"—okay, in all seriousness, I need to ask you this," Fat Amy looked at her with a serious look on her face. Beca even sat up on her bed with the way she was looking at her. "Uh oh. That can't be good. Alright. Hit me." She sipped her hot cocoa, eyebrows furrowed as she looked at her friend and roommate and waited for whatever bomb was going to be thrown at her lap.

Fat Amy herself sat up straighter, turning around on her own bed so that she was facing Beca completely. "What is it about you skinny bitch that makes everyone go crazy about you? I mean, for real! Boys, girls. Everyone wants a piece of Beca! I want to get in on this too!" And then she was jumping over the bed to make her way over to Beca, and all she had time to do was move her mug of hot cocoa aside before she had Fat Amy on top of her, trying to kiss her. The girls were probably going to kill them tomorrow morning. It was two am and Beca was screeching and screaming as she tried to push her best friend off of her, which ended up in them having a pillow fight. Which she lost. As usual, and by four am, she and Fat Amy had made a blanket fort in their bedroom, and they were laid side to side, staring at the neon-stars decorating their ceiling, which were bright enough to be seen through the thick blanket fort they had above their heads. Neither of them seemed to be tired, considering the exhausting weekend they had, and the fact that they had a pretty long drive back home from the camp.

"Are you going to be okay?" Fat Amy's voice broke the silence after what felt like hours. Beca sighed, more deeply and meaningfully than she meant to. "Honestly? I don't know. Everything happened so suddenly. I'm still trying to process all of it." For all of her... everything, Fat Amy was a great listener. And surprisingly wise, most of the time. "For what it's worth, I still think you're pretty great. Not to mention, you always have chocolate hidden in your underwear drawer. Which I would know nothing about if asked by the authorities." Beca laughed quietly, glancing at the girl laid next to her. "Thank you." Fat Amy looked at her, too. "For stealing your chocolate?" She turned to lay on her stomach so she could look at Fat Amy better. "Yeah, no. We're going to have to go back to that when I'm thinking logically again, which may be never, but that's not the point—" Fat Amy laid on her side, head resting on her hand which was supported by her elbow on the floor. "The point is, everyone has been kind of stepping on eggshells around me lately. Everyone except you. And you know, you've kept me kind of sane during all of this shitstorm. You're a pretty good friend, Fat Amy."

There was a moment of silence, whilst those large eyes of Fat Amy's were looking at her. Beca's stomach suddenly dropped, and she looked alarmed. "Yep. Definitely don't see it. You're still a skinny oompa-loompa to me." Beca laughed as she grabbed a pillow and hit Fat Amy over the head with it. "Oh, you are so on, skinny oompa-loompa!"


It took a few days, but slowly, things started to go back to normal.

Well, normal-ish. After their trip to Aubrey's camp, they seemed to find their missing harmony. Jesse was on speaking-terms with her again. It took a few days of text-only communication, and then one night he showed up at their house with popcorn and Harry Potter. Things weren't exactly ideal between them, but they were friends again. Jesse didn't talk about what she did or what happened or the state she had been in that first forty-eight hours after It happened, (she started referring to those events as It, as in, Stephen King's novel It, starring the child-eating clown that traumatised a generation of children) and neither did she. After a very emotional, long email she sent him, she didn't touch the subject, and she assumes that, eventually, he decided to forgive her. That in no means meant that they were back together or she forgave herself for what she had done to him, oh no. Beca doesn't think that she wants to be in a relationship for a while. And it would be unfair to Jesse.

She cheated.

That's something big. Jesse isn't like most guys who would think that sleeping with a woman wouldn't really count as cheating. No, he saw it for what it was. Sex, whether it involved a penis or not, was sex. But more than that, what she had with Hilda had been more than just sex. Jesse was perceptive enough to see that there was so much more to their short-lived yet incredibly intense fling... affair? No word or label seemed to fit it, really. But the intimacy they shared went beyond what she and him had ever had, in terms of... well, sex. And even other things, too. She confided in Hilda in ways she had never really confided in anyone else.

Things were starting to look up, however.

