Beca felt like she had found a comfortable rhythm. Classes largely dominated her mornings. The weekly Thursday session with Gwen helped to break up the week. Beca had actually come to appreciate the time with the therapist, as it allowed for a safe place to process things and ground herself. Like, she was able to understand that assaulting Jesse at the station had been a bit of an overreaction. That had made the shifts at the radio station much more enjoyable. The other intern was still a dork, but he wasn't all bad. He made their sessions more fun, for sure. He was always singing and quoting movies and rambling on about his favorite superheroes. Even though he kept pestering her about auditioning for the a cappella groups, Beca had grown to appreciate his companionship. Plus, the station shifts provided a reason to be out of her dorm, since Kimmy Jin had not grown to appreciate Beca. The reason for the distance was not clear to Beca. They were different, sure. But Beca hadn't done anything to offend, as far as she knew. Sure, every one of Beca's allocated surfaces were covered with musical equipment. And she spent most of her time in the dorm on her computer with headphones on. But being prickly and awkward and standoffish and hidden behind headphones and a screen shouldn't be a good reason to be judged so harshly. Wait… Oooooohhhh. Then there were the interactions between Beca and her dad. (Sometimes she wished that he would be more like Kimmy Jin in his approach to her.) Beca was still keeping him and the step-monster at arm's length. Dr. Mitchell kept sort of reaching out, though. A voice mail here, a terrible text message there, an awkward invite to breakfast or dinner. It was kind of comforting to know that he was there if Beca needed him, but she always had the little voice in the back of her mind reminding her, he left before - what's to stop him from doing it again?
Even though the rhythm Beca had found was pleasant, she still found herself exhausted by the end of each day. All of the interactions and tasks wore on her. It wasn't that she was still struggling to handle being back into a routine; she actually felt she had accomplished that quite well. It was more of having to be on alert all the time. She had tried to explain that feeling to Gwen during one session in a moment of unexpected transparency.
"I feel tense all the time, you know?" Beca was leaning forward on the couch. Her face was tight with intensity. "I am always clenched … umm … that's not the right word … i'm not clenching … wow that was worse." She blew out a breath and dragged her hands over her face and through her hair. "It is like my whole body is wound a little bit tighter than it should be. All of my muscles are … flexed? pinched? It never lets up. I'm always expecting something to happen. Like I don't want to get startled or surprised at anything." She was frustrated that she couldn't explain it right and leaned back against the couch with her head laying on the back, her eyes staring at the ceiling.
After a few moments, Gwen spoke softly. "Beca, that is completely normal. That is a classic symptom of PTSD and trauma. You are describing it perfectly. You are tense all of the time; you are on high alert. Well, maybe yellow alert, not red alert." Beca snorted and smirked at the completely nerdy reference. Gwen smiled and continued. "After what you went through, that is to be expected. There really is no such thing as a safe place for you. In addition to the regular stresses of interacting with people and working and doing homework, you also have the stress of just walking around and sitting still. You have to be fully aware even in those moments. Your places of peace were stolen from you."
Tears streamed down Beca's cheeks as the words sunk in. That described it perfectly. She rarely felt like she could relax and let her guard down. In her dorm, she could feel Kimmy Jin's glares and disapproval. Walking the sidewalks, she had the simmering fear that something would happen to shatter her again. Gwen studied her for a moment. "Beca." The girl rolled her head on the couch back to meet her eyes. "Try to find some place that you can decompress. You need to have that. Somewhere that you can strip all of that armor off and just breathe."
