A/N: This is it, peeps. Thanks for reading and reviewing, it's been a pleasure writing for you.
Epilogue
Beca held Chloe's hand, the redhead encouraging her with a nod of her head. The brunette turned toward the door and rang the bell. The door was opened only seconds later by her father who smiled at her. Then he noticed Chloe and his smile faultered just a litte.
"Hey, I thought... well, never mind, come in," he pulled the door open and the girls went inside, their hands untangling as Beca hugged her father a little awkwardly.
"Hey, dad," she said.
"Professor Mitchell," Chloe greeted.
"Well, you have met, right? So, dad, Chloe. Chloe, dad," Beca introduced the two once again because she felt that it was appropriate now that Chloe was her girlfriend. Ken Mitchell shook the redhead's hand.
"Nice to see you again. By the way, did you say you were a Bella last time we met? The Barden Bellas, wow, now that's a great a cappella group. I saw you at the Regionals last year," he complimented her.
"Thank you, sir, although I must say, we're even better now. We're about to change our routine and... well, Beca here has mixed the music for it," she carressed Beca's arm lovingly.
"I'm just glad Aubrey has losened up enough to let it happen," the brunette gave back.
"Beca is mixing your music?" her father asked frowning.
"Yeah, you see, we had quite a few changes this year. The whole group has changed and we thought our music should reflect that. Beca told us that she's making these mixes and she's come up with something that reflects on all the Bellas individually now. There's some hip-hop, some country, some pop, it's a really great number. I hope we can rehearse a couple of routines that'll win us the Nationals this year," Chloe smiled brightly at Beca's father then at the brunette herself who blushed slightly.
"Well, that sounds all very good. Well, I'm surprised that Beca has helped you made such a big change but I'm glad."
"Why would you be surprised? You do know that Beca is mixing music, right?" Chloe asked.
"Yes, I know that... but many young people do that these days. I didn't know... how good she was," he admitted.
"She's very good," Chloe told him. They all heard someone coming their way into the hall and then Sheila stood in the doorframe, smiling.
"Oh, hello. I thought... Ken, you said Beca was bringing a young man," she said.
"That's what I thought but she brought her friend Chloe. Chloe, my wife Sheila," he introduced and the redhead stepped forward shaking Sheila's hand.
"Hey, Sheila," Beca waved.
"Hello, Beca. You're not going to stand here all night, are you? Why haven't you asked the girls to come into the living room, Ken?"
"I was about to," he answered and smiled some more at her daugher. Beca tried to answer his smile but she was sensitive to the notion that there was something off with his smile. And why had he thought she would bring 'a young man'? She had told him weeks ago that she didn't have a boyfriend. Had he actually thought she and Jesse were in item? That was ridiculous, Jesse was still very much involved with Luke.
"Travis isn't here tonight but he said to say 'hi,'" Sheila told her step-daughter.
"Well, say 'hi' back," Beca told her and the blonde smiled.
"Sit down, girls, would you like something to drink?" Ken asked them.
"A beer would be good," Beca smirked, expecting and receiving a shocked expression from her dad and his wife.
"She's joking, we'll both have a coke," Chloe poked Beca on the arm as they were sitting down, very close together. Chloe was linking her hand with her girlfriend's as she usually did. It didn't go unnoticed by Ken who was about to turn away from them to get the drinks. He looked over at his wife who had also noticed the affectionate way the two women behaved toward each other. She looked back at Ken and he tried a small reassuring smile before he went into the kitchen.
"So, how do you know each other? Are you two studying together?"
"I'm a Barden Bella. It's one of the a cappella groups at the university. Beca is with the High Notes," Chloe explained.
"Oh, yes, Ken mentioned it. You're singing together then?"
"Well, not exactly," a slight mischivious smile tugged at the corner of Beca's lips and Chloe knew exactly what Beca was thinking of. "We're more like rivals, singing against each other," she teased.
"Well, we would if you guys were to get your heads... together. It's not like you're serious competition," Chloe teased back.
"Ow, that hurt," Beca said and they laughed together. Her father came back with their drinks.
"So, what're you talking about?" he asked.
"Singing," Beca told him.
