Disclaimer: I don't own it.

Severed

Part i

-

She just stopped talking to him.

Well, not really stopped, but the Sharpay that Ryan had grown up with was suddenly someone else. She wasn't nicer, wasn't kinder, wasn't even meaner. She was just... cold.

No, not really cold. Frozen. Not like ice but stuck in time. She had a frozen smile and the same standard response for everything.

'No, thanks. I have to go work on something.'

Ryan thought that they were alright. He thought that after the summer that they would be better, the best they'd ever been. He thought that she'd come and watch him when he went out and played baseball with Chad and the others. He thought that she'd come with him when Gabriella invited the pair of out with herself and the other wildcats. To movies, to diners, to hang like friends.

But every time Ryan asked her, told her that it was okay 'cos she'd been invited too, Sharpay always shook her head, that frozen smile chipped into place.

'No, thanks. I have to go work on something.'

So Ryan went out to Saturday afternoon baseball games and the movies and the diners by himself.

Well, not really by himself, the Wildcats were there, yes. But he didn't have anyone to beam at him proudly when he hit a good ball or squeal into his shoulder at the scary part of a slasher flick. He didn't have anyone to eat his fries because they were stupid enough to order a salad instead of what they wanted. The others had their girlfriends, their boyfriends. Ryan had always had his sister. Now he didn't.

Sharpay seemed like she was trying to stay out of his way. Which was impossible, they were a team. Even if she'd been a bit of... well, a bit of bitch they were still a team. Just because Ryan wanted a little of his own life didn't mean that Sharpay had to leave it.

At school, during lunchtimes, Gabriella (it was always Gabriella) would ask Sharpay to come sit with them. She always addressed the invitation to Sharpay because Ryan was already a part of the fold; he didn't have to be asked. And still, the same line, pouring out of his sister's mouth like a well-rehearsed reply to a rejection call.

"No, thanks. I have to go work on something."

And then she would turn and leave, glittering in the sunlight pouring from the windows.

Ryan didn't know what to do. He thought that they were okay. He thought that she had learnt her lesson and had given up her guard and her philosophy on life and was ready to enjoy things. Enjoy things with the Wildcats. Enjoy things with him.

He felt guilty, having fun with the others. He thought that perhaps Gabriella knew something of this because she kept giving him sad little looks when he laughed a little too slow after a joke or just caught the tail end of a conversation. Kelsi too, looking at him, faintly worried.

It was always the quiet ones you had to watch out for.

Chad and Troy didn't notice a thing. Why would they? Troy had no reason to care about Sharpay, God no. And Ryan could just read the relief on Chad's face whenever Sharpay refused to hang with them.

"She's too high maintenance," He'd said one day after Ryan questioned him on a (quite audible) sigh he'd let out after Shar walked away. "No offense, man, I mean just look at what she did to you!"

And even though Ryan laughed and agreed, he was decidedly a little too cool for the rest of the day.

Sharpay was high maintenance. That was a fact. She had demanded a lot of Ryan over the years. He'd gone along with most of it because it kept her happy. Only lately, only during the last year or so had Ryan started to care.

But now it was okay. They weren't the Evans Twins anymore. They were Ryan and Sharpay, two separate people. Ryan had gotten his independence from her. And he liked it, he did. It was just... he wanted Sharpay to like it too.

No, not really like it. Ryan could hardly imagine Sharpay liking something that lessened her control in life. He just wanted her to like him. Not just as a dance partner, a singing partner. As himself.

He thought that she'd see it by now. But she never looked at him long enough.

At home she hid away in her room. Ryan tried to go in, once, the day school had started. She'd hardly been there at school. Normally she was strutting through it with the clicking of her impossibly shinny shoes, flipping her blonde hair back, soaking in the attention, whether good or bad. But this day she managed to do the amazing-she kept quiet, kept her head down. Ryan hadn't understood it so that afternoon he went straight to her bedroom. He didn't knock, he never had to. He just reached out to turn the door handle and that's when the most horrible thing happened to him.

Her door was locked. Sharpay had locked her damned door.

Ryan stared at his hand on the handle for what felt like ages. She'd never, ever locked Ryan out. Even in the worst of their fights she left her door slightly open, telling Ryan that she wanted him to seek her out and comfort her. But now, when they weren't even fighting...

He wondered what she did in there. He wondered what she did in school, how she managed to disappear. He had tried to look for her a few times, when the pretending with the Wildcats became too much. Then he stopped, afraid that if he did find her he'd slowly revert back to the lapdog he'd always been. Ryan loved Sharpay, he did. But he liked the way things were now. Not the fact that Sharpay seemed to hate him, he'd never be used to that, but the fact that for once he was included in things. That people asked his opinion, valued it.

And no matter how much he loved her, no matter how much it hurt to be constantly avoided like some sort of disease, Ryan would never trade it for his sister.

But... couldn't he have both?