I want to shout out to some new readers, thank you for your reviews. I really appreciate every single one them. Is This Happiness, I tried to get this up as soon as possible! And to my old readers, I'll call you my 'loyals,' you guys are creating this story. I'm finishing this for you. If it weren't for everyone who's ever reviewed or favorited or followed, I would've deleted this from my own computer years ago. I don't even watch HSM anymore. This is for you all. XOXO. I do apologize if this gets confusing, I like to think of it as a puzzle! Happy reading my lovelies.

...

They painted the room next to Sharpay's a soft peaceful lavender. Beautiful white furniture; vintage nursery. Peaceful, Sharpay heavily emphasized on that one in the hospital. No animal themes, no bright colors when she thought it through. She wanted the room to be calm. The kid's life was going to be hysterical enough with her as a mother.

"I don't even know what to say to him," Sharpay said bothered as she meaninglessly looked out the window. Her mother stood right next to her, lightly rubbing her back with her nails. They both could feel the storm coming.

"You just have to tell him the truth."

"But what does that even mean? Do I start from the beginning? Remind him of the night…" she shook her head gently and scoffed, "do I just give her to him? Make him love her. How can I make him love her?"

"You won't have to," the older mother said with sincerity, "how could he not love that little face?"

Sharpay allowed herself to grin. How? She was wrong about him in so many ways, but if he went as far to deny an angel like Celeste…he would be the one missing out. Not them.

…

"What's going on?" Troy said the next day when Sharpay appeared on his doorstep. She looked different, he couldn't pinpoint what…it could've been her hair. It didn't look brushed. And there was something tiny wrapped inside her arms, he couldn't see it completely but his first thought was that it was a baby. But that was just stupid.

"I have to tell you something, Troy," Sharpay started. His thoughts stopped for a moment, and his eyes moved from that bundle in her arms to her eyes. Her eyes…he definitely didn't recognize them. They lost all confidence that they used to acquire.

"You're a father, Troy," she said tiredly. Her hands adjusted the blanket and the face of a little baby peeked out from under the covering. It yawned. The eyelids began to move. Troy took a step back, he didn't understand.

"I…that…" was all that came out of his mouth.

"I'm sorry," Sharpay said quickly reaching forward with one arm. To his own surprise he didn't pull away, he let her come closer with the bundle, the…child.

She started to usher it to him but he stopped her, "Hold on a second, I need a second." Troy put his hands on his head. Many deep breaths.

"Of course," she nodded her head. She looked down and stroked the baby's cheek with her own.

"Her name's Celeste, look at her eyes." Troy put a stop to his overwhelming emotions to do just that. He looked down just as Sharpay did and saw her eyes. Oh they were so familiar. So, so familiar.

"They look like mine," he noticed.

She broke down into sobs, "They are yours. They're exactly like yours." And she began to crumple right before him. He took a step closer to both of them and stopped thinking.

"Shhhhhhh…" he said to Sharpay pulling her into him. He touched the baby's head with the top of his index finger, of course he knew it was his. Troy never stopped thinking about that night. It bothered him constantly and he couldn't force himself to forget it although he tried, countless times. He could never get the taste of her lips, or the feeling of her body out of his mind. And the words that he said to her in the morning, it made him want to crawl into a hole in the ground and bury himself. He'd never been so ashamed of the way he treated her. He could barely look every time he saw her face. And he had more respect for her than he had for himself right now. He wanted to make it up to both of them, he absolutely wanted it.

"You're not mad? You don't hate me?" he heard her mumble through tears. His arm hung over her shoulder and he gripped it tight.

"I could never hate you, Sharpay. And I was wrong for everything I said. You never did anything wrong."

"Yes I did, I could've hurt her."

"She looks fine to me, in fact she looks perfect."

"She is perfect. She's fabulous," she told him quietly and he could hear how much love she had in her voice. And there was relief in her voice, he knew how afraid she must've been to…

"You weren't pregnant, though. I mean, I didn't know…"

"I was. But I kept it a secret, I didn't know how to talk about it. So I just didn't."

"How in the world did you hide something like that?"

"I don't' know," she almost laughed. "I knew how to make myself look smaller than I actually was and I quit hanging out in the spotlight. But mostly I just hid. And nobody ever noticed."

"I care," he let her know with a solid tone. He failed miserably at showing it but had he have known, he would've been there. Completely.

