A/N: Hey there folks, another Katherine & Beca based chapter for you. (I'm glad you all seemed to have liked my decision to include her. She's definitely one of my favourite Kendrick characters :)
Trigger warning (Although nothing major, this chapter.)
I do now own Pitch Perfect or any of its characters
"So it's been, what, a week now? And I haven't really found out that much about you." Katherine said, leaning back in her chair and observing Beca. The small brunette shrugged slightly.
"I'm not good at the whole sharing thing." Beca said, fiddling with the edge of her sleeves.
"Yeah, I noticed. Okay, we're going to play a game." Katherine said, brightly.
"We are?" Beca said, her voice uncertain.
"We are. For every question you answer, you'll get a reward." Katherine said.
"What kind of reward?" Beca said, slightly intrigued. Katherine thought for a second then her face broke into a small smile.
"Now, Chloe is visiting you tomorrow, right?" She asked. Beca nodded. "And you only get an hour?" Beca nodded again. "Okay, for every question you truthfully answer, you will get an extra ten minutes with Chloe. If you answer five, I'll give you a bonus ten."
"So... So I answer five of your questions and I get an extra hour with Chloe tomorrow?" Beca asked.
"Absolutely." Katherine said, watching as Beca thought it over. She seemed hesitant. "Tell you what, if I can guess a fact about you, something that you haven't told me, and I get it correct, then we have to play this game. If I get it wrong, you get one free pass on any question, without losing the ten minutes. Make sense?" Beca thought for a second before nodding.
"Okay." Beca said. Katherine observed her for a second.
"Can I see your hands?" She asked. A confused Beca held out her hands for Katherine to see. The woman turned Beca's hands so they were face up and gently touched the finger tips of both hands. She smiled. "Okay, so, you're left-handed. But, you play guitar as if you were right-handed."
"Dammit." Beca muttered. "How did you know that?" Katherine grinned.
"You have calluses from playing on your left hand. If you were using a left-handed guitar they'd be on your right." Katherine said, sitting back in her seat with a smile that suggested she was very pleased with herself.
"Ugh, okay. Let's play your game." Beca said, subconsciously snapping her rubber band against her wrist.
"First question, why do you play a right-handed guitar?" Katherine asked, wanting to start easy so Beca didn't immediately clam up.
"It was Jesse's guitar." Beca said, smiling at the memory.
"That's a nice guitar." Beca said, cautiously stepping into Jesse's bedroom for the first time. "How long have you been playing?"
"Oh, dude, I don't. I bought that a few years ago. I was convinced I'd just be able to pick it up, you know? Turns out it's hard." He said. Beca laughed. He gestured for her to sit so she perched, anxiously, on the edge of his bed. "I'm not going to bite, Beca. You don't need to look so nervous."
"Sorry." She said, running a hand through her hair. "I always wanted to play. My dad thought it was a dumb idea."
"Your dad's the one you ran away from, right?" Jesse asked, placing his hand lightly on top of hers. Beca flinched a little at the contact. "Sorry." He said, withdrawing it.
"It's fine." She said, smiling shyly at him. "Yeah, he's the one I ran away from." There was a small silence before Jesse stood and picked up his guitar and handed it to her.
"Here, if you can play a song by the end of the week, it's yours."
"Dude, you can't be serious? You drove me to hospital. You let me stay in your home. You don't want any money or anything and now this? It's too much." She said.
"It's just collecting dust, I'd rather it was played. And anyway, I like you. I think it's going to be nice having you around." He said, smiling at her.
"Just so there's no confusion, or anything, you should probably know, I'm gay." She said, looking up at him nervously. He looked at her for a second before smiling softly.
"Okay." He said.
Beca's hand was twisting the band around her wrist as she recounted the story to Katherine.
"What do you mean by he took you to the hospital?" Katherine asked, leaning forward slightly.
"Is this the next question?" Beca asked, releasing the band with a snap.
"No. So I guess you don't have to answer. But the more you tell me, the more I'll be able to help you." Katherine said.
"The night I met Jesse was the night I ran away from home. My dad had tried to stop me. He was... Violent sometimes. Jesse found me passed out on this bench, I'd ran there from my house, and he took me to hospital and then took me into his home." Beca said, her eyes fixed on the floor.
"Jesse's the one who called the ambulance that night, right?" Katherine said, flicking back through some of her notes. Beca nodded. "Okay, well done. You have your first extra ten minutes. I'd recommend using it to make-out but its yours to do with as you want." Beca laughed. "Next question, what is the earliest memory of your dad?" Beca thought for a second.
"The night he left, I guess." Beca said. "I was four."
"Daddy, where are you going?" A four-year-old Beca asked, following her dad from the house to his car, ignoring the suitcase he was dragging.
"Just to the shops, honey. Go inside." He said, loading the case in the car.
"Can't I come?" She asked, tugging on his jacket.
"No. Sorry, Becs. I won't be too long." He said, crouching and kissing her forehead. He then climbed into the car and drove off without a second glance. Beca sat on the curb outside her house, deciding just to wait for him. He was supposed to put her to bed that night, she didn't want to miss that by falling asleep before he got home. About ten minutes later, her mom came out, her eyes red.