She and The Legacy had been working on her record. Her first single. Which, went over so well with Chris (her boss) and they were also working on something big, massive, for Worlds. Fat Amy was on her way to amending her relationship with Bumper, and graduation was just around the corner.

There was just one loose end left that was haunting her, that is, along with the suppressed, blocked, mostly, memories of Hilda.

Chloe.

Ever since that night back at the camp, she had been avoiding Chloe like the plague. She felt awful about it, but she couldn't even look her in the eyes. Her fear, was losing Chloe's friendship over something so stupid. She made a point out of not letting herself be alone with Chloe. And an even bigger point about not sitting next to her. It made her feel like such a dick, but she really couldn't deal with the whole Chloe situation on top of everything else. She really couldn't. Chloe was finally graduating as well, as all of them were leaving and she had no more of excuse to hang around, and she seemed to be doing okay. For the most part. Beca was hoping that they could just kind of... move on without ever remembering that night had happened. But, knowing the pattern of how things have been going lately in her life, she knows that sooner or later, it was all going to come back to bite her in the ass, eventually.

Such as, the morning after Jesse had spent the night over and they both ran into Chloe first thing in the morning, having left-over pizza as breakfast before class.

She made a point of trying to nervously explain to Chloe that she and Jesse had not had sex, and as a matter of fact, as they had a sort of no-boys sleepover rule going on, that they weren't even back together. Jesse came over with pizza and the Harry Potter box-set and they both just kind of fell asleep halfway through Goblet of Fire, which she kind of hated herself for because it was definitely the best one. Jesse disagreed vehemently with that statement, and thankfully, saved her from her anxiety-induced rambling by starting a heated argument over which Harry Potter movie was the best. Which Beca clearly could not ignore. Dating Jesse for such a long period of time had turned her into a huge nerd, too, apparently.

When Chloe was gone, he made her tell her why things were so awkward between the two of them. And just like that, their relationship was back to what it was.

Friend-wise, that is.

She knows that it doesn't really erase how badly she fucked up or made things any better, but they were talking again, and as much as she would never admit it to him or herself, she missed him. Had missed their conversations, his voice. Had missed the warmth, safety and familiarity of someone who had worked so hard to get past her defences. Someone who she had, at some point in the past four years, thought that she was going to be spending the rest of her life with.

Or at least, a decade or something.

But honestly, things with Jessie were so good before that she didn't really picture a future that he wasn't a part of. It was weird, then, to think that she was going to have to make plans post-college that didn't involve him. It was even weirder to think that everything was so different, even though it had only been a couple of weeks.

Now she finally understands Bob Marley: no woman no cry. Not very feminist of her, but what it took was a woman for her to truly experience the searing pain of a heart truly broken.

By the time they were ready for Worlds, she was almost herself again.

Fat Amy claimed that she was finally present, as in, she no longer found that she was talking to herself because Beca had checked out and was thinking about something else completely. Something German and breathtaking. Things got so good at work. Chris started letting her pitch in more, and, as her internship neared its end, he offered her an actual job. She was holding on to the news till after Worlds, but God, she could barely contain her excitement.

Truth was, her plans had been to move to L.A, and after Hilda, the further away she moved from the memories of where It all happened, the better it would have been for her, but with the promise of a job with Chris, her relationship with Jesse back to a sort of steady rhythm again, not to mention all of the other girls... it seemed stupid to let all of that go and try to build something new in L.A. Her father had promised to help her if she decided to do it, and she really appreciated how supportive he has been. He was right, of course he was, although she'd never openly admit that, and College and the Bellas have really made her a better person. She wasn't going to look back on this experience thirty years from now and regret it. In fact, she bets she's going to be glad that her father made her go through with this. Really glad.

Beca thought that the world was going to end after Hilda and the way she behaved. She really thought that she had screwed everything over and that there was nothing she could do to fix... anything. Her relationship with Jesse, her internship, school, the Bellas, and Chloe. But, everything seemed to be okay. Hilda came and Hilda left and now she was rebuilding things. It's amazing what a few days can do to your life, to your inner self. Beca learned more about herself with Hilda than she ever had with even her music or Jesse and that was something that she was thankful for. As much as it hurt to think about her, to remember her smell, the colour of her eyes, the way she laughed and the sound of her voice singing in the shower, the acoustics making it all so funny and beautiful... she knows that she was going to appreciate all of it even more than she does now, one day.

