dad can fall for it. But you love him, right? So go get him."
It seemed so easy, for only a moment, that Gabriella could unbuckle her seatbelt, drag herself over to Troy, and end the call as she declared their infinite love for each other. But then she wondered how desperate that would seem, or how manipulative he would view her. He paced in front of the car, head lights shining on his legs each way he walked. "I don't know what to tell him," she said to Harris, "other than the fact that I'm just jealous that he's actually still talking to her. I'm jealous that after all this, I'm not the only girl in his life."
"Maybe that's all he needs to hear. Dad's just a little blind, but not stupid. He loves you more than he has ever loved Cassandra, which is hard to believe in the first place. You have nothing to worry about. I promise."
She pursed her lips, smiling, and looked back at him for the second time. "For an ignored and abandoned little kid, you sure did a damn good job of raising yourself."
The downpour made Harris quiver as he wondered what exactly angels in heaven did during heavy storms, or what they did at all. Arielle must not like this type of weather. "I try," the teenager said, and nodded outside. "Go on."
She chewed on her lower lip and finally opened the passenger door. The Range Rover's emergency light turned out in this dark, dark climate and she braced herself for vulnerability, something from which Troy had suffered much longer than she ever had.
"Cassandra, we're on the road—" Troy stopped when he saw Gabriella approach him, and in turn the headlights transformed her into a silhouette. He could barely see her face, but he noticed her cheeks were damp, and not just from the rain. Troy turned his back to her, still on the phone, and proceeded with the conversation. Gabriella panicked and looked back toward the car, trying to signal to Harris that she couldn't do this. He leaned forward, between the front seats, and shrugged, as if to say, if you can't do it, then don't do it.
"I need to do this, though," she replied, and swallowed. Her fingers tapped Troy on the back, and he spun around, looking irritated.
"What?"
Thunderclaps rolled above them like unraveling secrets, and Gabriella said gently, loud enough so he could hear her, "I don't think you should be talking to her anymore."
"God damn it," he muttered under his breath. "Cass, I'll call you back." Troy shoved the phone into his pocket and looked at Gabriella, the hood of his jacket heavy as it soaked up more and more water. "I haven't signed those fucking papers yet, Gabriella, and in case you've forgotten, our daughter—the baby girl I had with Cassandra, not you—is dead! Why the hell would I not be talking to her?"
This left a stinging slap on her face, even though she knew what he said was absolute; Gabriella narrowed her eyes. "Because I'm here!" she finally snapped, and ran a hand through her sopping hair. "Because she didn't show up for your own daughter's memorial, as if she really had other things to worry about. Because you guys don't have to be chatting it up in the middle of a storm about the divorce she initiated." Her voice was getting more off-key with every passing syllable. "Because I'm freaking insecure over that six-foot-whatever goddess who at one point in life, loved you the same way I love you now. Because this is my fault, but I'm trying to make up for it, you know? And because you're not meeting me at a halfway point!"
He thought of their son, Harris, sitting in the car, watching his parents fight like they would have had Gabriella never left. Troy wondered if he should stop, if he should just let Gabriella be right and not have any say in the matter, but that's not how it worked with his parents. That's not how it worked with his grandparents, or his aunts and uncles, or any couple he ever knew that had the right to happiness, like they did. If Troy held his silence then, it would only be another halfway point that she reached, and he did not.
"I think I had the feeling you were somewhere near New York still, after you left. I think that when I got in the car to drive aimlessly, a subconscious part of me was going in the direction that would lead me to you. And you know the problem with that? You never got around to balancing out the trip. You turned into the black sheep of my life, the person who stayed away, and I know you wanted someone to find you, but how do I find something that, essentially, doesn't want to be found? What do I do then? I waited for you to come back, and you never did. So don't lecture me about halfway points, Gabriella Freaking Montez, because you don't know anything about the kind of pain that comes with an empty middle ground."
Raindrops beaded her hairline like a bandana, and she smoothed them out with a placid touch. He watched tears roll down her face, and speculated over the possibility of Troy and Gabriella. They were that couple that everyone rooted for, even the pink and fabulous Sharpays of the world. And then he tried to imagine what Cassandra thought of them, if she ever really loved him all that much, or if she even realized that her only child—who never lived to have her first kiss, or go to a high school dance, or throw a graduation cap up in the air with her friends—was the reason that cinematic perfection like Troy and Gabriella rarely ever succeeds in real life.
And now for the honesty, like Harris had suggested. "The plain and simple truth is that I always have been jealous of her," Gabriella said, stepping close to him so she wouldn't have to yell. Troy studied the space that disappeared between them—the space she had made when they fought at the loft—and nodded, breathing outward to steady himself. "And I probably always will be, because she got the chance to do that young couple, raising a family thing with you, which I voluntarily forfeited. That was a mistake." Their shirts stuck together, sopping, as she pressed her forehead against his mouth, and it was as if she was feeding him all the thoughts and feelings she could not express, and all the thoughts and feelings he could not understand.
