A/N: Sorry for the delay, this story is not abandoned! I had exams the past two weeks, but I have a whole week off this week so I'll try to write most of the next chapter during this week too.

Just a slight warning that I forgot wasn't aforementioned: there will be slight mentions of suicide in this story. It won't happen, and it is only mentioned as it is seen as a practical solution to Beca's problem, but I thought I should warn you guys, just in case a few of you want to steer clear of anything like that.

Enjoy.


CHAPTER THREE

DAY TWO - 07:37 A.M.

Beca shot up straight in her bed, her face and t-shirt drenched with sweat. Her eyes darted all around the room, and upon noticing she was still in Tom's dorm, with Luke dozing soundly in the other bed, she let out a desperate, relieved whimper and allowed her head to fall back down to the pillow.

Beca rarely remembered her dreams, and when she did remember them, they were never vivid, they were blurry and she was unable to remember what exactly happened in them in the morning.

This dream was nothing like that though.

It was the most life like thing she had ever experienced. She was in a car, or a taxi, more realistically, as she didn't recognise the driver. Once she had been seated, and strapped in, the driver turned around, flashing her a wicked grin that immediately made her gulp. Then, he slammed his foot on the accelerator and they went at lightening speed along an empty highway. It was so real, so terrifying. Beca could actually feel the seat behind her pressing hard against her back, the scream trapped in her throat. She placed her palms flat against the seats when she suddenly felt a whooshing sensation in her stomach, as if the car was falling, and when she turned her head to look out the window, the car was headed bonnet first into a lake, the water consuming them completely within ten seconds of impact.

Beca not only felt internal panic in the dream, but she felt physical signs too; her skin became hot, her body shaking, her breathing laboured. She scrambled to unbuckle her seat belt, the severity and fatality of the situation causing her to struggle hopelessly, but by the time she had managed to do it, the freezing water was all around her, threatening to rise above her head and-

That was when she woke up.

Beca lay in her bed, bunching up the duvet in her hands and using it to wipe the condensation off her forehead and cheeks. She glanced over to where Luke lay, his slumber unbroken and deep. She was grateful that her heavy breathing hadn't woken him, because she didn't know how to explain it to him. She didn't even know what to explain to him.

Did that happen to her? Did she drown, or almost drown? Could that be the reason behind her being inside Tom's body?

These were questions she was determined to find the answers to at some point. She needed to know what happened to her. In order for her to move on and move back, she needed to find out the cause. But first, she needed to understand what this was.

Beca had mostly gotten over her depression. Now, she just felt determined.

The day before, after getting over the initial shock of being prised from her own body, Beca began to try to recognise the benefits of taking refuge in Tom's. For one, she was at least a foot taller than previously (which she still hasn't gotten used to, and probably won't, for a while anyway), which was weird, but also strongly empowering. In one day, she had barely managed been able to walk extremely slowly, but it was enough to make her feel strong and alive. She felt a whole lot more confident as Tom (at least for a minute before remembering she didn't belong in his body). It was the feeling of the high self-esteem that comes with being tall that Beca had never felt before. It was peculiar, yet not unwelcome.

Secondly, she couldn't help but like the way people seemed to treat her, and look at her, as Tom. Apparently, Tom knew everyone on campus. After Luke's shift at the station, he came back to the room and suggested that he and Beca took a walk to get some fresh air. Beca had been reluctant originally, frightened at the thought of seeing some of Tom's friends and having to converse with them as if she actually knew them, but she went, regardless. Although she had been stopped multiple times by people (mainly to ask her why she didn't go to practise), Beca managed to get away with a couple of sentences and a promise to talk to them later. As she and Luke walked through campus in silence, (apart from the odd question from Luke, wondering why she was walking funny), the smiles and greetings Beca received seemed to come every twenty seconds. It was definitely odd, to feel like she mattered to people. To be popular. She had to admit, it was nice. Very nice.

