The blinds were pulled down. The beige walls gave off no hints of sunlight. The bedroom door was shut to keep the noise that the maids were creating when they cleaned downstairs out of her room. The alarm clock wasn't going off, but it was 4:50 and she knew she had to get up if she wanted to get to her dance practice with her mother.

But did she want to go? Sure they had gotten into a fight, but they could always fix that. Now that Gabriella got caught up on a couple of hours of sleep her mind just let her think over the fight they had. And the way Gabriella felt about her mother didn't change, she wanted her mother to be proud of her, she wanted to live out her mother's dream for her at least one more time through this up and coming competition.

Gabriella groaned as she stood up and stretched; bringing her hands above her head and then dropping them. She collected her t-shirt she was wearing yesterday and her shorts that were on the ground and slipped them on. She collected her hair in a messy bun and looked at herself in the mirror. She was as presentable as possible as she didn't have anything else there with her.

Gabriella grabbed her cell phone from the side table along with her duffel bag by her feet and made her way out of the room she had only seen a couple of other times. She sighed as she closed the door knowing that she was the only one on the floor.

She walked down the two stair cases and slowly made her way to the kitchen. Walking past a couple of maids from the cleaning service. She could faintly smell waffles or pancakes as she squinted her eyes to adjust to the lights.

"Hey honey." Her father greeted her with enthusiasm as she knew that he was just dying to ask her unspoken questions, but refrained himself by trying to show her fake excitement, hoping she would feel better.

"Hey dad." She said groggily as she wiped the sleep out of her eyes and went to pour herself some coffee. "I didn't know you were a morning person."

"I'm not, but sadly I have a very important meeting this morning." Gabriella's face dropped. She didn't mean to be a problem for him.

"Oh God…I'm sorry." She said right away as she froze by the counter.

Her dad stood up and put his empty plate in the sink, but not before he walked over to her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Nonsense, you're welcomed anytime. You know that."

Gabriella nodded, feeling a little bit better. But she could still tell that he wanted to ask her questions, and it made her respect him even more that he wasn't doing so. She hadn't even told him why she was there after all.

Carlos distracted himself from blurting out questions as he turned his back on his daughter and opened the pantry doors. "Okay, so here we have a wide variety of different sugar cereals that will rot your teeth and pop tarts that are probably older than you."

He let out a chuckle along with Gabriella who let out a snort of laughter. Somehow just being with her dad put a smile on her face. Sure she had plenty of options the previous night about who's house to go to, but she knew her grandmother would have a word with her mother if she ever found out that they were fighting, Jake would've bombarded her with questions and told her to just forget about her mom, and of course there was Troy, but it would've been weird going over to his house after finding out that her mother talked to his father and it wasn't like they knew that Gabriella had spent the night with their son before, even though they were out of town when she had.

"Cereal is fine." Gabriella said as she looked at all the various cabinets the bowls could be in.

"Sit down, I'll bring it to you. I don't need you going through my things and moving them around to your liking." Her dad teased as she rolled her eyes but nonetheless sat down at the counter on the bar stool. "So…" He drew out as he glanced at her briefly while going to the far right cabinet to get the bowl. "How's school going?"

Gabriella bit her lip. She had to talk to someone and right now she needed to talk to someone who wouldn't just take her side. "Dad, just ask the question you want the answer to." Gabriella smiled at him as her dad looked up and his cheeks were a little pink for being caught about beating around the bush.

"Okay then…um…what happened Ella? Why were you at my doorstep, cutting it pretty close to curfew?" Carlos put the bowl of cocoa crispies in front of her with a spoon as he stood opposite of her, letting the granite counter separate them.

Gabriella looked down at the bowl, "Mom and I got into a fight." She knew that question was coming, but it was still weird to admit. She let her temper get the better of her and maybe if she just heard her mother out then maybe she could've seen it from her mother's side of the story, but she went to Troy's dad for crying out loud!

"What about?" Her dad asked as she looked up and dark brown eyes met dark brown.

Gabriella blew out air, he was bound to find out somehow. "I'm dancing again for an upcoming huge show, the second week of February and scouts are gonna be there for me."

Carlos frowned at his daughter. This was not the reaction he expected from her.

