A/N: Before you read, I really, really want to take the time to thank everyone out there reading right now. I'm kinda going through a rough time at the moment, and just people being there to be supportive means a lot. I know this story can be confusion, twisted, or messed up, but you have no idea how much I value my readers. I'm sorry it's not always perfect, but I'm really trying as hard as I can. Maybe I'm not putting out like I used to be able to, but really I'm trying so hard. And I feel incredibly guilty for not posting as much as I used to be able to. But really, you guys reading... just wow. Thank you. I can not describe how greatful I am. Even through everything, you guys have been there and just... thank you.

Anyways, I'm sorry for that, but I don't feel that I credit you guys enough. You're what makes this story worth the write, so again, thank you.

Everything was falling apart.

A semi truck was dismembering Troy's chest, causing his empty lungs to be crushed beneath the immense pressure. He felt as though his entire being was being stripped from humanity. A walking egg shell with no substance inside. Emptiness had now replaced his vital organs, at least all but one. It was ironic that the one organ that actually functioned the reborn beat inside his chest. It seemed to be the only thing that caused his eyes to open in the morning, the only thing that caused him to fight through the death that was eating at him.

That was caused by the gorgeous angel holding his hand in the waiting room.

Troy's shaking leg bound from the smoky carpet. His ghostly eyes were a contrast to the neutral grey surrounding the walls. It wasn't the old secretaries with glasses that looked more like bug eyes than something to aid them in seeing that scared him. It wasn't the white coated doctors that examined him as though he was a science experiment that made his knee shake uncontrollably. It was nothing of that. The check up itself wasn't what made his insides want to turn. It was the tiny, yet deadly pointed death stick waiting for him. The shot.

"You're scaring me." Her silk voice whispered in his ear, causing trembles down his spine when her luscious lips grazed his earlobe. His fluid filled head swiveled mechanically towards the tiny figure next to him. Gabriella's normally blemish-free features looked as though it was killing her as much as it was murdering him. Guilt added to Troy's blood streaming, causing his veins to threaten to explode. Why was he doing this to her?

He needed her to come with him today. He needed to see her porcelain face to know that everything was going to be ok when they brought him into the room where they would carefully inject him. Just knowing that Gabriella would be sharing the same air as him was enough to give him the strength he needed. "I just…"

Troy's vibrating voice box was cut from existence when he saw the swinging glass door open. The sun behind the woman who stepped inside caused a halo that he was positive she did not deserve. Her luscious black hair was draped across her expensive leather jacket, smooth as silk. He didn't even notice his fingers entwined with Gabriella's clenched at the sight. Anger was present in his now clean system, even though he knew this was not her fault. She couldn't have controlled when the government demanded a physical, but it was helpful to put the blame on someone, and Sydney was good enough for him.

"Sorry I'm late." Her truly apologetic voice sliced through the dead air when she approached the silent couple. Troy reflexively glanced at the clock to see she was all of five minutes behind schedule. As his head returned to its former position, he noticed Gabriella's midnight eyebrows scrunched in an adorable confusion.

It took a moment before he realized that the question in Gabriella's eyes came from the fact that she had no idea who Sydney was. Oh, he forgot about that. This was not a situation he wanted to deal with right now while a dangerous weapon was in the other room waiting impatiently for him. But he knew it was just going to be done none the less.

"Whatever. It doesn't matter. You're here now," Troy murmured distantly before shooting another glance at Gabriella's confusion. "Oh, Syd, this is Gabriella."

He watched as Gabriella politely stood from the uncomfortable chair she was in moments before, smiling coyly. Sydney, on the other hand, was beaming brightly as though she had just opened her first present Christmas morning as a five year old. With a quick, excited glance shot towards Troy, she knowingly looked at Gabriella and knew immediately that she was well aware of Gabriella's significance to Troy. It was written in the way their bodies moved together, even when they weren't touching. It seemed to be a natural reflex that they would shift to shape each other. Or the gazes that seeped through their tough skins and followed the trails to their hearts that were only meant to beat for the others.

She looked as though she were his mother meeting his girlfriend for the first time. Troy swore she was going to run to the seventeen year-old and give her a hug. She probably would have too if Troy wouldn't have killed her later. "Gabriella! It's so nice to meet you… I'm Sydney Troy's…"

"Mom's work partner," His heart sped to a sprinting speed while the lie spilled out of his throat. It was complete bullshit, but he couldn't let that slip. He could not be that vulnerable. He couldn't let her in on that secret, no matter how much it killed him. "My mom couldn't make it."

