"Guys! This is ridiculous!" Beca tried, once again, to make her point through the door.

"No it's not!" Was Chloe's immediate reply. "Stacie and I have put up with your constant bickering for long enough. Do you know how hard it is to have your best friend and girlfriend constantly fighting? It sucks. So you're not coming out until you've played the game and made nice."

"What game?" Beca lets out in an exasperated sigh as she realises she's definitely going to be locked in her girlfriend's bedroom for the foreseeable future. Which wouldn't be so bad if her girlfriend was also in the room. However, instead of Chloe she was stuck with…

"I think she's talking about these." Aubrey spoke up from her place on Chloe's bed.

"What are those?" Beca asked, eyeing up the stack of cards in Aubrey's hand.

"Ask me my favourite colour?" Aubrey read off the top, giving Beca a pointed look.

"Jesus Christ." Beca muttered under her breath as she finally caught on to what her girlfriend and best friend had done. "So we can leave after a fun filled round of 20 fucking questions?"

"Oh yes, sarcasm, how helpful." Aubrey sniped back. "Look, I'm not happy to be here either but we both know that when an idea gets stuck in their heads it's better to just do what they want. We both knew they were planning something."

"Well, yeah." Beca reluctantly agreed. Chloe was adorable but she was about as subtle as a shotgun. "But I didn't think it would be this stupid. I thought they'd take us out to dinner or make us hug it out or something."

"Awww you wanted to hug me, Beca?" Aubrey cooed, laughing when Beca flipped her off in response. "Look, this was kind of the best case scenario. No hugging, no touching, just answer some questions and we'll be out of here in no time."

"Fine." Beca huffs as she moves to lazily slouch in Chloe's hot pink desk chair. Usually Beca hated pink, and how the redhead managed to find a hot pink chair was beyond Beca, but the chair was just so Chloe that instead of cringing at the gaudy item she found herself smiling. "Hit me."

"What's your favourite colour?" Aubrey repeats with an eye roll. Of course she was going to become BFF's with Beca once she learns her favourite colour.

"Black, like my soul." Beca replies easily, swinging side to side on the desk chair as if she was here by choice. "You?"

"Green." Aubrey bristles when Beca snorts in response. "What?"

"Your favourite colour is the colour of your girlfriend's eyes. You know they can't hear you, right?" Beca laughs and gestures vaguely to where the door is as she spins on the spot. "No need to act so whipped."

"Oh really?" Aubrey raises an eyebrow at the smug girl. "And if black really is your favourite colour then why is your phone case blue? The same shade of blue as your laptop case, and your backpack, and those throw pillows you just bou…"

"Moving on!" Beca interrupts with a little more volume than she meant to. Aubrey just smirks when the brunette grumbles something along the lines of 'next question'.

Aubrey snorts while reading the next card, making Beca stop playing with the chair for a second to shoot the blonde a curious look. "Guess who wrote this card. It says, and I quote, 'what do you love most about your totes awesome girlfriend?' I don't know about you but my money is on Chloe."

"Of course." Beca laughs before contemplating the question. "I love how optimistic she is. Loser could probably make Kanye West smile if she wanted to."

Aubrey was a little surprised that Beca gave her a sincere answer but the small smile on her face and the faraway look in her eyes lead Aubrey to believe she probably wasn't even aware she had spoken. Well, Aubrey thought, if Beca can take this seriously then I can too.

"I love how she seems to give zero shits about what people think of her. She never changes how she acts and never looks upset when people cast her off as some bimbo. Instead she keeps being herself, no more no less, whether that means she's having fun partying or she's ranting about quantum mechanics. I find it astounding how easily she ignores the judgements of others."

Thankfully Beca doesn't make any snarky comments, just offers Aubrey her trademark, awkward half-smile before gesturing for the blonde to hand her some of the cards.

"Favourite TV show?" Aubrey read after clearing her throat. It's not like she was embarrassed by what she said, she did mean it after all, it was still just a little weird to be saying this to Beca of all people.

"Fucking Chloe." Beca whispered under her breath before covering her face and groaning.

