A/N: Happy Monday :D

So, I'd like to dedicate this to a few reviewers who totally made my day when I saw what they wrote.

smartgirl231814 - Our newest reviewer. She seems to be enjoying this story so far and I hope she sticks around :D
Juli93 - Thanks for your super sweet review. My day certainly was better afterwards :) And I'm glad you loved everything
Bluebell140 - Wow. Thanks for saying I'm an amazing writer. That made my entire day. Thank you so much :D
batzmary - Your review made me laugh :)

Thank you so much, you guys :D I'm not sure if I'd still be around here if it wasn't for you. You know, me writing started out as escapism. I didn't like the life I had so I wrote a life that I did. But then it became more than that. I read your reviews every week and remember that I have all of you guys reading this stuff. You guys keep me going.

On a side not: I've hit a teensy, tiny writer's block on Chapter 21 but hopefully it'll be on its way soon :D

Chapter 15

Everything was calm. Andy lay back in the little rowing boat and let the small, subtle movements of the ocean assist in calming his heart rate. The worry wasn't there. All of his life, he'd worried for someone. Mostly his dad. But, more recently he worried for Steph. He hadn't realised he'd worried so much until he wasn't worrying. It was nice to not be preoccupied with something.

Andy opened his eyes and watched the clouds for a moment. It took him back to his childhood where he and Steph would lie in her back garden and try to spot different shapes in the clouds. At the moment, all he could see were cotton wool balls. Perhaps it was the child imagination that would let him see cars and lions and dragons.

He had to smile to himself. Steph got seasick so easily she wouldn't even be able to cope with the slight movements the ocean was currently making. The only time she wasn't seasick was when she went scuba diving and then she was so excited to be with the fish she loved so much, she didn't think about anything else.

The silence was broken by a beautiful Soprano operatic voice sending wonderful music his way. He wasn't a fan of opera. He never had been. When he was a teenager, he'd found a love for the band My Chemical Romance and his music taste hadn't varied much since. But this voice was captivating him in ways that MCR never had. That was it. It wasn't the song. It was the voice. He thought he heard glimpses of French but he didn't know. It had been over five years since he'd studied French. Then again, he didn't particularly care about the song. He didn't care about what it meant. All he cared about was how wonderful the voice made him feel.

The voice.

The voice was a drug. It reminded him of when he was seventeen and had smoked a joint of cannabis for the first and last time. A friend had persuaded him to try it. His dad didn't know but Steph did and she hadn't told anybody. Andy had stayed away from drugs and cigarettes ever since but he could still remember feeling happy and free and completely at ease with the world.

He remembered learning that there were myths that mermaids would sing to sailors out at sea and lure them to their doom and they'd eventually die. But, even if he did die, however much he didn't want to, he didn't care particularly. The voice was worth it.

He sat up in the boat only to see a girl looking up at him from the mysterious depths. Her arms were propped over the edge of the boat to help her to float. The setting sun was behind her, making her a simple silhouette and preventing him from seeing her facial features. But despite this, he knew she was beautiful. The sunlight made her the water droplets on her hair and skin sparkle and from what he could see, she was completely naked.

She wasn't moving her lips, but he knew one thing: the voice belonged to her.

Andy started in his bed in a tangle of sweaty sheets. Finding himself alone in his room, a place he was familiar with, made him pause and let his heart rate slow down. He'd often joked about the British education system causing insanity. But now he actually believed it. He didn't remember dreams very often. But when he did, they didn't vary much from him playing a superhero. So what the fuck was he doing dreaming about mermaids?

He grabbed a pillow and pulled it over his face, hoping it would bring some sort of sense to his life. His life had been okay before Gabriella had shown up. He wasn't blaming Gabriella. Actually, if it wasn't for Gabriella, he'd be worrying about Troy a whole lot more on top of his worry and confusion about Steph. Still, he didn't need this. He needed answers. He needed to know why Steph was avoiding him.

He took the pillow from his face and looked at his alarm clock. 1AM. Just great.

He couldn't get the girl from his dream out of his head. There was a familiarity about her but he couldn't put his finger on it.

Sitting up, he reached for the switch of his bedside lamp and let a dim light flood the room. Dim or not, it still hurt his half-asleep eyes. He'd been so deprived of sleep recently that the small light produced by his lamp made him feel like he had endured days of drinking and was now suffering the mother of all hangovers. He rubbed his eyes, attempting to either fall back to sleep or to become more awake.

A couple of aspirin later and Andy was sat on his bed, wide awake. His headache was still there, thumping in his head like the bass of a nightclub, but it was duller, not as harsh as when he'd first woken up.

Knowing that the chances of him falling back to sleep were rather slim, he moved across to his desk and switched his laptop on. He ran a hand through his dishevelled blonde hair while his computer loaded. Never had he expected to be so worked up over a woman not talking to him. But this was Steph. She wasn't just any woman. She was the woman who had always been there for him. But now she wasn't.

And that scared him.

He sat forward when his laptop slowly came to life. When the internet had loaded and the facebook newsfeed greeted him, he checked to see who was online. It was actually quite amusing for him to see that there were still other people wasting their brain cells on the social networking site. The others were mostly preoccupied with uploading drunken statuses. But, Andy smiled when he saw the profile picture of his friend, Ben Owens. They'd known each other since they were eleven and, next to Steph, he was Andy's best friend.

Andy opened a conversation box and began typing a message to his friend.

Hey, man. Still suffering from insomnia?

Wow. Such a sense of humour at such an early hour. Or is it a late hour? You know as well as I do that I never stopped being an insomniac.

For me, it's early. And that's very true.

