Chloe's laying in the middle of Aubrey's bed, her hands on her stomach and her feet dangling over the edge. She has yet to say a word since she stormed into Aubrey's room and flopped down on the bed.

Aubrey abandoned her homework the second Chloe opened the door; and is now staring at her, waiting for something, anything.

Aubrey has always been able to read her like a book and has been her best friend since the day in third grade when Chloe offered to sit with her when no one else would. But right now, Aubrey can make neither head nor tail of the situation. Chloe's eyes are filled with sadness and remorse, the former Aubrey is definitely not used to. Because it was a different kind of sadness, the kind that Chloe probably never experienced before. The kind of sadness that swallows you whole and takes everyone with you.

"Chloe," she starts, trying to break through the dark cloud that almost visibly surrounds her best friend.

Chloe turns to looks at her with an emotionless expression, "Yeah?"

"You're scaring me."

Chloe sighs and sits up, gets her feet up on the bed and hugs her knees. "She doesn't love me back. And she probably will never love me back."

Aubrey is still at a loss because instead of heart breaking sob or a stutter in her words, she doesn't hear even a tinge of emotion in her voice.

"Oh, Chloe," Aubrey moves to the bed and takes Chloe in her arms, rubbing her hands up and down them. She expects Chloe to immediately latch unto her, to hug her back, to sob, to at least do something. Instead, she just sits there, her blue eyes usually so full of life are downcast and filled with sadness. And again, Aubrey is out of her element.

Fucking Mitchell.

She's not sure what to do at this point. Usually, consoling Chloe was easy and was almost second nature to her. Now, it feels like Chloe's turned a complete 180 and Aubrey feels like she's dealing with a completely different person.

Still, Aubrey pushes on and asks, "What happened?"

Chloe's numbness breaks a little when she sighs and her expression softens, "I told her I loved her last night."

Aubrey is taken aback by this, she never thought she'd actually tell her, "And? What did she do?"

There's panic now, in Chloe's eyes, she finally lifts her head from her knees and looks Aubrey straight in the eye, "Don't freak out."

"Why would I do that?"

"Just promise you won't."

Aubrey rolls her eyes, "Fine. I won't. Now tell me."

Chloe relates the events of last night and with each passing second, Aubrey grows more and more angry.

"That bitch," she spews out venomously. She's seeing red and all she wants to do is find Beca and rip her apart limb from limb. And that's exactly what she sets out to do, she stand up and moves to the door before a hand on her wrist stops her.

"You promised," Chloe pleads.

"But Beca…"

"I know what she did, Bree. But you promised and now I need you to calm down, ok?"

She sighs and sits down beside Chloe. Chloe holds out her pinkie to her, "Pinkie promise you won't go after her."

Aubrey looks at the offered finger in disbelief, "Really? We haven't done that since we were in junior high."

Chloe waggles it in front of her face and says, "Come on, Aubrey. I'm not letting this go until you do."

Aubrey rolls her eyes at her but takes the pinkie in hers. "I pinkie promise," they both say simultaneously.

Chloe nods once, satisfied with the ritual and untangle their pinkies. Then she retreats back in her own shell and adopts the hollow expression she had on a few minutes before.

Aubrey, once again, is lost. She's actually incredibly uncomfortable about this and, as is the norm for her when faced with nerve wracking, uncomfortable situations, she's trying really hard not to hurl.

So she sits there, prim and proper, back ramrod straight and muscles tensed, staring straight ahead.

But she's not going to go anywhere because the unspoken rule that best friends have is to be there for each other through anything and everything. Even when you have no idea what you can do for them.

It's the worst feeling in the world, to have your friend broken and damaged beside you and you have no way to articulate how much you don't want them to be sad. And you have no idea what you should do to make them stop being sad. But in times like these, you know the best way to go about it is to emphasize and try to tell them eveything's going to be okay.

