A/N: Thanks for reading. :) Oh and I'm kind of busy having a social life this summer with my girlfriend, and my writing naturally takes a backseat to that, so updates might be a tiny bit slower than we started out of the gate.

Chloe literally crawled out of bed the next morning. The only reason good enough was the knowledge that the hotel would stop serving breakfast soon.

"Beca."

A groan from somewhere under the covers.

"Wake up."

Another groan.

"Breakfast only goes 'til 10:00." Chloe yanked the covers down, making Beca immediately curl up and cover her eyes.

"So bright."

Chloe tossed Beca's sunglasses onto the bed, followed by enough clothes to be publicly acceptable and then got herself dressed. She smiled, watching Beca pull herself up and fight the battle of getting dressed without leaving the bed. She was a grump in the mornings as it was; add a touch of a hangover and the exhaustion that came with not going to sleep until five hours ago, and she was about as adorable as Grumpy Cat. Not that Chloe felt like a ray of sunshine this morning, but she was able to put on her perky face pretty easily nonetheless.

She left Beca to wage her war to brush her teeth. She was paused, inspecting her face in the mirror, when Beca shuffled in, mumbling to herself as she plopped on the toilet.

"Sorry, I'll step out," Chloe said, shocked that Beca was peeing in front of her.

"Pffft," Beca said, catching Chloe's wrist before she made it through the door and pointing her back to the sink with a shove.

"O...kay…" Chloe said, still kind of weirded out. This was definitely a new development.

Beca bumped her out of the way of the sink a moment later to wash her hands and shove her own toothbrush in her mouth. "Morning," she finally said with a scowl.

Chloe giggled at Beca's discombobulation. "Good morning, beautiful."

Beca rolled her eyes. "Yeah right. I look terrible."

"You're right, you do."

"Hey!"

Chloe held her hands up in mock self-defense, adding a little karate chop for good measure. It worked, and Beca finally cracked a smile.

"Come on, it's almost 10:00 and I don't want them to run out of waffles." Chloe left her to finish putting herself together, but not before swatting Beca's backside, earning a yelp of surprise.

Beca and Chloe rolled into the continental breakfast area with minutes to spare, and Chloe happily got her waffle. They joined a few of the other girls who were already eating. Beca was polite enough to push her sunglasses off her face and onto her head, but not without squinting and cursing under her breath before saying hello.

"Hey Jessica," Chloe asked after a bit. "Did Stacie make it home okay last night?"

"Ugh, yes."

"Ugh?"

"She brought those people back with her. They were so loud; I had to leave. Crashed with Flo and Lilly."

Chloe made a face. "Gross."

"That's a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, isn't it," Amy muttered to Emily, who blushed furiously and appeared extremely interested in her oatmeal. The other girls at the table snickered.

"What?" Chloe clearly wasn't in on whatever their inside joke was.

"Ya know, Red," Amy continued, "I'm surprised you came down for brekkie."

Beca leaned over and mumbled, "Just let it go," into Chloe's ear.

"Huh?" Chloe was completely lost, and Amy was grinning, clearly ready to burst over whatever it was. "I love breakfast food, why wouldn't I?"

"Didn't you get enough to eat last night?"

Beca groaned and dropped her sunglasses back onto her face and covered her ears.

Chloe felt the blood drain out of her face and pool in her feet. She and Beca had left the club relatively early - surely they were the only ones who were back at the hotel. Surely. "I'm sorry?"

"I'm surprised there's anything left of Beca, the way she was carrying on."

"What are you talking about?" Chloe was sure if she just kept playing dumb...

Beca groaned again. "Shut up, Chlo."

"You're just gonna walk right into this aren't ya?" Amy said to herself with a crack of her neck before answering, "Basically the analogy I'm making here is that we know you were ea-"

"Stop!" Beca shouted, jumping up from the table and startling everyone. "Yes, we had sex last night. I'm not even going to apologize that you could hear it, because you know what? It was fucking amazing."

Chloe wasn't sure if she wanted to crawl under the table and hide, die, or grab Beca and kiss her.

"Whoa, calm down, Shawshank," Amy said, eyes wide.

"I am calm!"

Emily laughed awkwardly. "It's cool, no one needs to apologize."

"Good. Because I'm not going to," Beca said sharply before taking a firm seat. She stabbed her fork into her scrambled eggs, making a terrible screeching noise against the plate. "You're all immature jerks."

"I'm so sorry, Beca," Emily said quickly. "We're happy for you guys, really. It's not funny anymore."

"It was never funny," Beca snapped.

Beca's refusal to accept the girls' jabs made Chloe feel oddly proud. And it was also a little bit funny. She giggled, and caught a side-eye from Beca, only making a bark of laughter slip out. She clamped a hand over her mouth and looked apologetically at her broody girlfriend.

"It's okay," Chloe said after getting her giggles under control. "If the tables were turned, we probably would be joking about it, too. Right, Bec?" Silence. Chloe elbowed her.

"Right, sure," Beca said with a tight smile.

"So...who's ready to kick some DSM booty tomorrow!" Chloe said with a fist pump, desperate to change the topic, grateful when the rest of the girls cheered, sans grumpy Beca, who hooked her foot around Chloe's ankle under the table instead. She wasn't as tough as she always pretended to be.