"What are you doing out here, baby?" She asked, her voice shaking.
"Waiting for daddy." Beca said, smiling. "He said he was just going to the shops." Beca's mom choked out a sob before hurrying back into the house. Beca didn't understand, but she still didn't move. A few minutes later and she was joined on the curb by her redheaded best friend. "Hi Chloe." Beca said.
"My mommy's gone to see your mommy." Chloe said, looking behind her and into the house. "She said she's sad."
"My mommy's sad?" Beca asked, her brow furrowed.
"Yeah. She said, 'cause your daddy left. Where did he go?" Chloe asked.
"Just to the shops. I'm waiting for him." Beca said, confused by the grownups' behaviour.
"Oh. Okay, I'll wait with you." Chloe said. They stayed there for hours. Beca began to get an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. Why wasn't he back yet? Eventually, Chloe's mom came to collect her, taking the girl back to her own house.
"You should go inside, dear." She said to Beca. Beca finally gave in. The cold was making her shiver and it was dark. She hated the dark. She toddled into the kitchen to find her mom, crying at the table.
"Mommy?" She asked. The older brunette scooped Beca into her arms and cried, burying her face into her daughter's hair.
As Beca finished her story she realised she had tears spilling down her face. She hastily wiped them away. Katherine handed her a box of tissues.
"Thanks." Beca said, her voice small. "He, uh, came back when I was eleven. Begging my mom to forgive him. She did. But he, he wasn't the same. He wasn't how I'd remembered him."
"He was violent?" Katherine asked. Beca nodded. Katherine reached across and put her hand on Beca's arm. Beca tensed slightly. "Sorry." Katherine said, withdrawing her hand. "Adam used to tell me off for doing that." She let out a nervous laugh. "He said it was like being slapped by a sea-otter." Beca laughed. "Well, well done. Two questions down. Question three, it says in your notes that both your parents have passed away. Can you tell me about how they died?"
Beca told Katherine the story of her mother's suicide. About how her dad's abuse got worse after she'd died. About how once Chloe had found out that it had gotten worse, she would hardly ever let the brunette spend a night in her own home.
"When dad died it was weird. I'd been living with Jesse for about two years when I got a phone call from the hospital. Told me that my dad was wasted and had fallen down the stairs and broken his neck. He was there for a week before anyone found him. I felt relieved. I knew he wouldn't be able to hurt me again. But then there was still a part of me that had this idealised version of how dad had been when I was younger. I don't know why, I don't have any real memories of him from before he left. But I just imagined him, dying alone like that. It made me sad." Beca said, wiping her eyes impatiently. "I mean, I hated him. But I loved him too."
"Can you tell me about the first time you self-harmed?" Katherine asked, wishing she could at least hug the younger girl, who seemed to be falling apart in front of her.
Beca told her about the night before they moved. She spoke of the feeling of digging the scissors into her arms. About the clarity and relief it gave her. About how the voices seemed to quieten.
"Voices? You hear voices?" Katherine asked, clearly concerned.
"Not like that." Beca said. "It's more my thoughts. It's like my thoughts are shouting at me. Telling me I'm not worth it. That I'm a loser or a freak. That... That I should just end it." Katherine's eyes had started filling with tears.
"What do they sound like? Do they have a distinct voice?" She asked, pushing away the urge to cry.
"Sometimes they sound like my dad. Sometimes me." Beca said.
"So that's why you carved "stop" into your arm? That's why you hurt yourself, to stop the voices?" Katherine asked. Beca nodded.
"It's more than that. It's like... It's like this weight gets lifted from my chest. It's like I can breathe and think again." Beca said, pulling on the band and letting it snap back into place. Katherine looked at Beca for a few seconds before dropping her eyes to her notebook and writing something.
"Okay, last question. Would you say you self-harmed more before or after your father died?" Katherine asked. Beca thought for a moment. Her hands absentmindedly running along her arm, feeling the bumps underneath her hoody.
"After I guess." Beca said. She didn't do it much while living with Jesse. After her dad died, it escalated. And it didn't help that she lived alone. Katherine wrote something else and stared down at her notes.
"Do you want to hear my theory?" Katherine asked after a small silence. Beca nodded. "From what you've said, we know that despite everything he did to you, you loved your dad. Which means you might have respected his opinion, even if it was a subconscious thing. So when your dad was belittling you and hitting you, you felt like you deserved it. You felt like you needed to be punished. Then he died. So you carried on punishing yourself. Still obeying his voice in your head. Am I making sense?" Beca ran a hand through her hair before nodding. She took a shaky breath before she dissolved into tears. Katherine moved to sit by her, placing an arm around her shoulder. "I'm supposed to ask permission before I do this, but fuck that." She said. Beca laughed slightly before turning into Katherine and burying her face into the older woman's shoulder. "I know this is hard, Beca. But this is a really big breakthrough. Now we know what we're up against. Now we can fight this."
A/N: I apologise for the lack of Chloe, she'll be back next chapter :)