Twin Flames

A High School Musical fanfiction

by

GimmeABeat

beta'd by

Stumbling Dragon

Chapter 11: Trapped in Time

"Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas."
- Army of Darkness, Universal Studios, 1992

"Now that ... is downright peculiar", drawled Dr. Joanne Connolly as she caught her first glance of the Kokopelli petroglyph. She was still a few hundred feet away from it and it was due to this distance that she noticed the "downright peculiar" aspect of the etching. She had seen it before, of course, but that had been ten years ago when she was doing her post graduate work on the symbology behind ancient Native American etchings. Kokopelli, it seemed, had changed.

Joanne pushed the big floppy hat she wore up on her forehead and squinted at the basalt rock face which held the glyph she was sent here to study. Back in high school when Eddie Ray had proclaimed his undying love for her in bright neon spray paint, she never would have imagined it would lead to her chosen career as an anthropologist specializing in Native American petroglyphs. Due to Eddie's unfortunate choice of location for his artwork, both of them had spent two weeks after school scrubbing Krylon 2321 Fusion Spray Paint off the Hagood Mill Historical Site in rural Pickens County, South Carolina. After they finished removing the last of the paint, Joanne saw something peculiar on the rock face, something that turned out to be a ancient rock carving. She broke up with Eddie two months later, but her love for ancient history was still going strong.

She absently scratched at her zinc oxide coated nose while trying to understand what she was seeing. Her Irish ancestry was to blame for her fair complexion and bright red hair. And neither did well under the harsh southwestern sun. Suddenly, an imposing figure appeared, blocking her view of the glyph and shading her from those hated UV rays.

"Dr. Connolly? I'm Agent Johnson. Thank you for joining us on such short notice." He held out his hand for her to shake.

Taking it, she replied in a distinctive southern accent, "I didn't realize I had a choice." Despite living away from the south for the past fifteen years, she still clung on tightly to her down home accent.

When they pulled back their hands, Johnson looked down at his and grimaced at the slick white substance on his fingers.

Joanne shared his grimace. "Oh, sorry 'bout that." She pointed at her nose. "It must be my sunblock. It gets everywhere, but without it, I'll fry to a crisp. Now, we've got more interesting things to talk about besides my nose."

"That we do."

"How long has it been like that?", she asked indicating vaguely toward the glyph.

"Like what?", Johnson asked honestly.

"Take a look." She grabbed him by the shoulders and positioned him to look directly toward the glyph. "You can only see it from a distance; up close and the image disappears into the porous nature of the basalt. Don't look directly at the flute player... look around him", she advised.

Johnson gasped when she saw what she was talking about.

"Yeah, you see it now? It's like a negative image burned into the rock … kind of reminds me of the Shroud of Turin." Joanne was referring to the controversial cloth held in reverence at the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy. It was a linen cloth which held the image of a man in negative image. Some believed it was the image of Jesus Christ while others contended that it wasn't created until some 1,000 years after his death. Either way, it was a mystery.

However, Dr. Connolly and Agent Johnson weren't staring at the image of Jesus. They were staring at the image of a man superimposed over the rock carving of Kokopelli, his face frozen in agony.

=/\=

And they continued to stare for what felt like an eternity until one head suddenly appeared and sucked in a much needed breath.

"Troy...", Sharpay breathed out the name in equal parts, relief and distress.

Troy whipped his head to the side to get the hair out of his eyes and anxiously looked around in the brown water, obviously searching for his opponent. Cautiously, he started to swim to shore.

Polaina stepped to the edge of the drop-off and peered anxiously down. "But where's Tulto?" The worry in her voice was palpable as her eyes darted back and forth across the surface of the water.

Sharpay wasn't sure how she felt. She had been struggling to define her relationship with Tulto since she realized she couldn't go back home. She couldn't say she loved him. No, she definitely didn't love him, but she did have feelings for him. After all, he was her son's father and Tulto loved Pata beyond reason. And perhaps, that was a large part of the problem. Tulto loved his son, but he possessed her. She was legally his property. The only way she had of living in the village was as his woman, not his wife, but his woman. Having no clan affiliations herself, Sharpay couldn't just move in and get a job. Life didn't work that way here. Tulto was her only way into this society; he was her protector, her lover, and her owner. If he was gone (she hesitated to even think the word, "dead"), she had no idea where she stood. All of these thoughts cycled through her head as she carefully watched the water for any sign of the man.

