Hi there. I'm not new to the world of fanfiction but it has been a long long time since I've written anything so my apologies if it is absolutely atrocious. So I've accidentally fallen into the Pitch Perfect/Bechloe fandom and I've become a bit of a sucker for this Emily is Beca and Chloe's lovechild from the future AU, and I know there's a lot of really great content out there already but I thought I'd try my hand at it anyway.
I'll be trying to follow the events of Pitch Perfect 2 as closely as possible with some added scenes and various things missed out that don't follow how I want to it to go because that creative license is the best thing about fanfic after all. This is also my first proper foray into experimenting with second person narrative and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. So if you hate it, I do apologise. Also, I'm English and I know Emily is American so I'm trying to cater to that which has been difficult because my word processor keeps autocorrecting sidewalk back to pavement. So if I make any slip ups, again, my apologies.
Disclaimer: I don't own Pitch Perfect. Some of the dialogue has been taken directly from the script and I in no way claim to have written these lines myself nor will I benefit in any way monetarily from this (largely because I've been writing this obsessively for the past three days when I'm supposed to be looking for a job).
Enjoy! (and if you have a quick second do feel free to tell me what you think. Thanks.)
You're one hundred percent sure you shouldn't be in here. And not just because your Moms have expressly forbidden you from going within ten blocks of Aunt Lilly's house without supervision.
Their concern isn't without reason of course, considering the one and only time Aunt Lilly ever babysat you as a child you had ended up lost in a graveyard for five hours. Your Mom had been nearly hysterical and Ma had threatened to bury Aunt Lilly alive (although apparently that had happened to her twice already; from what you had heard from her whispered reply).
But you definitely shouldn't be in here.
Here being Aunt Lilly's basement. Or to be more exact, inside the large translucent purple, egg-shaped structure also known as the time machine Aunt Lilly has been working on since she was in college.
Nope, you definitely shouldn't be here. And you especially shouldn't be running your fingers over the many knobs and buttons on the huge control board in front of you.
But you've always been a curious person. Your Ma's always said that you have a serious case of the three C's. Curious, Clumsy and Cute. The first two tended to get you into an awful lot of trouble. Luckily the latter was rather effective at getting you out of said trouble.
Like the time you'd snuck into Ma's office to go on her laptop and had somehow managed to delete the very important base track she had been developing for weeks with one accidental press of your finger. As soon as your eyes had started to tear up and your chin quiver under her reprimanding gaze she had caved and pulled you into a tight hug with a mere 'just stay out of Mama's office when she's not home, okay Em?'
Or Like the time you had been on a train journey with your Mom when you were seven and she had taken you to the toilet only for you to start messing around with the automatic lock button whilst she was peeing. Let's just say the group of people queueing outside had received quite a shock when the door had slid open to reveal Mom sitting on the toilet with her pants around her ankles. All things considered, she had been surprisingly forgiving. She had been more annoyed at your Ma (who still likes to tell this particular anecdote at every possible occasion), for bursting into uncontrollable laughter for days after hearing of the incident, than she was at you for actually causing it.
So yeah. You have the best parents in the world. And also, you and anything to do with buttons should clearly never mix.
Hence why you should really be anywhere but here.
But it was too late now. And it's not as though you were actually going to do anything stupid. Curiosity doesn't always end in disaster. Although it pretty much always has for you. A quick glance down at the thick white scar on your index finger is proof enough.
Ever wondered what would happen if you tried to pet an angry squirrel trapped in your attic? Yeah...you wouldn't recommend it.
But you're eighteen now. You're off to college in the fall. You've totally learned your lesson from all of these minor disasters. So obviously, when the biggest button at the very centre of the time machine's control board starts to glow a luminous purple you immediately move your hands away, take several steps back and high-tail it out of there.
Except...
In the time it takes for you to formulate this very logical, adult appropriate plan...
You've already pressed it.
Damn it, Emily.
There's a flash of blinding purple light followed by a deafening crack before you hear a loud thud and the next thing you know something soft and heavy has collapsed on top of you and you can't breathe.
"Shit on a stick!" A very familiar voice exclaims from above you. "Doctor who is such a lying sack of wallaby turd."
