Here it is ladies and gentlemen, the final instalment of 'Before Happily Ever After'. I thank you all for coming along with me on this journey; I hope you've been enjoying the story thus far. Please keep following my stories; I've got a couple plot bunnies ready to jump out!

Chapter 10: Epilogue – Ways to go

Kyle Bolton.

Kyle Gregory Bolton.

That was what I was going to name him… Kyle Gregory Bolton. Originally, when I had planned for a girl, I wanted to name her Kiley, 'Kiley' meant 'Beautiful and that was what I thought of my baby. I truly thought my baby was going to be beautiful. I decided that Kyle would be a good back up name in case I planned wrong, and I got a boy instead. 'Kyle' was also my birth father's name…Gregory was my current father's name. It seemed so appropriate…so perfect.

But that wasn't going to happen anymore.

I had found out after the accident that I was going to have a boy…I guess they thought I should know because I would need a name to put on the gravestone. A gravestone marked for a little boy that had yet to see the world…that had yet to be introduced to the people who would have loved him the moment he let out his first wail. A gravestone for a little boy that died before he could live.

I was released from the hospital three days after the accident. Troy, Ryan, Sharpay, Mom and Greg were there to escort me out. We sneaked out of the backdoor to avoid the ever present and relentless paparazzi. Of course they would be curious as to why Greg Santos's thought-to-be-disowned step daughter was in the hospital. Just as curious as why, all of a sudden, his step daughter returned with a husband.

It was the perfect headliner, "Business tycoon reunited with disowned daughter in hospital". Talk about front page news.

We were taken back to the Santos mansion (I guess that would be my old house…or rather my current house) under the escort of my family and friends and two police cars beside our tinted car. Sharpay and Troy took me upstairs while Greg and Ryan took care of my bags. Upstairs, Ryan had quietly informed me that the apartment I had shared with Troy was released onto the market again; Troy had decided that we would stay with my parents. I don't remember replying him, though I vaguely remembered nodding. Sharpay announced that she would be staying with me for a little while, citing that she didn't need to return to Julliard's until later. I knew why though, she didn't want to leave me alone.

No one did.

All of a sudden everyone had thought I was breakable…that any moment I would collapse and cry until every liquid molecule in my body was spent. I think it scared them that I didn't cry. That I had walked up to my room and closed the door without a single tear, and both eyes dried. I think it bothered them that I was so calm when everything and everyone around me was falling apart.

Troy and I couldn't speak for days. It was worse than the days we barely acknowledged each other because he had hidden the letter from my mom. It was worse because the air between us wasn't filled with tension, but it was filled with a sort of emptiness that couldn't be filled. As hard as I tried to be near him, I couldn't; there was this constant, invisible space between us that drove me away every time he tried. I couldn't stand his hugs. I couldn't stand his kisses. I could barely look him in the eye.

I knew what was between us. We were both feeling it, more acute to the feeling than anyone in the house would ever be. The missing bump that should have been separating us was gone, and no matter how hard he tried to comfort me, I could see the pain in his eyes, and the way his blue gems would get watery when they would unconsciously drift down to my stomach and hold a short but none the less longing gaze there.

He didn't say it…but I could feel it.

He denied it but I could see the truth beneath his denial.

He says it's not my fault…but I knew what he really thought; he blamed me.

And I couldn't blame him; even I blamed myself. 'What If' scenarios kept running through my mind… what if…

…I hadn't gone to the pilates class that day?

What if…

…Jimmy had slowed down just enough to see that the lane we were on was drawing to a close?

What if…

…it hadn't rained that day and the roads were less slippery?

What if…

…they had placed signs on the road for drivers to prevent accidents just like mine?

What if…

…I hadn't gotten pregnant when I did?

Every scenario got further and further away from my ability to control; yet at the same time it seemed like I could've controlled it and I made every bad decision possible. In my mind, it was my fault. In my mind, my parents not having another grandchild, Sharpay and Ryan not having another baby to spoil…Troy not having another son…it was my fault.

