A/N: Fluff fic to accommodate the heart wrench that is Stowaway.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Pitch Perfect universe.

Beca scratches her head as she leans over the small wooden table to look for the piece connecting to the puzzle lying before her, trying to find the one that resembles to the other half of the cat ear.

Finding a piece that looked like the one she's looking for, she smiles and picks it up, only to frown when it stubbornly wouldn't fit into its slot. She huffs and tosses it aside, about to continue on her search when a grey shadow appears over the top of the scattered pile of puzzle pieces.

"Ooh, are you doing a puzzle?"

Seven year old Beca looks up to find a girl smiling down at her. She has red hair tucked away from her face with a pretty pink bow and blue eyes that matched her shirt, her smile as wide as the cartoon one glittering across the fabric, the cartoon smile under the words that read "Happy Star."

Beca blinks, and glances down at the obvious answer laid between them, too shy to say "yes" and too determined to be polite to say "no." Her mama had told her that it is rude to be mean to someone who is trying to be nice. This new girl seems like she is trying to be nice.

She nods.

The girl lets out a squeal and skips around the circular table, her red hair bouncing on her shoulders as she excitedly pulls out the chair next to Beca and sits. Her blue eyes take in the finished work that Beca has done, skitter over the work that she has not, before landing on her face. Beca finds it hard to look away. "Can I help?"

She considers, standing up straight to glance around the library for her mom. Locating her over by a computer talking to an adult, she returns to her seat and nods again, shrugging shyly when the girl gives her another wide smile.

Beca thinks her smile is really pretty.

"Thank you," she says, scooting her chair closer so she can run her fingers over the puzzle pieces that Beca had carefully put together.

Beca usually doesn't like it when other people touch her things, but for some reason this time she doesn't seem to mind as she watches the girl's index finger trace the outline of the ear of the space cat that she had been trying to find the missing half for. "You're welcome."

She giggles, her pink bow sparkling in the light as her hand stretches, picking up a puzzle piece that is flat on one side, "I like to find all the outside ones first."

Beca doesn't say anything, just watches as the girl places the piece in her hand down onto the table next to Beca's work before picking up another, with a flat end this time on the other side.

The box in which Beca had turned upside down to get to the space cat puzzle says that the whole thing only has fifty pieces, so it doesn't take long for the girl to have all the outside edges collected and lined up.

Beca's eyes follow the way she easily puts them all together—thinking that this girl must be very smart—but they quickly snap back up at the recognition of the song humming from her lips. "You know Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?"

The girl's face lights up at the question, looking happy that Beca had finally said something besides the polite response to her thank you. She smiles again, her lips stretching from ear to ear. Beca scratches at her cheek, suddenly feeling like her chest is feather light. "Yes! It's my favorite song! I know every single word."

Beca grins. Wow, someone else knows them all too? Everyone in her class at school only knows how to sing the same two lines. "Me too!"

Her hands stop moving the pieces around and the girl bounces in her seat. "Ooh, really? Wanna sing it together?"

Beca uses her feet to scoot herself closer to the girl with the pretty red hair and friendly smile, her hand gripping the edge of the table. "Yeah!"

She looks so happy and excited that Beca feels herself jumping to get started as well. "Yay!"

Beca stares into her blue eyes—she doesn't know why her own blue eyes aren't that color, that bright and sky-like—and opens her mouth so they can start the song at the same time.

"Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are."

Beca likes the way their voices sound together.

"Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky."

Beca likes the way she tilts her head when they reach the middle.

"Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are."

Beca likes the way she lets out a giggle when they reach the end.

"I think you're a good singer."

Beca's neck suddenly feels itchy and hot. "I think you're a good singer too."

Her smile is the biggest and happiest yet. "Thank you." She shakes her head when Beca automatically opens her mouth for a "You're welcome," cutting her off with an introduction of her name. "I'm Chloe, what's your name?"

"Beca," she answers quietly, pushing her hair behind an ear so it's not covering her eyes. She wants to see her. "My name is Beca."

"It's nice to meet you, Beca." Chloe leans forward to give her a hug. "You're a good friend."

Beca hugs her back, sad when Chloe pulls away.

"How old are you?" Chloe looks eager and curious for her response.

Beca doesn't know why everyone she meets likes to ask that question.

"Seven."

"Wow," Chloe gasps in wonder, "I'm eight. I'm only one year older than you!"

Beca doesn't know why everyone she meets is older than her.

"Yeah," she turns back to the unfinished puzzle on the table, "I'm one year younger." She tucks her hand under the group of puzzle pieces that she had put together all by herself and carefully brings them over to Chloe's group to slot them into place. "There, it fits."

