A/N - So, I bet everyone thought this was abandoned. I didn't mean to stop updating, it just happened, life got in the way. But I'm here, and determined to finish this thing. So here I go again!
Chapter Four
Time began to go faster, now that Beca was settling into being at Barden.
She had yet to get a chance to play music at the radio station gig, but she found a few opportunities to hang out with the other freshman who was interning there, Jesse. He was pretty funny, although slightly too obsessed with movies for Beca's liking, but she thought he was going to become a pretty good friend. Aside from an awkward moment of him moving in for a kiss while they watched a movie in her room, and she was saved by Kimmy Jin (who knew she'd actually be grateful for her room mate's timing?), she was enjoying hanging out with him.
And the Bella's were improving too. Slowly, but surely, and then came the riff off, where they got to test out their skills.
The riff off rocked.
The Bella's rocked it.
It was just a shame that the Bella's didn't actually win.
Beca couldn't believe it. They lost on a technicality. Like come on, who cared if she sang it's instead of it?
And, of course, it was too much to hope for to have Aubrey at least say they had done well. Instead, she told them all that they needed to write a list of what they had done wrong. Was she serious?
The group began to slowly disperse, chattering to each other about the riff off. As Beca turned to go, she caught sight of Chloe speaking hurriedly to Aubrey, then coming towards her.
"Hey!" Chloe said brightly, as she threaded her arm through Beca's. "Where are you headed?"
"Uh, well apparently I need to go and write a list of how we screwed up tonight, so, uh…" Beca replied.
Chloe chuckled. "Oh, don't worry about it. Trust me, Aubrey will forget about it by the next rehearsal, considering we're still working on getting the moves down."
"Thanks for the tip." Beca shot a quick look at Chloe, and then back at the ground.
"So, you're also a Dr. Dre fan, it seems," Chloe commented.
Beca pulled up short, causing Chloe to jerk to a stop. The redhead looked at her, a sparkle in her eye. "Well, he does have a mellow accent, after all," Beca said. "You like Dr. Dre?"
Chloe grinned at the brunette. "You know, I have better musical tastes than you think I do. Just because the Bella's musical set is a little outdated, doesn't mean that my tastes are. In fact, I'm a little hurt that you don't give me more credit." She puffed her bottom lip out in mock hurt, but followed it with a wink.
"Right. Well maybe, you might burn me a CD or something sometime, so I can get to know your tastes better?" Beca raised her eyebrows suggestively.
Chloe grinned at Beca's suggestion. "Only if you do the same for me? That way, if we ended up at another riff off and you start shooting off a rap or something, I won't be so shocked that I forget to help you out until Stacie has to nudge me."
A laugh bubbled out of Beca's mouth, causing Chloe to grin. "Alright, you have officially impressed me."
"Good, that was easier than I thought. I would have tried a lot harder for you, Beca," Chloe said, her tone serious but the smile on her face keeping the mood light.
Unsure of how to respond, Beca simply shot Chloe a smile, and continued to walk with her to their dorm building.
Chloe kept true to her promise, and provided Beca with a CD of her top thirty favourite songs – "although you'll have to keep in mind, my favourite songs are ever changing, so the list will probably be completely different next week," she added with a wink.
Beca listened to it the following night after a particularly arduous Bella's rehearsal, and had to admit that she was impressed with Chloe's song selection. There was a decent mixture of genres, mostly new songs, with a couple older ones and one or two Disney songs thrown into the mix (gotta remember to judge her for that later, Beca thought with a smirk).
And, she was even surprised to find, some of the songs on Chloe's CD, if not most of them, would most likely be also found on her own favourite playlist. Chloe had good taste.
Rather than simply making up a CD of her own favourite songs, Beca decided to make her playlist into a long mashup of all of them combined. Knowing that Chloe was going to be listening to it, she felt motivated to ensure it was as good as it could possibly be, so therefore spent hours labouring over it.
This was much more time consuming than she originally planned, as she did not take into consideration exactly how much time Bella's rehearsals were going to take.
"Come on, everyone, get it together, it needs to be perfect!" Aubrey cried to the group, after two long hours of rehearsal. "One more run through. Places!"
A few sighs were heard throughout the women, but they obeyed Aubrey's command and moved into their positions. At the sound of the pitch pipe and Aubrey's count, they got into it.
