Hourglass
Chapter 1
Mitchsen
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I don't own diddly squat.

New life, new school, new chances. That's what Barden University offered Beca Mitchell. And while she was attending the school against her will, it gave her a chance to find what she had been looking for the last five years.

Beca opened a box and gingerly took an old hourglass out and set it gently on the desk. She would have told her roommate not to touch it, but Kimmy Jin didn't seem like the talking sort. Beca had already tried to greet her roommate, greeted by stoney silence instead. Beca sat on the bed and watched the sand fall from the upper chamber to the lower chamber for a minute. The device given to her by her mother when she turned thirteen, it was one of the most important things she owned, besides her music equipment of course.

"What, an old hourglass?" Beca asked her mother. Beca's mom shook her head.

"It's more than a simple hourglass. Turn the hourglass over and when the sand start falling, it will start a countdown to when you'll meet your soulmate." Beca scoffed, certain that her mom was pranking her with this. 'It's not April 1st, is it?' She thought to herself.

"Really mom?" The woman nodded her head. Beca still couldn't believe it. If this really led people to their soulmate, her dad would still be around. He wouldn't have just abandoned them. How could he? "Then why isn't dad still around?" Beca's mother sighed.

"Simply meeting your soulmate isn't enough. It's not a guarantee you'll fall in love and be together. You have the greatest potential for love with that person, but it has to be a joint effort to make a relationship work. Perhaps that's why your father and I didn't work out. We had other priorities, maybe I believed too strongly that we were destined to work, I don't know." Beca's mom placed a hand on her daughter's thigh. "This hourglass shows you the person you have the greatest potential to love and be loved back but you have to really want it to make it a reality."

Beca was torn between laughing at the very serious speech her mom just gave her, and asking a billion questions that her mom most likely couldn't answer. But one stuck out.

"Say I believe this whole hourglass soulmate thing. How would I know who it is? Say if I'm meeting two different people or if I'm away from the hourglass." Beca's mom nodded.

"Slowly over time, the sand will turn the hue of your soulmate's eyes, a most likely very distinct color. Trust me baby, you'll know when the time comes." Beca eyed the device warily, but gently picked it up and turned it over. As the sand started to run from the top to the bottom, Beca had no idea what was going to be in store for her future. Or what lie ahead. But if she played her cards right, it would turn out to be a beautiful thing.

Since that fateful day, Beca had done her own pseudo research into the device. Obviously it wasn't like she could just walk into the library and find a book about magical hourglasses. More like she had gone to family members who had the hourglass, namely her grandparents and asked them about it. They too vouched for the magical power of the device.

"When that last grain of sand fell and I looked into your grandma's eyes, I knew. They were the exact same shade as the sands." Her grandfather had answered her. But even then, it took Beca a couple of years to really come to terms with the fact that the hourglass was real. And some people in her life, namely her father, seemed determined to tell her she was wasting her time.

"Beca, if you spend all your time searching for the person that hourglass is going to show you, you're going to ruin your life. That thing is nothing but a piece of junk." And at first, Beca believed him. But after a couple of years, the sands in the hourglass began to slowly turn a light shade of green. That's when Beca truly began to believe. Sand didn't just change color like that, and certainly not to the color it was.

What really solidified her belief was when she declined a trip to see her father's university. In an attempt to get her to fall in love with Barden, her father had invited her to stay with him one winter break. Class would still be in session so she could take the time to tour the campus. She of course, refused not wanting anything to do with the man that had abandoned her as a child. And when she did so, sand particles started flying back up into the top chamber of the hourglass. Sand didn't just defy the law of gravity for no reason. But also knowing that her soulmate was most likely at Barden, or at least in Atlanta, didn't fill her with hope. Knowing that she was probably going to have to take her father up on his offer to find the person.

So Beca watched and waited. The hourglass never leaving her bedside table at home until she graduated from high school. Then when her father offered her a spot at Barden, and without any other options to go to college, she left for Atlanta. If she had it her way, she would have gone anywhere but to that school, but as it was, money was tight. She wasn't going to turn away a basically free education just because she disliked her father. Plus, she hoped that her soulmate was still hanging around Barden. And admittedly that was one of the biggest reasons she didn't put up a bigger fight.

And here she was, in Atlanta, Georgia, at Barden University. And by the look of the sand dripping down in the magical device, she would find her soulmate very soon. A knock on the door pulled Beca out of her thoughts. And she heard her dad attempt to crack a really bad joke about campus police and wine coolers. The man stuck his head in the door, greeting Beca, seeing that she was just staring at the hourglass sat on her desk.

"Still hung up on that device Becs? When are you going to give up on that piece of junk?" She was really getting tired of her father. He already didn't think her passion for music could lead her anywhere, insisting she get a 'real degree.' And he couldn't even be in the same room with her and the magical device without mocking or belittling her. It was very disheartening and did not want to make her repair her relationship with her father like he allegedly wanted to.

