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Who Better To Love: Chapter 9
I'll Stand By You
Disclaimer: I own nothing but myself and my own ideas.
Rating: PG
Please see links to the first eight chapters "under the cut"
For those of you who haven't read the previous chapters, please do!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
A/N: I had to throw in a reference to Elijah’s 21st birthday, where Nikki said on “The Sauce” that morning that she was taking him out, and the fact that the HSM cast would have been in NYC that night for GMA the next morning :) *fingers crossed for a Kelfronsky celebration* Just pointing it out in case anyone reading didn’t know ;)
Also, I could well be mixing up the timeline here (sorry Irish) but it’s all for a good cause lol I hope, anyway :P
Who Better To Love Chapter 9: I'll Stand By You
Would she forgive him?
“You embarrassed me, Zac. I don’t care what you tell people about us. I don’t expect you to tell anyone the truth, I don’t want you to. Do you think I want people to know what I’ve done? But, when you said that, when you wiped your mouth, it humiliated me.” She spoke quietly, facing forward, her voice carefully controlled.
“I know that now. I didn’t mean it, I didn’t know what I was doing, I wasn’t thinking.”
It took 3 hours on a park bench to work it out. It took ignoring dozens of calls and texts to show that he was listening to her, focused on her. It took admitting that he was scared for her to turn to face him, scared at Penacoli’s question, and scared that he was losing her. It took her hand reaching for his to let him know she accepted his apology. And it took his genuine tears and the deep relief in his voice to let her know that he wouldn’t do anything like that again.
They made it through their appearance on So You Think You Can Dance that afternoon. They made it through interviews and premieres in New York, Newark, and Baltimore. They made it through performing live on the Today Show. And each day together brought them closer once again. Renewed the trust, sparked the attraction that they struggled to keep under wraps.
When he heard her voice and turned towards her in the lobby of their Sydney hotel early in the morning, it was the first time he had seen her in over a month. Dancing with her on Elijah’s birthday in New York, he had held her in his arms. Vanessa accepted the excuse of the slow song, still not seeing Nikki as being anything more than a friend. Her eyes were always on the other girls around Zac, but they just glazed over Nikki.
Nikki had arrived in Sydney late the night before, and went to bed as soon as she was settled in. Knowing that Zac and Vanessa would be sharing a room a few floors above her, just days after celebrating their two-year anniversary in London, was too much to cope with.
She had heard the rumour, like everyone else. The National Enquirer had naked pictures they were ready to publish. And, like most everyone else, she didn’t believe it. Until Zac took her aside during a break from interviews. They stole a few quiet moments away from the cameras and the PR team and the hair and make-up people, and everyone that was travelling with them, helping them sell themselves and the movie. He pulled her out onto the balcony of the suite they were using for interviews, far to the edge of the balcony so they were blocked from anyone’s view. He told her what he knew. The Enquirer pictures were a bullshit story, but they had prompted someone with a grudge to sell real pictures to an internet site, and they were coming out any day now. Zac rambled out the story, his face red with embarrassment in the telling. There was a guy, when Van was 15, that she liked. He was older, away in his first year in college. He had sent her a heart-shaped gold locket, and a load of promises. He wanted pictures of her, and she took them. She sent pictures to this guy, several batches over the spring. And when summer came, and he returned home, he never returned even one of her calls. Until she became famous from High School Musical.
Nikki was shaken with this news, horrified that someone would use a girl like that, and that she was so insecure she did what he wanted. When she looked back up, away from the view of Sydney harbour that she had focused on while listening to his strained and cracking voice tell the story, her heart broke for him. And her thoughts immediately turned to the impact this could have on him. How would people react? Would they connect him to these pictures? Of course they would. What would that mean for his reputation?
Before Nikki had a chance to collect her thoughts and respond to him, the sliding door opened and a deep voice called, “We’re ready to start, guys.”
Nikki gave Zac’s hand a quick squeeze, said, “We’ll talk as soon as we can,” and followed him inside. She didn’t know what she was going to say to him yet, but she knew what she was going to do. When Larry of Mornings asked for some dirt, she told him that Zac is four times more beautiful on the inside. That was her message. She saw the gorgeous guy on the outside; she had felt his arms around her, his mouth hot on hers, his hard thrusts inside of her, but the beauty of the man on the inside held him in her heart. That was the man she wanted the world to know, whatever scandal was about to embroil him.
