Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
That's what Chloe had done about overhearing Beca's conversation with Fat Amy. It had been three whole weeks: the days were getting shorter, the nights were getting longer, Varsity Sectionals was in only a week's time, and more importantly Valentine's day was TOMORROW, and what had Chloe done about the fact that the girl she was one hundred percent completely in love with also had feelings for her?
Nothing.
For Ms. Chloe Get-Up-And-Go, Ambitious, I-do-what-I-want Beale, this was unacceptable.
Chloe was meditating on her own uselessness as she sat in the back of the taxi that was taking her and Beca to the hospital to have her 5th, penultimate (before the surgery), chemo. Beca was curled up asleep on the other side of the back seat, leaving Chloe to mope as she considered pathetic fallacy, the pointlessness of GCSE English, and the way the raindrops collected but didn't seem to get any bigger as they ran down the taxi window.
She needed to do something. Something big. Some big, romantic gesture. Something Beca would pretend to hate but would really love. She knew she could get the girls on side – hadn't Amy said that she should have told them? Hmm. Perhaps music was the way to Beca's heart. But Beca had never been great at being the centre of attention, so a performance in her honour didn't seem quite the right thing. A song, perhaps? Recorded and given just to Beca?
Chloe's musings were interrupted as the taxi slowed to a stop, pulling up outside the hospital building. Although the hospital itself looked pretty ordinary on the outside, Beca came the extra few miles to go to this one as it was the home of a Teenage Cancer Trust ward. And that meant Chloe could stay with Beca for her whole chemo – and that they could play on the PlayStation, cook whatever food Beca was feeling up to, whenever she wanted it, and that they weren't surrounded by old people. Chloe was a nice person, but old people were a) smelly and b) sad, and Chloe could do without their sadness on top of everything else.
Chloe shook her head, reached out, gently shaking Beca awake, getting out the car, going round to the brunette's side to hand her her crutches, help her out. Chloe would work out how to ask Beca out one day, but right now, this day, she was just going to look after her.
Valentine's day came and went: the previous two years of uni, the Bellas had celebrated Valentine's day exclusively with each other; those that were in relationships might do something special with their other half the day before or after (and Chloe knew for a fact that Stacie was taking Aubrey to that fancy new Italian place by the union, and that Aubrey was taking Stacie ice skating), but the day itself was reserved for spending time with the other Bellas, so that no one felt bad or sad or left out just because of their relationship status. This year, celebrations were delayed by 2 days due to Beca's stint in the hospital, but as soon as she was back they had a candle lit dinner at number 36 (the other Bellas' house had a slightly larger table and more chairs), and if Beca had been wrapped in a blanket and had barely touched her food, nobody had commented; she was smiling and talking and that was all that really mattered.
And before any of them knew it, it was time for the Varsity Sectionals. For most people, it was considered an absolute done deal that the Bellas would win: they had used one of Beca's mixes (of course) and between that stunning arrangement, Chloe's choreography skills, and the absolute discipline instilled in the girls by the temporary return of Aubrey Posen as a coach, their performance was perfection. It was expected to be the highlight of the event, and it delivered on all expectations.
The competition had taken place in Birmingham, and the girls (including Beca) had driven down in the union minibus, with Fat Amy driving as always – she was the only one licensed to drive anything bigger than a car. Beca had been having a good day, and, despite being wrapped up (as she always was these days) in an endless pile of fleecy blanket, she joined in with the girls' singing. Perhaps she was quieter than she once had been, but she sang and snacked on Haribo and popcorn with the best of them.
Once they arrived at the auditorium in Birmingham, Beca and Aubrey had had to leave the girls – of course Aubrey had come with them. Technically, as the Bellas' coach, she could have stayed with them, but - and she would go to her grave without admitting this, except perhaps to Stacie - she wanted to look after Beca for the time she would have to be separated from Chloe.
Aubrey had been with Stacie on New Year's, had heard Chloe's voice on the phone when she had found Beca so hot, had seen the whiteness in her girlfriend's face as she heard what Beca's temperature had been and had so calmly explained to the redhead that they needed to get Beca to the hospital now. She had watched Chloe fight back tears as she donned a gown, gloves, apron, mask, just so she could go into Beca's room to see her, to see her but not even to hold her hand. She had seen the way Beca gripped Chloe's hand so hard, as they walked out of that hospital, that her knuckles were white and Chloe's hand was pale when Beca had finally released it. She had seen the girls tangled up in bed together later that night, unable to resist the urge to check on them both after the days they had had. Chloe had never said anything to Aubrey about how she felt, and Aubrey had never been told about the conversation Chloe had overheard between Beca and Amy, but Aubrey knew how her friends (and she could call Beca a friend, now) felt about each other. She wasn't about to jeopardise their potential relationship by letting Beca die of neutropenic sepsis while being left unattended. So she kissed her girlfriend goodbye (and tried to ignore the excited cries of the Bellas around her), hugged Chloe, and knew she had done the right thing when Chloe squeezed her hand, pulled her closer and whispered 'Thank you, Bree,' in her ear.
