a/n: if you're curious, the songs that inspired this were metric's "the wanderlust", velvet goldmine's "blue eyes", of monsters and men's "love love love", the who's "behind blue eyes", and the cary brothers' "blue eyes" (from which i also shamelessly stole a lyric for the title).

Sometime after they've become more settled than should really be possible—there's a house, and cars, and a puppy somehow, and even Aubrey now finally accepting of them and pestering Beca every other week to let Aubrey become her business manager and turn her consultation semi-business into a legitimate LLP that Aubrey can manage, now that she has her MBA—Chloe gets invited to consult on a research project at the CDC for a four month span in Atlanta.

The first month is manageable, thanks to video chats and cigarettes and a spontaneous all-night flight home that, thankfully, they can easily afford. The second, though, is harder, and Beca's started to develop a rasp to her voice from the cigarettes and Chloe hates it. Beca is mired down in a project that doesn't leave time for spontaneous cross-country flights, and Chloe is fully engrossed in her research. Beca doesn't sleep for four days sometime around week six, instead spending all her time in the office finding ways to blend together every mix she ever made with Chloe's Disney princess eyes in mind.

Sometime early in the fourth month, Beca gets shitfaced with one of the other producers she employs, and they stumble their way into the tattoo parlor in West Hollywood where Beca and Chloe got their Titanium tattoos two years earlier.

She slaps her credit card down onto the counter and demands the same tattoo artist as last time. It takes seven tries for her to find the music she has saved to her cloud drive, the screen of the Mick's laptop blurring into triplicate, but she tracks it down and prints it out. Before David—who can't really stop her, seeing as she's technically his boss—or Mick—who doesn't want to stop her, because he's about to get paid for this—can do anything, she's shoved the paper into Mick's hands and plopped herself onto the table with her shirt off as she points to the unadorned side of her ribs.

Two days later, when she's recovered from her hangover and tabled the problematic project and announced a weeklong hiatus to David and her other colleagues, she boards a flight to Atlanta, rents a car and bribes the night guard so she can sneak into Chloe's office and surprise her with a shoulder massage just like she did so many years ago.

"Oh my God!" It takes Chloe exactly three seconds to leap out of her chair and throw herself at Beca, arms around her and squeezing tightly. Beca grunts out in pain, but burrows her forehead into Chloe's collarbone anyways.

"Hi," she mumbles into the hollow of Chloe's throat, fingers wrapping into the back of her lab coat.

"Beca Mitchell," Chloe says eventually, not moving from their embrace. "Why is there a bandage on your ribs?"

"How can you even—through a shirt and a jacket!" Beca jerks back, staring at her incredulously.

"Beca." Chloe's hands are on her hips and she's glaring down through her glasses and—honestly, it's not fair that Chloe gets to be taller and be the one of them who's actually capable of walking in heels without breaking an ankle.

Beca shrugs sheepishly, fiddling with her bracelets and she may be well into her thirties at this point, but Chloe is unnervingly good at making her feel like a lost little freshman in the dorm showers again.

"I might have gotten a little drunk," she says carefully. "With David. It's all his fault."

"And you…what, got in a bar fight?"

"What? No! The whole point of drinking with David is so he does the fighting for me, he's a tank."

"So…"

Beca shrugs again, thumb sweeping absently over the tattoo of headphones on her wrist and teeth closing down over her lower lip, and it takes all of five seconds for Chloe's eyes to widen in understanding.

"You didn't. Another one?"

"I was drunk, okay, and I missed you, and—"

"So you got a tattoo? What are you, eighteen?"

Beca's arms cross over her chest. "Excuse me, you were the one who got plastered on our anniversary and insist that we get matching ink. You set the standard!"

"That's different. We were together when that happened!"

"We…what? You're pissed that I got a tattoo and you weren't there?"

"I'm pissed that you got a tattoo without me and with David. He's about as capable of grasping meaning and symbolism as Barden."

Beca snorted. "Please, when we get home, tell him that you compared him to a runty mutt we got from the pound. I want to see you worm your way out of a headlock, it'll be fun."

"Beca!"

"What?" Beca's smirk stretched wider and wider as Chloe all but stomped her foot in frustration, until Chloe finally sighed and tugged her glasses off, rubbing at her eyes.

"Can I see it, at least?"

"I don't know, are you going to hit me?"

"Of course not!"

"Are you going to yell at me?"

"If it's something stupid, then yes, totally."

Beca glares at her, and Chloe rolls her eyes. "Baby, come on, you know I can't take you seriously when you make that face. You look like a cranky teacup Chihuahua."

"Oh my God, I hate you."

"Come on, let me see. I'm going to see it eventually anyways, unless you flew across the country and didn't expect to get lucky."

"Oh, I'm getting lucky?" Beca says, tone ricocheting into playful abruptly. She tugs the hem of her shirt up, revealing the bandage spanning her ribs.

"Jesus, Beca, what is this, an entire mural?

"If I say yes, will I still get laid?"

Chloe doesn't say anything, instead just reaching out and expertly ripping the tape loose.

"Ow! Shit, Chloe," Beca hisses out, flinching away as the adhesive rips away from her skin.

Chloe's fingers ghost over lines and lines of music notes that start just under Beca's breast, spanning along the curve of her ribs towards her spine and parading down to her hip. The skin is still angry and red around the ink, and Beca winces when Chloe's fingers touch down gently for a brief second. Her brow furrows as bright blue eyes follow the music, the same way it had in Bellas rehearsals when a song she didn't know was put in front of her.

"What is this?"

