A/N: So, here's chapter two. Thank you for all the awesome reviews. Since Staubrey got most votes (all of them), I will do it. But right now the story will remain a little angsty. Until the auditions, at least. Stick with me?
Disclaimer: I wish, I wish with all my heart, to own this franchise and release the 3rd part.
Chapter Two: Cross Your Heart And Remember Me
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"Sorry, I don't even sing. I'll see you around."
Chloe and Stacie watched as the short brunette walked away speedily. The former, for some reason felt a pang of disappointment as she watched the Alt - girl's retreating figure. For the short encounter, the redhead found herself captivated by the mysterious girl, as she subconsciously noticed the smallest things about her. The way she rolled her eyes playfully as her friend dragged her to the booth. How she narrowed her eyes at her friend's pleading face, maybe even trying to hide a smile. Or how she stood up to Aubrey. The last one gaining her the most points.
The latter, Stacie was confused at her best friend's cold demeanour, even more so than usual. She wanted to go after her, but if she'd learned anything these past eleven years, it'd be that never disturb the DJ when she was in one of her zones, whether it was mixing music, playing video games or having sudden mood swings such as this. This was the territory that even the best friend couldn't cross.
Both girls had the same thought though; something was definitely wrong and the answer had something to do with the blonde who stood quietly next to them until now. "Is she always like that?" Aubrey asked rolling her eyes, just like Beca.
"Yeah... I guess." Stacie answered unsurely, looking to where her best friend disappeared in the crowd before turning to the blonde, who seemed deep in thought now, eyes still in Beca's direction. "How about I sign up?"
Chloe was the first to hear the taller brunette's question, she recovered from her daze to smile at her and hand her a form. "You need to fill this up. The auditions are next month and then we'll decide if you get in. Do you sing?"
"Yeah. I am alright." Stacie said nonchalantly as she read the form. One thing about being a former federal agent's daughter and on her way to business school was that you read every document thoroughly before you take any action.
"How about your friend?" Chloe asked, hoping that the short brunette was at least good enough to be a substitute, although, still not entirely sure why she wanted her in the group so desperately.
"You mean Beca?" Stacie asked, not taking her eyes from the page until the next question made her head snap up.
"Beca? Beca... Mitchell?" It was Aubrey who spoke, looking at Stacie with an odd mixture of realization, hope and panic on her face.
"Yeah..." Stacie asked skeptically, her expression quite similar to the redhead who turned to her friend as well. "How do you know her?" The brunette now asked with an intimidating tone (courtesy of her father), feeling protective over her friend in front of these strangers.
"I... Uh, I-I..." Aubrey was lost for words, bile rising up in her throat as her stomach did a familiar grumble and her head seem to be exploding. "I gotta go."
The blonde didn't wait for another second before dropping her writing pad on the desk and making a beeline for the nearest restroom. Leaving behind a baffled redhead and a beyond confused brunette, who awkwardly smiled at each other for a split second before mumbling their goodbyes and rushing to look for their respective best friends.
Aubrey couldn't believe it. She had dreaded this day for the past 10 years. She had waited for it for 12 years. Yet she never imagined it to go like this. And it was no doubt her fault. She should've asked her name first.
No, she should've recognized her without it. She should've known it was her. Should've known it was Beca. Her baby sister.
What had she done?
She yelled at her baby sister.
She called her baby sister a bitch.
She called her an Alt-girl.
An alt-girl with a grasshopper tattoo.
How can she not know it was Beca? The grasshopper, it was her baby Bug.
She ruined everything!
With that thought, she locked herself in the cubicle and immediately emptied the contents of her stomach in the bowl.
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Beca had heard the story a thousand times by the time she was seven. The story that her parents told their two little angels almost every night before tucking them in bed, back when they were a family. It was the story she knew by heart, of the first she had met Aubrey.
Warren and Diane Mitchell came home from the hospital after the official two day rest, bearing a beautiful baby girl; wrapped up in a bundle of blankets to protect her fragile body from the cold.
They were immediately greeted by another little angel running past her grandmother and into her father's arms. The happy family made their way to the living room where they settled down on a couch before the 3 years old Aubrey Mitchell jumped from her father's lap to take a peek at the bundle in her mother's arms.
"Aubrey, this is your new baby sister. Her name is Rebecca" Diane spoke in a gentle voice, careful of the sleeping baby.
With the curiosity of a typical toddler, young Aubrey poked the baby's cheek with her finger, quite hard. Startled awake, it began to cry and Aubrey ran into her father's arms again, scared that she had broken it.