But most of all, Beca noticed and appreciated how easy it was for her to breathe. She had been diagnosed with asthma at four years old, and ever since then it had only become more sensitive. A single speck of dust wouldn't send her into a raging coughing fit, but she couldn't walk more than a couple of blocks without reaching for her inhaler. So when she and Luke spent hours just wandering around the campus exchanging very few words, and Beca didn't even come close to feeling short of breath once, it struck her for the first time that being Tom may not have been all that bad. She had long since accepted that she would be plagued with asthma for the rest of her life, and now, she just didn't have to think about that. She found that a few times during her first day as Tom she would pat down the pockets of her jeans, panicking when she didn't feel the slight bulge of her inhaler, and then she would remember. It wasn't a terrible feeling.

Until she remembered the reason she was no longer asthmatic was that she wasn't in her own body. Then the terrible feeling set in.

One of the smaller cons of being trapped inside Tom was his being right-handed. Beca found herself reaching for things with her left hand, before realising Tom's was basically useless. She hadn't written anything yet as Tom, but picking up a pen with her right hand will certainly be something to get accustomed to.

Aside from those benefits and disadvantages of being Tom, all Beca could think about was herself, and her own body. What happened to it? Did she suddenly just go to sleep one night and wake up in Tom's four months later? Did she get in some kind of accident and she was in some sort of coma, or worse, dead? These were all questions that wouldn't leave her alone for the entire first day, but she knew that she hadn't the courage to find out. The lack of wifi in the dorm room almost drove her up the wall, but Luke returned from the station, he informed her that she could use the library the next day, as it wasn't open on Sundays.

Beca needed to find out what this was. That she wasn't the only one.

Beca reached over to the bedside locker and checked the time on Tom's clock. It was 07:43 A.M. The library opened at nine. She groaned, willing herself to go back to sleep, but the harder she tried, the more impossible it seemed to be, so she slowly and very quietly so she wouldn't disturb Luke, she removed the duvet from her body, and pushed herself up onto her feet, needing a second to find her balance. She stepped in front of the closet, and looked down at her feet and saw a shower caddy that she presumed was Tom's; it had the bare minimum-a bar of soap and a bottle of two in one shampoo and conditioner. The impression she had of Tom from looking through his things was that he wasn't one of those pretty boys who gelled their hair every single day and wore cologne whenever they went anywhere a female might be present. Tom seemed to have multiple hook-ups because of his natural good looks and charisma. He didn't need to drench his clothes with Lynx or own expensive clothes-his personality and natural appearance did the trick for him.

Beca slowly reached for the shower caddy, and made sure to close the closet door smoothly, biting down on her lip as she did wrapped her hand around the handle. She stripped her clothing off her, making sure to keep her head held high so she didn't have to see anything, and kicked them over to the foot of the bed, where Tom's bathrobe lay. She swiftly put it on, ensuring the string was tightly fastened around her waist, and headed out the door, throwing a quick glance back at Luke to see him still soundly asleep.

She walked slowly down the eerily quiet corridor, reaching out to the wall every so often so she didn't topple sideways. She was beginning to get the hang of moving around in Tom's body, but she had to pace herself. If she so much as sped up ever so slightly, she would begin to lose her balance. It was really fucking irritating, but it was something she would have to deal with.

Reaching the bathrooms, having to stop herself from stepping into the female ones, Beca picked the shower the furthest away from the door, and hung her robe outside the stall. She pulled the curtain once she got inside and let the cold water wash over her, cleansing her skin of the sweat the nightmare caused. After running the bar of soap over her body, she squeezed the bottle of shampoo above her hand, before coating both of her palms with it. She reached up to run her hands through her hair, forgetting her position for the moment, and got a shock when her fingers wove through the short locks. She sighed, willing herself not to start crying again, and looked down to the tiles, purposely avoiding looking at her penis.

It was definitely an… odd thing she would have to get used to. It was always there, and she found it slightly uncomfortable the way it sort of rested to one side when she was wearing underwear. It was a weird thought to have, but she had kind of hoped it would stay in the very centre (Beca was sort of OCD like that). And erections were just simply distracting and infuriating. She had only gotten two random ones so far, and she wasn't even aroused or anything (her mind was too occupied with other things to be turned on by anything). She hoped it didn't pop up like this very often, because she was completely uneducated on how to hide and handle them.