"What?" Aubrey asked, flipping the card over to see if the redhead had written something on the back. "How did you know it was Chloe?"

"Because she knows I'm slightly…" Beca paused, cringing slightly as she tried to think of the right word to use. "Embarrassed, about my favourite TV show."

"Oh my god, now you have to tell me." Aubrey replied, sitting up on the bed to focus in more on Beca. Her beaming smile was enough for Beca to start glaring at the blonde. "How embarrassing is it? Please, for the love of god, tell me it's Disney. It's Suite Life of Zac and Cody, isn't it?"

"No it fucking isn't!" Beca all but screeched, voice growing unusually high pitched and eyes widening dramatically at the audacity of such a suggestion. "Of course it's not Disney! And it's not animated either, before you start suggesting Yu-Gi-Mon or Pokeyo or anything else as equally ridiculous."

"Okay, neither of those are real." Aubrey commented with an eye roll. "And if it's not Disney or animated, it can't possibly be that embarrassing, can it?"

"I guess not." Beca admitted with a sigh. "Fine, but no laughing! One chuckle and I swear I will punch you in the throat."

"A bit dramatic Beca, but I promise." Aubrey said, trying to dampen the smile on her face and replace it with one of mock seriousness.

"…chmd…"

"If you expect me to hear what you're saying then you're going to have to remove your face from your hands." Aubrey replied, face deadpan.

"Ugh," Beca groaned before ripping her hands away from her face in a moment of bravery. "Charmed! I said Charmed, okay? The dorky show about witches and family? Yeah, that's my favourite show ever. Nothing has even come close since it finished."

The room was silent and Aubrey's face remained impassive. Beca returned to groaning into her palms, hiding her reddened face from the blonde's sight. Just as Beca started to contemplate how well she would manage a three story drop out the window, Aubrey's low voice cut through the room.

"I cried when Prue died."

Beca's head snapped up to face a solemn looking Aubrey. In any other circumstance, Beca would think the older woman was mocking her. However, Aubrey looked as equally as saddened about the character's death as she was.

"Don't get me wrong," Aubrey quickly interjected, a placating hand thrust into the air. "I love Paige. She was definitely one of my favourite characters on the show. I just wish she wasn't a step in for Prue's character, you know? Phoebe's character I probably could have accepted, just not Prue. And how amazing would it have been to see them meet? After all the angst surrounding Paige's inferiority complex it would have been so satisfying to see them meet just once. I get that they do in the comic books but it's just not the same."

And for the first time Aubrey could ever recall, Beca Mitchell was utterly speechless. As in mouth gaping like a fish, eyes wide as saucers, absolutely, positively speechless. The psychology minor in Aubrey was pushing her to think that Beca's attachment to the show was probably linked to some deep-seated childhood issues, but decided that the best course of action would be to move on. Wouldn't bode well to push Beca too much during their forced imprisonment, God knows the girl would only push back and Aubrey really wasn't in the mood.

They'll do the cards and then they'll go back to sniping and bickering like always.

Simple.

So Aubrey pushed on to the next card, and then the next few after that. They were about as generic as the first few and the girls got to know things about each other that they'll never need to remember.

Beca's favourite animal is a sloth. How amazing!

Aubrey grew up in South Carolina. So riveting!

The questions continued on, never straying far from a straight forward answer. As a rule, they tried admirably not to mock the other person's answer. However, a snort of derision did slip from Aubrey without her permission when Beca mentioned she had almost burnt her house down the one time she ever attempted to make a proper meal.

Despite it all, however, neither could deny that their girlfriends' ridiculous plan was actually working. As much as they wanted to deny it, they were enjoying themselves. It almost pained them, but they have started to find that the company wasn't as bad as they first assumed. Their humour was quite similar, destructively sarcastic although Aubrey had a better grasp on the term 'time and place'. When Aubrey wasn't trying to destroy the Bellas, she actually had quite an extensive music taste, something Beca could relate to wholeheartedly.

It was all going so well.

Until it wasn't.

