A/N: Hey guys! Thanks for the response so far! Quick notes to clarify things: 1) Beca in chapter 1 died, they can't place her anywhere because they can't judge her, so now she has to relive a year in her life to pass her 'trial' – but more on that later as the whole thing will be touched upon by some characters – and 2) no hospital scenes with how the Bellas took Beca's death in chapter 1 because in that timeline, Beca never made friends with the Bellas, she never joined them, and all their interactions were indirect and passing, something will happen towards the end of the fic though that would sort of be like that but no hospital scene per se.

I don't own pitch perfect.

Beca was pacing around her apartment for a good half hour after that. She peered outside her window, checked her school email and password to see if it was still working. She opened her old laptop, well technically it was still her most recent laptop, to look up the date and time a few good times before doing the same thing from her desktop.

Because there was no way that she essentially time-travelled, right? Was it even time-traveling to begin with?

But all of the answers she found led to the same conclusion. She was back at Barden. Back for her senior year of college.

And just like that, the years of success Beca had lived, the fire that had led her to the gates, it all started to feel like a distant dream.

Hence the pacing.

Beca needed to piece together what was going on from what she knew. But seriously, what does she know so far?

She died. That was first.

Luke was a freaking guardian angel, along with the tall brunette, and she was talking to St. Peter.

Apparently heaven and hell were real.

And now she's been given a test, a trial.

That she has no freaking clue about!

Beca took in a deep breath. Just relax, Mitchell. she thought to herself as her brain tried to make any sense with what was going on.

But neighbors were noisy, no doubt new people were moving in, her phone kept ringing, and just nothing would make sense.

She needed to take a break and break away from all the nonsense distractions.

Beca reached for her phone and turned it off. Jesse had been calling her, leaving a message to not forget about dinner tonight. It was their thing. Jesse Swanson had been the one friend that Beca had throughout college, she supposed his other best bud magician nerd of a friend, Benji, was too. It was hard not to become friends with Jesse, especially with the mundane world of being a radio intern in charge of stacking CDs for the most part of the year. Jesse had been an intern too and they pretty much had the same schedule at the station for both semesters so talking had become unavoidable. Their friendship was rocky at first, with Jesse constantly trying to pursue her, but around sophomore year of college, they settled more into their roles of best friends, Jesse understanding that it was never going to happen.

Well, for the most part.

He still joked about getting together from time to time.

Beca decided to take a walk to clear her mind. She knew what Jesse was calling about anyways, and no she won't forget their tradition of going to the best pizza place on campus at the start of every semester.

But for now, she really needed a moment of quiet. Some alone time with herself to figure out what was going on.

It was the Saturday before the first week of classes. People were all busy with moving back in to their campus dorms, or settling in their new apartments. Beca's had her studio apartment since her sophomore year, after her disastrous attempt of having a roommate and living in one of the dorms, so there was never really a fuss about moving in and out. She's been on campus mostly during the summers too, working at the radio station for the most part. She even worked at the old record store during one of those summers where he met the guy who told her about the internship that Beca had applied to.

A part of Beca knew she'll get the internship, or that she got the internship at least in the reality she knew, but she could still feel the jitters, the anticipation building from it. She'll hear back in a couple of days if she still gets it for sure, that is, if all of what was happening right now would still be real in a couple of days.

It's hard to reconcile things from what she knew had happened in her life and what she things were just about to happen.

One thing for sure was that Beca didn't realize that walking around the Barden campus would hit her with nostalgia. Those long nights at the radio station and the longer walks home with nothing but her music to keep her company. The campus barely looked like it changed – of course it barely changed from your perspective Mitchell, you're back to the last year you saw this place – and Beca was already half expecting her dad will pop up at the corner somewhere with her usual lectures of living a little, experience college life, give a bit more effort into it.

Well pops, looks like I'd have to heed you advice.

Beca continued her walk for the rest of the afternoon, exploring the campus grounds just like she did back during her freshman year. She avoided the activities fair for now, and the whole welcoming activities near the admissions building, and stuck close by the main library, the radio station, and the music building.

Everything felt like how it used to be, more and more as she walked around, that Beca considered that maybe, since everything felt so real and true that it was. She was really back at Barden.

And maybe this wasn't a dream. Maybe the dream was everything she though she knew before she woke up.

Maybe she was just thinking of all she wanted to achieve and dreaming about them, and perhaps her mind was just too tired when she started dreaming about heaven, hell, and Luke being an angel.

An hour before the time she knew she should meet Jesse, she started making her way down to Main St., taking the same path she usually took on her way there.

Beca really wasn't expecting much of anything but she supposed she should've. She saw a bunch of guys skateboarding near the arts building and remembered that one kid would end up falling down the steps and grazing his knees.

But that was from that incredibly long dream she had.

A part of her felt like she should warn the guy but how would she explain that she suddenly gave the knowledge of the event and…

Oh, there he goes… Beca noted to herself when she suddenly realized that she knew.

She knew what was going to happen.

So how could it have been a dream?

Beca didn't linger too long after that and ran towards the pizza place where Jesse was already waiting for her.

