Beca can't help it. When she listens to music. When she sees the trees respond to the autumn breeze. When she looks over the flat Georgia land at twilight from the roof of her dorm building (where she shouldn't be, but what campus security doesn't know can't hurt them). When she sees beauty, her mind always returns to the person that she knows of infinite beauty.

She knows where her mind shouldn't go. In her waking thoughts, she fights to push it away. But her subconscious fights this. She knows because it's the last place her mind goes before faltering to sleep. And when she wakes up in the morning, the glorious indeterminable time between dreams and conscious, the gap where light is fuzzy before eyes open, the body is floating before it is aware of its surroundings, where the stress and panic of the day cannot invade, it is in this in-between that Beca gets what she wants. Sometimes it is just the color of the baby blue eyes, or the burning ginger shade of hair. Sometimes she smells the amber and vanilla, can almost feel creamy skin. But always it disappears, fast enough that her eyes fly open and see the familiar band posters on her ceiling, smells the Febreeze on her sheets, feels cotton pajamas. As comfortable as her normal scenery is, she wishes she could feel all the things her subconscious wants to. She wishes she could have Chloe Beale.

She knows it's wrong on more levels than she can count. Beca knows that they're best friends and would rather see her mixing boards piledrived than ruin their precious friendship. But she feels so wrong keeping something from Chloe. They tell each other everything- their days, their jokes, their problems. They even text each other silly going-ons and conversations in the world around them, if they're apart. She knows that harboring intense feelings, more-than-friend feelings, for someone who trusts her so much is wrong.

But it is the trust that is the instigator of it all. The trust just stokes the fire, it was what attracted her to Chloe in the first place. She felt valued when the redhead addressed her. She knew that when Chloe was talking to her, Chloe was also ready to listen. Not just bark orders and dismiss her, like Aubrey. Chloe was different. When they first met, she could talk to her just as intimately as anyone else in the group of whom she had years of acquaintance with. Beca could see the life pouring out of Chloe, in all of her actions. Beca had never felt so valued by another person before. It was sad and she knew it, and it almost felt as Chloe cared about her just a little more than some of the other Bellas and students at Barden. Maybe she sensed Beca's brokenness.

Either way, she was drawn to her light like a moth. She wasn't sure if the light could ever be turned off, but whenever she was around Chloe, she was warmed by it, even occasionally burned if she got too close.

Beca would jump off the eleventh story balcony before she ever admitted it, but often times she felt pervasive loneliness. Even with the Bellas, she still felt as if something was missing from her life. She felt an emptiness that she didn't know how to fill. It used to be much worse before she had friends. But now that the brunette knew how much better life could be by letting people in, even just as friends, she was curious if a relationship could help fill the void. It took her almost a solid year to realize that Chloe helped keep hollowness at bay simply with her presence.

This was what propelled Beca into a sitting position, after four minutes of debate, to grab her phone off the nightstand to text Chloe.

Hey Chlo. Coffee before the day starts? Beca hit send. It was 9:23 a.m. She knew that she would have to start the study grind soon. It was Sunday, but Tuesday brought the first two of six midterm exams.

9:25 a.m., nearly an instantaneous reply. Hey Becs! You betcha. Do you have any K-Cups left or should we go to Dutch Bros?

Beca rolled off the bed and under it, throwing the lid off of her food box to see if she had K-Cups.

Please, please, please let there be some left, she begged herself.

She opened the box in suspense to find two chocolate brown flimsy plastic cups with textured foil lids left. Aha! She shot up, forgetting she was under the bed, slamming her skull into the black metal of the bed frame.

She slumped back onto the floor, and raised her phone back to her face.

K-Cups in supply, no BYOK or Dutch necessary. She typed out. But bring an icepack for me she added. 9:28 a.m.

KK! See ya in a jiffy! Chloe replied in the same minute.

A short twenty minutes later Beca heard a soft knock at the door, and the redhead swiftly entered.

