A/N: And it is complete! This is the final chapter. It's a bit shorter than the rest, but it's a bit of wrap up. I think it stayed in tone with the rest of the story, though I struggled with how to tie it all up. Thanks to everyone who were still waiting around for the rest of this story, and thank you to everyone who started reading just recently. Thank you to everyone who was reading! Let me know what you think! Enjoy! R&R! Thanks! ~Mac

Disclaimer: I don't own HSM or Spring Awakening and its related songs, script and characters.

Chapter Twelve

Gabriella allowed herself to stay curled around Troy until her breathing and heartbeat returned to normal. By then, the sheen of sweat had dried on her skin and her limbs felt like they belonged to her again. Her head had cleared of the post sex haze. As she eased out of the afterglow, she eased out of Troy's arms.

The only thing on her mind was finding all of her clothes.

"Where are you going?" Troy asked lazily as she slipped away.

Gabriella spotted her panties trying to disappear under his bed. She grabbed them and started to pull them back on. "That's it, isn't it?"

"That's it?" Troy's eyes widened. He sat up and watched as Gabriella moved around his room. "I've gotten some mediocre reviews before, but never anything close to that's it. Were you not feeling that the same way I was? Because a few minutes ago you seemed beyond satisfied—"

"No, I mean, that's it between you and me," Gabriella had retrieved her bra and was trying to sort out her dress from the puddled mess it had been left in. "Sharpay said you never do this more than twice with the same girl. So this...thing between us is over. We're done, right?"

"Is that what you want?" Troy threw his blankets off, grabbed his briefs off the floor and pulled them on.

Gabriella gave up on her dress, balling it up and clutching it to her chest. "This isn't about what I want. You're Troy Bolton. You always get what you want. That's the only reason I'm here at all."

Troy shook his head and laughed dryly. "That's complete bullshit and you now it."

"You were the one pursuing this. The control was always in your hands, no matter what you say," Gabriella said. "You were persistent. You dragged me along on a roller coaster of highs and lows, ignoring me one second and then kissing me like you need the oxygen from my lungs the next. When was what I wanted ever part of the equation?"

"You are Gabriella Montez," Troy said, taking a few steps closer to her. "You are independent and strong. You are infuriatingly opinionated and resolute. You might not have known you were all of those things before, but that doesn't change the fact that you always have been. So I know, there is nothing that we did that you didn't already want with some part of yourself. You wouldn't have given in if you didn't want it too."

"I'm sure you've said the same thing to all the other girls you've been with recently," Gabriella said. "I'm sure that you made them believe that it was all their idea, that you didn't prey on their vulnerabilities."

"First of all, I haven't been with any other girls recently. I have a personal rule to not mess around with anyone when there's still someone else on my mind," Troy replied. "And second, I don't prey on vulnerabilities, I don't like weak girls who are driven by their insecurities. That's why, as much as she thinks she wants it, I will never do something like this with Sharpay. Girls like her are unpredictable. You can never get out from under them. You know what you want and what you don't want and it comes from a place of strength. I'm just good at reading people and situations. I know what to say and do to get them to be honest about themselves."

"I thought everyone was a liar here?" Gabriella said.

"Of course they are. In public," Troy said. "But behind closed doors, in private, I am very good at getting peole to reveal their true selves where they are unburdened by expectations and image."

"If you're so good at reading situations, what is this one telling you?" Gabriella asked.

"Nothing, because I'm not trying to read it," Troy said. "You already know what you want. Nothing I say is going to persuade you one way or the other. So, you tell me, Gabriella, what do you want?"

Gabriella sucked in a deep breath and let it out with quivering intensity. "I want to keep feeling the way you made me feel tonight, the way I'm afraid no one else will be able to make me feel. I want this, and the way you kissed me in the wings, and the way you kissed me in the hallway, and I want it all the time."

Troy smirked and took more steps toward her, closing the distance as each sentence left her lips.