Following hours of interviews, that Zac laughed and charmed his way through, and a big group dinner downtown, they found a few moments alone together again.
“Thank-you, Nikki. Really. What you said, before, it meant so much to me.” She looked at him with puzzlement. “When you said I was more beautiful on the inside.”
“You are, Zac. It’s this guy I fell for,” she said, poking his heart with her forefinger. “Whatever else, it’s all on the outside, it’s just the luck of the draw that you got good genes,” she laughed. “But it’s who you have become in your heart, and your spirit, and the man you are when you step out in the world, that’s what matters. That’s the man I’ll stick up for.”
Zac was again taken aback with her words. He adored her, respected her, was often in awe of her. And sometimes afraid of her, of her talent and courage and strength. To hear her words, affected him greatly. “Most people, they wouldn’t say that,” he muttered. “They wouldn’t even think that.”
“I’m not most people, Zac. You should know that by now.”
He took her in his arms and held her close to him. “I do.”
“That’s what you do, Zac, when you care about someone, when they’re important to you…. I’ll stand by you, Zac.”
“Like the song?” he smirked.
“Yes,” she laughed. “Like the song. We always have a song, don’t we.” He nodded.
“We’re cheesy like that.”
“Yep, and you love it.”
“I love it when you sing to me…. I think I just beat the cheese record with that,” he laughed.
She wrapped her arms around his waist, and laid her head on his chest. Softly, slowly, she sang a few lines to him.
“I’ll stand by you, I’ll stand by you. Won’t let nobody hurt you, I’ll stand by you. Take me in, into your darkest hour, and I’ll never desert you. I’ll stand by you.”
She broke from him, tears in her eyes, and walked quickly away. It was all too much. Vanessa’s pleasant but vacuous chit chat, not knowing that Zac had told Nikki about the photos. The long day of interviews. The strain she could see that he was trying so hard to hide, trying hard to be strong for Vanessa. The pressure of selling a major movie. The scent of his cologne as he sat so close to her. The sound of his laugh. The warmth of his arm as it rested on her seat, so close to her back.
He stood on that spot for several minutes, a million thoughts rushing through his mind. A million directions his feet could take. Then Nikki’s voice broke through these thoughts, and gave him clarity. A painful, difficult, heart-dropping clarity. I’ll stand by you, I’ll stand by you. Won’t let nobody hurt you, I’ll stand by you. Take me in, into your darkest hour, and I’ll never desert you. I’ll stand by you. Whatever happened in the next few days, whatever these pictures actually were, whatever stories came out, however the media and the bloggers and the fans and the critics spun it, he had to stand by Vanessa. If he were the man Nikki believed him to be, he had to stand by her.
A photoshoot where they laughed and gave loving looks and held hands. Where they posed as the couple they could be. A premiere, where they hugged and laughed, where he listened, struck by her live performance. Interviews, where they answered the same old questions, where they complimented each other, where they let their affection for one another peek through. Where he assured her that, “it’s ok, everybody does it”. Where he was too embarrassed to answer the young women in Hollywood question this time around.
The pictures were out. Splashed all over the internet. And they were genuine. Not photoshopped, like Perez had assumed, they were confirmed to be real by Vanessa’s publicist. And the rumours were flying. Zac took them. Vanessa took them for Zac while he was filming Hairspray. She took them for Drake Bell. She leaked them herself, for publicity. No one knew, but everyone speculated. And now, everyone knew who she was.
Gina Hudgens reaction to her daughter? “Everybody can be naked if they want to.” Cute.
Vanessa was staying in Australia to ride out the harshest waves of the storm, away from the LA paparazzi. She occupied herself with shopping and spa treatments and texting friends from home, while Zac worked, while a team of representatives were in talks with Disney, Hollywood Records, Neutrogena, lawyers intent on those pictures coming down from the internet on grounds of child pornography.
