A/N: What's that I hear? Is that the angst train? . . . Ya'll asked for it.

wolfie2451 - Hopefully you'll like this chapter better.

xcombixgirlx - Tease? Me? Nah. I don't do cliffhangers either.

jengreene1980 - Thanks! glad you like it!

FlameHazeKatzu - Not so much unknown after this chapter!

BlackUnicorn27 - I love fluff too, so I'm glad you enjoyed it! I also love the character of Chloe and I wanted to take a minute and see what makes her tick! Angst and drama are definitely on the way, but it had to happen at some point!

Spikkels8 - So Happy I can brighten up your mornings, but please don't run into a wall! I don't their as easy to run through as movies make them seem!

Ship to Wreck - Florence and the Machine

Stacie Conrad was not dumb, by any definition of the word. She was actually, technically, a genius. She even had the Mensa certificate to prove it, but that was locked away in a box under her bed; and the only reason she had it was because Emily had convinced her to take the test to show up a condescending jerk at work. So if anyone was qualified to figure out what had happened to the time machine, and subsequently Beca - she was.

It took her a while to figure all of it out, I mean it WAS a fucking time machine for christ's sake. It's not like she could go down to the local hardware store and buy parts. Not to mention that the lightning damage had caused the interflux capacitor to vibrate at an odd frequency. So not only did she have to figure out how the time machine was originally supposed to work, she also had to figure out what exactly had happened to it the night that Beca lost her memory.

What she found, wasn't good.

Like at all.

It bordered on the edge of aca-awful, actually.

For starters, the time machine had been tampered with. It was automatically set to override the manual time control to go back to the time several hours ahead of the time that Beca had picked. Which was weird. It wasn't that somebody couldn't have guessed what time Beca would pick - 'cause honestly, who hadn't seen THAT coming. The question was why? And who for that matter.

But Stacie had more important things to focus on, like what effect the extra vibration had caused. According to her careful calculations, and some cryptic conversations with Lily, she had finally found the missing piece to the puzzle.

The time machine was designed to work on a railway of sorts - a straight line of past, present, and future. The lightning had caused the time machine to detour off the track, but still at a specifically calculated rate. Internet research led her to believe that Beca hadn't exactly went back in time at all. Well, back and a little over.

Like over as in another universe.

So instead of going back in time and re-watching her first meeting with the love of her life, Beca had instead skipped across the tracks to another dimension and traveled to its past.

"Well, I mean, I think it's pretty obvious what happened!" Emily exclaimed after Stacy told her the details.

"How is anything obvious after that? I have a Master's degree in physics and I barely understand what I just said!"

"Obviously," Emily continued, unperturbed. "Someone was trying to go back in time and make sure that Beca and Chloe never met. Therefore ensuring that the Bellas wouldn't win any championships, and Beca and Chloe would never get together."

"But why would someone want to do that?"

"I dunno, envy? Lust? The depths of depravity that a human being will delve to in order to satisfy their carnal wants really is deplorable."

Stacie felt her eyebrows crinkle together.

"I thought you minored in theater, not psychology?"

"I did, but I also watched a lot of Law and Order while i was 'studying'."

"So let me get this straight, you think that someone tampered with the time machine, and tried to go back in time with Beca in order to prevent her from meeting Chloe."

"Yes."

"So who's the Beca that's here now? The one that doesn't remember anything?"

"Oh, that's easy! So if the person - let's call them 'Bob' - If Bob thought that he and Beca were going back to the past, then it would make sense for him to send the old Beca back to the future since everything about the future would be changing pretty quickly anyway. I mean if Beca and Chloe never met, then their lives - the world - would be a completely different place. But you said that the time machine went into an alternate universe instead right?"

Stacie nodded.

"Well in that case, then nothing about OUR future would be changed, but rather the alternate universe's future."

"So the Beca that's here now is past alternate universe Beca?"

"I mean, it makes sense! She doesn't remember anything about the past seven years, and the doctors have no idea why."

"So our Beca is still trapped in the alternate universe. Probably without Chloe or any of us to help her."

They thought about that for a moment, the sadness dragging them down until Stacie had a thought.

"But wait, what about the Bellas' tattoo? She still has one! If she was from an alternate universe, how could she have that tattoo? Her body would be different!"

"Oh yeah, uhh hmmmm."

They sat in silence, Stacie chewing at her lip and Emily's leg bouncing up and down as they tried to think of a possible explanation that made any sense.

"Hold on, hold on, hold on!" Stacie jumped up and ran to retrieve a small piece of circuit board from her box of time machine parts before sitting at the computer. "I remember reading something about how a buildup of ions on the molecular conduit can cause an malfunction in the psyche discriminator, but at the time I didn't really pay any attention because I thought it wasn't relevant"

"Say what?"