"So, I guess, in twenty times as many words, what I'm trying to say is, I want you," Gabriella finished and Troy was right in front of her.

He took her dress from her hands and tossed it back to the floor. Then, he wrapped his arms around her, hugging her to him, and kissed her. His lips were still urgent, but in a way that was unlike any of the other times he kissed her before. It was like it was necessary, but didn't have to lead anywhere, it just had to exist—this moment of his lips and hers melding together. When he pulled back, he kept his eyes focused directly on her.

"I still want you, too. So, I say, no, we're not done," Troy said.

"No?" Gabriella breathed.

"No, this is definitely not over," Troy said. "I make no promises, no guarantees. I don't know how long it will last, or what it'll become, but no one else could promise you anything better. Just know that I'm in, if you're in."

"Okay," Gabriella nodded. "I'm in."

"Okay," Troy smiled. "Now, will you come back to bed? Because I had plans to keep you to myself for the rest of the night."

"Yes," Gabriella said, "because I like the sound of that."

Troy took her hand and led her back to his bed. There, his nimble fingers rid them of the clothes they had put back on before he dragged her back under the covers. Their limbs twisted around each other and they settled into a comfortable position wrapped up together. Gabriella's head rested just perfectly on Troy's chest so that she could hear and feel the strong rhythm of his heart.

"I can hear your heartbeat," Gabriella whispered.

Troy laughed lightly, a low rumble against her ear, and ran a hand through her hair. "And I can feel you breathing."

"We're a lot like them, you know?" Gabriella said.

"We're better than them. They're not real. They're fiction," Troy said, his voice was low, not exactly a whisper, more like he was fighting sleep. "We're real, we're so full of life that we can breathe it into them as well. They are who and what they are, because we feel the way we feel, because we're capable of more."

"That's probably a good thing," Gabriella said, as her eyelids started to droop. She was being lulled to sleep by his heartbeat and the hum of his voice. "It didn't exactly turn out so great for them in the end."

Wendla and Melchior got a resolution, but a resolution was not a happily ever after. Sure, this was not a happily ever after for Gabriella either. Troy hadn't ridden in on a white horse to guard her honor and shower her with fairytale love—just as Sharpay said. This wasn't a grand romance, yet, maybe it never would be, but it was something. Gabriella was ready to take the ride no matter where it led, because Troy was right about her knowing what she wanted. He had helped her discover her true self, and somewhere along the way, he had let her in to see his true self too. Whatever happened would happen. She would see it through, just to say that she tried.

Gabriella started to slip into the abyss of sleep and was unsure if what she heard next was real or her drowsy mind's imagination.

It was Troy's voice, singing in a soft murmur. "And who can say what we are? This is the reason for dreaming..."

0o0

On Monday morning, after a weekend of equally thrilling performances of the musical and repeats of their own private performances, when Troy and Gabriella walked into East High together, his arm around her shoulders to tuck her in against his side and her arm wrapped around his waist to anchor herself there, everyone was watching them.

When she sat beside him at lunch and, in between eating, he ducked his head to kiss her neck, and then her cheek, and finally her lips right there in front of the entire school, everyone was watching.

When Troy sneaked Gabriella away to a rooftop garden she had no idea existed, for some privacy, and his hands wandered, slipping beneath the hem of her skirt and working over her until he was kissing her more to contain the sounds she was making than for the pleasure of tasting her lips, no one was watching, but everyone knew when they had disappeared together.

When their eyes strayed to each others in class, meeting their gazes from across the room or across the aisle or across the table, everyone was watching.

There was no telling what everyone thought they were seeing, because they probably all saw something different. And that was fine. The attention didn't bother Gabriella and nothing bothered Troy. People could look all they wanted, it changed nothing. There could be hundreds of pairs of eyes on her; only one mattered.

As long as Troy's unwavering eyes were on her, Gabriella was happy.

For now, that was enough.

-THE END-