When The Songs Collide

Chapter 1

Beca Mitchell'd known, as long as she could remember that she wanted her life to revolve around music. That's why, at the age of six she had begged her parents to let her take piano lessons and they caved after a little while. Beca loved playing the piano even though she didn't have much talent with it. But she adored music. She adored the fact that she gained knowledge in making music. Her parents, Mary and Thomas appreciated her drive toward arts as Mary worked as a painter, and Thomas as a comperative literature professor at the nearby Barden University. Both of them were intellectual people who could clearly see: their daughter's desire to play an instrument wouldn't just simply go away.

And that was the beginning.

Their apartment wasn't big enough for them to buy a piano but Beca had to practice at home, her teacher and Beca both insisted fiercly on that, so the Mitchell parents agreed to buy a somewhat smaller digital keyboard for their eager little girl. That's when she tasted electronic music for the first time. Soon, she didn't only use the basic piano function on the device but tried her hand at the effects and different kind of sound-variations, too. She made rudimentary mashup-like songs with her pretty basic knowledge on the piano, but the results were surprisingly good. And it just drove her to do more. To try more. And through those trials and errors she learned.

A few years later she decided that the piano was not her kind of musical instrument, but she was happy that she had learned many useful basics with it. The problem was in her music taste, actually, she liked classical music just fine, but her true interest lay in modern electro and dance genres, in remixes and mashups. So she worked for neighbors, walked their dogs, mowed their lawns, tended their garden to earn money and to be able to purchase her first DJ console. It was a pretty simple gadget, only a few functions, not many variations but for her, it was everything. She got the opportunity to try herself at something her subconscious craved, and when her conscious caught up to it, she felt... happy. Sure, she had a lot to learn, but she was the most enthusiastic wanna-be-DJ there ever was.

When Beca thought back on those times, she always felt some rarely-used muscles in the corner of her mouth stretch, like they were trying to move into a position of a genuine smile. Most of the time she resisted the urge. That era was gone, long gone.

She barely turned eleven when one night her mom hugged her close and told her she needed to pack an overnight bag because they are moving to her Gram's, to Chicago. The girl was confused, she didn't understand what an affair or alimony was, she didn't know that the word divorce didn't necessarily just mean separation. For her it meant someone getting ripped out of her life.

They left that night and slept in a motel close to the airport. Beca remembered her mother's eyes that night – they were empty, almost dead. She was so afraid, she already missed her Dad and she just wanted everything to go back to normal.
After that night, nothing was normal ever again.

They left the motel early the next day and flew to Chicago where her grandmother was already waiting for them at the airport. When her mother hugged Gram, that was the first time Beca'd seen her relax since the previous evening. Her mother was up all night, calling her lawyer, moving companies, looking up rentable storage spaces on the net. Beca tried to keep as calm as possible but her mother didn't make it easy for her.

A week after arriving to Chicago, her parents had an agreement. And they didn't ask her about it at all.
Beca would stay with her mother and she'd have sole custody over her which was apparently okay with her father. After the first threat from her mother, Beca's father backed out of the custody battle and let Mary Mitchell win. At first, Beca was devastated. She was angry with her father, she didn't understand how Thomas Mitchell could do that to their family, breaking it up for another woman. As far as she knew, her parents were in love and happy. Apparently, she couldn't have been further from the truth.

After the divorce was settled and the summer break was over Beca started a new school in the city where she tried her best to fit in but the only person who would have wanted to do anything with her was some weird geeky boy who couldn't stop talking about movies.

Jesse Swanson was a thin, average looking boy who on the third week of school walked up to the twelve-year-old Beca and told her he thought she was pretty. Beca mumbled a "Thanks" and then looked at Jesse for a few more seconds. So? What did he want?

"I, uh, I thought you might want to be my girlfriend?" he asked shyly and smiled a little. Beca could see that his upper right canine was missing which made the entire situation look even more ridiculous. She didn't know this boy. She didn't know anything about him, therefore didn't even like him.

"I don't think I want to have a boyfriend." Jesse's face fell.