"It's okay, kiddo." Warren calmed his little daughter, looking into her watery green eyes with his own. "Rebecca is okay. You didn't mean to make her cry. How about you say sorry?"
Aubrey nodded with a small smile, her blonde curls bouncing in process. She rushed to her baby sister's side, who had just stopped crying. With her small fingers, Aubrey gently wiped the remaining tears. "I am sowwy, baby. I promish to never make you cry. I am your big sishter. You are my baby... r-r-buh-b." The three adults in the room chuckled at the little girl's attempt to pronounce.
"Bug!" She announced after a while, deciding to mold the whole name if she couldn't say it. "You be my Bug, okay?"
In answer, the said 'Bug' wrapped her tiny fingers around her sister's thumb, instantly falling back to sleep.
Beca let out a shaky breath as she felt silent tears roll down her face. She pulled up her knees to her chest as she made a cocoon of herself on the center of the bed. She knew Aubrey would be here when her father had first told her about college. She was sure it was one of the only reasons why she was brought to Barden. She knew she was to stumble across her sister someday anyways. And so she had spent hours preparing for the imminent encounter. but it still came a blow to face.
The irresistible urge to leap forward and wrap her arms around her big sister after so many years was rivalling the urge to punch her in the face for leaving in the first place. And even though the former was unquestionably stronger, Beca couldn't help but give into her anger when she realized that the blonde didn't even recognise her. How can she not remember her own sister? Her baby Bug? How could she be the sole reason behind it, when she'd promised to never make her cry?
A gentle rapping on the door instinctively made Beca wipe her face and sit up straight hastily before Stacie walked in the dark room. The taller brunette's barely visible silhouette walked up to the bedside table and turn on a small lamp. Beca shut her eyes at the sudden light, opening them slowly after a while to take in the sight of her concerned friend standing awkwardly by her own bed, holding in her hands the common solution to most of the world's problems; pizza. Too tired to be annoyed, the shorter brunette let out a sigh, trying to force a smile on her face that didn't look like a grimace.
Stacie silently observed the scene before her. Never had she seen her friend look so worn out before, almost vulnerable. And it was saying something coming from the girl who watched the DJ deal with everything in her life with nothing more than a blank stare, her music and an occasional punching bag; from grade school pressure, to highschool stress and all through the typical teenage drama years. Heck, the DJ didn't shed a single tear at her own mother's funeral, at least not until the last of the sympathizers left and Stacie could hear the muffled sobs from her room.
But she'd never witnessed it first hand, until now. The steely blue eyes were fogged with unshed tears and their futile attempt to smile made the taller girl's heart break. Warily, she inched forward until she was only a few feet away from the tiny girl who looked even smaller with her legs tucked under her and her eyes cast down.
"They say pizza has a way to solve almost all the problems with a single spicy slice," Stacie spoke in gentle voice as she lowered the box on the bed and cautiously sat down next to it.
"Yeah, 'almost' all." Beca scoffed with a bitter chuckle in tow that Stacie decided to see as a tiny improvement.
"Well, if pizza doesn't work, we can always get ice cream. To eat or to throw at random people from the roof, your choice?" Stacie suggested with a hopeful smile, opening the box and handing out a slice in a napkin for Beca.
The shorter one let out a more genuine but still shaky laugh, indicating that they were on the right track. However, she didn't take a bite and picked on the veggies for a while as Stacie waited silently for her to speak. A sudden desire to face palm herself for her stupidity grew inside the tall brunette when she made out the eventual low whisper.
"It was her, Stace. It was my Bee."
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Chloe came home to the on-campus apartment she shared with Aubrey, looking for the blonde, to find this: The said women was curled up on the small sofa, in a darkened living room, sobbing quite loudly.
The redhead instantly soften at the sight (or the lack of it). She wasn't too happy when Aubrey left their unattended but she managed to find a junior to hand out flyers for them as she followed the blonde to the girl's restrooms. She was even more angry when the blonde yelled at her from the cubicle when she was just trying to help. But right now, the vulnerable form of her best friend was enough to make her forget about her grudge. And she couldn't say that didn't know the reason behind it.
Contrary to the common belief, Chloe and Aubrey weren't at each other's throats every moment of the day. (If that were the case, they'd would been dead a million times in the past 11 years). They were real friends, the ones who fight over tiny issues but still share every detail of their lives with each other. So, Chloe wasn't surprised when Beca Mitchell turned out to be Aubrey's baby sister. Although, the reactions she saw on both supposed siblings at this sudden encounter, left the redhead quite confused. This wasn't how her siblings would react if they met after so long. Which led to the conclusion that maybe she really didn't know her best friend that well.