She figured, if anyone would willingly listen to her and not laugh at what was going on, it would be him.

"I don't know Beca." Jesse said still unconvinced.

The tale was quite imaginative, and highly detailed in fact, that Jesse felt like he should believe her. Because how could Beca even come up with something like that? Something straight out of the books and movies?

"I'm telling you Jess, I'm not kidding. I don't know, I just don't know what to think about it!" Beca exclaimed as she snatched yet another slice of pizza, her fourth one in fact, and started munching on it.

Jesse sighed. Beca was a pretty bad liar on most days, at least to people she cared about and Jesse would like to think that Beca cared about him even for a little bit. But it was all too strange.

Nevertheless, of it were real, it was Jesse's duty to help his best friend out. And since he was Beca's best friend, he had to believe her. Be there for her.

"Maybe your trial is some sort of unfinished business? Something you totally missed out on? Oh! Maybe it's…"

"It's not dating you Jesse." Beca adamantly replied.

"Well, I wasn't going to say that." Jesse replied. "You've made that clear. I was saying, maybe it's you not meeting your special someone? Or maybe you missed out on meeting people who would end up being central parts of your life? Maybe you were supposed to do something but you didn't?"

"Like what?" Beca asked.

"I don't know." Jesse truthfully replied. "Finish the El Gigante burrito at the Mexican place nearby and have your picture on the wall, maybe?"

"I'm not doing that, Jess, you puked trying to do just that last year." Beca pointed out.

Which was true.

But more on the point, Jesse kept trying to wrack his brain for something, anything.

Because the answer should be obvious. Right?

"Okay, how about figuring out if this was a dream or not in the first place?" Jesse then offered. "What if this was your subconscious telling you that you should go out and live a little, you know? Not have any regrets?"

"Go on." Beca replied, taking a huge bite out of her pizza.

"What if, none of it happened? What if this is a warning? Like, what if this is all just your own way of telling yourself that you're afraid of having any regrets and that you should live your life to the fullest or something?" Jesse went on to say.

Because that sort of made sense.

Beca stopped for a moment to listen and take in all that he had to say. "Maybe." Beca then replied.

"I mean, you said it yourself Beca. This all feels real. And I feel real, to myself at least. So maybe this is real. Maybe this is your own way of wanting to make sure you make the most out of your senior year. Think about it? Or at least don't think too much about it and enjoy. Maybe that's the truth you're supposed to find in all of this?"

"Yeah, well what about me knowing about skater boy?" Beca then asked.

Jesse shrugged. "Maybe you could just tell from how he was skating that he might fall. People get inklings like that. Like, sometimes when we watch basketball games at the Treble house, and someone goes for a shot, some of the guys could tell if the ball would go in the basket or not before it does from how the player shoots. So maybe it was just kind of like that? Skater boy could have been already wobbling and you noticed that he didn't have his balance without really noticing it and then everything just happened so fast."

"I suppose that could be true." Beca then said as she sighed.

"Unless you're actually psychic and you're not telling me…" Jesse then teased sensing that Beca was starting to relax about the whole thing. "Maybe you can help me win the lottery, Becs?"

"Fat chance." Beca then replied and the matter was buried for good.

Or so Jesse thought.

Beca slumped down her bed, extremely full and tired from all the thinking she's done that day. She did manage to get away from Jesse's request of a double feature after dinner for her moviecation by agreeing with just one.

Jesse relented, thankfully, and while she did have to sit through most of the movie they ended up just talking and theorizing about Beca's weirdly realistic dream some more, making fun of it than really getting to the bottom of things.

Because how could it have possibly been true? Maybe seeing Luke as an angel was the indicator that it wasn't?

And perhaps, Jesse was right. She was just stressing all about everything. Maybe all of it was just a dream, her subconscious trying to remind her to live a little before college ends and she gets thrown into the real world once and for all.

Finally trying to make her dream into reality and stuff.

Yeah, maybe that's it. Beca thought to herself as tired eyes started to flutter.

Beca made herself more comfortable checking her phone one last time before setting it aside for the night, it was barely a minute before midnight.

But just as Beca closed her eyes, yearning for a peaceful night's sleep, she felt a searing pain on her right arm. Immediately, Beca got up and searched for the source of the burning sensation. She didn't have to search long. Her right arm was blowing light blue, twelve pairs of ribbons circling down the length of her arm. At the middle of each was a number in Roman numerals, most of them corresponded to the number thirty, some thirty one, and then there was one that was only twenty eight.

The current ribbon that was burning hotter than the rest were split into two, and was sitting in the middle of all the ribbons. The upper half was an unmoving number of 'XIV' while the number below it changed from 'XVII' to 'XVI'.

That was when Beca realized that the ribbons corresponded to the months of a year, each number in the middle was the number of days in a month and August was split into two because it was the month they were in and it was already currently in the middle of August.

The whole thing glowed a brighter blue before disappearing once more, barely leaving a mark on Beca's skin.

It was a timer.

Her arm bore of a timer for a whole year.

That's when Beca realized that everything – whether or not they made sense – everything was real.

And she only had a year to figure out what she needed to do to pass her test.