As soon as Beca walks through the door, she can tell that something is wrong. Chloe always made it back to their apartment before her and Chloe always had music on – whether she was singing by herself, singing with the music or just letting the music play, there was always music on.
Instead, now, all she can immediately hear is silence – until she walks a bit farther into the apartment and she can hear faint, muffled sobs coming from her and Chloe's bed. It's weird, she knows, to share a bed with your girlfriend when you've only been dating for two months, but she hadn't expected to start dating her roommate. A roommate who shared her bed because Amy was not someone you wanted to share a bed with.
It's not concerning that Chloe would be crying, because Chloe cries a lot, and Beca loves that about Chloe; that she never hides herself and always lets Beca know what she's thinking. What really scares her is the music. Even when Chloe is crying, she still puts on music to make herself feel better.
She shuffles over to the bed quickly, tossing her bag on the floor haphazardly in her rush to see what, exactly, could be making her girlfriend so upset. "Chlo?" she says as she pulls the covers back to see the redhead a mess, eyes red and puffy, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.
In response, Chloe opens her arms up without opening her eyes and Beca takes her into her arms. She can feel the stuttering breath hitting her neck like the beat of someone jut learning an instrument. It's shaky and timid and Beca knows that something terrible has happened.
Chloe cries, but not like this. Chloe is a pretty crier – if that's a thing, at least – and this is not pretty at all. This is ugly and heart wrenching and just generally awful.
Beca holds her for a while underneath the covers, her head on the pillow with Chloe's burrowed deep into her neck as Chloe's sobs begin to slowly taper off. Very slowly, she notes. When she'd probed about the reason for the tears, the only response she'd gotten was a large gulp of air and then renewed crying. Beca's still isn't good at handling crying people, but with Chloe, she thinks she's okay. She knows that she's gotten better, but she's never handled this before.
Once Chloe pulls her head back, the look Beca receives is heartbreaking. "B-becs?" Chloe trembles out and Beca nods as she hands her a tissue from their nightstand. Chloe blows her nose loudly.
"Yeah, Chlo?"
"I l-love you, you kn-know that r-r-right?"
Beca squeezes her tight before she answers. "I love you too." She pauses for second. "Can you tell me what's going on?"
Beca lets Chloe collect herself. When Chloe replies, her voice is a little less tearful, a little more controlled. "My dad… he- uh- well, he was diagnosed with a d-disease," she chokes out and Beca just pulls her tighter.
"It's gonna be okay, Chlo. It's going to be fine, okay?" There's a lull which lasts for a few minutes before Beca breaks it. Beca knows she has to stay calm, knows she has to be Chloe's rock. She needs something to think about or she's going to start crying because Chloe's dad was – is – a better dad to her than hers ever was, and so this is terrifying. "What disease did he get?" Beca whispers, mind running through the worst possibilities, from smallpox to measles and mumps and everything in between.
Chloe's speech is filled with hiccups when she replies. "Johnny," she started, referencing her older brother, "said Creutzfeld disease or something like that. It's b-bad, Becs." She pauses to hiccup into Beca's neck again and Beca just soothingly rubs her hand along her back. "He said Daddy has less than a year." Beca feels Chloe suck in a huge breath before she wails, "A year! And then I won't be able to talk to him or see him or smile at him or receive the cards he sends me for every occasion he can think of. I won't be able to hear him joke or call him when I'm worried about Mom and I- I just –" Chloe breaks off and her tears start anew.
Beca's heart is beating so fast it reminds her of when she first asked Chloe on a date; her heart had been knocking itself against her ribcage then, but it's nothing compared to what it feels like now. She thinks briefly that her heart is going to bruise Chloe because it's just beating so fast and she can't help it and –
Before she knows it, she's crying into Chloe's hair, whispering I love yous like there's a sale and she can't stop herself. She understands what Chloe's going through because she's going through it too, but she knows she has to be strong. For Chloe.
She takes a few deep breaths and calms herself down, slowly pulling Chloe back. "Babe? How about you go take a shower?" Beca suggests. "It'll make you feel better and I'll have some tea for you when you come out and then we can figure what to do, okay? I love you," she finishes somewhat lamely. She always feels the need to remind Chloe just how much Beca loves her every chance she gets, and tonight it's only exacerbated.
"I'm going home," Chloe blurts out and Beca nods.
"Of course. I'm going with you."
"Becs- I meant that- that I'm moving back." Beca stares at her. "B-back to Florida," Chloe elaborates.
