DISCLAIMER: I do not own 'High School Musical' or any related characters

DISCLAIMER: I do not own 'High School Musical' or any related characters.

A/N: Well, I must say my muse is back. When it disappeared I have no idea, but well, it's just come back and I've got all these story ideas buzzing around in my head. Some can be turned into one-shots but there are others ones, which I'm working on, can be longer. The next chapter of DF should be up soon and yes I am changing the rating. Enjoy!

Bleed for Her

I don't believe in the smile

That you leave when

You walk away and say goodbye,

Well I don't expect

The world to move underneath me

But for God's sake could you try?

I know that you're true to me,

You're always there,

You say you care,

I know that you want to be mine,

Where is your heart?

Cause I don't really feel you,

Where is your heart?

What I really want is to believe you,

Is it so hard?

To give me what I need,

I want your heart to bleed,

That's all I'm asking for.

Where is your heart?

His head was bent low over the notebook he was writing in, his pen moving swiftly across the page as he made notes on the contents of the textbook which sat in front of him. His hair, darker then it used to be, was spiked in different directions, some of it hanging over the blue eyes that she had admired the moment she had met him, there was nothing different about the face, the strong jaw, the straight nose, the serious mouth and yet everything about him was different and it scared her slightly. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, wondering, wishing she knew exactly what he was thinking because slowly, just slowly, it was beginning to hurt and she didn't know how to make it stop hurting. She didn't know how to tell him when he was so successfully shutting her out of his life, even when he'd promised her that he would never, ever do that to her. She didn't, or wouldn't, understand why he was doing what he was doing. She'd never thought that he would be one of the ones that drew away when something bad had happened, she knew him too well to believe that, after everything that he had been put through in his eighteen years of life, he would shut her out when it became to hard between them. She didn't even know when it had become so hard between them and she really didn't know, or understand, when he had stopped trusting her, when he had decided to pull away from her to the point where it was beginning to feel like she was in a relationship with herself, where he was only agreeing with her and not voicing his own opinions and she wanted to know why. She wanted so desperately to know why he had so suddenly stopped loving her the way he had used too.

Blinking back tears, she stared down at her own notebook, which hadn't been opened and bit her lip when she saw the hearts she'd drawn around their names when they'd first gotten together, when it seemed like he had a heart. Fighting with herself, she opened the notebook and began to take notes from her own already open textbook. Her mind not on the notes she was taking but still on the boy sitting next to her, writing in his own textbook. It wasn't that he didn't love her, at least she was sure it wasn't that he didn't love her anymore, he just wasn't justifying the claims he made, the claims he made only when she badgered him she found herself thinking bitterly, about how much he loved or cared for her anymore. He used to touch her, she remembered, he used to do little things that she hadn't noticed until he'd stopped. He used to play with her hair when they were watching a film, he used to touch her without her encouraging him to do so, and he used to whisper stupid things in her ear whether or not she wanted him too. He used to understand what she needed before she even knew what she needed and now she had to wonder if he still did. She was beginning to wonder if all those months of fighting to be together had been worth ending up here, she was beginning to wonder when he had stopped trying to leave her feeling like she was in a whirlwind of feeling, a whirlwind that caused the world to move from beneath her.

A whirlwind, she remembered, she had felt from the very beginning. She had never known he existed until he had been assigned to tutor her in Math's. She'd thought she had known everyone in their year, at least she'd thought she'd known everyone who was important and yet, she hadn't met him. He was the quiet one who sat at the back of the classroom, didn't really speak to anyone even when he was spoken too and paid attention in class even though no-one else did. He was never mocked and that had been because no-one ever noticed him. She had never noticed him either, because she was too caught up in her own life to see the boy at the back of her classroom with the sad look in his eyes. But that was before she'd had to get a tutor, that was before she'd taken one look at him and then had to do a double take when he'd simply handed her a worksheet, informed her with a calm authority that she needed to do this before they he began helping her and walked off, leaving her alone in a classroom with a feeling that she had never experienced. Rejection. Not once in her entire life had anyone calmly told her that before she was to be helped, she had do something for them. Normally it had worked the other way around, but it hadn't worked with him, she could remember offering to start the afternoon they'd met and he'd said no, handed her the worksheet and walked out. That's what intrigued her, what caught her dead in the trap he'd set for her was when she'd discovered that he wasn't actually that quiet or even, no matter what her friends had first sneered, a nerd. He wasn't quiet, he was argumentative to a point, opinionated to a fault and played basketball at the local courts with guys he had been friends with for his whole life. Not the image he had at school and nothing like the person she thought she knew.

She had fallen, she remembered, and she had fallen hard. At first it had been brilliant, even when her friends had accused her of turning on them for someone who wasn't even worth her time. Someone who wasn't as popular or as important as she was and someone who shouldn't have been allowed to touch her the way he did, or use too. It had been a relationship she had always dreamed of being in. She had known he would bleed for her if she asked him too, she had known that he would give her exactly what she needed. Then it had changed so abruptly. He had pulled away and he wouldn't tell her know why and now, now she was sitting at her dining room table with him, pretending to work as he sat next to her, none of the touching her used to do when they would study like this even hinted at. It was all so cold and she was beginning to realize that she couldn't take it anymore. Her head fell to the table and she let it rest there as a tear slipped down, that one single tear she had been fighting for so long. She can almost see him look at her and wishes she could see worry in his eyes as well.