Yet, Aubrey doesn't want to lie to Chloe when she doesn't know for sure if everything would be okay, so she does the first part and she lets herself feel what Chloe is feeling. And she lets herself do what Chloe is obviously trying very hard not to: she cries.

She cries those ugly, huge teardrops sort of cry complete with noises that sounds like the snot is making it very hard for her to breath. She cries, and instead of joining her, Chloe wraps her arms around Aubrey's waist and pulls her closer.

This time around, it's Aubrey who's soaking Chloe's shirt with tears.

For the rest of the day, Chloe walks around like the zombie that she feels she is. All she wants to do is find Beca and tell her it was all just a big mistake, that saying I love you after sex didn't even count in the first place. All she wants to do is to talk to her and make her take her back.

But she can't, she knows this at least this much. She knows this and it hurts every time she reminds herself. Because now that she had confessed, she was pretty sure Beca didn't want anything to do with her. And that Beca will never feel the same way she does.

But really, what she feels is lost. At a loss for what to do because she's never been in this kind of situation before. Lost because she feels as if she's floating around and unable to stay on the ground without Beca. And literally lost because she didn't even know which part of the campus she was in. She had been wandering around aimlessly and wasn't even looking at the direction she was going.

And now, for the first time that day, she feels something other than the dark pit of hopelessness and sadness she was in, she feels curiosity flooding her senses and filling her with a sense of adventure. In all her four years of staying at Barden, she had never come across this old looking building before.

Her eyes light up and she quickly makes her way towards the entrance. When she gets there, she checks her wristwatch, 10:15 AM. She already missed her first class of the day, and now she's about to miss her second one. But it didn't matter, even if she did go to class, she wouldn't be able to pay it any attention. So she shrugs and trudges onwards, pulling at the huge, creaky, wooden doors.

She takes a look around, once. It's not entirely covered with a layer of dust, so someone must come in here and take care of it.

A huge room is drawing her in for some unknown reason; it must be a ballroom or something. What this a house? Did someone live here? Was she trespassing on private property? But she finds that she doesn't care about any of these things and she is shocked when she finds herself at the center of a huge library.

It's a huge circular room, with seven, six foot bookcases side by side along the walls of the room. There's a quote at the top of the two of the bookcases.

"It is in losing yourself that you find yourself," she reads out loud. "Well, isn't that just coincidental?"

She looks around for any hidden cameras, "Really, universe? Really? If this is your idea of a joke, it's not at all funny."

"I actually find it very inspirational," she whips around to face a smirking Dr. Mitchell who's leaning on the doorposts with his arms crossed.

Just her luck. The universe was really against her today.

"I-um, I'm really sorry, Dr. Mitchell, I didn't realize anybody was here. I-I didn't mean to intrude or anything-" she manages to stutter out before Dr. Mitchell interrupts her with his hand raised.

"No, it's okay. To be entirely honest, I've actually been waiting for some student to stumble upon this gold mine. And so far, in all my years here at Barden, you are the first one," his tone is disappointed and his smirk transformed into a frown.

Chloe is surprised at this, "Seriously? No one else has seen this place?"

Dr. Mitchell shakes his head, "To be fair, I've only been here for 10 years so there may have been other students before I even came to teach here."

"10 years is a long time for no one to find this though."

"That's true. I wonder why nobody ever does."

"Maybe because it's so out of the way? I mean, I only happened upon here because I wasn't minding where I was going and got lost somewhere along the way."

"Maybe. Or maybe it's because people are so used to the familiar and mundane that they don't even step out of their comfort zone to explore better possibilities."

Chloe froze then. Had Beca told her father about them?

She searches his face for an indication of knowing something else but she didn't find a wry, knowing expression or a hint of hard seriousness in his features.

In fact, she's pretty sure he doesn't even know who she is.

She lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding, "Yeah, I guess that's the reason. And anyway, the whole campus is huge; it'd be weird to go around exploring other parts."