"Oh fuck no." Aubrey suddenly scoffs and slams a card down into the 'already answered' answered pile. Which, after more than an hour of this, was much bigger than the ones still left to go through.

"What is it?" Beca suddenly perked up, head lifting from its place hanging off the end of the bed she had since migrated to. "What does it say?"

"We're not doing it." Aubrey told her sternly. "Not that one."

"Don't I get a say in this?" Beca asked innocently.

"No." Was the quick response.

"Well can I at least know what it says?" The shorter girl asked while leaning towards the abandoned card.

Aubrey sighed before picking up the card with only her thumb and pointer finger, as if anymore contact would poison the blonde. Beca reached for it, half excited and half nervous. While most of the cards were generic, first date questions, others had scratched a little deeper. Yet Aubrey had simply taken them in stride, answering them in her usual impersonal, direct manner, acting like she was talking about the weather and hadn't just told Beca she sometimes resented her mother for not playing a bigger role in her childhood. Therefore, Beca couldn't help the shake in her hand as she grasped the paper that had made Aubrey so vehemently disregard their 'answer everything' policy.

"Ask me about my controlling father." Beca read aloud before sighing and closing her eyes. Why Chloe and Stacie thought this card was a good idea was beyond her. They were supposed to be bonding, not going through a shared therapy session. "That's… Wow."

"Yeah, it's too far." Aubrey pouted, looking down at her hands before very visibly steeling herself and hardening her tone again. "They should have known better than to put that on there."

"Yeah, what's wrong with th…" Beca trailed off as she turned her head towards Chloe's desk to see a picture of herself and the redhead staring back at her. She loved Chloe, she really did. And her girlfriend had been at her wits end trying to get the people, non-family related of course, she loved the most to bond. Not even bond really, just get to a point where they could tolerate each other. Beca can admit to herself that she sometimes went out of her way to antagonise the blonde. Call it revenge for a year of having to deal with the Aca-Nazi, call it childish tendencies. Either way, she was beginning to realise that she had been making her girlfriend's life harder than it ever needed to be.

And it was maybe time to fix that. For the sake of the woman she loved.

"Um, I think you already know that my dad left when I was younger." Beca began, voice more than a little unsure. Aubrey's head shot up, shock colouring her face as she realised exactly it was that the younger girl was doing.

"Beca, you don't…"

"Well, he wasn't exactly a glowing example of fatherhood when he was around." Beca continued over Aubrey's polite intrusion. She figured it either all came out now or it was never going to. For Chloe, this is all for Chloe… "As far as I know, my parents never actually wanted to be parents. I was kind of a surprise, and not a good one. My mom took it in stride but my dad. He just never got into it I guess. I don't remember him providing me much comfort as a kid. Like, I remember running to him after school one time because this stupid kid, Billy Lebowski, tore up my drawing of our family. I showed it to my dad and he just held up the two pieces together and said 'well, it doesn't matter anyway, it's not like it was any good.' When he left, it hurt but it didn't feel any different, you know? He was never really there for me anyway, what did it matter if he was physically around, right?"

It took all of the blonde's will power not to reach out and put her hand on the brunette's shoulder. She had never seen the usually brash girl look so small and vulnerable. Despite her strong words, she could tell that her father leaving had had a bigger impact than Beca was letting on. Still, Aubrey decided not to comment, and let the younger girl continue uninterrupted.

"Anyway, that's not the point of the card." Beca sighed before picking up the card. "The controlling part of Warren Mitchell showed up when I was 18 and he decided that even though he didn't want to be a father, if he was one, then it would be to a college graduate. So he drags me from Maine, away from my dreams, away from everything I knew and wanted, to come get a college degree that I had no intention of using. It sucked, and to make it worse he wanted to control the life he'd put me into. He'd come to my dorm to yell at me about my grades, he'd blackmail me, he'd threaten to drop me on my ass when I wasn't indulging in the lifestyle he'd dreamed up for me. He paid one of my lecturers to email me the wrong due date so that I missed the deadline for a paper worth 40% of my grade. That was just after the jail incident, he said convicts don't deserve to get treated with respect. When he wasn't absent he was insanely overbearing, smothering, and once I'm out of college, I know for a fact that I'm never going to talk to him again. Unless he's got something else to bitch about that is."