In one day I could count how many times I spoke to Troy with both my hands. I could count how many times I spoke to Sharpay with one hand and three fingers. I could count how many times I talked to my parents in with one hand.

I could count how many times I spent time with Sean with the first three fingers of my right hand.

I couldn't bear to see him…my little baby boy. He reminded me so much of the baby I had lost. His messy hair and sky blue eyes only served more torment to my mind as my imagination came up with images of how Kyle should have looked liked, or would have looked like. Would he have Troy's eyes like Sean? Or would he have my eyes? Then I would realize that I would never know…and I couldn't stand being in the same room as Sean anymore. Little by little I saw my little boy less, I handed him to his baby sitter from the beginning of the day, and I didn't dare see him until he was asleep in his crib away from my view.

My relationship with Troy also began deteriorating before my eyes. The more painful it was to spend time with Sean; the pain multiplied ten folds when I was with Troy. I wanted him to yell at me, to scream at my, to point out my obvious idiocy at choosing to go to class through that weather. I wanted him to be angry at me for losing our son; I wanted him to ignore me until I begged for him to forgive me. But he didn't. He was so gentle, so nice so…Troy. He was forgiving, empathetic, and wanted to badly to share my pain and see me smile; to have me return to him. It only made it more painful.

The man that completed my life so much more than I could ever imagine suddenly became the one person I couldn't bear to be with.

I guess you could say I sank into a bout of depression, a deep depression that no one could bring out of me. At least no one I had expected. There was one person in the house that had learned to avoid me: Greg, my step father. In a way; he was not related to me in anyway except as a substitute father figure. He was not a women, he was not the father of my son, nor was he the grandmother to an unborn baby.

He was an outsider…and in a way I think that was what I really needed. Not the comfort and empathy from people who shared my pain…but comfort from people who had no idea what I was going through. Someone who, although loves and cares about me, would tell me I needed to get out of my own world and face the reality. I didn't need someone to try to mollycoddle me to be happy, I needed someone to bluntly hit me with the truth.

I was sitting outside; in front of the empty play set that Sean had loved so much to play with when he came out.

(Normal POV)

Greg Santos stepped out of his large house in need for a deep breath of air. His house had sunk into such a state of solemn, a state of depression that, even as a tycoon and businessman, he couldn't even handle it anymore. The cool breeze swept his face as he gazed across his abnormally large backyard. His eyes landed on the tiny, hunched figure of his step daughter and his step froze.

Should he continue walking? Or maybe he should give her some room. He didn't know; he didn't know what to do around her!

Rather than making a decision, his presence was quickly noticed by the brunette on the bench, who winced out a tentative smile,

"Greg," said her voice in the softest of whispers and even then it looked painful for her to speak.

"Gabriella," he replied in a curtly tone. He instinctively straightened his back, and pulled back his shoulders in a stance he liked to call his 'battle' stance. Many business competitors had met, and failed before this stance, and now he was using it as his defence against his 21 year old step daughter in hopes of guarding him from an onslaught of emotions, "Do you mind if I…" Greg trailed off, gesturing to the empty spot next to her. Gabriella shook her head and Greg joined her.

The Step father and step daughter sat in silence, the wind rustling the space between them.

"So, how are you?" Greg asked softly, treading carefully.

"Good," she replied calmly; her poker face was impressive, Greg had to admit.

"So I haven't seen you and Troy around lately…are you two busy doing things for work?" Greg asked casually, a seemingly safe topic to approach. Gabriella remained silent for a minute. She had not returned to work at the clinic after Edward had returned. In fact he had given her a month's paid vacation. She didn't need to see him, but she knew he pitied her.

"No…we didn't see each other today. He didn't want to see me. I don't blame him." Gabriella said quietly, Greg trained his face to remain neutral,

"Why would he not want to see you? He loves you doesn't he?"

