Author's Note: You all make me so happy with your reviews! Thankee sai!

Now, methinks there are some three/four chappies left for this fic? If that. I can sort of feel the story drawing to a close, almost of its own accord. But we shall see! Sorry this chappie is kind of dialogue-heavy. That's something I need to work on.

Disclaimer: I just can't.

Chapter 18

I Should Tell You

Sharpay

It was day two of Sharpay's incarceration.

She reclined on Gabriella's bed that Sunday afternoon, jotting down her thoughts and feelings in an old Hello Kitty notebook she had found. Said thoughts and feelings comprised mainly of insightful observations such as, 'Ms. Darbus looks like an over-stuffed owl when she's mad', 'Mrs. Montez looked pretty in that brown jacket' and 'Gabriella is a big fat stupid head.'

Neither Darbus nor her mother until further notice had bought into her brilliant performance. They tag-teamed Sharpay as soon as the day was over, chiming that they were disappointed in her, she had killed the day and some such nonsense. Gabriella and Ryan escaped soon after the fight and she was glad not to have heard from them since.

After Darbus's tongue-lashing, Sharpay had been handed over to Mrs. Montez whose rhetoric was more or less the same, except for a "You're grounded" at the end.

But she did not mind that much. As angry as she was, there remained a sparkle in her eyes, a cheerful flush in her cheeks.

Michael Alman stayed long after everyone had gone- he had to help them clean up, of course. And while Sharpay endured Marie's commenting that "Evans is one psychotic biatch", the two washed dishes.

Mother Evans' presence had neither tainted their day, nor prevented Mr. Alman from asking Mrs. Montez if she would like to see that new Scorcese flick.

"Um…yes," she had said. "I might. But I'm not too big on going to movies alone."

"I meant with me," he had laughed.

"Oh! Then…yes! Definitely yes." And she murmured 'yes' a few more times after that, as if all the other words in the English language had deserted her.

Sharpay grinned and snapped the notebook shut. Her work was just about done.

"Gabriella?" A quiet knock on the door before Mrs. Montez entered. "You have a visitor," she said significantly and stepped out of the doorway.

Sharpay frowned, puzzled. She assumed that the stipulations of her grounding had excluded visitors.

Sharpay's heart sank when her rather sheepish-looking self entered the room.

Gabriella

"Ryan, Ryan, Ryan…"

Gabriella had stood outside of Ryan's bedroom, tapping on the door and calling his name for a half hour in a desperate attempt at seeing to him. It was only when Mrs. Evans appeared in her negligee, with her face covered in avocado, and hissed at her to go to bed that she finally retreated.

The next morning she tried just barging into his room in the hopes that it was unlocked. It was, but Ryan wasn't there.

And so she whiled away the hours, pacing Sharpay's bedroom.

Guilt and Gabriella did not mesh well. She wasn't used to feeling guilty about anything because she had never done anything worthy of great remorse. But kissing Ryan as Sharpay, that made her feel really bad.

She could understand his being freaked out. If she had a sibling that tried to kiss her she would run away, too. And if this was how Ryan reacted, she dreaded to think on Sharpay.

When it became clear that biting her nails and waiting would not bring him back, Gabriella decided to confess to Sharpay and enlist her help in finding him…

"Hello, Sharpay," said Mrs. Montez when she appeared in the doorway.

Gabriella was slightly taken aback, and not at her prim tone. Her mother looked different. Nothing had changed on the outside. The Sunday afternoon attire (khaki pants and a vest, hair tied back) remained the same. Her always prompt answering of the door remained the same. Her face remained the same. But she looked different. Good different.

It made Gabbie happy, above everything else she felt.

"Hello, Mrs. Montez," she said quietly. "I'm here to…apologize to you. And Gabriella. For yesterday. It really wasn't her fault at all. I was just having a bad day and I took it out on her. I'm sorry."

A sigh. "I know you are, Sharpay. But sorry isn't good enough sometimes. I just wish you girls would bury the hatchet."

"We'll try. If that's what will make you happy we'll try."

Mrs. Montez seemed a little befuddled at her earnestness, but she let her in all the same.

"Gabriella? You have a visitor."

She closed the door behind them and Gabbie stared at the space where she had been for a moment.

"What do you want?" she heard her voice intone.

Gabbie turned slowly and exhaled. "Sharpay, I'm going to tell you something, and you're going to be mad. But please, don't attack me."

She narrowed her eyes. "I uh…I did something bad."

Sharpay swung her legs over so that they dangled on the side of the bed. "Really? No! Not Golden Gabriella!"

She bit back the sour retort on her tongue and chose a remorseful, pitiful whisper…

"I kissed Ryan."

Sharpay

Sharpay sat stationary for a moment. Then she blinked. "You what?"

The Gabriella in her body seemed to steel herself. "I kissed Ryan."

She shook her head slowly. "I'm sorry. I haven't cleaned out your ears in a while. You what Ryan?"

"I kissed him, damn it!" Gabriella squealed.

Sharpay felt herself rise up off the bed, horror swelling up in her.

"You…kissed Ryan? As me? Ew!" She began to hop around feverishly. "Ew! Ew! Oh, sweet Lord, ew! What were you thinking?"

"I'm sorry!" Gabbie exclaimed. "I don't know what came over me. I just…I saw him. For the first time I really saw him. And I like him and I don't know what to do about it!"

She shook her head slowly. "Oh, my- it's bad enough that you like him! But now you have him thinking I'm all incestuous! Urgh!"

