Author's Note: I stayed up way past my ten o'clock bedtime (can you believe I still have a bedtime?), desperate to post this! Only for the site to tell me there was a technical glitch and I couldn't login to post! But anyway. I've done it now!

This Friday I'm off to a cultural weekend at a school like six hours away. So the epilogue shall be posted soon after this, so it's all sorted before I go. Love ya, dudes!

Disclaimer: Oh, why not! For old times sake!

…

Chapter 24

Curtain Call

Sharpay

Sharpay didn't ever have flying dreams. Falling dreams rather. Arriving at school in nothing but pink stilettos dreams.

That night, however, she flew. She flew away from the Montez house, over the grand white construction that was East High, past the gym and the public swimming pool and Ryan's playground. She descended to the Bolton residence and floated outside Troy's room, where he lay sprawled out on the bed. She kissed the windowpane before soaring up again, over the mountains and expanses of sand…

As the alarm clock screeched in her ear, Sharpay groaned. Monday morning.

Shar rubbed her eyes groggily. She felt a little weird. Everything seemed…lighter. She frowned a little but kept her eyes shut against the sun fighting to get through. Slowly, she put her hands to her face. She felt the mouth, placed the tips of her fingers over the nose. Her hands drifted up to the hair. Sharpay allowed her eyelids to open, a millimeter at a time.

When she found herself staring up at the canopy of her own bed, Sharpay was seized by a tremor of laughter. She shook her head and allowed the hilarity to bubble up into a loud guffaw. A wave of relief and disbelief and sorrow swept over her so that she could hardly breathe.

Sharpay threw the bedcovers off and sprang out of bed. She stared around the large, pink sparkly bedroom, half-laughing and crying and touching herself. Herself!

From behind Sharpay's bedroom door, a banshee-like shriek could be heard.

A second later, the door was flung open and Ryan burst into the room. Sharpay beamed at him, continuing to touch her hair, pat her face, touch her chest. And then she realized what a weird thing that was to do in front of her brother so she stroked her stomach instead.

Ryan stood there, puzzled.

"Gabriella?"

"Ryan," she choked.

"Yeah?"

She threw her arms open. "Ryan!"

He stared at her for a moment before…"Sharpay?"

"Yeah!"

"Sharpay?!"

"Yeah!"

"No way!"

"Yes way!"

Sharpay raced forward, flung herself at her brother and proceeded to hug the life out of him. A few blocks away, Gabriella had woken up.

Gabriella

Gabriella leaped around her bedroom like a doe, overcome with silent hysterics. If it were possible to die of pure joy, she would be very dead just then.

When she woke up that morning and realized where she was, who she was, the first thing she could think of was Dorothy coming back from Oz. Ryan had been her Scarecrow and Troy would have to be the Tin Man (he had a heart, it just didn't beat for her) and Sharpay, the ferocious but ultimately harmless Lion. Mrs. Evans would be the Wicked Witch and Ms. Darbus was doubtlessly Glinda. For some reason Martha kept popping into her head as Toto…

Gabriella shook her head to clear it of these bizarre musings. She was back. Back in her home, in her bed, in her body. Her body! Gabriella smoothed her hands over her torso, her thighs. Her hair. Oh, she loved her hair! She never it knew it was possible to love follicles so deeply.

But despite all her happiness, Gabbie's mind drifted back to the title character in the film. Oz. LuLing. They had to see LuLing. How could this have happened?

She paced the room, scratching her head in confusion. While Gabriella no longer felt anything remotely close to hatred for Sharpay, she certainly did not love her. They had to find LuLing. This could just be a temporary glitch…

"Gabriella?" Her mother's voice floated up from the kitchen. Gabbie beamed. "Hurry up and get dressed!"

She sprinted out of her room, down the stairs and into the kitchen, where Mrs. Montez was making eggs, humming quietly.

Unabashed, Gabriella ran and practically tackled the woman. She squeezed her hard around the shoulders.

"I missed you so much!" she murmured into her shoulder.

Mrs. Montez froze in surprise before relaxing into the embrace. "Have I…been gone?"

"No. But I have. In the…figurative sense, of course."

"Um…okay. Well, I'm glad to have you back, Gabriella," she grinned. "You must be hungry after your journey. Get changed, then you can eat. And when you get back from school we'll have a nice big dinner, okay?"

"Definitely!" Finally, she released her and hopped back a bit.

"What'll I make?" Mrs. Montez chuckled. "Quesedillas?"

She nodded fervently. "Thanks." Gabriella turned and skipped back to the doorway. "Oh, and Mum?" she stopped and turned.

"Mm-hm?"

"Can we invite the Almans?"

Her smile grew from ear to ear. "Definitely."

Sharpay

Sharpay and Ryan stood on the steps of East High, watching out for Mrs. Montez's car. Ryan seemed unable to control the tapping of his foot.

Shar thought it pretty weird in a good way that while her brother thought about the love of his adolescent life, she was thinking about that love's ex-boyfriend. An ex-boyfriend Sharpay happened to be in love with herself. Because life just wasn't complicated enough.

So while Sharpay rejoiced over the return to her body, a quiet niggling voice in the back of her mind chanted, "Troy, Troy, Troy". Now she could no longer hide behind the Gabbie mask. She had to put herself on the line for him all over again, completely and honestly, as Sharpay, the crazy melodramatic bitch that adored him. But what plagued Sharpay most was the fear of whether or not he would accept her for who she really was.

Sharpay was so lost in thought that she only noticed Gabriella when she leaped into Ryan's grasp.

