Chapter 4

Semi finals were here, Beca was in her room putting on her Bella uniform listening to the radio. She had just finished when she heard a familiar beat; Beca froze. Her eyes went wide, she looked around her room frantically, grabbing her bag, she ran out her door, down the stairs, and sprinted to the radio station at the edge of campus.

She burst into the station, "Hey! This is my track! You're playing my song right now! That is awesome! You like it? You put it on the radio! That is amazing!"

Luke looked over at her, "It's a sick beat."

Blood was pounding in her ears, after months and months of stacking CDs, making coffee, fetching lunches, and giving Luke her mixes, she was hearing her mix, HER MIX, on the radio.

"Hey, Becky, listen spring break, I want you to take the night shift. Play your music. The DJ at the garage does a brilliant version of this, but yours? It's better."

"Yeah it is." Beca shot back, her head high. She was floating, all of her hard work was paying off. This was her chance, her opportunity. She was one step closer.

Luke invited her to check out a DJ at a club that night, but she had to refuse because of Bellas, because of semi-finals. She was sitting on the Bella bus, ruminating about it all. Luke was giving her a chance and she was here with these idiots. She had this feeling in her chest, almost like pain. Why was she wasting her time wearing this stupid uncomfortable uniform, singing these stupid songs, when there were real opportunities out there to make music. She looked out the window, watching the Georgia fields tumble past them.

A few rows back on the other side of the aisle was Chloe, with her ear buds in, humming to herself.

"Hopped off the plane at LAX with a dream and my cardigan.." the redhead sang to herself.

Beca caught the gentle lilting voice behind her, she fidgeted and kept staring ahead.

"welcome to the land of fame excess, am I going to fit in?" she heard Cynthia Rose's harmony join in.

Fat Amy joined in, and pretty soon the entire bus was singing along. Beca averted her gaze, refusing to make eye contact with anyone else and be ushered to join in this "Glee" moment, as she had began to call these interruptive nonsensical sugary sweet musical moments that now frequently invaded her days as a Barden Bella. Beca rolled her eyes, this song? THIS SONG?

Aubrey turned to look at her, smiling, Beca shot a sideways glance at her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Chloe, leaning out of her seat with a huge smile of expectation plastered on her face. Beca's head swung back, "Oh! okay?" she laughed. Everyone was staring at her now, they sang the last line of the prechorus and everything fell quiet.

She looked over to see Chloe, looking at her, with the same expectation but no more smile-instead, that look, the one with the fire of the moment. Beca smiled.

what the hell

She took a breath and sang out, "So I put my hands up they're playing my song." Everyone joined in.

Beca threw her head back, raising her fist, "butterflies fly away"

Chloe sang into her iPod like a microphone,"Nodding my head like yeah.. Moving my hips like yeah"

Beca closed her eyes, lost in the moment, the voices singing together in harmony. She felt her shoulders moving to the imaginary beat, rocking out. As they finished the last bits of the chorus, they felt the bus sputtering to a stop. They realized what was wrong and called the Trebles, taking their bus the rest of the way.

The girls stood in the wings on deck, five minutes away from their performance. Beca watched the Footnotes perform flawlessly in front of her.

There was nothing they could do, they were going to get creamed by those twerps. Beca was furious. They were in their show circle, Aubrey looked at them all, "A-ca-huddle, now. The top two teams go to the finals, so we just have to beat one of them. And if we do it exactly how we rehearsed it, we will get there, okay? Exactly. Hands in."

Beca shot a look at Fat Amy. She couldn't believe this.

She could feel it all slipping away between each background "oo" of I Saw the Sign, she looked over at that smug punk in the wings dancing and smirking, he knew that they had it in the bag. But Beca wasn't going to let that happen. Fire was coursing through her veins, she could her the beat of the song throbbing with the blood in her ears. Luke's look of disdain and disappointment when she'd mentioned the Bellas, and she heard her mix pumping through the speakers of the station, she heard Bulletproof. Closing her eyes, she took a breath and started singing, "This time, baby, I'll be bulletproof."

Everyone was looking over at her. Beca tried to keep from smiling. The song fit perfectly, and it sounded awesome layered with the original arrangement. Aubrey was sending her death glares; Beca was averting her eyes, trying to keep her face straight. They walked off the stage.

"What the hell Beca? Were you trying to screw us up?" screeched Aubrey.

"Are you serious?" Beca couldn't believe that Aubrey thought she was intentionally trying to sabotage them when all she wanted was for them to have a chance at winning.

"Newsflash. This isn't the Beca Show."

Beca was looking her straight in the eye now, "Okay, I'm sorry that I messed you up, but in case you hadn't noticed, everybody pretty much dozed off during our set."

"It's not your job to decide what we do and when we do it. Why don't you ask the rest of the group how they felt about your little improvisation?" Aubrey turned, gesturing to the other girls. Beca looked at the girl she knew would have her back on this more than anyone," Amy?"

Fat Amy looked back at her, caught in between the two fuming girls, "It was cool. But it did take us a little bit by surprise."

"Yeah, a lot like surprise." shouted Aubrey

"Mmmm a little." Amy replied, shrugging her shoulders.

Aubrey turned to Chloe, looking for anyone to blame that their chance had slipped away from them, "I told you she wasn't a Bella."

Chloe's heart broke, she looked at Beca and then back over,"Aubrey, don't."

She saw in that split moment a memory flash before her eyes- her and Chloe talking after the riff off, Chloe reaching for her hand. Bile was rising in Beca's throat, "No, that's okay." she shot at Chloe, "You don't have to pretend, you're allowed to have a say in the group, right?"