Those words kept coming back to Beca that whole day and the next. Find somewhere you can strip all of that armor off. The very thought of a place like opened up a yearning in her heart. Oh, to find a safe haven like that. And Friday night she found it. Beca never went out on Friday nights … or Saturday nights … or any nights. Aside from working at the radio station, Beca mostly just moved from her room to her classes and session with Gwen and back. She sometimes paused somewhere on the path, but that was about it. Somehow she had slept in that morning and nearly missed her morning classes. Then she got caught up in working on some mixes all afternoon. When she emerged from her musical cocoon, it was already nine at night. Her room was empty; the dorm was silent. And she felt gross. Not sick gross - icky gross. She realized she hadn't showered or brushed her teeth or anything that day. She shuddered at the thought. After The Incident she had gone through a phase where she didn't care about her hygiene a whole lot; not something she wanted to repeat. She decided she would remedy that. Baker Hall was an older facility, so it didn't have bathrooms in every room or suite. Instead it housed boys and girls shower rooms. Beca wasn't a fan. Having to walk with all of your toiletries in a bag, your towel, your change of clothes past everyone. Then showering in a little stall when there could be a bunch of other people in other stalls doing the same thing. Then trying to get dressed in the humid bathroom, avoiding the puddles of what she hoped was just water. Traipsing back to your dorm room with a wet towel draped over your shoulder, toiletries bag dripping on the floor. Plus there were too many opportunities to give someone a glance of something you didn't want them to see. Beca wasn't ashamed of her body. Well, she didn't used to be ashamed. She knew she was attractive, but even back before she didn't run around giving peeks of her … peaks and valleys? Now, on top of that innate level of modesty, she had marks and scars that she did her best to hide. Letting people see those led to questions. To lower the odds of that happening, which would lead to the RA having to call her dad to announce his little girl had died of humiliation, she got up early before class and took care of her routine before late rising college students emerged from their hangover tinged sleep. What she discovered as she grabbed her supplies and wandered down to the bathroom was that nighttime also provided that same opportunity for a private shower. There wasn't a soul around. As she stepped under the warm water, she stood there looking at the wall - trying to ignore the hair there that was all too close to her face. She zoned out for a minute … or ten. She really didn't know or care. Her shoulders had relaxed and her hands had unclenched. She found herself breathing easily. Her jaw had loosened. The words Gwen had spoken the day before echoed back. Somewhere you can strip all that armor off. Beca smiled widely and thought, I didn't think she would mean literally strip. As she continued to let the water wash over her, to wash the day's stresses away, a lightness snuck into her body. It started to build stronger, warming her from the inside out. As the inner warmth met her water heated skin, she felt a level of release and peace that she had experienced so infrequently over the last year. Tears welled up in her eyes and then merged with the shower and ran down into the drain. She couldn't help herself, the emotion of the moment caught her up. The heat kept building inside; she opened her mouth to breath rapidly, trying to manage it. Finally it burst from her and she found herself doing something she had avoided for so long.
She sang.
It burst forth like a clog being blown out of a pipe. Or like how priori incantatum would reveal the last spell cast by a wand. The song she wanted to sing at the memorial service but couldn't flew out of her mouth, quiet at first and then building higher.
You're broken down and tired
Of living life on a merry go round
And you can't find the fighter
But I see it in you so we gonna walk it out
And move mountains
We gonna walk it out
And move mountains
And I'll rise up
I'll rise like the day
I'll rise up
I'll rise unafraid
I'll rise up
And I'll do it a thousand times again
And I'll rise up
High like the waves
I'll rise up
In spite of the ache
I'll rise up
And I'll do it a thousand times again
For you
For you
For you
For you
When the silence isn't quiet
And it feels like it's getting hard to breathe
And I know you feel like dying
But I promise we'll take the world to its feet
And move mountains
Bring it to its feet
And move mountains
And I'll rise up
I'll rise like the day
I'll rise up
I'll rise unafraid
I'll rise up
And I'll do it a thousand times again
For you
For you
For you
For you
All we need, all we need is hope
And for that we have each other
And for that we have each other
And we will rise
We will rise
We'll rise, oh, oh
We'll rise
I'll rise up
Rise like the day
I'll rise up
In spite of the ache
I will rise a thousand times again
And we'll rise up
High like the waves
We'll rise up
In spite of the ache
We'll rise up
And we'll do it a thousand times again
By the time she finished, Beca was a blubbering mess. She laughed a little to herself, thankful the water could wash away the snot running from her nose. Humming, she finished her bathroom routine and returned to her room.
At the same time, a naked girl with mussed red hair popped up from the bed where she had, until that moment, been engaged in Friday night activities with an equally unclothed tall handsome blond boy. She squinted, turned her head, and strained to hear a faint sound from a different area of the dorm.
"Do you hear that?"
The boy looked up at her with a puzzled look on his face. "Uh … hear what?"
Chloe leaned forward and kept listening. "Singing." She smiled and nodded. "REALLY good singing."
The boy looked around the room with a baffled expression. "I don't hear anything." Then he looked over at Chloe and smirked. "But I can make you sing."
Chloe laughed loudly and smacked his shoulder. "Oh you will, Tom." She thought to herself, before she resumed the previously scheduled programming, I gotta find that voice.
Beca seamlessly adjusted her schedule to incorporate the nighttime showering. In addition to the therapeutic benefits of the new routine, she also appreciated being able to sleep later in the morning. Between feeling so much better when she went to bed and remaining in bed later, Beca realized that she really liked sleeping. She had never been one of those teenagers who lounged around in bed all day; there was always something to do that required her to start her day early. After The Incident, sleep was a way to escape - until it was violently interrupted by horrible nightmares. She would so violently leap up in bed that she tore her stitches out three times. For months, she had to rely on sleep aids just to make it through a night - but she still was restless and usually woke up groggy and crabby. Once she went off of those, she just had to accept that there would be some really bad nights. If she was alone at the house with her mom, she would just stay in her own room and try to level her breathing before attempting to doze back off. She had gone into her mom's room a couple of times, only to be encouraged to return to her own bed and get back to sleep. If Dr Mitchell was visiting, he would sometimes hear Beca awake with a start and go into her room. He sat on the side of the bed and rubbed her back, often singing to her. As the months went by, the nightmares lightened in severity and duration. They never went away, though.
