Epilogue III - The Lyrics

Beca let out a yawn as she pushed her keys into the front door of her Brooklyn apartment. It had been a long Monday back at work and she was back later than normal, which she didn't mind so much because her housemate was away. Her girlfriend. Returning home to an empty apartment had hardly been appealing.

The woman stepped into the apartment and closed the door behind her, leaning against it. All around her was pitch black except the light from the street lamps outside the apartment windows and she regretted not turning a lamp on before she left for work this morning. She strained her ears but couldn't hear anything other than the odd hum of a car outside. There was no sound of the TV muttering from the lounge. There was no clattering coming from the kitchen. No singing coming from her housemate who so often had a playlist blaring away while she cooked, or cleaned, or tried to work out a new dance routine for the kids she volunteered for at the little theatre school down the road. Nothing. And suddenly Beca felt very lonely. This was the first night since Christmas that Chloe had been away from her and the apartment.

She stumbled through to the kitchen, wondering quickly why she hadn't thought to turn a light on but committing to carrying on regardless, and before long she had reached the fridge. She pulled a beer from one of the shelves, closed the door, and reached up to the top of the fridge to grab a bag of chips. She was pleased they'd chosen this apartment with the slightly shorter fridge. She smirked as she remembered that Chloe had thought that by putting the chips up there Beca was less tempted to eat them, the brunette being renowned for her laziness. But when chips were involved Beca always found a way!

Beca shuffled through to the lounge and turned the lamp on, half hoping that Chloe would be sat in there to surprise her. But she wasn't and Beca thought how stupid it was of her to think that, because she had received a text from Chloe almost nine hours ago saying she'd landed at Columbia. And Beca had immediately texted back saying that she hoped the strangers on the flight with her were better company than she had been. But since then she had had no text back, which Beca didn't mind so much, because Chloe was with her parents and should pour all her attention on them.

But Beca did mind a little bit. And that was only because she missed her so much. Even when it had been busy today trying to catch up with all the decisions her team had made over the past six weeks without her. Even when they had informed her that their boss was rolling into the city tomorrow and was keen to have a meeting with her. She still thought about Chloe. About how much she missed dashing out on a mid-morning break to meet her for coffee. About how much she craved a kiss from her. And how almost every demo they had reviewed today at work had lyrics that reminded her of how she felt about Chloe.

Beca pulled her phone out of her pocket, frowning slightly again when there was still no response. It was very unlike Chloe. So with a rather long swig of beer Beca opened up WhatsApp and her heart jumped as she realised the message that she had last 'sent' to her girlfriend had failed. She hovered her finger over the 'resend?' option but after rereading the text she realised that, though it had been appropriate nine hours ago, it didn't apply to anything anymore and almost came off as cold hearted. So instead she texted a simple "Miss you x" to Chloe. Her heart began to race as she noticed Chloe had quickly seen it and almost immediately responded with an "Miss you more xxx"

Before Beca knew what she was doing she was walking out of the little lounge ringing her girlfriend, whilst wandering to the back of the apartment, past her bedroom, and into Chloe's. The two of them had been sleeping in that room over the weekend, using Beca's room as more of a walk-in closet. Beca had no intention of not sleeping in Chloe's bed while the redhead was away. She missed her too much. Plus her bedroom was tidier.

"Hey" she heard her girlfriend say airily down the phone with an excited tinge to her voice, and she could hear her begin to dash up a set of stairs. Beca's heart raced at the sound of her voice. She hadn't realised just how badly she missed her until now, something her eighteen year old self would've kicked her for feeling. But she didn't care. She heard Chloe's Mom call after her, something about saying 'hello' to Beca from them, something that elicited a small giggle from the redhead as Beca acknowledged the greeting from Mama Beale.

"Hey, sorry I know you're with your folks but…"

"No don't apologise!" The redhead quickly dismissed, "I miss you! And I bet work was really busy today."

"Ugh so busy." Beca said with a sigh as she sat in the middle of their bed and crossed her legs, having turned the fairy lights on that lit up the room, "My team have been absolute heroes over the past few weeks though and even kept up that organiser you devised for them to use while I was away. Good shout Beale." Beca had spent a good couple of weeks before the tour worrying about whether her team would remain organised whilst she was gone, the brunette having always struggled when it came to relinquishing control in her job. So Chloe had used her spare time to rattle through Beca's files and work out a colour-coded system within one file that should in theory have kept the team informed and organised over the six weeks that Beca would be away in Europe. It had worked. And Beca had been pleasantly surprised when she had returned to the office that morning and found the file fit to burst. No crazy long emails to scroll back on. No people to chase up. Just a massive file with a sprinkling of Chloe's favourite post-it notes and a lot of paperwork giving her an outline of what had gone on at Residual Heat NY over the past six weeks.

"I aim to please." She heard her girlfriend chirp, and from what she could hear, Chloe shut herself in her bedroom to talk privately. Beca felt a tiny lurch in her stomach as she wondered just how long Chloe may have been waiting for her to text. She had to explain. To apologise.

"Look I've got a confession to make…" Beca began, pausing to take another swig of beer, "I texted you pretty much immediately after you told me you landed but…it didn't send."

There was a pause as Chloe appeared to process what Beca was saying, before replying, "Oh…no that's alright-"

"No it's not," Beca quickly interjected, and she began to ramble, desperate to make sure that Chloe knew exactly how sorry she was, "it's not alright because it's been driving me crazy all day not speaking to you but I got that you were with your family and that's why you'd not replied and then when I finally caved and checked my phone tonight..and...it turns out it was all my fault so..I'm sorry!" To her relief she heard her girlfriend let out a bemused giggle.

"Beca, its okay! I just figured you were really busy at work and I know how late things can run when you're in the zone."