Gabriella remembered the fight well as her mother's angry and disappointed eyes pierced through her. "Um…well we got to talking and how I was spending a lot of time with Troy."

Carlos nodded, even though he was a father and protective of his daughter, he had met Troy, joked around with him for a bit, and if Troy and Gabriella were happy then why try to intervene with that. "That's understandable. You two are dating."

Gabriella nodded as she bowed her head not meeting his eyes. She was going to leave out the sex talk her mother tried to bring down on her. There was no way that she was going to get that talk from him too. Not to mention he might dislike Troy then if he ever found out.

"And I know mom just wants me to do good and this competition will determine a lot for my future, but…I just let my anger get the better of me. She said something about maybe spending too much time with one person maybe wasn't good…" Gabriella trailed off remembering what came next, her throwing Eric's and her mother's break up in Anna's face.

"I know you might not want to hear this, but it's true for some people." Carlos said slowly as if thinking of the words he was saying. Gabriella nodded, letting a small smile grace her face as that was exactly what she wanted to hear. She didn't need someone totally agreeing with her, she just needed someone to listen and give her another perspective. "And I don't think that it's up to your mother, me, or anyone else besides you or Troy to get to decide if you're spending too much time together."

"Yeah…" Gabriella sighed as Carlos looked at her wearily.

"There's more, isn't there Ella?" He asked as Gabriella just merely nodded. She was ashamed of how she easily threw her mother's relationship with Eric in her face. She couldn't believe that she actually did that, her mother had every right to call her a brat.

"I might've accidentally hinted she went through guys left and right." Gabriella exclaimed quickly looking at her dad apologetically as if he was her mother and she was somehow talking to her.

"Oh Ella…" Her dad's voice was sympathetic as he reached out and squeezed her wrist gently. Before he could tell her what she did was wrong, she beat him to it.

"I know dad, but I was just so tired, and my anger got the better of me and then she was yelling too and it didn't make it any better." Gabriella explained.

Carlos nodded taking in everything Gabriella said. "I'm not gonna tell you to fix it. I'm not gonna tell you who's wrong and who's right because from the short story you just told me it sounds like the 'Montez Anger' got in the way and believe me, every Montez woman has it and I sympathize anyone who is in their path."

Gabriella smiled a little up at her dad. He just made the situation so much lighter. "But what I am gonna tell you is that, you can stay here for as long as you want, but I have to go."

Gabriella nodded her head. "Thanks dad." He walked around the counter and hugged her while pressing a kiss to the top of her head again.

"No problem Ella. Call if you need anything." Gabriella watched her dad depart from the kitchen as she sighed. She knew what she had to do, and if that meant begging her mom to forgive her for just walking out like that without telling her where she was going at night then she would do it. Just to make her proud one last time, and even though her mother was the one that started poking holes in her relationship with Troy and how they were spending too much time together, they both overreacted and Gabriella would fix it, she just didn't know that her mother was regretting their fight just as much as she was.

Gabriella flipped open her cell phone and dialed the familiar number she had learned by heart. It rang four times as she looked at the clock in the kitchen and saw that it was only ten after five and if they hurried, Gabriella would be on time for her 5:30 practice.

"Fuck." Gabriella winced a little as she probably wasn't supposed to hear that and he was having trouble functioning at this hour. "Are you fucking insane?" The male's husky voice answered very groggily as Gabriella knew that he was still sleeping, and didn't check his caller id.

"Hey…" Gabriella greeted hesitantly as she stared down at the untouched breakfast and all of a sudden didn't feel like eating. She was too anxious to speak to her mother.

"Gabi?" Troy's voice perked up immensely. There was shuffling on the other side of the phone line and Gabriella could just picture Troy sitting up topless, turning on his bedside light. "What is it? Are you okay?"

Gabriella sighed, was she really okay? It was too soon to tell at this point countering in her mother situation. "Um, Wildcat…I need you to pick me up."

"Just give me an address."

The bright lights shone down on him. He pushed his body further, making it work harder. His legs were ready to collapse, but he wasn't going to give up. The sounds ecoed around in his head as he moved back and forth. The air warm and sticky as sweat trickled down the sides of his face.

