A/N: I'm sorry for the late update but I had to finish Mama I'm Strange first. Writing two stories simultaneously, you forget what you wrote where and you have to constantly reread what you've already written - it's exhausting. Well, with no further ado: next chapter, enjoy.


They were lying on Chloe's bed, kissing.

"You're good at this," the redhead murmured before she recaptured Beca's lips, once again going for light-heartedness rather than passion. Beca could tell that she was testing the water, that she was unsure of herself after what happened the last time. The freshman took her cue from that; no pressure, Chloe had said, just getting to know each other better. The problem was that getting to know Chloe like this was intoxicating and arousing and Beca really had to fight herself for control.

That's why she pulled back after awhile, breathing heavily.

"You're so easy, Mitchell," Chloe teased, grinning.

"Yeah, I guess," Beca answered. She wasn't able to keep her hands off the redhead, her right hand having long before slipped under Chloe's top and carressing heated skin there. "Tell me something."

"Something, what?" Chloe asked when Beca didn't elaborate.

"Doesn't matter, something about yourself - or tell me about the Bellas," the freshman said.

"You want to know about the Bellas?" Beca simply nodded. "Well, I... I joined the Bellas my first year at Barden, same as Aubrey. The group was certainly different then, not better or worse, simply different. Aubrey has a little problem seeing this... I don't think we should be doing the same routine as before but... she's the captain," Chloe sighed.

"And she doesn't like to share responsibility? What's up with that?"

"Have you seen the video from the last ICCA finals?" the redhead asked, lifting a copper eyebrow.

"Is there a person on campus who hasn't? I mean it was... epic, the most strategic vomiting I've ever seen. Someone commented that she puked directly on the judges, is that true?" Beca asked animatedly but she could see by Chloe's face that the topic shouldn't warrant so much enthusiasm. "Sorry."

"It was hard for Aubrey and she's my best friend. And, no, the judges have much better seats. But... well, losing control like that, and especially just before she took over as captain? It's hard enough for her not being able to... I mean..." Chloe stopped.

"What is it?"

"I shouldn't tell you this," the redhead said and shook her head. "I... I feel so bad for Aubrey, with her parents... they're hard on her, so, in consequence, she is even harder on herself. And most of the time, she is in knots and that... whenever she feels anxiety, her stomach is acting up."

"That must be hard but it's not exactly an excuse for being a bitch all the time," the freshman gave back.

"She's not a bitch, she's just wound up. You don't know Aubrey like I do."

"And how well do you two know each other exactly?" Beca followed the instinct she had had before that Chloe wasn't telling her everything that was going on between her and her best friend. The redhead frowned.

"We're best friends," Chloe answered but it wasn't as straight an answer as one might think, Beca could see in the clear blue eyes that there was more to this story.

"I'm not accusing, Chloe. I just... Aubrey doesn't like me, I just thought that maybe you and her... that you were involved at some point and that she's jealous, maybe?"

"I already told that she's not jealous, she's just overprotective," Chloe argued.

"Still, there's something you're not telling me. What is it? You can tell me, I'm not going to tell anybody else, I promise," Beca coaxed but the redhead still frowned. "You two had sex," Beca surmised from the silence that followed.

"Aubrey doesn't do sex," Chloe finally answered and the freshman's eyebrows shot skyward.

"Doesn't do sex? What does that mean?"

"What I said, Aubrey doesn't have sex. She's... abstinent, I guess you could call it," Chloe explained but could see that Beca still didn't quite comprehend the concept, even though she seemed to grasp the words.

"As in... like completely... all the time?" Beca asked, thrown by this information.

"She tried it... twice but... well, Aubrey's stomach's acting up whenever she feels anxious and intimacy makes her anxious."

"Oh, my God, she threw up on them?" the freshman bursted out.

"Shhh," Chloe scolded.

"I thought she wasn't even here," Beca reminded Chloe.

"That's no reason to yell. It's... she told me about the boy she's been with in high school. They were a couple, going steady, so, on prom night he rented a room in the hotel where they had their prom night - everything was fine until... it wasn't."

"Wow... that must have been... wow... okay, I think I understand better now. I mean, if I wasn't getting any I would go completely bonkers. Considering, Aubrey shows a fair amount of self-restraint," Beca said.