As Troy slowly approached the shore, Ashtay ran around and met him at a small beach off to the right of the drop-off. Despite everything he had witnessed, it was obvious that Ashtay's hero worship of Troy had not abated. He even waded into the water to help Troy out when he seemed about to collapse from exhaustion. After helping him to dry land, Ashtay gently helped him lay down on the small sand bar. Sharpay found comfort in watching the rise and fall of Troy's chest, which was clearly visible even at this distance. Now, Troy was a different matter entirely. She knew exactly how she felt about him. Sharpay had had a crush on Troy Bolton since they were in the ninth grade, maybe even longer than that. However, when she realized that she would be living here in the past for the rest of her life, she had given up on her childish dreams of a future with Troy. And now... he would go back and she would stay here alone. She had promised him that he would go home and she had no intention of reneging on that promise. Equally, she had no intention of leaving her baby. That was unthinkable.

After confirming that Troy was safely ashore, Sharpay slowly approached the girl who had become like a little sister to her during her time among the Nafiat. She slowly wrapped her arms around Polaina and tried to gently pull her back from the edge, fearing that in her distress over her brother, the girl might accidentally slipped into the river herself.

Polaina didn't object when Sharpay hugged her and this gave Sharpay some measure of hope. "Polaina...", Sharpay whispered quietly while slowly drawing her back from the edge. Trying to think of something to distract the girl, Sharpay decided to mention the one person in her life more important than her brother. "Where did you leave Pata? We should check to make sure he is not hurt."

Polaina blinked twice and looked up at Sharpay, as if noticing her for the first time. "Pata? Great Spirits! I-I put him..." She started looking around the area frantically until her eyes settled on the cradleboard propped against a tree. "There he is!", she called out happily as she rushed toward her nephew, who was starting to work himself up into a good and proper cry.

Sharpay smiled at this small accomplishment and started to follow her, but grimaced as she turned. An ache in her abdomen reminded her of Tulto's misplaced fury. The wound had stopped bleeding already, and she realized that it only barely scraped her skin, just enough to bleed. Taking a thankful breath, she followed after Polaina.

=/\=

Troy slowly became aware of his surroundings and automatically went on the defensive. He sat up quickly, too quickly, as he instantly became dizzy and had to lay his head back down on the sand and close his eyes. If that Tulto guy was around, there wouldn't be much he could do about it.

A soothing voice spoke to him in the Indian language, accompanied by a gentle hand patting him on his arm. He recognized the voice as belonging to the boy, Ashtay, and he relaxed a little.

Where was Sharpay? For that matter, where was he? As he worked up his nerve to open his eyes and sit up again, Troy tried to remember how he had ended up here. The last thing he remembered was tackling Tulto and both of them hitting the water a few minutes later. The murky water was so dark he could see nothing, not even his own hand in front of his face. Even so, Tulto had found him under the water and Troy knew without seeing it, that the larger man still had his knife. They fought over it and Troy couldn't honestly say exactly what happened next. All he knew was that he needed to breath or he was going to die. He finally managed to kick away from the bigger man and pump his way to the surface. He didn't see Tulto again after that and hoped never to see him ever again.

Finally, Troy was able to sit up without feeling the need to barf. Ashtay helped him stand and slowly led him up the embankment to where he hoped they would find Sharpay.

=/\=

Polaina came out of her stupor and helped Sh'pi tend to her nephew. Sh'pi scooped up Pata and immediately started unwrapping him from the board amidst his hungry cries and protests at having been propped against a tree and forgotten, at least in his tiny mind. Polaina didn't understand why Sh'pi so disliked the cradleboard. Everyone used one. Babies were placed on the board soon after birth and were never removed from it except for bathing and cleansing until they had lived through two seasons. The board made it easy for the mother to take the baby along wherever she went. Whenever the baby slept, whether at night or during the day, the cradleboard was suspended from the ceiling and allowed to gently swing back and forth. This was one of the few practices which didn't seem to bother Sh'pi. Mothers in Nafiat even fed their babies with them on the board. Sh'pi definitely objected to this practice, much to the consternation of Polaina's mother, Paxopatona. Since she was Pata's grandmother, there was always much strife within the family.

Sh'pi always insisted on holding Pata close to her when she nursed him. All the older women in the village thought she was foolish, but the headstrong young stranger didn't seem to care. Sh'pi lifted the baby off the board and placed him on her shoulder while she quickly adjusted her dress so she could feed him. Nothing, even the death of his father, could stop the natural pace of life. Pata became frantic in anticipation of his upcoming meal and started bobbing his head against Sh'pi's shoulder, rooting around instinctively for the source of the sweet milk he could smell, but couldn't seem to find.