His girlfriend for three and a half months wasn't leaving his head. Her sad smile was his thanks for giving her a ride to the studio that morning. He just felt so bad and worried that he couldn't do anything to help her other than being there for her to talk. But even then she wasn't talking about dancing, she did everything in her power to avoid that as he didn't even know how she ended up at her dad's house the previous night.

Troy pushed further as he pulled ahead of everyone and ran across the line a couple of seconds before the whistle went off and his teammates dropped to the floor. Practice had just finished and his dad was working the team harder than before for their first playoff game in two days on Friday.

His dad started giving them a little inspirational speech as they weren't going to have practice the next day since he wanted them to be calm and refreshed for the big game on Friday. Troy wasn't listening however as his mind couldn't unwrap itself from the brunette who seemed to always have a place in his head when she wasn't around, and even if she was around she was all he could think of.

"Dude, you okay?" Chad asked as Troy snapped out of his thoughts to see his dad descending into the locker room probably going into his office and getting ready to head home, but Troy wasn't going to go home. He had other plans to visit the girl who was always in his thoughts.

"…Yeah." Troy hesitated as he sees some of the guys getting water and starting to head off to the locker room also. He sighs as he swipes at the sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand. He didn't know how he was supposed to play if he was too busy thinking about his girlfriend, especially since this would be one of the first games that she hasn't been too.

Troy found it kind of weird that he was being so concerned that she wasn't going to be there. He had played plenty of games without Gabriella there, but now it was like he couldn't even remember a time where she wasn't there cheering for him, dancing at halftime with the dance team.

"You don't look fine." Chad commented as he stretches his arms and more people leave the gym and into the locker room. Troy avoids Chad's eye line as he stretches his own arms out. Troy winces at Chad's next question. "Where was Gabi this morning?" Yup, Chad knew now what was on his mind.

Troy shrugged as he turned to look at his best friend. After he had dropped Gabriella off, he went straight home but he couldn't sleep so he decided to go for an early morning jog. He was expecting to see Gabriella that morning before homeroom, but he didn't get to see her until lunch, but that barely even counted as spending time together since they were around all their friends and classmates.

"Dance." Troy knew that his voice was dead. He knew that it had no enthusiasm to it. He also knew that he was worried about Gabriella.

"What, did you guys get in a fight or something?" Chad asked as Troy shook his head no. Troy saw his best friend's face contort into confusion as he shook out his afro, trying to keep this conversation getting anymore 'deeper' than it already has on an emotional level. "Well then what's up?"

By now they were the only two in the gym. You could hear some of the guys laughing in the locker room, and Troy vaguely remembered him being one of those guys just two days ago. But now his thoughts weren't on the big game Friday, it wasn't on scouts that were coming to see some of the players, it was only on his girlfriend and he wondered if he was in her mind as much as she was in his.

Troy let out a huff of air as if it was one of the hardest things in the world to do. "Nothing I just…I just miss her." Troy then realized how girly that sounded. He had seen her four hours ago, but he guessed that was just the price to pay if you love someone. "Never mind, let's just go." Troy indicated to get out of this conversation. He knew Chad never liked talking like this, hell he never did too unless it was with Gabriella and even then he had no idea what he was doing.

Troy started to walk forward, towards the locker room across the court. "I understand." A voice called out as he stopped walking and he froze in his spot. Had his best friend just said that? Troy let out a sigh of relief as he turned around.

"You do?" He kinked an eye brow as his best friend nodded making his hair bounce.

"Especially when Tay has to go with her family up north to visit some of her other family for a couple of weeks. And even though we get to talk on the phone I understand man." Chad said as the last time Troy remembered the two of them talked really seriously like this was when Chad wanted to ask Taylor out but kept messing it up.

Troy ran a hand through his hair. But his situation was different, Gabriella was still living in town. She didn't go away for weeks; although not seeing her alone already was starting to bother him, but it wasn't supposed to be like this, he wasn't supposed to be feeling like this already at 17 years old. But when he was with Gabriella everything was different, he didn't feel like some 17 year old teenager, he just felt like himself, and he definitely wasn't himself if Gabriella wasn't with him.

"But Gabi isn't across the country, she's across town." Troy complained.

"Then what's stopping you from seeing her?" Chad asked back and Troy did a double take. What was stopping him from seeing her? And then he remembered Anna was the thing that was stopping him, he didn't want to get Gabriella in trouble for stopping by and just watching.