"I know. I'm coming too." Beca places a kiss at Chloe's temple as she says this, pulling her up. "As if I could ever leave you, Beale. Without me on your arm, there'd be no reason to look at you," Beca smirks, aiming for some levity.
As weak as the joke is, it at least brings out a glimmer of a smile from Chloe and it's comforting to know that it's still there. It's not gone, and Beca can breathe a bit easier knowing that.
They get Chloe a flight for the next afternoon and Beca is to follow in a couple of weeks. Beca had wanted to quit, but Chloe had told her to stay and finish her last project before she takes her leave of absence – Chloe had quit her job that morning.
Chloe is almost inconsolable as Beca drops her off; she can see that she's about to cry, but Chloe keeps herself together enough as she presses a long kiss to Beca's lips before she steps out of the car and covers her still-red eyes with a pair of dark sunglasses. "I love you, Becs. I'll call you every night."
Chloe gets shy at the declaration and Beca can't help but find it adorable. "I'm going to miss you. Call me when your flight lands, okay? Like, immediately." Beca grows shy herself, feeling the need to make sure that Chloe understands how important it is. "Please. I-I worry. A lot." She clears her throat and gives a watery smile to Chloe, who looks like she's about to burst into tears.
Chloe leans into the car and hugs Beca tightly and Beca can't help feel like her world is ending. Chloe's going to be missing from her for the next two weeks and Beca feels like that's going to be the longest two weeks of her life.
Beca hates being right. She's pouring everything she has into producing this idiot's album and he vetoes every suggestion she has, claiming that she just doesn't understand the world of white-ghetto-rap where words can't even be understood.
She agrees with him. She can't stand today's rap.
Chloe loves all rap, loves the beats and the pseudo-rhymes. It doesn't make sense to her, because the lyrics are all so awful, sexist and nasty and vulgar, but she always listens whenever Chloe plays it in the apartment. If Chloe likes something, Beca knows she's going to have to get used to it because persistent and Chloe Beale are synonyms. She's even checked the dictionary on that before.
The guy basically just talks about all the chicks he's banged and it's gross. She can't imagine that he's ever had sex before with the way he looks, and she's about to tell him so when she hears Chloe's voice echoing in her ear. There's nothing wrong with being a virgin, Becs. Beca stills for a second and then Chloe continues: Plus, he's not that ugly. Like a C or so.
The memory fades just as quickly as it came and Beca feels sad. The random memories that pop up of Chloe throughout the day are the only things keeping her sane and she can't wait the next three days before her plane leaves.
Beca sighs as she glances at the clock, then nearly lets out a whoop when she realizes that she can leave. It's when she gets into her car when her phone rings.
She knows it can't be Chloe because Chloe never calls before six and it's only five-thirty at the moment. She's surprised when she sees her dad is calling her, and she answers without giving it a moment of thought.
"Dad," Beca says dumbly, knowing that her dad really isn't who she needs and wants to talk to at the moment.
Her dad's voice is subdued when it enters Beca's ears and Beca knows that her world is about to crash. Again. "Beca, I have some, uh, bad news."
Beca nods timidly before realizing her dad can't see her. "Er- yeah. What is it? Noodles finally kick the bucket?" she questions, hoping that that's all it is. If her meaner-than-mean cat has died, Beca can't find it in herself to be too upset. The cat was almost eighteen.
"No- no that's not it. It's your mom. She- she had a stroke. A bad one." There's a pregnant pause in the conversation and a ringing noise is building her ears. "She almost died."
And just like that, Beca is sobbing uncontrollably, worse than Chloe was when she found her. Her mom had a stroke, and Beca has no idea what to do.
She eventually finds her voice, says, "O-oh. W-where is sh-she staying?"
Her dad tells her the hospital – not too far from her work, though she knows it's still pretty far from her mom's apartment on the other side of New York. Beca hangs up after that and races towards the hospital, praying that she would get to see her mom again. That she'd be able to thank her for how she raised her and how she loved her and how she was always there, even when her dad wasn't.
There's so much to thank her for that she can barely pull herself together enough to tell the receptionist who she's there to see.
When she gets to the door, she pauses and takes a deep breath, wiping away her tear tracks. "Mom?" she queries as she opens the door. Her mom is laying on the bed, pale and asleep. Beca sits at the chair at her bedside. Her father isn't there, and she doesn't know why she's surprised and disappointed. It's just like him to not be there.
She grabs her mom's frail hand and strokes it tenderly, reverently, as if she's not going to be able to do this again. For all she knows, she might not get to. She doesn't know anything about strokes and so she grabs her phone to look it up.