Stacie held up her hand for Emily to wait and typed furiously for a moment before her eyes began scanning the pages.

"Yep, totally a thing!"

"I still have no idea what you're talking about."

"The psyche discriminator is what keeps the two versions of yourself separate if you happen to travel to a time where a version of you already exists."

"So if it malfunctioned-?"

"If it malfunctioned, then it's possible that the two versions of Beca switched."

"Like Freak Friday?"

"That's what this says."

"Is their anyway to switch them back?"

"I mean if I we don't fix the valve and then bring them both through the time machine again, then it's possible I suppose. But it could also just completely scramble her brain"

"But you could at least clean the valve and rebuild the time machine. And then we could find our Beca and bring her back."

"It would be possible." Stacie nodded in agreement.

"How long would it take to rebuild?"

"Not long, I can clean the valve in a few minutes and it would take me half an hour tops to put back the pieces that I took off the time machine."

"You should do it then, when we go to Beca and Chloe's house before the release party. You should fix the time machine."

"I will, but don't tell anyone about what really happened with Beca, not yet, I really want tomorrow to be about you, and the album. But then after the release party, we can tell the Bellas everything and they can help us get Beca back."

"Deal, I just hope the real Beca is ok."

The Bellas flew in from all over the country to help celebrate the release of Emily's debut album; Beca's record company was throwing a huge bash in LA so of course the were going to show their support. Everyone was joking and laughing, congratulating Em and Beca on their hard work, but Stacie still felt off.

It probably had something to do with the knowledge that Beca wasn't the real Beca. And that meant that the real Beca was in some other universe, probably alone and definitely with some evil mastermind who didn't who didn't want her to be with Chloe.

But she stuffed down any feelings of discomfort she felt; she was not going to ruin Emily's big day, and the news could wait 12 hours.

"So Chloe tells me that you and the Legacy have been bow-chicka-wow-wow-" Fat Amy wiggled her eyebrows.

"If you mean that we've been in a loving, committed relationship for the past year; then yes, Amy, we have."

"Geez, touchy much? What's up with you? I thought you'd be happy, your girl putting out an album and all."

She took a deep breath and tried desperately to forget her dilemma, ignorance is bliss and all that.

"You're right, I'm sorry for snapping. Work has been crazy lately and I guess I'm just letting it get to me. How's Bumper?"

The night wore on, the club filled to the brim with people dancing and partying. The Bellas mostly stuck to water and soft drinks though, as none of them were eager to get into another time machine incident. If they only knew, thought Stacie as she allowed Emily to pull her onto the dance floor. She tried to lose herself in the music, in the feeling of Emily's hands on her hips and breath on her hair.

She almost succeeded too.

Until the song ended and the next one didn't immediately cue up.

Instead, there was the sound of someone clearing their throat and she looked up to see Beca standing on the stage, microphone in her hand.

"Hey-Hey everybody! Uh, thanks for coming out and celebrating with us. This is a fantastic album, you guys are really going to love it! In fact, everybody should give a round of applause to the lady of the hour, Emily Junk!"

The spotlight swooped down to shine on Emily, and Stacie stepped back, holding her arms out to show off her girlfriend. The applause thundered as Emily dropped into a curtsy.

"I know this is a big night for Emily, and I don't want to take away from the party, but I talked to her about this last week, and she said it was ok if I got up here and said a few words."

Stacie glanced at Emily, only to see her girlfriend's face drop, eyes wide as she turned to whisper in Stacie's ear.

"No, no, no! I completely forgot! She just asked me in passing and I didn't really think about it!"

"As most of you probably know, I'm lucky enough to have the lovely Chloe Beale as my girlfriend." Beca waited for the applause to die out before continuing. "I know, right? How did I manage that one?" Laughter rolled through the crowd. "Umm Chlo, is there anyway you can come up here? I can't see you through these lights, and I don't know if I can do this without being able to see you."

The crowd parted to allow Chloe a pass to the stage and Stacie took the moment to further question her girlfriend.

"What do you mean you didn't think about it?"

"I forgot! I completely forgot!" Emily pulled away, forcing her attention back to the stage.

"Hey." Beca reached out to grab Chloe's hand as the redhead took the stage.

"Hey, Bec, what's going on?"

"Chlo, I know the past 9 months have been . . . a roller coaster, to say the least. And I can't imagine how you managed to stick by me, but I'm so glad you did. If anything, the past few months have just cemented for me how much I don't want to do this without you. I don't want anything without you."

"Oh, shit." Stacie couldn't help but mutter under breath, this was going to make things difficult.

"What I'm trying to say-"

The DJ dropped to one knee, digging a velvet box from her back pocket.

"Chloe Elizabeth Beale, will you marry me?"