Zac was doing what he told himself he would do. He was standing by Vanessa, and he would continue to do so. But it didn’t stop the hurt from gnawing away inside. She had never told him about these pictures. He knew she had had boyfriends before. He knew that he wasn’t her first; she wasn’t his first, either. But, he couldn’t help wondering what else she was hiding from him. The strain of keeping it all together was beginning to wear through, and Nikki watched his stress break through at a horse racing event in Melbourne. She watched him from a distance. Vanessa was surrounded by the Hairspray team, keeping photographers away from her. Zac was trying to make nice with everyone, but he just wanted to have some time alone, letting a little snark seep through. Nikki and Karen made the most of it, trying to enjoy the food and the races.
It was the next day that Vanessa left. Nikki said a pleasant good-bye to her in passing, as she led the way down the hall, a mountain of luggage following behind. As Vanessa stepped through the hotel door out into the cool Australian spring day, she thought about Nikki, and she thought about Zac, and, for the first time, she was worried.
Zac felt a kind of freedom when he sat beside Nikki on Rove that night. It was their last night in Australia, and he felt like he could do anything he wanted. He didn’t have to worry about someone else for once. And when he totally put them out there, he didn’t even care.
“What is it, Zac?” Nikki asked, as he opened his hotel room door to her. She was wearing black leggings and a long t-shirt. Her hair was up in a bouncy little ponytail, and her feet were bare. She was staying just a few rooms down from him now at their hotel in Melbourne, and just popped down the hall when he called her late that night.
“Come in. It’s nothing, really.” She followed him into his room, letting the door close shut behind her. She stood in the middle of the living room of his suite for a few minutes, watching him pace around, putting his hands in his pocket, taking them out, running his fingers through his hair, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Zac, what is it? Something is obviously on your mind,” she said, as she sat down on the arm of the sofa.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I want, what I can do, where I’m going, I don’t-“
“Zac, stop! Just, breathe.” She took his hands in hers and looked up to him with concern on her face. “You’ve made it through the hardest week. I don’t have any answers for you. I’m the last person to give you advice about any of this.” She looked down, away from him now.
“Nik, I want to ask you something.”
“Yes?”
He let her hands fall gently, and went to the coffee table, picking up his iPod. She watched him scroll through the menu to find a song, as he walked back towards her.
“Friends, right?”
“Of course.”
“Will you listen to this with me?” he asked. “You know how we always have a song? I think this song says it for me tonight. I hope it does, anyway.” He tenderly placed one ear bud in her left ear as he placed the other in his right ear. “There are so many people, so many things I have to do and say, so much I can’t say, can’t do. Sometimes I forget who I am, just for a minute, and then someone calls my name and it startles me. But you, you always know who I am. You see me, inside.” She nodded, looking up at him again. He bent to his knees, and she slid down from the arm of the sofa to the cushion. He took her hand and pressed play.
We'll do it all, Everything, On our own
We don't need, Anything, Or anyone
If I lay here, If I just lay here, Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
I don't quite know, How to say, How I feel
She listened with him, the melody, the words, the emotion of the song rolling over her, pushing into her.
If I lay here, If I just lay here, Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
Forget what we're told, Before we get too old, Show me a garden that's bursting into life
He held her hand in her lap, and he knelt before her. With her other hand, she ran her fingers through his hair, sweeping it off his forehead, then pulled him to her, holding him as he held her hand.
I need your grace, To remind me, To find my own
If I lay here, If I just lay here, Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
“I have no idea what will happen tomorrow, Nik. I just know what I feel-“ She put a finger to his mouth to stop his words.
All that I am, All that I ever was, Is here in your perfect eyes, they're all I can see
I don't know where, Confused about how as well, Just know that these things will never change for us at all
He rose from the floor to sit beside her on the sofa, never letting go of her hand.
If I lay here, If I just lay here, Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
Nikki sighed, closed her eyes for a moment, and, opening them, nodded. Zac laid down on the sofa, tucking a soft cushion under his head, pulling Nikki down to lie in front of him. He rested his head on the cushion behind hers, holding her close to him, as she fell asleep in the comfort of his arms. As he fell asleep with his arms around her. Never letting go of her hand.
