This is the first in a series of unrelated one-shots inspired by James Bay's album Chaos and the Calm.

(Mind your step on this one. Thought I'd get the worst of it out of the way first.)

LET IT GO

You're in bed, face to face, in a rare moment of peace and quiet. The tension has eased from her shoulders, your throat isn't tight around thoughtless words. You're together and calm at the same time for the first time in a long time.

Her eyes are so blue and so scared, sad, guarded, and they're locked on yours. She's looking at you like a reluctant soldier looking down the sights of his rifle for the first time after his number came up.

"I think I'm hurting you."

It's not a whispered confession, but a softly spoken surety.

The automatic rejection of the very idea dies on your lips as you watch her swallow hard and lick her lips. She takes a shaky breath and her next words are breaking your heart before they have a chance to fully form in her mouth. You can tell by the slant of her lips, the slow blink that hides her eyes for the briefest of pauses. You can feel it, that whatever she says next is going to collapse your lungs and wrench your stomach up into your throat.

"And I know you're hurting me."

You're biting your lip. Hard. But the sharp sound of your gasp cuts through the air, and it slices into her. She flinches. Like telling you that you're hurting her hurts more than anything you've done or said over the last several months of petty fighting and cheap shots and perfunctory goodnights.

You work your jaw, chewing on words you can't get out. Until you do.

"Am I?"

"Yes."

You know it's true. You're hurting each other. Prodding at already tender spots and jabbing at aches left over from all of the last times and befores. It's become the norm.

"Chloe?"

You've not heard her say your name that softly in a while, so edgeless and unbarbed. Not when you're alone. Not without an underlying hardness that clangs around behind your ribs.

The same way you throw her name at her like it's some kind of grenade with the pin pulled.

Where Beca is hard edges and emotionless monotone, blatantly done with talking about whatever, you are vicious, sickly sweet with pretty words dipped in acid and flung like darts.

Neither of you are yourselves anymore.

You are not this person. You are not cruel. You are not cold. You are not petty and unyielding.

And Beca. God. Beca is not careless. She is not malicious. She is not heartless and mean.

The heat that used to curl up from your belly and into your chest now sets your world on fire, its flames burning the life you've built together and licking at the foundation, endangering absolutely everything you've lived and loved since those first cautious months what feels like a lifetime ago.

"Something's changed, Chlo."

You nod at that. Agree with it wholeheartedly.

"We've changed. I think we've changed each other."

Your girlfriend— Jesus. Girlfriend. It's such a tiny word. Eleven years, however you divide them, deserves more than girlfriend designation.

Best friend.

Lover.

Home.

Everything.

Your everything is watching you, looking at you, searching for some part of you that has been so hard to find lately. Longer than lately. Too long. Long enough that you can't remember the last time you were breathless for all the right reasons and none of the wrong.

Now you're swallowing hard, blinking back tears.

You reach out, up, to run a gentle fingertip along the side of her face. Down from her temple and across her cheek, the journey ends at the corner of her mouth.

"Are we done?"

You ask it because it needs asking.

It's clear – has been clear – that neither of you are happy. But you need to hear it said. You need to not be the only one giving up.

"Chloe."

She doesn't try to hold back her tears and she chokes on a sob.

"It hurts so much, Chlo."

"Baby."

And you still call her that. Even with all the anger and all the resentment that you've grown accustomed to. Through weeks and months and, God, has it been years? of running on fumes in an uphill battle.

You hate to see her in pain.

You've come to accept being the cause of it.

You hate the irrational kick of good, you deserve it that thrums through your gut every time her face crumples under the weight of a well-aimed volley of unmitigated pettiness.

And you remember the first four years of having her in your life, and you remember the next five when you became each other's lives. And the momentum of those nine years is what's carried you through these final two.

Because this feels final.

"Baby, I'm so sorry."

And instinct and practice, both a bit rusty by now, has your arms wrapping around her body as best they can while the both of you are lying on what was, until thirty seconds ago, the bed you shared every night, fight or no fight.

And you lay there, holding the past, what was once your future, and you try very hard not to give in, not to give this another chance.

Because it hurts.

You're hurting her. She's hurting you.

You don't want another opportunity, another round to break each other into jagged slivers that can't be put back together.

You've got to let go.

So you do.