"We wouldn't have to do anything, y-you know" he murmured and his face got a reddish shade. Beca grinned. He seemed like a nice guy, she might be able to befriend him.

"Chill, Swanson. It's okay, I didn't say it because of that" she rolled her eyes. "It's just... Can we be just friends? Nothing else?" That seemed to make Jesse think for a second, then his eyes lit up as he looked at Beca with a grin.

"Well, you're going to be my girl-friend, I'm going to be your boy-friend, then. So technically we both get what we wanted!" Beca grinned up at him.

"As long as you don't try any funny business..."

After that day, they became friends. Beca thanked whatever higher entity looked out for her because the list of people who could put up with her behaviour was short, but somehow Jesse joined the club. He was patient and didn't take things to heart, for example when Beca snapped at him or didn't tell him things about her. She was really unforthcoming about personal information, but it wasn't really her fault. At least, she didn't do it on purpuse.

Whenever Jesse asked anything about her life back in Georgia, her throat just closed off. She didn't have any problems breathing but the words just wouldn't come. She looked apologetically at the boy who at first looked uncomfortable but after a while they just left it at that. Despite Beca's problems, they became very close which worried her a little bit given that Jesse apparently still had a crush on her. They didn't talk about it.

Not until they were both seniors in high school and Jesse solemnly told Beca again that he still thought she was pretty.
They were hanging out at Jesse's place, playing Halo on his X-box when the boy suddenly paused the game and confessed. Beca swallowed. She looked at her best friend seated next to her, his hands clenched together nervously, his eyes begging her to say something, anything.

Right, Mitchell, don't torture the guy.

She leaned closer to him and gently kissed his full lips. Jesse was frozen on the spot, his eyes were wide and mesmerized but after a second he caught on and kissed back.
It was a nice kiss. No uneccessary saliva, no annoying groping. Still. It was... damn.
Just as Jesse started putting the consol down and wrapping his arms around Beca's waist, the girl broke away with a scared expression on her face.

"Jesse, I think I'm gay" she sputtered, her heart in her throat, her hands trembling. She wanted this to work with Jesse – he was uncomplicated, knew her, loved her. They could goof around, he, well, most of the time he respected Beca's boundaries and her need of personal space. And everyone in school already assumed they were hooking-up so just why shouldn't they?
But it wasn' that easy. Beca noticed the signs long ago, the way her eyes would follow a nice female butt down the school corridor, or when Jesse commented on one actress or another and her first respond would be "Oh yes, she's hot." It shouldn't have been weird. A straight person has eyes too, they can also express their likes or dislikes in an other person's physique without having it to be sexually indicative. But Beca had thoughts. About girls. Lots of thoughts.

She tried to suppress them, she didn't need another thing to be weird about her – she was already a midget who dressed mostly in black, had piercings and underage tattoos. She was closed off and quiet. She was never picked on, or anything. It's just... people kept their distance. Once or twice a boy had approached her and she'd go out with them but it always resulted in awkward conversations, uncomfortable silences and just rarely in second dates. So when Jesse told her he found her pretty, and he clearly referred to their previous encounter a few years back, Beca just couldn't let him go. She wasn't attracted to him, she knew that but he was... Jesse. Her Jesse whom if she lost, she'd surely go crazy in two days tops.

So she went for a kiss. Tried. Hard. But nothing is ever that simple, you rarely just try and succed.

"Am I that bad of a kisser?" Jesse asked with a genuinely concerned face and Beca huffed and rolled her eyes.

"Yes, Swanson, that must be it."

"Seriously, B, if you just want to let me down gently you don't have to change your sexual orientation. I understood the first time, too" he said quietly. Beca sat back to the end of the couch, pulled her legs up to her chest and faced Jesse.

"Jesse, you know I like you. Like, dude, c'mon, you know you're my best friend" she said, her face going crimson. To Jesse's credit, he didn't teased her about it. It was the first time in...well, since they'd known each other that Beca admitted out loud that she liked him and the girl felt the need to say something sarcastic to lighten the seriousness of the conversation. But now wasn't the time. For once, she has to be open with Jesse and really talk to him about these things. So she took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye.