The Bellas spent the afternoon rehearsing and the evening watching the first half of the groups to perform, sizing up their competition. They chose to have a quiet night in rather than another late party night, to save their voices and energy for what they all knew would be the performance of their lives. Everyone piled into Beca and Chloe's room with extra blankets and pillows from their own rooms.

"What are you doing, Chlo?" Beca asked, noticing Chloe fiddling with television cables and Beca's laptop.

"Oh, nothing," Chloe said, avoiding eye contact with Beca as she logged into her computer (she'd cracked Beca's password two years ago, and Beca was aware though never commented on it) and pulled up the media player application. She surreptitiously popped a disc into its drive and hopped back onto the bed, stealing the remote off the nightstand before Beca could reach it.

"Oh no, no no no!" Beca said with exasperation as the DVD menu for Dirty Dancing came on screen. The rest of the group squealed with delight.

"It's Dirty Dancing! I promise you will love it, babe."

"We'll see about that."

The group immediately fell into singing along and quoting almost every line of the classic movie, much to Beca's consternation. Chloe excused herself after a bit to use the restroom. She had to take an extra long time washing her hands having misjudged her timing.

When she heard the music start up, she threw open the bathroom door and swept through the room to grab Beca's hands and yank her off the bed quicker than she could protest, and pulled her into a sad excuse for a dance frame.

"Spaghetti arms! Can you give me some tension please?"

The girls were already dying of laughter - they knew exactly what was happening.

"Chloe, what are you doing?" Beca glanced at the TV over Chloe's shoulder and groaned, realizing they were mirroring Baby and Johnny.

She did her best to lead Beca around the room before abandoning her, dancing away, and falling to her knees, singing along with "Love is Strange" and copying the movie's choreography, earning an even louder chorus of whoops and whistles from the other girls

"Baaaaby, oh baaaaby…" She was crawling toward Beca, who was trying her best not to smile. "My sweet baby...you're the one."

She made her way back to Beca and wrapped her arms around her waist, tugging her down to join her on the floor where she could force Beca to sway with her as she nuzzled her neck.

The needle scratched across the vinyl record in the movie, bringing the song to an abrupt halt. The girls erupted into more cheers.

"You guys are so cute together!" Emily said with a squeal.

"Oh my God, what are you doing," Beca said, weakly trying to get out of Chloe's embrace, which only made Chloe hold her more tightly.

"Just dancing with my lover," Chloe said with a wink.

"Lover? Really?"

If Beca hadn't had that sparkle in her eye when she said it, Chloe would have been hurt. "Yes, you are my lovah."

"Now that we've established that…" Beca trailed off, wiggling out of Chloe's embrace to climb back onto the bed. Chloe laughed and joined her.

The quote-and-sing-along continued through the final big dance, most of the girls up and dancing to "I've Had the Time of My Life." Chloe even managed to get Beca on her feet again; it wasn't that Beca didn't want to dance, but that she didn't want to admit the movie was the reason for it, and Chloe knew it - and ignored it.

Much to her surprise, Beca lightened up by the second chorus - notably when Chloe ground her hips into her to "...and I owe it all to you" and Beca grabbed her hand and spun her out and back in, keeping their dance close.

The movie night devolved into a dance party, which was, by all accounts, counterproductive to their intent to save their voices and energy, but there was something to be said for a night of good, clean fun.

They finally called it quits when it was pushing 2:00AM; they needed to be at the competition grounds by 12:00PM.

"So, was that so bad?" Chloe asked Beca as they took turns at the sink getting ready for bed.

Beca shrugged. "It has a really good soundtrack."

"I will happily accept that positive critique and cherish it always."

To the surprise of everyone except the Bellas, they dominated the competition and returned home as World Champions.

For the first time in seven years, however, returning home for Chloe didn't equal returning to the Barden for another year. In fact, she didn't have a home to return to. Her plans changed from staying in school another year to graduating so quickly, she hadn't had time to figure out where she was going to figuratively land.

That is, until she spent thirteen hours on a plane talking to Beca about their hopes and dreams.

They touched down in Atlanta long enough to deliver the trophy to the house, properly initiate Emily, have one last party, officially re-establish the Bellas with the ICCA, and pack out the rest of their belongings, and Chloe was back at the airport on a standby list for a flight to Los Angeles.

Beca had a confirmed seat and a meeting with an A&R representative from Capitol Records. In the most poetic of moments, they were still celebrating their win backstage in Copenhagen when Beca got the call; the label was impressed with what they had received from her boss and wanted to talk.

Things were getting very real, very fast.

Beca's boarding group was called and Chloe's name had yet to be called to fill a no-show's seat.

"Let me know when they get you on a flight, okay?" Beca said, gathering her belongings.

"Okay." Chloe was sad they weren't going to take this leg of their journey together.

"You have my address in case you need to take a cab from the airport?"

"In my phone." Chloe reached for Beca's hand, swinging it playfully. "Am I really doing this?"

"If it's what you want to do," Beca said as she adjusted her backpack on her shoulder. "I promised you I wouldn't pressure or judge you if your change your mind and stay here or move back home or...be an exotic dancer. Even though I selfishly hope you don't become an exotic dancer."

"Unless it's you I'm dancing for," Chloe said with a wink.

"Me and only me. I need to go, but let me know what's happening and I'll pick you up at LAX if I can." She bent down and gave Chloe a quick but thorough kiss before disappearing down the jetway.

Chloe sighed and propped her feet up on her bag and waited.