"When the sand runs from here," she pointed to the top chamber, "to here." She pointed at the bottom chamber, in an irritated tone.

"Whatever Becs. Just don't miss out on college waiting on that thing. It's great here, I'm sure you'll love it. Make some friends, join a club, experience the college dream. Don't spend your time here looking for a 'soulmate' that probably doesn't even exist." Beca rolled her eyes. Suddenly her roommate Kimmy Jin mentioned that she was headed to the activities fair. Seeing an escape, she excused herself from the awkward conversation with her father.

She stayed close on her roommate's heels until they actually reached the quad, where Kimmy Jin made a beeline for some Korean students club where she seemed to fit right in. Beca, being left alone, decided to go explore. Anything to keep her from running into her father again.

As she wandered the activities fair, she came across a booth labeled 'Barden DJs' and naturally she was interested in what they had to offer. But when she approached the booth, she found out that the DJ actually stood for deaf jew. Not exactly the music mixers she was hoping for. One of the guys waved to her, shouting "Shalom." Awkwardly putting down the flyer she had picked up, she started to back away slowly before a large blonde stepped up next to her. The guy again shouted "Shalom!"

"That's not a real word, but keep trying. You will get it." She said slowly, trying to get the guy to understand what she was saying. Beca laughed before heading back out on her own. As she walked around, her mind floated back over to the hourglass. When would she meet the person it foretold? She had waited nearly five years since her mother had given it to her and now she was in the place where they would most likely meet.

Beca wasn't really watching where she was going, so when a flyer was nearly shoved in her face, she almost walked straight into it. Blinking off the shock, she turned to see two girls, a blonde and a redhead. The redhead had an overly large smile on her face. Beca could tell the two were the sorority girl types, people that Beca knew she wouldn't really get along with. But it would be rude to just flat out ignore them, so she took the flyer to inspect it.

"Any interest in joining our a capella group?" Beca turned her full attention to the redhead, ignoring the blonde for now. Looking down at the flyer in her hand, she noticed it wasn't a sorority that they were advertising, it was a singing group, a capella to be exact. Beca internally snorted.

"Oh right, this is like, a thing now?" Beca said sarcastically. The brunette knew she had a good singing voice. But a capella? No. She wasn't going to be caught dead singing a capella.

"Oh totes! We sing covers of songs, but we do it without any instruments. It's all from our mouths!" The redhead pointed to her mouth, as if to accent that point. Beca raised an eyebrow, looking unimpressed by the redhead's attempt to recruit her.

"Yikes." She said with a slight grimace. She was torn between laughing and barfing. A capella was an intricate music style, but not something that Beca was interested in at all. She preferred the production value of a mixing board and a laptop.

"So, you interested?" The redhead asked. Beca's jaw almost fell to the ground. Was it not obvious from her body language and uninterested tone of voice that she wasn't? Obviously not.

"Sorry, it's just.. it's pretty lame." Beca said truthfully. The redhead visibly deflated slightly. But the blonde that Beca hadn't given a second thought to seemed to find her voice.

" A-ca-scuse me? Synchronized lady dancing to a Mariah Carey chart-topper is not lame!" Turning her attention to the blonde, Beca's really almost dropped. Her eyes slightly widened, nostrils flaring. As she looked at the blonde's eyes, they were the exact shade of green that the sand in the hourglass was. And it was an improbability that this was a coincidence. Beca felt the urge to escape to hurry back to her dorm room.

"We sing all over the world, and we compete in national championships!" The redhead tried again, excitedly. From that point in the conversation onward, Beca was only paying marginal attention, most of her brain capacity trained on the blonde. Could it be that she finally found the one?

And of course, in her state of mine, she just blurted out a response, with no regard for how it came out. "On purpose?" Beca almost cringed with what she said. Knowing that at least one of them was going to be offended and normally Beca wouldn't care. But with the knowledge that the blonde was most likely her soulmate, she really shouldn't be antagonizing her, or her friend.

"We played the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, you bitch!" Beca withdrew a little at the blonde calling her a bitch. It hurt her heart, irrational as that was. She didn't even know anything about her. But in true stubborn Beca Mitchell fashion, she recovered quickly and just raised her eyebrows. She had to give the blonde credit, she had balls, to call her a bitch to her face. Especially since they had just met. Or was that why the blonde had done it? Beca wasn't exactly scary, but she knew that she seemed unapproachable sometimes.

Mind going back to the hourglass sitting on her desk in her dorm room, she knew she needed to exit the conversation. So waving the flyer still clutched in her hand, "Sorry, I don't even sing. But thanks." A lie, but effective. And she scampered off without giving the girls a chance to respond. Rude, but necessary in Beca's mind.