Note: the songs I used are "I'll Stand By You" by Girls Aloud and "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol (Zac has listed "Chasing Cars" as a fave, which I love)
I'll Stand By You
Disclaimer: I own nothing but myself and my own ideas.
Rating: PG
Please see links to the first eight chapters "under the cut"
For those of you who haven't read the previous chapters, please do!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
A/N: I had to throw in a reference to Elijah’s 21st birthday, where Nikki said on “The Sauce” that morning that she was taking him out, and the fact that the HSM cast would have been in NYC that night for GMA the next morning :) *fingers crossed for a Kelfronsky celebration* Just pointing it out in case anyone reading didn’t know ;)
Also, I could well be mixing up the timeline here (sorry Irish) but it’s all for a good cause lol I hope, anyway :P
Who Better To Love Chapter 9: I'll Stand By You
Would she forgive him?
“You embarrassed me, Zac. I don’t care what you tell people about us. I don’t expect you to tell anyone the truth, I don’t want you to. Do you think I want people to know what I’ve done? But, when you said that, when you wiped your mouth, it humiliated me.” She spoke quietly, facing forward, her voice carefully controlled.
“I know that now. I didn’t mean it, I didn’t know what I was doing, I wasn’t thinking.”
It took 3 hours on a park bench to work it out. It took ignoring dozens of calls and texts to show that he was listening to her, focused on her. It took admitting that he was scared for her to turn to face him, scared at Penacoli’s question, and scared that he was losing her. It took her hand reaching for his to let him know she accepted his apology. And it took his genuine tears and the deep relief in his voice to let her know that he wouldn’t do anything like that again.
They made it through their appearance on So You Think You Can Dance that afternoon. They made it through interviews and premieres in New York, Newark, and Baltimore. They made it through performing live on the Today Show. And each day together brought them closer once again. Renewed the trust, sparked the attraction that they struggled to keep under wraps.
When he heard her voice and turned towards her in the lobby of their Sydney hotel early in the morning, it was the first time he had seen her in over a month. Dancing with her on Elijah’s birthday in New York, he had held her in his arms. Vanessa accepted the excuse of the slow song, still not seeing Nikki as being anything more than a friend. Her eyes were always on the other girls around Zac, but they just glazed over Nikki.
Nikki had arrived in Sydney late the night before, and went to bed as soon as she was settled in. Knowing that Zac and Vanessa would be sharing a room a few floors above her, just days after celebrating their two-year anniversary in London, was too much to cope with.
She had heard the rumour, like everyone else. The National Enquirer had naked pictures they were ready to publish. And, like most everyone else, she didn’t believe it. Until Zac took her aside during a break from interviews. They stole a few quiet moments away from the cameras and the PR team and the hair and make-up people, and everyone that was travelling with them, helping them sell themselves and the movie. He pulled her out onto the balcony of the suite they were using for interviews, far to the edge of the balcony so they were blocked from anyone’s view. He told her what he knew. The Enquirer pictures were a bullshit story, but they had prompted someone with a grudge to sell real pictures to an internet site, and they were coming out any day now. Zac rambled out the story, his face red with embarrassment in the telling. There was a guy, when Van was 15, that she liked. He was older, away in his first year in college. He had sent her a heart-shaped gold locket, and a load of promises. He wanted pictures of her, and she took them. She sent pictures to this guy, several batches over the spring. And when summer came, and he returned home, he never returned even one of her calls. Until she became famous from High School Musical.
Nikki was shaken with this news, horrified that someone would use a girl like that, and that she was so insecure she did what he wanted. When she looked back up, away from the view of Sydney harbour that she had focused on while listening to his strained and cracking voice tell the story, her heart broke for him. And her thoughts immediately turned to the impact this could have on him. How would people react? Would they connect him to these pictures? Of course they would. What would that mean for his reputation?
Before Nikki had a chance to collect her thoughts and respond to him, the sliding door opened and a deep voice called, “We’re ready to start, guys.”