Sydney's acorn eyes shifted from Gabriella's perfect features to Troy's horror stricken face. It was the slight twitch of his head to the side to prove that he had not told Gabriella anything about his mother. With that, Sydney's sickly loving smile turned to Gabriella again. Troy could throw up at that. Why did she have to act like an annoying older sister? Why couldn't he just crawl into a hole and never come out? Then he wouldn't have to get this needle stuck inside him.

"It's nice to meet you." For once Gabriella's voice sounded shy and scared. It dawned painfully on him that she wasn't that way because she was meeting Sydney, she was like that because she was fearful for Troy.

"There was type O everywhere," Two deep voices filled the silence of the grey toned waiting room. Troy's muscular body suddenly tensed at the sound. His heart beat irregularly as he slowly spun around to see two men in white coats enter the room with a clipboard in one's hand. "The mirror shattered on impact with the skin. It made a slice across the abdominal."

Their voices were low, yet if one listened closely, they could understand. Troy was not one of those people. Instead, his stomach was threatening to upturn his golden cereal. Everything was coming down to this moment, and his body was trembling with such a force it could have caused a cosmic avalanche to one of the looming mountains outside.

"Troy Bolton?" A kind voice from the other doctor with silver rimmed glasses asked. The ball of salvia stationed in Troy's mouth would not be forced down as he attempted to swallow his fear. Violently shaking, he turned to his girlfriend, since Sydney would be following and waiting outside the examination room. He was too fearful of what was to come in the next few minutes that he didn't even notice the girl's slender body was frozen into a block of ice with her eyes petrified.

"Thank you… you being here means… god you don't even know," he whispered before placing a soft kiss onto her icy lips. Gabriella's eyes continued to stare distantly past him, as though she did not recognize his face. A final realization that something was wrong crossed him. Another round of pain in the pit of his stomach. "Gabi?"

"Troy," Sydney tried to coax, probably not noticing how Gabriella's demeanor changed because she was never around her. "Troy come on."

But he was glued to the spot, knowing that his reassurance had been murdered just by the horrified look on Gabriella's face. Though it seemed to take all of her energy, Gabriella finally turned to him and opened her dry mouth, the emotionless tone slipping through the crack of her lip. "I'll be here waiting. I promise."

Never wanting to let her go, Troy was forced to remove his hand from her arm and towards the back room. A new fear dawned through his now vulnerable veins.

What just happened?

Just don't say a word.

That was the plan. Don't let any noises slip from her horse throat and everything would be ok. If she didn't say anything to anger him, he would not lash out the worst. Fear trembled through her growing muscles on her legs. The uncomfortable position in the front seat was the least of her worries. He was driving too fast down the black iced road. The worn down tires refused to stick to the frozen highway. It seemed as though her life was in jeopardy. Not that it wasn't everyday anyways.

Gabriella was alone. Completely and utterly abandoned. Three days ago, she seemed to have it all. Now? She lost her best friend since as long as she could remember over one guy. And that guy? Yeah, she couldn't even talk to him. Her cell phone hadn't rung once for the rest of the weekend, even though she called Taylor just about every hour to try to explain. Of course, her former best friend refused to answer the phone. Gabriella felt hot tears burn in her eyes.

"What's wrong with you?" A deep, uncaring voice questioned harshly, immediately causing Gabriella to absorb the tears that threatened to fall. He could not see her cry, for that could only make him fume, even though he was already past fuming.

She was too chicken to look into the rock face. His narrowed black eyes were focused on the road, but they were unseeing. If she had to guess, she would have hypothesized that his mind was on the worst argument in the history of the household. Gabriella was probably running on a half hour of sleep. The rest of the night was devoted to nervous tears running down her face at the thought of her mother ending up in the hospital for the third time in the past month. The "accidents" were coming at a regular basis now. So much that she could feel the threaten of a cosmic blow up in the depths of her stomach.

"Nothing." Gabriella spoke softly as though he was a slumbering giant she did not want to disturb.

Jose snorted irritated, causing Gabriella to clutch her track bag closer to her body. Why couldn't her mother have picked her up from track instead? The day had been bad enough from the fact that no one seemed to talk to her except Chad and Ryan. Everyone else was too jealous that Troy Bolton asked her to the dance and not them. "You're just like your fucking mother."

Gabriella bit her bottom lip and centered her dark chocolate eyes on the bright street lamps causing a ghostly glow on the white snow capped mountains.

