A/N: Well here is the second part of the girls' talk. There might be a little angst left in this one after this chapter, but it should be fairly smooth sailing from here on out (I think, maybe).

Disclaimer: PP and PP2 are not owned by me, at all, not one bit.

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Beca sat back and brushed the hair back from Stacie's face, pushing a stray strand behind her ear. She sighed, "I think I want to ask you something, but before I do I think it's only fair that I tell you my story." Stacey wiped the remnants of the tears from her face with a quizzical look at the small brunette.

Beca smiled at her confused expression, "Well, you don't think I got to be this bundle of pent up joy with rainbows and sunshine shooting out of my ass overnight, did you?" Stacie couldn't help herself, she tried to hold it in, but that made it worse when the laugh actually came out. So instead of responding, she just shook her head.

Beca smiled at the other girl's response, then she got a serious expression, "I think you already know some of this, but I'm going to start at the beginning anyway. My life isn't that exciting so this shouldn't take too long."

Beca got up from the chair and stood at the window, much like Stacie had done earlier. Stacie looked at Beca's back, watching the tension creep into the smaller girl as she stood there, waiting for her to start. Beca started talking without turning around, "When I was a little girl, I thought we had the perfect family. My daddy went to teach college kids about books and my mom gave private piano lessons. At first I didn't notice that my dad wasn't home to tuck me in every night, but when it became three or four nights a week I did notice and I asked my mom about it. She just told me that 'Daddy had to work late, he's trying to get tenure,' but she had this sad look in her eyes. I remember nodding at my mom, like I understood what tenure was. It turns out he wasn't working late to get tenure, he was having an affair with another faculty member. He came home one night in May and told my mother he was leaving her. He had accepted a job, here at Barden, and was going with the woman he loved. He took me aside and told me that he was sorry that he was leaving like this but to remember that he loved me always. It seemed like he tried at first, calling me a few times a week. But then the calls got less and less frequent until they stopped completely by the fall." Stacie's heart went out to the smaller girl as she told her story, Beca's face emotionless in the reflection off the window.

Beca turned from the window, looking at Stacie. She didn't want to tell this story, but she knew she needed to. She needed Stacie to understand her, she wasn't quite sure why, but she needed her to. So she went against every instinct that was telling her to run away, again, and walked back to her chair. She sat back down across from Stacie and took the other girl's hands in hers, "To say my mother was devastated would be an understatement. She had loved that man with everything she had and when he left it destroyed her world. She withdrew from everyone, including me. Luckily my aunt and uncle lived in the same town and they helped us out. They would make sure that there was food in the house, that my mom paid the bills, things like that. She never said it, but I always got the feeling that my mom blamed me for my dad leaving. It was probably my nine year old imagination, but I actually started to believe that he left because of me, that it was my fault that my dad was gone and my mom was crying all the time." By the time she finished, Beca was sobbing. Stacie pulled her into a hug, her hand rubbing over Beca's back, whispering soothing words to the smaller girl.

Beca quickly collected herself, "Dammit, I'm sorry for losing my shit like that Stace."

Stacie wiped tears from Beca's cheeks with her thumbs, "Shhh, nothing to apologize for Becs, nobody should have to go through that alone, much less a nine year old. Besides, you had to console me about my shitty childhood, so turnabout is fair play."

Beca smiled weakly at that before continuing, "Well I think that's about the time that I started to get the mindset that if love hurt that much, there was no way I was ever going to fall in love. Pretty shitty mindset for someone who hasn't even hit their teens yet."

Beca took Stacie's hands back in hers, her thumb lazily moving in circles on the back of the other girl's hand. She sighed, "I might have come back into the land of the romantics, but fate just had other plans for me I guess. My mother finally came out of her shell after about two years, and after another two years she started dating again. She had been dating this guy for a few weeks, always meeting him wherever they were going out. One night he came to pick her up and I answered the door. He looked at me in complete surprise and asked who I was. I told him I was Mary's daughter and he just about flipped his shit right there. Apparently she hadn't told him about me yet. They had an argument right there in the entryway about it and he left furious. Apparently kids were not part of his equation. Well, as you can imagine, this only reinforced my belief that my dad left because of me, because I'm damaged goods."

