Title: Heartbreak Melodies

Summary: No matter how hard she tried to forget him, no matter the logical reasons behind her leaving, Gabriella couldn't forget the way Troy made her feel. The way she would light up when he smiled. The way she would melt at the sound of his laugh. And the thing that made it the hardest? Troy refused to let her move on without a fight.

Rating: T for occasional strong language.

Disclaimer: All ideas written below are original and are not examples of plagiarism.

A/N First off, thank you to all of those who responded to my fic and gave their opinions on what I had written. I really appreciate it. To those who only favourited it, I also appreciate that, but if you could also just leave a quick review, that'd be great ;)

Now...today's been a strange day: I woke up to my mum telling me that Zac and Vanessa had split, and although - if I'm being 1000% honest, I wasn't completely surprised - it's still strange. I don't know...they represented, for me, the idea of a true romance, but also, a huge part of my childhood. It's...the end of an era, isn't it? In my opinion, they will get back together, but it's just...surreal.

Fairytales don't end, do they?

I had planned on updating this even before I heard the news, but now it seems even more appropriate, so I've gone out of my way to make sure this got up today. I hope you all enjoy...and appreciate. xoxo

P.S. Their are several songs, not only by The Script, that fit perfectly with this chapter, and also with the current situation, hence the split title. I will also add a few more to my profile, hopefully tonight, but definitely by tomorrow ;)

And now I'll go sit on the floor
Wearing your clothes
All that I know is
I don't know how to be something you miss

Never thought we'd have a last kiss
Never imagined we'd end like this
Your name, forever the name on my lips

Last Kiss - Taylor Swift

It was 1pm when Gabriella finally heaved out of her bed, trudged out of her bedroom and slumped into a hot bath. She had barely slept since she had returned home shortly before ten the previous night; with her head spinning as though it were on the brink of exploding. She wanted had to be strong and forget that look of Troy's and that voice of Troy's, but each time she attempted to close her eyes and drift off, the memories would violate her mind; usually summoning a slight tear of frustrated groan to accompany it.

But there were reasons, the logical part of her kept chanting. Reasons you left.

xxx

"We've been over this, Gabriella," Troy huffed in deep frustration with a raised voice,tipping his head back and grasping at his chestnut brown hair with his long fingers.

"We've been over this, yet you still don't seem to be listening to me!" Gabriella could feel her chest heaving as her frustration and anger escalated. What had begun as a normal conversation, had several times before, had spiralled into a passionate argument and Gabriella, in the pit of her stomach, had a sick feeling that it wouldn't end well.

They had begun seated on their brown sofa, but were now standing, lifted by disagreement, with their bodies inclined towards one another, eyes expanded and hands gesticulating wildly.

"What have I not listened to, Gabriella! Please, tell me! I've heard every word, I can assure you!"

"There! You just said it! You've 'heard' every word," when she said the word 'heard' she emphasized them with deliberate air quotations and a resenting tone. "But has anything really gotten through to you? Really, has it?" Here, she quirked her eyebrow, clearly having made her own conclusion without Troy's answer.

Behind her, perched on the coffee table in front of the sofa, was a picture of the couple taken four years previously. They were on holiday in Mexico celebrating Gabriella's twenty-first birthday, a gift from Troy that had taken him a whole year to save for. They appeared, then, not to have a care in the world; to be consumed only in one another's presence, unaware of anything or anybody else.

But a lot of time had passed since then. Sometimes they felt they were no longer those people.

"Don't be so fucking patronizing, Gabriella," Troy spat. "It's gone through and processed just fine, thank you very much."

"Then what's your problem!"

"My problem, which I have stated a million times, already, is that I don't want what you want. Not right now!" He shook his head.

"Then when, Troy?" The anger had dissapated for Gabriella now, and as she spoke her eyes were glossed with a lining of tears. She bit her lips and sniffed, shaking her head to convey her vulnerability. "When?" She whispered again, her voice coarse with the threatening tears.

Troy's voice reduced, too, and he shrugged apologetically. "I can't give you a date, Gabi," he said tenderly, returning to the nickname he had coined for her. "Why can't you let this go? I can't give you what you want, right now. Just give it time...please it go." He approached her, seeming almost to float towards her as his cotton socks were silent against the wood. He took her hands into his, stroking his thumbs over her soft skin and then he kissed her forehead before pulling back and gazing intently into her eyes.

Her sorrowful expression scared him.

"I can't," she practically mouthed, as very little sound came out. The tears had broken through the dam, now, falling freely and she felt them coating her cheeks, before salty liquid found its way onto her lips. "I want kids, and a family of my own. Things are good financially and I don't want to wait anymore. I can't shake this feeling and part of me is wishing I could, but I can't."

"Why?"

She simply shrugged. "Because I can't just stay here with you in this place we're in of not moving forward."

