The earth-shattering eruption of an alarm clock shocked Chloe back into consciousness.

No, it couldn't be morning already.

6:05 a.m.

Fuck. It was morning.

Hopeful little rays of sunlight filtered in under the heavy curtains that were drawn, and Chloe swung her legs over the side of the bed to meet them. She wobbled instantly as vision swung like the nauseating arc of a pendulum. Fuck again. She staggered to her desk to put her weight on something besides her own legs. Chloe looked over to Aubrey's bed on the other side of the room and found her sound asleep. Funny how most people look peaceful when they sleep, but Aubrey looked oddly determined even while dreaming.

But there were more important worries at hand. It was now 6:08 a.m. and Chloe had to be in the law school by 6:45 as the public relations intern to the university's department to learn the ropes of her future career. This morning, of all days. After a night that involved abundant class and five glasses of wine at Anton's that hadn't ended until two a.m. Chloe had ended up going alone to Anton's like she predicted, but the night got much further out of hand than she could have anticipated.

It was the smallest dinner that she ever attended at Anton's- only three other guests besides herself and of course their intriguing host made five. It was intimate but not uncomfortable, the type of "safe space" that a therapist would kill to simulate in their own office. And it seemed no one had shown up with their usual dates or connections- everyone had come alone just like her. The night began like usual. Each guest strolling into the parlor of Anton's house, offering their bottle of wine or appetizer, Anton passing out glasses to each of them while they swirled and made small talk and mused over his most recent work of art. Then they would assemble in a team in the kitchen to put dinner together to the cue of Italian opera, the chop-chop-chopping of the knife always in tune, each person moving like a cog in the wonderful dance of a clock. They sat down at the table in the dining room that was surrounded by art from around the world.

Anton led grace like always and they dug in to the savory confections of their loving teamwork. The five went around the table dissecting their recent dreams, the blush of the alcohol becoming apparent on all the guests' cheeks. It was warm, it was a non-traditional assembly of family. Chloe always indulged in the warmth she felt at Anton's table, and in the wine as well. But tonight was different, it felt safer than usual. Like a calm-before-the-storm type of safe, a too-good-to-be-true safe. She looked around the table and saw the candle's flames dancing in each person's eyes and was compelled to toast.

"To the beauty that I see in each of you, the same I wish the world sees."

It caught even Anton off-guard, not Chloe Beale's confidence because that was typical of course, but the touching nature of the gesture. It changed the course of the night, perhaps, because he added his own.

"To each of you, to all of us together. To the collection of us in the world that brought us together in this very night, in my house of all places, around this table so that we could share the warmth of each other's company. Amazing, isn't it, that all our paths crossed at this very moment, in this life at this time? Should we believe in chance, or destiny? Here's to the wonderful circumstances that dictated our meeting, whatever they may be."

She could drink to that. But the thought of paths crossing resonated with her in a way that reminded her of someone. A certain Beca Mitchell, someone. How just two weeks before, she had exited her room at precisely the time that Beca was passing, was too preoccupied in putting an earring in so that her head was turned and they slammed into each other. If she had put that tiny little earring in earlier, she would have seen Beca coming and avoided the collision, and they wouldn't have given each other a second thought. They wouldn't have had anything to talk about in Stacie's room, even if they had both been in it later on. The situation absolutely screamed that it was meant to be. They literally collided into one another, how symbolic was that?

"Everything is meant to be. But nothing is 100 percent anything," she murmured.

"Nothing is 100 percent anything, is that what you said, my dear?"

"Yes, that's right. It's just that nothing can be positively chance, just like nothing can be chock full of only destiny. They coexist."

"My, my. I think you just unlocked the universe, Ms. Beale," Anton smiled warmly. He sat back in his chair. The rest of the table pondered the thought with shared amazement on their faces.

Here she was now, the prospect of more time with Beca Mitchell like a puzzle before her. She had all the pieces, but how could she put them together?

And then.. It came to her.

Of all the things that had brought her here today, it was the prequel to a chance. Fat Amy cancelling, her having to move up a day herself, her worrying about how she would see Beca again, it all locked together with one. Simple. Solution.

She knew that the open mind of Anton would allow the plan to click into place. She giddily awaited a break in the conversation that had divulged into philosophy.

"This is the Last Supper, correct?" she asked him casually as they cleared the table in preparation for dessert.

"Yes. In theory. As a means for one last hurrah before the year ends. But I guess I should have called it the Second to Last Supper, because there's always tomorrow too. In fact, that reminds me. We're bringing out the Schnapps tonight."

"Can't argue with that! However, what would you say if I asked you if I could come tomorrow night too?"

He turned to her, placing his weathered hand on her shoulder. "You're always welcome under this roof, Ms. Beale. I would love to have your company."

"Even if I brought a guest… Or two?"

"Even better. The more the merrier. I love opening the minds of youth."

"Well I guess it's settled then. Should I get us tickets to the show?" The group had plans to attend a play downtown after an early dinner, sponsored by Anton.