"Beca... I…" Aubrey trailed off as she realised that nothing in her extensive vocabulary could possibly come close to offering any sort of comfort to the tiny girl. "I'm sorry."

"Eh," Beca shrugged off with a shake of her head and a wave of her hand. "When everything that man does is disappointing then nothing really is, you know? It's just… how he is."

"Still, no one should have to feel like their family isn't on their side." Aubrey offered lamely, watching as the brunette cleared her throat and sat up straighter. Aubrey could tell that Beca was done being the vulnerable one. Which meant it was her turn.

The thought made Aubrey's stomach turn sharply.

"Yeah, well, it seems like I'm not the only one in this room to know what that feels like." Beca started before staring at the blonde pointedly. "So, Aubrey, tell me about your controlling father."

Aubrey could feel her throat swelling at the thought and started to violently shake her head. "No." She stated firmly. "I'm… I'm not talking about my father, Beca. That topic is off limits."

"Are you kidding me?" Beca asked bewildered. "Seriously? I just said all that to you and you're not going to return the favour?"

"There's a reason I chucked it out the moment I read it, Beca." Aubrey argued, feeling cornered and, surprisingly for the first time, a little claustrophobic. "I'm not comfortable sharing that information with you."

"And you think I liked talking about my dad with you?" Beca asked incredulously. "Chloe and Stacie are the only two who knew anything about it."

"I never asked for you to tell me all your shit, Beca." Okay, maybe that was a bit harsh. The brunette recoil like she had been slapped, which probably would have been kinder than calling her troubled past 'shit' but it was too late to turn back now. She could see Beca's eyes shift from disbelief to anger in a heartbeat and knew that there was definitely no going back now.

She had seen this look on the shorter girl's face many times now and knew this was the end of bonding time and the beginning of another screaming match.

"My shit?" Beca's voice holding back zero of her anger. "My shit? That was incredibly personal information and I told you because I thought we had an agreement that we were going to try this. For the sake of our girlfriends, we were going to try and play nice. And now you're telling me that you're not going to share with the group just because? That's bullshit, Aubrey."

"It's not just because, Beca." Aubrey rolled her eyes at the dramatics. "I get that you're feeling emotional but that doesn't mean you get to demand me to talk about things that I don't want to talk about."

"Stop patronising me, Aubrey!" Beca finally exploded, hands flailing as she shot up from the bed, seemingly unable to sit still anymore. "You have no right to talk to me like I'm frustrated for no reason. We had a deal! I shared, now it's your turn. Like we've been doing for the last hour."

"Stop acting like we're actually friends here!" Aubrey couldn't help but yell back, her own ire rising. "I am not required to tell personal things to someone I barely even like simply because she tried too hard to impress her girlfriend and spilled too many secrets."

"God, you're so fucking condescending!" Beca raged, though even Aubrey could see hurt shining in those stormy blues. "First, you hate me dating Chloe because 'I never try at anything'. Now, you're fucking angry at me for trying too hard? Fuck you! Nothing I ever do is good enough for you! How you managed to convince Stacie that you even have a soul is beyond me."

"So Miss Alt Girl Goth with her stupid ear spikes is going to question the existence of my soul? That's rich." Aubrey scoffed. "And don't bring Stacie into this! You don't see me mentioning how completely out of your league Chloe is."

"Chloe is not out of my league!" Beca screeched, Aubrey obviously hit solidly against the shorter girl's insecurities if the shine in her eyes were to be believed. "I have been with Chloe for a year now, Aubrey, and I have given our relationship everything I have. Yet you still feel the need to shit all over me at every chance you get. Why do have to act like such a fucking bitch to me all the time? You know what? I don't even fucking care anymore, I'm getting the fuck out of here."