So Beca and Aubrey had gone to the hotel the Bellas would be staying at for the night, checked all the girls in and got their room keys, Aubrey, being Aubrey, took it upon herself to allocate the rooms; she and Stacie would share with Beca and Chloe; Fat Amy, Emily, Cynthia Rose and Denise would take the second room, and Ashley, Jessica and Flo would take the last. Fortunately, they were staying in an enormous Travel Lodge in the centre of Birmingham, so all the girls' rooms were in a row. Within 5 minutes of Aubrey letting herself and Beca into the room, Beca was asleep.
As she sat beside the sleeping brunette, Aubrey contemplated how Beca had been handling her illness so far. It was no secret to anyone how independent Beca was, how fiercely determined the girl had been, when she first started at Bristol, to get by by herself, to cope, to manage. Aubrey was profoundly grateful (if that could ever be the right word, when talking about anyone having cancer) that Beca had got sick now, and not two years ago. Now, when she would let Chloe cook for her, let Amy carry her to bed (she really was stronger than she looked), let Emily, in her eager, clumsy, puppy dog fashion, bring her cups of tea (like her mother would do) and distract Beca with her endless lyric writing, let Stacie buy her a thermometer and lip balm and moisturiser for her chapped and broken skin, let Aubrey herself drive her to the hospital, sit at her bedside when she was sick, and now stay in the room while Beca napped away Sectionals prep. Aubrey had worried, when she first heard that Beca was sick, that she would be having chemo, that the brunette would be angry when she couldn't do things, would try and do more than her body would let her, would fight to be in that dressing room, to be on that stage. Somehow, it wasn't much of a comfort that her worries had not come true.
They won, of course. In Regionals, they had only been competing against the two other groups in the South West: Exeter's 'Excentrics' and Baths' 'Pitch Perfect'. Tonight, they had been competing against all the English groups, including the notoriously successful 'All the King's Men' from London, and, the oldest acapella group of them all, the Oxford Alternotives. In the end, though, it had come as no surprise to anyone in the auditorium that the Bella's had won. It was, arguably, the toughest stage in the competition; next they would be competing against the groups from Scotland, Wales and Ireland, and excellent though they might be, those nations were comparatively tiny. They had just beaten off the real competition in Kings' and Oxford. The English champions had won 19 out of the previous 20 years of competitions.
Needless to say, therefore, the Bellas were in good spirits when they burst back into their dressing room, Chloe bring up the rear and clutching a trophy. They were in even better spirits when they saw a certain blonde coach and a miniature brunette DJ waiting for them in their dressing room, having convinced a stagehand to let them in – who said having cancer was never useful, Beca considered, as she sat on a stool and watched the excited gaggle of girls rush in, cheeks red, facing glowing with a slight sheen of sweat, smiles on their faces only growing at the sight of her (and with that, she tried not to blush). And then the face she had been waiting for burst into the room. The way Chloe's eyes lit up when she saw that Beca was standing there made Beca's tummy squirm uncomfortably, her chest tighten, her arms tingle, her head being to spin. She got up, began making her way through the sea of Bellas to the door, suddenly in need of air, cool air, air that wasn't filled with the warmth and noise and pressure of the girls celebrating around her. Her anxiety seemed not to be showing on her face, or else the girls were all too excited to see it, even Chloe, who had seen her, seen her coming toward her, grabbed her by the elbows and hugged her in close. Beca almost pulled away, she could see the door, she could see the promise of fresh air and of quiet and calm, but she let the red head hold her for a second, until Chloe was pushing her away and Beca thought finally, finally, she might get some fresh air but then –
Chloe was so happy. She was so happy she barely knew what to do with herself. Aubrey might have told her that it was a sure win, Stacie, Amy, Emily, Cynthia Rose, even Beca, any would she could care to mention would have told her that their win was inevitable. But it hadn't felt that way to Chloe, especially not in early hours of the morning when she couldn't sleep, when she could spend an hour or more torturing herself watching videos of the Alternotives and All the King's Men on YouTube, fear and anxiety writhing in her stomach. She had seen the talent the other groups had, and had been worried that, without Beca at her side, she would lead the Bellas to their first defeat in 3 years. But she hadn't, and they had been better, and they had won, and Chloe was more filled with happiness than she had ever expected to be. They had performed Beca's mixes, and Chloe had caught the brunettes eyes in the front row (the only row Chloe could see clearly with the bright lights of the stage in her eye), and the whole performance had been dedicated to her, and they had won. And now Beca was making her way towards Chloe, was getting closer, was in her arms and she just –
She kissed her without thinking. And Beca was out the door before Chloe could even open her eyes.