What's your excuse? You can't complain about being an insomniac.

Andy sighed and let his fingers hover over the keyboard. Could he really tell Ben about his dream? Could he tell Ben about his worries about Steph? What the hell. At one in the morning, he was past caring.

Woke up after a dream. Actually, I'm starting to believe it was a nightmare.

What was it about?

Andy took a deep breath and began typing a summarised version of his dream. The less he thought about it, the less he would analyse it and the less Ben would tease him about it.

Right. Well, maybe it's symbolic of, you know, you needing to take a break from everything. You've always had a lot to deal with. I don't know. I'm not big on dreams.

Maybe. Who knows? It just freaked me out. Have you heard from Steph?

No. I haven't heard from her recently. Any reason?

She's not talking to me. At all. And I don't know why.

Wow. You two not talking? Something must be terribly wrong.

You're telling me. I don't want to lose her, man. She's been the one person I've always been able to count on. Why is she mad at me?

Dude, I'm in Leeds. How will I know?

You're supposed to make me feel better, you know.

Andy frowned when a popup window informed him that Steph Cross had just signed in. Upon instinct, he clicked on it, opening a conversation with her, and typed 'hi' as a greeting to her. He realised what he was doing and paused before he sent it to her. He had so many questions for her. And he was a guy. He and Troy had often joked that the Y chromosome entitled men to the ability to put their foot in their mouths. The possibility of Andy doing that was insanely high in that moment. He wanted to apologise for what he'd done. The only problem was that he didn't actually know what he'd done.

Oh well.

Hi

Hey Andy.

How have you been? I haven't seen you around much.

I'm fine. I'm sorry that I seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth. I've been sort of dealing with something.

Is everything okay?

I'm fine. Listen, next weekend, my parents are out of town visiting my grandparents and I'd really like you to come around for tea. I actually have something to tell you. It's something that may sound small to a lot of people but it's really big for me and I want to tell you in person.

Sure. I can go to your place next weekend. I'd like that. Are you sure you're okay?

I'm fine.

Can I ask you a question? Why are you awake? I've known you over twenty years and never once have you functioned on anything but eight hours of sleep.

Andy watched the little icon signalling she was typing. He expected to see a rather long explanatory message as to why she was awake and maybe even why she wasn't talking to him. Instead, she wrote one word.

Nightmares.

"You're staring at me again," Troy murmured.

Gabriella, who was sat cross-legged on the table, averted her eyes back to her book. "I'm allowed to," she replied shyly. Sure, they knew how the other felt, but being caught checking him out brought out the shy teenage girl inside of her.

Troy chuckled as he turned away from the Peugeot engine he'd been fixing. He smiled at her as he wiped his hands on a rag. "I know. I just thought you'd like to know that's the sixth time I've felt you staring at me and it's not even one yet."

Gabriella could feel the heat rise in her neck as she frowned up at him. "Six times? Really?"

Troy nodded as he stuffed the rag into his back pocket and took the few short steps towards her. "Yep. Somebody can't keep her eyes to herself."

"At least I keep my hands to myself," she murmured as she turned back to her book.

Troy gaped at her. "Hey! It was one time and you'd just walked into work and you were looking ridiculously hot in those shorts."

She shrugged. "I'm just glad neither Andy nor Jamie saw. You would never hear the end of it. Anyway," she murmured, looking up at him, "how's Andy today?"

Troy sat down on a chair in front of her and sighed. "Don't ask. When I left this morning, I checked on him in his room and he was asleep at his laptop. So who know what he was doing last night?"

Gabriella gave him a sad smile. She shut her book and reached forward for his hand. "Let's not talk about that."

He nodded. "It seems like all I talk about nowadays is Andy which sucks because I have better things to talk about considering we just got together."

She squeezed his hand. "Like what?"

"Like have you heard from Addie?" he asked.

Gabriella shook he head. "No. I didn't expect to. We only hear from her every few weeks. If we're lucky. I think the next time we hear from her will be when she comes home."

"When's that?"

She smiled. "Thirty four days."

"You counting?" he asked quietly.

She nodded. "It gives me something to look forward to instead of worrying all the time. Anyway, are you doing anything tonight?"

Troy quirked an eyebrow. "You should by know by now that my social calendar is packed," he said sarcastically. "No, I'm not doing anything. Why?"

"Well," she began, "I woke up this morning to a rather long, specific explanatory text from Sharpay. She wants us to have tea with them this evening. She said smart, casual. In Sharpay terms, that means I'll be wearing a dress and you in jeans and a dress shirt." She paused. "You do have a dress shirt, right?"

He rolled his eyes. "Give me some credit."

"Okay, okay," she laughed. "Zeke and Shar want to meet you when I'm not hysterical and not hungover either. Zeke's making his chicken salad and crème brulée. It's to die for."

"You told them we're together, didn't you?" he murmured.

She shrugged. "I wouldn't word it exactly like that. More like having a best friend who knows you too well and guessed that you're in the early stages of a relationship with your boss."

He quirked an eyebrow.

"Seriously!" she protested. "I didn't actually say the words 'I'm going out with Troy'. She guessed."

He smiled and leaned forward to kiss her. "I'll pick you up at seven?"

"Better make it half six. Shar doesn't like people who are late," she explained.

He chuckled. "She's never met a Bolton before."

"Brie, you know Andy is everything to me, don't you?"

Gabriella shrugged as she began unfolding the dress she had arrived in. She smiled across the bed at him. "Of course. Someone would have to be either blind or inhuman to not see that. Why?"

He turned away from her so that she could get changed. "If you're willing, I'd like you to tell Andy about you being an alcoholic..."