AN: I swear this is the last short, boring chapter of the story. Don't worry. Next chapter is my faaaavorite so review this to get that one sooner. Haha.

Title: With You
Rating: T
Author: MadiWillow
Summary: Troy is married with a small daughter. Gabriella is married and pregnant. They didn't keep in touch after school following a nasty break-up, but everyone knows that true love never dies.
Genre: Drama/Romance
Chapter: Chapter 8

It was nine in the morning, and Gabriella had finally gotten Jackson to sleep. She placed him in his crib and waited to see if he would wake up again. When he didn't, she breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Glancing at herself in the mirror, she saw she looked hideous. Her hair was frizzy and half wavy, half straight. Her eyes had dark circles under them from a sleepless night, and it was only the first of many.

She slowly stumbled out of her room and down the stairs, into the kitchen were Troy was making pancakes. Lauren was sitting in her highchair, drinking sloppily from a cup of apple juice.

"Long night?" Troy asked, flipping a pancake.

"Very," Gabriella groaned and sank into a chair, putting her elbows on the table and her face in her hands. "I hope I didn't wake you," she said in a muffled voice.

"Don't worry about it," Troy responded, his voice suddenly closer. Gabriella looked up and saw him setting a platter of pancakes in front of her, complete with butter and syrup. "I figured you're probably hungry."

Gabriella nodded; she hadn't even noticed her hunger until Troy mentioned it. She grabbed her fork and cut into her food, shoving three pieces into her mouth at once. She looked up embarrassedly at Troy, realizing too late how disgustingly sloppy she was acting. She wiped at her mouth with a napkin.

If Troy noticed, however, he didn't let on. He cut up a small pancake into very tiny bites for Lauren and set the plastic plate in front of her. She squealed, "da-da!" before eating a piece.

Troy laughed. "Everything is 'da-da' to her," he informed Gabriella.

Gabriella smiled. "She's so cute."

Lauren yelled, "da-da!" again before eating another piece. The two adults laughed.

Suddenly Jackson's cry sounded from the baby monitor on the counter. Gabriella groaned in exasperation. Scolding herself for thinking that 'this mother thing' would be easy, she made to get up.

"No, wait here," Troy said, getting up first. "I'll get him."

"Oh, but-"

"Don't worry!" Troy assured her. "I'll take care of whatever he needs. And if he's hungry, I'll bring him down. You just relax and eat, okay?"

Gabriella was too tired to argue with Troy, so she relented and sat back down. Taking a sip of her orange juice, she thought about how lucky she was since Troy was with her. But it's so hard living with him... and not being able to be with him. She bit her lip. What was with that kiss the other night? Was that just him feeding his desires? Did it mean nothing? Her fingers grazed her lips, but she pushed the thoughts away.

By the time Troy was back down, Gabriella had finished her meal and was washing the dishes. "You didn't have to-" he started, but she cut him off.

"You helped me, I helped you," she smirked and Troy grinned back. "What did Jackson want?"

"He needed a diaper change. And then it took a while for him to fall back asleep. He'll probably be out for four or five hours before he's hungry again."

Gabriella nodded as she turned off the sink. "So. What do you and Lauren usually do during the day?"

Troy shrugged. "It depends. Sometimes we'll go out to eat or to the park. Other times we'll just hang out here." He glanced at his daughter. "Since Jackson's sleeping, we'll stay here."

"Sounds good to me."

The rest of the morning was spent with Gabriella playing with Lauren while Troy did housework. Gabriella and Lauren watched The Wiggles and Lauren attempted to dance along, but as she wasn't very advanced in the walking department, she usually just fell down. She took it with grace, however, and giggled every time it happened. Gabriella picked her up a couple of times and would dance along with her, not knowing that Troy would poke his head in and watch them for a couple of minutes.

Lunch time rolled around, and Jackson woke up. Gabriella retrieved him, a nursing blanket, and a burping cloth before going back downstairs. Troy was feeding Lauren some carrot baby food when she returned.

"Hungry?" he asked her.

"Yeah, I think so," she answered, sitting down and unstrapping her bra. Jackson immediately started to suckle and she covered him with the nursing blanket.

"No, I meant you," Troy corrected himself, his eyes twinkling.

"Oh." Gabriella laughed. "Um, I guess so. What do you have?"

"What do I have? Hah!" Troy mock-laughed. "I have everything. What do you want?"

She giggled. "Maybe I'll just have a turkey sandwich."

"Coming right up!" Troy leaned forward and used a wash cloth to clean Lauren's mouth, causing her to giggle happily. He removed her from her high chair and she clumsily walked over to Gabriella.

"Baby!" she cried gleefully, touching Jackson's soft head.