"Ah, yes. I think dinner's about ready, maybe we can continue our conversation in the dining room?" He pointed at the room next to the one they were sitting in now where the dinner table was set. The girls got up and took their drinks with them. Ken and Sheila followed, looking at each other.
Beca and Chloe sat across from each other, as did Ken and Sheila at the ends of the table that was a little too big for only four people. Beca could only guess that they never ate here when they were just the family which told her she was rather considered a guest than a member of the family. It made her uncomfortable and she wanted to roll her eyes at it but she had promised Choe she would try being civil - and so she did try.
"How are your studies going?" Ken asked of his daugher as Sheila went into the kitchen to get dinner.
"It's going," 'nowhere' Beca added in her mind. She smiled non-commitally.
"Beca, I'm serious. Your studies are too important to let them slide. I know you like music but that's not how you're gonna make money in the real world. Music can be a hobby but it won't feed you," he lectured her and this time she actually did roll her eyes. She looked over at Chloe with a 'I told you so'-expression on her face. Chloe smiled.
"I think Beca could make a living with her music. She's very good. Some of her mixes are better than what I heard at any club lately," she told the man to her right.
"I appreciate you defending her lazy ways, Chloe. That's what's expected of a good friend but.."
"Dad," Beca interrupted him. He turned toward her. Sheila was just coming back with two dishes of something that smelled delicious. Beca waited until she had set them down before she said:
"Chloe isn't just my friend, she's my girlfriend," she enunciated firmly and without blinking.
A gasp from Sheila drew the attention of everyone to her. She had put a hand over her mouth and looked at Beca as if in shock. The brunette looked back at her as uncompromising as she had looked at her father.
"Excuse me," she said and rushed back into the kitchen.
"Excuse me," Ken stood and followed his wife.
Beca looked over to her girlfriend who smiled sadly.
"Did you know?" she asked but Beca shook her head. They heard muffled voices from the kitchen.
"Maybe we should just go," the brunette suggested and they were about to get up when Ken came back into the dining room with another dish.
"Sorry about that," he said and tried a smile that wasn't very convincing. He sat back down in his chair and pointed at the food. "Go ahead, we don't want it all to get cold. Chloe, here, take the potatoes," he handed a pan to her and she smiled thankfully.
"Is everything alright, dad?" Beca asked him. Sheila came from the kitchen with the gravy and put it on the table. She didn't look at the girls but simply sat down.
"Maybe we should say grace," she said and even Ken seemed taken back by the suggestion. Sheila looked at him expectantly and he reached his hands out to both of the women. They all had to stretch their arms to reach each other on the table. Beca looked at Chloe and the redhead could tell that her girlfriend had just about enough of this. She was doing this for Chloe, more than for her dad.
"Dear Lord, bless our humble servings today. We've gathered in your presence with Ken's daughter and her... friend. Please guide us in our lives and make your presence known to these two young women that they shall find their way back..." Beca pulled her hand from Sheila's.
"We're not lost, we're just gay," she told the woman who flushed spectacularly at her words.
"Beca," her father said sharply.
"What? I didn't do anything wrong," she told him.
"Yes, you did," Sheila said. "You said yourself that you're... gay. That isn't what God wants, Beca. It's against the bible and it... it feels wrong. Ken said there was a young man you were seeing, Jesse. We thought you would bring him. Why didn't you bring him?" The woman sounded desperate now. There seemed to be a wide chasm between who Beca was and who Sheila wanted to see in her for Ken's sake.
"Well, his boyfriend would have objected to us coming here together and I don't think Chloe would have been happy about it either," Beca dead-panned. She looked at Chloe. "We should go," she said and they both stood up from the table.
"Beca, wait," her father said and she looked at him expectantly, as expectantly as his wife also did. "Can we talk about this?" he asked of her.
"Talk about what, dad? The fact that I love Chloe or that you obviously have a problem with it?"
"I don't... it's not that simple," he told her.