"You're not going anywhere, your girlfriend made sure of that." Aubrey points out with an eye roll. She huffs with derision as the brunette tries to jiggle the door handle open. "Also can you calm down with the profanity? I swear, you're the most uncivilised human being I know."

"Fuck off." Was Beca's only reply before she started to bang on the door. "Chloe! Open this fucking door right now! One more minute stuck in here and I'm going to break it down myself."

"Of course you would resort to violence to get your way you delinquent!" Aubrey scoffed.

"Why are you still talking? You've made your point quite clear, Aubrey, you don't need to keep twisting the knife by subjecting me to your high pitched fucking southern drawl."

"This is my apartment too, mouth breather." Aubrey sneered. "And I am not paying for any property damage caused by your own idiocy!"

"Then stop being such an asshole!" Beca exploded before returning to the still locked door. "I swear to god you two have 30 seconds before I'm fucking destroying this door. And I'm not paying for the damages!"

"Oh yeah, I'm sure you're going to break right through it, Pipsqueak." Aubrey jeered.

"10 seconds, Chloe! Then I'm either going to break the door or her stupid fucking face." Beca yelled.

"How childish can you actually be?" Aubrey hollered before flopping backwards on the bed with a frustrated sigh. "How the fuck did I ever think you were the right person to lead the Bellas? You're rude, obnoxious, dim-witted, annoying, selfish…"

CRASH

"I told you I'm sorry, Chloe." Aubrey lamented. She leaned back in the uncomfortable plastic hospital chair with a sigh as she realised that her best friend was going to keep up the silent treatment. She smiled gently when she felt her girlfriend wrap a supportive arm around her shoulder. "I really didn't think she was going to be able to break the door."

"Well, she might be tiny but that just makes her faster." Stacie reasoned, even managing to get Chloe to break her silence and let out a small chuckle. "Still, it's more our fault then yours, Aubs. We knew we were playing with fire when we locked the two of you in there. We knew you'd either come out of there thick as thieves or that we would have to carry one of you out in a body bag. We just hoped it would be the former."

"No, I was a bitch to her." Aubrey sighed, guilt creeping up on her as she recalled the evening. It was true, she had been a royal cow to the smaller girl for no real reason. Admittedly, it was much easier for her to see in hindsight how unfair she had been. Without the pressure of being trapped in a room with no escape, Aubrey could see that Beca had, for once, tried to be sincere in her attempt to bond with Aubrey. She had gone so far as to share something deeply important to her only to have the blonde slap her in the face with it. "I just panicked."

"It's alright, Aubrey. Honestly." Chloe finally spoke up, reaching over to grab her hand. "You know Beca, she'll bounce right back from this. Hell, she'll be back for some other stupid reason soon, she's too clumsy to stay away from here for too long. I mean the doctor did know her name the second she saw her."

"That's because she treated her a month ago when she tripped over the piano in rehearsals and sprained her wrist." Stacie laughed, joined promptly by Aubrey and Chloe as they had a quick laugh at the small girl's expense.

They waited in silence before Beca's doctor came out to get them, telling them the brunette would be fine with a little time and rest. Turns out she had dislocated her shoulder when she threw herself at the door full force.

"Would you guys mind if I went in first?" Aubrey asked, surprising the other two. "I kind of want to clear the air and I know that if I don't do it now then we'll probably just both end up ignoring it forever."

"Yeah, sure Sweetie," Chloe said with an encouraging smile. Maybe this little evening didn't have to be a waste after all. "Go ahead."

"Thanks." Aubrey murmured with a nervous smile before heading over to Beca's room. She paused for a moment outside the door to steel herself before entering.

The brunette looked small in the oversized hospital gown, but the bandages wrapped around her shoulder and the sling were the only things Aubrey's eyes could truly focus on. For the millionth time since the paramedics had whisked the younger girl away, Aubrey felt guilt wash over her. This was her fault. Beca was here trying to itch under her bandage with a fork because of Aubrey.

"Hey, Beca?" Aubrey didn't mean for it to come out as a question, but she wasn't sure Beca wanted to see her.

