Beca wakes up half underneath a very naked Chloe Beale.
It'd be the ideal morning if she weren't flying six hundred miles away in a few hours.
Still, Beca can't help but run her fingers over every inch of exposed skin that she can reach—Chloe's cheeks, her collarbones, between her breasts, down her stomach, over her hipbones. She tries to commit every inch to memory, because she doesn't know when she'll have her hands on Chloe again.
The thought makes her nauseous.
Chloe murmurs something incoherent, stirring a little and slowly blinking her eyes open. "Good morning," she rasps, nuzzling her nose in the side of Beca's breast. (It's kind of distracting.)
"Hi," Beca says softly. She presses her lips to the top of Chloe's head, inhaling the flowery scent of her shampoo.
"You're leaving today," Chloe states quietly.
"I'm leaving today," Beca echoes, hating the way the words ring in her ears.
"I love you," Chloe whispers. Beca inhales sharply, almost embarrassed at the way the words make her stomach flutter. Chloe lifts her head slightly to make eye contact with Beca. Her eyes are wide, almost shy. "Say it back?"
"I love you." Beca strokes Chloe's hair, and she feels Chloe's deep exhale against her skin. "We should probably talk about this." This, as in, I love you and I'm leaving soon. As in, I've barely been able to hold onto relationships with people who lived five minutes away. As in, how am I going to survive this?
Chloe doesn't answer, instead sneaking a hand slowly up Beca's side.
"Chloe," Beca warns. She can practically feel Chloe's smirk as her girlfriend teasingly strokes a thumb across her nipple.
"Chloe, we need to talk about this," Beca says, finding it difficult to sound stern when her voice is shaking. Chloe grins wickedly at her, and Beca knows resistance is futile. "Chlo—"
Her final protest is cut off when Chloe deftly slips her fingers between Beca's legs.
They don't talk about it.
At least, not until Beca's bags are all packed and they're about to leave for the airport.
Beca's emotions decide that this is the perfect time to attack.
Maybe it's the finality of it—Beca's duffel bag and carry-on stacked by the door, unaccompanied by any of Chloe's bags—that causes Beca to break down; she starts to hyperventilate and suddenly can't stop.
"Beca?" Chloe asks concernedly, coming out of the kitchen. She sees Beca standing uselessly in the hallway, hands shaking, and rushes over. "Beca, breathe." She wraps Beca in her arms, and it triggers the memory of that night when Beca had the nightmare.
That makes Beca think of her bed, cold and empty without Chloe to fill it. She's assaulted with images of her life without Chloe—takeout containers piling in the trash, silent evenings in front of the television, quiet rides to work.
It takes Beca a few minutes to realize that Chloe is crying, too. (It's incredibly unfair how attractively she cries, in juxtaposition to Beca, who always looks like she's been hit by a bus.) Beca tries to force herself to regain her composure, gently wiping her thumbs under Chloe's eyes.
"Dammit, Mitchell," Chloe says with a watery laugh. "I promised myself I wasn't going to cry."
"Better here than in public," Beca mumbles, tucking her head in the crook of Chloe's neck. She just breathes in Chloe's scent for a minute, trying to calm herself. "I'm scared," she confesses in a hushed voice.
"Of what?"
"That this won't work," Beca admits.
"Hey." Chloe gently pushes Beca off and cups her chin, forcing eye contact. "We will be fine," she says. "I'll come visit you as soon as I can."
"Okay," Beca agrees, although she knows that with Chloe's busy schedule, that could be a long time coming.
"Plus," Chloe says, wiping away Beca's smudged eyeliner with her pinky, "there's always Skype." She winks, and Beca can't help but roll her eyes.
"No," she tells Chloe emphatically, "I'm not having cyber-sex with you. That's for creepy guys whose only contact with girls is through the Internet."
Chloe gasps mock-dramatically. "I was only suggesting that we talk. Who knew you had such a dirty mind?"
"Don't even pretend like that's not what you were implying." Beca swats at Chloe's arm, bending down to shoulder her bag. Chloe uses this opportunity to smack Beca's ass, and Beca pitches forward, catching herself just before falling flat on her face with a yelp.
"Is this how you say goodbye to all of your guests? Or do you only pick on me?"
Chloe leans in close, her breath hot against Beca's ear. "Only the ones I make come in under two minutes."
Beca pulls back, openmouthed. Low blow. "You do not get to use that against me. Ever."
"I won't do it in public," Chloe promises, grabbing Beca's duffel and turning to saunter out the door.
"What? No, we're not negotiating this," Beca calls after her, but Chloe just smirks at her as she turns her key in the lock.
"Why do I like you again?" Beca mutters as she brushes past her girlfriend.
"Because I made you—"
"Don't."