"Yeah," Chloe says, sighing softly at the sight in front of them, "We're almost done."

Beca likes the way she is now part of the "we" working on the puzzle that she had quickly found on the bottom of the shelf of the kids section of the library as soon as she walked in. She likes to work on puzzles while her mama uses the computer and talks to adults for her important adult stuff. She usually likes to work alone, but Chloe is a good help. "We just need to find the other ear—" she points to the empty spot, "And the rest of the stars." She circles her hand around the surrounding area.

Chloe nods, standing up in her chair, and Beca watches attentively as she puts her hands on her hips. Her skirt is yellow. "Is it this one?" Beca looks up from her pretty skirt to find Chloe handing the piece that she had been searching for since forever over.

Wow, Chloe really is very smart.

"Yes, thank you." She takes the piece and leans over onto her elbows to put it in place. A sense of accomplishment makes her toes tingle at the perfect fit. "Now the stars."

They make quick work on the rest of the puzzle, Chloe standing and Beca sitting, both reaching over each other's arms to find and pick up and slot their own pieces into place, laughing at how funny the cat looks with a space helmet and astronaut suit and asking each other which star fits where.

It is only when Chloe had put the last puzzle piece that they had on the table into place that Beca realizes that they had one missing. A frown forms on her lips, her eyebrows scrunching into her nose in unhappiness and dissatisfaction at the lone and very evident hole of emptiness.

Chloe pouts, collapsing back into her chair, her red curls flying in the air at the sudden movement. "Aww, they don't have the last one."

Beca doesn't like the sadness in Chloe's voice, wanting to go back to the moment in which they had sang happily and prettily to favorite song. "It's okay, Chloe," she knows it's bad to lie but she just wants to see her new friend smile hugely again, "We can just pretend like it's there. It's just one tiny piece. Everything else is done."

Chloe looks down at her shirt, at the picture of the yellow smiling star across her chest. It seems like Chloe got an idea because she suddenly sits up straight. "I'm gonna be right back."

Beca stares after her as Chloe jumps up and runs over to the small arts and crafts table on the other side of the room, just then realizing that there are now other kids around her as well, reading and playing on the kids computers as well as with the buIlding blocks all over the orange carpet. It had been just her when she had come in a while ago with her mom. It had been just her when Chloe had asked her if she could help with her puzzle.

Beca likes how she hadn't noticed there were other people in the room when she was with Chloe.

Chloe bounds back to her, the smile that Beca had been waiting for now gleefully back on her pink lips, and Beca's eyes linger for a second or two before her mama's voice rings in her head, telling her that it's not nice to stare, because there are people out there in the world who could get mad if she does. She quickly pulls her eyes away.

She does not want Chloe to be mad at her.

Her gaze catches on to the paper in Chloe's left hand, the markers in her right. She gets up from her seat so it takes less time for Chloe to reach her.

"What about I draw the last piece?" The question is made as soon as Chloe's feet stop inches away from her sneakers. Her yellow dress sways against her legs. "I can just draw the last piece and then we don't even have to pretend because the puzzle will be really done."

Beca finally gets it when adults say that they have nothing to say. Chloe is pretty, smart, funny, good at puzzles, can sing, and can draw?

Chloe tilts her head slowly to the side, her smile fading at the silence from Beca. "You don't want me to?"

Beca shakes her head frantically, before realizing and changing to nodding. "No, I want you to."

Beca likes how white Chloe's teeth are.

They both sit back down, Beca's fingers playing with the hem of her shorts nervously as Chloe uncaps her markers and sticks her tongue out and draws the last piece of the puzzle, concentrating really hard to copy the picture on the top of the puzzle box. Beca tries to get a closer look, but Chloe just giggles and moves her arm to block her from peeking.

It doesn't take long for her to finish, and Beca is glad because she is getting a feeling like the one she gets when she really has to pee.

Chloe's arm moves out of the way, but Beca could only just see the fact that the drawing is dark blue and yellow before it's covered once again, this time by a mass of red hair.

Chloe groans, her face hidden behind her hair on the table, "I forgot the scissors."

Beca doesn't know what to do, because she has never seen anybody do that before, unless it's one of her classmates sleeping, which Chloe is not.

But it looks like she didn't have to do anything, because Chloe is already making her way back across to the arts and crafts table before Beca could blink.

The drawing is finally revealed, and Beca gasps, because it's two tiny yellow stars reaching for each other in front of a space blue background. The stars look like they're holding hands.

It's beautiful.

Beca is scared to touch it.