"Brie? What are you doing?" She feels his hand on her back and suddenly sits up, turning her body towards his and praying that his hand stays there. She nearly laughs at the flash of surprise in his eyes at her movements, pleased that at least she could pull something out of him.

"What did I do Troy? Tell me, right here, what the hell did I do?" She asked, fighting to keep her voice from growing louder and struggling to keep the tears at bay.

"What are you talking about Gabriella?" He asked and just look at him Gabriella knew he knew exactly what she was talking about, he just didn't want to go there. It only took her a second to realize that she needed to go there. She needed to figure out where the hell they went wrong. Where the hell she went wrong.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about Troy! What did I do? When did you begin to hate me so much you can't bring yourself to touch me anymore?" Gabriella was aware that her voice had begun to rise at the end of the sentence and didn't care when she saw something else flash in his eyes.

"I don't hate you Gabriella." He said quietly and that was enough for her temper to flare. He didn't flinch when her hardcover textbook hit the wall behind him and she stood over him.

"Don't tell me that! Don't fucking tell me that you don't hate me! You haven't touched me in months Troy! You don't whisper things in my ear anymore! You don't play with my hair anymore! And I know that you don't do any of that because of me! And I don't know why!" She screamed at him and watched as he rose as well, watching her warily as she stared at him.

"You know damn well why, Gabriella." He said it quietly and Gabriella barely had a time to feel relieved at the fact that he was speaking to her, actually telling her something other then denying what she was saying before she comprehended what he had said.

"What the hell's that meant to mean? I don't know why Troy! I don't! If I had known why I would have fixed it! I would have known why you don't hold my hand anymore!" She yelled and this time she recognized rage as it flashed through his eyes.

"I saw you with him!" The explosion had her stumbling back. He never shouted, she knew he never shouted, he never looked this mad and he was never mad with her. "I saw you with him when you promised me you wouldn't go near him! I figured you'd leave, get out of there the moment he got there! But you didn't, you stayed! You didn't believe me!" His words sank in as they echoed around her empty house and she stared at him, the sinking feeling in her stomach confirming something she had never thought could happen. She had lost the trust; she had worked so hard to gain. All because of the one promise he had asked her to take seriously.

"Why didn't you tell me then? Why didn't you just tell me instead of stopping?" She suddenly found herself yelling back and knew that she couldn't control what she was doing anymore.

"I did! I did and you laughed at me! You fucking laughed and brushed it off! What did you want me to do Gabriella?" She didn't stumble back at the shout this time but his words caused the sinking feeling in her stomach again and she shook it off once again.

"Asked me! Pursued it instead of pushing it to one side! Why the hell didn't you just say something again? I've been dying here Troy! Dying! I'm sorry I broke my promise about not going near your rival! But I've been dying! Couldn't you see that?" She cried out and watching as this time he froze.

"Dying from what?" He asked coldly and she was grateful that he hadn't shouted again but couldn't believe that he hadn't seen, hadn't acknowledged the desperation in her that had everything to do with.

"I've been dying because you won't touch me anymore, you won't tell me how you feel unless I nag you into saying it! Where did you heart go, Troy? Where did the guy who would bleed for me go?" She asked forcefully, staring at him as he simply stared at her. Not lost for words, she realized, but weighing the next ones.

"My heart? My hearts had always been somewhere within your grasp." Gabriella blinked back tears at the words as he took a step towards her. "And the guy that would bleed for you? He never left; he's just too hurt to bother fucking around with you. I've been bleeding for you ever since I saw you with him. Did you know that? Or have you only thought about you?" He asked and she shook her head. This wasn't how it was meant to go, they weren't meant to sound like they were breaking up. He wasn't meant to be telling her all the things she needed to hear in such a cruel tone, he wasn't meant to be saying them like it was the last thing on earth he wanted to be saying.

"Don't say it like that," her desperate plea didn't seem to move him. "Don't say it like you want this to be over. You'd left Troy. You stopped being Troy and I didn't know why. It hurts." She nearly whimpered but stopped herself when she heard something like a snort come from him.

"And you think I haven't been hurting? I stopped touching you because I didn't know how. I stopped bleeding for you because it seemed I'd bled enough for you, Gabriella. I don't want it to be over either, but if I can't trust you too keep a promise, then what the hell are we doing here?" He asked looking at her like she was something to be pitied and that nearly broke her.

"You know you can trust me. I love you. You know I love you but I don't know you anymore, where did your heart go? Troy come back to me, please." Her tears overflowed and he sighed and for the first time, she felt his warm hands on her arms. She felt his arms encircling her as she pulled her to his chest, she could smell his musky scent and feel his muscles ripple beneath her face as she sobbed against his chest.

"I never left you Gabriella. I never left you because I love you too. I just don't know how to touch you anymore." He said and Gabriella bit her lip at his words, her hands grasping his shirt as if he was going to set her away from him.

"The relearn it. Don't go. Don't leave me." She whimpered this time, feeling safe within the warm circle of his arms and felt him sigh.

"I'm not going too." He said and she could feel his hand weave its way through her hair and knew that he wasn't lying. She knew that it would take work; she knew it wasn't going to happen over night and she knew that his heart would come back to her in time and one day, maybe one day when the hurt had receded, when she was able to know he would bleed for her again.

A/N: It feels slightly unfinished. I'm not entirely sure why. I know it didn't turn out the way I was hoping it would. I hope you enjoyed it though!