Reunion

Old Fiat

Okay, so I decided to get started on a story which I've been thinking about for a long time. I know this idea has been done before but ages ago I read Jewel2502's story If Only For a Moment and it really had a huge effect on me. I looked at it again recently and began bouncing some ideas around with Old Fiat n. France and this is what's come out of it.

This story is also greatly inspired by Scribbling Wordsmith's fanfic The Geek In the Pink (though this story is quite a bit different than that one and If Only For a Moment) and the The Feeling songs "Kettle's On" and "Miss You" (for reasons that will make more sense later) and a load of other songs from their album Twelve Stops and Home which, if you haven't heard any of the songs from it, you must go check out because it's just... perfect. It's wonderful. It's something I listen to a lot while writing and reading fan fictions. Go give it a listen. It's just works so well with High School Musical and most of its characters.

Speaking of the characters of HSM, I own none of them. They belong to some guy whose name I don't remember. I barely even own the plot of this story...

Please enjoy and review!

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Chapter One: You Can Run, but You Can't Hide

"Someday, we'll meet again..."

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The rain fell heavily as she ran, tears streaming invisibly down her cheeks. She was alone. She couldn't take it anymore. She had been so wrong... so stupid.

Falling down under a large tree in the park, she collapsed, sobs racking her small frame.

Why did everything have to end up so wrong? Why did she have to be the villain in the end?

Mud was soaking into her jeans, but she didn't care. She didn't care about anything anymore. She just wanted things to go back to the way they were.

As she sat there under the broad branches of the maple, the large leaves providing some protection from the rain, a young man came over to her, his dark brown hair curling slightly from the being wet. He was pale. He was beautiful, with bright blue eyes and even, albeit icy, facial features. She looked up at him and gave a cry of frustration.

"Oh God, just leave me alone? You were right! Okay? You were right about everything. Just go, Charlie—alright? Just go! I know you hate me and now you have what you want! You have my friends, my family, the whole school in the palm of your hand. You have my whole life wrapped around your finger, alright? Can't you just leave me alone!?"

He stared down at her, his expression blank, for a few moments. Then a grin spread across his face.

"You're so stupid," he said a hint of a chuckle in his voice. The chuckle grew into a laugh and before she could quite understand what was happening, he was sitting beside her, laughing so hard he could barely breathe.

"What?" she whispered and suddenly, his arms were wrapped around her.

"I love you," he said, still chuckling, and pressed his lips against hers...

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Gabriella Montez had the perfect life.

She had the perfect job, the perfect apartment in the most perfect city in the entire universe, the perfect suits, the perfect shoes and the perfect bachelorette lifestyle. It was all totally and completely perfect.

And she knew it was. She worked as an attorney for two of her best friends from high school and owned a good sized, upper-class apartment in New York City. She loved it. She loved wearing her professional suits and coming home to nothing but a few messages on her message machine and her television. It was the perfect way to live. Well, it was the perfect way for her to live.

She entered her simple, self-decorated apartment and felt herself smile as the familiar smell of lavender and just-washed cotton wafted out of the room. She loved the cream color of the walls, the camel-colored carpeting, the white tiled kitchenette that was separated from the living room by a half wall that she and Ryan had painted a shocking shade of aqua one evening when he and Kelsi were trapped in her apartment due to a downpour. She loved her mostly beige marble bathroom, though it was only about the size of a walk-in closet. And she adored her bedroom with its light blue walls and its white curtains and trim.

Fumbling with the mail she had taken from her postbox in the lobby downstairs as she stripped off her heavy winter coat, she walked over to the worn out, partially collapsed sofa and stretched herself out on top of it. She threw the mail in the basket that sat atop the cherry wood coffee table without bothering to look at any of the envelopes—all she ever got was bills and junk mail—and turned on the television.

As she was about to change the channel, her phone rang. She scrambled to mute the television before jumping up to grab the phone from its cradle on the mantle.

"Hello, this is Gabriella Montez speaking," she said, her tone indicating that she had said this countless times before. "May I please ask who's calling?"

"Hey Gabriella, its Ryan."

"Oh hey, Ryan." She sat back down on the couch and fiddled with the edge of the turquoise blanket draped over the worn upholstery. "What's up?"

"Nothing much," he said and she could almost see him give his usual little shrug as he walked around his spacious penthouse. "I was just wondering if you got your invitation."

"To what?" asked Gabriella, taking the remote again and resuming her search through the channels.