To Aubrey's surprise, Beca smiled at her while patting the side of her bed, encouraging the blonde to precariously perch there.

"Hey, Bree!" Okay, that was too peppy for the usually moody girl. "How did you get here? I didn't see you in the ambulance. Can you believe that let me ride in an ambulance? How cool is that!"

"Are you… Are you high?" Aubrey asked bemused.

"As a kite, home skillet." Beca replied with an easy, lopsided grin.

"I didn't think you liked movies?"

"Yeah, but Juno is a classic and we all know it." Beca announced with a slight slur. "Now, was there a reason you came in here and not a bubbly, super attractive redhead?"

"Yeah, I just really needed to apologise to you, Beca." Aubrey replied solemnly, looking down at her twisting hands. "Not only did I mock you for being open and sharing your memories with me, I was mean. Well, cruel really. I was just so scared when you started to ask me about my father that I lashed out. I'm sorry I made you so angry you resorted to property damage and bodily harm to get away from me."

"Why are you so scared to talk about him, Aubrey?" Beca asked sadly, looking serious for the first time since the blonde had entered the room. "He wasn't… he's not dangerous, is he?"

"No, nothing like that. He was never physical with me if that's what you mean." Aubrey quickly reassured. "He just… He was in the military. When I was growing up, he wasn't really around. When he was though, he was strict, harsh, authoritarian. There was no compromise when he was home. There was nothing done unless it would better our future in some way. If it didn't then it was not to step foot in our house. It took me 3 months to convince him that I was a part of the Bellas so I could have an extracurricular on my transcript to give me a leg up on getting into post-grad. It was really hard growing up, knowing all my life that there was literally nothing I could do to please him. That nothing I will ever do could ever make him proud of me because his expectations are too high."

"But you still feel this aching need inside to try and do it anyway, right?" Beca murmured from her bed. Aubrey's eyes connected with Beca's and they shared a moment, a shared sympathy for the other and a shared longing for themselves. "Even when you know he's an asshole that will never understand you, you still want something from him. Anything. A 'well done' or a 'good try'. A fucking smile that just makes you feel like he cared about you for at least two seconds. But nope, it's just disappointment after disappointment from him."

"Every missed birthday." Aubrey interjected with a dejected smile.

"Every missed Christmas." Beca continued with the same look.

"Every missed graduation."

"Every missed piano recital,"

"School play."

"First love."

"First broken heart."

"Oh yeah, that one sucked monumentally." Beca laughed, joined shortly after by Aubrey. As the laughter eventually died down between them, Aubrey took a risk by reaching over and gently squeezing Beca's hand.

"I guess we both got the shit end of the stick when it came to the father figure, huh?" Aubrey chuckled when Beca nodded up and down a little too enthusiastically. She had almost forgotten about the drugs coursing through the brunette's tiny body. "I guess we just dealt with it in different ways. I've spent my life trying to make everything perfect, clinging onto the fantasy that maybe I could finally impress him somehow. And you just shut down, putting up some heavy duty walls to keep everyone away so they couldn't hurt you like he did."

"Until Chloe came!" Beca announced proudly. "And you got Stacie and became less perfect for her. Well, not less perfect per say but I think she helped you pull the stick out of your ass which was a good change for you I think."

Usually Aubrey would be annoyed at someone calling her uptight but for some reason she just chuckled along with the brunette. It didn't feel mean, it didn't feel like a dig, it reminded her of when Chloe would make fun of her. Just friends light heartedly teasing each other.

Because after today, despite the disaster that it turned into, Aubrey couldn't help but feel like she really appreciated Beca's presence for the first time.

Maybe this truly was the start of a beautiful friendship.

A/N: Okay, so that took a little longer than I initially expected it to. Turns out being an adult is hard. 10/10 would not recommend. I would, however, recommend reading the other one shots based in this universe. If you didn't enjoy this one though then probably not. Don't forget to make my day by reviewing if you so desire. Apologies for the time delay, I will try get the next one out as soon as possible. Next up, Aubrey proposes to Stacie.