She supposed there were advantages to having penis, besides the obvious. One of Tom's regular hook-ups, 'Samantha (Southern Accent)', had texted the previous night wondering if he was free for reasons she made very clear, but Beca ignored the text. Even if she hadn't been too distraught to do anything but think about her current situation, she still probably would have said no. She had always wondered what it was like for a guy, but she really wasn't in the mood, and she felt like she wouldn't be in the mood for that sort of thing for quite some time.

She also knew it wouldn't be fair on this Samantha person. She wanted time with Tom, not some random girl who was stuck in Tom's body against her will. It wouldn't be right.

You are an absolutely sick, evil person.

Beca clamped her eyes shut, cringing at the memory of the voicemail. Since she heard it yesterday, she could barely get it out of her mind. It didn't take a genius to work out something very bad obviously happened to her original body, and some sociopaths were harassing her parents about it. Nothing had ever made Beca feel so angry before. She wasn't the friendliest or most approachable person, and could be rather irritable at times, but it was rather difficult to truly make her blood boil.

And oh, did this situation do just that.

Just the thought of her parents having to hear stupid teenagers jeer at them because their daughter was in an accident almost made Beca feel guilty. If getting into a car with her friends after going out that night in December was Beca's last memory before waking up in Tom's body, she presumed that was what caused this whole thing. If she wasn't so drunk, maybe she could have saved herself. She might have seen what was coming. Maybe she could have done something.

Beca sighed, tilting forward so her forehead pressed gently against the tiles of the wall. The cold condensation against her skin distracted her for a moment, before her active mind took over once again.

She had no idea what happened to her real body for this to have happened. Is she dead? Or is she still alive, but in a vegetative state, with Tom left trapped in a useless body? Beca was well aware that the answer to these questions were just a trip to the library and a few clicks of a mouse away, but that wasn't her reasoning for wanting to access internet.

She didn't have it in her to find out what happened to her. Yet.

She didn't want to find out that she was dead. That her real body had been buried months ago and that Tom had died with it, when she was the one who was supposed to die. One way to look on it would be that she was granted a gift-that she had been offered a second chance at life, in a new body. But Beca didn't want that. She didn't want to have to pretend to be Tom for the rest of her life.

She'd honestly rather be dead.

Beca was more interested in that moment in figuring out how she was in this new body, instead of what exactly put her there. She needed to find out what this was. The one truly terrifying thought she had was that she was the only person in the world like this. That she would search soul transportation and synonyms of the sort countless times and receive no proper results, except works of fiction.

The thought of being alone in this made Beca want to die. For real, this time.

Freezing cold water broke Beca from her thoughts and she yelped, jumping backwards. Quickly reaching forward to turn the shower off, she wrapped the robe around herself and swung the curtain open. She padded out of the cubicle and grabbed her shower caddy, racing back to Tom's room.

She entered quietly, wincing as the door creaked closed. Upon seeing Luke hadn't moved from his position in bed since Beca left, she acted immediately, opening Tom's closet and picking out a t-shirt, boxers and a pair of red sweatpants. She hastily threw the clothes on, before pocketing Tom's phone and moving silently to the door, leaving as quietly as she had entered.

The walk to the library wasn't long. Barden University's campus was large, but the library was only around the corner from Baker Hall. She made sure she and Luke passed by it on their walk, so she knew how to get there. She speed walked up to the front doors of the library and tried yanking them open, but they were locked, almost sending Beca toppling backwards at the force she used to pull them. It would take her a while to get accustomed to her new and increased levels of strength.

Beca sighed loudly and dug Tom's phone out of her pocket, clicking on the home button and groaning when she saw that the library opened in another forty minutes. She pressed her back against the wall of the building and slid down it slowly, raising an eyebrow at the phone. She saw that she had missed a call last night after eleven, from Mom. A text notification also informed her that there was a new voicemail awaiting her. Beca hesitated, reluctant to listen. She knew that she was Tom for now, and that there was no one else to listen to this message, but she still felt like she was intruding.