"Um... Have you even looked at your mail yet?"

"Not exactly..." She set down the remote on the floor and picked up the pile of letters once more. "Uh... Bill, bill, bill, catalog, junk... uh..." she stalled as she flipped through the stack. "Oh!"

"So you got it?" She could picture his smirk as he listened to her go through her mail.

Scoffing, she set the other letters beside her on the couch and tore open the envelope which said on the back 'Principal Horatio, East High School'. Inside was written in clear, black type—

Ms. Gabriella Montez—You are invited to attend the fifteen-year reunion of the class of 2007 at East High School, Albuquerque, New Mexico on the 22nd of February. Come to the gymnasium in the Adrian Park's building at 6:30 PM. This is a black tie event. Yours, Principal Jennifer Horatio.

"Oh..." she breathed gazing down at the thick, parchment-style paper in her hands. Her heart pounded and she felt her throat close.

"You going to go?" Ryan asked, his tone casual in contrast to the butterflies filling her stomach.

"Um... I... uh... I don't know," she answered slowly. She felt as though her mind had been flipped. She didn't want to go back to East High. She hated the thought of seeing Albuquerque again. She would never admit it aloud, but the idea terrified her. She hated just thinking about leaving her perfect life, even for only a day or two. She couldn't go. She wouldn't go.

"You don't know? What does that mean?" Ryan was laughing. He loved to laugh at her, even when he should have been taking the situation very seriously. It wasn't insulting, and normally she didn't mind and would joke with him about it, but at that moment, she didn't want to be laughed at. The sound echoed around her head and caused her face to flush.

"I... uh... I..." she stammered. She had to put herself in order. She couldn't let just the thought of him cause this kind of desolation. You're speaking to Ryan, she chanted silently. To Ryan, not to Troy. "I... don't think I'll go."

"What?"

"I don't think I'll go. I have a lot of things I have to get done in New York."

"Gabriella, it's in a month," Ryan said slowly, as though speaking to a child. The vocal smirk had returned and it sent a strange sort of chill down her spine.

"Well, what if I have stuff to do then?"

"Then I'd let you stay here, but if not I will physically drag you to Albuquerque. I thought you liked it there—is something up?"

Gabriella breathed deeply in preparation to respond, but her answer was stopped by a series of clatters and the sound of a voice saying, 'Oh God, give me the phone, you insensitive...' A moment later, Kelsi's soft voice crackled through the receiver.

"Gabriella, I know what you're thinking and I won't force you to go, but you know—going back to Albuquerque for a few days won't make you any weaker—"

At this point Gabriella could hear Ryan say, "What are you talking about?", but Kelsi continued regardless.

"—And I know you're worried about seeing Troy, but what are the chances of him being there? I mean, the guy has to be super busy. I know you're always busy too, but think about it for a moment; Chad and Taylor will probably be there and you and Taylor haven't seen each other since me and Ryan's wedding and haven't spoken in about a year. All our friends will be there and we'll get to see them again, even if we fell out of contact a long time ago..."

"If I went, do you think—" Her voice was getting a little thick and she mentally slapped herself. Clearing her throat, she started again, her tone even. "If I went... If..." She groaned, not knowing how to express herself.

"Come on, Gabi," Kelsi pleaded and Gabriella could almost picture her puppy dog expression that she used so often on Ryan. "Please?"

She took a deep breath, considering. As she thought, she looked around the living room, at the photograph of herself, Kelsi and Ryan on the mantel. It was from the day before their wedding, almost four years ago. Kelsi had been so sweet and Ryan had been so nervous, but in the picture they both seemed so gentle and calm as they smiled at the camera with Gabriella beside them, her own smile a little crooked as she'd been caught off-guard by Chad and his digital camera.

In different frames beside the photo, there were three other pictures—one of her and her mother from her mother's last visit in front of the Statue of Liberty; one of Gabriella and two of her friends, Kayc and Steven, who worked for the same law firm as she did, from when they went out to dinner with Ryan and Kelsi; and one from the summer after high school had ended that showed her, Taylor, Chad, Jason, Martha, Sharpay, Ryan and Zeke laughing together as they sat at the edge of the Evans' private pool. All of them had taken off their shoes and dangled their feet in the clear blue water. Kelsi had insisted on taking the picture, claiming that she wasn't photogenic and didn't want her photograph taken, but the whole group of friends, excluding Ryan, had known that it was because she was too nervous to sit near the boy who she wasn't sure was her friend or her boyfriend.

