This is my first fanfic for Bechloe (after a little nudge with a prompt) so I am venturing into new territory so to speak. This is pretty angsty! If you read it, I hope you enjoy it and if you do please be kind with your reviews as they are always awesome to read even if it's just a few words!
Prompt: I know you're an Emison writer but I seen on tumblr that you like Bechloe too and I was just wondering if you could write something really angsty? Like maybe a major character death/accident? Something along those lines you can be creative with it.
I remember the splintered windshield
We'll be slowing down into the field
Hole in my heart, a hole in my heart…
- x -
This isn't happening, she tells herself. Once. Twice. Three times. Over and over and over until she almost believes it. Almost.
Vomit roils into the back of her throat and she wants to scream, she needs to scream, but she can't. Her whole body shakes violently. Her stomach clenches and the stab of pain that rips through her entire being is verging on disorientating. The air around her is so thick and bitter that she thinks she may suffocate within it.
This is not happening, she tells herself again… only it is happening, because when she looks down red hair is still splayed across her lap and Beca's fingers are still absently combing through it; soft and sleek, silky between her bloody fingers. Beca doesn't understand how Chloe can be gone… it's just not right and it doesn't make any sense.
Chloe is cool to the touch now, her cheeks don't have their usual rosy tint anymore and her eyes are closed, but Beca doesn't really know if she looks peaceful or not. There's blood and glass everywhere around them… and the only thing Beca is currently sure of is that Chloe's gone… and she's never coming back.
It's her fault too. She'd insisted Chloe drive, she'd been the one who had been too tired to drive, she'd allowed Chloe to jump into the driver's side without one single murmur of complaint while Aubrey had chosen the back seat, and now she's… now Beca is never going to be with her again.
Beca's never going to hear Chloe sing or laugh again, never going to see Chloe smile or kiss her lips, never going to see Chloe twirl strands of red hair around her finger when she's tired but fighting sleep for Beca's sake.
She feels broken and beaten beyond anything measurable and Beca knows, knows as much as the sky above her is blue, that she will never, ever be okay in her life again.
She lets out a harsh sob and her free hand instinctively flies towards her mouth to hold it in, like she can catch the huge ball of emotion and swallow it back down whole. She can smell and taste the metallic of blood on her skin, coppery and bitter. She feels tears streaming down her cheeks and her jaw tightens until her teeth begin to hurt but she doesn't bother wiping them, instead she chooses to keep her hand moving through Chloe's hair.
"Beca."
Her name is said in a whisper but it may as well be said through a mega phone because it blares alarmingly in her brain, rattling her thoughts around. It's Aubrey's voice though, Beca knows that much, quiet and reluctant, probably for the first time in the blonde's entire life.
Beca doesn't move or answer her former captain, she just continues to smooth and sort strands of red hair that have gone rogue. She removes the other hand from her mouth and moves ever so slightly, hunching more over Chloe, as if to hide and shield the redhead from this horrific and wholly unjust fate that's been brought to her.
"Beca, you need to…"
There's a hand on Beca's arm now and it stings her skin like volts of electricity, sending pain shooting down her spine and into her soul. She glares back towards Aubrey, eyes steady and rock hard, and Aubrey dutifully drops her hand back to her side. The blonde is kneeling beside her, Beca realises, and the complete devastation on Aubrey's face probably mirrors her own.
The rage has started its build in Beca, low in her stomach like it's anchoring her to that very spot, unable to move again. She can hear it humming in the background, like a song she can't remember the words to.
By the time she sees the police taping the area off and people swarming around to get a better look at what's happened, the song in her head has gotten louder, and her brain has started adding words to the melody. The dull ache inside her almost sets her adrift, unmoored from everything that matters, an unforgiving tide that wont ebb.
"Bec – " There's a hand being reached out again but this time it's not really towards her.
"Aubrey, don't fucking touch me," Beca replies and it's said with so much venom that she's unsure if the scratchy voice is actually her own. "And don't touch her either."
She's tempted to reach out and grab Aubrey by the collar of her shirt, to shake her until she can feel Aubrey crumble under the same guilty weight that she feels herself but her eyes flicker back down to Chloe and she knows that it probably wouldn't be the best idea right now. But the need to blame someone else is raging inside her.