All teasing aside, the ride to the airport is quiet. Chloe holds Beca's hand, tracing circles and random patterns with her thumb as she navigates the roads one-handed. (Apparently, defensive driving is part of new agent training.)
When they arrive, Chloe cuts the engine and they sit in silence for several moments.
"We should go," Chloe says, and Beca says, "Yeah," but neither girl moves to get out of the car.
"Would it make this harder if I walk you to security?" Chloe asks.
Beca thinks for a moment. "Yes, but you should do it anyway." Chloe looks at her, and Beca just says, "Chivalry," with a shrug.
When it comes time for them to actually part, Beca regrets not just tucking and rolling out of the car—because she wants to kiss Chloe and then cry, and Beca hates both PDA and crying in public.
They stare at each other for a few moments before Chloe wraps Beca in a fierce hug.
"Let me know you got home safe?" Chloe asks into Beca's hair.
"I will." Beca grips the fabric of Chloe's shirt in her fists.
"I love you," Chloe whispers before pulling back.
Beca forces herself to relax her grip. "Love you, too."
"Okay," Chloe says, although it seems like she's saying it more to herself than to Beca. "Have a safe flight." She presses her lips to Beca's, brief and hard.
Beca nods and grabs her bags, making her legs move to walk to security. She keeps swiveling her head around to look back at Chloe until it's her turn to move through the medal detector.
And then she's gone.
When the plane takes off, Beca holds tightly to the armrests, trying to picture Chloe in her head, imagining her voice reminding Beca to breathe.
She briefly considers asking the guy next to her if she can hold his hand, before she remembers that's not something that normal people do.
Whatever—she's under duress.
Beca's apartment is dark and quiet when she finally arrives home.
She texts Chloe, telling her she didn't die on the plane, and dumps her bags on the floor of her bedroom. She sheds her clothing, dropping them next to her bags, and shrugs on a t-shirt and shorts before flopping down onto her bed.
Her sheets still smell like Chloe's perfume; it makes Beca's chest squeeze painfully. Still, she draws the blanket up to her nose, inhaling deeply. The bed feels uncomfortably large without Chloe next to her.
She's not sure how long she stares at the ceiling before she finally falls asleep.
Beca skips breakfast the next morning, opting for swinging through the drive-thru for coffee on her way to work.
"Hey, look who's back!" Jesse cheers when she walks in, clapping his hands with a dopey smile on his face.
"I was only gone for a couple of days," Beca mutters, dropping her stuff on her desk and sitting down.
"How was Quantico?" Jesse asks, twirling a pen between his fingers.
"Elaborate," Beca says, opening her laptop. "It's, like, the law enforcement central of the universe. They even have a fake town set up for simulated situations."
"No," Jesse says, leaning forward and lowering his voice, "I meant how was Quantico?" He wiggles his eyebrows.
"Dude, no." Beca crumples an unimportant piece of paper and throws it at Jesse, but he just bats it away. "That is none of your business."
"So you two did do it?"
Beca just ignores him, but it's hard to work when she can feel his smirk.
"Okay," she concedes, sighing. "She took me out on a date and it was perfect." Beca blushes when Jesse awws, adding, "And that's all I'm going to tell you."
"Is she coming back?" Jesse asks.
"I don't know," Beca answers shortly, not wanting to have this conversation.
"How are you holding up?" Jesse's tone grows concerned. "Do you want to, like, talk?"
"Nope." Beca keeps her eyes glued to her laptop. She decides to change the subject. "Did I miss anything good while I was gone?"
"Nah," Jesse says, then pauses. "Actually, there was a lady a couple of days ago who shot her husband in the back. Class case of domestic abuse, though."
"Do you think she's gonna walk?" Beca asks, and Jesse just shrugs.
The rest of the day is quiet, allowing Beca to lose herself in her own thoughts. She forces herself to methodically read through the tips that she'd ignored over the past few days, writing down any information that seems pertinent, making the occasional phone call.
She wanders aimlessly through the grocery store after work, buying mostly instant meals and pasta, since she'll be cooking for herself now. Chloe never did get around to teaching her to cook. (Well, she did try once—but as soon as she turned her back, Beca nearly burned the apartment down.)
Beca channel surfs while she eats a TV dinner, checking her phone every few minutes to see if she had somehow missed a call from Chloe. Her girlfriend had promised she'd call if she wasn't swamped with work, but having just returned to her job, she had a lot of catching up to do. Beca understands, but it's still difficult not to hear Chloe's voice every day.
No call comes, but Beca falls asleep rereading the Good night! I love you! text that comes in later that night.
Beca never really used to get lonely.
Of course, she did on occasion—everyone does. But she never craved someone like she does now.
She comes up with a myriad of ways to distract herself—work helps a lot, and Beca volunteers to take a late shift or go along on interviews or jailhouse visits. She tries to teach herself to cook from WikiHow and instructional YouTube videos. (She only has about a forty percent success rate, but she's managed not to set the building on fire.)