Gabriella sighed. "Sure," she said finally and Kelsi gave a little squeal of excitement.

"Thank you so much, Gabriella! This is going to be so fun. We have to go shopping tomorrow with Ryan—" Kelsi babbled ecstatically for a few minutes and Gabriella found herself giving monosyllabic responses. Her head was a little foggy from remembering, making it difficult to hear anything, including her own thoughts. She woke up a little when Kelsi cut herself off mid-sentence to say, "Oh, Ryan wants to talk to you. Thank you so much, Gabi! I'd be way too nervous to go to this thing with just Ryan!"

"No problem," said Gabriella, trying to smile.

Ryan's voice now came through the line, his even way of speaking calming her a little. "Thanks, Gabriella, this is going to be a lot of fun with you with us."

"It's nothing," she said in response, biting her lip as the lie left her mouth.

"Hey, do you want to go out to dinner tonight? Kelsi and I have nothing in our fridge and I bet you're in the same situation."

Gabriella laughed. "Yeah, I was just planning on ordering Chinese or something, but a night out sounds fun."

"Yeah, and when was the last time you had one? About a millennium ago, right?"

"Ha ha, Evans," she said sarcastically. "You're one to talk, Mr. 'I'd-rather-stay-in-with-my-wife-and-never-see-my-best-friend-since-high-school."

Ryan chuckled. "See you in half an hour. Kelsi and I will come around to your place."

"No, no—it's fine. I'll go to yours. It's easier that way. There are, like, no restaurants near my apartment."

"What are you talking about? There are a bunch of restaurants on your street."

"Read as: 'There are no good restaurants near my apartment.'" Gabriella smiled as Ryan's laugh filled the speaker.

"You're nuts. See you in thirty minutes."

"See you," she said and hung up the phone. As she set it back on its cradle, she looked at the photograph of her and the other 'Wildcats', as they had been called. One couldn't see it from the old, collapsing sofa, but around Gabriella's shoulders, a tan, muscled arm was draped. She picked up the simple, dark wooden frame. It was almost impossible to see and she probably wouldn't have noticed it unless she had known about it before. She sat there by the pool at the right edge of the picture—her toned legs splashing in the water, the light-weight, gold and white sun dress draping in a flattering empire style, her dark hair curling into dozens of little ringlets from the humidity. She was giggling and beaming ecstatically, her cheeks flushed from the undying excitement being so close to the boy who had his arm around her.

Gabriella flipped the frame over in her hands and opened the back. Slipping the photograph out from behind the glass, she looked down at it. She'd been such a stupid girl, thinking that her life would just be perfect from that day on. One had to work for perfection. She understood that now.

The right edge of the photo had been folded over many years before and now she carefully bent it back, unfolding it. There he sat beside her, his arm around her shoulders and his still-charmingly crooked, awkwardly broad grin in place. His bright blue eyes were enhanced by the turquoise water and the light gray-blue, shot-sleeved, button-up shirt that he wore with a white t-shirt beneath and swimming trunks. His cheeks were an odd shade of fuchsia from the burn he had acquired earlier that day and the kiss Gabriella had bestowed on his lips mere moments before the picture was taken. His hair, with its natural highlights from spending the whole day outside in the sun, was windswept, rumpled, spiky and tangled from being quickly towel dried an hour before being photographed.

He was so handsome—in an awkward, teenage boy sort of way—and at the time he had seemed so gentle and sweet. He had known exactly what to say to make her smile, to make her laugh. He had blushed easily and laughed even easier. And she had fallen for him—tumbled head over heels and never worried about anything ever going wrong. How could anything have gone wrong? Her life had seemed perfect.

Gabriella placed the photograph roughly back in its frame and slammed it on the mantel before going off to her room to change for dinner—Troy's bright eyes and sweet smile still in the front of mind.

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His home was open and airy. There were very few exterior walls and instead large, floor-to-ceiling windows gave him a view of the valley and some of the surrounding woods. There were no doors in the downstairs, excluding one which led to the outside. Instead, there were just enormous openings in the walls that stretched up to the ceiling and connected the rooms. There was a long, white wall that separated the two hemispheres of the house. It broke off before before reaching the window at the other end, creating an enormous doorway which led to the front door and the staircase to the second floor. The other side of the house held the kitchen and dining room, which flowed strangely into each other.