Her nephew's cries of hunger always made Polaina nervous since she knew she could do nothing for him. She breathed a sigh of relief as Sh'pi placed him on her breast and his cries instantly halted. Unfortunately, this sudden silence gave her time to think.

Tulto... What had happened to him? Everything had happened so quickly, she still hadn't had time to sort it all out. Tulto's behavior had seemed crazed when he had sprung upon them in the clearing. He had attacked Sharpay and even cut her with his hunting knife. Although, Polaina knew it must have been accidental. Still, he had not been himself. He appeared to be consumed with anger and jealousy. And as she replayed the events in her mind, Polaina realized that the blue-eyed god, Troy, had not struck out against Tulto until he had attacked Sh'pi. She just didn't know what to think.

Hearing a rustling in the bushes, Polaina looked up as she saw Troy and Ashtay enter the clearing. Troy looked exhausted. Would a god become exhausted from battling a mere mortal?

=/\=

Ashtay continued a constant chattering as they he led Troy up the steep embankment to where Sharpay and the girl, Butterfly, were waiting. He knew, if he could understand what the kid was saying, he would probably be really irritated. As it was, his voice acted like a comforting white noise against the eerie quiet of the day.

Troy's eyes quickly found Sharpay where she was sitting propped against a tree, holding the baby closely in her arms. She smiled up at him with relief clearly on her face. He smiled back and his eyes dropped to where the baby lay for the millisecond it took for him to realize what she was doing with the baby held so closely to her. Troy instantly spun around in embarrassment.

"Oh crap, Sharpay", he exclaimed with his back to her. "I'm so sorry. I didn't realize..." Well, he supposed that ended any doubt as to who that baby was. A baby... Sharpay Evans had a baby! Sharpay Evans was a mother. This one was going to take awhile.

"Calm down, Troy. It's okay. You can turn around. You can't really see anything anyway." Her voice was calm and serene. This was something else that was going to take awhile --- hearing Sharpay speak with such maturity in her voice.

Slowly, he turned around and saw that Butterfly and Ashtay were both staring at him in puzzlement. He guessed it didn't bother them to see a woman baring her … He chanced a glance in Sharpay's direction and realized that she was right. He couldn't actually see anything... just the baby pressed up against her with its dark little fist opening and closing against her pale skin in a comforting rhythm as she gazed lovingly down at its head full of dark hair.

Nervously, he ran his hand through his still-wet hair. "Sorry... This is just a lot to take in at once." He felt like he should try to explain about the big Indian guy. "Um... I'm not sure what happened in the water. It was really dark and murky in there. I couldn't see anything. And Tulto... he just disappeared."

Troy saw the instant he said Tulto's name that Butterfly stood up straighter and narrowed her eyes at him, but said nothing. Other than the fact that Ashtay was madly in love with her, Troy wasn't sure how Butterfly fit into this whole situation.

"Did he … drown?", Sharpay asked cautiously, her eyes darting between Troy and the girl.

"I honestly don't know. I kinda think he did or he would have come after me again."

Sharpay nodded in agreement and said something to Butterfly. Sharpay must have been relaying his opinion about Tulto's fate because Ashtay stepped up closer to her and she burrowed her head into his shoulder as he hugged her close to him for comfort.

Sharpay was still holding the baby and Troy suddenly felt very alone, being the only one who wasn't holding someone.

=/\=

"So how far did you say it is?", Troy asked Sharpay with breathless enthusiasm in his voice.

"Not much longer", she replied.

Like a petulant child, he shot back with, "That's what you said a half hour ago."

As soon as Troy had fully recovered from nearly drowning, Sharpay had insisted that they continue on their trek to the petroglyphs. Troy seemed thrilled with this idea and was now as antsy as a small child on a long car ride.

Sharpay smiled over at him and without giving it too much thought, reached over and took his hand in hers. He smiled back, but Pata chose that moment to make a tiny little noise in his tiny little baby voice as he continued to sleep in his cradleboard attached to Sharpay's back.. Troy dropped her hand and looked away in embarrassment.

They walked side by side down a footpath which had veered away from the river over 45 minutes earlier. The lush vegetation which grew near the water had quickly shriveled away to nothing in less than 30 minutes. Without the underground sprinkler systems of the 21st century which maintained the green alien lawns of the residents of Albuquerque, they found themselves in an arid desert with nothing but a few tumbleweeds as the only sign of life.

"So... a baby... That's … something … that is." Awkward didn't begin to describe how he sounded.