Beca bit her bottom lip for a moment, hardly able to believe how kind her girlfriend was, before quietly saying, "Right, well…you do know that I love you right?"

"Of course I do, idiot." The redhead said with another giggle and Beca sat back on their bed, holding her phone as hard against her ear as her head could stand, wanting to hear Chloe's giggle forever. She smiled as the redhead continued, "Oh, thank you for my note by the way."

Beca had forgotten about the notes she had written yesterday and left for her girlfriend. She thought it was only fair seeing as Chloe had been leaving notes for her for the two years they'd been living together, "Oh…yeah that's alright. Glad you liked them."

"Them? The lyrics?"

"Well yeah the lyrics... and the notes?"

"There's more than one?" Chloe said, her pitch getting a little higher as she realised she'd missed a note.

"Well yeah, I snuck one in your handbag and one in your suitcase…" Beca paused, her brow furrowed in curiosity as she heard Chloe rummaging. Though where she couldn't be sure. So while she waited for Chloe's response she finally opened the bag of chips and threw one into her mouth. She hadn't realised how hungry she was. That was the thing, she got lazy at feeding herself properly if Chloe wasn't about to share dinner with. Suddenly she heard a gasp and an "Oh Beca…" which indicated to her that Chloe must've only found one of her notes earlier, and had just found the other. Which Beca suddenly felt awkward about. Not because of the words, nor the note, but the fact that she'd never intended to hear Chloe's reaction to the notes when she found them.

She picked at the label of her beer bottle nervously, "Alright don't…don't make it weird. I just…this song was a demo sent to me a couple of months back and it was kinda everything I wanted to tell you but couldn't because…we werent…together."

Beca sighed in frustration and screwed up yet another small piece of paper, throwing it near her waste paper basket with a pile of other scrunched up pieces of paper. She had managed to finally find a spare thirty minutes where Chloe wasn't around, and she could write the two little notes that she planned on leaving for Chloe in her luggage to find when she was out at her parents lake house. The problem was Beca wasn't one for writing neatly. So not only was she struggling to write as pretty as possible for the first love note she was ever giving to her girlfriend, but she was also struggling to decipher the lyrics that she had hastily scribbled down a couple of months ago when she had first heard them.

Beca slowly began to write out the letters again, sat on the floor, against her bed, her tongue poking out slightly as she concentrated. The moment she wrote the final letter she heard Chloe arrive home, calling out her name, and Beca began to panic, hastily drawing a couple of crotchets in the corners of the note, hating them, but committing nonetheless. She scrambled to her feet, chucking the notes and pen underneath her bed cover, and turned just as Chloe stuck her head into her bedroom to ask if she wanted any dinner yet.

Beca thought she heard Chloe elicit a small sniff and she wondered if the redhead may be crying. She knew her well enough to know that she wasn't upset, so Beca chucked another chip in her mouth, crunching it, trying to distract herself from how emotional Chloe seemed about this small gesture. But the moment didn't last for long.

"I hope you're not eating chips in my bed…" Chloe said almost immediately and Beca swallowed loudly.

"Um…"

"You know the rules! Just because I'm not there doesn't mean you should ignore them!" Despite the telling off, Chloe had an obvious smile on her face that sounded in her voice. Beca knew the rules alright. It had been a rule Chloe had had for as long as she had known Chloe. The redhead never allowed food to be eaten in her bed. Nor on her bed. And that had applied to all Bella's when they had shared a house back in college, as well as anyone who stayed at Beca and Chloe's apartment now. The redhead insisted that any food consumed on the bed or in the bed would almost always make crumbs, which in turn would make for an uncomfortable nights sleep.

"You broke those rules like a million times this weekend dude!" Beca wasn't lying. She'd made a big deal of the fact that Chloe had allowed her to bring breakfast to her in bed on Saturday morning. The redhead saying she'd allow it just this once as she smoothed peanut butter on one of the bagels.

"Well it's my bed, I can do whatever I like in it"

"Don't I know…" Beca said flirtatiously as Chloe giggled. And she did know. She knew very well. Because despite the killer jet lag both women had endured over the weekend, they had spent much of the past couple of days in bed together. Having sex, dozing, chatting, Beca doing mixes on her laptop, Chloe looking through all 869 photos she'd taken during their time away with The Bella's, Chloe asking Beca if they could get a puppy one day, Beca saying 'no'… Beca had been very reluctant to get up for work this morning but in an odd way it had been better because Chloe had had to get up to grab an early flight to JFK airport anyway.

"So I make your mind feel free huh?"

"Huh?" Beca furrowed her brow, taking another glug of beer. It was an odd thing even for Chloe to say.

"The lyrics you wrote on this second note, "when we are together you make me feel like my mind is free and my dreams are reachable"?"

Beca smiled, loving how good those lyrics sounded being spoken by her girlfriend, but awkward all the same, "Uh…yeah…" she daren't tell Chloe that the song was essentially written by a band as a 'first dance' song for someone's wedding. The lyrics she'd scribbled down had been the two sets of lyrics that had had the least amount of freaky commitment to them. The last impression she wanted to give Chloe was that she was essentially proposing to her long-distance. If she were to propose she'd make it more special than that.

"I miss you." Chloe says quietly.

Beca let out a long sigh as she looked around the bedroom she and Chloe now seemed to share in their apartment. At the fairy lights that hung around her, and the photos tucked neatly around the long mirror, and the giant stuffed cuddly bear that Chloe's eldest niece picked out two years ago as a housewarming present. So much of it reminded her of the redhead. "I miss you more."

Thanks again for the review zombiekiller! All reviews are welcomed with open arms :)

I'm looking forward to writing the next chapter. I want to know what Sue Beale makes of her daughter's girlfriend!

xx