"They need to take her, Beca. Please, trust me." Beca hates the way that she knows Aubrey is probably right and if she weren't so numb she would wrap her hands around her ears and block out whatever Aubrey has to say because quite frankly, Beca doesn't want to hear it right now.
She shakes her head and only half turns to face Aubrey.
"Beca, please." Aubrey's voice cracks and in the back of Beca's mind there's another piece of her that shatters into a thousand shards because she knows that Aubrey is in a world of pain right now too. The utter desperation is stitched into the blonde's voice. "They need to move her."
Move her? It just doesn't register in Beca's head. It makes Chloe sound like some sort of object, but she's not, she's a person; she was a person. She still is Beca's person.
The sickening taste in Beca's mouth doesn't compare to her next words. She cuts through the eerie silence with a comment that makes her stomach roll because she knows it's all wrong. But a coldness takes over and she feels it moving through her body, its icy fingers wrapping around her throat.
"She's not a toy, you can just lift her and throw her away, Aubrey."
She waits for Aubrey's response, her anger too maybe. She hopes it comes, she's nearly desperate for Aubrey to give an angry retort because Aubrey is part of this situation now, part of Beca's pain and tragedy. She's also the closest target and that will have to do right now, Beca thinks to herself.
Her insides swirl fiery and red, and images flicker inside Beca's head like a horror movie, one she can't ever unsee or forget, and Beca needs to release this strain onto someone else. Someone else needs to feel how she does because it's just not fucking fair.
Beca braces herself for the harsh bite of retaliation when she sees Aubrey's lips move from the corner of her eye but no sound escapes her mouth and Beca quickly concludes that Aubrey isn't biting back for her sake, but for Chloe's instead.
Because Chloe was light and pure and kind and a free spirit and just everything that was good in this world. Chloe was Beca's everything… just everything, and if the last three months has taught Beca anything at all, it's that before her and Chloe were officially together she didn't really have much at all. Not really anyway.
Except now Chloe is gone, like seriously gone, and the light and kindness and goodness has gone from Beca's life too. Chloe isn't coming back from this but neither is Beca. Beca isn't going to bounce back from this loss and she knows it, Aubrey probably knows it too.
An odd sensation ghosts through her – a full body shiver, but not instigated by the temperature – and as she looks back down at Chloe's face she realises then and there that she hadn't told Chloe nearly enough.
She hadn't told Chloe they three little terrifying words that she'd been so scared of. She hadn't told Chloe that she was her everything. She hadn't told Chloe that she made Beca's small word so much bigger. She hadn't told Chloe that when she kissed her for the very first time it had sent her heart skyrocketing and everything had finally, finally slotted into place like an intricate woven pattern.
Beca startles when she feels a firm hand on her shoulder. She glances up to see Fat Amy hovering to her right and how the hell does she know already? It's only then that she sees past Fat Amy and behind yellow tape; Stacie is standing with her face buried in Cynthia – Rose's neck; Jessica and Ashley are standing with linked hands and hands over mouths; and even Lilly looks desolate next to them.
She shrugs her shoulder free from Fat Amy's grip and Beca knows that her friend is just trying to help but she's too angry for any kind of help right now. She may be small but Beca feels angry enough that she wants to tear the world in half and scatter its contents wherever. Just tip everyone else's life upside down and sideways like hers.
"Beca." Fat Amy's voice is timid but coarse, jam packed with unshed tears. "The police are going to move you, come with me, you don't want them to take you kicking and screaming. I know you don't want to leave her but… it'll be okay."
"I never told her," Beca whispers, and her voice cracks, she can hear it for herself. The sentiment echoes in her chest because her heart is cracking too and she has no idea how to cope with it or how to stop it. "I didn't tell her."
"She knew, Beca," Fat Amy's voice is surprisingly calm this time and Beca knows the Australian has pulled herself together as best she can for Beca's sake. "We all knew. Chloe knew and she loved you too."
Beca runs her thumb gently over Chloe's cheek, dislodging a few specks of glass that had still been embedded in the redhead's fair skin. "I love you. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Beca's voice is barely audible but she irrationally thinks that if she repeats it enough then maybe by some miracle Chloe will hear her.