"Elisabeth Olliver."

"The transfer student who left the school after, like, three months?" he asked eyebrows frowning slightly.

"Yep, her. I had a major crush on her in eights grade" Beca mumbled.

"What? I thought you hated her guts! You always said she was so pretentious and bitchy about things."

"Well, yes. She also had B-cup boobs in eights grade. And really short skirts" shrugged Beca with a half-grin.

"I gotta give you that" Jesse grinned back and his posture relaxed slightly. Beca started to calm down, it wasn't a disaster after all. Jesse might not hate her. Please, God, don't let Jesse hate her. She'd never admit it out loud but their friendship was one of the most important things for her. Music was her drive, her passion but she could easily lose herself to it if it wasn't for Jesse who dragged her out of her room to meet up for a movie or a party. Or just chilling together. He made her better, that wasn't a question, and Beca was actually really scared of the possibility of them separately going to college and losing touch. She wouldn't admit that out loud either, of course.

"Where there others?" Jesse questioned and Beca felt a little more at ease.

"A few..."

"And what about that spin the bottle game last year when you got to make out with Amy Jordan?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"Well, that was a fun game" she smirked back. They kissed in the middle of the circle with catcalls all around them. Later they found themselves alone on the balcony, Beca went out for a smoke (she smoked like, three cigarettes in her entire life, she didn't like the taste or saw the point but after her first kiss with a girl which left her wanting more, she felt like it was time for that bad habit) and Amy followed her a few minutes later. She was a nice looking girl, with lightbrown hair and green eyes. She had that always-ready smile on her face which made her impossibly friendly-looking. Beca rememberd how she'd leaned over the railing next to her, their arms brushed just the slightest and she got a whiff of Amy's perfume and sighed.

"Some party, right?" Amy asked with a smile.

"Right." She remembered she hadn't known what Amy wanted. She was a bit uncomfortable but when the brunette's hand touched her wrist lightly, she looked up to her face. Amy was looking at her with a struggling expression, like she wasn't even sure what she was doing there. Beca needed a few seconds, then stood up straight, and with a small huff she leaned forward and kissed Amy. The other girl didn't hesitated for a second and kissed back eagerly. Beca remembered that night clearly. They had been making out for about twenty minutes when she let her hand sneak under Amy's blouse. She felt the girl's racing heart as she reached her bra, and they both gasped for air. Then Beca kissed a path down on the girl's neck while her hand experimentally started kneading her breast. Amy shuddered and let out a small moan. And Beca knew she was in trouble, because her first thought was, I want to hear girls make that noise for me.

They didn't have sex that night. They had a heavy make out session but then parted and never really talked about it and neither of them tried to initiate something more. And it was okay.
A few months later Beca lost her virginity to a senior girl, Jessica Normann. She was open about her bisexuality and when Beca approached her with a bit of nervousness she was really cool about it. They hooked up a few times but it was always obvious they didn't share any emotional bond. It was experimenting for Beca and fun for the older girl. They parted as friends.

Beca told these things to Jesse who listened to her with great interest, his mouth slightly agape.

"How come I didn't know about any of these things?"

"Well, you weren't supposed to" Beca smirked. "I'm sorry, Jesse. I didn't even know what I was doing and wasn't ready to really talk about it..."

"S'okay, B. I'm glad you told me now, actually." Beca was relieved. Jesse always wore his heart on his sleeve, you could always tell how he felt, and after a few seconds Beca deduced that he wasn't angry with her. Thankfully.

"Of course, dude. But, you know, I really...um, can't like you like that."

"Yes" he laughed at Beca's awkwardness. "I gathered. My manliness is not compatible with your sapphic desires. Shucks, you're missing out!"

"Your manliness... Who was it again who cried at the end of Titanic?"

"I have allergies!" he cried loudly, but his cheeks had a suspicious red tint to them which made Beca grin.

"Sure, bro, sure. Your wussiness is safe with me" she teased and Jesse looked at her, contemplating.

"Bro... And you're gay... A lesbian... I'm totally... Going to be..."

"Swanson, don't you dare..."