"Okay, stop freaking out! There's only one way to fix this, and that's to tell Ryan the truth. About the body swap and everything."

Sharpay hesitated. There really didn't seem to be any other course of action.

"All right. You're right. We find Ryan, tell him everything and…gha, I can't believe you would cheat on Troy!"

"Well, seeing as you broke us up, I didn't cheat!"

"So what? As soon as it's over you're off making out with another guy? You really are a swell girlfriend, you know that?"

Gabriella settled her hands on her hips. "I'm not going to justify that with a response."

Sharpay would have loved to stay and debate Gabbie's loyalty, but her brother was out there right now, thinking she was all hot for him.

"Do you have any idea where he might be?"

Her tongue worked into the side of her cheek astutely. She didn't just have an idea. Sharpay knew exactly where Ryan would be.

Gabriella

"The playground?" Gabbie inquired, quickening her pace to keep up with Sharpay's stride. "Why the playground?"

"Hell if I know," Sharpay said. "He just has this weird emotional tie to it."

The playground was a large, sandy patch complete with a swing set, monkey bars, a jungle gym and plastic rocking horses. It was located near East High, set up primarily for all the teacher's who didn't want to leave their children at home. Gabbie had never had any reason to visit it, but apparently this was Ryan's refuge. Maybe there were still things about him she had yet to find out.

Sure enough, they found him rocking gently on one the larger swings, staring at his shoes.

"Hey, Ry!" Sharpay as Gabriella spoke before Gabriella as Sharpay could.

Ryan stood and took a step back the minute he saw who he thought was his sister.

"What are you two doing here?"

"Don't run away again!" said Gabriella. "We're going to explain everything."

"Oh, right!" He nodded. "You're going to explain how you and Gabriella swapped bodies."

"It happened. And she's not Gabriella."

"You're insane."

"She's telling the truth," Sharpay piped up.

Ryan shook his head. "You're both insane!"

"Are we?" Sharpay challenged. "How did I know about the Idina shirt? And how could she not know if she were really me?"

He threw his hands up in the air. "Well, you're obviously conspiring against me! You got bored with torturing each other so now you're messing with my head!"

"Oh, stop being so paranoid! Look. We'll prove it. Ask me something you know only I could know! Something Sharpay would never have told Gabriella."

"Fine." He folded his arms. "What am I most afraid of?"

"Him from the Powerpuff Girls!"

"Okay. What's my greatest wish?"

She hesitated. "For our family to be together. Not just in one house. Actually together."

Ryan stared intently for a full minute before he spoke again. "This is can't be happening." He shook his head. "It's…crazy!"

"You are preaching to the converted."

Another lengthy silence before: "So it wasn't you-," he pointed at who he thought was Sharpay, "trying to make out with me."

Sharpay as Gabriella shook her head fervently. "That's a definite no!"

"It was you." He pointed at who he thought was Gabriella. "Which means Gabriella-" he went back to Gabriella as Sharpay, "is the one who tried to kiss me. Because you're Gabriella. Even though you look like Sharpay. So all this time I thought I was with my sister, I was with you."

"Good job wrapping your mind around that concept."

Gabriella nodded slowly and Ryan resolved to stare at her in silence, his expression blank.

"Everything looks different now…"

Mrs. Montez had only allowed Sharpay out of the house for a half hour and would be expecting her back soon. And so they took Sharpay back to the Montez residence in the pink convertible.

Outside of the house, Sharpay hugged her brother, and then Gabbie so that if Mrs. Montez was peering at them from inside the house, it would look like reconciliation.

Ryan and Gabbie drove back home in silence, but rather than being relieved, she felt tense.

When they pulled up into the driveway, he turned off the car and sat. Gabriella stared.

"Ryan? Don't you want to…say anything?"

He gave her a smile that was not a smile at all. It made her uneasy.

"You don't want to hear what I have to say." He turned and stared out the window.

"But I do. I want to know what you think about this! How you feel. How you feel about me."

She could feel that he was about to speak and after a while he did.

"All this time," his voice was hollow, "I thought my sister was the conniving one. And you, sweet, gorgeous, charming you could do no wrong. But you're just as bad. You're worse. Because at least Sharpay doesn't pretend."

He turned to look at her and Gabbie found herself recoiling. She had expected him to say something nice.

"Ryan-"

"Every time I told you something personal," his voice was heavy with disbelief, "About how I…how I felt about you. You were just laughing at me, weren't you? Poor Ryan with the sad little crush, prancing around after Sharpay in his sparkly outfits! Did it ever occur to you that maybe I like the way I dress?"

He had leaped so far from his previous train of thoughts that she was bewildered for a moment.

"Do you?" she said weakly.

"No! But you manipulated me. You took me shopping for things Gabriella would like to see me wear. And all along you knew!"

She tried, she really tried, but Gabbie could not keep her voice from trembling. "Nothing I did was meant to hurt you."

"Well, you seem to have an untapped gift for it!"

"Ryan.' She felt her eyes sting. "Don't be mad. You can't be mad at me. I didn't want all this to happen. I didn't want to like you."

"But you don't like me. You betrayed me. Don't!" Gabbie tried to touch his arm but he recoiled as if she had burned him.

He turned and practically kicked his way out. Ryan slammed the door on her for the second time in two days.

In a way Gabriella was relieved. She would have hated for him to see her cry.

A/N: Yep. He's pretty ticked off. But I think he has a right to it. He can't be expected to play Mr. Nice Spice forever!

So, yeah. That was quite a long one. Tell me what you think. Constructive criticism is welcome, but it must be adorned with the smiley faces!