"Yes, it is. You always say that things are complicated when they're not. I understand that you and mom didn't love each other anymore but why did you stop loving me? You said that your move down here has kept you from seeing me but you rarely came visiting when you were still living close. You either are my dad or you're not. And I think you don't wanna be that. I think you just want me to tell you that it's okay not to want to be that. But it's not! You're just not that great a guy, Ken Mitchell," she told him and walked around the table where she joined Chloe. They walked into the hall where they had hung up their jackets earlier and pulled them on again. They just exited the house when Ken walked into the hall.
"Beca, I..."
"No, forget it," she told him and the two women walked out and down the two front steps of the house. Ken followed them as far as the door.
"It's just... not right, two women..." he said, his tone sounded almost apologetically, like it was the only thing that had ever kept him from loving his daugher. Beca felt Chloe's fingers slip out of hers and she turned toward the redhead who had turned toward the house again. Chloe took a few steps back toward Beca's father.
"It's not right?" she asked him. "Do you wanna know what's not right? My boyfriend beating me up after prom night because I wouldn't sleep with him. He would have done worse if the people next door hadn't called the police when they heard me scream," she told the man who blanched at her words.
Beca gasped.
"Chloe?" she asked, stepping next to her girlfriend.
"It's where I got the scar from," the redhead told her girlfriend pointing at the scar on her forehead. She took Beca's hand again. The brunette squeezed silently.
"That was wrong," Chloe turned back to Ken Mitchell. "You're holding out on your daughter who never wanted anything but a small sign of your approval. She came to study here because you finally remembered that you had a daughter but you've been criticizing her ever since. She's not like you want her to be, she's more like her mother, isn't she? Well, maybe that's because you didn't help raise her at all. That was also wrong. My ex threatening Beca because I fell in love with her, so, that she had to head-butt him in the nose? Also wrong. You see, Beca is the one person in my life who's never made any demands on me. She didn't think she owned me just because we had sex, she didn't think she could tell me what to do just because she happened to like me. She just did. She gave me all her love without me asking for it. That's the kind of person she is. And you want to tell me, this is wrong?" Chloe lifted their combined hands and shook her head. "Nothing has ever been as right as two people loving each other. I love your daughter and she loves me. You're the one missing out on her love, so don't tell me I can't love her just because you've been too much of a coward to."
"I think that's enough, baby," Beca's soft voice whispered into her ear. Chloe turned to her and gave her a small smile.
"I love you so much," she said, turning toward the freshman.
"I know. And I love you," Beca gave back and they kissed. It was just a little kiss but it made Sheila, who had finally joined her husband at the door, gasp once again.
Beca could feel a mischivious grin forming on Chloe's lips and she felt the same kind of mischiviousness rising in herself. They locked lips, deepening the kiss, pulling each other toward themselves and were finally engaged in a very public, very graphic makeout-session. They heard the door slam after a while and started giggling.
Beca sobered pretty quickly, looking sadly up at the redhead.
"I'm so sorry," Chloe vowed but Beca shook her head.
"Not your fault," she said. Chloe pulled her into a tight hug. When they finally parted, they walked down the walkway through the Mitchell's frontlawn hand in hand.
The end.
Songs: You're Gonna Miss Me (When I'm Gone) by Lulu and the Lampshades (or sometimes even Anna Kendrick), Fighter by Christina Aguilera, Titanium by David Guetta, Mickey by Toni Basil, Hit Me With Your Best Shot by Pat Benetar, It Must Have Been Love by Roxette, S&M by Rihanna, Let's Talk About Sex by Salt 'n' Pepa, No Diggity by Blackstreet, Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars, New York, New York by Frank Sinatra, Elephant Love Medley by Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor (containing Love is Like Oxygen by Sweet, Love is a Many-Splendored Thing by The Four Aces, Up Where We Belong by Jennifer Warned and Joe Cocker, All You Need Is Love by The Beatles, Lover's Game by Chris Isaac, I Was Made For Lovin' You by Kiss, One More Night by Phil Collins, Pride (In the Name of Love) by U2, Don't Leave Me This Way by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Silly Love Songs by Paul McCartney and Wings, Heroes by David Bowie, I Will Always Love You by Dolly Parton, Your Song by Elton John; I chose not to include the beginning, so my story doesn't include the lyrics from Love is a Many-Splendored Thing)