"No…at least not after what happened. It's my fault, I know it…and I know that he blames me even though he says he doesn't," Gabriella said softly, "I'm just causing him pain,"

"Well you're rather selfish aren't you?" Greg said in a stony voice, Gabriella looked up with a mild amount of shock in her eyes, "While you're here wallowing in your own self pity, your husband is out there trying everything in his power to make you happy again. You're leaving him out here with all the pain and suffering while you go retreat in your own mind to avoid the pain,"

"I'm not avoiding the pain—"

"Then how do you expect to explain this?" Greg asked, suddenly the tycoon who swiped New York by storm, "You bury yourself so no one can reach you. You retreat into your own mind and isolate yourself because you know nothing bad can harm you. How are you not being selfish when your husband is trying to make you happy, when your own mother is reduced to tears every night because you don't smile or talk to her anymore? Your best friend deferred a year to one of the most prestigious art school in the country to be with you and yet you push her away like she's nothing? I know you lost your baby, but it's time you grow up and accept it."

Gabriella felt as if she had been slapped in the face. No one had said a single word to her since her return to the hospital. No one had dared to tell her straight to her face that she had lost her baby. No one told her that she hadn't accepted the truth.

"I…I have accepted it…" she whispered quietly,

"Life happens. Shit happens. It's cruel, it's inhumane, and it's terrible and unfair and everything balled into one. We can't control it, and when we try it'll only make it worse. Why try to stop something that can't be stopped? We can only accept it, and embrace it and find a way to make it better." Greg said in the softest of voices, "One person can lift the world on their shoulders, but two people or more can lift it above their heads,"

He left his step daughter with curious thoughts. When he looked back she was not looking blankly at the play set as she had been before, her head was down and her hands were shaking. Greg nodded slightly to himself, and decided he would hunt down his son in law.

(Gabriella's POV)

Greg's word shook me. It really shook me. Not only because all of a sudden, in the span of five minutes he had fulfilled every task I envisioned a father was supposed to fulfill. He had pulled me out of the darkness when no one could. He could have very well slapped me across the face with what he had said to me…yet it made so much sense.

It hurt. It hurt more than when I saw Troy's broken face the night in the hospital. It hurt more than coming home to a silent room. But this hurt…I hadn't felt it in the days that I had been home since I returned to the hospital. Nothing I felt was near this level of hurting. It wasn't a hurt I felt when I thought Troy blamed me.

I was hurting because I felt empty, because I felt lost and I didn't know what to do anymore.

From the moment I had accepted my loss, my heart broke painfully, and I cried. I cried harder than I had ever cried before. All the tears, all the pain that had been blocked and hidden behind the stone wall I built crashed through my entire being. I barely noticed his presence until I felt an arm wrap around me.

Troy had come running as soon as Greg (of all people) had told him where I was and that I had needed him. You would think after days and days of endless failed tries that he would stop coming in a rush whenever I let out the slightest whimper. But he did, he ran like his life depended on it, and took up his spot beside me as I buried my face in this his chest, soaking the t-shirt he was wearing within seconds. His arms had wrapped around my shaking body as sobs and tears wracked my body and my face. I held onto him as my only lifeline, my only source of comfort.

I cried for my baby.

I cried for our loss.

I cried for our pain.

I cried for him…

And I cried for me.

The eyes are the windows to a person's soul. So I guess that meant that tears are what cleanse our souls as well. Troy and I spent two hours sitting outside in silence. Out of those two hours, I had spent an hour and a half sobbing into his shirt. He sat by me through every second, listening to my hysterical crying be reduced to wrecking sobs, to tears rushing down my cheeks, to dry sobbing, slowly becoming sniffing and hiccupping, until my eyes were so sore I just fell asleep in his arms. He had sat with me for the next half hour I was told after I had woken up. He sat there holding me in his arms as I whimpered and mumbled through my dreams. I woke up a bit later to find myself back in my room, in bed with him dozing uncomfortably in front of me, sitting in one of the arm chairs in the room.

He was so scared of my fragile state he didn't think I could handle him sharing a bed with me.

I remember standing up, and getting out of bed. The window was letting in the colours of orange and yellow, the remnants of the day slowly disappearing in the sunset. I slowly made my way to him, and with slightly shaking fingers brushed his bangs out of his eyes. He looked so haggard…so tired. Was he not sleeping well? Why hadn't I noticed his fatigue before?