She's surprised to see all of the missed calls from Chloe and she checks the time to realize that it's already seven-thirty somehow. She knows that Chloe must be worried sick and so she calls her back immediately, left hand still clutching her mother's right like a lifeline.
"Beca?" Chloe shouts in her ear and Beca suppresses a wince.
"I'm here Chloe," she murmurs into the phone, voice subdued and torn. Ragged, even, and she's never heard herself like this before.
"Are you okay? I've been worried sick! You better have a damn good excuse for not answering me. I thought you had died, okay?" Chloe rants before taking a deep breath.
Beca takes a second to respond, because she's not sure how to formulate the words. She knows how Chloe must've felt a week-and-a-half ago, now. "I'm-m alive, Chlo. I'm safe." She blows air out of her nose before continuing. "It's-it's my mom. She had a stroke." Beca lets go of her mom's hand and digs her nails into her palm painfully as she struggles to get the next words out. "I'm not coming, Chloe."
There's a silence on the phone, so loud that it encompasses her entire being. She feels the silence. She can feel it on her skin, she can tell that that was the wrong thing to say.
"Oh," is all she gets in response, before Chloe is crying into the phone and that sets Beca off again as well.
There's a knock on the door and then a nurse is peeking in and Beca nods at her. "Chlo, I need to go. The nurse is here. I'll talk to you tomorrow morning when I have some more info, alright?"
Beca feels, rather than hears, the teary goodbye and declaration of love. She hangs up without responding.
"Ma'am?" the nurse asks politely and Beca nods. "Is this your mom?"
"Yes," she says hoarsely. "What happened?"
"Well, she was at the store when it happened. Ischemic stroke, which is good. Means that she'll get better, but it was a major one," the nurse – Alice, her scrubs say – drawls with a weird accent. Something like a mix between a Southerner and a New Yorker.
Beca stares at the woman's obviously dyed hair – an unnatural red color, nothing near as beautiful as Chloe's. "Oh. How long? Till she's better, that is."
"It's too early to say anything for certain," she opens up, "but full recovery will probably be years. From the MRI results, it looks like her motor functions were hardest hit. She's going to need to relearn how to walk and drive and all of that, I'd hazard, but I'd expect her to be a-okay!" The nurse's voice is chipper, much too chipper, and Beca nearly snarks out a reply to her.
It's not the nurse's fault, she knows, so she just gives a tense nod to her and the nurse leaves quietly. Beca's grateful for the silence. It gives her time to think about what she's going to do about her and Chloe. About their relationship.
Her mom doesn't have anyone else to take care of her, she knows. Her dad is married and definitely won't do it, and her mom hasn't dated anyone since the divorce. She knows she's going to have to do it and she knows what that means.
She calls Chloe in the morning, stepping outside to get some fresh air and stretch her legs after sleeping in a chair as the phone rings. Chloe's voice is sleepy when she answers: "Beca?"
"That's me."
"Oh." She must detect something is wrong – more wrong – because Chloe's words are flat, punctuated. Like Morse code, just quick raps followed by longer ones against Beca's ears. "What'd they say? Is she going to be alright?"
She relays the information as softly and gently as she can, because Chloe loves her mom just as much as Beca loves Chloe's dad. The only difference is that Chloe has both parents – at the moment, even if one is dying and the other has severe Alzheimer's.
"She's going to make a full recovery," Beca adds. "But, I'm going to have to stay with her, take care of her."
"Oh."
"And I thought about it and I thought about us and I just…" Beca trails off, because this is hard. She doesn't know what to say or to do.
"Beca… I- I think we should, uh, end this," Chloe whispers into the microphone and Beca's heart stops. She knew that their relationship would take a back seat, but a breakup? "I think we should end this," Chloe continues. "Us. Because we have responsibilities that are more than us. Our parents deserve our full attention and care and we need to do right by them. It would be too hard on both of us, too stressful to continue our relationship knowing that we can't see each other for months. God," she breathes, "this sucks."
Beca's breathing into the phone, stuttering and trying to get something out. Eventually, she does. "Oh," she finally says, "Is-is this our only option-n?"
"Yes," comes from the speaker, nearly non-existent it's so quiet
"M-maybe we can try again when the t-timing's better?" Beca hopes, because they're Beca and Chloe and they've been in and out of love since they met. She knows they'll get through this, knows that they'll find their way back to each other.
Another long silence stretches on, the sound of Chloe's heavy breathing the only noise Beca can hear and acknowledge.
"I love you," Chloe says and then the call is over and Beca can feel her tears.
Chloe hadn't said she'd wait for her.
Chloe wasn't going to wait for her.
Beca was going to be alone.