"Her mother." He pointed out as if it was the most obvious thing and Chad just rolled his eyes and chuckled.

"Since when did I become the brains of the two of us?" Chad asked rhetorically as he then continued. "Dude, find a reason to go to the studios. You have to think outside the box." Chad made a box with his hands in the air.

Troy nodded his head while processing what Chad said. "I said something smart, didn't I?" Chad asked taking Troy out of his thoughts. "I did, don't lie to me Bolton." He taunted as Troy just smiled. He had a jacket to return.

"Let's go dude." Troy said as they headed towards the locker room.

"So…" Her voice was probing, nervous, confused, and a little hesitant as things weren't 100 percent okay and were still kind of shaky as they did apologize, but they just weren't relaxed around each other yet. "I know that I have no right to ask you this since I'm your mother, but where did you go last night?" Anna asked as Gabriella turned away from her mother and took a drink from her water bottle. She could hear the sharpness in her voice and Gabriella knew that it was coming. Usually if they fought it would take a couple of days to get back on track as mother and daughter.

Gabriella recapped her water bottle and set it down on the bench as she turned around to look at her mother, briefly seeing herself in the mirror wearing a black sports bra, black mini shorts, and her hair was in a high pony tail with little curls framing her face since they were too short to put up.

"I um…I walked to dads." Gabriella said quietly as she avoided her mother's gaze. She didn't know at this point how her mother would react. Sure her mother knew that Gabriella was keeping in contact with her dad, she occasionally saw him over the weekend for a visit, but Gabriella still didn't know how her mom would react to her staying over night at her dad's house.

Anna sighed, "I guess that's fair." Gabriella didn't know how to respond to that. Was her mom mad or was she already accepting Gabriella's answer. "But next time how about at least a phone call."

Gabriella nodded as she knew that her mom had the right to say that. And even though the fight was just as much as her mom's fault as it was Gabriella's, if Gabriella knew her mom like she thought she did, she was probably worrying.

Before Gabriella could say anything the bell went off near the door indicating someone had just opened the door. Gabriella turned her head and a smile took over her face as she saw the basketball captain with her black fleece jacket on his arm.

"Wildcat?" Gabriella asked as she walked over to him as he glanced around nervously towards her mother as Gabriella slightly rolled her eyes with her back to her mother so she didn't see how she reacted.

"Hey." He greeted with a smile as he leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek which Gabriella found odd, but shook it out since he probably was playing it safe since her mother was in the room. "I brought your jacket. You kind of left it in my truck last time." Troy said as if he was doing something wrong.

Gabriella nodded as she took it back. "Thanks." Before Gabriella could say something else a clearing of the throat interrupted her and both her and Troy turned around to see her mother who was now standing behind the desk they had in there, putting papers together.

"I think we're done for practicing." Her mother said. "Curfew's at 11." Gabriella's face lit up as she realized what her mother said. She was actually letting her leave early and Gabriella didn't know why, but she had a feeling she would have to make up for it at a different practice, but she didn't care as she had missing Troy all day.

"Do you want to go to Tyson Beach?" Gabriella whispered as Troy beamed down at her.

"I'm up for anything." Troy answered as Gabriella nodded.

"Okay, just one second." She ran to get her shirt off the bench along with her sweatshirt. Things might not be all the way fixed with her mother right now, but it looked like things were slowly becoming okay, at least she still let Gabriella see Troy which is something she never would've done before.

Gabriella took Troy's hand that he offered to her as they headed out of the studio, completely obvious to her mother who was sat at the desk looking at a picture of her and Eric.

She didn't want her daughter to give up the person she loved, and if that meant giving up one hour for a dance practice they could make up later, then she would do it for her daughter.

Author's note--So I was so surprised that I got over twenty reviews for last chapter and I know that this chapter isn't as exciting, it was basically just a round about how Gabriella was feeling after the fight and to bring her dad back into the story for later events which should be coming up soon. And the whole Troy and Chad thing, I know some people might think that it's pointless conversation, but in life people rely on their friends for support most of the time, and I just felt like writing something between Chad and Troy. So tell me what you think about this chapter...