Rolling her eyes at herself, she dialled the voicemail number and pressed the phone to her ear.

'Hey, honey, it's your Mom. Your father and I were just wondering if you were coming home at all for the summer. We know you're going to Cancun with Josh and Steven but that's not until July. Dad's offering to help you move some of your stuff back home if you're coming. He got the truck back from Ray a couple of weeks ago, and he wants to use it as much as possible now, you know how he is. He's even offering to help Gerard Heffernan with bringing his old couch to the dump, you know Gerard Heffernan? Well, your father can't stand him but I think he just wants to show off the pick-up. Well, here I am getting off topic. You should come home, honey. Just for a week or two. She won't admit it but Stephanie wants to see you. She misses her big brother. My time is almost up here so I'll let you go but consider it, okay Tom? Love you, and take care.'

Beca frowned, closing her eyes. She couldn't think of anything worse-having to spend an entire two weeks with strangers who think they know you better than anyone. Tom's family would definitely know something was up. They would know something was wrong with Tom.

Beca forgot that the call to her voicemail was still going through. 'You have one old voice message, received on April 16th at 10:34 A.M. To listen to this voice message, press 1. To save the message and move on , press 2. To delete the message, press 3.'

Beca's eyes darted upwards, searching her surroundings until she was positive she was completely alone. Taking a deep breath, she pressed 1 and held the phone to her ear.

'You know, it's people like you who left Dr Mitchell no choice but to get rid of his phone and have all his calls go through me first. It's just too painful for him, to know that kids like you are taking joy out of his and his wife's suffering. Dr Mitchell is a very good man, and he does not deserve this torture. It is torture. If you call this number again, I'm phoning the police. You are an absolutely sick, evil person.'

By the time Beca had finished listening to it, the tears running down her cheeks had reached her neck. She closed her eyes tightly and let her head fall back against the brick wall, the phone still clenched in her hand and pressed roughly against her ear. 'To listen to the voice message again, press 1. To save it and m-'

Angrily, Beca jabbed at the screen until the message was playing again, her vision blurry with tears, her chest tightening. 'You know, it's people like you who left Dr Mitchell no choice but to get rid of his phone and have all his calls go through me first. It's just too painful for him, to know that kids like you are taking joy out of his and his wife's suffering. Dr Mitchell is a very good man, and he does not deserve this torture. It is tor-'

Beca had had enough, throwing the phone down against the tarmac, the screen shattering into hundreds of pieces. Beca couldn't find the ability to care. She covered her face with her hands, barely able to breathe. "Daaaaad," she howled, removing her face from her hands to suck in a large gulp of oxygen. "Daaaaaaad. Dad." She gasped for more air, sobbing shamelessly against the wall. She curled her body into itself and rocked back and forth slowly, trying to calm herself. The pain in her chest was indescribable. Her asthma attacks had never felt like this before. She felt like she was drowning again.

Again.

Beca didn't know how long she remained there doing that. She cried and begged for her dad multiple times a minute. It wasn't until she sniffed and opened her eyes, that she stiffened and sat up, and stared directly in front of her, humiliation suddenly setting in.

She was not alone.

Before her stood a girl with a stunned expression on her face. She clutched a large, bulging folder to her chest, her knuckles whitening at how hard she was gripping it. Her eyebrows were raised high, as her expression morphed slowly from shocked, to curious. Her red hair was held in a messy bun on her head. It was clear she had only woken minutes ago. Her eyes, although wide and surprised, looked tired. Beca wondered if Tom knew this girl. There were no give away signs from her expression to show this. She just looked horrified at what she had witnessed, as most people would do.

Almost as if something snapped inside her head, as if she realised she had somewhere to be, she broke eye contact with Beca, face burning with embarrassment, and quickly walked away, around the corner of the building and out of Beca's sight.

Beca sat there, unable to know what to do. She couldn't believe what had just happened. She had never felt so unsure of anything before in her life.

There was something she was sure of, though.

This girl just witnessed Tom crying for his dad, and Beca was going to have to confront her about it.