"Your lesbro!" He shouted with glee and pounced on Beca.

"Jesse" Beca shrieked and laughed. God, it went a lot better than she expected. Jesse started tickling her and she was gasping for air shen she heard her phone going off.

"Say uncle!" Jesse told her.

"Jesse, damn it, my phone!"

"I won't let you get it, unless you say uncle!"

"Okay, okay" she gasped, tears streaming down her face "Uncle, you idiot!" And Jesse set back.

"See, it wasn't that difficult..." But Beca's attention was already on her phone, the caller ID saying mom. She sighed and accepted the call.

"Yes?"

"Beca, I need you to come home. And on your way, I need you to buy me one more bottle."

"You know I can't really, right?" she asked in a low voice, turning her back to Jesse. She guessed the boy already knew what was going on but they never discussed it. She knew Jesse wanted to but the fact that he never pushed the issue showed Beca that he respected her need to pretend.

"You have that fake ID you like to flaunt around, use your brain" her mother sneered back and Beca swallowed hard. Yes, she had a fake ID, and it was surprisingly good quality, but she wasn't going to use it to help her mother slide downward into addiction. Deeper into addiction.

"I don't have enough cash on me" she said and heard a snort from the line.

"Then get me something you have enough money for" was the last thing her mother said before disconnecting. Beca cleared her throat and looked back at Jesse who was watching her with compassionate eyes.

"Not now, Swanson."

"I didn't say anything."

"I know and I'm saying not now. But we can, you know, if you, um, want to... We could talk about it?" she said but her tone indicated it was more like a question. Jesse nodded and stood up to walk her out.

"B?" he called, when she walked out the door and she turned back. "I'm gonna be the greatest lesbro there ever was" he grinned and Beca felt a shadow of a smile on her own face as well.

"Actually, man, I don't even doubt it." She nodded her thanks and turned. Plugging her earphones in she started walking down the road.

She went into the first open liquor store and bought the cheapest bottle of vodka she could find while schooled her expression into polite boredom as she handed over her ID. The sour-faced shopkeeper just took one look, looked back at her and shrugged. As she payed and left the shady store she couldn't help but wish that the man shook his head and sent her on her way. Or called the cops, even. She felt sick to her stomach as she carried the dull-looking brown paper bag in one hand, her ears filled with a remixed David Guetta track.

Her mother drank. Heavily. It started the second week they moved out of their house, just with a glass of wine for lunch and dinner. Then a few weeks later it was half a bottle for an afternoon. Then one bottle for a day. When she reached her two bottle per day consumption, Beca tried to intervene. She told her mom she should stop, that she didn't need the booze, that they were okay, better off without Thomas Mitchell. Her mother looked at her and shook her head, but didn't say anything.
Unfortunately, her drinking had one pro side which made Mary rationalize her addiction.

Since the break up of their family her mother had been struggling with painting, except when she was drunk. She got "a new edge" said some customers and critics who were blown away by this "new and improved" Mary Mitchell, who could "take the people's deepest and darkest feelings and make them appear on her canvas". They had a nice income from the paintings and as long as her mother was intoxicated, she produced them with ease. Beca couldn't really complain. Her mother wasn't violent or a bad person when she was under the influence. She was quiet, a bit snippy when she didn't get her next amount of booze, and she was working, functioning. But she wasn't the same. She wasn't interested in anything but painting and her daughter became more and more of a stranger to her.

Beca didn't blame her, at least she didn't think she did. She blamed her father who abandoned them, her, who sometimes didn't call for months. He contacted them occasionally, a few times a year – at holidays and Beca's birthday. But that was it and Beca rarely bothered to pick up the phone or tried to be polite. Now, Thomas knew exactly what his daughter thought of him as a father or as a man. Still, Beca had to give it to him, he tried. He sent the monthly payments, he invited Beca to stay with them for a few days, which she obviously always declined, and told her at the end of every call that no matter what, he loved her. Those words didn't mean shit to the girl.