Beca even tries running. It lasts about twenty painful minutes, but she tries.
Chloe Skypes her as often as possible, and they sometimes watch bad reality television together, or have dinner with their laptops propped in front of them. It's almost enough. But sometimes she still awakens in the middle of the night with a start and reaches out for the person who isn't there.
Beca can't help but feel hollow at times; the weight going from spending nearly every moment of every day with one person to being totally alone occasionally threatens to crush her.
Jesse is an unexpected savior. He drags her out after work, even if it's just to get pizza. He even sleeps over once or twice—not in Beca's bed, of course, and it's usually an accident while watching a late-night movie.
It helps. It's almost enough.
The call comes on a Wednesday afternoon.
It interrupts her lunch; Beca answers her phone with a, "Yeah?" that's mumbled around a sandwich—which she promptly drops back onto her desk.
Because there's another victim.
She can't help but feel a twinge of excitement as she and Jesse clamber into her car, a touch of hope.
Maybe Chloe will come back.
She's an awful person, she knows. Someone is dead, and all Beca can think about is her girlfriend. She bites her lip to keep from smiling, but Jesse reads her easily.
"You thinking about Chloe?" he asks as Beca turns onto a residential street.
"Shh," Beca says, swatting at the air in his general direction. "Don't jinx it."
Jesse shakes his head, chuckling a little.
The scene is a familiar one—ambulance in the driveway, flanked on either side by squad cars, variously uniformed people standing around with their arms crossed—but Beca quickly wipes the smile off of her face. She might be excited about the possibility of being reunited with her girlfriend, but that doesn't mean she's lost sight of why she's here.
"Fill me in, Benji," Beca says, striding towards him with Jesse on her heels.
It's sad and alarming how they've fallen into a routine.
"Robin Turner, age 68," Benji says. "She was found by her son when he came to drop his kids off."
"Did the kids…?" Jesse asks, trailing off.
"No, no," Benji says quickly. "They were thankfully in the other room when he found her."
"Thank God." Jesse sighs.
"Do you know if she has a husband?" Beca scans the faces of the people starting to gather at the edge of the yard.
Benji nods. "Her son said that he is out fishing with the grandson. The son was coming to drop the granddaughters off for some 'girl time.'" Benji holds his fingers up in air quotes.
"So much for that," Jesse mutters, and Beca elbows him in the ribs. "Hey!"
"She's been dead for a few hours, the paramedics said." Benji gestures to the house. "She's, uh, in the master bedroom."
"Shall we head in?" Beca asks, pulling out the shoe coverings that she carries with her everywhere now.
The house is perfectly still despite the flurry of activity outside. Unlike the Jacobsons' the inside is neat and orderly, save for a television remote on the floor.
Beca heads upstairs, passing framed portraits of various children on the way. Only one of the bedroom doors is all the way open, so she tries that one first.
Yep, definitely the right one.
Robin's body—like almost all of the others—is nude and spread out on the bed. Her eyes, wide and bloodshot, stare unblinking at the ceiling. Beca wonders what the last image Robin saw was; she shivers.
A pair of pantyhose is knotted around Robin's neck like an odd kind of necklace. Her hair—dyed a chestnut color but grey at the roots—is spread around her face, splotched red and blue, on the pillow. Her swollen tongue pokes out of her slightly open mouth.
Upon closer look, a couple of Robin's fingernails are broken, her fingers clawed and stiff. Her other hand is still twisted in the sheet, like she'd been grappling for something to hold onto in her final moments. In fact, half of the fitted bottom sheet has come undone, bunching in the middle of the bed.
There's a rumpled pile of clothing near the door, almost half under the dresser. Two of the drawers are open, clothes spilling out. The mess was probably made when the killer was searching for his murder weapon. A drawer on the nightstand is ajar as well, but when Beca peeks in, it just has ChapStick, pill bottles, and various odds and ends inside—nothing of real value.
Beca steps back to allow Jesse to examine the body and leaves the room to poke around the rest of the upstairs. She nudges open the doors with her toe, finding a bathroom, a small closet, and two other bedrooms—both of which look like they haven't been used in years and smell distinctly of mothballs. The entire scene is incredibly tidy; Beca wonders if perhaps something spooked the killer and he fled, cutting short any rummaging.
Or maybe he had already gotten everything he wanted.
She meets Jesse in the hallway as he's coming out of the bedroom. "Anything else up here?" he asks, and Beca shakes her head.
"The place is spotless," she says as they descend the stairs. They walk around the downstairs, but nothing seems out of the ordinary—save for a half-eaten orange on a plate on the kitchen counter and a purse, which sits in the middle of the kitchen table.