Light bounced bounced around the living room, rebounding off the large painting that hung on the wall, a confusing spread of black lines on a stark white canvas. He sat down on the white leather sofa that stretched across the room in a length that he found somewhat unnecessary and then bent near one of the enormous windows in an 'L'-shape. There were also a few arm chairs scattered throughout the room which he always found himself moving around when he was in the house. The whole set up was placed on top of a large white rag rug with a few glass topped coffee tables placed by the arms of the chairs and one larger one in the center. Mounted against the one wall that protected the structure from the outside, which stood opposite the other wall, was a wide, flat screen television and an extravagant stereo set up.

He didn't like the house. It was too big for him and in the five years that had passed since he purchased it, left for half a year to shoot a film and handed it over to a professional interior designer, he had only really spent seven months in the building all together. He was rarely at home and he didn't really consider it his home at all. It felt more like a building which he stayed in from time to time and stored some of his things in. He hated it.

As he sat there, trying to relax after the exhausting flight from Quebec, he felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out and flipped it open.

"Hello?" he asked, his voice a little groggy.

"Troy? This is Gray."

Troy winced at his agent's harsh Chicago accent. "Yeah? What's up? I just got back."

"You're at your house?"

"Uh... yeah? Where else would I be—the garbage can outside Starbucks?"

"Honestly, that would not surprise me. I've just come through the gates—can you let me in?"

Troy pushed himself up from the couch and walked heavily towards the door. "Maybe. It depends on what you're here for." He undid the security lock on the door and swung it open in time to see Gray Williams' silver Porsche glide up the drive and come to a rest by his own black Mustang.

"Hey!" Gray called as he stepped out of the car, closing his phone and straightening his suit as he walked over to the front steps.

Troy closed his own phone and dropped it back into his jeans pocket. The skin beneath his blue eyes was slightly gray from lack of sleep and his black sport's coat was wrinkled from the flight. He leaned against the door frame as the only slightly older man jogged over to him. The two walked into the living room and Troy sat back down on the sofa and Gray dropped into one of the matching armchairs that sat nearby.

"Where's that maid of yours?" he asked, rubbing his oddly pale hands together.

Troy shrugged. "I only got home twenty minutes ago. She might have taken the day off while I wasn't here."

Gray scoffed and ran his hand over his perfectly styled dark brown hair. "Okay... On another topic, I got a letter for you about a week ago."

"My mail is sent to you while I'm away," Troy said in a slightly sarcastic monotone. "Is this really that surprising?"

"This isn't a bill or some other crap," Gray explained as he reached into the inside pocket of his black suit coat. He pulled out a plain, white envelope and waved it at Troy. "This is some thing really, really, really..." He paused, trying to find the right word. "...Important."

Troy raised one eyebrow dubiously and slowly got up from the sofa. "If it's as important as you say it is, I might need a drink before I read it."

Gray followed his client as he walked through the somewhat too modernly decorated dining room to the large kitchen.

"Troy," he said, his hands shaking a little as he fumbled with the letter. "You've become a sort of... rebellious... 'bad boy' type as of late—"

"'Bad boy'?" Troy repeated questioningly, glancing at Gray over his shoulder without breaking his stride. "How can I be a 'bad boy'? I'm thirty-three years old!"

"I don't know! Let me finish!"

They entered the kitchen. Troy opened the large, steel refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of beer. He held one out to Gray.

"You want one?"

"It's four in the afternoon," his agent pointed out, folding his arms.

Troy rolled his eyes and placed one of the bottles back in the refrigerator and popped open the other one. "Yeah well, my mind is telling me that it's eight o'clock in the evening so I don't know how much it really matters."

"Anyway!" Gray half-shouted. "I don't like this... this 'persona'! Producers and casting directors usually like to use well-known actors, but they don't like ones that have 'issues'—such as commitment problems, partying crap and... and stuff like that! Paparazzi princes almost never get good roles, haven't you noticed that?"

"Come on..." Troy shook his head and took a sip of beer.

Gray pointed to the bottle in his hand. "Did you eat anything before drinking that?"

"Oy vey," he groaned and brought his shoulders back to crack his spine. "I pulled through McDonald's on my way from LAX. It was nearly impossible to do, alright? Can't you finish whatever the hell you were talking about? I can't even remember how we got on this subject again."

"I want to clean up your act," Gray said, pushing his frameless glasses further up his nose. "I want you to stop this late-night partying... all these one-date girlfriends. It's damaging to your career!"