"You don't feel we're moving forward?" He questioned, pained.

"Sometimes? No, I don't. I want to move forward, I want to enter a new phase in this relationshop and recently, I feel like we've just started to...stagnate." she wiped at her tears. "I'm not asking for us to start trying for a baby, but I don't think it's unreasonable for me to want just that extra bit of commitment."

"Why?" He demanded, completely and utterly bewildered. "You don't have to question my commitment, Gabi; you know that my heart lies only with you."

"It's been nearly ten years! You're telling me you don't want to tell people I'm more than just your girlfriend?"

"For those first few years we were just kids - they don't count!" He blurted without considering the double meaning of his words. Until Gabriella withdrew, looking at him with cold eyes.

"Well if they don't then it was all a waste of time, right? Maybe I should just walk out now," she suggested, already retreating.

"No, no I didn't mean it like that, you know I didn't. You know what I mean," he protested, blocking her path to the door. "It's only really been this last year and a half that we've been in a position to get married. I'm not...I'm not in the place, Gabriella, that isn't what I want," he said quietly.

"I'm not asking for much."

"I know it seems that way to you, but it's different for me."

"Why?"

"Because..." he sighed, shaking his head and shrugging his heavy shoulders. "On our six month anniversary, we went out to celebrate and I gave you your present, and I promised you that I would never lie to you, and that I would never go back on my word." Gabriella nodded, her tears a seemingly never ending flurry. "That's why I can't tell you that I want this. I want to tell you that so much because I know how much you want and need to hear me say that, but...I can't." With Troy having given up resisting his tears, the final two words were hoarse, when his throat finally released them.

Silence fell. It was hard, deafening and both hearts shattered at the tragic sound.

"Then...I think I know where we stand." Troy, shocked by the meaning of her words, was paralyzed by the pain that tore through his body when he saw Gabriella walk around him gathering her phone and bag before slipping a cardigan on and pushing her feet into her brown Uggs.

"Gabriella," he pleading, still frozen in the same spot. "Don...don't...please don't walk away from this. I...need you. Let's talk."

Her hand was already on the brass door knob, pulling the apartment door open. She turned back on final time. "I've got nothing more to say."

As she stepped over the threshold, she saw Troy's face; his eyes were blood red with his tears, the sorrow in them suggesting that his spirit - his fight - had just been pulled out from him.

xxx

Even recalling that painful day made her heart wrench. Her bath helped somewhat; the rose-scented steam seeming to ease her mental tensions. When she finally climbed out of her bath after refilling the hot water three times, and soaking her stresses away for almost four hours, she felt almost unsteady on her legs as she smothered her body in Vanilla body soufflé.

She was in the process of drying her hair when the bell rang and so, she quickly set down the hair dryer, and trotted to the door, expecting to see Sharpay, who always made an appearance with 24 hours of a bad date, but instead...

"Troy," she stuttered, thrown by his appearance.

His hands were stuffed firmly into his jean pockets - a sign, Gabriella knew, of his nerves - his hair a little dishevelled, but somehow sexy and his eyes tinged with pink - a result of an incredible hang over, Gabriella assumed.

Yet he was perfect.

"I..." he cleared his throat. "I was...I mean...umm...could we...uhh...talk?" Just fucking fantastic. Here he was a was tripping over his words like a fourteen year old asking his crush out.

"Umm..." Gabriella was just as bad. She stepped to the side, opening the door further and indicating that he could enter.

"So..." Troy exhaled, his right hand coming up and squeezing the tense muscles at the back of his neck as he rocked on the outsides of his feet. "Umm...yeah...so..."

Gabriella suddenly became aware of the fact that she was only in a fluffy white towel with only a pair of panties beneath. Just before Troy once again attempted to vocalise the words in his brain, she said, "Umm...I'm just going to put some clothes on. You...you can...you know...sit down...or whatever."

It then became apparent that Troy had only noticed her state of dress when she had mentioned it, for his eyes then lingered hungrily on her towel-clad body, and in that split second before she departed, he licked his lips while replaying memories in which he was also enjoying a bath or shower with Gabriella, and then peeling her towel off once they had left the confines of the bathroom; his raging urges insatiable.

He went and sat awkwardly, just as Gabriella suggested. His nerves wouldn't settle; his legs jiggled up and down as though caffine had been injected directly into his bloodstream, while he subconsciously wrung his hands together. When Gabriella came back into the small living area, he literally jumped out of his seat on the couch - his nerves were officially shot.

They stood at opposite ends of the room; Gabriella just outside of her bedroom door and Troy frozen by the coach as he observed her, twitching nervously: it reminded him of when he picked her up for their first date when they were both seventeen.

"I always said my clothes looked better on you," he smiled.

"Oh!" Gabriella gasped, realising she had grabbed one of his shirts in her hurry. "I...I didn't...I just grabbed it..."