They paused for a moment, before he began to hum and tilted his head back so he faced the sky. Troy stuck out his tongue, and she recognized the tune. It was ancient, a Barney jingle that they learned as little children, which Gabriella had wanted to teach Harris, and the babies to follow him. She smiled and sang, "If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops, oh what a rain it would be. Standing outside with my mouth open wide singing—"
"Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah," Troy finished; the sound contorted slightly as more thunder unfurled above them, now in the form of forgotten memories. He finally looked at her and smiled, and blinked away tears he tried to pass off as rainfall. She pulled him into a kiss, and it would have probably gotten a little more impassioned had Harris not been chuckling from the front seat, and honked the horn. They sprang apart, and each dissolved into their own laughter, a huge relief as they stood beneath what was a part of Arielle's haunting death.
It felt good to laugh again, and finally not feel that cumbersome guilt that snuck up on you when you were expecting a more benevolent remorse. They were getting off their tiptoes, finally feeling sure-footed again in the wake of a groundless loss.
She wrung out her hair as she leaned into him, and he kissed the top of her head, humming again that simple music that made her smile as they waltzed in the middle of nowhere, among nature's garden, in a random thunderstorm that had come abruptly but appropriately. "If all the snowflakes were candy bars and milkshakes, oh what a snow it would be…"
TYWY
Grandma Lucille and Grandpa Jack looked thrilled to see their only grandchild, and their only son, and the practical daughter-in-law they had missed for so long. "You look terrific!" Lucille exclaimed to a bashful, damp Gabriella, who imagined hugging her mother when they embraced in the Boltons' Albuquerque driveway. She had yet to call Theresa, but she would soon. When she got her strength back. "Oh, sweetie, I am so glad to see you," Lucille insisted, watching her husband greet Troy and Harris. "Troy has needed you, with every passing day after things fell apart, when you kids were young. He would never admit it, but Troy couldn't get on much longer without you there."
"I didn't want you to leave, either. I kind of, sort of, really need you to be in my life. I don't know how I went for so long without you." Gabriella smiled to herself, and decided to keep that conversation a secret, just for the two of them. She nodded at Lucille and said, "I'm happy to back. It was getting too hard to pretend I didn't miss them."
As Harris unpacked his bags, he thought of the Polaroid Arielle had found in their father's closet, the one of Gabriella at the Autumn Social some several years ago. She was smiling, off to the side in Troy's direction, and he missed the photograph all of the sudden. He missed proof of his parents' happiness before all of this, before him, before the many confessionals, which he still couldn't face all on his own. "You all right?" Troy asked, sidling next to him. They surveyed the damage, the bags filled with memories and emptiness and promises and anguish.
"I told Mom," Harris began, his voice breathy and his hands reaching for the box of his sister's ashes, "that I was a miserable fifteen-year-old, right around the time she came back to New York. It was a flawed revelation. I was just being dramatic. Like Ari." Troy winced, still sensitive to the name. "I think I was trying to let her know how much I hated her for a long time. How much I despised the idea of trying to find her, and loved it at the same time so I could give her a big fat fuck you, and then we found Gabriella, and I traded places with Arielle. I ended up loving Mom, and she hated her, and she hated you, and I got around to thinking maybe you weren't that bad."
An arrow ran through Troy's chest, and he breathed in the scent he imagined Arielle carried with her, wherever she was now. He remembered the conversation with Gabriella, about what made you a bad person—the things you did or did not do. "I wish I could have been different. That's a long time to keep pretending nothing was wrong with a crappy parent."
Harris nodded at the box in his arms. "That's a long time to go without the person you want to be with, so, I guess we're even. Mom's pretty great now." This was almost a lie—he still harbored bitter feelings, for the abandonment, the physical lack of a mother and the psychological deficiency in his father. But he decided to be patient, to wait for the destination he had once thought would never come. On this journey, he knew he was a few steps ahead of his parents, both crazy in love and crazy in life, and that he would need to stick around and let them catch up once in a while. If anything, Harris decided to do this for Arielle, who was the reason for all of it. For the fortune cookies, for the power outage that swept her up into a dust pan and carried her away, for the fire, for the rain, for the kisses, for the reunion.
Arielle had a purpose in life, and it was in the way that she gave up hers.
"I can see it now," Troy said, smiling. "Harris Bolton, star author, with a new memoir coming out. You're pretty eloquent, even though it's your sister who had the way with words before."
They both felt a chill, one they thought perhaps was the wind and therefore decided not to announce, but it maybe was a passing spirit. The spirit of a smile, the spirit of a child, or perhaps, the spirit of Arielle. She had given him everything he claimed to have never wanted, and now he stood here, with an apologetic parent and ashes of the energy he knew he had felt. Harris closed his eyes, nodded, and said, "It's interesting that the soul sticks around until it finishes what it came here to do. Then it's time to go home."