Beca learned to cope, though, with everything. She adjusted. The fact, that her mother worked and fortunately made money didn't mean she could raise her daughter but that was okay. Beca raised herself. She paid the bills, because Mary seldom bothered or remembered, cleaned and cooked for themselves. On those occasions when her mother did drink more than what her system could handle, she took care of her, too. In the meantime she had Jesse and her music and she learned to appreciate them both, so while she was definitely an antisocial person she always tried to be as open with the boy as possible, and when she felt like everything was going sideways and desperation and pain were slowly eating her up, she worked her feelings out through music. She improved considerable since that first DJ set she bought herself and she started to actually think that she wanted to work with music, produce music as a profession. She knew she could be good. Could be enough.

Her only problem was, she knew that while Chicago was the third most populous city in the US it wasn't exactly famous for it's music industrial importance, Beca had considerably less of a chance of making it big. She knew if she wanted to live her life the way she could be happy with it, she needed to move to Los Angeles and work there. With persistance and luck she might just get her break and maybe, just maybe one thing would go right for her. She wasn't exactly the daydreaming type but she found herself lost in these thoughts more than often. The only problem was her mother – she wasn't sure she could leave her here, alone, Mary may not be able to could take care of herself sufficiently. She sighed as she arrived to their three-bedroom apartment at the north-side of the city. When she entered it was quiet so she figured her mother must be working. She made her way towards her studio which was the third bedroom and when she entered, her blood ran cold. Her mother was lying lifeless on the ground, and a thin line of blood trickled down her chin.

"Mom!" she cried and jumped towards the lifeless body. She put her second and middle finger to her mother's neck, the way she saw people do on tv, but couldn't find a pulse. She let out a choking sound, tears gathering in her eyes. Then she placed her hand under her mother's nose and sobbed out in relief as she felt a little huff of breath on her skin. She was alive. Unconscious, but alive. Beca pulled out her phone and dialed 911.

A few days later they had a diagnosis. Cancer. Liver, which metastasized to her lungs. It was stage III, they were late. Of course they were. She didn't notice the signs. She thought her mother's weakend state was due to hungovers, her coughing to the packs of cigarettes she smoked. She never assumed that it could be anything like... cancer. Fucking. Cancer.

The doctors told them not to give up on hope, that Beca's mother still had a chance – even if it was a small one, Beca thought bitterly –, that they should try aggressive radiation and chemo therapy and if the tumors shrink enough they could try and operate. There were lots of medical jargon in there somewhere but Beca thought she got the gist of it.
When her mother's doctor left the room, she followed the balding surgeon and stopped him outside.

"Numbers."

"Excuse me?"

"Give me numbers. I know she asked you not to do that, but I need to know. What are her chances?"

"Miss, you really should talk to..."

"I can't. She won't listen to me. Please" she whispered and lifted her chin, looking at the man with desperation in her eyes. He sighed.

"I'd say the chances of her survival are low. But not impossible. Around twenty percent." Beca swallowed. Why is this happening? How could this...

"How much time does she have left?" The surgeon looked at her with sad eyes and placed his hand on Beca's shoulder as a comforting gesture. The girl's whole body stiffened and she flinched. She wasn't good at physical contact, and it was't the time for practice. At all.

"Two months" he said the verdict, then squezzed Beca's shoulder once more – Stop. It. – before turning around and leaving.

Beca felt her legs giving out from under her and she slid down next to the wall, blindly palming her pockets after her phone. Finally, she found it. Scrolling through her contacts she paused at "Dad" for a moment then scrolled further and stopped at "Jesse Lesbro Swanson". She didn't think as she called him and Jesse picked up at the second ring.

"Hey, B, what's up?" he asked quietly. Beca told him they would get the results of the biopsy that day, he was apparently waiting for the call.

"Jesse" she choked, and she hated how broken she sounded. She felt dizzy, disorientated, and her stomach was in knots. Breathing became something she had to consciously concentrate on. "Can you come down here?" she asked in a small voice.

"I'll be there as soon as I can." His solemn voice was something Beca didn't hear too often. Jesse was always grins and movies and juice pouches and getting on her nerves. And boy, she was glad she had him.