"Nah, it's okay," he assured, realising it had made her uncomfortable. "I missed seeing you in them," he whispered, holding her gaze.

She briefly looked down at the floor, wiggling her tiny toes. "Would you like a drink? Umm...coffee...or...or water?"

"Water. I think that'll be the only thing I drink for a while." He squinted, his head aching just at the thought of anything even mildly intoxicating.

Gabriella then went and shufled towards the kitchenette, getting a jug of water from the fridge and filling two long glasses with the cold liquid. When she bought them into the living area, and handed Troy his glass, their hands brush but just as quickly as their hands had touched, Gabriella had snatched hers back.

"It's a nice place you've got here," Troy nodded, his tongue feeling a bit looser when quenched.

"Thanks. It isn't great. It was the best I could get quickly after I..." after I left, she finished silently in her head.

Troy, again, nodded.

Simulataneously, the both sat on the small sofa and Troy's nerves returned in full-force.

"You wanted to talk?" Gabriella broached first.

"Yeah." His voice was rapsy in response and he cringed at the sound of it as he drummed his feet furociously against the wooden floor. "I...umm..." he could feel his chest racing, his hands getting clammy and his mouth getting dry. "I...fuck!" He muttered, shaking his head with shame. "I had so much planned that I wanted to say to you," he explained. "Like, I'd thought of everything and it was perfect...and now I haven't a clue where to start."

"It's only me," Gabriella said softly as she resisted her inclination to grasp his hand in a soothing gesture.

"That's why it's so important."

"Start wherever you feel is right."

Neither spoke for a few minutes; they sat, sipping their water and staring straight ahead, not risking even the slightest eye contact until Troy was ready to make a move, and undoubtley complicate everything that much further.

"I didn't wash anything after you left," he said quietly, still not looking at her. "I mean, clothes and bedding - the stuff that still had your scent on them."

Shit! Yes, she had said to start anywhere, but why did he choose there? A place that would immediately breakdown her barriers and get her emotional and cause her to lose all rationality.

"The stuff of mine that you used to wear, I kept wearing them everywhere, but then, with ironing and...just me wearing them...it lost the smell and...it was like, that physical reminder that I had of you was taken, too. I lost you all over again"

A hot tear dripped from Gabriella's long lashes.

Unexpextedly, he turned to her, shifting even closer and gazing at her imploringly. "I acted like a complete asshole last night and I know that, but...when I saw you with that guy," he said as his face contorted in disgust, "I felt literally sick, like my heart had been ripped out of my chest and then had lemon juice poured into the wound!"

Gabriella was now crying freely, with white streaks running down her cheeks. "I know. I know that wasn't you last night. I don't hold it against you."

When Troy extended his arm, cupped her cheek and brushed her tears away, Gabriella felt a violent shiver ripple through her body. "You know I don't like to see you cry," he whispered. "Come back," he said bluntly, cutting through the long speech he was forming in his head, to get to the point. "Come back."

"I..." Gabriella hiccupped. "I can't. Nothing has changed."

"Don-Don't say that, Gabi. Yes, yes you can. I've changed - everything has changed!"

"Really? Like what?"

"I'll marry you!" He exclaimed, causing Gabriella's eyes to bug. "You want to get married? I'll marry you. You want kids? You want three, four, five kids? I'll give you those kids! I'll give you the whole world, Gabriella, go up there and get you the stars if that's what it will take for you to come back. I don't know who I am without you," he whispered, grasping her hands desperately.

"No. Don't!" Gabriella snatched her hands back. "Don't come here and do that!"

"Do what!"

"You can't turn up and say you'll marry me! It's not fair," she cried, frantically, feeling her head spin; almost to heavy for her petite shoulders to carry. "Yes, I wanted - still do want marriage - but after everything that happened, you cannot just turn up and say all that, don't you understand!"

"But you said that was what you wanted!" Troy replied, exasperated and confused. He'd come and proposed giving her all she wanted, yet she still wasn't happy and he had absolutely no idea what more he could do.

"Yes, I did but...it doesn't work that way! You have to mean it, and want it! Do you really want it?"

"I want you," he answered tactfully, knowing that he was still not wholly comfortable with the idea of marriage.

Gabriella sighed and shook her head."If you didn't want it three months ago, what's changed so much?"

Troy hesitated and glanced down at his hands which were pressed tightly together. "I was scared. I never said that I didn't ever want it, I was just scared. But now the thought of losing you for good scares me even more."

"You were scared of what? Losing the possibility of being able to go with someone else?"

"No!" Troy was outraged at the mere suggestion that he would want to be with any other woman but the one who sat before him, with pained, confused, brown eyes.

"Then what? Help me out here, Troy, cuz right now, I can't even tell up from down, I'm in such a mess."

He licked his lips, looking back up at her. "I was afraid that...that I couldn't be who you needed me to be."