Greg was right…I wouldn't have noticed it…because I was too busy getting caught up feeling sorry for myself. While I was isolating everyone I loved, they were suffering for me…because of me. My hands brushed down his hair to the side of his face, cradling it, and he leaned it towards me, his eyes sleepily opening.

His mouth mouthed out what I had thought to be my name. I smiled, and gently took him by the hands and led him over to our bed. Troy questioned me with his blue eyes, and I smiled in return, easing the tension from his shoulders. I made him get on the bed before I cuddled in again, this time in his arms.

I missed being with him…I missed just being together like this.

That was three years ago. Three years since the accident and I had lost our son.

"Gabs you might as well tell your parents we won't be able to make it for another twenty minutes!" shouted Troy's voice from the corridor behind her. Gabriella Bolton chuckled softly, her eyes alit with amusement. Half a year after staying with her parents after her accident, Greg had informed them (as indifferent as he tried to pretend to be) that he had been able to 'secure' a resident within their university. It was a modest little bungalow, although much roomier than the apartment they had once shared during the rough patches of the beginning of their marriage.

Isabella had very quietly informed them that Greg had looked through all the residences on campus and had been unsatisfied, and had made construction workers construct the bungalow on their behalf, thus the half a year residence at her parents. Troy and Gabriella and Sean (who had, by then, learned to successfully say 'Daddy' much to Troy's delight) thanked him profusely, and moved in a few weeks before their school year began.

"Hello? Gabriella?" Isabella Montez-Santos's voice came from the phone, Gabriel's two and a half year old squeals sounding close by,

"Hey mom, how's Gabe?" Gabriella laughed,

"Too much like you, won't give me a moment's peace," Isabella chuckled, "Are you on your way? Sharpay's fiancé's about to make my cook have a heart attack," Gabriella chuckled, she could only imagine what Zeke was attempting to do to the poor cook's kitchen,

"Actually you're going to have to give us another twenty minutes—" Gabriella paused, hearing a loud splash from behind her and a string of unidentifiable curses, "actually, make that thirty minutes, at least. Troy's having some problem," Gabriella laughed.

"Oh dear, I suppose you should go help him out, I would like you guys to be here before the food gets cold," Isabella laughed. Gabriella laughed in agreement, and after a quick chat had hung up before making her way to her struggling husband. Halfway to the corridor washroom, three and a half year old Sean Bolton came toddling out of the washroom, his black hair matted against his forehead, his baby blue eyes beaming with laughter and as naked as the day he was born,

"Sean Gabriel Bolton what have I told you about wearing your clothes?" Gabriella chided softly, swiftly picking up the giggling boy in her arms,

"Daddy go splash!" he giggled in reply. Gabriella could only imagine what that meant as she made her way to the washroom.

At 23 years old, Troy Bolton would imagine that he would grow wiser as he grew older in terms of learning how to bathe his kids. Apparently he was wrong. He looked up to see his wife enter with the naked body of his son in her arms with an amused smile on her face,

"Don't talk, just, don't." Troy said in a monotone, knowing full well she was going to mock him and his soaking wet dress shirt,

"Four words, just four words," Gabriella compromised. Troy groaned,

"Those were the words I didn't want to hear…" he mumbled in defeat,

"I told you so," Gabriella said with a beam of triumph, "What kind of father of two children would try to bathe both of them at the same time while wearing their dress shirts?" a loud splash and giggle came from the tub and Gabriella giggled.

Rene Kiley Bolton sat comfortable in the tub at one year old, giggling as she watched her parents banter with her older brother in Gabriella's arms. Unlike her brother, with his dark hair and skin after their mother, she represented the fair coloured side of the Bolton family. She inherited the dirty blond hair from his father, and the sparkling chocolate coloured eyes from her mother. Already at such a young age she had learned to laugh a tinkling laugh that sent the entire room into mush. She already had her grandparents wrapped around her little finger.

"Troy, get Sean dressed, I'll get Rene ready," Gabriella sighed, handing over her eldest child, "You might as well seeing you need to get changed," she added with a light click of her tongue, running her fingers across the collar of his wet dress shirt. Troy rolled his eyes, but strolled out with his son, all the while having a conversation that seemed to lack any form of coherency.