"Aunt Amy?!"
She finally rolls off of you with a grunt of surprise, leaving you lying prostrate on your back and vaguely wondering a) what the hell just happened and b) whether your spine is completely intact.
"Legacy!" She's as shocked to see you as you are her. "What are you doing here, whitebait?"
"I could ask you the same question." You shoot her a look.
"Alright, Shawshank Jr." She reaches down to help you up. "Chill."
Her hand is sweaty and as you survey the rest of her you realise that she looks like she's seen a ghost.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah...just a lot of vertical running." She says after a moment. "Thank God you were here. Lilly said something about not being able to get back unless someone on the other side is there to press the button."
"I can't believe it works!"
You feel a sudden uncontrollable excitement. A trait you definitely inherited from your redheaded mother.
"Dude, you just travelled through time! How long has Aunt Lilly known? What was it like? Where did you go? Did you see dinosaurs? Cavemen? Did you go to the future? Into space? Oh my God. Did you go back and meet Taylor Swift in her prime?!"
"Whoa, whoa, cool it aca-baby." Aunt Amy flaps her hands at you, before pulling on her collar guiltily. "I went back to the past. When me and your folks and the rest of the Bellas were in our final year of college."
"When you lost the World Championship to Das Sound Machine?"
It had been your favourite bedtime story as a child. Although the Bellas had ultimately bowed out of the world of acapella that day after failing to be reinstated, your Mom always told it as the greatest love story there ever was. It had set the cogs in motion for your parents to finally admit their feelings for each other, both of them discovering that even though the Bellas had come to an end, some things were just beginning. Some things were just meant to be.
"The very one. Those Deutschbags." Aunt Amy muttered darkly.
"Why did you go back to then?" You ask, curious as ever.
"Well...Um..." Aunt Amy pulls at her collar again and you eye her suspiciously. "You know. Just...reasons."
"What aren't you telling me?"
"Umm...mmm...wellll..."
"Aunt Amy!"
"I may have ruined your future." Aunt Amy pinched her thumb and forefinger together. "But only like a little bit."
"What?!"
"Okay, maybe a lot bit."
"What do you mean you've ruined my future?!" You're starting to hyperventilate now, fanning your face with your hands.
"Well..." Aunt Amy shuffled her feet, still looking incredibly guilty. "I'm sure you know the story of how your Moms got together. All that overly dramatic, romantic movie crap."
"Yeah, Mom must have told it to me a thousand times." You nod, calming down significantly as you dreamily recall your favourite story. "It was the week after you guys got back from Worlds. Ma was supposed to get on a plane with Jesse and move to L.A the next day and Mom was going to move back in with her parents in Florida and find a teaching job. And they would probably never see each other after that and go on with their horrible soulmateless lives because they were too cowardly to tell each other how they felt even though pretty much everybody knew that they were totes in love with each other."
"Yeah yeah, alright Ginger Jr., quit it with the moon eyes. We've got a situation on our hands, remember?" Amy flicks you on the forehead and it sends you right back into panic mode again.
"What the hell did you do?"
"Well..."
"If you say 'well' one more time, God help me..."
"Jeez, alright. So I may have ruined the moment."
"The moment?"
"The moment. You know, when Beca finally pulls her head out of her arse and snogs Chloe silly and then they get married and have aca-babies and blah blah blah." Aunt Amy shrugs,clearly trying to look as innocent as possible.
You're pretty sure that's not exactly how it happened, but that doesn't matter right now.
"What exactly do you mean when you say that you ruined the moment?" You're trying to stay calm, you really are. But in actuality, you're probably about as calm as your Mom was when five-year-old you was playing in that open grave by yourself for five hours.
"Well I didn't know that it happened in the kitchen did I?"
"How could you not know? Mom talks about that moment all the time!"
"Look, no offence, but I hear about twenty five percent of what comes out of your mother's mouth. Thirty tops. And only really when she's singing."
Oh my God.
"Oh my God." You're seriously freaking out now. "So what? That's it? I just don't exist in this reality now? But I'm still here! Wouldn't I have disappeared if you'd ruined my entire existence? Aha!" You're pretty sure you're a genius. And also, you have faith that your Moms really are soulmates, meaning that even if they missed the moment, surely they'd have still found a way back to each other regardless. "See, I'm still here, meaning that I must still exist. Ma never loved Uncle Jess like that anyway. They must still have gotten together. Mom will just have to tell me a new bedtime story."