"It's not impossible to go without sex, Beca," the redhead told her.

"No, I mean I know that... It's just that... having something like that hanging over you? Wait... you said there were two people she... oh, my God, she threw up on YOU?!" Beca stared at Chloe who nodded. She made a face that said it wasn't her favorite moment but she wasn't shaking herself in disgust - the way Beca was sure she herself would have done at the mere recollection if it had happened to her.

"Aubrey and I... we grew very close during our second year. She knew that I liked girls and never had a problem with it. We started talking about all kinds of things and she finally told me about prom night. So, I wondered aloud if maybe it had more to do with him being a guy and maybe she liked girls - I mean I couldn't really understand how you could get so anxious from being with... I mean..." Chloe grew flustered when she realized that she had grown anxious herself, just the other night from being close to someone. She hadn't lost her lunch, fortunately, but she had lost control.

"Hey, it's okay," Beca pulled her close. "I guess we all deal differently with... emotional stress. I'm sure you'll be fine, we'll be fine," the freshman tried to reassure Chloe.

They lay quietly for a moment, Beca just carressing Chloe's hair, the redhead letting herself be held and holding on in turn.

"I wasn't even aware..." Chloe said after awhile but let the sentence unfinished.

"You don't know what triggers Aubrey's anxiety. It's probably not the same thing that triggers yours. Do you even know...?" Chloe shook her head too quickly and too vehemently. She was obviously not ready to talk about it yet. "It's okay," Beca reassured her.

"We were talking about Bree... and I. Well, we just talked at first - about sex and attraction. And, I mean, it's not like I wasn't attracted to her, she's..."

"That she is," Beca agreed before Chloe could even say it and the redhead giggled.

"Have you just admitted to thinking Bree's hot?"

"No!" the freshman said and Chloe's giggle became a laugh. She tickled Beca who squirmed at the teasing.

"You did, you think Bree's sexy. Say it!"

"Stop it! I will not say it, never," Beca laughed as Chloe continued to tickle her. "Stop it!"

"Say it!"

"Alright, alright..." Chloe ceased the tickling but left her hands at Beca's sides. "Aubrey is very good looking - but so not my type," she added smirking.

"Because I am," the redhead said.

"No, because I'm just not into tall, gorgeous blondes with killer legs. Don't interest me at all," Beca teased.

"Yeah, right. I got your number, Mitchell. I will so blackmail you with this in the future," Chloe gave back playfully.

"You certainly got my number, Beale," Beca said and leaned into Chloe for a kiss. The kissing became a makeout session became a grope-fest. They were pushing into each other, none of the two willing to hold back until a moan worked itself free from Chloe's throat and she stiffened a second later. Beca ceased her movements, lifting her head to make eye-contact.

"You okay?"

"Yeah... I just... for a moment I thought I would... hyperventilate again," Chloe said blushing.

"It's okay, you're not," Beca said and the redhead nodded. "You were pretty scared last night, weren't you?"

"That has never happened before, I... I love sex, I love being intimate," Chloe said.

"Well, maybe it's me," Beca said what only just occured to her.

"No, it's... it's probably just stress. I mean, it's my last year, there's a lot of pressure, you know," Beca nodded but didn't quite buy Chloe's excuse.

"Okay, you're alright, though, right?" The redhead smiled and nodded.

"Yes, I'm good," she said and gave Beca a small kiss. "I'm sorry that I'm so wound up, I... I really like kissing you a lot, touching you. You're... very hard to resist."

"You may stop resisting any time," the brunette gave back with a smirk. "But it's okay to take it slow, too," she added and Chloe nodded.

"Yeah, I like that, too." Chloe agreed and they kissed again, slowly, deeply. They parted when they started to need air more than the delicious contact. They stayed close, just hugging and feeling each other for a moment.

"So, what happened between you and Aubrey?" Beca asked after awhile to distract them both from emotions that seemed to lay just beneath the surface.

"Well, as I said, at first we talked about it. Then, one evening, we were at this party... it was a pretty lame party and we left early. We had both been drinking and we went into Bree's room just to... talk or... whatever. So, we started talking again and then we started kissing... and so on," Chloe blushed a little.

"And so on?"