And then he sighs, "Some people never even leave the comfort of their beds."

There it is, now she knows what he's talking about.

"Not even to go to class," she says, amusement in her voice.

Dr. Mitchell catches on, "But still manages to go to a silly internship at a dusty old place."

"Or still makes it to an everyday practice," Chloe smiles at him.

Dr. Mitchell smiles back and asks, "Do you know my daughter?"

For some reason, Chloe catches a case of heartburn and is unable to speak without choking out the words, so she simply nods her head.

Dr. Mitchell smile grows bigger at the possibility of knowing more about his daughter through someone else. "How do you know her?"

Chloe's breathing has regulated and the heartburn is slowly fading away but she speaks slowly so she doesn't trip over her words, "I'm the Bella's captain."

He nods once and asks tentatively, "And tell me, how is she?"

Chloe feels like she's being put on the spot and that she wants to run away, but that'd be rude and she would never do that so she answers, "She's great, actually (more than great, she's the most amazing person I've ever met, she wants to say but can't). She has an amazing voice, the kind you want to take away and marry (and possibly also marry the person attached to it). And her ideas can definitely make us a better team. She's a great addition, and I'm glad she decided to join us (I'm glad I decided to jump in her shower that day)," she finishes with a shaky smile.

Dr. Mitchell doesn't notice how uncomfortable she is at all and beams like the proud parent he is, "If there's one thing I know about her, it's that she's talented. And willing to do almost anything to get what she wants."

And the little hope Chloe had left is broken and crushed under the feet of a thousand giants and then somehow regains consciousness enough to go flying out the window. It's free now, leaving Chloe with nothing.

She forces herself to smile, "Yeah, I guess she is headstrong and a lot talented."

He looks down at the ground and smiles wistfully. And suddenly, she feels like she's intruding on a private moment. She's not supposed to be here, she's not supposed to see some old guy reminisce on the things that could have been; especially not if that old guy is the father of the girl she's in love with.

So she shuffles her feet and awkwardly stands there looking at anything but the professor in front of her.

She hears him clear his throat, "Sorry, I just – She's not very…open. She doesn't even want to talk to me."

Chloe nods because she knows exactly what that feels like. This was a topic she could relate to, "I get it. I guess she just shuts everyone out." Strangely, she doesn't even feel weird talking about this.

His expression grows sadder, and then he lights up, "You guys are friends right?"

Fuck.

"Yeah, I guess we are."

His eyebrows rise at that, "But you seem to know a lot about her."

Double fuck.

"We're teammates, which is all we are, really. I don't really know much about her," this one was true. She didn't know anything about Beca, no personal details or life story or anything. All she knew was what she looked like naked. She wasn't even sure how many tattoos she had on her body.

Whoah, it just hit her. She knew absolutely nothing about Beca and yet she loved her. How is that even possible?

"…in any case, you're welcome to use this place whenever you need to. The door is never locked and no one ever comes in here so you're safe," she manages to catch the end part of Dr. Mitchell's speech, who is about to leave. "You can stay here if you want, just close the door on your way out," he smiles warmly at her, and she returns a genuine smile in return, before he walks out of the room and out of the house.

She sighs and decides to stay there for the rest of her second class.

But also a thought resonates in her head: That was the second Mitchell to walk away from her within the last twenty-four hour time frame.

Aubrey's being deliberately mean today at Bella's practice. Especially with Beca.

"Beca, that's the wrong foot."

"That's not the choreography."

"Stop trying to interject with your ideas. They're not going to help anyone."

Ok so the last one was heard on a regular basis, still, she was being pretty harsh today.

And Beca knew this, judging from the way she kept shooting daggers at Chloe whenever Aubrey made a snide comment about her.

Beca sighs and says in the calmest voice she could muster, "Lay off, Aubrey. I'm trying my best here."

"Well, you're not trying hard enough. I can't have you hurt…our chances at winning."