Since Beca had started her new shower routine, though, her sleep had deliciously transformed into something actually refreshing. The nightmares still came, but the rest of her sleep was more restful. Beca found herself fighting her alarm each morning - wanting to remain in blissful slumber. She decided being late to class was better than being tormented all night, so adopted her new routine. And she definitely looked forward to her nightly trip to the public bathroom.
Beca was standing in the shower, letting the water beat down and cast its healing magic on her. Like most other nights, she was singing as she allowed her body to relax.
I'm bulletproof,
Nothing to lose,
Fire away, fire away
Beca didn't hear the shower curtain pull back, nor did she notice the redhead's eyes taking in her exposed back - lingering over the noticeable scars and tattoos.
"You can sing!"
"AAAAAHHHH" Beca screamed and swung around at the familiar voice, grabbing a loofah to try to cover her groinal area. She wrapped her arm around her chest.
Chloe continued, unfazed. "How high does your belt go?"
Catching her breath, Beca questioned, "My what?!"
The redhead smiled at the smaller girl. "The tone of your voice is beautiful. You have to audition for the Bellas!"
Beca's heart continued its pounding, and her stomach churned. Her eyes darted - at Chloe, at the shower wall, at the blue eyes staring at her, at her feet, at the wet red hair, at the shampoo bottle, at the naked naked naked body, back to the shampoo bottle. She grabbed it and tried to cover up her chest. "I can't concentrate on anything you're saying until you cover your junk."
The girls quietly stood there for a moment. Beca continued looking everywhere, pausing on Chloe from time to time. Chloe, for her part, kept looking right at Beca with a smile. "Just consider it. One time we sang back up for Prince. His butt is so tiny, I can hold it with one hand."
Hoping to at least put some barrier up, Beca closed the curtain. Chloe didn't care, so she opened it again. "Seriously, I am nude."
Ignoring that point, Chloe continued. "You were singing Titanium right?
The look of surprise registered on Beca's face. "You know David Guetta?"
Chloe let out a laugh loaded with meaning. "What, have I been living under a rock? That song is my jam." She leaned forward with a devious smirk. "My lady jam."
Am I really having this conversation? "That's nice."
"Yeah it is! That song builds." The devious smirk now was joined by a waggle of the eyebrows. "Sing it for me?"
"Ew! No! Get the hell out of here!" Somehow Beca was still engaged in this insanity, but that just crossed one too many lines.
Chloe pulled back and shook her head. "Not for that reason!" The standoff continued. Chloe kept staring at Beca and then got a positively wicked look on her face. "Look, I'm not leaving here until you sing so..."
Beca had a bad feeling this was a losing battle. "This is ridiculous."
Shrugging, Chloe responded. "Maybe." She let several moments pass. "But I can stand here all day." Both girls remained in place, but Beca's resolve was crumbling.
Finally she rolled her eyes and started singing.
I'm bulletproof,
Nothing to lose,
Fire away, fire away
Unexpectedly, Chloe started to sing as well, harmonizing with Beca's voice, spiraling together to craft something glorious.
Fire away, fire away
Ricochet, you take your aim
Fire away, fire away
You shoot me down, but I won't fall
I am titanium
You shoot me down, but I won't fall
I am titanium
Beca was stunned at the sound. She had been in chorus and musicals, been to concerts, mixed music. But the way that her voice wrapped around Chloe's, dancing together in sweet synchronization. Beca had never experienced anything like that. It wrapped around her and called to her, pulling at her heart and filling in a hole she didn't even know she was missing. She didn't even realize that she was still staring at a very nude Chloe Beale.
"Yeah, I'm pretty confident about..." Chloe gestures to her body. "All this."
Beca nods awkwardly, realizing she had been staring for much too long. "You should be."
After Chloe finally left, Beca stood in the shower, staring at the empty space just beyond the curtain. What. The. Fuck. Her body vibrated slightly as she tried to wrap her mind around what just happened. For one thing, her privacy had been completely violated. As disturbing as that was, she wasn't aquiver because of that alone. She couldn't escape the aftershocks of that song. The way it made her feel. To experience something so beautiful, so intimate, with someone. Well, not intimate like intimate … maybe intimate intimate? She wasn't well versed in all of that. And she didn't know how much of it was singing with someone and how much was singing with Chloe. Was it just naked singing that felt that way? Naked Chloe singing that way? Beca shook her head at that. As much as she had mocked the a cappella tryouts, there was a spark in her that wanted to know if that was where she needed to be to get that feeling she had just been so bowled over by. She sighed when she realized that meant she would have to see Jesse's smug face at her showing up. She shook the image of him out of her head, hoping to hang onto the picture of her unexpected duet partner. The duet, not the partner. Maybe the partner.