You sigh with relief. It was fine. Just a small blip. A story to tell her own children.
"I don't know, kid." Aunt Amy sniffs at her armpit warily. "Have you met your midget of a mother? I'm pretty sure she only has enough courage for the moment. The Nile isn't just a river in Egypt you know? And Beca is like a pro river boatman, if ya know what I'm sayin'."
As usual, you have no idea.
"What? No, I'm telling you Aunt Amy, I must still exist."
"I dunno kiddo, I guess there's only one way to find out." She gracelessly pushes the door of the time machine open with a thrust of her hips and sweeps a hand towards the exit. "After you, Legacy."
"Aunt Amy?" You question as you cautiously slip past her, relieved to find that the time machine is still located in the same basement as when you entered it. "Why did you go back to the Bella house just after you lost Worlds? All of time at your fingertips and you choose that? And why were you in the kitchen?"
"Okay, don't be mad-"
Well that's a good start.
"-but we were all pretty crushed after we lost you know? The only thing that really makes me feel better is a really good sandwich. The night your folks finally decided to do more than eye-shag I made the most glorious twelve inch sub to ever exist. To this very day I've never managed to recreate it's magnificence."
What the actual fuck. There's just no way...
"And well, when Lilly said that I could use her time machine for a hundred bucks and two dead pheasants I just...couldn't resist."
"So...what you're saying here is..." You're speaking in a deadly soft voice. The one that your Mom uses when she's really really upset. "That you might have ruined my entire existence for a...for a sandwich?"
Aunt Amy takes one look at the way your eye is starting to spasm before taking off faster than you've ever seen her move.
"Vertical running!"
She doesn't make it very far before stepping in a bucket of offal. It's relieving to know that, whatever reality this might be, at least Aunt Lilly hasn't changed an ounce.
As Aunt Amy scrapes bits of kidney and liver from lord knows what creature off of her shoe you decide that this is punishment enough. For now.
"We need a plan." You say as she mumbles something about 'meat wrestilng' under her breath.
"I thought we were just going to head over to your folks place?"
You suppose that's as good a place to start as any. Although you're mildly (absolutely/wholly/completely) terrified of what you'll find there.
"Okay."
"My car's outside...I think."
Thankfully, Aunt Amy's car is still parked next to the sidewalk outside Aunt Lilly's house and you both breathe a sigh of relief as you slide into familiar territory.
"What in the name of Dingle the Dingo..."
You follow Aunt Amy's eyes that have widened to comical proportions as she stares into the rear view mirror in horror. Quickly whipping around, terrified that there is already someone occupying the back of the car, like in horror movies, you quickly realise that your assailant is in the form of two garish yellow and green car seats.
As far as you know, when you entered the time machine, Aunt Amy and Uncle Bumper were happily childless.
Aunt Amy jumps out of the car and you watch as she struggles to unbuckle each car seat in turn before throwing them both onto a grass verge by the sidewalk and hopping back into the driver's seat.
She points at you threateningly and says "you never saw that", before screeching away.
This is bad. This is really bad.
You're beginning to have a meltdown. You can feel it.
Because your house. Your home. Your beautiful childhood home where you've shared so many happy memories and where you currently live with your perfect, wholesome, loving family...doesn't exist. Instead, you're standing in front of the gates of a charming community play park. Sure, you would have loved to have such an amenity in the nearby vicinity when you were growing up. But this was a bit too nearby.
You know that when your parents bought the house, it had been a serious work in progress. Plenty of land to work with but the house itself had certainly seen better days. They'd spent years and years developing it into what it had become. Adding extensions and a second garage and a conservatory. By the time you were born it had been transformed into a lovely family home, that even the snobbiest of Atlanta families would have been proud to live in. Although maybe not. Some of your Mom's interior decorating choices had been...colourful, to say the least.