"Aubrey... is a pretty good kisser, I have to give her that. And the alcohol... had losened her up a little and... we were touching each other, undressing each other... but when I touched her... well, intimately..."

"She lost her cookies," Beca surmised and Chloe nodded.

"I mean, it wasn't that big a deal. Of course, it was... disgusting at the time but... I felt so bad for Bree. She was so embarrassed," Chloe shook her head over the memory. "And I wish... I wish it hadn't happened. For her, not for me. It's not about an orgasm, or about sex, it's about being intimate, about being able to touch someone and letting that person touch you. I know how that feels, it's amazing, it's... so important - and Aubrey can't have that," Chloe concluded, looking sad.

Beca pulled her back into her arms, just holding her but not saying anything. She never would have thought that she would feel pity for the tall, arrogant blonde she met at the activities fair. She seemed so impeccable, so aloof. But it seemed that it was just part of an act. Aubrey was vulnerable and in her case it made her lonely, too.


When Beca woke the next morning, she was alone in bed. And for the fact that the mattress on Chloe's side of the bed was already cold, she had been for awhile. Beca listened for noises in the apartment and heard someone clatter in the kitchen. She got up and slipped into her jeans, just in case it was Aubrey having breakfast. It wasn't, though. Chloe hummed a tune while she was busy making pancakes, and Beca had to smile at the domesticity of this strange... relationship they were beginning to have. It was weird, no one had ever made her breakfast before (except for her mom, of course); no one had ever hummed something under their breath after spending the evening cuddling and talking. It was certainly endearing, but also rather strange. Where was all this going? What did Chloe really want from her? Friends with benefits was obviously not working for them for some reason - but where would they end up? Was this a dead end? Or the way to something more, a future - however long a future could last in college?

"Good morning," Beca said and roused Chloe out of the little song-and-dance-number she was doing while making breakfast.

"Morning," she smiled and leaned over the counter where Beca was just sitting down. She smacked her on the lips then put a coffee infront of her.

"Coffee. The finest organic suspension ever devised... I beat the Borg with it," Beca grinned and took a well-deserved sip of the hot beverage. Chloe just looked at her.

"Do I wanna know?"

"You're kidding me, right? Star Trek: Voyager? Captain Janeway?" the brunette sounded incredulous.

"I never was much of a trekker but I guess, there's coffee in that nebula," Chloe grinned at her. Beca started laughing.

"Oh, my God, you're a nerd. You... I... come here," she leaned over the counter like Chloe had done before and kissed the redhead. They necked for a moment before the smell of burning pancakes roused them and Chloe turned toward the stove.

"Urgh, these we better not eat. Oh, here. Dig in, there'll be plenty more," she put a heated plate infront of Beca with a fair amount of pancakes.

"How many people will be joining us - all the acas from Barden, maybe?" the freshman teased. "Do you have syrup?"

Chloe placed a bottle of it infront of her before bringing her attention back to the stove and more pancakes.

"I went a little overboard... I've never made pancakes before. Are they any good?" She asked as she turned toward Beca who just happened to grimace at the taste of the pancake she was eating. "What? What's wrong with it?"

"What did you put in them?" Beca asked cautiously.

"What it says in this book," Chloe took a cook book from the counter and reread the instruction. "And I may have forgotton sugar," she then said. "Damn," she looked at Beca sheepishly while the brunette swallowed the piece of bitter pancake.

"No matter. Let's see... yeah, I remember." The freshman hopped off her stool and came around the counter. She unlaced the apron from Chloe's hips and put it around herself. Then she started to make breakfast from her own recipe of pancakes, remembered from her job at a pancake house in her hometown when she was sixteen.

Chloe tried to help and they made a mess of the kitchen but in the end they were eating breakfast together, laughing and chatting. If Beca had thought their budding relationship couldn't get any more domestic than having Chloe preparing breakfast for them, she had been wrong. And if she'd ever thought she would get away with not falling for the redhead, she had been even more wrong. There was no way she could deny that she had already fallen for Chloe, and when she left after they had cleaned the kitchen, she felt a lightness to her step and a heavyness to her heart that convinced her that this was the deepest she'd ever felt. She was in love - and no matter whether this was good or bad, she was certain it would last awhile.