"I've got you," Fat Amy's says as her hand grasps Beca's own and Beca looks at the ironic difference of their palms: hers crimson and bloody, Fat Amy's clean and unstained. The blonde moves efficiently, quietly shifting Beca's hand away from Chloe's face. She lets Fat Amy pull her onto her feet because really she's powerless to resist it. "I've got you, okay?" Fat Amy reassures her.
Beca looks around at the scene in front of her and it is just chaos. Cars. People. Police. Medics. Her friends. Chloe. A policeman and two paramedics give her sympathetic looks as they move past her towards Chloe's… body? Beca can't really organise that thought.
Her attention is brought back by the driver of the other car being breathalysed in the back of an ambulance; his clasped hands rest atop of his head and his face registers nothing but total shock but Beca promises herself there and then that if he had been drinking before he swerved into them then she will strangle him with her bare hands.
Beca stumbles for a few paces on her own until she reaches a police car, reaching out towards the trunk to give her some leverage and support. She sucks in gulps of air but it feels like her lungs are full of wet sand.
She takes one last look over her shoulder and looks at Chloe - still and unmoved and probably for the last time - and the contents of her stomach press eagerly against her throat because it still hasn't sunk in yet. She fully expects to wake up from this very real nightmare in a few hours and have Chloe laugh at her while kissing away any lingering anxiety.
There's a hand on her bicep now, it's Fat Amy, and Beca winces at the sharp pain that shoots down towards her wrist. Another hand begins to rub circles on her back, smoother and more rhythmic than the Australian's hand, and Beca knows that it's Aubrey but she doesn't tell her to stop.
She doesn't say anything at all.
It's when she sees the medics with the stretcher that Beca really begins to unravel, giving into the urge and crumbling down to the ground, colliding heavily against the concrete. She moves so that her back is against the cars door and she brings her knees up to her chest.
She's pretty sure that she can't breathe and tear tracks stream endlessly down her face, animalistic sobs wrack her whole body and the noises that leave her lips even sound foreign to her. Beca's lungs gasp for air and tears clog her throat to the point where it feels like her airways are closing up and shutting off the world.
There's blood on her hands, under her nails, on her jeans and shirt and it's Chloe's blood. The gut wrenching pain rinses through her body, from her head to the tips of her toes, and Beca thinks that maybe it's better to feel it. Maybe it's just better to let it consume her right there in the middle of the road.
She's never, ever been one for crying but this time she doesn't know how to stop it, she actually doesn't think there is any way to stop it. There's a huge gaping hole in her heart that will never be able to be filled, by anything or anyone for that matter.
Still, in true Beca fashion, she tries as best she can to stop the tears, her breathing becoming so ragged that it makes her chest swell and contract painfully. Her head throbs as she looks up at the vastness of the sky and it's beginning to lose it's colour now, like the goodness has been leeched from it.
And Aubrey's there now too, kneeling and then sitting close beside her, followed by Fat Amy and the rest of the Bella's who finally find an opening in the police barricade to amble over towards the disaster site.
She uncharacteristically clings to Aubrey when the blonde places her arm around Beca's shoulder and when her eyes slip closed all she sees is Chloe and it's still all smiles. Beca whispers in her head that she loves her but still Chloe just smiles that Hollywood smile. Her heart beats frantically and painfully under her rib cage as her eyes finally open again and she looks around.
All of them are sitting, hand in hand, against the police car in a neat line that looks like some science project that has gone wrong. The distress and disbelief is plastered across all of their faces too and Beca has a sudden moment of déjà vu. There and gone before she can really think about it.
Directly across from them, leaves fall from a tree that's so big that it looks like it reaches up into the sky. When Beca raises her eyes and looks up, a bird is delicately hopping back and forth along one of the thin branches.
The branch sways softly, bending under the slight weight of the bird, and then – mere seconds later – the bird is gone, swooping quickly downwards towards Beca and then back upwards into the freedom of the sky.
Jeez, this was difficult to write! To the person who asked for the prompt I hope I did it justice for you and for anyone who reads, thank you again! I really appreciate it.