Figurative steam was rising from Aubrey's ears as she continued on her stampede of rage zeroing in on Beca, "Your attitude sucks. You're a grade-A pain in my ass, and I know you're hooking up with Jesse."

Beca heard Jesse's voice behind her, "Woah, woah, Aubrey, calm down. We're not hooking up, I swear."

She spun around, "Jesus Christ! That's perfect. Of course you're here right now. I don't need your help, okay? Can you back off?"

Jesse, with his Prince Charming act, again. This fight was between her and Aubrey, no one else. She scanned everyone's shocked faces-Jesse, Chloe, Fat Amy, Aubrey, and threw her hands up, choking back a sob in the back of her throat, spitting her words out, "If this is what I get for trying…"

As she stormed off, Benji tried to chase after her,"Beca? Beca, wait."

Chloe turned to Aubrey, trying to put a gentle hand on her arm, "Aubrey, it actually went really well."

Aubrey spun around to look at Chloe with fury in her eyes, it was too much, victory had been stolen out of their grips again, "Chloe, stop!

It was all over, and now it was midnight here. The campus was empty, everyone else was gone for spring break, but Beca was okay. She was playing her music on the radio, this was all she had ever hoped for. Bellas were over since there was nothing else to compete for in the season.

She had gotten what she had wished for, the chance to focus on her own music. The studio was empty. She walked around the big empty space. It was weird being in such a huge place by herself at night.

She looked over at the CD tower, The Breakfast Club.

There was an unceasing emptiness inside of her since the Bellas had ended. She hadn't expected this, she had expected that she was going to dive into her new disc jockey gig at the station, and that it would be everything she had hoped, but it wasn't. She would hit play and watch the soundwaves on the screen bounce up and down.

She turned the cd case over in her hand.

In a few hours she went back to her dorm room, her empty dorm room. Everyone had left for Spring Break, but Beca didn't want to be anywhere else, and she definitely did not want to go home, whatever that meant. She looked over at the stack of DVDs that Jesse had left on her shelf. She had nothing else to do so she put the Breakfast Club in. For the next few days, Beca barely was seen in sunlight. She would wake up around three or four in the afternoon, grab some food and head to the station. Then when she got home in the middle of the night she'd watch a movie so she wouldn't have to hear the deafening silence that was usually filled with the sounds of other students in their rooms.

It was late, so late, she had been crying to the end of a movie. Then she had fallen asleep curled in an awkward position curled around, but not touching her laptop.

It was the last day of Spring Break before everyone came back. She lifted her head and groggily looked around at the food and DVDs scattered around her, depressed. Maybe movies weren't all as stupid as she had posited they were. Maybe Jesse wasn't as much of an idiot as she had made him out to be. She felt guilt, sitting at the bottom of her stomach with the leftover pizza she had eaten at 5AM. She picked up her phone, it was 9AM. There were so many people in her life she needed to apologize to. She closed her eyes, she'd spent the last year ready to fight with everyone she met, but they were good people who wanted good things for her. They weren't out to sabotage her, and she needed to stop treating everyone like an enemy; they didn't deserve that. She tried to decide where to start.

She typed out an apology to Jesse, telling him that she had watched the movies, and that he was right. He didn't respond. She tried calling him a couple hours later, he didn't pick up.

The next day, when the campus was filled again with the sounds and sights of people, she went looking for him. She knocked on his door.

"Jesse, I know you're in there. I can smell popcorn."

Silence.

"Jesse, come on. Open up. Hey, I tried to call you. I left a bunch of messages." She heard someone approach the door. Jesse opened it, looking not too happy,"Yeah, I got them."

She opened her mouth, "I'm sorry that we fought. I was mad and I overreacted and I'm just…Aubrey makes me crazy."

Jesse shook his head in disbelief, "Seriously? You think I'm mad because you yelled at me?"

Beca was taken aback,"No, I know…"

Jesse cut her off, "No, you don't. You think you know, but you don't. You push away anyone who could possibly care about you. Why is that?"

His words hit her like a ton of bricks. This was not how she had expected the conversation to go. She had wanted to apologize for being a cynical asshole, for yelling at him when he tried to help her. She expected him to forgive her, after all, didn't he want to be together? Apparently not.

"I don't know." she stuttered out.

"Well, you better figure it out because I'm done with…Whatever this is."

"Jesse…"

"I'm done."

He shut the door in her face.

She stood there for a second taking in what had just transpired. If Jesse had enough backbone to make a point of shutting the door in her face, he was serious. He probably would have killed to have had her show up at his doorstep before their fight, but something had changed.

Beca felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. Is this how they were all going to go? She turned and walked away, swallowing the fear that had risen up in her chest-setting her face like flint. Jesse was literally supposed to be the easiest out of all the people she had to go and apologize to, the one she had expected most too forgive her the most. With a heavy heart, she started walking to the residence of the next person she needed to apologize to.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to write any of my own scenes with Chloe/Beca this chapter. There is just so much content from the films to get through at this point... Anyway, hate to be that person who's work isn't largely original, but I feel like I need to lay down a really solid base of my perspective on the way the films went down in order to build into my own stuff. I know everyone's wondering how I'm going to get rid of Jesse ...(and bring in the Bechloe) hahaha

All I can say right now is that I think its important for us to see how things transpire with him for Beca because it's a significant part of her personal development (which as you can see, is a huge part of what I want to do here), that helps her get to the point that she's ready to have a relationship with Chloe. I think things work like that in life.

I'm going to really get more and more into Beca's career development/pressure/stress because I think its a huge part of her personal development in the second film and growing up/realizing her love. ANYWAY, let me know what you guys think. I LOVE it when people review, it really makes my day to hear back from y'all.

-Lyrabird