But now. Now none of it existed. Not the extensions, or the second garage, or the conservatory. Not the swing on the front deck with the wooden wind chime attached to it that Ma always complained about being too noisy in the night. Not the hanging baskets that you used to water when you were a kid, giggling happily as you sat atop Mom's shoulders, swinging a tiny bright yellow watering can through the air haphazardly. Not the kitchen window ledge that you'd clumsily run into the corner of when you were nine, receiving five stitches and a scar on your forehead that Ma had called "just like Mommy's" as she'd cradled you to her in the car ride back from the hospital.
None of it. It was all gone.
It made sense, you suppose. Ma had told you that their realtor thought they were mad for choosing a first home that was practically falling down. But Mom had fallen in love with it instantly. And your Mom had a real knack for taking something that looks hopeless on the outside and teasing out its full potential. Or so your Aunt Stacie had pointed out with a wink and a cheeky nod towards your other mother.
"Em?" Aunt Amy drags you from your brooding. "You alright there, kid? You look like you're having an aneurysm."
"Oh. No. I'm fine. Totally fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Completely and utterly fine." You accompany each word with some truly wild hand gesticulations. "I'm like, totally having the best day ever. My Aunt went back in time to eat a sandwich and ruined my life. But you know, apart from that, everything is just hunky dory."
"I feel like now isn't the best time to tell you that your left hand is disappearing then?"
Huh?
You look down at your hand and gasp loudly. Your hand is still there but you can definitely see the grey paving slabs you're standing on through it. It is the weirdest thing you've ever experienced and that's saying a lot with Aunts like Amy and Lilly.
"Oh my God." Your voice has reached dog whistle pitch. "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God."
Aunt Amy claps a hand over your mouth.
"Sssh Legacy. Don't freak. Let's just get out of here."
She manages to shove you back into the car as your eyes start to burn with the inevitable onslaught of tears that you're almost surprised have taken this long to arrive.
"What am I gonna do, Aunt Amy?!" You practically howl, hot tears spilling over your eyelids and running down your red cheeks. "I'm disappearing! I'm practically dying. I'm dead!"
"Well, technically you were never alive...if that helps."
It doesn't.
"Okay, look kid. Don't cry. We're gonna figure this out. I got you into this mess so I'm gonna fix it." Aunt Amy vows and she sounds more serious and sincere than you've ever heard her. It's enough to stem your tears.
You hadn't even realised that she'd been driving, you'd been too busy sobbing and staring at your hands, your right hand now starting to also turn oddly translucent.
"Intel!" She exclaims as she pulls up outside of Aunt Lilly's house. "Have you got your phone?"
Duh. You're eighteen.
You rummage around in your bra for a minute and Aunt Amy raises her eyebrows at you before wiggling them.
"What? It's not my fault the universe doesn't believe women need clothes with pockets." You say rather aggressively as you finally extract your phone.
You pray to all the Gods you can think of as you press the home button and your lock screen flashes up.
Oh, thank God.
It's the same picture as it has been for the last few months. A cute picture of your dog, Bertie. If he still exists on your phone that means that he must still exist somewhere. Which means that you still exist somewhere.
You exist.
And then you're crying all over again.
"Bloody hell Legacy, gimme that." The phone is snatched out of your disappearing hands in a flash and you don't know how Aunt Amy knows your passcode but for some reason you're not all that surprised that she does.
The next thing you know, she's holding the phone to her ear and your eyes dry up immediately as you both wait with baited breath. Unfortunately, all you hear is a dial tone telling you that the number is not in use.
"Looks like DJ Mama is a no go." Undeterred, Aunt Amy brings the phone back up to her ear.
"Hello?"
Your eyes immediately fill right back up with tears again as your hear your Mom's voice clearly through the speaker.
"Yo yo yo, what's up?"
"Amy?" Mom seems surprised.
"Yep, that's me. I know what you're thinking – What could I possibly have done to be bestowed with the honour of hearing my beautiful Australian accent on this fine day?"
Mom laughs. And even though you heard her laugh this morning before she left the house to take Jake to soccer practice it's still the best thing you've ever heard.
"Yeah. I am a little surprised. I haven't heard from you since Christmas. How are the twins?"
For a minute you think Aunt Amy is choking on her own tongue.
"Twins?"
