A/N: Sorry for the wait! And thanks so much for all of the reviews, you guys are too good to my ego.
Beca's head is throbbing painfully. Pulsating, matching the beat of her own heart. An incessant rhythm being tapped out by a sledgehammer. A pounding resonating in her ears—
Wait.
That's the door.
Beca groans and drags herself—actually, physically drags herself—out of bed and stumbles to the door, absently worrying about offending whoever is on the other side with her vile morning breath. One hand on her head, she turns the knob and wrenches open the door.
"Hi," Jesse says softly, holding out a bottle of Advil.
Beca frowns. "How did you know?" She takes the bottle and steps aside to let him in and sits down on her bed. He stands in the middle of her room, looking awkwardly at his hands before shoving them into his pockets and sitting on the edge of Kimmy Jin's bed.
"Do you not remember?"
"Remember what?"
"Coming to my room last night?" Jesse looks at her expectantly.
"I, uh—" Beca wracks her brain, trying to recall exactly what she had done last night after discovering Chloe attached to some dude. "Vaguely."
"You were pretty wasted," Jesse says, twisting the fabric of his jeans with one hand.
"I am realizing that now," Beca says, holding her still-very-sore head in her hands.
"Do you remember what you told me?"
Beca looks up at him. "Did I apologize? I meant to. Luke said he listened to my music because of you. And I wanted to say thank you. And that I'm sorry because I was such a jerk and—" She realizes she's rambling a bit. "So, yeah. I'm sorry."
Jesse shakes his head. "Well, you did apologize. But I meant the other thing."
"I am not in the mood for twenty questions," Beca mumbles, pressing her fingertips into the corners of her eyes.
"You told me about Chloe."
Beca's head snaps up. "I did what?!"
"It's not a big deal…"
"Wow." Beca covers her face, which she is positive is a very bright shade of red right now, with her hands.
"Beca." Pretending not to hear Jesse, she rummages on her nightstand for a water bottle. "Beca." She unscrews the cap, and drops two Advils into her mouth and takes a long swallow. "Beca."
She sighs. "What?"
"I'm not going to tell anyone. And if you… need someone to talk to, I'm here."
Beca looks Jesse in the eye for the first time since he came to her room. "Thanks."
Jesse stands, motioning towards the door. "Well, this had been sufficiently awkward."
Beca snorts. "Yep."
"Bye," Jesse says, giving a sort of half-salute and letting himself out of the room.
Beca stares at the door for several minutes before her phone vibrates from somewhere in the depths of her bed; it takes a moment of searching to locate it. One new text message blinks on the screen, and when Beca sees the sender's name, she freezes.
It's from Chloe.
The kid form the Footnotes is in high school! We're in the finals!
xxxxxx
Beca doesn't text Chloe back.
She thinks about it. No—obsesses over it.
But she doesn't text Chloe back. Because every draft of possible replies was something along the lines of who the hell was that guy and Beca doesn't even know why she's so pissed about this because it's not like Chloe cheated on her or anything and she doesn't even like Chloe in that way because Beca's not gay and so it shouldn't even matter.
But it does.
And so Beca doesn't text Chloe back.
xxxxxx
Deciding to go to rehearsal is a last-minute decision that has a lot less to do with Beca's heart-to-heart with her dad (desperate times call for desperate measures) and a lot more to do with several consecutive sleepless nights paired with some haranguing on Jesse's part ("Stop moping and just fucking go so I don't catch your depression"). So Beca spends a long time gathering her courage outside the door of the old auditorium-slash-Bellas rehearsal space. She's having a full-blown internal argument, the proverbial angel-on-one-shoulder-devil-on-the-other when she hears screaming. Screaming that sounds a lot like… Fat Amy? It's the kick in the pants Beca needs to push open the door and suddenly she finds herself right smack in the middle of the craziest scene she has ever witnessed.
"Guys!" Beca yells, eyes widening at the absolute madhouse unfolding in front of her. Aubrey and Chloe are wrestling on the floor and Stacie's blowing her official BU rape whistle and Lilly is lying on her back in a puddle of vomit and—"What the hell is going on in here?"
Everyone freezes. Aubrey jumps up from the floor, Bellas pitch pipe in one hand and wiping her mouth with the other. "This is a Bellas rehearsal," she says, straightening her sweater.