"Gray, I just got back from shooting a movie. I think I have a some kind of career going on."

"Yeah! But what about after, Troy?" Gray half-shouted, his voice bouncing a little off the walls. "As your agent, I really think you should heed my advice!"

"You know, I probably should," Troy said, nodding a little as though considering the notion. "Come on. Knock it off, Gray."

"I will not knock it off, Troy! If I see you go out clubbing at all this week, I'm going to be so mad I... I..." He struggled for a few moments, furious that words had failed him. "Look," he said after taking a few calming breaths. "I'm trying to look out for you. I really think that this is a good idea. Of course, it's a free country and, in theory, you can do whatever you want, but I don't like the way you've been acting lately. I think it's bad not just for your career, but it's bad for you, too."

Troy stared out one of the windows and leaned on the black marble counter, his expression blank and cold. He felt a little tug of guilt somewhere in his chest. Gray had been his agent for almost ten years. He looked after Troy and helped him get to auditions and aided him in becoming a well-known actor. He was no longer just his agent. He was his friend too.

"The letter I got while you were gone was from a Ms. Jennifer Horatio," Gray said as he pulled the letter out of the envelope.

"I don't know her," Troy said, taking another swig of beer and pushing some of his hair out of his eyes.

"Really?" asked Gray, setting the envelope on the island in the middle of the kitchen floor. "Because she's the principal of your old high school."

"Where? East High?" Troy turned back towards him and saw a glint of satisfaction in Gray's pale blue eyes as Troy became suddenly interested. Gray nodded and look back down at the letter.

"It says you've been invited to your fifteen-year high school reunion," he read, a smile pulling at one side of his mouth. "It's on February 22nd and I want you to go."

"No way," Troy laughed, shaking his head. "There's no way I'm facing that crowd again."

"Why? I think this is a good chance to really create a new Troy Bolton. You can see all your old friends again and maybe... I don't know... start talking to them again. I think you need some people that are your friends for more than a day." He looked seriously at Troy. "And while I would like to think I'm counted as one of your friends, I'm also your agent and, as such, I demand that you go to this reunion."

"No freaking way," Troy said, still grinning disbelievingly. "Never in hell am I going to talk to them again."

"Come on!"

"Oh, what a convincing argument!" Troy joked sarcastically. "And what does this even have to do with cleaning up my act?"

Gray sighed. "I'd hoped that maybe if you connected with some old friends—hopefully your parents, too—that you'd be a bit happier and that that might help you not feel the need to go out and be stupid all the time." Troy shot him a glare before taking another drink.

"I will not go back there. There's no way. I refuse. I don't want to talk to any of my old friends or least of all my parents." With that, he pushed himself off the counter and strode back to the living room, Gray hurrying along behind.

"But it will be good for you! Come on—just think of it as a little vacation after shooting, relax a bit. It's freaking Albuquerque—they won't kill you or anything."

"Yeah right!" Troy called over his shoulder as they entered the living room.

Gray sat down in one of the armchairs and, as Troy lowered himself onto the couch, said, "Troy, seriously, what's the harm? The thing is in a few weeks and it will give you a bit of time to think about things. The future isn't going to be bright if you continue down the path you're on. The reunion might help you out a bit. You know, rediscover your roots or whatever."

Troy groaned and slumped over, elbows resting on his knees, his bottle of beer held loosely in his right hand. Gray watched him carefully, waiting for his answer. Finally he swung his head back up and took a large gulp from his bottle.

"Fine," he said with something that rested between a sigh and a groan. "I'll go. I'll see... my parents and all my old 'friends' again," he spat, wiggling his fingers to make quotation marks. Cracking his neck, he stood again and gestured for Gray to do the same. "Go. I need to go eat and... I don't know, watch TV until I pass out."

"Thank you," Gray said to Troy as they walked to the door.

"Don't mention it. Seriously."

Gray laughed and as Troy opened the door to let him out, he turned around to face the younger man.

"Hey, why don't you want to see your friends?" he asked, still smiling with a mixture of the remaining laughter and satisfaction that he had gotten his way. "Do they all hate you or something?"

"No, that's not it," Troy sighed, running his fingers through his hair. "They love me."

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So, what did you guys think? Please leave a review because I really love feedback of any kind and … yeah. Please send me a review! They help me update faster. :D

-Old Fiat Southern Italy