Chloe returns, snipping the scissors playfully but carefully in the air as she picks up the paper and cuts out her drawing in the outline of the missing puzzle piece.

Her tongue sticks back out.

Beca doesn't know why, but she likes that too.

"There," another happy giggle, "All done."

Beca feels like someone is pushing her as her body lurches forward to watch every second of what's about to happen.

The last puzzle piece crawls through the air, slowly but surely, and Beca holds her breath like she's swimming underwater as it finally lands onto the empty hole in the top corner of the puzzle.

It fits.

Perfectly.

Beca doesn't know who squeals first, but suddenly they're in each other's arms and they're hugging and jumping around as if they are—as what her favorite tv show character calls it—weirdos.

"We're done! It's finished! The space cat puzzle is done!" Chloe's excitement is screamed into her ear.

"We did it! You're so smart, Chlo, we didn't even have to pretend!"

Beca doesn't know why, but the sound of Chloe's name in her mouth without the "e" in it is like a new song.

"It wasn't just me, Becs, you helped too!"

The sound of hers without the "a" in it is an even better one.

Beca doesn't think Chloe's right—she didn't even do anything—but she likes the feeling of hugging Chloe so she hangs on.

Chloe suddenly pulls away however, and Beca was just about to ask if she'd done something wrong when her new friend spins around.

There's a...teenager?...crouching behind Chloe, with the same red hair and bright blue eyes, and that is all she could make of him because Chloe is already launching herself at him.

"Charlie!" Her arms go to wrap around his neck.

"Hey, baby sis," her brother says affectionately, laughing and blowing a kiss into her cheek, making her explode into a fit of giggles, "Wanna head home?"

"Yeah, Charlie. But can we get ice cream first?" Chloe pouts, her blue eyes going big, and somehow Beca knows that this time, Chloe is not sad.

Her heart pounds weirdly in her chest, and she rubs the toe of her sneaker against the tiled floor.

Chloe's brother makes a noise in his throat, a noise like the one Beca's mom always makes when she sees puppies on tv, and somehow Beca already knows his answer, "Of course, baby sis. We can get your favorite ice cream on the way home to see mommy and daddy, okay?"

Chloe squeals, her arms squeezing her brother's neck tighter once—burying her nose into his jaw—before releasing completely. Her next words make Beca freeze. "Wait, I have to tell my new friend bye first."

Chloe's brother peeks around Chloe and sends Beca a kind and warm smile. "Sure."

Chloe turns and bounces back to Beca, pulling them together and fitting their bodies like puzzle pieces, "Bye bye, Becs."

Beca swallows, feeling like she is going to cry, "Are you gonna come back?"

Beca is going to beg for her mom to come back next weekend if she says yes.

Chloe's sigh flutters against the side of her face, "I don't think so. I live far far away. Charlie just needed to come here to do something, and now we're going back home."

Beca sniffles, tugging and holding Chloe into her shorter self for as long as she could. She wants to ask Chloe where she lives, but is too shy and scared to do so.

And if it's far far away, she might not even know how to get there.

Chloe kisses her cheek. "Aw, don't cry, Beca. We'll see each other again. Friends always do. And even if we don't," she presses her smiling lips to the same spot, "We are stars, and stars never disappear."

Beca bites the inside of her lip to stop her tears, and she nods in understanding before letting Chloe go.

Chloe sends her a last big, wide, happy, shiny, friendly smile, before skipping back to her brother and taking his hand and leaving the library.

Beca's eyes never leave her back.

It's not counted staring when the other person can't see you.

Red heads walk past swinging glass doors and Beca releases her lip, only then allowing herself to say the words out loud, "Bye bye, Chlo."

It is fifteen minutes later that her mom comes to get her.

Beca gets up from Chloe's chair and takes her mom's hand, not pulling her eyes away from the finished puzzle laid out before her until the very last minute.

They move towards the swinging glass doors. Beca looks up.

"Mama, I wanna be an astronaut."

Her mom smiles down at her, her expression open and loving and curious, and Beca feels the grip on her left hand tighten. "Why do you want to be an astronaut, Beca?"

The fingers of Beca's right hand shove into the pocket of her shorts and she feels for Chloe's puzzle piece star drawing, "Because stars are pretty and far away, and I just want to go and be with them all the time."

Her mom says something really thoughtful, but Beca doesn't hear, because her fingers have brushed against the paper puzzle piece in her pocket and her heart's thinking about how she and Chloe fit together, like stars.

A/N: Somebody please let me know if seven year old (baby) Beca's pov is lame XD.

Follow me on tumblr under pinkpastels113!