A/N: Special thanks to Mary for using her magical beta powers to make this a coherent thing. Bless her.
Beca Mitchell let out an exasperated sigh as she grabbed a wrench from the pathetic array of tools she'd collected at various yard sales over the past year. She scooted her way underneath her mom's car yet again despite the growing pain in her back, grumbling as she went. She'd been at it for two or three hours, minutes starting to blend together and the words she'd read on the car manual swimming around in her brain. She adjusted her grip on the flashlight in her right hand as she loosened a bolt with her left. There was a sudden crunch and a piece of the part she was working on cracked, sending rust flakes falling into her hair.
"Fuck," she whispered, closing her eyes in frustration. That was the end of that, then. Hopefully she could scavenge enough of her money to buy a new part tomorrow. She glanced at the time on her phone. Three thirty four in the morning. "Shit."
She made her way stiffly out from under the car and brushed rust off her jeans. Her mom's car broke down earlier that day, and Beca had been determined to fix it. She knew money was tight even though it was just the two of them, so she had taken it upon herself to learn the inner workings of both of their cars so they could avoid an expensive trip to a mechanic to fix them up. She never informed her mom of this, knowing she'd only protest and be overly concerned, so she had taken to transforming into a mechanic at midnight on occasion, like a strange kind of reverse Cinderella.
She walked quietly into the house and scribbled a note to her mom, telling her to take her car to work while she took the bus, then made her way into her room, not bothering to turn on a light. She nearly tripped in the dark over some old DJ equipment she'd left out, but once she reached her bed, she collapsed in a sore heap and fell asleep immediately.
Beca stretched her arms out, willing her back to crack, but it didn't give her the satisfaction. She rubbed her eyes and turned her head to look at the time.
8:05
"Dammit," Beca swore as she got up as quickly as she could, ridding herself of her dirty clothes from the night before. She frantically grabbed at piles of clothes splayed out on her floor, finding clean ones and throwing them on quickly. She grabbed her book bag and a Pop Tart, ready to dash out the door, when the heavens broke loose with a loud rumble of thunder. She searched fruitlessly for an umbrella, bracing herself as she placed her hand on the doorknob. "Thanks for the warning, Noah." She pulled up the hood of her old jacket and was out the door.
The rest of the day crawled by. Beca was soaked for at least half of the day, and her back was sore from working on her mom's car. She had difficulty moving about in gym class, even more reluctant to move than usual, and her teacher had given her crap for it, to which she had shouted, "do you even lift?" at him, earning her a detention later in the week. As exhausting as the day was, and after approximately an eternity, it was two minutes until freedom began at last.
The bell rang and Beca sighed in utter relief, her aching back and tolerance of judging eyes of her junior class were wearing thin. She slung her tattered backpack over her shoulder and practically flew out of class, keeping her head down as she went. She adjusted her grip on her bag and began to fight through the sea of students high on the joy of reaching the end of the day. It was like fighting through clusters of bees, and someone knocked into her just as she reached her locker, and she swore she heard a little rip from her book bag. Her hand flew to the ragged material, but didn't feel any signs of an impending book avalanche, so she turned her attention to her locker.
Just as the lock clicked open and she stepped back to view its contents, someone from the mass student exodus banged into her and there was a louder rip this time as her backpack threw up its contents onto the ground.
"Dude!" Beca yelled at the retreating form, receiving no response. The hallway was practically cleared out as she stiffly went down on her knees to retrieve her notebooks and textbooks. As she reached for her history notebook and let out a colorful swear, a small laugh sounded. Beca looked up, realizing another person had joined her place on the linoleum floor.
"Here, you dropped these," a redhead said with a bright smile as she held out the rest of Beca's things. Beca recognized her; she was always with the popular gang of seniors who looked like they belonged in a Hollister or American Eagle advertisement rather than fifth period.
"Oh," Beca replied, looking in disbelief at the girl's genuine smile. There was a joke here somewhere, a catch. She was being punk'd by the popular crew with an intolerance for heavy eye lined alt girls, she was sure of it. "Um…thanks."
She took the notebooks from the girl's hand and shoved them into her backpack, unable to look away as the senior pushed back long locks of red hair.
"It looks like your backpack has seen better days, huh?" The girl asked as she gave a little smile towards Beca's duct taped bag. The smile still was absolutely genuine, but Beca remained apprehensive.
"It's only outlived a few wars on the front line and a couple mosh pits here and there, yeah," she replied. She reached in her locker and pulled out a roll of duct tape that she kept on hand for emergencies such as these. "It's not a big deal."
"I know duct tape makes the world go 'round and everything but I could sew that up for you y'know," the girl gestured to the rip. Beca gaped at her, this smartly dressed senior randomly offering her help? She took a breath to respond-
"Oh yeah, I could totally throw a couple stitches in here no problem!" the girl smiled as she examined the bag.
"It's really not-"
"What's the matter? You can trust me," the girl grinned and leaned against the lockers. "I made my own prom dress."
"It's just," Beca hesitated, biting her lip. Suddenly words poured from her mouth before she could think. "It's just everyone always tells me to get another bag…they don't get it, no one's ever just…wanted to fix it without any questions asked before."
Beca blushed, eyes finding the floor. What was wrong with her? She didn't even know this girl.
"Hey." There was something in the tone of the senior's voice that made Beca look up into her light blue eyes. "I get the feeling of wanting to keep stuff." She held out her left hand and wiggled her fingers to show a neon plastic ring on her pinky finger. "This was from my best friend Aubrey when we were little kids. I don't know why, but I always wanna keep it, even though it did come out of a cereal box. It broke once, and I superglued it back together. So, I get it."