…

They sat on the front porch of his house a month later. She still wouldn't talk about it. She wouldn't open up to anyone about it. It was shame, he assumed.

"I didn't want to hurt it," she had said multiple times over the last four weeks. "I never dreamed I would keep it. I just wanted to get it someplace safe, where no one could hurt it."

"You did a good job, you protected her."

"It was our baby," she smiled. And then she would stop. She never allowed herself to say anything more.

Troy wanted to help her. The doctor said she was experiencing what they called a mild form of postpartum depression. It wasn't serious, she had bonded with the baby and nursed the baby. But she cried all the time. The doctor said that if she could talk about everything that happened and let so much of the pain out, it would probably go away.

So Troy tried every day.

"When did you know that you were pregnant?" he asked softly taking her hand. They sat side by side, the baby inside with his mom and dad. God they loved her.

"Sharpay if we talk about what's been bothering you, you'll feel so much better. You'll be able to be a better mother and you won't have so much on your chest."

She threw his hand away, "Troy I'm here. I'm not crazy."

"I know you're not, but you don't know what you're doing to yourself. Remember the day you brought Celeste to me? That night I told you that I would never turn my back on you again, ever. Remember?"

Sharpay sighed heavily and covered her face with her hands like she did a lot these days. Her entire world had changed. Troy never blamed her. He didn't blame her for not telling her parents. Her mom was scary. He sure didn't blame her for not telling him, after being pure evil the morning after their encounter.

Troy found his arm wrapping around her soft body and he held her tight.

"You were so strong. And so brave. Other girls would've run from this. But you didn't. You kept her safe and warm, and you did it on your own with nobody to help you. You have no idea how strong you are."

"I'm not," she said turning away but he pulled her back to him gently.

"Yes you are. And you're trying to be strong now but you don't have to be. I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere, I want to help you forgive yourself and let yourself enjoy this baby."

There was a pause. Sharpay gave a weak smile, a little sniffle. She was holding back long overdue tears, not the kind from being sad, the kind from being exhausted. Being so exhausted everything felt numb. Troy nodded his head, giving her the okay to cry. Cry until she wore herself out. And she did.

Sharpay closed her eyes. The sobs beginning. She unlocked her memory and let the pain flood everywhere. There was so much pain that came from this. It was her kid. Her own flesh and blood. She knew nothing about being a mom, nothing about being an adult. She had done so much damage and the baby was only a month old. The doctor called it postpartum depression and expressed concern for her and the baby. Thoughts of harming the baby were normal. Harm the baby? Why would she harm the baby? She loved it. She would die a million deaths for it. Harm? How? Why?

No, she tried not to judge him. He was just doing his job, he was trying to make sure that Celeste was taken care of. She appreciated that. She smiled at this through the tears.

"When I felt her move inside of me…" she grabbed her stomach, "…I tried so hard to pretend that I didn't feel anything." She let go of his hand, not even realizing that they were clasped. Sharpay combed her bangs out of her face. "I honestly thought that the day wouldn't come. I was hoping I'd wake up and see that it was just a dream. But it wasn't. The day, it did…" he noticed her face was turning pale. "It came…" she remembered.

Monday afternoon, she came home from school. Terrible, terrible back ache. Horrible. Cramps. Not the kind that occur a few times during a period. These were intense cramps. Period cramps times a thousand. The worst cramps she could imagine. Ryan said he may not come home since the folks were out of town on business. Please don't come home, please don't come home, she worried.

It was starting.

The sun began to set and the moon came out. She had stayed in her room all evening. Lying down, and then sitting up in bed, she tried putting pillows in between her legs, around her waist. She tried lying on a pillow but nothing took the edge off of the pain.

Then later into the night she felt something leaking between her legs. It was a disgusting feeling. Her sheets were wet. That was when everything got intense.

Her mom, she wanted to get her mom…

Slowly and with much difficulty she got out of bed and walked to the bathroom, ripping off her clothes she drew herself a bath. The water was soothing at first, even though it was well after midnight the thought of sleeping was a delusion. She thought the pain before was bad, but it just got worse. She would bite her lips and grit her teeth, trying not to yell but it was so hard not to. The pain was twisting and ripping her insides apart. She laid against the back of the tub for many, many hours. Each contraction got worse and worse and ultimately she couldn't hold in her screams.