"Brey? Are you okay?" Chloe said as she silently made her way to her best friend and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. The blonde, in turn, was startled at the sudden touch but as soon as she caught a glimpse of her best friend's sad smile in the dark, she jumped up to wrap her in a tight hug.
This was what she wanted to do with Beca. Hold her in her arms just like she did when her little Bug was but a baby. She wanted to make things right with her baby sister. She wanted a second chance to keep her promise. To let Beca know that she was sorry and she wanted nothing more than for her baby sister to wrap her small fingers around her hand like she did all those years ago.
A four years old Aubrey Mitchell jumped in the back seat of the car and waited for her parents to buckle her up. When done, she decided to chatter all the home about the new friends she made at pre-school as her parents listened intently while her baby sister played with the seat buckle, next to her.
This was one of their unofficial family traditions. Everyday, Warren and Diane took a break from their respective jobs at exactly 2:30pm to pick up their daughters from Daycare and School before getting something to eat and driving them to their grandmother's house for the evening.
Today's topic of preschool chronicles was how the mean boy named Tommy was picking on Aubrey's friend. Aubrey told the teacher about him and in return got a star on her drawing for being a good girl.
"... and Miss Murphy said that I could be the class monitor and tell her if somebody is being bad. A-and she called me 'Brey'. But my name is Aubrey. So she said that it was a nickname for me. But I never got to ask her what it was? What's a nickname, daddy?"
Warren laughed as the full-speed chatting came to a stop and Aubrey took a breath, waiting for her father to speak. "Well, kiddo. A nickname is something you call someone you love. Like you call Rebecca 'Bug' and we call her just 'Beca'."
Satisfied with the answer, Aubrey nodded feverishly, turning to lean towards her sister. As if sensing her presence, Beca let go of her belt buckle and reached out for Aubrey.
"Hear that, Bug. I love you. Do you love me? Can you say 'Brey'?"
Beca instantly smiled at her sister, as if understanding exactly what she said. However, she hadn't spoken her first word yet so after trying for a while to help her speak, Aubrey turned look out the window with a pout, one hand still in Beca's tight grip.
For the rest of the day, Aubrey didn't speak to her sister. Her four-year-old mind stuck on the idea that her sister didn't love her. Of course, it worried the adults of the house since Aubrey always wanted to play with Beca, but they let it be, hoping the grudge will be long forgotten by tomorrow.
It was the first time since Beca was born that Aubrey didn't give her a goodnight kiss before bed. Though as usual, when Beca woke up crying in the middle of the night, Aubrey tip-toed into her room and watched as her mother sang a lullaby to calm her down. When her mother put her baby sister back in the cot, Aubrey couldn't help but paddle over to the edge, hoping that she didn't make her cry.
The watery blue found the sleepy green ones as Beca grabbed hold of her sister's thumb again, "I am sorry I didn't play with you today, Bug. I didn't mean to make you cry. I love you. I was sad when you didn't call me 'Brey'."
Diane Mitchell watched this exchange with a small smile as she placed her hand on her older daughter's shoulder to take her back to her room. Aubrey couldn't reach in the cot so she settled for kiss her own palm and pressing it on Beca's forehead. Sensing that her sister was going to leave her, baby Beca tried to stop her with a vigorous shake of her head but knowing that it wasn't enough, she spoke up. She let out a cry of her first word in gibberish, "Bee".
The brightest smile made it's way to Aubrey face as she squealed in delight. Safe to say, for at least the next few days, Aubrey refused to sleep anywhere other than her sister's cot. Letting the Bug fall asleep with her little fingers wrapped around her Bee's thumb, making sure she won't leave.
Aubrey let another choked sob in her best friend's shoulder knowing that it won't ever be the same again. Not after what she had done. Not when she had broken her all her promises to her Bug.
She had hurt her.
She had made her cry.
She had left her.
She had destroyed both Bee and Bug, and she had no idea how to fix it.
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A/N: okay, it got too angsty but don't worry. Since, I am following the movie pattern, up next is the Radio Station and the shower scene so, we'll go a spiral of feelings.
Another thing, I only wanted Luke and Jesse to be paired up with someone so they won't be third wheeling like in every other story. How about we give them a subplot with Jessica and Ashley? Let me know what you think.