Nikki gave Zac’s hand a quick squeeze, said, “We’ll talk as soon as we can,” and followed him inside. She didn’t know what she was going to say to him yet, but she knew what she was going to do. When Larry of Mornings asked for some dirt, she told him that Zac is four times more beautiful on the inside. That was her message. She saw the gorgeous guy on the outside; she had felt his arms around her, his mouth hot on hers, his hard thrusts inside of her, but the beauty of the man on the inside held him in her heart. That was the man she wanted the world to know, whatever scandal was about to embroil him.
Following hours of interviews, that Zac laughed and charmed his way through, and a big group dinner downtown, they found a few moments alone together again.
“Thank-you, Nikki. Really. What you said, before, it meant so much to me.” She looked at him with puzzlement. “When you said I was more beautiful on the inside.”
“You are, Zac. It’s this guy I fell for,” she said, poking his heart with her forefinger. “Whatever else, it’s all on the outside, it’s just the luck of the draw that you got good genes,” she laughed. “But it’s who you have become in your heart, and your spirit, and the man you are when you step out in the world, that’s what matters. That’s the man I’ll stick up for.”
Zac was again taken aback with her words. He adored her, respected her, was often in awe of her. And sometimes afraid of her, of her talent and courage and strength. To hear her words, affected him greatly. “Most people, they wouldn’t say that,” he muttered. “They wouldn’t even think that.”
“I’m not most people, Zac. You should know that by now.”
He took her in his arms and held her close to him. “I do.”
“That’s what you do, Zac, when you care about someone, when they’re important to you…. I’ll stand by you, Zac.”
“Like the song?” he smirked.
“Yes,” she laughed. “Like the song. We always have a song, don’t we.” He nodded.
“We’re cheesy like that.”
“Yep, and you love it.”
“I love it when you sing to me…. I think I just beat the cheese record with that,” he laughed.
She wrapped her arms around his waist, and laid her head on his chest. Softly, slowly, she sang a few lines to him.
“I’ll stand by you, I’ll stand by you. Won’t let nobody hurt you, I’ll stand by you. Take me in, into your darkest hour, and I’ll never desert you. I’ll stand by you.”
She broke from him, tears in her eyes, and walked quickly away. It was all too much. Vanessa’s pleasant but vacuous chit chat, not knowing that Zac had told Nikki about the photos. The long day of interviews. The strain she could see that he was trying so hard to hide, trying hard to be strong for Vanessa. The pressure of selling a major movie. The scent of his cologne as he sat so close to her. The sound of his laugh. The warmth of his arm as it rested on her seat, so close to her back.
He stood on that spot for several minutes, a million thoughts rushing through his mind. A million directions his feet could take. Then Nikki’s voice broke through these thoughts, and gave him clarity. A painful, difficult, heart-dropping clarity. I’ll stand by you, I’ll stand by you. Won’t let nobody hurt you, I’ll stand by you. Take me in, into your darkest hour, and I’ll never desert you. I’ll stand by you. Whatever happened in the next few days, whatever these pictures actually were, whatever stories came out, however the media and the bloggers and the fans and the critics spun it, he had to stand by Vanessa. If he were the man Nikki believed him to be, he had to stand by her.
A photoshoot where they laughed and gave loving looks and held hands. Where they posed as the couple they could be. A premiere, where they hugged and laughed, where he listened, struck by her live performance. Interviews, where they answered the same old questions, where they complimented each other, where they let their affection for one another peek through. Where he assured her that, “it’s ok, everybody does it”. Where he was too embarrassed to answer the young women in Hollywood question this time around.
The pictures were out. Splashed all over the internet. And they were genuine. Not photoshopped, like Perez had assumed, they were confirmed to be real by Vanessa’s publicist. And the rumours were flying. Zac took them. Vanessa took them for Zac while he was filming Hairspray. She took them for Drake Bell. She leaked them herself, for publicity. No one knew, but everyone speculated. And now, everyone knew who she was.
Gina Hudgens reaction to her daughter? “Everybody can be naked if they want to.” Cute.
Vanessa was staying in Australia to ride out the harshest waves of the storm, away from the LA paparazzi. She occupied herself with shopping and spa treatments and texting friends from home, while Zac worked, while a team of representatives were in talks with Disney, Hollywood Records, Neutrogena, lawyers intent on those pictures coming down from the internet on grounds of child pornography.