Beca blinked, not sure what was exactly happening. She was kneeling with a pretty popular girl in the middle of a hallway having a conversation about sentimental value. When she was little she had always wanted to guest star on the Twilight Zone, but now this whole thing felt like a cruel joke.
"That's," Beca paused to search the girl's face, looking for a sign that this was all some kind of hoax, but came up empty. "That's nice of you."
"Or just really corny of me," the girl replied, her bubbly laughter filling the hall. It was so strangely contagious that even Beca found herself briefly chuckling.
"C'mon," the ginger grabbed Beca's arm and pulled her to her feet. "Let's get that backpack fixed."
Beca raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"
"Duh, silly," the girl smiled. "Unless you want a new enemy when that rock of a chem book escapes and drops on someone's foot."
"I have enough already," Beca shifted the bag in her hands.
"Same," the senior nodded. Beca looked at her in disbelief. The girl laughs again.
"At least nine enemies a day, and they're my classes."
"I totally get that," Beca agreed, smiling a bit as she shut her locker.
"Oh!" the girl exclaimed, hitting herself in the forehead. "I never introduced myself!" She held out a hand. "I'm Chloe-"
"Chloe Beale," Beca finished, having a sudden epiphany. "Yeah, everyone knows you. Even those of us who don't sit at the cool table."
"But do they really know me though?" Chloe looked suddenly sincere for a moment, "And you look pretty cool to me."
Beca considered her worn down, duct taped boots and wrinkled old flannel. "If by cool you mean rebellious and angst ridden, then yeah I agree."
"Aren't we all? So, Ms. Dark-and-Dangerous, what's your name?" Chloe smiled.
Beca rolled her eyes at the title. "Beca Mitchell."
Chloe stuck out her hand further, reminding Beca it was there, and she took it; Chloe's soft hand warm against Beca's rough slender one, their rings touching briefly as they moved apart.
"So Beca Mitchell," Chloe began, "Let's fix that bag of yours." The two began making their way towards the front doors.
"Dude, really? Don't you, um, have like…more important things to do?" Beca shifted the bag's weight in her arms.
"This is important!" Chloe looked shocked. "This is an intense SR predicament for your friend there."
"SR?"
"Sewing Room! Y'know instead of the ER, the SR?" Chloe explained, her hands moving about with excited energy.
Beca gave Chloe one of her best eye rolls. "That is so dumb."
"The SR is not a laughing matter, Beca."
"I'm not laughing."
"Good."
Beca looked down, grinning in spite of herself. The two walked in silence for a bit, Beca's heavy boots clunking as they reached the exit.
"So what kind of cereal was it?" Beca asked before she could stop herself.
"What?"
"The ring," Beca mumbled, losing confidence fast. "You mentioned your friend giving it to you."
"Oh!" Chloe beamed. "It was a box of Lucky Charms!"
"Ugh," Beca wrinkled her nose. "Those so called marshmallows are a disgrace to all marshmallow kind."
"I know right?" Chloe laughed, "They're like, freeze dried or something."
"I think even our noble astronauts would say 'hell no' to them."
"Totes," Chloe agreed as they opened the doors to the parking lot. "So, where are you parked, Bec?"
"I'm," Beca pushed a piece of hair to hide a bit of her face as she looked down at her boots, "I um, walked today."
"Beca," Chloe said, her expression soft. "It rained this morning."
"It uh," Beca bit her lip, "it wasn't too bad."
Chloe stepped toward her, concern on her face. "Beca?"
Beca looked anywhere but Chloe's face, kicking at a tuft of grass growing out of a crack in the asphalt. "My mom's car broke down and I couldn't fix it in time so I told her I was taking the bus anyway so she could use my car and then I missed the bus so…"
"You could fix it?" Chloe said, eyebrows raised. "Wow! But why didn't you call anyone for a ride?"
"I mean I tried to, I don't know I've managed to do it before," Beca shrugged. "And I-" she let out the next part in a single breath, "I really didn't have anyone to call. I mean Amy isn't old enough and-"
"Gimme your phone."
"What?" Beca asked, taken aback.
Chloe gave her a small smile and held out her hand, "Beca, gimme your phone."
"I-" Beca started to protest but she found herself placing her phone in Chloe's hand.
Chloe hit a couple keys quickly, smiling a bit as she did so, then handed Beca's phone back, screen up so she could see what she had done.
"Now you do."
Beca looked from Chloe to her phone, where under contacts there was now a "Chloe :)" and then back to the redhead, her jaw slightly slack.
"Um," Beca began, completely thrown by this entire encounter with Chloe Beale. "Wow, I, uh thanks."
"No problem! No more walkin' in the rain for you!" Chloe bumped her shoulder against Beca's. "Unless you feel like singin' in the rain then that's a different thing."
"You're crazy," Beca said, half kidding and half serious.
"Maybe," Chloe grinned, "Come on, my car's over here."
She led her to a small navy blue car and opened the passenger door for Beca.
"Are you sure?" Beca looked at the state of her worn boots. "It's really ok I can just-"
"Don't be silly!" Chloe said, waving away Beca's unfinished sentence. "Hop in! That backpack needs some attention, stat."
Surprising herself, Beca climbed into the car with the senior, carrying on the conversation, grinning more than she had in the longest time, until they arrived at the Beale household.