"I know," Beca says, taking a tentative step towards the girls and inhaling a deep breath. "I just came to say… that I'm sorry. What I did was a real dick move and I shouldn't have changed the set without asking you guys. And I definitely shouldn't have left." Her eyes meet Chloe's briefly and Beca's stomach knots. The redhead gives a barely-perceptible nod of encouragement. "And Aubrey, if you would have me… I want back in."
Silence.
Stupid, Beca scolds herself as she turns to leave. She turns to look at Aubrey one last time before she prepares to leave the auditorium. The blond just looks at her hands. Walking past the piano, Beca grabs the chair and drags it behind her as she heads for the door (okay, she's being a little dramatic, so sue her).
"Wait."
"Thank you," Beca says, letting go of the chair. "That would have been embarrassing."
"Beca, I know that I have been hard on you, okay?" Aubrey says, tears on the edge of her voice. "I know that I have been hard on everyone here. But I am my father's daughter. And he always said"—she drops into a chair, looking at the floor—"if at first you don't succeed, pack your bags."
Whoa. "I uh, I get it," Beca says tentatively. "Mine gets on me too. Not like that but… I guess we don't know that much about each other. About most of you, really."
What follows is a heartfelt, mushy, cheesy, everything-Beca-is-against sharing session. In a show of support, every girl in the group divulges something (although Stacie's "confession" doesn't really count). When Chloe stands suddenly, Beca's heart beats faster with nervous anticipation, although rationally she knows that Chloe's not going to grovel for Beca's forgiveness for not disclosing minute-by-minute her activities over spring break.
"Over spring break"—Beca feels a little bit sick—"I made the courageous decision to remove my nodes." Everyone's mouth drops open in a stunned silence, eyes on the teary redhead. "The doctors said I can't sing above a G-sharp maybe ever," Chloe continues, sniffling. "I thought the season was over."
Everyone starts muttering concerned and apologetic comments to Chloe, but Beca is glued to her chair. What else has Chloe not told her? She can't help but feel offended even though clearly Chloe didn't even tell Aubrey about her surgery so why should she tell Beca? It hurts just the same, and she fights the urge to add to Aubrey's impressive vomit puddle.
"Beca?" Aubrey's voice pulls Beca out of her pity party. She stands and faces the older girl. "What do we do?" Aubrey asks, and tosses the pitch pipe in Beca's direction. Beca's mind and her body are kind of on two different pages right now and she fumbles her catch and inadvertently knocks the precious pitch pipe into what used to be Aubrey's breakfast.
"Maybe not here," Beca says, and in a few minutes the Bellas are on their way to the empty swimming pool where the riff-off had been held.
When everyone regroups in the center of the pool Beca asks, "Aubrey, will you pick a song for us, please?"
"Bruno Mars," Aubrey says with a nod, "Just the Way You Are."
"I, uh"—Beca sputters haltingly, catching herself before she says absolutely not because she's used that song in far too many Chloe-inspired mixes to have it not affect her emotionally. She sighs. "Okay." And then, because she apparently likes torturing herself—"Chloe, are you okay to take the lead?" The redhead nods.
It's a little bit awkward at first, with everyone trying to find her part in the harmony, but when Chloe starts singing the melody it just works. Chloe's eyes are on Beca's and the brunette nearly melts. And then Chloe smiles over at Aubrey and Beca remembers to jump in with "Just A Dream" and then everyone gets into it and it sounds amazing. When they finish everyone just stands there in silence for a few moments, smiling at each other and looking nervously at Aubrey before even she has to smile.
"Hands in!" Aubrey says excitedly. "One, two…"
In the midst of the Bellas' collective "aaahhh"s, Beca hears a bizarre sound, a very low bass tone of sorts. And everyone else must hear it too, because their heads whip towards the origin of the sound and, surprisingly, Chloe is standing there with shocked eyes and a hand clapped over her mouth.
"What was that?" Fat Amy asks.
"I don't know, I've never made that sound before," Chloe says, eyebrows knitted together.
"With your messed up vocal cords, you can hit the bass notes," Cynthia Rose says, and everyone starts chattering excitedly.
Except Beca's not feeling very excited, despite all that has just transpired. Chloe's vocal revelation is yet another reminder of all that Beca still doesn't know about Chloe, and even though it's irrational, she feels sad. She's quiet on the walk back in the direction of the dorms, and when Chloe squeezes her shoulder and smiles, Beca just frowns.