The run through went well until Chloe's voice broke at the end.
"Chloe, you need to hit that note at the end, okay?" Aubrey told her.
Chloe sighed. "I can't. It's because of my…nodes." Most of the girls chimed in the final word with her.
"Well then we'll have to find someone else for your solo," Aubrey replied, pressing her lips together.
Chloe seized the opportunity, and suggested Beca to take the solo. However, Aubrey wouldn't hear of it, especially when Beca asked to pick a new song for it.
As the girls left the rehearsal, Chloe pulled Beca aside.
"I'm sorry, Beca. She just won't listen. I don't want to push her too hard, she's under a lot of pressure from her father, and winning Nationals pretty much means everything to her," Chloe explained.
"Hey, don't worry about it. I'm glad that Amy is so happy about having a solo, she'll do great," Beca replied easily. "I appreciate you trying for me." She purposely didn't comment about Aubrey, knowing that anything coming out of her mouth regarding the blonde wouldn't be nice, and she didn't want to upset Chloe.
Chloe smiled and bumped her shoulder into Beca's. "Oh, so what did you think of my CD?"
Beca hesitated slightly. "Well…aside from the two Disney songs on there-" at this, Chloe gave a mock pout, "-I thought it was pretty awesome. You've got great taste in music."
Chloe beamed. "I knew you'd like it. Great minds think alike, and all that. So, when am I going to get to hear some of your music choices?"
"Soon, I promise. I've been working on a CD for you, it's just not ready yet," Beca told her. Over Chloe's shoulder, she noticed Aubrey glaring at them, her arms crossed. "Uh, looks like Aubrey's in need of some attention. I gotta get going anyway, I have a shift at the station. See you tomorrow?"
"Yeah. See you tomorrow," Chloe responded. She shot the brunette a wink, and then turned to head over to Aubrey.
"What is going on between you and Beca?" Aubrey demanded, turning her glare on Chloe.
The redhead took a step back. "Um, we're friends? I'm not really sure what you mean, Bree."
"If I didn't know better, I'd swear that you both had huge toner for each other," Aubrey replied, tossing her hair back. "Although I can totally tell that Beca's got it for Jesse. Did you see them at the riff off? They were practically having eye sex."
Chloe felt her stomach drop slightly. Yeah, she had seen Beca and Jesse looking at each other a few times, but she had interpreted it to be in more of a friendly way. Aubrey was just exaggerating. Or was she? Chloe shook her head to try to clear it. What did it matter to her anyway?
"Alright, we have Regionals in a week. Make sure you're practicing your scales, okay?"
Chloe nodded, lost in thought.
Beca stood at the back of the hall, the other Bella's around her, as she watched the Socapellas perform. Sure, they weren't quite 'traditional', but they were different – something that Beca thought was a definite bonus for them. She wondered if the Bella's were good enough to beat them, with their outdated music.
Chloe stepped forward into the space next to Beca, brushing her arm against the brunette's. "Nervous?" she whispered.
"Uh, not really," Beca replied in an equally soft voice. She glanced over, and saw a confident smile on Chloe's face. She tried to match it, and took a slow breath as they were called onto stage.
Here goes nothing.
They placed second, and were making it through to the semi-finals! Chloe was thrilled.
She got somewhat nervous halfway through, as she was keeping an eye on the judges while she was singing, and caught a couple of yawns. That was not good. However, Amy started rocking it out on stage, and really got into her solo. That definitely helped our placing, Chloe thought to herself, and began to understand Beca's reasoning for wanting a new set more than ever.
She decided to tell Beca so, however she didn't get a chance. As the Bella's exited the hall into the lobby area, they caught sight of the Treblemakers, having a confrontation with an older group of retired acapella singers.
"I'm just gonna go…" Beca said, moving down the stairs to break up the fight.
Amy's face lit up, and shouted "the Kracken has been unleashed!" as she followed Beca.
Chloe could hardly watch. She was so not a fighter, although she did respect Beca for wanting to help a friend. She watched, biting her lip, and then flinched as she heard the crack of Beca's fist connecting with the man's cheek.
It went even crazier, and the next thing she realised, there was glass everywhere and people were fleeing.