Gabriella knelt before the tub, running the lukewarm water down Rene's blonde tresses, her smile widening at the child's baby innocence. It was nearly half a year before Gabriella was even ready to face the prospect of having another child, in fact she didn't know if she could handle the idea of another child. Her family and friends supported her, and Troy agreed, letting her know that he would be by her side regardless of her decision. Things were unstable but Gabriella slowly began to allow herself to return to her normal life.

She found out she was pregnant one third of her way through her first semester. The first thing she felt was fear. Fear that this would be a repeat of what happened before. Fear that the child inside her wasn't going to be safe. She had stalled to tell Troy, worried about his reaction, until one day during class the stress had gotten to her, and she had fainted. She was sent to the campus nurse, where, in front of Troy who had left class to find her and her parents who had come to see her, was told that she was pregnant.

Her parents had been ecstatic, even Greg who, as hard as he tried to hold his battle stance, failed to block the tiny smile on his face. It was Troy Gabriella was worried about. What would he think about having a second child? Would he be worried about it too? Could he stand another let down if something happened?

They were in silence until they returned to their campus bungalow where Gabriella sat in front of him while his eyes remained blank. It was a minute before he looked up and pulled her into his arms. It was then he was whispering comforting words and promises to her that she knew they could try as long as they supported one another.

The pregnancy was relatively smooth, although it was apparent that Gabriella was more cautious this time around. She went into labour at three in the morning, and gave birth to a healthy, crying baby girl. Tears in her eyes, Gabriella had decided to name her Rene, meaning 'reborn' and gave her 'Kiley' as her middle name, in remembrance of her second older brother.

"Earth to Gabby, are you done day dreaming?" Troy walked in again in a different dress shirt with Sean clutching to his legs. Little Sean was growing more day by day, and every day Gabriella saw his resemblance to his dad even more than the day before. He was going to grow up into a handsome young man. Gabriella fought an amused smirk when she saw that Troy had dressed him in a t-shirt that resembled a tux and dark jeans.

"Help me get Rene out and we'll leave soon," Gabriella grinned, picking the baby girl up and wrapping her in a blanket. Safe in the arms of her mother, Rene snuggled closer towards Gabriella's heart. Grinning, Troy picked Sean up as well, and walked to his wife to which he gave a small peck on the lips,

"Looks like Sean and I will have quite the number of guys to scare away when she grows up," Troy whispered, softly brushing Rene's hair.

"Please, you didn't even have the guts to say no to the girls that went after you in high school," Gabriella Bolton smirked. She sauntered out in search of a pretty lavender dress for Rene to wear while Troy stuttered in the washroom,

"I did too have the guts!" Troy Bolton shouted in attempt to preserve his dignity. He raced to find his wife to clear up the obvious mistake.

Life wasn't perfect. Life will never be perfect. We're a long way to go from our getting our 'happily ever after'… but I like to think we're getting there; that we're on the right road in achieving it. As I look at my family, my friends and Troy…I think—no…I know we are. It might take some time, and it might take some work and troubles along the way, but one day, eventually we'll get our happy ending…we'll find a spot in our future where Troy and I can look back, and really say we lived happily ever after.

One day.

A/N: I've been desperate to try to find a good ending to this. I thought it would be a good idea to end with Gabriella's point of view since we started off with Troy. I hope you've enjoyed my little short story. Please stay tune to 'Forbidden' because that is my next big project!

I need your opinion…I've gotten a new idea, but I don't know if I want to do it in the HSM fandom or try my hand at the Twilight fandom. Here's a brief summary give or take the character's names:

The Music Teacher

Bella Swan/Gabriella Montez has a passion for music. She enrols in the music class taught by the young and handsome Professor Edward Cullen/Troy Bolton. Their connection is instant. Their chemistry undeniable. Nothing stands in their way except for one thing: he's married.

Give me your ideas and preference! It will be rated M for situations and language. Again stay tune for a "Forbidden" update!