One day.

It's been f months, according to Jesse, but, she's not as angry as she was any more. Fat Amy says that there's Five Stages to getting over someone, just like there are Five Stages of Grief. They first was Heartbreak: you feel like the world is going to end and you just want to die. Then there's Anger: you hate him or her. You hate yourself. You hate the world, you hate love, you hate everything. Then there's Binge-Eating/Drinking, a New Hair-Do, Hooking up with your stupid Ex, whatever: you do something life-changing or just plain stupid. And then there's... shit, what was the rest? Something about being able to accept that you fucked up and you were played and maybe getting a tattoo or something?

Yeah, something like that.

Beca didn't get a hair-cut or hooked up with Jesse but she did eat a lot of brownies. A lot. Like, a stupid amount. Maybe two hundred or something. And there were no plans of getting a tattoo. No way. So maybe she was moving on to stage four? She supposed stage five was Acceptance. And moving on, maybe? God, she couldn't even picture moving on. What was she, now? Bisexual? Gay? That was a problem she was going to have to come to terms with, eventually.

Was she really gay-gay and have just been lying to herself about her attraction to men thus far? Though, had it really ever been an attraction? Beca had two serious boyfriends before Jesse and sex had never really been something she was excited about. Not the way that she became with Hilda. With Hilda, it felt like her first time, like she was discovering what sex was for the first time. So, this was difficult for her. Having to come to terms with not only everything that had happened and how quickly it had happened, like, getting over someone you knew for a couple of days and fell in love in a minute, but also having to come to terms with her new found sexuality.

So there was really only one way to deal with all of this: music.

She was putting a lot of effort into making her stuff... original, now. She was spending an awful lot of time with Emily. She was incredible with words, and Beca was amazing with beats, so putting the two of them together was like magic. Not to mention, the girl was adorable and awkward and pretty. For a minute there, she almost thought about Emily in a different way. For a second. It was a sort of: Hey, you're cute. But it went away as fast as it came. Jesse had said something about Benji having a thing for Emily and honestly, she didn't want to break someone else's heart.

But, they were spending a lot of time together. The previous four nights, she had spent in Emily's room. They were working on that song for Worlds, which was going to be so big, with all the previous generations of Bellas. getting involved and everything else. They had to get so much right. It was a lot of pressure, and working with Emily made things a lot easier. Maybe she was gay, or maybe she just liked hanging out with pretty girls. Nothing wrong with that, right? No, no. See, this is Stage Three. Or was it Four? Fuck. No. They were working over the chorus again, Beca with her laptop and Emily rambling on about notes or something. But, when she started having these kinds of thoughts about the girl, she decided to just bolt and leave. Of course, she did it smoothly. God, the last thing she needed was The Legacy thinking she was acting weird and skittish around her, especially considering how much they were working on all of these arrangements and what not. Normally she'd go over this stuff with Chloe, but, since she's avoiding Chloe like the plague... funny, sometimes she'd have not-so-straight thoughts about Chloe, too, but with Chloe it was different. She knew for a fact that Chloe actually wanted this, whatever it was, way before Chloe admitted anything or kissed her and just— fuck. She was lonely, wasn't she? This was what this was. Sexually confusion mingled with frustration and loneliness. That's it.

Or so she tells herself. So, she told Emily she had to get up early for work tomorrow seeing as this was her last week and all, and bid the girl goodnight. With her laptop in hand, she stepped out of the room, laughing about how adorably cute Emily sounded like... all the time, until she shut the door and saw Chloe standing right there, looking at her like that angry-Mum look on her face and her arms crossed over her chest.

Fuck.

"Hey, Ch—"

"Shut it, alright? Don't even start. I'm— seriously, Beca? You're working on arrangements with The Legacy, who's been here for what, like, a day?"

"No, it's her song, I mean, it's on—"

"It's not okay! First you pretend that you don't even know me, and now you have someone else doing my job. Our job! This was our thing, Beca!"