"What if I hadn't been decent, you asshole?" Beca said, pretending to be bewildered at Chloe's lack of hesitation upon entry.

"Well don't pretend like its something that I haven't seen before!" Chloe said, winking and sending a blush upon the shorter girl's cheeks.

Beca turned away quickly to hide her face, scanning her eyes over her dorm (which was far from immaculate, unlike Chloe and Aubrey's apartment in the upperclassman quadrant of campus, but was presentable enough). She rolled up her sleeves as moved to fire up the Keurig.

"Why did you ask me for an icepack, by the way?" Chloe inquired, a confused look on her face. She held the blue freezer pack in one hand, a mug proclaiming "Aca Bitches For Life" in the other.

"Oh… well clumsy old me sorta smashed my brains under my bed getting the supplies," Beca admitted.

"Jeez- that wouldn't have happened if you didn't store your food box under there! I told you to just get a little cabinet for it just like everyone else!" Chloe replied, holding out the icepack and squeezing her hand over the other girl's as she received it.

It was a quick touch but it sent a paradoxical shock through Beca, who was holding the freezing cold ice pack but her entire body warmed at the touch of the other girl's hand. She swayed without realizing it.

"Hey are you sure you're all right?" Chloe said, care turning to concern. "Maybe you should sit down."

"I-I'm fine Chlo. Just give me a minute," Beca said, once again shielding her face. She absentmindedly took a swig of her scalding hot coffee, simultaneously singeing her tastebuds off and burning the hell out of her throat. She coughed but kept it in her mouth, refusing to spit take and look even stupider in front of her love interest.

"Beca stop dying on me!" Chloe clapped her on the back. "Are you concussed or something?"

"No what the fuck," Beca croaked defensively. "I just wasn't paying attention." She grit her teeth over her inability to function like a normal human being.

But that's what Chloe's touch could do to her. See, Chloe was affectionate, and didn't think anything of playful touches and the like. The boundaries that were set up were ones established by Beca. In the beginning of their budding friendship, Beca would freeze up at the soft touch that Chloe would touch her forearm with, cease to move if the redhead threw a casual arm around her shoulders. And occasionally she would downright refuse a touch, especially cuddling. She simply didn't know an appropriate response. This of course was all before the feelings grew to the next level.

But Beca grew better at acting out normal reactions, she knew she had to if she didn't want to blow the cover of her feelings. When she reciprocated touches or even instigated them, she was tentative and careful. She often overanalyzed her movements, scrutinizing her actions for stupidity.

Like now. But the stupidity was in abundance. She snuck a glance at Chloe, who was waiting for her coffee to cool like a normal person, flipping through this month's Rolling Stone magazine from Beca's nightstand.

She probably wrote off Beca's klutziness as her normal behavior. Beca opened her laptop and nearly slammed it shut when she saw that her Facebook was open, on Chloe Beale's profile page. She forgot that she had been lightly Facebook stalking her best friend last night before she went to bed. But she couldn't hide her small gasp, and Chloe turned to look at the object of Beca's surprise.

Chloe caught the glimpse of her own timeline photo, a picture of the Bella's celebrating after last year's win at the ICAAs.

"Becs is that my profile?"

"Y-Yeuppp. That's the one," she replied, her eyebrows raised comically.

"Ooh, seems I have a little stalker! Or a secret admirer," Chloe said, winking playfully.

"What are you talking about? I would NEVER be your secret admirer," Beca shot back, before realizing that she sounded insanely defensive and harsh. A look of vague hurt came over the redhead's features and her shoulders slumped a bit.

"Okay jeez, I was just kidding. You know that Beca..." Chloe said, a quizzical look in her eyes.

Beca quickly changed the subject to the schedule for rehearsal of the week and what was on the Bellas' agenda to practice. Things seemed normal for the rest of the morning. But what Beca didn't know is that in the back of Chloe's mind, she was still mulling over what Beca's strange behavior was about. She tucked it away to think about for later.