Luckily when she had returned to her room, Kimmy Jin wasn't there. Probably will out with her Korean Club friends. Beelining for her desk, she flopped herself onto the bed. As she looked at the magical device, she saw that all of the green hued sand had fallen into the bottom chamber. So that solidified it. The blonde was her soulmate. Beca didn't know how she wanted to feel about that. From the limited contact she had, she could tell that the blonde didn't exactly like her. And the two seemed to be complete opposites. Where Beca was a reserved, somewhat sullen, and introverted individual, her soulmate seemed to be into bright colors, preppy and while not as excitable as her redheaded friend, more into people and crowds than Beca was. What a match made in heaven, Beca thought to herself.

Although, thinking more about it, she knew very few things for certain about her situation. One thought was that she didn't even know the girl's name. Which was kind of a problem. And it's not like she could just go back out to the activities fair and ask her since she kind of blew off their singing group. Which drew her attention to the flyer still clutched in her hand. She looked down, inspecting it further than she had earlier.

The Barden Bellas.

Beca groaned at what she was considering. Maybe joining the Barden Bellas wasn't such a bad idea. Scratch that, it was a horrible idea still. But Beca was considering it anyways. It was the only thing that Beca knew for certain that the blonde was involved in. Tryouts were still a month away, she'd have time to figure out what she wanted to do.

Beca decided to be a creep and go back out to the fair, perhaps catch another glimpse of the blonde and her friend. So she headed back to the quad. But as she walked the quad, she noticed something that actually caught her eye. The Barden radio station building. Deciding that she'd check it out, she went over to it. A sign on the door said that they were hiring interns so Beca grabbed an application to look it over.

Beca went back to wandering the activities fair, maybe to catch a glimpse of the green eyed blonde. However, it seemed that the pair had gone elsewhere or given up recruiting for the day. So Beca spent the next hour or so just wandering around, seeing if there was anything else she was interested in, taking the time to clear her head a little bit.

She had no clue how she wanted to approach this little development. Beca's go to over confrontation was always sarcasm and bullheadedness. But she figured that her usual go to wasn't going to be helpful. Beca considered herself an alright judge of character, and the blonde seemed like she was just as stubborn as herself. Which in and of itself was saying something.

Maybe she could recruit the help of her redheaded teammate. The exuberant girl seemed more approachable than her blonde friend. Yes, maybe that would be the course of action Beca would take. Beca figured they were co-captains, or something like that, and hopefully they would also be friends. It would make things a whole lot easier. It was always good to have the best friend on your side.

But whatever she decided to do, she wanted to try. This was going to be the real test of the magical device. Would her and the blonde actually work out? Or would it just turn into a mess of hurt feelings and broken dreams? Only time would tell. Beca desperately hoped that it would work out. But she'd be lying if she thought for sure it work out. From what her family had told her, there was all the chance in the world it wouldn't. Case and point, her own parents.

Beca sat her butt on the ground under a tree on the quad, mostly to take in her surroundings. And unbeknownst to her, a pair of green eyes were trained on the brunette's tiny body.

A/N: Hello! New story. Mitchsen this time, sorry to all my Bechloe fans out there. Read on if you like, but I understand if you dont. I multi-ship both, but I know many people out there, don't. Long author's note. Sorry. I write long ones in the first chapter of a story.

So this multi-chapter is based off the oneshot of the same name that I wrote a week or two ago. I obviously adapted the first chapter a little bit from the oneshot, but it's basically the same. For those of you who haven't read it, it's not necessary that you do. I've basically rewritten the general idea in the first chapter. But it's in my 'Compilation of Mitchsen' if you want to check out all my oneshots.

If you want background for this, where it came from. Basically I found a prompt on DeviantART, 'hourglass.' And rolled with it. I had seen a lot of soulmate AUs with objects like watches, tattoos and necklaces. I thought, how about an hourglass? And poof, this was born. It had a lot of potential as well as support to turn it into a multichapter. So I did.

So the basics you guys need to know about this. It's going to be a movie rewrite basically, following the movie storyline obviously with my own liberties taken. Not an entirely new universe. And that this is most likely going to be a bit of a slow burn. I want to try to make it as realistic as possible, and we all know that Aubrey and Beca butt heads, massively, for a long time. So it's not like this whole 'soulmate' thing will get them together within the first three chapters. As for predicted length, I have no idea. I don't foresee it being over 100k, but I said that about my last story and it ended up being around 104k. If I had to hazard a guess, probably in the 60k-80k range most likely. But we'll see how it goes.

The idea of a soulmate in this story is actually based off of my belief in real life about love at first sight. That it exists, but that simply isn't enough to make a relationship. They still take work. Love isn't that easy.

So yes! Here we go. Thank you for joining me on what will hopefully be an enjoyable journey into the world of Mitchsen! I don't have a beta for my writing, so all mistakes are my own. Leave a review if you wish. I'm not really a review hound, I'll update regardless. But it is nice to know people like your work. So if you can spare the time and words, please do. Thanks!

A Charmed Vampire