"Yeah...", Sharpay replied as they continued their conversation, both of them speaking intently to the ground. "But I'm really happy … about it … him, I mean. Pata... he's my life." Now she sounded like an awkward teenager too.

"What's that mean? Pata, I mean? Does his name mean anything?"

An automatic smile came to her lips as it always did when she spoke or thought about her baby. "Yes, pata means blackbird. When he was first born, his little mouth opened and closed like a little bird searching for his food, so Tulto named him Pata." Tulto's name rolled off her lips before she realized what she had said and Troy came to stop in the middle of trail.

"Oh, God, Sharpay. I am so sorry about Tulto and the fight and … and everything that happened, but when he pushed you … I just couldn't let that happen, but I never, for once, even thought that he would end up..." He stopped before the word, dead.

Sharpay picked his hand back up and held onto it with both of hers. "It's okay, Troy. You didn't do anything wrong. You protected me. Thank you."

She looked further up the trail and happily announced, "Look, we're here." She pointed slightly to their left and they saw the glyphs about five minutes away.

It was amazing how little, what would later become, the Petroglyph National Monument had changed from their own time. If you pretended that the housing development was still there and forgot that the rustic trail they stood on used to be paved asphalt, it looked exactly the same. Ashtay and Polaina appeared at the top of a large boulder near the Kokopelli glyph and waved to them.

In Tiwa, Sharpay called up to them, "We'll be right there!"

The two youngsters had run ahead and found their destination for them. They rounded the corner of the path a few minutes later and there he was, that grotesque caricature carved into the rock. It looked completely innocent and yet it was because of this simple drawing that their lives had been so unalterably changed. Polaina removed Pata from Sharpay's back. Taking Troy's hand, Sharpay led him up to the glyph.

"I guess you know how to activate this thing since you somehow made it here."

"Yeah, Taylor figured it out. It's our blood; we're linked. Remember how I cut my hand on the rock?"

A scene flashed in Sharpay's head of Gabriella fawning over him and she automatically wrinkled her nose in distaste. Troy misinterpreted her reaction and hastily reassured her, "Oh, I wasn't hurt bad. It was just a scratch really, but it was enough to turn the portal on for you to fall through. My blood opened it for you and your blood opened it for me."

"Oh. Wait a minute, then how did you get it to open the second time since I was already here?"

"Ryan was able to get some of your blood to use." He let that statement hang in the air, neither explaining or clarifying it in any way. "But we're both here now, so I figure if we cut ourselves and bleed on the rock at the same time and go together, we'll be fine."

"Right..." She couldn't bring herself to tell him anymore at this point.

"Do you have a knife?"

Sharpay searched around inside her cavernous hobo bag and produced a small flint knife and held it up for him to see. "I'll go first", she announced.

The two youngsters gasped when Sharpay quickly drew the knife across her palm in a long slice. Her blood immediately started to pool in her cupped hand and she slowly walked up to the glyph and held it over the humped-back figure, allowing her blood to drop onto it.

"Now my turn", Troy held out his hand for the knife, but Sharpay surprised everyone by flinging it on the other side of the large rock. "Sharpay!", he shouted. "What are you..."

=/\=

Sharpay grabbed his outstretched hand and started to pull him toward Kokopelli. "Don't make this harder than it already is." There were tears flowing down her cheeks. "Please try to understand. I can't go back, Troy. I can't leave my baby; he'd die without me. And you can't stay here; it's not right. Go home, Troy. Go home." She tried to shove him toward the rock, but they were both knocked off their feet by a sudden blur of motion from behind.

Dazed, Troy looked up and saw Tulto standing over him. Damn, what was it with this guy? He kept appearing out of nowhere.

Tulto yelled something guttural in the Indian language at Sharpay. Then, he made a lunge toward her. At the last second, Troy stuck out his leg, causing Tulto to trip and crashed into the ground. Both men were on their feet in seconds and Tulto started wildly swinging his knife around at Troy. Troy jumped back away from the sharp blade, but found himself pinned against a rock with nowhere to run. He raised his arms to fend off the blow and Tulto swung around with a large arcing slice of the weapon and sliced into the back of Troy's left arm. Troy reached out and grabbed onto Tulto's knife hand and began to hit it on the rock, trying to force the larger man to drop it, at the same time inadvertently smearing the Indian with the blood from the wound on his arm.

He bashed Tulto's arm against the sharp basalt rock once, twice and finally, a third time when the knife finally dropped to the sandy ground. Then, Troy pushed Tulto away from him and quickly reached down and retrieved the knife. Troy wasn't comfortable with weapons. He certainly wasn't the kind of guy who had ever been in a street fight where knife fighting would have ever been a useful skill. His lack of ability was evident to Tulto who grinned maliciously at the awkward teenager. They circled around each other slowly; it was obvious that Tulto was looking for a easy opening in order to retake the weapon.