Zac was doing what he told himself he would do. He was standing by Vanessa, and he would continue to do so. But it didn’t stop the hurt from gnawing away inside. She had never told him about these pictures. He knew she had had boyfriends before. He knew that he wasn’t her first; she wasn’t his first, either. But, he couldn’t help wondering what else she was hiding from him. The strain of keeping it all together was beginning to wear through, and Nikki watched his stress break through at a horse racing event in Melbourne. She watched him from a distance. Vanessa was surrounded by the Hairspray team, keeping photographers away from her. Zac was trying to make nice with everyone, but he just wanted to have some time alone, letting a little snark seep through. Nikki and Karen made the most of it, trying to enjoy the food and the races.
It was the next day that Vanessa left. Nikki said a pleasant good-bye to her in passing, as she led the way down the hall, a mountain of luggage following behind. As Vanessa stepped through the hotel door out into the cool Australian spring day, she thought about Nikki, and she thought about Zac, and, for the first time, she was worried.
Zac felt a kind of freedom when he sat beside Nikki on Rove that night. It was their last night in Australia, and he felt like he could do anything he wanted. He didn’t have to worry about someone else for once. And when he totally put them out there, he didn’t even care.
“What is it, Zac?” Nikki asked, as he opened his hotel room door to her. She was wearing black leggings and a long t-shirt. Her hair was up in a bouncy little ponytail, and her feet were bare. She was staying just a few rooms down from him now at their hotel in Melbourne, and just popped down the hall when he called her late that night.
“Come in. It’s nothing, really.” She followed him into his room, letting the door close shut behind her. She stood in the middle of the living room of his suite for a few minutes, watching him pace around, putting his hands in his pocket, taking them out, running his fingers through his hair, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Zac, what is it? Something is obviously on your mind,” she said, as she sat down on the arm of the sofa.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I want, what I can do, where I’m going, I don’t-“
“Zac, stop! Just, breathe.” She took his hands in hers and looked up to him with concern on her face. “You’ve made it through the hardest week. I don’t have any answers for you. I’m the last person to give you advice about any of this.” She looked down, away from him now.
“Nik, I want to ask you something.”
“Yes?”
He let her hands fall gently, and went to the coffee table, picking up his iPod. She watched him scroll through the menu to find a song, as he walked back towards her.
“Friends, right?”
“Of course.”
“Will you listen to this with me?” he asked. “You know how we always have a song? I think this song says it for me tonight. I hope it does, anyway.” He tenderly placed one ear bud in her left ear as he placed the other in his right ear. “There are so many people, so many things I have to do and say, so much I can’t say, can’t do. Sometimes I forget who I am, just for a minute, and then someone calls my name and it startles me. But you, you always know who I am. You see me, inside.” She nodded, looking up at him again. He bent to his knees, and she slid down from the arm of the sofa to the cushion. He took her hand and pressed play.
We don't need, Anything, Or anyone
If I lay here, If I just lay here, Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
I don't quite know, How to say, How I feel
She listened with him, the melody, the words, the emotion of the song rolling over her, pushing into her.
Forget what we're told, Before we get too old, Show me a garden that's bursting into life
He held her hand in her lap, and he knelt before her. With her other hand, she ran her fingers through his hair, sweeping it off his forehead, then pulled him to her, holding him as he held her hand.
If I lay here, If I just lay here, Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
“I have no idea what will happen tomorrow, Nik. I just know what I feel-“ She put a finger to his mouth to stop his words.
I don't know where, Confused about how as well, Just know that these things will never change for us at all
He rose from the floor to sit beside her on the sofa, never letting go of her hand.
Nikki sighed, closed her eyes for a moment, and, opening them, nodded. Zac laid down on the sofa, tucking a soft cushion under his head, pulling Nikki down to lie in front of him. He rested his head on the cushion behind hers, holding her close to him, as she fell asleep in the comfort of his arms. As he fell asleep with his arms around her. Never letting go of her hand.
Note: the songs I used are "I'll Stand By You" by Girls Aloud and "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol (Zac has listed "Chasing Cars" as a fave, which I love)
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