"I—I mean, here." Beca flushes, embarrassment as much a part of her genetic code as music, and digs a flash drive out of her pocket with her free hand. "It's that."

"One of your mixes?"

"Kind of." Beca is still standing there, Chloe's palm hot against sensitive skin, and she shifts uncomfortably. "It's kind of…all of them."

"All of them?"

"No all all. But all the ones I made about you."

Chloe's eyes widen, jerking away from the tattoo and the flash drive and swerving up to meet Beca's. "You—about?"

"Yeah?"

"Not the ones you gave me?"

"No?"

"Can you answer with an answer and not another question?"

Beca rolls her eyes, reaching out on instinct and pinching at her hip. They both end up flinching—Chloe because she's grossly ticklish, Beca because her pinch backfired and left Chloe's hand pressing harder into her ribs—and Beca sighs.

"Yeah, different mixes. A lot of them are really old, and I made them when I was still traveling all the time—"

"Also known as that dark period when you were too stupid to realize how awesome we were together."

"Don't interrupt me, woman, it's rude." She swats at Chloe shoulder, finally letting her shirt fall back down over the tattoo. "But yeah, I mean, you know how it was, I spent most of my time convincing myself that leaving was better for everyone than staying, so I was thinking about it all a lot, which meant I was thinking about you a lot, and oh my God, this is not new information, stop looking at me like I'm crazy, please?"

Chloe is smirking at her, and she plops down on the couch that faces her desk, tugging Beca down by the wrist until she can swing her legs up over Beca's comfortably and recline against the arm of the couch. "I'm sorry, please do continue."

"Asshole," Beca mutters. She sighs, fingers toying with the zipper on one of Chloe's boots. "Anyways. I don't know. I made so many things when I was on the road all the time, but it was like I couldn't make good music if I wasn't thinking of you, so I just wound up with this folder full of all of these mixes that no one else ever heard."

She sighs again, Chloe's eyes heavy and bright and serious as they stare at her profile, and automatically move to unzip Chloe's boots and tug them off. There's a tiny tattoo nestled into the hollow behind her anklebone, one of the two Chloe had before they met, a simple treble clef, and Beca's fingertips trace over it blindly.

"I don't know, I just…David and I were working on this idiotic project so late, and I was frustrated with it, so we went out to his brother's bar. And he was complaining about his ex-girlfriend, and I was complaining about how you're in Atlanta and I was telling him the story about the Titanium tattoos and one thing led to another and—"

"Wait, you told him that story?"

"Yes?" Beca finally turns to meet Chloe's eyes, uncertainty creasing her brow even as her thumbs massage along the arch of Chloe's foot, pressing instinctively. "I mean, I didn't think you'd mind, you love embarrassing me with it…"

"No, it's fine, I just—" Chloe cuts herself off, shaking her head and settling down into the couch more comfortably. Her heels dig into Beca's thigh briefly. "I'm not used to you being the one to tell it, I guess. You always get so flustered."

"Yeah, well," Beca grumbles. "I was drunk. So I told him about how you totally creeped on me in the showers freshman year, and then I told him about the tattoos, and somehow it came up that we were like a five minute walk from Mick's place, and…it happened. I don't know. I'm never drinking tequila again."

Chloe laughs, bright and clear, and a smile twitches at Beca's lips at the sound. "Serves you right, you know. Tequila is only good for body shots."

Chloe laughs even louder at the flush spreading up to Beca's ears. She sits up, pressing a brief kiss to Beca's temple before hopping off the couch and retrieving her briefcase and laptop. She settles back onto the couch, pressed to Beca's side, and boots up the laptop, flashdrive dangling from her fingers.

"That isn't your work laptop, is it? Because this stuff is like private and—"

"Quiet." One arm snakes around Beca's shoulder, hand sneaking up and clapping over her mouth securely. "My mixes, my laptop. And stop fretting." She maneuvers the flashdrive into an open port with her free hand and starts it up.

By the time it ends, maybe I'm a crook for stealing your heart away and blue eyes, I just want to sing a song with you fading into the the final loop of oh, you're the one I had to meet echoing into silence, the laptop is sitting on the floor and Chloe is stretched out on the couch, Beca's figure blanketing her taller one.

"I love you," Chloe mumbles into Beca's hair. "Even if you got a tattoo without me." Her palm rests on Beca's side, soft over the tattoo, and Beca burrows more comfortably into Chloe's embrace.

"You too," Beca say sleepily. "Can I go to sleep now? I'm jetlagged and maybe still hungover."

"Serves you right," Chloe says, but she tugs a blanket off the back of the couch down and spreads it haphazardly over them.

"Why do you have a blanket in your office?" One of Beca's fingers jabs lazily into Chloe's side. "You promised you'd stop sleeping here."

"Go to sleep. My alarm's going to go off at six, just so you know."

"That's gross," Beca groans. "Take the day off. Or, y'know, the rest of time, and come back home. Your stupid dog misses you."

"Barden is not stupid!"

"Barden runs into walls and eats grass. He's an idiot."

"Shut up, or you're sleeping—"

"What, on the couch?" Beca's lips brush against Chloe's collarbone as she smirks, and Chloe huffs out a sigh in frustration.

"Under the desk."

"That's fine if you come, too."

Chloe sighs again. "Go to sleep."

"Mhm."

"I love you."

"Love you, too."

"Even though you're an idiot."

"Shut up, I'm trying to sleep. Leave me alone or I'm telling Aubrey you've been sleeping in the office again."

Chloe sighs indignantly, but falls silent anyways. Smiling, Beca pulled the blanket tighter around them and burrowed into Chloe's shoulder, quiet and content.