"Everything I've done for her, and the bitch is so ungrateful. I didn't have to come pick you up," he ranted poisonously. Gabriella knew he was fearful from the fact that her mother threatened to call the police last night in the argument. That only accomplished a kick in the gut, from what Gabriella heard. "But neither of you can fucking say thank you. Is that too much to ask?"

By not saying anything Gabriella believed then he would just blow off the steam. At least that's what she hoped.

"Answer me!" Her father roared, causing her body to become one with the ice outside. His hollow eyes were torn from the road, forcing themselves on Gabriella's body. A ripple of alarm crawled over her skin. She could foresee the painful blow she would be receiving. His angry eyes narrowed dangerously, a serpent ready to strike when it got the chance.

It never got that chance.

Neither had seen the large bulldozing snowplow that raced towards them through the slippery blizzard surrounding them. The front bumper on the tiny car was no match for the sharp edges of the scoop. Before Gabriella had realized what was happening, her slender body slammed against the choking strand of her seat belt. All to quick to blink, the small vehicle flipped three times in the air like a trapeze artist, before crashing to the ground causing it to end upside down. An unregistered panic level coursed through Gabriella's body as her sympathetic nervous geared into action. Her pupils dilated to the point where her entire orbs became night and her heart raced to a thousand beats per second.

Sharp window glass shattered as the car crumpled like a toy. Icy wind rushed through the whole, though Gabriella didn't feel that. She was too focused on the sudden burning sensation as three jagged blades of the windshield sliced through the thin powdered blue sweatshirt she was wearing. Immediately, the warm liquid stained a purple sloppiness into the fabric.

Gabriella's eyes violently slammed shut in sync with the ear splitting screech that cut her burning throat. It wasn't until after the sound escaped that she realized it came from her own mouth. Death was sure to come, Gabriella was certain. The scorching pain on the surface of her stomach was so unbearable that she was sure all of her contents would spill out. Helpless and trailing acidic tears, her head swiveled to the side with her breath coming in short gasps.

"Dad?" Her desert throat croaked, before her eyes grew to the size of two large moons. "DAD!" The clock on life was ticking away in the distance.

But it wasn't hers, it was the pale, lifeless form in the driver's seat next to hers that was only hanging on by a thread.

Gabriella had no idea how she ended up sitting in the uncomfortable waiting room chair again.

Her midnight eyes blinked to clear the vivid memory from her eyes, desperate to rid of it. The slim body quavered to the point where she could feel the contents of her stomach threatened to rise in her dry throat. The face. The nightmare that stayed dormant in her dreams for so long finally resurfaced. Thoughts of her father flooded her memory, frying her tear filled orbs.

She couldn't remember anything after the doctors came in to remind her of the car accident that stole her father's life away. Gabriella's thousand pound breath slowed and her nervous eyes darted quickly from left to right. When did Troy leave? Where was he? She felt more alone in her life than ever before. Slowly, her slender legs pulled up to her chest to hug tightly, as tough she was hugging her sanity.

Why now? Why in the middle of the doctor's office when her boyfriend needed her desperately that she would have such a nightmare? Her spinning mind was crowded now of the piercing feeling of the glass striking her stomach. Maybe it was the panic for Troy that caused this to resurface. Maybe there was only so much pressure a girl could handle until she finally snapped, like just now. Or maybe she had been hiding this to not think about it for so long that now everything was toppling down on her. Pressure was a cruel thing.

She would be a liar to say that she wasn't upset when her father died on the few short minutes to the hospital that night. His seatbelt hadn't been attached, which caused him to soar through the surprisingly breakable windshield. Through everything he did, it seemed to level her emotions. In one hand, she never had to fear for her life again. But in the other, it he had given her twenty-three chromosomes. He was half of her, and as much of a monster as he was, in some form, she hadn't wanted him to go. Which was why she pushed all thoughts of him out of her brain. Tried to stay numb as long as possible.

Until today, thanks to the tension welded in her body of weeks that finally exploded. It seemed inevitable that as soon as she started messing with her emotions with Troy, they were going to come out some time. After everything, it seemed that now it was bubbling over. Troy's pain seemed to bring her own pain out as well, and all it needed was the fuse to be lit, which the doctor's carried the torch.