Suddenly, Troy realized how ridiculous this entire fight was. He was completely out of his league and adding a weapon, with which he was clueless, wasn't going to help matters. With disgust, Troy threw the knife over a large boulder and out of sight. Tulto stared at Troy as if he were crazy. Then, he suddenly let out a high pitched scream and barreled directly at Troy. Luckily, all those basketball drills finally paid off and Troy was able to dive out of the way right before Tulto would have hit him.

Instead, Tulto crashed head long into the rock which held the glyph of Kokopelli and which was still coated with Sharpay's wet blood. He instinctively put out his hands to absorb the fall, the hands which were covered in Troy's blood which had been transferred to Tulto's hands during the fight.

=/\=

Kokopelli began to glow and the image started to swirl around, opening a black vortex in the rock. Sharpay realized immediately that this opening of the portal was very different from when she came through it. Tulto's hands sank into the rock and he screamed out in agony and tried to pull back, but it wouldn't release him. In fact, he began to sink further into it despite his obvious struggle to pull himself free.

Troy seemed to understand what was happening and without regard to any danger to himself, he grabbed onto Tulto's waist and pulled with all his might. Sharpay and Ashtay joined Troy, all of them pulling together to save Tulto. Sharpay saw Polaina standing awkwardly to the side, holding Pata. At first it appeared that they were making progress, and Tulto's hands seemed to be coming back out of the rock. However, his hands weren't really moving; it was just that his arms were being stretched out and his screams of pain were deafening.

The pull of the vortex was overpowering all of them and Tulto sank deeper and deeper into it, pulling Troy, Sharpay and Ashtay along with him. Ashtay's eyes widened in horror and realization and he seemed to know what he had to do. With great effort, he shoved Troy and Sharpay away and allowed Tulto to be engulfed by the time whirlpool. As if someone had flipped a switch, the portal and Tulto's screams were cut off, leaving nothing but an eerie silence hanging in the air.

TBC

Author's Notes:

I want to apologize for taking so long to update, but life has been really crazy lately. I hope I still have some readers out there.

I was really surprised that everyone was so surprised about Sharpay's baby. I thought I had given loads of hints along the way.

Let's see....

In Chapter 8, Sharpay chastises Polaina for yelling in the house and tells her to use her 'inside voice'. Be honest, have you ever heard anyone other than someone's mom (yours or someone else's) say that?

Then, before she would leave she made sure that Polaina would stay at the house until she got back.

Also in chapter 8, when Troy sees her for the first time, he thinks that she has ample breasts and hips. There was just something very squeezable about her. That's cuz her boobs are bigger from the baby.

In chapter 9, when Tulto and Sharpay are in their 'bedroom'. Here's what happens, Ensuring that they wouldn't be interrupted, Sharpay looked over her shoulder one last time before replying to his declaration. "You are right. Troy is not a god."

She was looking back at the darken corner of the room to make sure that the baby was really asleep.

Also in that scene, there's other hints.

With as steady a voice as she could muster, Sharpay replied, "No, I am not leaving. My place is here. You know that."

"You are not staying because of me." It wasn't a question. He already knew the answer.

"No, not because of you, but I am staying. I promise you this, Tulto."

In chapter 10, she goes to her friend, Tsirege, to get her to babysit. That scene is very clear, if you squint.

Hope this helps.

Hey, guiltypleasure mentioned that she was from South Carolina. I was born there, so in honor of this odd little state, I included the reference to Pickens County and petroglyphs. See? There's not just in France and the desert.

Please R & R so I know you you're still out there.

Native American Character List:

Tsirege – Tha-a-ba's wife, means little bird

P'ah-tah-zhuli - Toltu's 'first' wife, means little deer bean

Paxopatona -Tulto's mother, also mother of Shyuote, Sayap and Polaina

Polaina – Tulto's sister, means butterfly

Sayap – Tulto's youngest sister

Shyuote - Tulto's younger brother

Sse – corn silk, what Tulto 'renames' Sharpay

Tha-a-ba – Tulto's friend, brother to Turkano, Thing 2

Tulto – The Big Indian's real name

Turkano – Tulto's friend, brother to Tha-a-ba, Thing 1

Ashtay – Polaina's friend

Hishtanyi – medicine man of Nafiat

Pata – Sharpay's son, means blackbird.