"Don't you worry about that. I'll cover your tickets. You just worry about convincing your friends to come."

"All right. Thanks, Anton."

They escorted the plates of apple pie al la mode to the dining room, and Anton surprised the room with a box containing several bottles of Schnapps. Peppermint, cinnamon, Irish creme, it was overwhelming how much there was. He also took out miniature crystal goblets, the classiest shot glasses Chloe had ever laid eyes on, while they selected their drinks.

Chloe fired a quick text to Stacie. "Hey kid. You, me, Anton's tomorrow night."

"I thought you're there tonight?"

"True. He wanted to meet you too," she punctuated with the dancing emoji.

"If he's down, I'm down. But I'll have Becs with me…"

"It's totes fine. 'The more the merrier' he said. See you tomorrow, more deets then."

Stacie replied with the kissy face emoji.

Chloe had succeeded in locking down Beca at least for the first night of the weekend.

There were no longer boundaries, not that there had been any in the first place, but even the idea of boundaries was gone. The night took a turn. Somehow Anton had gotten to the topic of sexuality. He was explaining his journey to being openly gay and how he had to keep his relationships secret through decades of the non-understanding population at large. He talked about how people didn't understand that sexuality was a shifting scale and that it was fluid- it didn't have to be solid. It could be something that changed within a person. It didn't have to be something that always stayed the same, because how was something so central to someone's identity supposed to stay the same as the person grew and found new experiences and people and viewpoints?

"You know, I was alive when they created the Kinsey scale." He turned to Chloe and the other guest closest to him as the other three were involved in another talk at the other end.

"What's the Kinsey scale?"

"Heh. Well like I've said, sexuality changes. It can't always fit neatly into a box. A few scientists who, mind you, were way ahead of their time, came up with a scale to measure the hetero/homo sexuality of a person. They concluded that there isn't just a 'straight' or 'gay' but that there's a lot in between, and people could rate their gayness or straightness by the results of the test to the scale."

"Wow. That must have been revolutionary."

"It was. I took the test as soon as I found it. It's funny. I took it back then, and then I took it again when I was 20, and then again when I was 40. The number changed each time."

The group murmured their agreement with the reasoning.

"Say, for example, Ms. Beale here were to take it."

"Yeah- wait what?" This was completely out of the blue, she couldn't hide her surprise at the sudden turn in conversation.

"You're probably over here, on the straight end, right? Well then-"

"-Um."

"Wait a second, I said you were on the straight end, not the other end-"

"-Yes. Okay go on-"

"-...Am I correct in saying that you're heterosexually inclined?"

And then she panicked. Perhaps it was the alcohol, or the sudden feel of the walls closing in. Or the fact that she had been pushing the question out of her mind for the last two weeks, and finally someone else had asked it out loud. Directly at her.

And she couldn't answer. Because she didn't know anymore. It was as if she had been staring at the starry night sky, the same one that she had stared at all her life, and suddenly she found a tear down the middle of it; discovering that it wasn't the universe that she had spent so much time looking at but found it was just a backdrop instead.

So after a beat too long, she replied in a hushed tone.

"I'd rather not discuss this," she whispered. "Please."

Anton held her eyes for a moment, and the knowing that was in his eyes only intensified her fear. She smiled nervously at the other boy across the table while Anton expertly smoothed over the stumble in the conversation by comparing himself to him, pointing out their differences on the scale and further illustrating his point. The group's attention waned under the weight of indulgence from the food and alcohol, and the weight of the hour pressed on them as well. No one even noticed that Chloe's self-confidence had just received a self-inflicted fracture and would never be the same. But Anton still met her eyes across the table some minutes later when the conversation pursued the whim of another guest's wonder.

She finished two more glasses in the next twenty minutes in order to run away from realization that hit her. It was only the start, she knew, the crack in the dam that was being plugged with her thin finger. Water was already seeping out, and it was only a matter of time.

This is precisely what she continued to feel the next morning at the ungodly hour of six a.m. as she headed to the law school. Her head was pounding with hangover once again and the sunglasses did nothing to protect her from the rising sun. Chloe needed more than four hours of sleep, a dark room, and some aspirin. But instead she was heading to her very important internship and then to Friday classes immediately after, and then to her job after that. There was no chance of slowing down until tonight, and seeing Beca was her only light at the end of the tunnel. She was the simultaneous cause of the butterflies fluttering around in her stomach (they made her feel more nauseous, so it was counterproductive, actually), but the day seemed to drip spitefully by as if it knew what the promise of the night held.

The redhead still couldn't believe that she had pulled off the planning. Tuesday's Comm 499 class seemed so far away from now, from the chance of overhearing Stacie's casual conversation to making sure that Anton would have her back. It was exciting to have two people who had become so special to her meet each other. As long as Anton didn't bring up their conversation last night, all would be well. Who knew what would happen? She hoped that it involved spending as much time with the intriguing girl as possible.

She had the feeling that she would remember tonight for the rest of her life.

They'll meet again next chapter I promise! Drop a review telling me what you did or didn't like! Thanks guys. :)