"How do you think he got in?" Jesse wonders.
Beca shrugs. "Gun, maybe?"
"I'd think he'd be a little gun-shy after the last time." Jesse grins, holding up his hand for a high five.
Beca rolls her eyes and heads to the front door. "I'm not rewarding you for making a bad pun." She exits the house, and—whoa.
If the property was crowded before, now it's an absolute circus—people crowd around the outside of the yellow crime scene tape, trying to get as close as they can, and Beca can see at least three news vans. Wonderful.
Beca spots Benji on the driveway and heads over to him. "Hey, have you been able to contact the husband?" she asks him.
Benji shakes his head. "Not yet. I've been busy with"—he gestures over the yard—"this."
"We'll get on it," Beca promises. "Anything else we should know?"
"I'm working on figuring out which neighbors have information and which ones just want to feel important," Benji says with a light laugh, and Beca can certainly sympathize.
She and Jesse have to shove their way through a swarm of people just to reach her car. Beca unlocks it quickly, sliding in and revving the engine before anyone from the press can come and try to stick a microphone in her face.
"Jesus Christ," she mutters, honking several times so the people in front of the car will move. "I'm not afraid to hit you!" she shouts at the ones who stay put, although they probably don't hear her with the windows up. Another honk finally scatters the rest of the people, and Beca begins driving back to the station.
She makes a mental list of things she has to do as she drives—get ahold of Mr. Turner, interview potential witnesses, review the outpouring of tips that are certain to come through. Great.
Beca's barely sat down in front of her laptop when Aubrey comes into the office.
"Hey, Lieu," Jesse greets, a potato chip halfway to his mouth.
"Just checking in," Aubrey explains. "I wasn't able to get over there myself."
"68-year-old female, strangled with a pair of pantyhose," Beca tells her. "Husband was out fishing with one of the grandkids. Her son found her when he came to drop off the other kids. It looks like it's our guy, but I can't say for sure."
"Okay." Aubrey nods.
"I'm about to try and get ahold of the husband," Beca says, drumming her fingers on the desk. "Benji is still at the scene picking through the spectators." She rolls her eyes a little.
"Well, keep me posted," Aubrey says, turning to leave. She looks back at Beca, hand resting on the threshold, adding, "Oh, and I contacted Agent Beale." And then she leaves.
Beca stares after her, mouth slightly open. Her stomach dips, and she quickly bites her lip to stifle the unattractive squeal that almost came out of her mouth.
She tries to tell herself that this doesn't necessarily mean that Chloe's coming back, but she can't help but hope.
And Jesse doesn't help.
"Beca and Chloe, sitting in a tree," he croons. "K-I-S-S-I—hey!" The pen Beca threw bounces off his forehead.
"You are actually twelve years old," Beca scolds, but she can't help the smile that tugs at her lips.
Chloe might come back.
Chloe isn't answering her phone. Or responding to Beca's text messages with anything more than a "busy" or a "not a good time right now." (Beca still gets her good-night text that evening, but it's unusually short.)
Chloe is probably just swamped with work, but it's a really inconvenient time for her to be right now.
Beca's debating whether calling Chloe relentlessly until she picks up the phone would be crossing the line when there's a knock at her apartment door. Confused, Beca tries to remember if she'd invited Jesse over or maybe ordered takeout and then forgotten about it.
Remembering the nightmare she'd had a month and a half ago, Beca cautiously opens the door.
And then almost falls over.
Because Chloe is standing on the other side, wearing a wide grin.
"What?" Beca says breathlessly as Chloe launches herself into her arms. "How did you—who—what?" (She's not the most articulate person when she's flustered.)
She doesn't even give Chloe a chance to answer before Beca tugs her into the apartment, slamming the door and pinning Chloe up against it, fusing their mouths together.
"Aubrey called me," Chloe says between kisses, pausing to moan a little when Beca sucks on her pulse point. "She did a very good job of convincing my supervisor that you guys needed me."
Beca makes a mental note to thank Aubrey later. "Why didn't you tell me you were coming?"
"I wanted to surprise you," Chloe says, threading her fingers through Beca's hair and bringing her back up to her mouth, sinking her teeth into Beca's bottom lip. Beca hisses at the sharpness, but Chloe quickly smooths her tongue over it. "I missed you so much."
Beca pulls back to look at Chloe, eyes hooded and heart pounding. "How much?"
Chloe shoves Beca back gently, urging her towards the bedroom. "I'll show you," she purrs.
Beca wakes several times that night, worried that it had all been a dream.
But every time, Chloe is curled around her in the bed, her bare chest rising and falling steadily, smiling softly even in her sleep.
And every time, Beca snuggles in closer, letting Chloe's breathing lull her back to sleep.
Chloe is back.
A/N: That wasn't so painful, was it?