A few weeks later it was clear: the treatments didn't work. It was the hardest thing Beca ever had to hear and she wasn't sure she could have stood there if Jesse hadn't been right next to her, his rigid posture showing how upset he was, his hand grabbing hers. She wanted to initiate the contact, she needed it, but she didn't know how, and thankfully her best friend knew her enough to help her out.

Mary Mitchell died one month after her cancer was diagnosed. She was barely lucid at the end, and she suffered from serious alcohol withdrawal symptoms. Beca tried to be there for her as much as she could but she had to attend at least some classes so they'd let her graduate with her year. Two weeks before her mother's death, she turned nineteen. They had a beer with Jesse as celebration then just slept. It seemed to Beca, her life became a constant blur of tiredness and subway rides to the hospital and back home, then Jesse'd pick her up in his beaten down Toyota and take her to school where she was fortunately ignored by most of her teachers and fellow students.

The day Mary died, she called her father. Beca begged her mother not to call him herself and Mary granted her daughter her wish. Thomas didn't even know her ex-wife was sick when Beca called him from the hospital.

"Beca?"

"Hey, yes." She cleared her throat, damn, how was she supposed to do it?

"To what do I owe this pleasure? Is everything alright? We just spoke a few weeks ago..."

"Dad" she interrupted. "Dad, Mom died. A few hours ago." The line was silent for a good ten seconds. "You there?"

"I... Yes. What happened?" she heard him breathe deeply, pictured him squeezing his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Cancer. Liver."

"What?!" he asked loudly. "Why didn't any of you called me?"

"It wasn't exactly your business now, was it?" she asked back bitterly, clenching her jaw. How dare he be angry? It was basically his fault her mother drank herself into oblivion, he started the ball of snow rolling which resulted in this disastrous avalanche.

"I could have helped..."

"Oh? I didn't know you became a surgeon in the mean time! Or a fucking wizard who could make fucking tumors disappear!" she shrieked. "She's dead" she sobbed into the line. No matter how estranged they were with her father, she was still his daughter. She still had the urge to ran to him, no matter how much she despised him.

"Becs, I'm... I'm so sorry. Do you want me to come up there?"

"I don't."

"I'm coming up there." He said firmly and she repressed a relieved sigh. She was so tired. She knew she needed help but she couldn't ask Jesse to help her with her mother's funeral. No.

"Thank you."

Four days later, they buried Mary Mitchell. The ceremony was short and somber, they invited some of Mary's artist friends and Jesse. Thomas and Beca stood quietly all along, they didn't talk to each other. Beca was greatful towards her father that he came to Chicago on such short notice but years of resentment made it really hard for her to hold a civil conversation with the man.

Especially when, after the funeral they went home and he did start talking.

"So, when do you plan moving down to Georgia?" Beca was drinking a glass of water and she almost spit it out.

"I'm not moving."

"You can't live here all alone!" argued Thomas. "Next year, you can come to Georgia, and attend Barden. For free, I might add."

"I'm moving to LA. I want to work in the music industry! I want to...produce music, Dad."

"Oh, come on. Becs, you don't think that seriously either, do you? You can't have DJ-ing as a carreer."

"I'm good. I can make it."

"You have, maybe, possibly a chance of making it. I don't know. But you must get proper education first!"

"I don't...Awh!" cried out Beca in frustration. "I'm not going to argue. This is my life. I have lived it for years so I can take care of Mom but now I need to...focus on what I want! You know how long she's been drinking? Seven. Years." She said slowly. She saw her father's eyes widen. Good. He should know what sort of mess he made her mother into. But then she stopped herself, it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth the memories which would resurface, it wasn't worth the bile in her mouth which would surely come. But apparently she didn't need to say more.

"Beca, I'm so sorry."

"I'd say you don't have to be but... You know what? Knock yourself out."

"But please, be reasonable. Come to Barden. For a year, try college. And if after a year you still want to go to LA and be...P. Diddy, then I'll help you move."

"Are you serious?" she said suspiciously but couldn't keep the hope out of her voice.

"But I really need to see it, Beca!"

"You got yourself a deal. Probably. But I'll need to call Jesse first."