She grimaced and looked around aimlessly, waiting for them to come up for air. It was starting to seem like the two would simply go on kissing until they suffocated. She rolled her eyes. Students were stopping in their tracks and staring, jaws hanging.

"Jeez Louis." Sharpay could not look right at Ryan because then she would see Gabriella attached to him. She stared around the general vicinity of his head instead. "Ease up already! She's not going to evaporate."

As if her voice had dragged them back to reality, Ryan and Gabriella immediately separated.

"Sharpay!" Gabbie grinned sheepishly. "I didn't see you there!"

"Of course, you didn't." She put a hand on her hip. "So you're you again."

"And you're you."

They stared at each other uncertainly, and for a moment Ryan was the forgotten one. He cleared his throat to remind them of his presence.

"I'm gonna head to homeroom," he told Gabbie. "I think you two have some stuff to say to each other."

Gabriella nodded and pecked him quickly on the lips before he turned and floated away.

Sharpay sighed audibly. "So I guess you two are a thing now."

"Yep. Guess we are."

"Well, don't sound so happy about it!"

"Um…okay. Sorry. I'll try to sound as miserable as possible from now on."

"Thanks." Despite her somewhat terse tone, Sharpay smiled a little. Gabbie reciprocated it. "Well, I guess the show's over then, huh?"

"Kinda crazy, huh?" Sharpay nodded. Gabbie hesitated. "I'm…glad. I think. That this happened. If it hadn't, I don't think I ever would have found Ryan."

"Yeah. And I would have never made out with Troy!"

Gabbie's tongue worked into her cheek wryly. "Well. I guess it's only fair that you get Troy now."

"I have your blessing?" She tried hard not to sound as grateful as she felt.

"Sure. And since you're probably going to be his new girlfriend and all, maybe you could tell him about me and Ryan?"

Sharpay pursed her lips. "Well, it'll be hard. But I'll do my best."

They agreed to go to the Great Wall together after school after Gabbie expressed her concerns about this all being a "temporary glitch". Sharpay hoped not. She was beginning to develop a much greater appreciation for her hair.

Troy was not in homeroom when she got there and so she waited outside, hoping to intercept him before he heard anything about East High's new 'thing'.

Her heart leaped up into her throat when he came strolling towards her, hands in his jean pockets.

"Hi," she said weakly.

He grinned a little. "Hey."

For a moment she was stumped. Damn his disarming boyish grin! "Um…I need to talk to you."

"About?"

Anxiously, she grabbed his hand and dragged him over to an empty stairwell. She released him from her grasp and turned to face him, sweeping hair out of her face with trembling hands.

"I need to talk to you about Ryan and Gabbie."

"About them hooking up?"

She blinked slowly. "You already heard?"

He shrugged and gave a wry, lopsided smirk. "Gossip travels at the speed of light in East High."

Sharpay leaned against a railing and scrutinized him, trying to gauge how upset he really was. Not very upset at al according to her readings.

"Are you okay with it?"

"I'm…surprised. But maybe I shouldn't be. She was always rushing to his defense and everything. And Ryan's a nice guy so…where were you this weekend?" He moved to the step above her and leaned back on the railing as well. "I tried to call your cell but I couldn't get through."

Sharpay blinked, baffled at his sudden shift from the previous conversation. But she could see that he was no longer interested in her brother and his ex. And for that she was glad.

"I missed you," he added, blue gaze set intently on her.

Sharpay cocked an eyebrow. "That so?"

"Mm-hm. You've been avoiding me, Evans."

She smirked. "Well. You were getting clingy."

He tilted his head remorsefully. "I know. Can you blame me?"

She looked up at him, her eyelashes a-flutter. "No. It's sweet that you missed me. But I'm back now so don't despair," she added primly.

"You wanna do something after school?"

"Uh…I have to be somewhere this afternoon."

Troy laughed a little. "You really think you're cute, don't you? Playing hard-to-get."

"I am not!" she protested. "Seriously. I'm free tonight. We'll do anything you want."

"That a promise?"

"Of course."

And for the first time that morning, Sharpay was truly happy to be herself.

Gabriella

"The fortune said you had to find selfless love. But not necessarily with each other."

Gabriella blinked slowly. Talk about a loophole!

Sharpay and Gabbie sat across the table from LuLing and her daughter, Lee. They had excitedly recounted how they found themselves back to normal that morning, Lee translating as they went along. And now this. But she still didn't get it.

"I don't think I found selfless love," she said, glancing at Sharpay.

Lee frowned uncertainly, but Sharpay spoke up. "Yeah, you did. You totally gave up your mum to Mr. Alman. You knew she cared about him and wanted to be with him and you helped make it happen."

Gabriella smiled a little. It was true. She had been selfless at that point, acknowledging that her mother needed to come first for once.

"Well…you did the same for me and Ryan. I mean, I know you don't like me very much. But you helped anyway because you cared about him. That was really nice of you, Sharpay."

And in that moment, Gabriella was afraid she sort of liked the blonde sitting next to her. She looked away from her, to the aged woman who was smiling at them discretely. She began to speak in her soft, lilting dialect and Gabriella waited before asking:

"What did she say, Lee?"

Lee smiled wearily. "She said…what do you think of my Chinese voodoo now?"

Author's Note: (sniff, sniff, random chuckle, sniff sniff) I am both sad and ecstatic to be done with this. From now on, all my fics will be ten chapters or less! But thank you to all who've read and reviewed! And even to the two who flamed. Yep. Don't think I've forgotten you, jackasses! But I'm not bitter.

An epilogue will follow this. I wrote it like a month ago and I've been jonesing to post it!