Chloe looked like she was about to start crying, and as much as she was a real dick sometimes, Beca couldn't handle other girls crying. It was like her kryptonite. She'd often do anything she could to stop the crying. So she stepped towards Chloe, awkwardly grabbing hold of her arm, looking up at her ginger friend with an exasperated look on her face. She really has no clue what she's doing. With anything, any more. "Hey, listen to me. Hey, Chloe. Come on. It's not what you think, okay? It's her song. That's all. I mean, we did a record together, y'know? I kinda have to work with her on this one. Sure, we could've involved you in it and that's mainly my fault, but you know... with everything that's happened, I just..." Chloe had gone eerily still and quiet, her eyes on Beca, barely blinking. "You've been avoiding me. No, don't even think about denying it, Beca. You have been avoiding me. Is it because of that night in the bus? Because, I mean, maybe I moved in too soon or maybe, I just—"

Everything happened too quick.

One minute Chloe was rambling and quite frankly, Beca had stopped listening a few minutes ago, and the next, her mouth was on Chloe's.

This is just how she first kissed Kommissar.

Was it a pattern with her, now? Kissing women like this? Well, who cares. She certainly doesn't, not any more. She's not in a relationship, and she sure as hell isn't romantically involved with anyone else. Chloe's single, and more than willing... so why not? The voice of reason within her is screaming that maybe because she never really felt that way about Chloe, to begin with, but she's not listening to that, right now. Chloe is more than eager to kiss her back, and there's no struggle or fight, at all. They move smoothly over each other, her tongue begging entrance into Chloe's mouth, coaxing her tongue into a sensual, passionate dance, as hands start tugging at clothes, their bodies moving with an eagerness that was maddening.

She's not sure where she lost her shoes or her jeans or even her bra, but before she knows what's what, she's laid on Chloe's bed, staring at her ceiling, as ginger hair is lost between her legs. The contrast of red against her milky pale flesh is such a beautiful sight, and she wonders if anyone else ever thought about that. Chloe's bed is incredibly soft, and she's got stuffed animals on her bed. Her pillows smell like lavender, and her bedsheets are so clean.

Chloe's tongue is inside her and she shuts her eyes, her fingers finding her hair. It feels different. For one, it's too curly, and not soft enough. She can slid her fingers through the strands and feel the silky texture caressing her skin. And Chloe is too eager, too hungry, lapping at Beca like she's the last Oreo. She's not really complaining, so much as she's comparing. As lonely and sad and horny as she is, Chloe doesn't feel the way that she did. But Chloe was warm, and Chloe smelled nice, and Beca needed something to numb that constant ache in her chest.

She's selfish, remember? And a dick.

Speaking of which...

Her hand grabbed hold of Chloe's hair and she switched their positions, slamming her body down on the bed so she could straddle her. The pure glee and tenderness in her blue eyes was hurting Beca. She knew that she'd regret in this morning. She felt it as she kissed Chloe's lips and fucked her like it was their last night on earth.

After they were done and Chloe cuddled up to her to fall asleep, Beca laid awake in her bed and whispered Hilda's name in her hair.


A/N: SO it's been, what, 84 years since I updated this? I'm so sorry to ALL of you guys, REALLY. I kept meaning to write more but I just... didn't. Well, anyways. I'm determined to get this fic going from now on, and I promise to try to get a chapter up at least once a week. (Though you can expect 2 or 3 in a row because my muse for this fic now is HIGH.) Anyways, here it is, I hope you guys enjoy it. I'll be updating the tags accordingly BUT I'm so new to this whole tagging thing so PLEASE someone don't feel shy to DM me if you have anything to say or add, the last thing I want is upset people over bloody tags. SO, ENJOY. DO let me know what you guys think. As usual, reviews keep me inspired. DON'T WORRY. THIS WON'T BECOME BECHLOE, OKAY?! I just figured this was bound to happen at some point, so I decided to get it out of the way. (See how I skimmed through the smut, lmao?) Poor Chloe though, am I right? Beca is on a self-destructive path. Damn that Hilda.