"Yeah, you know. Those two squishy pink things that came out of your vagina."
You've never seen Aunt Amy look so horrified and you start to giggle uncontrollably.
"Is that Bumper?"
You hear your Mom ask and it makes you laugh even harder because Uncle Bumper does have a weirdly high-pitched laugh.
"Er, yeah." Aunt Amy replied, seemingly still stunned by the squishy pink bombshell. "Anyway, how are you doing?"
"I'm doing well thanks. The divorce is finalised, which is a relief. I think the kids are still struggling though, not seeing their Dad as much."
Your laughter dies in your throat, only to be replaced with a painful lump the size of Jupiter. Your Mom is, was, married to a man. She has children. Children that aren't you. Children that aren't Jake and Alex. This universe, this reality, it doesn't include you. You feel sick.
"Have you heard from Beca lately?"
You push through your sudden nausea, perking up at the sound of your other mothers name.
Your Mom sighs audibly.
"I got a Christmas card." You can tell that she's upset. "But her PA probably sent that anyway."
Her PA?
"Her PA?" Aunt Amy reads your mind.
"Yeah. Being the new David Guetta and all gets you a lot of perks in La La Land apparently."
The new David Guetta? What the hell is this weird universe?
Apparently Aunt Amy is thinking the same thing because she simply ends the call. You feel bad for your Mom for a minute because she's obviously going through a hard time and seemed really pleased to hear from an old friend.
Then you remember that she's not your Mom. Not here anyway.
Aunt Amy turns to you, looking more serious than you've ever seen her.
"Emily." She says, and you're pretty sure that's the first time she's ever used your full name. "We need to get you back in that time machine."
"Me?!" You exclaim. "Why me? I don't know anything about time travel."
"Oh and I'm clearly the expert." Aunt Amy sends a stormy glare out of the car window at the car seats that are mocking her from the grass verge. "You need to fix this. For both of us."
"You got us into this mess because of a sandwich!" You argue. "Surely you should be the one fixing it."
"Look, Legacy, I would okay? But I can't."
"Why not?"
Aunt Amy sighs before answering.
"Because you can't go back to the same point in time twice according to Dr. Crazy Eyes. So it has to be you. Plus, you're not looking so hot, kid. I can see outside of the window through your head and it's kinda creeping me out."
"Huh?" You gasp as you pull down the visor and nearly throw up when you can see the head rest of the passenger seat through your own head.
"To the time machine?"
"To the time machine."
Aunt Amy stands in front of you inside of the machine twiddling knobs and levers seemingly at random. You hope to God that she knows what she's doing. Your confidence level in her is hovering at around an optimistic three or four out of ten, which you think is actually quite generous given today's events.
"Alrighty then." Aunt Amy pulls one more lever with a flourish and the giant white button starts to glow that alien purple hue again. "All set."
She steps back and reaches up on her tiptoes to rest her hands on your shoulders.
"I don't know how you got so tall." She huffs.
"Mom wanted a tall sperm donor because Ma's so tiny. She was hoping it would even out."
"And instead they were blessed with a baby giraffe." Aunt Amy chuckles and squeezes your shoulders fondly. "Okay, remember the plan?"
"Yep." Your confidence level in your own ability to pull this off is hovering between zero and minus one.
"I'm really sorry about all of this, kiddo." Aunt Amy looks genuinely contrite. "But what a story to tell the Grandbabies huh? This is way better than all of my croc-wrangling tales. You've got the money I gave you?"
"Yeah." You breathe out, a bag of nerves. You hadn't bothered to question why Aunt Amy had been walking around with a wad of cash totalling thousands of dollars when she had slapped it into your hand. "Well I better go."
"Good luck soldier." Aunt Amy gives you one more squeeze before releasing you and stepping out of the time machine altogether and offering you a firm salute as the door swings shut and you're left alone with that damn glowing button.
You do believe that your parents are soulmates. Even in this strange universe where Ma is the new David Guetta and Mom was married to some random dude and has his children. Which is gross by the way. But you'd like to think that even in this weird alternate reality they'd still end up together.
Just without you.
And with that thought you slam your palm down on the control board without a second of hesitation.
You've got a future to save.
Thank you very much for reading :)