"Oh my god," Chloe gasped, clutching at the collar of her own shirt as she watched Amy running down the corridor, leaving Beca standing frozen, alone, in front of the shattered glass.
Chloe made a move to hurry down the staircase to get to Beca, but Aubrey pulled on her arm. "Chloe, you don't want to get involved, okay?" she said sharply.
Chloe turned to face Aubrey. "Actually, I do." She tugged herself out of Aubrey's grip, and took the stairs as fast as her heels would allow. By the time she reached Beca, the security guard was already on the phone to the cops.
"Look, it's a misunderstanding. I was trying to break up a fight, not create vandalism!" Beca explained to the security guard.
"It's true!" Chloe exclaimed, wrapping an arm around Beca's shoulders. The brunette turned her head to her, a grateful expression on her face.
"Whatever. Tell it to the cops when they get here," the guard replied. He crossed his arms menacingly, and frowned.
Beca glanced around. Most of the crowd had taken off when the glass shattered, leaving a few observers, and the Bella's still grouped together on the staircase. She sighed, wondering how she got herself into this mess.
"Don't worry, it'll be okay," Chloe whispered reassuringly in her ear. She brought her free hand across to lace her fingers in Beca's. "I'll stay here with you."
"It's alright, I don't want you getting dragged down in any of this mess," Beca told her. "I'll probably just have to make a statement or something."
Jesse, who had been hanging back with a couple of the Trebles who didn't run off, took this chance to step forward. He glanced briefly at Chloe's hand in Beca's, and frowned at the redhead.
Before he got a chance to say anything, two police officers stepped through the glass doors. A hush fell across the room as they surveyed the scene, and zeroed in on Beca, Chloe and the security guard.
"She threw a trophy through the window," the security guard informed the police. Stepping away, the three men had a brief conversation, while managing to keep their eyes on Beca. She squeezed Chloe's hand a little tighter.
"Alright, ma'am, you're going to have to come down to the station with us," the burlier of the two cops said, glaring at her. "We don't take vandalism lightly here."
"But it was an accident! I didn't break it. I was breaking up a fight," Beca spluttered.
The officer held his hand up to stop the flow of voices coming from Chloe and the rest of the Bella's, while the other officer pulled out handcuffs.
"Oh my god," Chloe moaned softly. "You're not arresting her, are you? She didn't do anything!"
"Ma'am, I'm going to ask you to step away, or we'll be taking you too," the officer said to her sternly.
Chloe made to argue, but stopped at the sharp look Beca gave her. "Chloe, it's not worth it. Please, for me?"
Chloe sighed, but gave into the pleading look that Beca was giving her. With her arm still around Beca's shoulder, she gave her a quick, one armed hug, and then stepped back reluctantly. The officer holding the handcuffs moved into her space, and attached the silver rings to Beca's wrists.
Within a minute, Beca had been led away by the two police officers. The Bella's came rushing down to crowd around Chloe, all of them babbling about the events of the evening and expressing their concern for Beca. Aubrey stepped close to Chloe and placed a hand on her elbow.
"I'll go to the station and bail her out," Chloe told her, looking at her friend with worried eyes.
"Actually, no. I've already called her dad, he's going to get her," Jesse spoke up. He glanced briefly at the redhead, and then looked away. "I'm going down there now. She won't want many people there. I'll be fine with her dad. Just go home, okay? I think you all have done enough."
Chloe's mouth dropped open in shock, watching Jesse walk away. She turned to Aubrey, shaking her head. "Beca's not going to be happy about that. Her dad will be pissed. And I don't know why Jesse was acting all weird to me, I've hardly met him. But I still want to go down to the station to get Beca."
Aubrey sighed, running a hand through her hair. This evening was just too much.
"You know what, how about we all go to Beca's room? We can wait for her there?" Stacie spoke up. The rest of the Bella's all joined in with their approval of the idea.
"Hey, guys? What's going on, where's Beca?"
Amy had returned. She was walking sheepishly back down the corridor towards them, a guilty expression on her face. "I didn't mean to run off, I just panicked. I didn't realise a broken window was scarier than a kangaroo after he's eaten fermented mushrooms."
"Come on, we'll fill you in on the way," Aubrey finally said, looping her arm through Chloe's elbow. As a group, they headed out to the parking lot.
TBC…