"Gabriella?" A screechy voice that sounded more like nails on a chalkboard interpreted her racing thoughts. Slowly, her ponderous head lifted to see a bug-eyed woman with orange lipstick and mud hair beaming at her. "Are you Gabriella?" The only thing Gabriella could do was nod solemnly, still blinded by the image of her dying father. "Mr. Bolton requested that you followed me."

The only words that could be registered in her head were "Mr. Bolton". Troy. She was here for Troy, remember? The little strength she had in her powerful legs caused her to stand. For a half hour she had to attempt to push aside all the thoughts that had been reborn into her brain and focus on Troy. He needed her. She tried to remember the image of his tormented face, but instead she could only see Jose's blood pooling on the frozen concrete.

Gabriella followed the nurse in a hypnotic daze through the colorless door frame. She unseeingly passed the coated doctors, talking about lunch or a patient they had to work on. It was not a hospital, so there was no running around frantically to save lives. This was calm, yet the tension in the air was so astronomical that Gabriella found her breath was coming in short gasps. "This normally isn't allowed, but the guardian with him requested it," The nurse explained with a small frown on her face. This did not process in Gabriella's mind. "In here."

She dragged her feet into the only room with color. It was a periwinkle coated walls, with a small counter were another elderly woman frowned at the thin seventeen year old. Gabriella didn't notice. All she could see was the nurse leading her into a tiny room with an electric green chair off to the side. Sitting in the chair was an object that looked as though they were going to strap wires to him and send volts through his system.

His face was petrified, carved in stone. Gabriella noticed his head didn't turn when she came in the room, but she didn't make an effort to get his attention. Their expressions seemed to mimic each others, lifeless and cold. The air in the room was almost causing icicles on the windows. It only took a few short strides before Gabriella ended up in the chair next to him. Both stared hollowly straight in front of them, though the mechanical reflex of Troy's hand slithered through Gabriella's, squeezing tightly. It was the only motion that either one were still alive.

"Ok… well then… if you could just hold out your arm…" A different nurse with sunshine hair tied tightly in a ponytail and a caring face requested of him. Gabriella stole a glance sideways at the exact same time as Troy did, and the power nearly knocked both of them over.

It was contrasts. His blinding white eyes opposing her midnight black eyes. Their chairs almost flew backwards unable to control the eruption of passion. The both nurses and Sydney shot glances unseen by the two. There was a connection that no one else would ever understand. Through pain and torture, the two found the little strength in their bodies to keep breathing, as long as they had each other to lift from the ashes.

Trembling, Troy holds out his arm but doesn't loose sight of Gabriella's colorless pits. Not a word slipped through any human's mouth as the blonde nurse tightly tied a red large rubber band around his bicep. Gabriella watched in horror as Troy closed his eyes, like the rubber band was a wire and he was in an electric chair. "This will barely hurt."

Gabriella's broken eyes never left his, but she noted the glint of something sharp in her peripheral vision. In one fluid motion, the nurse dropped her hand and suddenly an explosion of silent pain ripped through his body. The volt switch was turned on.

The blood rushed swiftly from his face and his entire body strained to control his vibrations. Gabriella watched horrified as his razor sharp teeth drilled into his pale bottom lip. He was holding back screams, she could tell. If there was any energy left in her, she tried to tighten her grip on his hand, but did not deny that her thoughts were still clouded by her father's face.

As quickly as it happened, it was over. Troy's body fell limp and the nurse swiftly covered the wound site with a beige band-aid. Gabriella own hand was trembling now in fear of what had just happened. She was certain that on a level, Troy and just been stabbed and died. Her mind, the one that was attempting not to focus on the memories, reeled back to remember the first time they had done something sexual. She walked back into memory lane to remember his lifeless face that was nothing compared to the torture now. The movie. Locked in a haunted hospital. He had freaked out when a flash of a silver light lit up the screen.

The connection was made, and Gabriella now understood why he was so petrified to come today. It was a phobia that had controlled him. The confirmation in his distorted, yet concerned features was evident. Troy was afraid of needles. The only question now was… why? "Troy… Gabriella…"

Her thoughts began to play tug of war. One side was fighting to stay with Troy and be there for him through this obvious desperate time of need. The other though? Still stuck in the frozen car. She didn't even realize that bottling the emotions up and keeping them hidden about her father until now was so dangerous. She recognized how Troy felt everyday, haunted by memories. "Are you ok?" Gabriella's strong side questioned in a twisted voice when Troy slowly began to rise from the chair.

"Are you?" His low and dangerous tone threatened to break.

Neither said anything, but it was known to both. The answer was simple.

No.