Jackson instantly started to cry loudly. Lauren retracted her hand and wobbled into the family room, where Dora the Explorer was currently on.

"Oh, Jackson, shh," said Gabriella softly. She strapped her nursing bra and held Jackson over her shoulder, patting his back. The baby continued crying loudly for a few minutes, before slowly calming down. She cradled him in her arms again and saw that he was still awake. His hazel eyes were absorbing their surroundings.

"Nice," observed Troy, nodding.

She smirked. "I learned from the best."

He smiled. The doorbell rang at that moment and Troy left to answer it. Gabriella made a face at Jackson and flicked his nose lightly. His scrunched up face just started back at her, unblinkingly. "When are you gonna start smiling?" She mused.

"She doesn't want to see you!" came Troy's loud voice from the front of the house. Gabriella looked up curiously. She listened and heard another familiar voice say, "What are you, her mother?"

Gabriella looked over at the family room, making sure that Lauren was still there, before walking through the kitchen into the foyer. "Troy, what-"

She stopped walking. Troy was standing in the doorway, blocking Nathaniel from entering his house. The latter was holding a wrinkled piece of paper in his hands and looked furious.

"Gabriella! Let me in, we need to talk!"

Gabriella kept her distance, holding Jackson tightly to her chest. "No," she replied in a shaky voice. "Nathaniel, go away."

Nathaniel shot daggers at her, and a second later noticed Jackson. Gabriella watched closely. His face didn't soften.

"Is that my child?" he asked curtly.

Gabriella shook her head. "He's not your son. I'm never letting you see him."

Nathaniel's face flushed. "You can't do that to me!" he roared.

Troy stepped into the doorway again and said, "Nathaniel, I'm going to call the police if you don't leave, now."

Nathaniel took a few deep breaths through his nose before saying, "Okay. I get it. I'll calm down. But Gabriella... can I talk to you alone, for a minute?"

"No," said Troy immediately, but Gabriella cut in.

"Sure. Just for a minute."

Troy turned to look at her and she nodded simply. Troy glanced at Nathaniel quickly and then walked towards Gabriella. He took Jackson from her and just as he started walking away from her, she felt something hard and cold slide into her hand. She clasped her hand around it and folded her arms over her chest, walking into the threshold to face Nathaniel.

"Gabriella, honey," he started, with forced calm. "You know that I love you, don't you? I'm sorry about the birth, but I couldn't get off work."

"Oh, but you could now?" she asked curiously.

"Well, I mean, you were divorcing me! I had to do something!" he defended himself.

"I see," she said, narrowing her eyes. "So it was more important to stop our divorce than to see your son being born?"

A muscle in Nathaniel's mouth twitched. "Look, Gabriella," he said firmly. "I love you. Don't divorce me. We can work through this."

"Well, Nathaniel, that's the problem," said Gabriella, lowering her voice. "I don't love you, I will divorce you, and I don't want to work through this."

"You bitch," Nathaniel growled. "You can't divorce me."

"You already said that to me," she sighed. "And I'm still doing it."

Nathaniel glared at her before glancing at the papers in his hand, which Gabriella noticed were the divorce papers. He looked back at her. "I see you took all of yours and the baby's stuff."

"That's right, I did."

"You know that our pre-nup said in the divorce I get what I earned and you get what you earned, right?" he sneered. "I bought you all of that stuff. You have nothing. I'm suing you for them.

And since you have no job and will have nothing, I'm suing you for sole legal and physical custody." He looked down at her triumphantly.

"You are, are you?" she said, unconcerned. "Well then, that should make for an interesting court case."

"Why would that be?" he asked.

She uncrossed her arms to reveal Troy's cell phone. Nathaniel didn't notice what she was doing until she had flipped open the phone and started searching for Troy's recorded calls. She found his, turned up the volume, and played it for him. As he listened in horror to his words of adultery being played back to him, she took a couple steps back so she was out of his reach.

When the conversation ended, Gabriella flipped the phone shut and shoved it into her pocket, while studying Nathaniel. His mouth was opened and gaping as he stared at the ground. After a moment she cleared her throat and his eyes snapped up to hers. Immediately his face turned red.

"That doesn't prove anything."

She folded her arms again. "Oh, yes it does, and you know it." She stepped closer to him, narrowing her eyes and lowering her voice dangerously. "If you want to sue me, go ahead and try. I dare you. But just to warn you: you will be ruined. You will lose everything. So you can either give me my stuff and my son, or everything. Take your pick."

Nathaniel glared at her for a long time, but Gabriella held her gaze. She stared him in the eyes, silently telling him to sue her, until he finally looked away. He turned sharply on his heel and stormed down the walkway, into his expensive car, and sped away.

Gabriella shut the door behind her and leaned against it, breathing out in relief. He was gone. Forever.