Stacie pulled Beca into a hug again, "Shhh, don't you ever say that Beca Mitchell, you are not damaged goods."

Beca smirked, giving her best infomercial voice, "But wait, there's more." Stacie chuckled as she sat back, nodding for the other girl to continue.

Beca resisted the urge to get up and distance herself from this girl who had broken through her emotional barriers like no other. Sure Chloe could get some things from her and she pushed through some of Beca's walls, but Beca still hadn't fully let the redhead in. She still held back, just not as much as with the rest of the world. But Stacie had gotten through everything somehow and Beca wasn't quite sure how. Maybe it was just the fact that she accepted her into her little world in the library without question, without expectations. But here she was, letting all of her emotional baggage out, hoping that the gorgeous girl sitting across from her would still see her for her when she was done.

Instead of getting up, she took Stacie's hands in hers again. She had to admit, she liked the feel of Stacie's hands in hers. She looked at Stacie and could see the hurt in her eyes, hurt for what Beca had to go through and it gave her the courage to finish her story, "Well the last bit of my story happened in high school, my junior year to be exact. I had never kept it a secret that I liked girls but I also didn't go out of my way to make it known. Well there was this girl in the choir who knew I liked to mix and stuff and so she started hanging out with me and asking about how I did it and seemed really interested. We started hanging out together and then we started to date. I fell for her fast and I fell for her hard. Nobody had ever shown me this much attention. Sure I had dated some, but it wasn't anything like this. She was my world. She was almost an exhibitionist, wanting to have sex in the craziest of places but I was so enamored with her I would agree to just about anything. We lasted a couple of months before she broke up with me. Her reason for breaking up – I was an experiment. She wanted to see what it was like to be with a lesbian and I was the only one she knew. I refused to let her see me cry, in fact from that point on I refused to let anyone see me cry. Nobody was worth that kind of pain. Life kept telling me that I wasn't worth loving so I was going to listen."

Beca finished with her head down, looking at their linked hands. She didn't want to look up, scared that she would see rejection again. Finally she brought her head up. She wasn't expecting Stacie to be right there. Their faces mere inches apart and their eyes locked. Beca didn't see rejection there, she saw hurt, she saw sympathy, she saw hope and she saw something else, but the one thing she didn't see was rejection. It was an impulse, she wasn't expecting to do it this way but she did it anyway. She slowly moved forward the two inches separating them, her lips finding Stacie's to give the taller girl a soft kiss.

Beca pulled back suddenly, expecting the worst. She was used to being rejected, why should this be any different. Stacie saw the panic in the smaller girl's eyes and knew she had to fix it somehow, so she did what she's wanted to do for the past few weeks. Her hand slipped behind Beca's neck and pulled her back in for another kiss. This one started soft like the first, but then became more heated as Stacie's tongue flicked along Beca's lower lip. Beca's lips opened in invitation and Stacie's tongue slipped between them, teasing Beca's tongue with her own. Both girls pulled back panting after a couple of minutes, looking shyly at each other, not quite knowing what came next.

Stacie broke the silence, hoping she was right in what she was expecting, "You said you wanted to ask me something earlier, what was it?"

Beca smiled shyly at her, "Well, ummm, given what just happened I hope I know the answer, but would you like to go out on an actual date with me sometime?"

Stacie brushed her thumb over Beca's cheek, "I would love to go out with you Beca Mitchell. But why did you have to tell me all of that just to ask me out?"

Beca sighed, "Well I know I have issues and I thought that maybe if you knew why I had issues that maybe you'd understand how I acted sometimes. It doesn't excuse it, but if you understood maybe you'd give me a chance? Because for some reason I really want a chance with you Stacie. I think you are great and I want to see where we can go and…"

Beca trailed off as she looked at Stacie sitting there smiling at her, "You're rambling again Mitchell." Beca couldn't help but smile back as Stacie leaned in for another kiss, "And yes, you are cute when you ramble."