Troy looked down at his son, and for once, didn't see Gabriella. The black curls belonged to Harris, as did the blue eyes and the tan skin and the lopsided grin. Troy saw his teenaged son, fifteen years old and still growing, and beamed. Arielle smiled from heaven, and Gabriella watched from the Boltons' front porch, feeling her old roots come to life again.
TYWY
"I don't feel like a tumbleweed anymore," Gabriella said, coming to sit beside Troy. He was in the backyard, holding a basketball, looking up at the hoop that was seldom used. The net was missing, and he could see the dent on the backboard, still there from a wild senior year.
"Why have you ever felt like a tumbleweed?" he asked, glancing at her.
"Sampson never became my home. It was a part of me, but I didn't feel cozy there, ever. Reaching the border here felt good." Gabriella looked down at her body, torso in a gray long-sleeved sweater, legs in hip-huggers (after a baby, she could fill those out like a gem), and feet in sneakers. She looked at Troy, in a t-shirt, jeans, and Converse. "We haven't changed, that much. And so Albuquerque is like this old, magical movie that I loved as a little kid. Right here, it's like we're eighteen, and I don't feel so old. That basketball is like a memento, and Harris is the Medal of Honor, and the setting sun is the same one we watched thirteen years ago."
Troy leaned forward and rolled the ball so it curbed at the grass line. "It's hard to let go of some things," he agreed, "so it's nice to know that not everything is different."
Jack, Lucille, and Harris watched from the window toward the back of the house. Harris exaggerated his distaste for their schmoozy interactions. Beside the kiss in the rain, Gabriella and Troy had only briefly embraced afterward. He was just being dramatic again, but this time, it was for fun.
"Oh, they're cute," Lucille said, clasping her hands and smiling.
"I'm not one for PDA," Jack said. He kissed his wife's temple and walked away, toward the kitchen, leaving his grandchild to revel in the way Troy and Gabriella so easily found themselves again.
The cement beneath them was hard on Gabriella's elbows as she reclined against the ground. Troy smiled, legs crossed like a little kid, and she said, "Only a few months ago we'd forgotten about one another."
Troy did an ashamed tut-tut of his tongue and looked at her, eyebrows furrowing. "How ever did we survive?"
"I don't know." She shrugged, and he leaned down, his breath hot on her face in the form of minty freshness. Gabriella smiled at his lips, perfect in their age and she said, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
"But that's so boring," Troy whined, and he turned his body around fully so he lay next to her, back facing the sky. He thought for a moment and utilized the one English lesson that he remembered from high school. "Shakespeare said the course of true love never did run smooth."
Eyes bright, Gabriella finally held his face and kissed him, her worries of being a mother, and being a good person, and making things meaningful melting away as she let herself lie in the coming rainstorm and be with the one person who made everything worthwhile. "You remembered that line, after all these years?" she asked, her cheeks flushed.
"It's the only explanation that could calm me after thirteen years without you. It suits us pretty well, don't you think?" She laughed and he pulled her into his lap.
From the house, Harris protested with a secret grin and Lucille patted his shoulder kindly. Jack smiled from his office upstairs, seeing his son's happiness, so late in season. Somewhere, Sharpay Evans was telling Ryan Evans "I told you so"; Chad and Taylor Danforth were celebrating with simple glasses of wine and affection. Above them, Arielle nodded approvingly, and wiped her hands on her jeans—angels could wear whatever they wanted in heaven—before turning back to the other beings who were waiting for her, patiently, to finish what she had gone to do.
Troy kissed Gabriella, fourteen times, and she figured it was his lucky jersey number. "No, no, not at all," he told her, his arms snaking around her waist. "Fourteen, for the thirteen years we spent apart, and for the new one to come, the one where we get that happy ending we were never promised."
"My, my, Troy Bolton," she said, fanning her face, "I've missed you."
And there was a simple grace to the way everything fell back into place, as his hand rested on the small of her back and she reached her arm up to hook around his neck once more. Tomorrow would bring more trials and triumphs; next week, Harris would be embarrassed by their silly, parental selves; some time in the future, there would be a falling out, and it would take a few days for him to get back into her good graces—but she would only be teasing him by then. This moment, on the basketball court with bodies singing as they blended together, did not bring perfection, but by itself, it was harmonious.
She knew there would be bridges to build again, and he was well aware of the fact that they would have some difficulties getting back into the rhythm of living together. In time, they would have their second chance and reach the happy ending they were never promised, with two wedding rings and thoughts of another baby and songs to sing as they basked in the sunshine of each other, as they had the number thirteen to remind them why they were together. It was the symbol of the war they won, the symbol of Arielle, the symbol of Harris, and the symbol of times to come. The course of true love never did run smooth, but they could learn from all of it. They had this time, together, and for the people after them to go through the same struggles, they wished them luck. Troy reached for the gold chain Gabriella had replaced around her neck, and let it fall between his fingers. He knew not to break it this time—she would hide no longer, after thirteen years of hurting, learning, resolving, and healing.
A/N- Questions? Review, guys and gals. This has been amazing; in the end, I'm happy with the story. Until next time, -love- Desireé