Sharpay splashed around in every direction to try and ease the pain but it was too searing and extreme. She screamed with each brutal wave that seized her defenseless body. She couldn't fight it, she couldn't run away, she couldn't do anything but lay there and cry.

Eventually the water had no effect on her, she rose out of it and put her hand on her stomach, it was very tight. She leaned against the wall of the shower. She had almost no more tears to cry but she continued into the early hours of the morning. It was never going to end.

Exhausted and shaken she left her bathroom and put on a clean shirt, she crawled back into her bed, laid there and surrendered to the pain. She laid there for a long time, closing her eyes and crying out with no one to hear her screams. The rain was pouring outside, no one would hear her anyway. How much more of this could she take? Her eyes rose to the alarm beside her bed, it read 6:46. Her parents weren't even in Albuquerque, Ryan obviously never came home…only she was there.

"Mom!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, just in case. The house remained quiet. She heard nothing except for her own hastened breathing, "Ryan!" she shouted even louder. She let several moments pass without hearing the slightest creak. Yes, she was alone.

Suddenly there was an incredible pressure down below. It scared her and she tried to get out of bed but she couldn't stand up, she let her body fall onto the floor, on her knees trembling but she slowly managed to make her way to the bathroom. This was going to be messy. She already knew it.

She leaned against the door, grabbing a towel next to the tub but before she could put it underneath a fire erupted between her legs causing her to scream-groan-hiss-gasp, it all sounded like the soundtrack to a slasher film. She spread her knees apart, freaking at the thought of what was coming out. Little by little her eyes gradually looked down, trying to see what was emerging from her body. Around the edge of her round stomach she thought she saw something round, something with cream colored slime encrusted on it. It was already on its way out.

"Oh my god…" she said spreading her legs farther apart. It wanted to come but she felt her body holding it in, Sharpay took a deep breath and pushed. Sweltering pain engulfed her insides, she cried out for mercy.

Sharpay covered her face with her fists curled up, she shrieked at the thought of dying like this. She couldn't bear to die like this; this couldn't be it for her! She tried to catch her breath in between the tears but this was overwhelming, and then right when she was praying to die a contraction like no other gutted through her. And it loosed the shoulders free. She guided it out of her body after one final push. True ecstasy. The fucking release.

How long had it been? All day, all night, it was now early morning. Her lips were chapped and her throat was burnt up from the hidden lion groans her towel masked.

Her eyes were squeezed shut, so afraid to see if it was a boy or a girl. She had no desire to know, that was the one thing that she could do to help herself. By thinking calling it a thing, an "it." She wasn't required to love it.

She didn't have to care.

But that was how she felt then, now she couldn't resist the urge to look just as she couldn't resist the urge to push. Some things are just involuntary and you have no control over them.

A girl. She looked down and saw the still body of her baby daughter. And damn she was beautiful.

The newborn love she had for this child was instant. Instinctive, unintentional, spontaneous. It was an accident. She never wanted to care so much but she just couldn't help it. Nothing felt more natural than the insistence to pick it up and hold it against her hot, slick skin.

It wasn't fair. She didn't understand how she was supposed to just wrap it up and take it to a safe place and leave her there. How could she even get the strength to go through with it? There were so many things she never thought through.

Sharpay didn't think that it was going to be so hard to carry a baby for nine months and then give birth to it by herself. Women had been having babies for thousands of years, how was she any different? Birth was supposed to be the most natural thing ever, so why did this make her want to cower in shame?

It was for the baby, she had to remind herself of that. She couldn't keep it. They wouldn't let her keep it. The best thing that she could do now was get it someplace safe where it would be looked after and cared for. The hospital could decide what to do then. She was too young to know what the right thing was. She just knew that she couldn't make any more mistakes. If it were up to her, there was one thing she would do right by this baby, and that was get it to a safe place. Somewhere she could walk away without a fight.

The baby, she…she was so little. Sharpay noticed how tranquil the child seemed.

So…unmoving. So…lifeless.

Babies were supposed to cry, weren't they? That's how they start to breathe. It wasn't crying… In fact, if it weren't her own baby it could've fooled her for a little doll. The face was frozen like porcelain. The tiny hands lay limply on the tile floor.

And that's when another sensation started to creep in...dread? No, not dread, panic. Utter panic awakened inside of the young seventeen year-old. Her fingers went to the stomach of the baby.