"What?"

"I was afraid that...I wasn't mature enough, I guess, and I thought how I couldn't be that perfect husband who would do and say all the right things and provide everything you needed. I thought, if we gave it more time, then I would reach that place and I'd be able to give you everything. I just wanted more time."

"Why did you never say any of this?"

He shrugged, "I didn't realise how things would esculate if I held it back. By the time I did realise, it was too late: you'd gone and you wouldn't answer my calls or reply to my messages. I wasn't about to say all that in a text, or even voicemail."

"You're an idiot," Gabriella said blunty, with a touch of bitterness.

Troy was visibly taken aback by her insult, and seemed to retreat like a little child, belittled by a mean playground comment. He knew that getting her to reconsider her decision would not be easy, but he had been hoping for a little more co-operation on her side, rather than him being totally shot down. That hope seemed rather stupid, now, idiotic.

"Well...I..." he took a deep breath, not wanting the searing pain in his heart to show. "I wanted to at least explain everything just to..." he cleared his throat. "To see if there was a chance." He started to pat his jean-clad thigh and then rubbed his hands together. "Umm...I shouldn't have bothered you. I'll...err...let myself out."

He pushed himself out of the couch and began to extend his body, his limbs feeling like led.

"Do you know why you're and idiot?"

Troy didn't turn to face Gabriella, because he didn't want her to see the redness in his eyes caused by unfallen tears, but he answered anyway. "Because I refuse to accept that you obviously want to move on?"

"Well, that you think that makes you an idiot, as well, but no, that wasn't actually what I was going for." Gabriella replied instantly before shaking her head. "You're an idiot for...trying to be somone you're not. Someone I don't want."

Troy turned back to her, reclaiming his seat on the sofa once more while his brows were knitted together in confusion.

"I never wanted some stereotypically perfect husband, who was, you know, a Ken-like cardboard cut out with any personality or flaws," Gabriella insited with a chuckle. "I wanted Troy Bolton. The guy who wakes me up in the mornings with a kiss or by tickling my feet, gently. The guy who runs me baths when I've had a long day or who brings me waffles in bed when I've got my period and feel really crappy. He isn't perfect and sometimes he's nothing but a damn pain in the ass," Troy blushed, glancing down sheepishly. "But..." now it was Gabriella's time to blush, and also giggle nervously, her voice transforming from being insistent and mature, to shy and young. "But, the first time a guy kissed me, it was him, and I was absolutely terrified that I would screw it up, but when he kissed me, he made me feel like...I was floating. And, despite his hundreds of flaws, he's always made me feel that way. I could never love anyone the way I love him. The way I love you," she whispered.

Without letting a single word or whisper pass through his lips, Troy took Gabriella's face in his hands, and soundlessly pressed his lips against hers, almost as though trying to reasure himself that she was actually there. It felt like it had been an eternity since their lips had last touched. As his lips captured her own supple ones, he felt as though he was feeding an addiction that had long been satisfied. Somehow, he managed to restrain himself, and not plunge his tongue violently into her mouth and devour her right there on the sofa, but instead treated her gently with love and respect.

Gabriella could hardly believe what was happening; it all seemed to be moving in a blur. One thing she was certain of, was that Troy's lips were moulding together with her own, his tongue hesitantly flicking against hers. It was much like their first kiss; both were shy and gentle, finding their feet and allowing their confidence to grow as their lips carressed the other's.

Gradually, their liplock grew more passionate; Gabriella snaked her arms around Troy's neck, gripping at his short hair with lust, while Troy brushed his eager hand against the exposed skin of her thigh. When it had happened, Gabriella wasn't completely sure, but she found herself nestled into Troy's lap, while Troy undertook a sweet attack on her neck, seeming, once again, to claim his property by leaving several bruises on her soft skin. His biting and suckling became more persistent and both, though resentfully, knew they had to stop before their hormones got the better of them.

"Troy," Gabriella panted, attempting, with empty will, to pry him from her neck.

"Hhmm...?" he moaned in response, taking a bit of flesh gently between his teeth as he had been so accustomed to doing before the break up.

"Troy..." this time she pulled away from him, and pressed her lips to his, so he could not return them to her neck. "Troy," she said again, with another peck. "We should talk."

"Sure," he replied, but his actions told her he had other things on his mind, as he ran his hand along her thigh again.

She giggled sweetly, feeling like a hormonal teen. "I'm serious."

"Ugh! Fine, fine, let's talk," he smiled.

"Well -" she began.

"Wait," Troy interrupted, skaking his head. He slid one arm under the crook of her legs, and another under her arms, lifted her and placed her at the opposite end of the sofa. He looked at her bemused expression and shrugged, simply responding: "You sitting on me like that really wasn't going to work if you wanted to talk."

Please review. *group hugs* and also *Ben and Jerry's*

xoxoxo