"I'm not trying to hurt anything. Believe me when I say I really want us all to be happy."

"Well if you really wanted us to be happy, you would stop with your fucking games!" she throws her hands up in exasperation.

"I'm not playing any games, ok? You wouldn't get it, you've never been in this situation before."

The rest of Bellas have sensed something was entirely off so they all stop trying to dance and they watch the conversation like a tennis match, "Well if you had just practiced and memorized the entire choreography instead of slacking off and not doing anything."

Beca sports a confused and incredulous look on her face, "I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing anymore. What are you alluding to?"

Aubrey rolls her eyes at her, "Never mind. Practice is over for today, everyone go home," and then she marches out.

"Okay was it just me or did anybody else think they weren't talking about choreography?" Fat Amy asks.

Everyone else just shrugs and starts streaming out of the auditorium, each with their own agenda in their head.

Chloe's agenda is Beca, who is staring straight at her, imploring her to say something. But she can't. She knows she should have gone after Aubrey but something rooted her to the spot she was in.

Beca wants to talk, she can see that. And that completely throws her off because she wasn't expecting this at all. In fact, Beca hadn't been ignoring her entire existence, which was what she expected to happen.

She takes a deep breath as Beca makes her way towards her. "Hi," she greets, polite and detached. Chloe can't read her face and she doesn't know what she herself should be feeling right now.

"Hi," she greets back.

Beca looks down at her shoes, closes her eyes and takes a deep breath before looking back at Chloe's eyes, "We need to talk."

And there it was, the four words she never would have thought she'd hear from Beca. Her heart is painfully thumping in her chest and she's struggling to find the air to breath but she manages to cover it all up with a cough before she regains control over her breathing.

"I'm sorry," is the first thing out of her mouth. She doesn't know why but she felt like they were the right words to say.

"I'm sorry," she says again because she figures that was what Beca wanted to hear.

"I'm sorry," because it covers up the 'I love you' she really wanted to say instead.

"I'm sorry," because maybe if she said it enough times Beca would change her mind.

Beca's expression is still unreadable, for all Chloe can see; she's trying to cover up any shred of emotion on her face. "Chloe," she starts. "We can't do this anymore."

"What do you mean?" she really understands what it means but she needs validation; maybe if she asked the question, the answer would be different.

"I mean we can't keep having sex with each other. It's not fair to you," her face still a mask of indifference.

She's right, she's absolutely right. But she won't accept it.

"But I'm okay with it," she moves closer and places her hand on Beca's shoulder. "I'll shove down my feelings, I swear. It didn't have to mean anything."

Beca stiffens, "But it's not okay with me. You're getting hurt and I don't want to be the cause of that. Aubrey was right. We should just stop this."

She's getting desperate now and tears well up in her eyes, "I can't not have you in my life, Beca. Please…I can be better," she's holding both her shoulder now, her eyes filled with desperation.

"Chloe, please, stop it!" For the first time since the conversation started, Beca shows actual emotion: anger and exasperation. "I've made up my mind about this, we can't keep this up," she gently removes both of her hands off her shoulder.

Under normal circumstances, Chloe would have fought tooth and nail. But this was different; everything was always different when it came to Beca.

So she shuts down. Her eyes, so filled with desperation before, are now hollow and empty. Her arms feel useless at her sides, and she wants to do is get this over with, "OK."

If Beca is surprised at the complete 180, she doesn't show it. "I think you need to move on Chlo."

She would have. She would have given then, would've stopped everything and tried to move on. But there was something that stopped her from doing just that.

Beca is showing emotion again. This time her eyes betray her emotionless face. Because in there is heartbreak and sadness. But most of all, there's regret.

She's not entirely sure what that means for her but she'll be damned if she wasn't going to psychoanalyze this entire conversation over and over again.

She's so preoccupied that she doesn't notice Beca leaving or the door slamming shut.

And for the second time that day, she's left alone in a huge room. At least now I'm not as lost.