"No, no, no, no…" she choked over and over, using every last bit of strength to hold herself together.

She prayed silently for a squeak, a cry. A gasp from the newborn human being, anything.

Her gut said to slap its bottom, like she saw the doctors do in the movies. But how could she do when her hands were shaking?

"Cry, cry…" she pleaded to the assumed dead child. Maybe her will was enough to bring it to life. Oh no…time was running out. She was no doctor, but she knew that the child should've been using its lungs by now.

Oh no, it hadn't.

"Cry, little angel," she begged. Her hands convulsing and fumbling to roll the child over, she had no idea what to do.

And then it cried.

...

"I didn't think she was gonna end up with me. I didn't know it would hurt so much. I didn't think I would care so much."

Troy's heart broke when he envisioned the story she just told him. Sharpay pain, dead baby. Alive baby. Give it up. Keep it. Raise it.

After everything he had already put her through. No wonder the girl was breaking.

"But you saved her. You did what you were supposed to do."

"I could've killed her," she said coldly.

Sympathy became apparent on his tired face, "No, no Sharpay." And he took her hand for the umpteenth time. He kissed it. The mother of his child. Where was her voice? Where was the girl he grew up with? Where had she gone?

"Sharpay, do you remember our first day of second grade?"

If the memories of elementary weren't good for Sharpay you wouldn't have been able to tell. Her face was blank. She stared off into the distance. Her head nodded up and down, an answer.

"You were already in the classroom by the time my mom dropped me off. And I remember feeling so happy when I saw you, because I didn't know anybody else in my new classroom."

"We were the only kids from Miss Baldwin's class the year before."

Sharpay quickly turned to him, giving him all of her attention right away.

"You're right," he smiled. He squeezed her hand. "And we sat next to each other the whole day and we weren't afraid because we had each other."

"What happened?" Sharpay said with a pained expression. She didn't look upset, she looked confused.

Troy let his head hang down, "I made new friends."

"And I didn't." There was a sad quietness.

Sharpay leaned up from the sofa chair she had fallen asleep in. The room was so quiet, even with the billion machines and their beeps and their buzzes. She looked at the clock and saw it was too late to go home. Jack and Lucille had probably put Celeste in bed hours ago. That was okay, they'd stayed there before.

She let her eyes fall upon the man that used to kiss her and hold her. He seemed like a stranger now, it was like he moved to a different country, where he couldn't ever call or write.

She brushed her hair out of her face and sighed.

"Six years old, Troy," she said, "six years old. You have no idea how amazing she is."

The only response he would ever give were the sound of his machines that would beep. He looked so peaceful, just like he was asleep. He was, it just wasn't the kind he would wake up from. Her legs stretched out and she stood up. She moved closer to the bed.

Sharpay touched his face. She leaned down and kissed his forehead. He and Celeste, they kind of looked alike when they slept.

"I know you're in there, Troy," she whispered. She looked down at her left hand, the ring on her finger, she never took it off. It was his promise that they would be a family forever. They were going to be a real family with the same last names. She still wore it, after all these years. And she wouldn't take it off until the day they unplugged him.

"I'm sorry I don't come visit more, it just hurts too much," her voice broke and almost instantly she was in tears. She sank down next to him, crouching beside the bed.

"I'm sorry you're daughter turned six today and you didn't even get to see her face. I'm trying really hard to bring her up but it's so hard without you. I can't even take her to a Wildcats game. I know you really wanted to do that with her. I've tried Troy, I'm sorry I'm letting you down."

She scoffed when she finally accepted she was apologizing to no one. She was talking to no one. He was a body, but he wasn't there. It wasn't him. "There was an accident, baby. It made his head bleed, and it made him go to sleep." That was what she told Celeste when she eventually realized that her "sleeping daddy" wasn't like other daddies. He didn't buy her toys at the store, he didn't take her to the park. He couldn't even talk.

He loved them. They all knew that he loved them. His two girls, his entire world.

"If he loves us, he'll come back to us, Mommy," Celeste said one day. Sharpay nodded her head quickly and grabbed Celeste. She pulled her tightly into her chest and held on to the last piece of Troy that was truly alive. She wouldn't let go, she couldn't let Celeste see the tears sprinting down her cheeks.

…

Wow lots of emotions, lots of pain, lots of sobbing, I'm evil. XOXO.